HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-06-23 TranscriptionJune 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 1
June 23, 2003 Council Budget Work Session 6:33 PM
Council: Champion, Kanner, Lehman, O'Donnell, Pfab, Vanderhoef, Wilbum;
Staff: Atkins, Dilkes, Franklin, Helling, Karr, Mansfield, O'Malley
TAPES: 03-49, BOTH SIDES; 03-55, SIDE ONE
TAPE 03-49, SIDE ONE
PLANNING AND ZONING
Lehman/OK?
Franklin/OK.
a. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR JULY 15 ON AN
ORDINANCE CONDITIONALLY CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION
OF 5.69 ACRES FROM RS-5, LOW-DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY
RESIDENTIAL, TO RM-12, LOW-DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL,
FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT 1715 MORMON TREK BOULEVARD.
(REZ03-00018)
Franklin/The first item is to set a public hearing for July 15th on a rezoning for property at 1715
Mormon Trek Blvd. This is £or the All Nations Baptist Church. We'll get into the
particulars of that on the 14th.
b. AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE CITY CODE TITLE 14, CHAPTER 6,
ENTITLED, "ZONING," ARTICLE G, ENTITLED "OFFICE AND RESEARCH
PARK ZONE (ORP)" AND ARTICLE 1, ENTITLED "PROVISIONAL USES,
SPECIAL EXCEPTIONS, AND TEMPORARY USES."
Franklin/Item b is a public hearing and first consideration of an amendment to the zoning
ordinance to allow utility substations as both a provisional use and special exception in
the Office Research Park Zone. This was instigated by Mid American, who wishes to
expand the utility substation on what we used to call "Seven Sisters' Road" up by ACT.
And we found that in the ORP, ID ORP zones that utility substations were not permitted.
I can't tell you why, particularly.
Lehman/Nobody thought about it.
Franklin/Maybe. Except I thought we hit them in all of the zones. So when we do the Code
review, we will be including them in ORP and RDP. The provisional use is for those
which are located within an existing building. Special exception is for a substation similar
to the one on Seven Sisters. It also will allow the Board of Adjustment to reduce the
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minimum lot size, which is seven acres in ORP for the substation.
c. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE PLANNED DEVELOPMENT
HOUSING OVERLAY (OPDH-5) PLAN FOR THE PENINSULA
NEIGHBORHOOD BY AMENDING THE PENINSULA NEIGHBORHOOD
CODE AND REGULATING PLAN. (REZ03-00016) (SECOND
CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/Item c, on tonight's formal agenda, is first consideration. This is the amendment to the
Peninsula Neighborhood Code and the regulating plan and approval of the--well, it's not
the approval yet--of the plat for Part 2, but eventually will be when you're done with the
zoning changes. So, first consideration is tonight on your special formal meeting and then
second consideration is tomorrow.
d. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION OF
APPROXIMATELY 1.1 ACRES FROM CB-2, CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT
SERVICE, TO PRM, PLANNED HIGH DENSITY RESIDENTIAL FOR
PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF SOUTH DUBUQUE STREET
SOUTH OF COURT STREET. (REZ03-00012) (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/Item d is first consideration on the rezoning on Dubuque Street, and I just want to
spend a couple minutes on this because I think there was mass confusion.
Lehman/Yes, thank you. Thank you.
Franklin/First of all,---
(Laughter)
Lehman/We were in the---
Franklin/Is that a sign?
Lehman/We were already in the dark.
Franklin/Yeah.
Karr/Now?
Franklin/OK. This is a rezoning from CB-2 to PRM of the east side of Dubuque Street on the
block between Court Street and Harrison. It was requested by Mr. Clark who owns the
property on the comer of Dubuque and Court Street and we advised that it be extended
down the block to Harrison Street so we weren't just rezoning one particular piece of
property and we're looking at this whole CB-2 zone here. This is a remnant from when
we rezoned the near south side to be consistent with the Near South Side Redevelopment
Plan. In the building that is there now, it is required under the CB-2 zoning that if there is
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residential on the first floor, it must be elderly housing and the entire building must be
elderly housing. OK? In CB-2, that use could be converted to other uses, such as
commercial on the ground floor with apartments above. It does not have to be elderly
housing, but if it's going to have residential on the ground floor it has to be elderly
housing. In PRM, it could continue to be elderly housing or it could be residential ground
floor all the way up. That's the distinction. So, keeping it CB-2 is not going to guarantee
that it is elderly housing. That conversion could take place to commercial and apartments.
That will be a market decision, not a zoning decision. The PRM zoning is consistent with
the Near South Side Redevelopment Plan that targeted everything south of Court Street to
be higher density residential except for the public uses. Is that all clear now?
Lehman/Under--I have a question.
Franklin/Mm-hmm.
Lehman/With the comprehensive review of our zoning, this is going to be recommended to go
PRM anyway--is that correct?
Franklin/I can't say that right now. We are looking at eliminating the CB-2 zone. If that, in fact,
goes forward, if the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Council agrees, then we
would have to do something different here. Our recommendation, the staff's
recommendation and the recommendation of the Planning and Zoning Commission is to
rezone this property to PRM, consistent with the Near South Side Redevelopment Plan.
Lehman/OK.
Vanderhoef/So, how does this fit with the Comprehensive Plan of mixed housing?
Franklin/Mixed housing is a concept in the Comprehensive Plan that is targeted as we build new
neighborhoods. High-density multifamily has always been what we have focused on for
around the downtown, particularly on the near south side. That was the place where high-
density multi family should occur because of proximity to the University, cutting down on
trips, all of those arguments that are in the Near South Side Redevelopment Plan. The
Comprehensive Plan does not say that everywhere in the city we have to convert existing
neighborhoods or change the downtown to mixed housing. Those statements about
diversity in neighborhoods is to build new neighborhoods.
Vanderhoef/But this was built knowing that it would be senior housing.
Franklin/It was built--yes, knowing it would be senior housing.
Vanderhoef/So, that was the intent all along and it is being used as a PRM senior housing.
Franklin/There's no PRM about it right now.
Vanderhoef/But if---
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Franklin/But if it were PRM, it could still be senior housing.
Vanderhoef/Right.
Franklin/But the senior housing part of it is the market decision, the private decision. When it's
zoned CB-2, it doesn't mean you have to build elderly housing. There was nothing in our
public policy with the Near South Side Redevelopment Plan that said we want to have
elderly housing. And we have no zone that is specifically for elderly housing. If the
Council wishes, as a matter of public policy, to encourage the development of elderly
housing, you do that through incentive programs. In some cases, we have subsidized it. If
you want to have elderly housing in a particular location, you can use tax increment
financing to act as an incentive. But our zoning categories--we don't have a zone that
says this is all that can be built here. There's choices.
Vanderhoef/Right. I understand that part of it. It's just that the zoning allowed this to happen
and it did happen and it is going to take a conversion of the building then if it's not senior
housing.
Lehman/That---
Franklin/I don't know. I can't say that. Presumably, it would take a conversion of the building to
maximize the use, but I don't know. I mean there's a lot of factors that are involved here
including the parking. Now, because this is in the near south side parking facility impact
fee district, theoretically--and remember this is theoretically--because you'd have to
figure out exactly how many units you were going to get there. But to go from elderly
housing to multifamily, it's likely that more parking is going to be required. Now,
typically if that were the case, you would be very, very constrained on this lot because
there isn't any room to put more parking. So that would determine the number of units
that you could have in the building. In this case, because of the parking facility impact
fee, which is there to encourage intensive development, you could theoretically double
the parking requirement by changes in the number of units there and have the actual
parking as provided, fulfill that parking requirement; the other half would be paid into the
parking facility impact fee fund.
Vanderhoef/How much parking is available?
Franklin/It's one per unit because that's what elderly housing is. I don't know the exact number.
Vanderhoef/So where would that kick in if we were to rezone PRM.
Franklin/OK, if you rezone it PRM and it changes from elderly housing, which is a private
decision, if it changes from elderly housing, then they will only be able to have the
number of units with the number of bedrooms that can be supported by the parking that is
in place with the payment of the parking facility impact fee. Elderly housing is one per
unit, for a two-bedroom unit it's going to be at least two spaces--so that would double the
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parking right there, in terms of what's required. But you'd have to look at the whole
configuration of the building, if they can combine units from what's there now to
whatever it would become to know exactly, and there's probably a multitude of
permutations there.
Lehman/Karin?
Champion/No, go ahead, Emie.
Lehman/Had the owner of this property chosen to put commemial on the first floor any time
during the 19 years, the upper floors could have been regular residential, is that correct?
Franklin/Right.
Lehman/OK. So it's only the requirement---
Franklin/In terms of the zoning---
Lehman/Right.
Franklin/...now. My understanding is that they got industrial revenue bonds, which may have
had some---
Lehman/Yeah, but, well, my point is that if---
Franklin/ Yes, you're correct.
Lehman/...it's only the requirement, the upper stories are dependent on the first story being
elderly housing. If you have first story becomes storage, commercial or anything else,
then there is no requirement whatsoever for---
Franklin/ It couldn't be storage. It would have to be a commercial use.
Lehman/Commercial storage.
Franklin/Welt.
(Laughter)
Lehman/Never mind. That was a smart aleck remark.
O'Donnell/That was a good point.
(Laughter)
Champion/The point that I wanted, I just want you to clarify something for me.
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Franklin/OK.
Champion/If we change the zoning to PRM, which I mean I'm totally willing to do, I don't think
we can demand this building stay elderly housing as empty as it is. As far as parking and
the number of units, how big of (can't hear), do they pay a parking impact fee and then
that gets around that? That's what I thought.
Franklin/Well, I wouldn't say it gets around it, but in this area we have said we want intensive
development.
Champion/Right.
Franklin/And we don't want the space to be consumed by parking.
Champion/Right.
Franklin/We want it to be in public parking. And so for residential, you have to provide 50
percent of your required parking on site and then you pay for 50 pcrcent, and that goes
into the parking facility impact fee fund. It goes toward building things like the Court
Street Transportation Center.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/Well, that's---
Franklin/So that whole system is how it would work.
Champion/We're not limited by just the number of parking places that are there.
Franklin/Correct.
Champion/OK, that's what I wanted to clarify.
Franklin/Yes. It has to be coupled with the facility impact fee. Irvin?
Pfab/What would happen ifa person decided or the owner decided to put in office space in the
first floor. What would that do to parking? Anything?
Franklin/In the--yes, it would because this is CB-2 and there would be a parking requirement for
that commercial and it would probably then diminish the number of units; I mean, we'd
have to go through that whole balancing act. There'd have to be enough parking on site
for that commercial use because it's CB-2. In CB-5, there's no commercial parking
required.
Pfab/What about PRM?
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Franklin/PRM, you don't have commercial; it's residential.
Pfab/OK, so there's no possibility in PRM to put office space in the first floor?
Franklin/No.
Pfab/There's no possibility.
Franklin/No. It's a residential zone.
Lehman/OK. Other questions?
Kanner/Karin?
Franklin/Mm-hmm.
Kanner/I think we asked last time how many can live in a one- or two-bedroom apartment, and
we didn't have the answer. I thought we were going to get an answer from---
Franklin/Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you did. Did you get the--you didn't get the answer to that?
What is the question?
Kanner/No, because---
Franklin/How many people could live in a one- or two-bedroom apartment? In?
Kanner/In this building. This in regards to, so if they switch it,---
Franklin/ If it's a PRM?
Kanner/Well, if it's rezoned and the assumption is that instead of elderly, younger people and
more people per unit will be living there. That's where the question came up and it
wasn't, Jeff wasn't able to answer it because he said it took knowledge of the building
code and space limitations, and I thought we were going to get an answer on---
Franklin/ Well, assuming that there's some reconfiguration of the space within the building,
PRM, my recollection is that you can have three roomers per unit so it'd be five
unrelated.
Lehman/Isn't that the same as it is now in CB-2?
Franklin/RM-44.
Lehman/Isn't that the same occupancy limits that are there now?
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Franklin/Do you have a Code?
Lehman/I was--I did check that---
Franklin/You did? OK.
Lehman/...two weeks ago, and I was told---
Franklin/ Then that's right.
Lehman/...that the density doesn't change whether it's PRM or CB-2.
Karmer/So, it's five, so it's five.
Lehman/I think that's right.
Franklin/Five unrelated per unit.
Lehman/That's what I was told.
Vanderhoef/In a two-bedroom?
Franklin/Well, that's where the habitable rooms would come into play--that's a building code
issue. That's why I say you'd have to--there'd have to be some reconfiguration of the
interior of this building to get to that, which could happen.
Lehman/But the density doesn't change; it wouldn't be relevant one way or the other, if the
density's the same under either zone--is what I was told.
Kanner/Right.
Franklin/Correct.
Kanner/So it's relative in that what market rates might drive and what, in occupancy.
Franklin/The thing that's the difference between the two zones is the feasibility of straight-ahead
residential versus the feasibility of the next use.
Lehman/Right.
Karmer/Which came first, the zoning---
Franklin/The chicken.
Kanner/...or the chicken?
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(Laughter)
Karmer/The zoning of CB-2 or the building construction and the requests for the zoning.
Franklin/I think the zoning was there first. They're nodding back there--it was back, maybe 20
years ago?
Champion/Twenty years---
Lehman/We don't remember---
Karmer/And the goal again of that zoning of CB-2 is to, obviously, there have, one of the major
goals that we were pushing for is to have residential up above and maybe commercial
below or all elderly. Those were the two main things.
Franklin/Well, when the CB-2 zone was put in place there; I mean, we kind of have to go on the
"way-back" machine here, because the CB-2 zone is, has been there for some time, and it
was a service area for the downtown. And what it was meant to be is a lower scale
development. The "2" indicates a floor area ratio, two floors cover the entire lot, or less
and go higher. And so it was meant to have businesses that were going to support the
downtown, and that's if you go through the things that are allowed in CB-2, that's what
they're about. And you could have the mix of residential with commercial, but the scale
was smaller than the CB-I 0 of downtown. So that's the purpose of it. In terms of the
elderly housing, I'd have to look at when that came into being because in CB-10 we have
the same concept for elderly housing being permitted in CB-10, CB-2, and I don't know
about CB-5 without checking the code.
Kanner/So it sounds like from what you're saying is that maybe the elderly housing is not the
main intent. It's an exception---
Franklin/Right.
Karmer/...to CB-2, it's not the main thrust of why---
Franklin/Oh, no, it's not the main thrust of why at all. But I think---
Kanner/They're not even close to a main thrust.
Franklin/I think the reason, well, I think the reason it's there is because there was a desire to
allow residential for the elderly downtown and to have that go all the way to the floor. !
mean, all the way to the ground, the ground floor. And so it's given a little bit more
encouragement than just multifamily because you can't have multifamily from the
ground floor. Also, the parking requirement is less than for multi family because of usage
supposedly.
Kanner/(Can't hear)
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Franklin/Except, you know there's a lot of us here that would be considered elderly when we
drive, so---
Champion/ Karin, I'm not, I'm getting worse at it, too, this driving business.
Kanner/Two other things. Talking to Steve Nasby, it was a little confusing about what was
market rate. We had some figures by the owner of the building that they're renting or
offering these below market rate as indication they're not able to fill it, but it seems that
their market rate is perhaps lower. So there have been some surveys. I wonder if we can,
since Steve lefl a message for me over an answering machine on that information. I
wonder if we can get a memo from him on what market rate is.
Franklin/OK. Remember that what Steve is talking about is the fair market rent that's set by
HUD.
Kanner/Right.
Franklin/And that's what we use for rent reasonableness in the Section 8 program; that's what
we use when we look at the contracts that we have for subsidized housing projects. It is
not--that's something that's set by HUD. It is not necessarily something that is
determined or accepted or part of the thinking of a landlord or owner when they set the
rent. It should be reflective of our rents, but it is something that's set by HUD so I'm sure
it's something that could be arguable by any owner. But we certainly get those numbers--
Kanner/Right. Well, I, but if the owner's thinking is that's part of their argument, then we
should perhaps point out in any counter arguments that it is arguable that maybe they are
not charging below market rate. Maybe they're still charging above market rate. It
depends. And it's just one, I wanted to get as much information as possible, not only the
HUD---
Franklin/OK. We can send you those fair market rents certainly.
Kanner/Yeah, if you could, and he also said there was a survey done by Casey Cook, I think.
Franklin/A couple years ago.
Kanner/Yeah, if we can get that, too.
Franklin/One thing I would point out is that issue as to whether the elderly housing is
economically viable or not is something that holds for whether it's CB-2 or PRM. And
the question that you're being asked to answer is should it be rezoned PRM.
Kanner/Right but the argument is that it would be more economically viable, and any zoning
decision that we make, especially a rezoning one, is to---
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Franklin/Has an impact.
Kanner/...has an economic impact on a lot of different people. And then the final thing, it was
interesting, he said that there maybe were industrial revenue bonds. Would that affect
whether or not it stays elderly housing if that was the case?
Franklin/You'll have to ask the owner or the owner's attorney that because I don't know. I
mean, I'm assuming. That's between them and the bonds that they purchased and if the
bonds are paid off, then there wouldn't be anything that would be holding any longer.
Lehman/We'll ask that tomorrow night.
Franklin/So that's a question you'll have to ask them.
Karmer/But there was nothing--no other public money--that might influence---
Franklin/Not that I'm aware of. I don't know of any. As I say, this was something that was built
some 20 years ago.
Kanner/Thank you.
Franklin/Mm-hmm.
Lehman/Okey-doke.
Franklin/OK?
Lehman/Yes.
e. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING 6.91 ACRES FROM MEDIUM-DENSITY
SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-8) TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY MEDIUM-
DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (OSA-8) FOR A PROPERTY LOCATED AT 1515
NORTH DUBUQUE ROAD. (REZ03-00010) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Franklin/OK. Now we're on to Item e, which I think you've got second--I don't remember.
Lehman/E is pass and adopt.
Champion/Pass and adopt. Tomorrow night.
Lehman/Tomorrow night.
Franklin/OK, but you've got second consideration on that tonight.
Lehman/OK. Oh, you're right.
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Franklin/And then pass and adopt tomorrow night.
Lehman/OK.
Franklin/OK.
f. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY AND FINAL PLAT
OF THE DONAHUE SUBDIVISION, IOWA CITY, IOWA. (SUB03-00002)
Franklin/And then Item fis the actual plat, the preliminary and final plat for that subdivision.
It's just a very small one. I think you've seen it.
Lehman/OK.
g. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING 6.92 ACRES FROM INTERIM
DEVELOPMENT (ID-RS) TO LOW DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-5) FOR
PROPERTY LOCATED WEST OF CUMBERLAND LANE SOUTH OF SCOTT
PARK. (REZ03-00014/SUB03-00013) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Franklin/Item g, you have second consideration on that at your special meeting tonight and then
pass and adopt.
Lehman/OK.
h. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY PLAT OF
HIGHLAND WOODS, A 10-LOT 6.92-ACRE SUBDIVISION LOCATED WEST
OF CUMBERLAND LANE, SOUTH OF SCOTT PARK. (SUB03-00013)
Franklin/And then Item h is again the preliminary plat that is reflective of that rezoning.
i. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION OF
APPROXIMATELY 6.1 ACRES FROM COUNTY RS, SUBURBAN
RESIDENTIAL, TO CI-1, INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL, FOR PROPERTY
LOCATED WEST OF DANE ROAD, EAST OF MORMON TREK BOULEVARD
EXTENDED. (REZ01-00017) (PASS AND ADOPT)
j. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION OF
APPROXIMATELY 144 ACRES FROM COUNTY CH, C2, R1A, RS & A1 TO P,
PUBLIC, CH-l, HIGHWAY COMMERCIAL, CI-1, INTENSIVE
COMMERCIAL, AND ID-RS, SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL, FOR PROPERTY
GENERALLY LOCATED EAST OF HIGHWAY 218, WEST OF THE IOWA
CITY AIRPORT, AND BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH OF HIGHWAY 1. (REZ03-
00013) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Franklin/Item i and j, we will ask you to defer. We have not received the state authorization of
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 13
the annexation yet.
k. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A FINAL PLAT OF HOLLYWOOD
MANOR, PART 8. (SUB03-00012)
Franklin/OK, Item k is Hollywood Manor. This is a final plat of 6.3 acres, 22-1ot residential
subdivision. This complies with the preliminary, the recommendations for approval. It's
one that you've seen before.
1. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A FINAL PLAT OF GALWAY ItILLS,
PART 7, IOWA CITY, IOWA. (SUB03-00017)
Franklin/And then Item I is the Galway Hills final plat. Again, you;ve seen the preliminary
before. Everything is in order now, and this is ready for approval.
O'Donnell/Great.
Vanderhoef/Karin, go back to k for a second.
Franklin/OK.
Vanderhoef/Wetherby Drive and Bums.
Franklin/Uh-huh.
Vanderhoef/Is that this one?
Franklin/Yeah, as murky as it is.
Vanderhoef/Maybe that's why I'm not---
Franklin/OK. This was one in which I think the plat expired.
Lehman/Right.
Franklin/And then someone bought it from Frantz, the person who is developing it now, whose
name I can't see. This is, this would be Bums coming down here and then Wetherby's
here.
Vanderhoef/That bumps up to the park.
Franklin/Yeah. Right here.
Vanderhoef/OK.
Franklin/Or, no, I'm sorry, there's one more property in between there. Let me go back one.
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There's this property in here that I think is the Jensen, property. Anyway, there's one
vacant piece here and then the park.
Vanderhoef/But the roads are---
Franklin/Everything is in over here.
Vanderhoef/...set up for---
Franklin/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/Over there? OK. I just couldn't remember it a minute. Thank you.
Franklin/Yeah, I think this one here is, goes into a cul de sac and a concept that we've seen, but
then Wetherby Drive comes over and would come down the south side of the park. And
that will link in with Sand Hill when you see that in a couple months. OK?
Lehman/Thank you.
Vanderhoef/Thank you.
Franklin/I'm done.
Champion/OK.
REVIEW AGENDA ITEMS
Lehman/OK. Agenda items.
6. PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT~ AND ESTIMATE OF COST
FOR CONSTRUCTION OF TItE CIVIC CENTER NORTH COURT TRANE
HVAC PROJECT, ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO
ACCOMPANY EACH BID, DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH
ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS, AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR
RECEIPT OF BIDS.
Vanderhoef/I take it we're going to have the bids for the Civic Center HVAC tomorrow night?
Lehman/Well, I think we're asking for bids.
Atkins/It's the plans and specs hearing, Dee.
Lehman/Planning and specs.
Vanderhoef/Oh, OK.
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Atkins/Bids next time.
Lehman/Any other agenda items?
COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS
HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Lehman/Let's do Council appointments. Housing and Community Development, I don't think
we had any applications if I'm---
Vanderhoef/No, I didn't.
Wilburn/Just an FYI. So that you're aware of when we do get applications for this, I have
consulted with the City Attorney about, since the primary function of the Housing
Community Development Commission is to make those CDBG recommendations that
since I have a conflict of interest, I probably should not vote on the makeup of this
Commission.
Lehman/Boy, Eleanor, you're getting tougher all the time.
(Laughter)
Wilbum/It keeps me out of trouble.
POLICE CITIZEN REVIEW BOARD
Lehman/OK, the PCRB, we have one vacancy and we have three applicants.
Champion/I think Candy---
Lehman/Bamhill?
Champion/...Bamhill sounds very, very qualified.
Wilburn/I would agree with that, given her human resource background and is also someone
who completed or is in the process of the Citizens Academy, so it would seem to be a
logical appointment and background.
Champion/Police force background would be very helpful.
Pfab/I wouldn't be able to support that one. I think the other one that had previous police
experience and---
Vanderhoef/Greg Roth?
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Pfab/Right.
Champion/But he's from North Liberty and I don't think we should have people from other
towns.
Wilburn/Do we already have the requirement for a law enfomement officer on that?
Karr/You have that requirement and you have the ability to waive it, but you do not have the
position filled.
Wilbum/We do not have that position?
Karr/You currently have a police officer on. And just a note, in that requirement for a police
officer, you also have the ability, so if you desire to waive that residency requirement.
Lehman/Yeah. I have a real personal problem with appointing someone who has served on our
police department. I think it would be very difficult to be objective, having been a
policeman and served on--I wouldn't have a problem if they serve on some other (can't
hear??)
O'Donnell/(Can't hear?) force serve---
Lehman/But I just think that having someone who has previously served on this force would be
unfair to both them and the committee.
Pfab/But how long ago was that?
Lehman/I don't care how long ago.
Vanderhoef/Fourteen years ago.
Pfab/How many?
VanderhoefJ Fourteen. So, I know we have another---
O'Donnell/I don't have a problem with---
Lehman/Well, I do.
O'Donnell/I don't.
Vanderhoef/...we're advertising for another position and maybe we need to get to know Mr.
Roth a little better and see whether that would be a huge conflict or not, because I really
want a police officer and 14 years in my mind may well have enough turnover on the
police staff to make a big difference.
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Lehman/At this point the chair of that Commission is a professor in criminology, which I think
puts him pretty close to having an--and ! think about half of our force has been through
his, I shouldn't say that, a number of our police officers have taken courses from him.
What's your pleasure? May I hear?
O'Donnell/Well, Candy sounds like she's got four.
Lehman/I mean, I would---
Vanderhoef/I'm fine with Candy, but this one will carry over and I'd like people to think about
it for this next appointment.
Lehman/Well.
Pfab/Just for the sake of discussion, what if you took it the other way around and said we'd put
Roth on it and then---
Lehman/Well, we just have four people or five that said they'd put Candy on it. So---
Pfab/Well, I was just, for discussion purposes.
Lehman/OK. We are now about to start a special Council meeting.
(Break for Special Formal Council Meeting)
COUNCIL TIME
Atkins/Mind ifI do it up here so I can?
Lehman/You can be there; that's fine. Now I have an issue that I think we need to address and I
would just ask that Council be prepared tomorrow night. We need to set a date for our
staff evaluations.
Champion/Oh.
Lehman/That would be a special meeting some morning, but anyway, if we could do that
tomorrow night during Council time, I would appreciate it.
Atkins/Yep.
Lehman/Anything else for Council time?
Kanner/We received some information on the Housing Trust Fund and so I think we're going to
decide if we wanted to endorse that or not at the request of the Housing and Community
Development Commission. I would propose that we do endorse that, put that on the
agenda for our July meeting.
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 18
Pfab/I would, I can support that.
Kanner/Since we're out of (can't hear) funding---
Atkins/We'd had voting on it tonight to place it on the agenda. I assume the Commission is
recommended, so therefore it would automatically go to the agenda. Is that, am I
misunderstanding that?
Lehman/I don't know.
Dilkes/I think you just need to decide whether you want to talk about it or not.
Atkins/OK. You have a recommendation from the Commission on the National Housing Trust.
Now, do you wish to take it the next step? I would assume that's a Council discussion
ultimately maybe resulting in a resolution of expressing interest.
Vanderhoef/Yeah.
Atkins/I need three of you to vote on it.
Wilburn/Yes.
Atkins/OK.
Lehman/OK. Done deal. Anything else on Council time?
Champion/We can put it on the work session (can't hear)
Lehman/It'll be on the work session. OK.
BUDGET REDUCTION UPDATE
Atkins/You know, I was just---
Lehman/Just a moment.
Atkins/I'm sorry.
Atkins/I was about to (two people talk, can't hear)
BAR-STUDENT ALCOHOL TASK FORCE
Lehman/(can't hear) And Nate sat through the meeting two weeks ago tonight and with your
indulgence, I would prefer if we could to do the Bar-Student-Alcohol Task Fome next.
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 19
Champion/Good idea.
Lehman/Is that OK with you, Nate?
Green/(Can't hear)
(Laughter)
Champion/Seeing as he's president of the student body, not University Housing (can't hear)
Vanderhoef/We're just getting him ready for this.
Green/This right here is a--is this revised or---yeah. This is revised from the last time I handed it
out to you guys.
Lehman/This time we can talk about it.
(Laughter)
Green/As you look at the Alcohol and Bar Committee proposal that I'm submitting to you,
you'll notice, I guess, a few subtle changes, not in the actual, I guess, purpose of the
Committee, or I guess not in the actual, like content of the Committee as far as numbers
goes, but a little bit in the purpose of the Committee. Instead of just your (can't hear) for
the 19 Ordinance, I changed the wording a little bit to include, I guess, various alcohol
and bar policies that could come up in the Iowa City area and I think this, I guess, gives
the Committee a little bit more power as far as being able to look at different issues
concerning bars in Iowa City and alcohol consumption in Iowa City, so I guess it doesn't
limit it as far as like down the road to just overseeing a 19 Ordinance. If, say, the Council
decided after a year to go to some other ordinance, it wouldn't prohibit this Committee
from staying together if it's affected in engaging alcohol and bar policies.
Lehman/I think that's, I mean, I think that's, this could be a really, I think, a good committee
from the Council's perspective, and I know you--there have been discussions relative to.
the folks who would serve on the Committee and just to refresh everyone's memory, as ~t
sits right now the proposal is that we would appoint a member of the City Council. I
talked to Mr. Atkins earlier today. A person, an officer from the police department will be
appointed in the next two days. You will then have the name of the Council person, the
police officer, yourself, and whoever the bar person would be. Those four people would
get together, discuss where this committee should go, who else should serve on it and
then set it up. So hopefully the Committee could be in place prior to the first of August. I
think it could be a really valuable committee. Now it obviously is not a Council
committee. So I mean it's not something over which the Council is going to have any
authority whatsoever. But I think being independent, the recommendations of that
Committee could be very valuable to the City Council, Stepping Up, the University vice
president of the Student Council. I mean, I just think it's a committee that could be a
really good one.
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 20
Green/And if you want me to, I can, I guess get in contact with the group of bar owners that
submitted their code of good practice for the 19 Ordinance and ask them for their
recommendation for someone to sit on this panel.
Lehman/Well, I think that's your call, but from our perspective, I would like to make a Council
appointment so you know who you'll be working with.
Green/OK.
Lehman/The Council, and then, the ball's in your court.
Green/Sounds good.
Lehman/Irvin?
Pfab/I'm a little concerned if this is not going to be an open committee that it basically, we're
attempting in perpetuity in it; I mean, that's an exaggeration, but it's a--I---
Lehman/ It's not our Committee.
Pfab/Well, then do we have any business on it?
Lehman/I think it's very important that Council be involved in this thing and we have someone
who can report back to us as far as what's happening, what the Committee's thinking; I
think that's very valuable from our perspective.
Pfab/I, for some reason, am not comfortable. I'm not saying it's not a good committee. I, if it's,
if we're going to be part of it, I think it ought to be, it ought to approach being an open
meeting.
Lehman/We aren't going to be part of it.
Champion/We're not, we're not the (can't hear)
Pfab/Well, I want to be clear if---
Champion/ We've been invited to have a Council person on it. We don't have to have a Council
person on it.
Kanner/You know, I think what Irvin, what I hear him saying is maybe it's better if it does
(can't hear) going in that we not be part of it because perhaps we want to say we feel that
better business can be conducted with an open, approaching the open meetings law, even
though it does, it's not necessarily legally have applicable.
Pfab/Does that mean we can support it if we don't have a member on it?
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 21
Kanner/No, we can support it.
Pfab/Yeah, I mean, I--without being an open meeting situation, I'm a little uncomfortable but I
think the idea is terrific, but---
Lehman/Are there four of us who would support having a City Council person serve on this
Committee? All right. I would suggest, obviously, anybody can serve, I would suggest
that Ross be our representative. Is that, do we have concurrence with that?
Vanderhoef/I think that's a good idea.
Wilbum/That'd be fine.
Lehman/You've got your man.
Green/Sounds good.
Wilburn/Do you want to---
Lehman/ You've got your person. Go for it. I mean, I am so pleased with your involvement with
Council. I mean, I've been in Iowa City for a long, long time and I don't recall there
being the discussions back and forth with the president of the student body that you have
had with this Council and I look forward to what you will be able to do with that
Committee.
Green/I'd also like to express, I guess, my gratitude that the Council has basically, I mean,
listened to us (can't hear) on the student issues and student concerns that we believe, I
guess, affect us and I've really actually enjoyed working with all you guys.
Lehman/You know, we've always listened but there hasn't always been someone who spoke for
the students. I think there is someone now who does speak and listen. So, I know I speak
for the Council. We really appreciate your involvement and we look forward to good
things from the Committee.
Wilburn/We'll keep you up to date.
Green/All right.
Lehman/Thank you very much.
BUDGET REDUCTION UPDATE ISSUES
Atkins/Let me start off with sort of letting you know where we are with the signing of the
legislation by the governor, the state revenue cuts to us are final. So, the numbers we had
originally projected are what we expected them to be. I don't mean to be preachy about it,
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 22
but I'm just really not convinced that the state legislature really recognizes the magnitude
of what they've done. Not just in the cuts, but we're about to have our state budget and
major policies set by the judicial system because the legislature and the executive can't
get along. And that's really, truly unfortunate. I was trying to kind of reconstruct what
had happened, and we used to have a, you know, a 30 percent of value on machinery and
equipment; that would have been $700,000 a year to us. The state took that away, said
they'd reimburse it, didn't do it. Personal property tax we used to have. State said they'd
reimburse it; didn't do it; $300,000. Population allocation--state said they would provide
us with an annual amount of money based on population. That amounted to $600,000 for
us. Didn't do it. And I find it kind of interesting--I think a couple of us were at a meeting
about a year or so ago when the state legislators were here, and I remember hearing
Senator Bolkcom talking about the importance of the population growth in Iowa,
bringing people home, that we are going to have more jobs in Iowa than we're going to
have people to fill them. It certainly doesn't encourage you to do any growth if the state's
not going to pay you. I mean, it seems to be a working contradictory, the rollback is
another one. That's estimated in our estimates to cost us $860,000 of lost income. And
what we're doing is shifting the tax burden from residential to commercial/industrial at
the very time--that's the component of the economy that we're supposed to be growing.
The values fund--it's probably kind of a neat idea. Unfortunately, it's probably going to
be run by the state. How are we going to provide match money? You know full well that
they're simply just not going to give us grants; I mean, they never have, and if they do on
this case, I would be really very surprised. So what they're suggesting we do--the only
way we can raise match money is go out and borrow it, so to encourage some debt. Debt,
in itself, isn't bad, but when you add the new property tax system where all the credit
analysts have indicated that the property tax system is going to destroy the ability of
cities to issue debt. I guess I'm feeling--all of a sudden this began to hit home. We have
an income tax reduction of $300 million estimated. We have a $500 million new
spending program to be paid by $100 million worth of federal government's money; it
was supposed to come to us to begin with. What if none of this works? If nothing, if it
doesn't work, if the Values Fund doesn't work, and we've cut the income taxes and taken
away the revenues, the state's going to have to cut again. Now the upside is there's
nothing left for them to cut in our budget.
Lehman/You want to bet?
Atkins/But what they will do is this going to force them to go to education? I just don't believe
they've thought this thing through where in four or five years you can see yourself in a
cycle of well, we don't have enough money now. Yes, sir?
Pfab/I look at this thing and I really wonder if this is an ideology that says starve the
government and let---
Atkins/Oh, I don't think there's any doubt, Irvin, that the state legislature has said to us there is
too much government and it's you, not us. I'm speaking--you understand what I'm
saying.
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 23
Pfab/And it looks like this is coming from higher up.
Atkins/Oh, yeah. Well, I think it's a very deep philosophical issue. Now, I know that you, for
example, on the smoking ban where you're split as a group, I found it interesting that the
silent majority leader said no way on my watch are going to grant the authority to local
governments to pursue that kind of a policy again. And I thought we had home rule
around here, that we're supposed to be able to make these decisions on our own behalf.
Now, I think we're in for a tough, some tough time in the next few years. Because I think
these policies are going to start running into each other, particularly the state aid, which
your credit rating houses look at very, very carefully. And now they're gone. And the
rollback, at a time of trying to encourage economic expansion, we're saying increase the
taxes on commercial/industrial. They're working at counter purposes to each other. OK.
That was my speech.
Champion/(Can't hear)
Atkins/No, thank you.
Champion/Very depressing.
Atkins/Thank you for making (can't hear). OK. We agreed this evening that you wanted to talk
about options. We put in the budget, we had balanced the budget, the work that you've
done to date with approximately $1.1 million in expenditure reductions and $700,000 in
new revenue. We took that, projected it out in order to balance the budget. We were able
to preserve all the policy positions that we took--that's our cash balances. It's unfortunate
that--oop, just a quick digression. Machinery equipment, personal property, population
allocation and rollback amount to $2.46 million that would be in our budget. We'd be
building and opening our fourth fire station if it wasn't for all of this with some relative
ease. So the state took away that particular dream. Not whining again. Anyway, so how
do you want to go at this? Two of you submitted budget reduction alternatives. We're
prepared to discuss those with you. You have the list that I had given you some time ago.
Any thoughts? What we'd like to do--yeah, and some of these things will require some '
additional research and we are sort of preparing ourselves, a couple of them were--we've
already started because they're good ideas.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/What do you want to do? Just put them up here?
Lehman/I--(can't hear). We have options we are, a couple of three issues that we talked about,
that we took no action on, that probably should have some sort of action. We have two
proposals from Dee and from Steven. What do you want to do?
Champion/How much are we, do we have to cut any more, aren't we already---?
Atkins/No, you can, right now you could look at an option and consider it as a substitute. I can't
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Sessiun Page 24
answer that specifically.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/We're close.
Atkins/But I, yeah, you're really very, very close, and I think, you know, we preserved our cash
position. I still think we can go out and get a very satisfactory credit rating if we do
decide to borrow. I'm more concerned about the new property tax legislation. I can't
believe they can do that, but if they do, and even with our superior credit rating, I just, I
mean, there's going to be small towns that just, capital projects will come to an absolute
halt because they don't have the ability to raise money.
Vanderhoef/On this point, I've been talking to a couple of people, and they're not even clear yet
whether the proposed property tax bill that's put in there, whether they're going to use
their demonstration counties and have them mn two sets of books during that time---
Atkins/Two sets of books?
Vanderhoef/...and follow it along that way or whether they really are going to implement it into
those two.
Atkins/I'd love to volunteer to do---
TAPE 03-49, SIDE TWO
Atkins/...that would be a fair assessment. I mean to keep the books and measure the impact of
the thing, yeah.
Vanderhoef/Well, I would have confidence in the figures that I came up with if we came and
did---
Atkins/If we did it, we'll do a good job for you.
Vanderhoef/We will do it and---
Lehman/ All right, Irvin, let's---
Pfab/Is there, have the demonstration counties been selected or---?
Atkins/Not that I know of.
Pfab/Is there any method of how they're going to, OK---
Atkins/I haven't heard, Irvin. I think the governor, I assume, will have a good bit to do with that.
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 25
Lehman/Why don't we start, Steve, by going through the--we did approve a number of changes
in the budget.
Atkins/Uh-huh.
Lehman/We have no action on the couple. Now, is there interest on the Council as saying yes or
no to the elimination of neighborhood newsletters. That's one we took no action.
Pfab/I'm reluctant to do that if there's any way around that. I just think it's really starting to
worry me.
Champion/I don't mind cutting the newsletters in half if we need to, but if we don't need to,
then I think we should wait and see. I think it's something we can do later.
Lehman/Are those monthly letters?
Atkins/You know, they really vary by neighborhood. A lot of them are quarterly. I mean,
Longfellow, North Side folks, I mean, they're really pretty diligent about getting out a
newsletter to their folks. A lot of the other neighborhoods once or twice a year.
Vanderhoef/(Can't hear) And sometimes when they have projects they're trying to get their
people together, they're using it. Partly, this is what we've done and we've got this new
idea and we want neighborhoods to---
Atkins/Now, keep in mind, we've often used them, too. If we've got a--you'll get the curiosity,
well, why's the City out digging this big hole in the middle of so and so, and we can
often use that newsletter that we're putting in a new valve and it's going to be messed up
for a month and whatever.
O'Donnell/I think you're talking about such a small amount, why---
Atkins/Yeah.
Pfab/And I believe if you go back and look at the neighborhood associations that are using the
newsletters, those are the most effective as neighborhood associations. So, as other
neighborhoods start to see these neighborhood associations come to life and be beneficial
to the people living in them, I think they're going to start seeing it. And I think to take
that away is just, I can't see it making any sense.
Lehman/You know, I sense that there is not support for removing newsletters. How many would
like to maintain the newsletters?
Vanderhoef/What I, may I just, before you---
Lehman/Yes, please do.
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Vanderhoef/We had talked about eliminating the PIN grants and I would say reduce PIN grants,
but what I see with PIN grants and newsletters is that this could be a tradeoff that we
could do two newsletters and do maybe $10,000 worth of PIN grants. The PiN grant
thing is the thing that brings the neighborhoods together for a project in a positive way,
and I think that that's something that we need to encourage but at the same time I would
put new guidelines onto the PIN grants that they would be only for capital improvements,
not projects--service projects--that are not sustainable by the neighborhood in the
following year.
Champion/I think that's something we'll discuss at budget time (can't hear), if we're going to
increase something I don't see---
Pfab/Was there some talk about---
Vanderhoef/Not increase. I'm not increasing.
Kanner/Not increase.
Champion/No, I'm not increasing anywhere.
Vanderhoef/No, I'm decreasing them by $5,000 rather than totally eliminating them, which is
what had been decided at an earlier---
Champion/Oh, I'm not willing to---
Lehman/ We hadn't decided to eliminate them either. There was no action on it.
Pfab/Is there a way to fund those other than through general funds in the sense of, I think there
was some talk about railroad use tax?
Lehman/It depends on what you're doing (can't hear)
Atkins/The original proposal was that the proposal was to reduce tax money to fund, if we're
going to do anything.
Pfab/Whenever possible.
Atkins/I mean, you can do that; but again it's very specific in what you can do.
Vanderhoef/Well, that's what I was trying to put forward in my recommendations that we do
them for capital projects, not for these service projects. That everybody in the city would
like to have us do the additional Pin pickup of the leaves and we can't afford to do that,
so I don't see that that is a viable kind of project. But certainly some capital
improvements would be (can't hear)
Champion/What about the Wetherby movie? That's not a capital project. That's a service
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 27
project.
Wilbum/That's one that's well attended.
Champion/Yeah, I mean, I think we leave it alone for now.
Lehman/Can we do the newsletters first? OK. This is denied. We are going to continue
newsletters. OK?
Atkins/Newsletters are offthe table.
Lehman/Off the table.
Atkins/Yeah.
Lehman/PIN grants?
Champion/Off the table.
Lehman/Well, I think it's a policy issue but I think that we would be well advised to be a little
more judicious in what we allow them for. I mean that leaf pickup last year was a fiasco.
Champion/It was wonderful.
Lehman/Well, yeah. Is there any---
Atkins/That was one of our biggest complaints from other folks.
Lehman/Right.
Vanderhoef/That kind of thing?
Atkins/Big service to a specific neighborhood.
Lehman/Do we want to do anything with PIN grants? Reduce them?
Pfab/I'm not interested in (can't hear)
Kanner/I say keep them at the current level.
Pfab/I'd like to see them say the same if at all possible because they're a minor item, but I'm
not---
Lehman/All right. How many want to keep them at the present level? Thank you. That one's off
the table. All right, now moving on to page 2. The next item that I have that we took no
action on was a 25-cent fee for the downtown shuttle.
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Champion/No action.
Lehman/We had no action. I think it's time to either say yes or no.
Pfab/Well, I thought that was---
Atkins/I thought I sent you information on that.
Lehman/We did get information on that from Joe Fowler.
Champion/Yeah, we did.
Atkins/Yeah, the old memo that---
Lehman/I think we're going to have an incredibly difficult time explaining to the public how we
take two and a half people out of public works, two and a half people out of finance, four
firemen, and five policemen and we still provide a free bus.
Kanner/We didn't get the info on the income what would, we got a memo but it wasn't
complete, and Joe was going to come back with income information.
Lehman/He did that. He said that if he started charging he would (can't hear) a decrease in
ridership on the shuttle and that the income would approximate $30,000.
Karmer/No, it was about whether we get federal, how much federal funding do we get and state
funding and how does that affect the---
Vanderhoef/The decreased ridership.
Atkins/Yeah, the nose count on that did not have a dramatic effect on them because remember
one of the reasons we were able to protect some of the bus services was that our state and
federal aid came in higher projected, than we'd originally projected.
Lehman/If we're going to do a fee for the downtown shuttle, it's needs to be taken care of so
that it goes into place before fall semester starts.
Champion/Would you rather not have a shuttle than have a fee?
Lehman/I think that shutting down the shuttle is not a good alternative.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/That is an incredibly well used---
Champion/So, if you have a fee, it's going to take away the rapidity that it gets around---
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Pfab/Not necessarily.
Champion/I mean that's part of the (can't hear).
Lehman/Not necessarily.
Champion/Joe said it would.
Pfab/Well, you can't get them in and out fast enough---
Atkins/That's what Joe said. Couldn't get them in fast enough, couldn't get them out fast
enough.
Lehman/Is there, are there five people, four people who would be interested in charging a
quarter for the downtown shuttle?
Pfab/Before--I was under the impression and I can be wrong--that just because of some
transportation monies moving around that that basically was off the table.
Atkins/We took transit off the table because there was no general fund monies. Part of the 95
cent levy plus fare box plus other state and federal aid, we're able to finance the current
transit program where it is.
Pfab/But, but---
Atkins/If you take this money, this would be credited into the general fund and that's it. I mean,
it would be an income item for us in the general fund. But that's where transit is now.
Pfab/Were we given a, in other words if you stop and collect the fee and maybe there's other
ways of doing it, I don't know, does it destroy the schedule of trying to make the rounds?
Atkins/Well, destroy. It's going to change it. It's probably, could be a little slower, but
remember, it's, right now it's free and we load them up as fast as we can get them on.
Vandehoef/Mm-hmm.
Atkins/It's not like our regular fixed route system where at 8:20 it's at one spot, and---
Pfab/OK. All right.
Atkins/It just keeps moving.
Vanderhoef/I would like to put the 25 cent on the table and review it in six months after---
Pfab/I would not be opposed to the 25 cents. It's---
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 30
Lehman/Do we have four people who are interested in---?
Champion/I would try it.
Lehman/We have one, two, three, four---
Pfab/Just to try it for six months.
Vanderhoef/Review it in six months.
Atkins/OK.
Lehman/I would review but I'd review it in a year.
(Laughter)
Atkins/OK.
Pfab/OK. All right. What about reviewing it in a year rather than six months?
Atkins/I suspect we're going to know in a month.
Champion/Yes.
Lehman/I don't think that's true. (can't hear) whether or not things change significantly.
Atkins/I can say one month but I---
Vanderhoef/That's why I say six months because that will take in the fall semester in its entirety
and the cold weather.
Pfab/I think I would go along with run it for a year.
Lehman/I think you have to.
Pfab/Run it for a year and then drop dead until we reevaluate it.
Kanner/The same argument you use for giving a fee here I think would be applicable to the
airport. And Dee and I both---
Lehman/We'll get there later. Are we OK with the bus?
Kanner/Well, I think they're related.
Lehman/They're not related.
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Kanner/Transportation methods that we subsidize.
Lehman/No, they're not. Do you have a little page in your computer like this? Do you find the
airport listed on that page yet? It's coming. OK? I'd like to get through this in some sort
of an orderly fashion.
Kanner/Well, as we mentioned at the previous meeting we were talking about instead of having
to do these things, maybe look at some other options.
Champion/We're going to.
Lehman/We are.
Kanner/Well, but it seems we're doing it backwards. Look at the other options and then we
won't have to---
Lehman/ Whether or not we look at other options, it's very difficult to justify a free shuttle with
the City being in the financial difficulty they are, from my perspective.
Kanner/Right.
Lehman/Anyway, that was done. Now, the rest of the issues that we've got, Steve, are either
approved, disapproved, or whatever. We're now down to options.
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/The first being develop the use of a right-of-way fee.
Atkins/OK. Now wait a minute now, hang on a second--you're going to the original option list
that I gave you. I have an overhead for you.
Lehman/I mean, I think this is really a complicated issue. All right.
Atkins/Yeah, we think from our research that we can come up with a fee. It will not be for the
rental of the right-of-way or the use of the right-of-way. That's restricted. But it does
allow us to put a fee on what it costs us to manage the right-of-way. Am I OK on that,
Kevin; did I answer that right? Yeah. So what we would do is intend to follow up with
that option, bring it back to you, because there's got to be some way that--because we
have to bill somebody for the thing. But it is for the management of it.
Dilkes/Steve, I assume you're talking about private use of the right-of-way?
Atkins/Yes. Excuse me, private use of---
Dilkes/This one's, you know, with water, sewer.
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Atkins/Yeah.
Dilkes/OK.
Atkins/So we need to do some more work on that. Well, we think we can come up with some
monies on that one.
Lehman/All right, I think (can't hear) that we want to see the staff reduce?
Pfab/Yes.
Dilkes/We are already really pursuing it. I mean, we have a staff group together. There's been a
model ordinance put out by the league. I mean, that's kind of something that's already in
the works.
Atkins/Trying to fashion it into whether we can fit it into our program.
Lehman/Number one, we are in the process.
Atkins/Right. ]rvin?
Pfab/I'd like to ask Eleanor a question. You say private. Now that would be ifa private water
company came in or---
Dilkes/Well, telecommunications, yeah, (can't hear)
Pfab/Right, but---
Atkins/Gas and electric.
Pfab/But are you saying that--you brought, I thought you made a distinction between private and
public use of it.
Lehman/She did.
Dilkes/There is a distinction in the law that the issue of management costs as being limited to
management costs as opposed to rental of the space.
Lehman/Right.
Pfab/OK. All right.
Atkins/There's two elements to this. One is what Eleanor's pointing out to you, but also part of
my proposal and I'm since kind of pulling back a little bit, developing use of right-of-way
for water, sewer, and storm. We run all those. It's like billing ourselves. So we would
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charge the water fund. We would charge the storm water utility, which we're (can't hear);
we would charge the sewer fund for the use of that right-of-way like any other utility
might have to pay for the use of right-of-way. That's part of the thinking, too.
Champion/I think that's fine.
Pfab/
Vanderhoef/I have one more question that goes with this.
Atkins/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/And when we say "private use" and then when we talk about our own utility, our
enterprise funds being charged back to this management, University.
Dilkes/That's something that we will talk about in this committee. This is a very complicated,
elaborate ordinance. That's one of the issues, I think, that's been identified. I don't think
it's worth the time to talk about that in detail here, but it is something that will have to---
Atkins/Clearly, that's on the list of things to do.
Vanderhoef/Good.
Lehman/So the private--I'm sorry, go ahead.
Kanner/My understanding is though that the main budget consideration for us is we have a
person that oversees this.
Atkins/Yes.
Karmer/And so, the general fund would be saving, let's say, approximately $50,000.
Atkins/Yes.
Kanner/That's the neighborhood of what we're talking about?
Atkins/Yes. That's the general, yeah, that's the idea, Steve. Now, let's see if we can make it
work.
Kanner/And there's 14 utilities, some that are city and some that are private that use this.
Atkins/Yes.
Kanner/And everybody would probably take a little hit.
Atkins/That's the idea; now we're not sure; we're not there yet. But I would like to continue
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pursuing that. Now---
Lehman/OK.
Atkins/...the water, the sewer, the storm water, which are utilities will affect water, sewer, and
ultimately storm water rates, which means they've got to come back to you-all anyway
for your consideration.
Lehman/But I think this issue addresses number 1 in your options; it also addresses Dee's
concerns, I think, in the first two of the ones you proposed.
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Atkins/Rick has told me that we should have--he told me this today, Eleanor--on the storm water
utility, we're hoping to have a draft ordinance for you by the first meeting in July.
Lehman/OK.
Atkins/So that's moving along. That's been moving along. And that's how I would answer that
first one for Dee.
Pfab/Could I---
Atkins/Yeah.
Champion/Speaking of water, when that little guy comes around and reads my water meter---
Atkins/A little guy comes around and reads your---
Champion/ He's my water---
Vanderhoef/Mine's a big guy.
(Laughter)
Lehman/You want a little guy?
Atkins/I can't help you out on that.
Vanderhoef/It all---
Pfab/I think that, OK, I have a question.
Lehman/Wait a minute. Connie's got the floor.
Pfab/Oh, OK.
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Lehman/She's got the big guy.
Pfab/Oh, the big guy. Well, I thought maybe that was best to move on.
Lehman/No, go ahead, go ahead, Connie.
Champion/That's OK, Irvin. I interrupt all the time (can't hear). When we get all this additional
residential areas and (can't hear), why do we read our meters every month? You know,
why don't we just send a monthly bill the second month that's just kind of an estimate,
and the third month would be a real reading again. Why?
Atkins/Kevin can answer it probably better than I do. We've done some experimenting with
that.
O'Malley/Connie, we've thought of that several times and the customers actually want us to
read the meters because a lot of times it's overages or excess usages and leaks. And we
end up going back and having problems trying to determine when the leak occurred.
Atkins/Somebody gets a $50 utility bill from us one month. The next month it's like---
Champion/ $150.
Atkins/Well, all right.
Lehman/You got to keep your money.
Atkins/And then the next month it's $300 because we just---
Champion/Oh.
Atkins/...because they had a toilet leak. And often toilet leaks go unnoticed. I mean, it's just like
turning the garden hose on and letting it mn.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/So---
Champion/ OK.
Atkins/We found that monthly is better customer service, too.
Lehman/We will also be, I'm sure, in the near future be installing water meters that can be read
electronically.
Atkins/Yes, we're doing that.
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Lehman/So, eventually we'll---
Atkins/That's being done. In fact, it would be--actually you wouldn't even have to get out of the
car.
Lehman/Just drive by.
Atkins/And point.
Lehman/No stop or anything.
Champion/Does that really work?
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/Oh, yeah. Coralville's doing it.
Atkins/Yes.
Pfab/I think the time will come you'll read it from the City downstairs.
Lehman/Well, possibly.
Pfab/Eventually.
Atkins/Well, we talked about the GIS and assorted other---
Lehman/All right, all right, number one.
Pfab/But one just quick comment. As we start developing right-of-way fees, isn't the appraisal
of all the City assets going to be part of that mix when you---
Atkins/Yes. We have to do that also under the new generally accepted accounting procedures.
We have to do that anyway.
Pfab/And how soon does that have to go into effect?
Atkins/I think the new GASBY, generally accepted, General Accounting Standards Board rule
number 34, and I believe it requires us--about a year from now?
O'Malley/This year.
Atkins/This year? Yeah, and we're well on our way to satisfying that.
Lehman/OK.
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Dilkes/That isn't necessarily related to the right-of-way management fee though, because that's
a management cost that we can charge. We can't charge for rent of the property, which
would be at appraisal.
Pfab/OK. Is the time ever, are you saying that at no point can we charge fees for these---
Atkins/Right now you can.
Pfab/All right.
Atkins/Well, maybe someday, ! don't know.
Pfab/But I mean as of now there's no---
Dilkes/The state law only allows us to charge for our management costs.
Pfab/OK. All right. Thank you.
Atkins/Given that, we were the legislature---
Lehman/(Can't hear) file a lawsuit over that and they lost.
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/So, that's been determined by the courts. All right item 2 is eliminate selected Boards
and Commissions.
Atkins/What I did was the Public Art Advisory was your most recent, PCRB was the second
most recent--they're small amounts of money. The staff can support those Boards and
Commissions. In the time that I've served here, we went through a period of maybe 10 or
12 years ago where we did an analysis of board and commissions and we got rid of one;
that was a Resource Conservation Commission--because we took on our own recycling
program. That was the thing that was--and its interest waned. But really we've not, we've
added Boards and Commissions over the years and not really taken them away. And I felt
compelled to put this on as an option. It's not a big ticket item. We can still have a public
art program without an advisory committee. But generally speaking City Councils like
those sorts of things.
Champion/I'm not going to---
Atkins/I know you do.
Lehman/Is there any way---
Champion/I'd be willing to look at Commissions when we have time---
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Atkins/Yeah.
Champion/...to look at all of them.
Atkins/It's really hard to do it because, you know, Connie, quite frankly, if you direct us to do it,
the Commissioners are going to come here and they're going to tell you how they feel
about their Commission and the importance of it, and when it's all said and done, we're
going to support them.
Lehman/So is the public.
Atkins/And so is the public. Yeah. I'm just, I'm not so sure I'd encourage you to waste a lot of--
Lehman/ Is there any interest in getting rid of either one of those Commissions?
Pfab/I'm not.
Champion/Are there some we can combine?
Atkins/We, generally speaking, no. We went through that exercise. We did combine our
Housing Commission and our Committee on Community Needs became our Housing and
Community Development Commission to take care of the CDBG stuff so we have done
that, ones that I know of.
Kanner/One thing we might consider and I think it would be a good idea to talk eventually about
it, but the Public Art Advisory, we have staff members that are members o£it.
Atkins/Yeah.
Kanner/The reasoning is sound to run some things, whether it's going to work or not, but those
things will get run by staff anyhow and they're spending time on those Commissions,
then it might be better to have a citizen at-large.
Atkins/But my, I agree. My preference is citizen committees should be citizens and we either
staff them or we don't. There was a lot of technical stuff. There's no reason that, as
public, Rick as the public works director, Terry Trueblood as Parks and Rec, can't go as
the staff person to the particular Commission meeting and have input that way as opposed
to being a voting member. But I do prefer citizens, this one just the way it shook out. So.
Lehman/OK.
Pfab/We may want to bring that one back to you again. No, I mean bring it back in the sense of
having the staff off the Commission and appoint some citizens to it, yeah.
Champion/Oh, OK.
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Lehman/I think that number 3, which is relative to transit, I would like, I think we need to take a
look at, kind of a comprehensive look at our transit system as a work session item
sometime in the not too distant future.
Pfab/OK, so and not have it part of this?
Lehman/Well, it doesn't affect the general fund so it probably--~
Pfab/OK, all right. I have no problem looking at it. I would hate to look at it because we're
under the gun.
Lehman/No, no, and we're not. But I think that the evening bus service, the Saturday bus service
that I also, there may be alternatives there---
Pfab/Right.
Lehman/And I think at some point we have to look at fares which have been 75 cents now for
probably six or seven years. If you could have---
Atkins/Schedule it for a work session?
Lehman/At some point. And have Joe kind of do a preliminary sort of thing with it.
Atkins/OK.
Lehman/OK, Stephen, airport.
Atkins/My proposal was and I think Steven echoed it and so did Dee. The (can't hear) of the
bottom line was that they're doing it with a business plan. When we were going through
all these budget cuts, you'll notice we didn't reduce them any. Well, quite frankly, I'm
not so sure they're beyond our control. The only thing you can do is control the amount
of money you're going to give them. If you do reduce the amount of money to them, I
suspect it'll be the loss of one employee, and it's going to affect the maintenance at the
airport that you want to keep open to make sure it's safe, I just felt really trapped in
trying to come up. Yeah, we are really trapped.
Champion/We are really trapped.
Vanderhoef/Unless there's increased revenue, there's not (can't hear)
Atkins/Well, I've met with this business group and you know I hope they come up with some
ideas. I'll be pleasantly surprised ifthey're-~-
Champion/And I do have to wait for what their plan is going to be. We all really want the
airport, kind of that's what we started at while as long as I've been on the Council. I'm
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sure long before that. But I think airports all over the country are in big trouble, they just
are, and I think we have to ride it out a little bit and see what kind of plan they come up
with. But I think it's something we have seriously look at. In one or two years (can't
hear) have that airport at all.
Atkins/Well, that is a huge decision.
Champion/I know.
Atkins/No, I mean, huge, huge decision because I suspect FAA is going to say---
Wilbum/Give back some money.
Atkins/Give me money. We want our money back.
Wilburn/And we don't know how (can't hear)
Pfab/(Can't hear) the airport.
Atkins/Unless we're really serious about it.
O'Donnell/Do we have any idea, Steve, how much money we've got?
Lehman/Oh, with the FAA?
Atkins/Oh, ifI were to guess, millions easy.
Lehman/Well, it's generally on the present plan.
Atkins/Yeah, I would (can't hear)
Champion/So they really have us over a barrel then?
Kanner/Well, also, this is bigger than this conversation but the land is worth more than we owe
the FAA.
Lehman/I'm not sure that's true.
Atkins/Oh.
Karmer/It's possible, but, so we shouldn't say we're going to lose everything if that's the route
we want to go. But that's not what we're talking about. I think the thing is they're in the
same situation as the library. They're an independent entity and you worked with the
library---
Atkins/Yeah.
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Kanner/...now they can do whatever they want, but we could work with them. If we say we want
to cut a certain amount of money because every other department is being cut, we would
work with them and say how can we do this? We would work out a solution like we
worked out with the library.
Atkins/I mean this respectfully. We wrote a very detailed audit and they came here and you gave
them another chance. And they came back another time and you gave them another
chance with this business plan. Now, until the business plan is prepared, you know, I'm
really a little reluctant to be critical because I haven't seen the plan. And remember it's
their plan.
Lehman/The FBO---
Atkins/Not me, no I didn't prepare it as an instrument of you guys directing me to do this.
Lehman/The FBO's rent is set by contract.
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/And there's probably nothing that we can do about that. The hanger rent obviously as
they come due and I would assume they're annual contracts ....
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/Obviously, those fees could change as those contracts come due.
Atkins/If the Commission chooses to do so, yeah.
Lehman/But I do think and I don't disagree with Steven on this, I mean, as much as I support the
airport, I think they have to understand that at some point and that point is right really. At
the next budget, we're there. They're going to have to start covering some more of their
own costs to increase hanger rent, obviously the FBO has got a deal that we can't mess
with. And hopefully, some of that airport commercial gets sold. That's going to be some
benefit to get some of the debt paid off.
Atkins/Well, one way, that'll just pay off the debt that you--no, they don't have the debt. The
debt's here.
Wilbum/Well, one way to go about it is, OK, show us the business plan and then---
Pfab/Right.
Wilburn/...we will make the our decision on future allocations based on, kind of like the Parks
and Recs does, a certain percentage must be covered by fees or however, you know, that
the subsidy will be based on this percentage.
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Lehman/I think that we have to wait until we get the business plan.
Pfab/Yeah, I think it starts when we get the business plan and I think, it's serious, whatever, at
that point it's very serious.
Kanner/It seems to me if you're saying human service agencies are being cut 5 percent, we can
say something similar. We can say you have to do fund raising. The library has a fund-
raising board, the foundation. The animal shelter has a foundation. I can see them saying
we're going to have a "flyathon." People will pay money to go up in those planes with
some of those people that have planes there and other people. I think they could raise
money. They could raise--if we're talking 5 percent of $180,000, that's $9,000. I think
we have to show that we're cutting in that area just as much as you're saying increased
bus fare to a quarter. How can we justify that, especially with less people are using that
airport than are using our public transit system or using our streets. And I think, Parks
and Rec. I think we have to ask for a cut.
Champion/I think that's a very strong point you make.
Lehman/Well, is there interest in doing something like that prior to getting their business plan.
Champion/No, but I'm not---
Pfab/But once the business plan comes, then we're on it like that. Like flies on whatever flies
get on.
Lehman/Basically, this is an issue that we need to address for the next year's budget.
Atkins/OK.
Kanner/Next year. Well, given that the business plan comes out in the next month, I assume or
Atkins/That's what I've heard, too.
Kanner/...we should consider it then.
Champion/Yeah, I, we agree.
Atkins/Mm-hmm.
Kanner/But you're saying the next budget.
Lehman/I have no problem with discussing the business plan when we get it. There's only
certain things that we can do. The library obviously has a number of employees. You
know, I think if you have 30 employees, then you can absorb a little bit than if you have
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one or two. If you have two employees and you let one go, that is a significant impact.
You have no control whatsoever over the revenue from the FBO. You have no control
whatsoever over leases that are signed. I think they're in a box. Now, I think that maybe
we can evaluate that box when we get their business plan. But I don't know what we can
do with them.
Pfab/I think once the business plan comes, we take a hard look at (can't hear) and really grind.
Lehman/Number 5.
Atkins/Assess the impact of the Nuisance Abatement Ordinance. Of course, you remember this
stuff is now about six or seven weeks old in time.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/At the time you chose not to hire another inspector. You didn't choose to increase the
fees. This is probably as much--yes you did, that's what I'm saying, you did do that. This
is as much a head's up as anything. We're not going to know for a while but it was also
trying to identify for you when we passed these ordinances there are costs. It's not just,
yeah, you just don't write the law and it goes on the books. But there's a cost associated
with this. And we are probably not going to know much about this until like September,
October.
Lehman/So this is one we really can't (can't hear)
Champion/I also do feel, I honestly feel, and I could be totally wrong, that the housing
inspection people could curtail some of the way they do things and save a tremendous
amount of time.
Atkins/And we are preparing a report for you working on some options with respect to that very
question and we've got a little, we've got lots of staff reports going on that, quite frankly,
the next Council's going to have to spend most of the time with those things.
Champion/The odd thing about reports though, I mean, sometimes reports can take more time
than they're worth.
Atkins/Yep.
Champion/I think (can't hear) up some ideas.
Atkins/That's what this is. We have a whole list of ideas on how we can administer the housing
code differently, and here's what we intend to do. If you don't like them, you certainly
will tell us.
Vanderhoef/I think we told you a bunch of those.
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Atkins/Yes, you did. And those are all part of the list.
Vanderhoeff So---
Atkins/Yeah, card systems, all that's being pursued right now.
Pfab/I would like to address this to you, or to the Council, and also to Eleanor, just in case. I had
a chance meeting with a local developer today and he was saying how he opposed the
Nuisance Ordinance, but he said, maybe there is an advantage. He said from now on if
the City police are called, they'll probably be writing more tickets and also when I talked
to the police department they say they can increase their income to the City's general
fund, maybe they won't have to lose so many people. Maybe we'll solve two problems---
Atkins/I have a proposal from them on that and that's, we're working on that.
Lehman/I'd like to not do number 6 right now. That could be a discussion that could last till
tomorrow.
Atkins/I agree with you. Remember, options imply if you flat-out don't like it, move on.
Lehman/Well, but I think that's something, but there's issues I think we can deal with. Review
planning and development fees, I think we are, we have dealt with some of that.
Atkins/And we're doing some more of that.
Lehman/The deer kill, I think is something---
Atkins/I'd like to give a head's up to the Deer Committee who is intended to meet tomorrow.
Now, we changed the policy. We collectively changed the policy a year ago and we
decided to go every other year. If you were to do something different this year--we have a
deer kill planned for this year. We've killed almost, I think, it's a thousand deer. I can
imagine how, what it would be like if they had not, the herd had not been thinned.
Lehman/I'm not willing to take off---
Vanderhoef/And they're back in inner city, I think.
Atkins/They're back.
Vanderhoef/I had one down in my neighborhood again which is---
Atkins/They're finding their way back into town.
Lehman/I don't think we should take this out of the budget.
Vanderhoef/I don't either.
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Atkins/OK.
Pfab/I'm, first of all, the state I think has increased the deer license tremendously.
Atkins/Yes.
Pfab/I mean they've (can't hear) this all over. Also, I think we could learn something from our
sister city over in Coralville. They have, they don't have a deer kill and they don't have,
probably not much difference---
Champion/They have quite a citizens (can't hear)
Lehman/They use bow and arrows.
Atkins/Yeah.
Pfab/Well.
Lehman/They do.
(Laughter)
Pfab/Well, yes, I'm saying---
Lehman/That's not going to fly over here.
Pfab/Why don't we do that?
Kanner/He's implying that they don't have publicly funded (can't hear)
Atkins/Right.
Pfab/Right, and I really often questioned that. Why do we have to go out and spend money for
what Coralville can get done (can't hear)?
Champion/Would you like to walk (can't hear) into Hickory Hill Park and have somebody
shooting the deer there with an arrow and---
]?fab/Well, I don't know of any Coralville citizens that got shot.
Wilburn/I think the question also was do you use the, if you allow the bow, then the private
property owner within so many yards or feet has to give permission. There was a question
on the Committee whether or not. We didn't get enough.
Pfab/It's a sport that people pay---
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Atkins/Well, remember, you know, you may want to say Coralville, but Coralville doesn't have
a Hickory Hill or a Waterworks Park or those. I mean, in an urban setting those two
things are very, very unusual for us, and you know how many deer are in Hickory Hill
Park.
Vanderhoef/And they don't have a University sitting---
Lehman/When this was first implemented, we had a Deer Committee that spent an unbelievable
amount of time, they looked at every option. They came to every Council meeting and
they were abused and did some abusing, as far as that goes, and the unanimous decision
of that Committee was that the only way that would really work in this community was if
the City hired sharpshooters.
Champion/Right.
Pfab/Well, maybe, I would suggest if they have a meeting that maybe they'd take another look
at it, just to review it. That's not saying that they're---
Atkins/They do that. Normally every year someone will raise that issue for discussion purposes.
I mean, I'm almost convinced, Irvin, they're going to talk about that.
Pfab/That was just a suggestion.
Lehman/But we're going to leave the $100,000 in for the time being.
Atkins/OK.
VanderhoefJ Yes.
Lehman/Is that---
Wilbum/Can we try to make an argument to use road use tax to---
Atkins/No.
Wilburn/...to cross the road.
Atkins/No. Unless you want to stop them and check their license.
Wilburn/OK.
Lehman/Unless you can find hoof prints in the asphalt.
(Laughter)
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 47
Vanderhoef/What do you want?
(Laughter)
Atkins/I don't mean to, you know, to tell a Council member no flat-out, but that's really a bad
idea.
Wilburn/That, I appreciate.
Lehman/Number 9 is basically another one that's at least relative to the airport. I don't know
whether---
Atkins/I think we have to skip over that one right now. If you remember for budget balancing,
we lowered their subsidy by extending the payment. I did not like to do that.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/We extended those payments on hangers because they were not generating enough
income.
Lehman/Couldn't pay it.
Atkins/They couldn't pay their bills.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/And we still, I mean, their subsidy is about $180,000. It would be in the $240 or $250
(can't hear)
Lehman/That ought to be part of the business plan.
Atkins/I hope so.
Lehman/All right.
Atkins/I hope so.
Lehman/Right. All right, rcnegotiate cease of (can't hear) eliminate Saturday and Sunday
service. Is there any interest in even talking about that?
O'Donnell/No.
Pfab/Not to me.
Lehman/Knock it offthe table. Advertising on buses from my perspective, that's---
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Champion/A no-brainer.
Lehman/...I mean, that's Joe's call and the City's call. I don't have any (can't hear)
Atkins/No, well, this is buses where you paint them.
Wilburn/The Oscar Meyer wiener bus.
Atkins/Budweiser on the side.
Pfab/Oh, no, they look like camouflage operations in Cedar Rapids.
Atkins/Remember, these are options. Now I put them up here---
Pfab/No, no, I just say do you want---
Atkins/(Can't hear).
Pfab/You can see one going--or you thought you saw a bus going down, and you don't
recognize it.
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/Des Moines is going to paint police cars; talked about advertising on police cars.
Champion/Yeah.
Lehman/The buses leave at---
Atkins/I am not a fan of---
Champion/ I don't think I could do that.
Atkins/Now, there's some advertising we can do inside.
Lehman/Yeah.
Atkins/We have little placards, I mean, if something is reasonably tasteful, we can expand that.
Pfab/Well, even on the side panels---
Atkins/That's what I'm saying.
Pfab/Inside, outside.
Vanderhoef/I would like them to explore the magnetic signs that go on the outside of buses.
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Pfab/How valuable they would be to collectors?
(Laughter)
Vanderhoef/No, I'm thinking in terms of short-term.
(Laughter)
Kanner/It would be very short-term.
Vanderhoeff Oh! (can't hear)
(Laughter)
Atkins/Short-term. One dog in alley.
Vanderhoef/No, I'm thinking about events and that kind of thing that people want to advertise;
you know, even a Hancher kind of---
Pfab/Councilor Vanderhoef, I think the problem wasn't the sign. It was the way you attached it
that was the problem.
(Laughter)
Vanderhoef/Well, that doesn't wreck the paint.
Atkins/I will ask Joe for some other options in advertising. ! don't have any trouble with that.
Just don't tell me you don't want me to paint those buses and--thank you, that was the
one where we could make some money on it.
Lehman/All right.
Vanderhoef/You could put pretty.
Lehman/All right.
Champion/You know what--that is not real money. That's peanuts.
Vanderhoef/Less conditions (can't hear)
Lehman/Number 12, membership in the National League of Cities and American Public Transit.
Atkins/Yeah, those are--we have a couple of those and I showed them simply because they're
reasonably expensive items. I would be very reluctant to recommend that National
League of Cities go away, I mean they--that's an important--I think Iowa League of
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 50
Cities for home issues is far more important. But National League of Cities also does
some good things for us. We are looking at other memberships, particularly the bigger
ticket items that we belong to.
Pfab/Maybe there's such a thing as negotiating these fees?
Atkins/No.
Lehman/I don't think so.
Vanderhoeff No.
Atkins/They send you a bill unfortunately.
Lehman/Is there any interest in eliminating either of those memberships?
Vanderhoef/No.
Kanner/What are some of the bigger ones?
Atkins/Oh, National Parks and Recreation Association, that may be about $1,000. We have a
planning group. Those are the kinds of things that I'm looking at. Yeah, and it's--again,
keeping the principle that these are permanent reductions. I mean, Iowa City is a very
reasonably high profile city nationally for a lot of issues. And we still serve as Iowa's
representative on the Congressional Budget Office Review of items. I think we need to
maintain our presence. Yeah.
Champion/I think we need to be both a low---
Vanderhoef/I do, too.
Atkins/I think if you really have to~-yeah, when we're in do-do time.
Lehman/But I really think that's also true of our membership in ECCOG. When we talk about
intergovernmental cooperation and hoping at some point to start providing, you know,
fire service, hopefully, at some point service---
Atkins/OK.
Wilbum/The only reason that I was throwing that one out when I mentioned, you know, a
couple weeks ago was just looking at, you know, in terms of thinking about memberships
and how we interact regionally. I was thinking, you know, that the economic
development stuff that we do with the corridor; there's regional stuff. There may be
more, the Iowa League of Cities stuff would be more applicable. You know, if other, we
do at least within the County operate through JCCOG. But if there ever is a movement
for some of those areas you mentioned to the regional stuff, then yeah, what we'd do is to
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maintain that. We're not there yet.
Lehman/Oh, I know.
Vanderhoef/OK, but I'm going to throw my two cents in here because I fully believe with Emie
that we shouldn't stop this one, and one of the things that I've been thinking about over
the weekend in particular about this is that we just got our new labor shed study in, and
they're showing that we are bringing people in to the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City area from
20 counties around. They have also put Washington County in our statistical area, Iowa
City's statistical area, and that means that 25 percent of the people from Washington
County come this way to work every day. This is where their job is. So, what we've got
to do via the COG is that the COG is the place where all the planners are that bring in the
federal dollars and there's been over $3 million brought in that supports the housing and
the services out in these other counties, little towns in Johnson County and Washington
County and so forth. And these are really important, because if those people are working
here and they are choosing to live in Iowa City and we don't have this housing stock out
around us, we're going to lose those people. Because the jobs aren't going to come here,
because that's what industry looks at is not only do you have the workers, but ifI bring in
something more, will more workers move in and is there a place to house them?
Lehman/All right. Are we agreed that we're going to leave number 14 and (can't hear)
Atkins/Leave it alone?
Lehman/Number 15, could we refer that to Parks and Recreation?
Atkins/OK. It's been done.
Pfab/Before you go off to 14, there might be, what, has anybody thought of a, I think the term
they use is a "utility tax," or a fee for--we've tried wheel taxes; that doesn't work.
Atkins/No. We have the ability to levy a franchise fee, a tax.
Lehman/Which one are we doing?
Pfab/No, no, it's---
Atkins/He's raising the issue.
Pfab/That's 14. I mean---
O'Donnell/I thought we were through with 14.
Lehman/I know, but I don't know what---
Atkins/We have the ability to do that. Now that would require us to enter into an agreement, as I
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 52
understand the law, with the utility company, which I'm not so sure you want to do when
you're in the process of the power study.
Lehman/How is that relative to---
Pfab/No, no, it's not relative but if instead of, if we don't want to cut those, then how can we
come up with some fees in lieu of those?
Champion/We're already done.
Lehman/We're going to get through this and then we're going to go through Steven's and then
we're going to go through Dee and then---
Pfab/OK, that's fine. No problem.
Lehman/OK?
Champion/We don't really have to cut anything.
Pfab/Now, you're referring Parks and Recreation fees back to---
Atkins/We will send it back to them for their---
Lehman/I don't sense any interest in eliminating the downtown shuttle. All right. Adopt a trail
program. Obviously that's a wonderful idea if we can find somebody that wants to (can't
hear) the trail.
Champion/It's an awful lot of money---
Atkins/Yeah, I know. That's one we've got to give some more thought to.
Lehman/And 18, rental of the Salvage Barn and Furniture Project.
Atkins/We've been supporting that for sometime.
Lehman/Can they afford to pay us rent?
Atkins/I'm not real sure, but we're talking with the folks, the folks at DVIP also have a furniture
project and need money. I asked the staff to meet with DVIP and all these folks. Let's try
to coordinate this thing a little better.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/It may be worthwhile actually hiring a City employee to run these things.
Champion/What about--this is at the landfill, can we use landfill money?
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Atkins/Yes, we can, yes, we can. Yeah, that was part of the intent, too.
Lehman/But you're working on that.
Atkins/Yes, we are.
Lehman/All right.
Vanderhoef/The landfill pays DVIP---
Atkins/Yes, we do.
Vanderhoef/...to help support that van.
Atkins/Thirty-some thousand dollars a year, and I'm wondering about trying to package it all
together a little better; it'll still accomplish the same goals. These are really important
projects. We took the Furniture Project for DVIP. Those folks need that stuff.
Lehman/OK. And we also have a memo from Steven Kanner.
Atkins/Yeah, I've got an overhead.
Lehman/Oh, good.
Vanderhoef/Oh, good, because I---
Lehman/ The first is relative to the airport and, Steven, if you have something to add to that.
Kanner/No.
Lehman/I think we have done what we can do with that.
Champion/You are absolutely right.
Lehman/Number, oh, I think that that's true. Number 2, go ahead.
Kanner/Well, number 2 is basically we're---
Atkins/There's your answer.
Pfab/That's not part of it.
(Laughter)
Atkins/I'm sorry.
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Kanner/Essentially the first option that Steve is talking about.
Lehman/Right-of-way management fees.
Kanner/Yeah, I think that's the same thing, senior zoning technician.
Atkins/I think we can do that one, but I just need a little more time for observation.
Lehman/OK.
Kanner/The third item is the biggie is to (can't hear) and I propose that we ask them to dig
deeper and to see what there is out there. Most likely in engineering and public works
that is being funded by general funds that might be able to be funded by road use tax.
And also look at other departments. And it, one thing, if you look at number 1,
administrators. We should look at the legality of Steve's salary, for instance, or Kevin's,
and say that if we do 10 to 20 percent of our overall budget deals with streets and traffic,
why not pay 10 to 20 percent of their salary with appropriate funding?
TAPE 03-55, SIDE ONE
Atkins/The road use tax has a very interesting legislative history. Let's take a minute about;
Connie, you may remember this from the school. School boards at one time were
pursuing the state legislature for more money for education and actually were going into
the road use tax fund, which caused this huge hullabaloo at the state legislature and what
ultimately happened was that the road use lobby prevailed and said, you read the law.
The law says this money can only be used for right-of-way and road use-related issues.
The same thing with the crossing guard. We, a number of years ago, I proposed to the
schools, you take over the crossing guard. And the schools very politely said, no, we're
responsible for the children once they're on school property, but to and from is the
responsibility of the City.
Champion/Maybe we can donate those parts of the sidewalks to the school district---
Atkins/Well, you might---
Champion/...like a state donates roads to us. And then they could scoop it, too.
(Laughter)
Atkins/Anyway, I mean, I'd be happy to talk with Lane again about crossing guards. But that
had been their policy and I do know that the road use tax was somewhat limited. But,
Steven's right. We do need to do something a little more comprehensive just to make sure
that we're getting--because we have a healthy~--
Wilburn/Maximize it if it were ever possible, yeah.
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Kanner/Well, perhaps also, crossing guards from our perspective can be paid with road use
taxes.
Atkins/Yeah.
Kanner/That's a traffic--we're told it's a traffic control option.
Atkins/Yes. And I understand that.
Kanner/And so that's one thing. But another thing to look at also with the school board, is what
if it's legal for us to support some of their busing with our road use tax? They can't, there
was a proposal, I think, in the state legislature to use road use taxes for school busing. I
don't think that got anywhere.
Atkins/It didn't.
Kauner/But what if we use our road use tax for some busing, and in return, they do take on---
Atkins/Some responsibility.
Kanner/...their crossing guards, perhaps, or some other things like police in school.
Atkins/We're talking to them.
Kanner/So they're spending $2 1/2 million on busing, if they can reduce that by half a million
and we can use our road use tax, then that clears up, and then they pay for our crossing
guard.
Champion/But they have a bus levy.
Atkins/I don't know how that works so I couldn't tell you.
Lehman/A special levy to fund buses.
Champion/Yeah, it's much more complicated than that.
Atkins/OK.
Champion/I can't remember exactly. We tried to find, I mean, the idea is good. I think you'd
have trouble probably crossing money across government.
Atkins/OK. I don't know enough about it, but unless I hear otherwise, I think it's worth at least
taking a look at. And I'll talk to Lane about it.
Kanner/And I gave him a call, an initial call.
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Atkins/Did you? OK.
Kanner/And I, he said he was going to look into it.
Atkins/Then I'll give him a call.
Kanner/But from our end we might want to look into it---
Atkins/I'll follow up.
Kanner/...see what the legality---
Champion/Yeah, I mean---
Vanderhoef/OK.
Lehman/What would we have---
Atkins/I mean with the understanding of what your policy position is do whatever you can to
maximize the use of road use tax and save money in the general--if that's your direction,
we have no-J-
Lehman/Well, that's correct but if we're taking road use money---
Vanderhoef/Right.
Lehman/...away from what?
Vanderhoef/Roads.
Atkins/Well, right now, we maintain a road use tax reserve position of anywhere--well, it's
about a, we're still about a million, it's about a million dollars--and the purpose of that,
it's a long standing policy, allows us to react quickly to a state or federal grant program to
provide some match money. Now I don't think--I think we use our road use tax
judiciously. I don't think we're going to come up with any huge amounts of money. But
it would reduce that reserve position somewhat, but also it would save in the general
fund, and that's your tradeoff.
Lehman/Yeah, but is that prudent?
Atkins/I don't know. Emie, I don't know the kind of knowledge you're talking about.
Vanderhoef/What it does is it may save in the general fund, but what it amounts to is we end up
going out for even more bonding---
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Atkins/Yes.
Vanderhoef/...for our road use projects.
Atkins/We may borrow more and then---
Vanderhoef/So the tax implication for that is, do you want to do that trade---
Atkins/What I tried to do in this permanent, remember in the reductions, was to make sure that
we weren't simply taking one cost center over here and just shift it. Now, it goes away. !
mean, if we're just going to move them all around, I'm not so sure. I mean, there's some
of them you can't move around.
O'Malley/Because the money has gone away.
Atkins/What's that?
O'Malley/Because the money has gone away.
Atkins/It has gone away. Yeah, it is gone.
Vanderhoef/Well, and what else has happened is that we have shifted over the last four to six
years more things into bonding that used to be in the general fund, so when we got to this
point of having to cut $1.8 million all at once, we didn't have the options. We had also
protected our staff for many years and know that they are valuable resource to us, and we
didn't have any choices now because we didn't have anything left to cut out of the
general fund.
Atkins/We squeezed it.
Lehman/So, you're going to do some research on this?
Atkins/I think it's deserving of some additional research.
Lehman/All right.
Atkins/And I think what I'm going to try to do is kind of backdoor it, find out exactly what we
are currently doing, get that worked out, and then expand our horizons on it. We will
probably have to go to the DOT anyway. And now so you know, they audit separately
our road use tax money in addition to our other. So we have their rules to satisfy. Irvin
had his hand up, Ernie.
Pfab/I have a question. Is there, is this type of financial squeeze, is this something that's cyclical
or is this something that has basically never happened before or is it something that we're
in a---?
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Atkins/I believe, as I summarized for you, that the state has been heading down a path over a
number of years. Irvin, and I know how a number of you feel about it, the state hates
property taxes, and that's why you see more and more cities adopting the sales tax to run
their local governments. We in the debate the tax itself as opposed to the financial merits
or demerits of the thing. And I think clearly the state is saying we're going to make
property tax so hard for you to get, you'll have to find some other source of revenue.
Unfortunately, they're not providing it. I mean, you know, we had an income tax at one
time and that lasted about two years and some legislator didn't like it so it was out of the
plan.
Lehman/OK. The landfill surplus and reserve. This is a little complicated for me so somebody
will have to---
Atkins/Yeah, the landfill is--Steven's numbers--it's a double negative--are not incorrect. No,
they are correct, and his assessment is OK, but a couple of things to think about in the
landfill. And you saw that in the memo that we have closure obligations. We run a
landfill and we allow all of the other cities, Johnson County, Riverside, and Kalona to use
our landfill. If there is any sort of environmental disaster or mess or whatever, we're on
the hook. We agreed to do that. The County and we tried a number of years ago to make
it a regional service--nobody would bite. So, we're running it. I think we're doing a very
good job of running it. Our cash positions are healthy. With the positions being the way
they are, we could dramatically reduce our current operational reserves, but if you'll note,
that number and plus the other expenses that we have with respect to closure, if we keep
that number at about that, we don't have to borrow any money. And I'm concerned that
borrowing--whether it's a landfill bond or a G.O. bond at some time in the future--I'm
still concerned about this property tax business. And we have traditionally--this precedes
virtually everybody at the table. We're running a regional service, everybody's paying
into it, even though it's our money. They pay us to use the landfill. But we've always sort
of deferred that, well, this is more of a regional kind of a service. The bottom line is it's
really ours and it's our responsibility. What's proposed can be done, but I would like to
see it paid back.
Lehman/We borrowed from that fund before.
Atkins/We do it all the time, Ernie, and---
Vanderhoef/Internal loans.
Atkins/...it's, yeah, we do internal loans, and it's not a huge amount of money. Kevin keeps an
eye on it, we charge ourself interest, we pay ourselves back; it allows to do some,
because we have the cash, it allows us to get some projects done like right now that we
might not normally be able to.
Kanner/Steve, I'm not quite understanding the procedure.
Atkins/Right.
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Kanner/My understanding is that we are collecting adequate monies to build up our closure
fund---
Atkins/Correct. Even though we have an unfunded liability.
Kanner/But we have to get to $13 million.
Atkins/Yes.
Kanner/And we're continuing to do that.
Atkins/Yes.
Kanner/And at this rate, the $8 million or $5 million in reserve is outside of that.
Atkins/Yes.
Kanner/That $5 million. So you're saying that $5 million is there for some catastrophic event---
Atkins/Yes.
Kanner/...where if we didn't have that $5 million, we would have to borrow it.
Atkins/That's correct. Your assessment is (can't hear)
Kanner/So the odds of the catastrophic event are very long that it would happen.
Atkins/In today's modem landfills, yeah, but---
Kanner/And even if it did happen, we could borrow.
Atkins/Yes, but that means our taxpayers could pay for the City of Riverside putting a 55-gallon
drum on the back--I mean, remember, folks--you've been to the landfill. Truck backs up,
dumps, we cover it up. We really don't know what's in there. And it's, I'm being overly,
overly cautious. You're not wrong in proposing that, to use those monies to help
supplement our general fund. It's just how much risk do you want to take.
Vanderhoef/This is our self-insurance.
Atkins/Sort of.
Pfab/It's our deductible.
Kanner/And the question--and this is a question any time there's a rainy day fund set aside.
When is it a rainy day? And I would say it's a rainy day now and you take a little bit of
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risk. I don't think you take big risks and you also talk about repayment schedule, and I
think though we also have to have the debate if we wanted to afford--is it proper to take
solid waste funds and put them into other areas? People are paying their money for solid
waste fees and there's an expectation of certain (can't hear) to use it for that. I'm not
quite sure how I feel about that. ! don't know how the rest of the Council feels about it,
but it would be good to have that debate and I think we need to have that community
debate some more and see if we want to use some of those funds to make up for some of
those deficits, see if we want to use the fund for other things in solid waste or see if we
want to just keep it where it's at.
Atkins/Keep in mind---
Champion/I don't think we're having a rainy day.
Atkins/Keep in mind, it's also subject to, we, the City government are about 12 pement of the
volume of the landfill. The other 88 percent comes from other jurisdictions and private
business. You know that we've been threatened in the past by a couple of the larger
haulers to go to Illinois because it's cheaper. Now, if we have a dramatic reduction in
volume, which means a dramatic reduction in income, I can't go out and lay off a bunch
of people at the landfill. We need that--there's a fixed cost to run a landfill whether you
have 10 tons coming in or 100 tons coming in. And that's another j ust--I feel like I'm
arguing with you and don't mean to because you, Steven, it's not wrong that we could
use some of these monies to help supplement the general fund because it's ours and we're
choosing to take the risk and if some other community were to give you a hard time about
it saying, well, then you come in as an equal partner and you will share if things get really
messy. And we found that---
O'Malley/They don't want to buy that, no.
Kanner/Then, perhaps it's possible to take out an insurance policy for $4,000 to cover that risk. I
would assume that's possible.
Atkins/I don't know. I've never (can't hear)
Kanner/To take out, so if we're going to borrow, let's say borrow or grant, the half a million or a
million dollars from that fund, we might want to take out an additional policy of $40,000
Atkins/If we can do that.
Kanner/...to cover us for that. That's another way to cover our---
Vanderhoef/To cover what?
Kanner/Potential liability if there's some catastrophic event where we need to access all $5
million of the reserve fund for some emergency.
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Lehman/Yeah, the other thing, though, I think we have to, and it is a philosophic issue is
whether or not we would use revenue funds as profit centers and take money from one
fund and use it. And I think, obviously, we don't do that in water. We can't. And sewer.
Atkins/You can.
Lehman/You can, but we don't.
Atkins/We choose not to do it.
Lehman/But I really have a bit of a problem using funds from refuse or from sewer or water as
profit centers to fund other.
Atkins/Well, because we've chosen to run them as a public utility. The landfill, for all practical
purposes, is a public utility.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/That's how we run it.
Pfab/One point that still escapes me is why don't we require, like we do all the residential, why
don't we require the business organizations to use the City landfill? They use our service.
Lehman/I don't think we can require them. We can't even require residential to use our service.
Kanner/You can charge them; they don't have to use it.
Atkins/Oh, yeah. You could franchise it. You could require businesses they must come to this
landfill.
Lehman/Can you require me at my house to use your landfill?
Atkins/I think we could, by ordinance. I think so.
Pfab/We can charge you whether you use it or not.
Dilkes/I'm not sure that--isn't that a problem with---
Atkins/There's the waste, that's the Carbone decision.
Dilkes/Yeah.
Atkins/I'm pretty sure we could fashion an ordinance that said you must come to our landfill.
O'Dormell/Well, is that because of the license in Iowa City, Steve, do they need a license to pick
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June 23, 2003 Council Work Session Page 62
up?
Atkins/If you want to, that's the principle, Mike, to how to get out of it, it's that if you want to
run your business in this town, you're going to have a license and by the way part of the
license is---
Kanner/Well, I think it's more so that you charge them, just like you charge individual
homeowners, and you don't have to make use of the service---
Lehman/But you've got to pay for it.
Kanner/...you have to pay for it. I guess we wouldn't care so much if they take it somewhere
else once they paid for it, the fee.
Pfab/But my point is that it looks to me like it would be a way to keep a tighter ship all the way
around. And I don't think we're stepping on any--if we provide a valuable service, just
like the homeowners.
Atkins/Irvin, you're not wrong, but you're also going to tell a number of garbage haulers you're
out of business, because we're going to issue a franchise, we're going to run this.
Kanner/Well, there's ways to get it out (can't hear)
Pfab/Well, we could hire---
Dilkes/Well, you're not talking about the collection of trash. You're talking about--we're talking
about two different things here: collection of the trash or use or requiring that they use
our landfill as opposed to trucking it somewhere else.
Atkins/We're talking about the collection of trash and disposed of. Yes.
Pfab/Right.
Dilkes/Those are flow control issues.
Pfab/Right. You brought it up when you said, well what happens if somebody took off with the
trash---
Champion/Are we going to do more discussion tonight or are we going to (can't hear)
Lehman/Well, I think, let's just quickly look at Dee's. Storm water utilities is the first one.
We're doing that. The Right-of-Way Ordinance, we're doing that. We talked about that.
Atkins/You're talking too fast (can't hear)
Karr/I'm sorry--you're on Dee's memo now?
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Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/Yeah. But fees for service permits, Airport Conunission, I think we've pretty much
covered that, haven't we, Dee?
Vanderhoef/The only thing that I think we should reconsider is parkland acquisition (can't hear)
impact.
Lehman/OK, let's do the, but the next item is your library and we're---
Vanderhoef/And the library one absolutely, I mean, I prefer eliminating 17 FTEs and to have a
new hire this year, not--it just doesn't make sense. And if we have the money for a new
hire, I would choose to put back into this policeman.
Lehman/OK. Is there, let's do the library issue. The library obviously has just opened in their
new facility.
Vanderhoeff They aren't open yet. That's the whole point, and it's going to be another year or
more and I think---
Lehman/ But (can't hear) they are open in the new facility.
Vanderhoef/Yeah, but they are not servicing the old facilities so they don't have any expanded
space right now that they are---
Champion/But that's part of the problem, too, Dee, is they don't have the expanded space and
everything is more difficult there and nobody knows where anything is at because the
library is still there. Help is, and you're direct people, like the story room now is in the
basement, you have to direct the kids how to get down in the basement, the toddlers'
reading program is down in the basement. Nothing is where it's supposed to be, because
everything is temporary. And I think that if we promise them two new employees, then---
Lehman/Three.
Champion/Three.
Atkins/They've already hired, yeah, they've already hired one.
Champion/I mean, we've already cut their funding a hefty cut of them.
Vanderhoef/Not any more hefty than our fire and police.
Champion/Well, now the fire department we've had plenty of discussion about that and I'm not
going to talk about rehiring firemen if we're not going to build a new fire station. We're
not putting the City in jeopardy by getting rid of those firemen. We would not do that.
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And so, why would we, we're not going to open the fire station obvious--it's I just wish
somebody would give us credit for not getting rid of the firemen (can't hear). And I
don't, I heard that Winkelhake complained about the number of policemen, but may be
hit.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/Sure.
Lehman/Well, of course--the issue with the library, you know, I think is as much political as it is
anything. When 70 percent of the people who voted favored the library bond issue and
we, I don't think Dee's wrong on this, but I think that politically it is not even a
possibility that we--the cut to the library is in the neighborhood of $100,000.
Atkins/It is, Emie.
Lehman/That is a huge hit. And I think eliminating another full-time person at the library is just
not in the cards.
Pfab/Also, isn't, aren't the new labor contracts going to cause some additional labor costs for
temporary?
Atkins/We're working on that right now because of the changing definition of temporary, Irvin,
and I can't tell you exactly---
Pfab/OK. But it is a possibility?
Atkins/Oh, yeah. And library and Parks and Rec are--Parks and Rec far and away is our biggest
user of temporary employees, correct?
Vanderhoef/Oh.
Lehman/Is there interest in reducing the library by another full-time employee?
Champion/Not for me.
Wilburn/No.
Lehman/OK. Then the other issue that Dee has here is, and I think we probably have covered
some of it, is the Parkland Acquisition fund. Go ahead, Dee.
Vanderhoef/This is just a fund that was started with hotel-motel tax, the additions to that fund
have not been renewed over the years but there was a time that there was 2 percent of that
money was also being brought in by hotel-motel tax for development of parks. So, the
Commission over the years has been very, very judicious in using that money and during
the years that prior to the Neighborhood Open Space Plan being enacted, those dollars
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were being saved in hopes that that money would be available for the older established
neighborhoods when the new ordinance got put into place, and that's exactly what has
happened. And as we bought land this year out on Benton Street for that park, those
dollars were used and they were available. Everybody says if Council wants to, they can
always do a bond issue. Well, that doesn't leave the Commission in a position to make
recommendations or act quickly when they have an opportunity to buy a trail connection
someplace in the older part of the neighborhood or to develop alongside of a project in an
older part of the neighborhood. We're doing them by opportune, but sometimes it costs
them money, and this is exactly the quick fund that they can pull into and do their
projects.
Lehman/They still can't do that without Council approval though, can they?
Vanderhoef/I agree. But the Council ends up going out for bonding and that takes time also if
it's going to happen, and as we've looked at our capital improvements plan over the last
three years, we have been having to pare it down each year because we don't want to hit
our bonding limits, so I don't see bonding as necessarily the panacea that sometimes is
floated in conversation. I'll leave it at that.
Lehman/I talked to one of the Council people who was on the Council when that fund was
established, and that Council person indicated--that was prior to the Mandatory Parkland
Dedication Ordinance that was passed in '94, I believe.
Vanderhoef/'95.
Lehman/In my second year, I think--in any event, that person indicated to me that that was
passed so that there was a fund to help with parks and whatever.
Vanderhoef/That's right.
Lehman/And from this person's perspective, having a mandatory parkland dedication probably
reduced the importance of a fund such as this, and I have to agree. I don't see that, if we
have a project that's important enough that needs to be funded, my guess is Council will
find the money to do it, even if we have to borrow.
Vanderhoef/I don't think they will.
Champion/(Can't hear) a little bit of money.
Lehman/Pardon?
Champion/It might be nice to give them a little bit of money.
Karmer/Yeah, I would be agreeable to restoring some of it.
Champion/Because Dee made some valid points about small parcels of land.
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Lehman/Small parcels we can handle. What's our contingency in dollars?
Atkins/Oh, contingency fund? We budget usually 1 percent of the operating budgets. We're a
little less than that, about $300,000 every year.
Champion/Well, our operating budget would be a lot less.
Lehman/And our cash reserve position is what--14 percent, 15 percent?
Atkins/No, no, more like 24 percent.
Lehman/24 percent.
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/We're not in a situation where we have a problem picking up a project for a trail or
whatever.
Atkins/If you needed quick cash, well---
Lehman/ That we can borrow from?
Atkins/And we can also go to the landfill.
Lehman/Borrow from the landfill. I mean, I don't see this as being a fund---
Atkins/To me, a small purchase would be less than a hundred.
Lehman/Yeah, I don't see that being something we can't do.
Kanner/Why aren't we using some of these funds for Waterworks or for the future Miller?
Atkins/Why are we?
Kanner/Are we not?
Atkins/We bought Miller Orchard through parkland acquisition.
O'Donnell/We are.
Lehman/We did.
Kanner/No, but why don't we them for further, we pushed that off for a year or two.
Atkins/Oh, to develop the park, Steve?
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Kanner/To develop it, why don't we use it to develop that, why don't we use it to develop the
Waterworks?
Atkins/We chose not to.
VanderhoefJ The original money---
Lehman/It's for land only, isn't it?
Vanderhoef/No. The first, when it was first done, we had a 5 percent hotel-motel tax and that
was all for acquisition.
Atkins/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/A couple years later, the state legislature added a 2 percent onto the hotel-motel tax
and at that time that 2 percent, when we passed it in Iowa City, the 2 percent was for
development. So there isn't near the development now as there is the acquisition, but
we've also used a big chunk to buy land for Wetherby.
Karmer/I would go along with increasing it if we--we're not restrained in just using it for
purchases, then we can use it for development, that we want to consider that we can use
some of it, perhaps for development, that can be put into the mix.
Atkins/It's strictly a policy on your part.
Vanderhoef/Wasn't some of that development money used for Hunter's Run?
Atkins/Yeah, I think so. It seems to me.
Vanderhoef/I think it was, uh-huh.
Atkins/Yeah. It's not like we haven't done it.
Vanderhoef/I think when we have a band new park that isn't being used for maintenance of
existing parks or new, so I would expect us to be using some when we get ready to do
Benton Street. That park.
Pfab/I have only one concern, which I'm learning belatedly, and that is the seeding of the prairie
thing at whatever the prairie at the Waterworks because I was under the impression that
by seeding it down that wasn't going to cause much of a problem. But apparently it's
going to make it a lot more expensive to, the longer we wait getting that prairie started,
we are developing some expensive problems there.
Lehman/Like what?
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Pfab/Erosion. I mean, it's---
Lehman/No, no, we were assured by Chuck Schmadeke and Rick that there is no erosion. That's
seeded and there's not a problem.
Pfab/Well, I heard different.
Atkins/I think there's an internal dispute in Parks and Recreation---
Lehman/There is a huge internal---
(Laughter)
Pfab/I just did, OK, I was under the impression---
Atkins/Irvin heard one side; no, Irvin's right. There are---
Pfab/I'm not, I'm just saying if that is true, then I think and I'm not verifying the facts, but I'm
just saying, if that's true, then maybe we ought to take a look at moving forward on that.
That's all.
Lehman/In any case, the park acquisition fund, I can't imagine a project that if we believe in it
that we can't find the money to do it. And I don't have a problem with the
recommendation from Dee. How does the rest of the Council feel because it's 10 after
10:00 and I want to go home?
(Laughter)
Lehman/Please.
Vanderhoef/Well, not on this. When we're done with this---
Lehman/Oh, all right.
Vanderhoef/...I have something that I should have---
Pfab/Restate what you're saying.
Lehman/Mr. Atkins has in his proposal for the budget for the next two years---
Atkins/Three years.
Lehman/Actually the next 15 months to get our budget back in balance relative to cuts and
whatever and reductions in property tax has recommended using $100,000 from the
parkland acquisition fund and I don't remember exactly what years---
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Champion/Oh, we're leaving them $50,000---
Lehman/This is something we've already approved.
Kanner/No, no, almost all of it down to $50,000.
Atkins/Leave it at $50,000.
Kanner/It was almost all of it.
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/And it would leave it at $50,000. I don't have any problem with that.
Pfab/Oh, you mean, just put it into the general ftmd?
Atkins/$320,000 of parkland acquisition money would go to the general fund on the three-year
schedule of $100,000, $100,000, and $70,000, leaving $50,000 a year. Now, that's the
cash position. But we've also used parkland acquisition money for some other projects.
We borrowed internally and are repaying it. I would hope that that parkland acquisition
fund within about five or six years should be in the $200,000 range.
Pfab/I have no trouble with that.
Champion/OK.
Lehman/I have to problem with that.
Wilburn/Because we're at $50,000 a year, right?
Atkins/What's that?
Wilburn/Because you're still adding $50,000 a year.
Atkins/Because we're, we have to pay ourselves, unless you decide otherwise, we will continue
to pay ourselves back for the money we used on another project. OK.
Lehman/All right.
Kanner/OK, so what you're saying that we're adding $50,000 a year and it'll be back to
$200,000 in three additional years?
Atkins/Thereabouts, Steve, I mean, don't hold me to that, but it's like in the next six or seven
years we would be back at a $200,000 balance.
Kanner/But we're taking out how much for the master plan?
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Atkins/We haven't. Zero.
Kanner/Isn't that the plan? We're going to take plenty of stuff from parkland and---
Atkins/And we had to kibosh that when we went through this. That got set aside.
Karmer/Wait, I thought we kept that in there, didn't we?
O'Malley/No we had to get rid of it.
Atkins/That means, it's coming back because the Commission wants to bring it back to you. It
just seemed hard to finance a $40,000 study when we have to lay people off.
Wilburn/So, if we change this recommendation, I'm presuming that this is a bulk enough that
we would have to make a substitution.
Atkins/Yes, you would.
Wilburn/OK.
Pfab/Deer?
(Laughter)
Lehman/Are we OK with this?
Vanderhoef/Fine.
Lehman/All right. Dee, you had a comment and then we're leaving.
Vanderhoef/Yes. I just want to be sure that Council sends a remembrance for the Susan
Horowitz---
Wilbmn/Horowitz.
Atkins/Yes.
Champion/Well, I'm sure.
Atkins/I can tell you---
Vanderhoef/But I would like one from Council.
Atkins/I spoke with the folks at the funeral home. It will be several days before we have an idea,
because it has to go through the--you know, (can't hear) is a foreign country, and her
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daughter Katharine is apparently still in Minneapolis. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't expect Joe
and Susan to be back before the end of the week.
Lehman/And probably next week.
Atkins/And I would suspect then the service is going to be next week.
Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm.
Atkins/And I'm not sure where, folks. You remember Susan's from Pennsylvania.
Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm.
Lehman/Yeah.
Atkins/So I don't know, I mean, we make the assumption that the service---
Vanderhoef/It may be a memorial service here in town.
Atkins/It may be, huh? Yeah, but I understand your point. OK.
Vanderhoeff Thank you.
Atkins/Thank you very much, folks.
Wilbum/Thank you.
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