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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-09-22 TranscriptionSeptember 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 1 September 22, 2003 Council: Staff: Special Council Work Session 5:35 PM Joint Meeting with Airport Commission Champion, Kanner, Lehman, O'Dormell, Pfab, Vanderhoef, Wilburn Atkins, Dilkes, Dulek, Franklin, Helling, Karr, Matthews, O'Neil Airport Commission: Randy Hartwig, Rick Mascari, Michelle Robnett, Baron Thrower TAPES: 03-69, BOTH SIDES; 03-70, SDE ONE JOINT MEETING WITH AIRPORT COMMISSION Lehman/It's 25 minutes to 6:00. Let's get started. I think--we're here, obviously, for a joint meeting with the Airport Commission. Some time ago, the Airport Commission asked the Council if we would approve a--- O'Donnell/Emie, Connie would--- Lehman/Oh, yes, we have just not done what I just promised Marian I would do. We're going to do introductions. I'm Emie Lehman and this is--- ChampionJ Connie Champion. O'Donnell/I'm Mike O'Donnell. Wilburn/I'm Ross Wilburn. Vanderhoef/Dee Vanderhoef. Thrower/Baron Thrower. Pfab/Irvin Pfab. Mascari/Rick Mascari. Robnett/Michelle Robnett. Kanner/Steven Kanner with Council. Hartwig/Randy Hartwig. Lehman/OK. Now back to--anyway, we authorized or approved this study as was recommended by the Commission. True, I guess we didn't get quite as quick as we'd liked to have gotten it. Or you didn't get it quite as quick as you'd like to have gotten it, but we now This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 2 have it. So, I guess what I would like to do is to have the Commission react to the study that you have and explain to us where we are and where we think we're going. So, Baron, you're the baron. Thrower/OK. Good evening. As acting chairman for the Iowa City Airport Commission, my initial read on the activity of date has been fairly positive. Clearly, we had hoped as the Commission did and the Council did that this document that the work that we actually commissioned to get done would happen in a more timely basis. There were a host of situations that prohibited that from happening, and we obviously were not excited about that. But, clearly, the work that has been done to date does offer us a unique opportunity, if you will, to take what I would describe as a more contemplative approach. In regards to what our roles and responsibilities as a joint commission as well as that stewardship role that we have and share with the Airport Manager to kind of lay out, if you will, a business plan for the next fiscal year that we seek to put in place that will allow us to do some interesting things out at the Airport. So the net of the document from our perspective seems to be fairly positive though we do have some concerns, some reservations about key aspects of it. And as we go through the presentation and hear a little bit more from the consultant themselves, I think we'll have an opportunity through a question and answering process by which we can kind of delve a little deeper, if you will, into the specifics of the activity. My final observation on it would be one of a good, what I would describe as a promising activity. I think that there's some things in here that are actionable, and I think if you were to think, reflect back on our past meeting where we sat down and described what we sought to get out of the document and what we thought the benefit to Iowa City and our constituents would be, I think we did achieve that. And I think that's very encouraging. In regards to whether or not after we act on it will we ultimately be successful, time will tell. At the end of the day, the proof's going to be in the pudding and we as a joint commission are going to work very hard on behalf of the City, on behalf of the Council to get this thing done the right way. Lehman/OK. Are we going to, is someone going to make a presentation? Thrower/Is he here? Wilbum/Yeah. Lehman/OK. Ron? O'Neil/My name is Ron O'Neil. I'm the Airport manager. Karr/You can step back. O'Neil/My role is very limited. I'm going to introduce Bobbi Thompson. She was one of the three principals that was previously here in town and worked on the report. And she's going to go through a summary presentation for you and then we'll be open for questions. So, Bobbi, go for it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 3 Thompson/And thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I'm standing in place. I'm the executive vice president of Airport Business Solution. Michael Hodges, who is the president, had hoped to be here, but he's doing some expert witness work up in Louisville that was supposed to be finished on Friday, but now it looks like it'll carry through Wednesday. Those of you that are lawyers know that sometimes the best-laid plans and all that. But I am very happy to be here and to have a chance to show you some of our thoughts and share with you some of our thinking as we developed the draft plan. And let me emphasize the word "draft," because it is in a draft form and we always like to do that first and then work with the parties involved so that we can hammer out the kind of questions that I hope to receive this evening, and we can move forward to the final document that not only achieves the kind of goals that all of us had hoped to do in the beginning but perhaps even exceed some of those and gives you some distinct opportunity to fix what you felt were some of the issues of concern in the past. The PowerPoint presentation that I'm going to be doing kind of just skims over some highlights. It's not a very lengthy PowerPoint presentation. It is meant to be very interactive with you, and I hope that that's the case. Feel free to jump in with any questions at any time, and then after we go through some of that, we can certainly address any questions from the entire report itself. We felt that there were three distinct objectives within this report. Certainly and primarily for us was to improve the image of the Airport both locally and nationally. And perhaps locally was the strongest one of those two. The reason being for that is we really felt you had an under-appreciated airport based on the research and analysis that we did, that it was not clearly understood what a distinct asset that this airport is for you community. And we had hoped to try to present that in the draft report so that we could start the dialogue going forward to show that this airport is ofbeneftt to this community in many, many ways. We also heard from the onset of this project that there was great concern since the City was in a deficit budget situation, the subsidy that they were providing to the Airport and what could be done to remedy that $180,000 subsidy. Also, of course, one way to reduce the subsidy is to increase revenues. So we proposed various set of s raised and over time to help try and reduce that deficit and hopefully eliminate the general fund subsidies going forward. Again, we certainly noticed that there was a poor community perception and we really feel that that was undeserved. We do not think that the conununity fully understands that this is a transportation vehicle for your community. It's important for people to be able to come to your community and some of those people prefer to come by air. Just because there's not air carrier service at your airport does not mean that a lot of businesses, a lot individuals, small businesses cannot access your community through this airport. We certainly found in our discussions that the Airport was very valuable to your University, both directly and also through certainly the transplant that they do here and how those organs are managed. The reactive versus proactive management--I think there's been a misunderstanding, that this report tended to attack your manager. That was not our intent. When we say it was reactive versus proactive management, what we felt was we didn't see anything going forward where this Airport really had a plan on what they wanted to do and when they wanted to do it other than some capital projects. So everything that was done by management was--OK, this happened so now we have to do that. And we really feel that you have to have to have This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 4 plans. A business plan certainly is a great first step, but you do need plans going forward to try to prevent some of these things. The policies that we provided you as sort of a bonus package in this, a leasing policy, the rates and charge policy, we feel are proactive documents that will help you as you plan going forward. We definitely got a sense of poor communication. The poor communication was between the City and this asset. We really felt that there was not a defined vehicle for communication. It's OK to come downtown and talk or for downtown to go to the Airport and talk, but we felt there needed to be a distinct vehicle to make sure that that communication happens on a regular defined method. And the organizational structure--it's just sort of there. There wasn't any defined organizational structure on who was responsible for what. So we felt that that could stand improvement. We also felt--yes, sir? Kanner/In regards to your first point, poor community pemeption, I'm not following you on where you get that from. My perception is the community basically doesn't know about it, doesn't care, they don't use, and what comes out is mostly positive from the boosters. There's certain people that are boosters that use it, a small minority. Did you take a survey of any type? Did you talk to people that were--did you go into the community at-large to talk to people and see, ask them what is your pemeption? Did you go downtown? Did you go out to the UI? Did you go to other people that teach at the schools? I don't see where that comes from. Thompson/Most of that analysis on our part came from researching back-print media, going through the print media of your two newspapers and judging what they had reported and this concept of perhaps even the Airport should be closed, you know, without really understanding what that implies. And certainly talking to some of the tenants at the Airport as well as talking to some of the staff. But, no, we did not survey the on-the- street citizens, so to speak. We also, and you'll find it, a chapter about this within the report itself about the direct and indirect impacts as well as the induced impacts and the non-economic benefits, and I'll go into those a little further because I really feel that they sort of get to the heart of what an asset this Airport is. The direct impacts deal with the direct cash that comes from the Airport, both from the people that work there, their jobs, the taxes they pay, and how they purchase and live in your local community. Capital improvements have to do with structures that are built out there and how they enhance and become an asset then of the City. The taxes paid on the fuel, we call it a tax, it's actually a fuel flowage fee is the proper terminology, but it is a tax based on the fuel flowage. And since most of your traffic at the Airport happens to come from other communities--it's not from the local community--in fact, 68 percent of the traffic at the Airport is non-Iowa City residents. And we felt that it was important to know that those people as they come here are contributing to the overall economy of the Airport, in a direct manner. Also, the things that are purchased at the Airport and the taxes that are involved with those purchases. The indirect benefits, and by the way, these three areas that we're talking about are what the industry, the aviation industry looks at, and the FAA has designed programs for this so the communities can understand the economic impact that airports have on their community. We felt that it's important that we address this and try to clarify for everyone. But we also think that there's some things that aren't economic that are important. With the indirect benefits, it's the dollars not This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 5 directly tied to the Airport but influenced by the Airport's presence. We've listed three here, but there's certainly a lot more small businesses, and your community may benefit from this Airport by having customers and/or vendors come to visit with them. We think the University, as I indicated before, certainly has a major, major benefit from this Airport from being there, everything from an alumni visit, of course, to what I consider to be a great asset, which is the transplants. The induced impact is sort of the ripple effect, if you will. So, a small business here benefits by someone coming to visit them. They do business with them, then they further do business in the community, so that kind of ripples out as you would see if a stone's thrown in the pond, that ripple effect out. And you see those revenues go across your community as more dollars are spent within your community. That one's a little harder to get your arms around. But I think you can certainly understand the concept. Then we get to the non-economic benefits. Some, I think, that the corporate gateway is an economic benefit, but here we're talking jobs, quality of life, those type of issues, the air ambulance service. I mean, obviously that's a wonderful benefit for your community to have. The fact that you can get small cargo delivered here. You can get products delivered here. The agriculture spraying that can happen. The flight instruction. While you may consider that partially an economic benefit, you know, that helps with education. We felt that some effort could be done in the future with the University to perhaps even develop an aviation program there and to really build on that and to work with your local (can't hear----sixth) base operator in enhancing that. The charter services. Allowing people to come here from other areas and allowing people from here to get elsewhere without having to deal with air carriers or without having to drive to Cedar Rapids or another, Davenport or somewhere else, to pick up an air cartier, they can have a charter directly into here or out of here. An emergency access is very important for all kinds of reasons that we all know. The recommendations that came out of this study, and here's another thing that I want to clarify, when we talked about the FBO taking over the role of day-to-day management and maintenance of the Airport, as I indicated earlier, we certainly saw that there seemed to be this concern as every City Council and Airport Commission should have-- they have a fiduciary responsibility and they should not take that role lightly. And we heard a lot about this $180,000 subsidy. Now, unfortunately, your Airport manager-- he's been with the City for a very, very long time, and as such, he has advanced in his pay scale and, good for him, as he should have. But when you have an Airport with the type of activity that you have here and the that you have here, that can only support so much money. And we have to--we felt we had to make a presentation on that--and there--all of you that are in business certainly understand the fact that businesses can only support so much. You have people that work for you. You understand that you have a certain amount of money that you can dedicate to payroll and overhead, and you can't exceed that. In this instance, we felt that the ceiling had been bumped and that sort of glass ceiling had been broken. So that was our major concern there. We wanted to get that cost down. We thought you could have an immediate help with that $180,000, and then that would begin to implement this sort of new organizational structure that could be considered. We believe that the Airport Commission has served a very important role there for a long time. We think that they can continue to do so, although we also thought that going back to the communications issue that perhaps the City Manager since he seemed to have concerns about that could participate at your This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 6 meetings or send a representative to your meetings so that he had a sort of direct communication link to what was being discussed to kind of--you know, how things happen, when people don't know things they tend to build them to something else in their mind, so a direct communication link, we believed was important. We also felt that the Airport had not really been marketed in an aggressive manner. And we think that that can happen: We think there are some distinct niches that this Airport can seek out and accomplish and we felt that that needed to begin. Lehman/Excuse me a second. Thompson/Yes, sir. Lehman/How many--is it common for FBO to manage the airports? Thompson/I don't know that you can say it's common, but certainly, it is widespread. And it's usually at an airport where there is lower activity or lower revenues because the airport sponsor, the owner of the airport, cannot afford to staff it. So that it's certainly common in that respect. It's done widely across the country. There has to be a good contract in place, as with anyone that does work for you on a very clear-cut contract with default mechanisms and, you know, you want to be able to still have that hammered to make sure that whoever is managing your airport is doing it as you want it to be done. But it's not at all unusual for that to happen. Again, you see this in smaller airports. Of course, in recent years, I'd say the last decade, in talking recent years, there has been a proliferation of airport privatization and contract management, which is even a step further. We do not recommend either of those for this airport. Privatization is where you long-term lease or sell the airport to a private entity, and they're responsible for all the finances at the airport at that time. We don't think that fits here because we think that this airport is too intertwined with the community and it's too good of a support to the community for it to go into private ownership or management. As far as contract management, we find that under contract management on an airport that is currently not staining that then the private manager would require a fee, and if they're not also the FBO, that fee usually costs you more than it's costing you to operate today, as that certainly would be the case here in Iowa City. Wilburn/Is this an arrangement that's similar, that Jet Air has in their home base in Galesburg, Illinois? Thompson/They had that at one time down there. Ron has informed me that that's no longer the case them, but I'd have to research that. I don't know. Wilbum/I was going to ask, do you, did you or does your final report have any evaluation of them as a manager of a--- Thompson/If we get direction from Commission to explore that, we will certainly do that before the final's written. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 7 Vanderhoef/Tell me, if the FBO is designated as the day-to-day manager, what kind of policies are put in place to be sure that the direction of the, number one, the Commission, and ultimately the Council have--oversee that. I mean, you can't put all of that in someone's contract to do--to manage the Airport. Thompson/Well, certainly in going back to the leasing policy and the rates and charges policy, Commission would still develop policy. They would just be the day-to-day people that would manage the policy on behalf of the Commission. The FBO would not create policy. Vanderhoeff And it was my feeling as I read your report that you were thinking perhaps we didn't have strong enough policy in place, that this could happen at this point in time? Thompson/Correct. We did not feel even under your current management structure you had strong enough policy at this point. Mascari/Do you have any idea of what kind of fees would be justified to have the FBO act as the manager, what it would cost? Thompson/Well, I think that that would take some negotiations with the FBO. Currently, the FBO, we've got some financial information from them--currently the FBO is operating in the red at the Airport. The number is going the right way, but they're still operating in the red, and the report that they sent us, we also understand that as time goes on, their lease payment does increase. So they need to understand that. But we also understand in conversations with them that they fully accepted that going into it, they knew that it was going to take some time to rebuild the traffic and rebuild the revenues at the Airport, and re-instill confidence in the fixed base operation. So I think that what you could look at is, realistically, is at least half of what's currently paid for staffing, in that general ballpark. I mean, it's a very much of a generalization but that could certainly be explored. And they would provide all of the services that are currently provided today. There would have to be an arrangement made regarding mowing and snowplowing equipment and training and all of those things. I mean, it's a transition certainly. It doesn't happen overnight. And both parties have to be in full agreement of what's expected of each party. Vanderhoeff And if it were taken over, and you're talking about decrease in cost for staffing, I guess my question is whether the FBO, how much new staffing, if any, that they would have to put in place? Thompson/I would say that most likely the FBO would not need additional staffing, that the staffing that they currently have in place would be adequate with maybe the possible exception of an additional person in the sununer for mowing purposes, same as what happens today. To keep up with the mowing. Vanderhoef/Just a temporary, seasonable temporary. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 8 Thompson/Seasonal temporary, absolutely correct, to keep up with the mowing because there is a lot of grass out there. But we think that what they have in place would certainly address that need without additional staffing, so there's not additional expense to them. There's certainly additional duties, but in essence, what you'd be doing is offsetting some of their overhead. Vanderhoef/So, it could be a win-win. Thompson/Very possibly. Kanner/I was interested in what you said about privatization. Do you have examples that maybe you can bring back of communities that do have privatization of the airport, of general aviation airports? It seems that it might make sense. You, on the one hand, you said that is has a poor image in the community; but on the other hand, you said it's intertwined with the community. So, actually, if it is a poor image, it might be the time for a privatization and it might work out. It might be something that would work out, and I'd like to see some examples, perhaps, of where it did work out in other communities. Thompson/Let me answer that in two ways. Let me first go back to the intertwine and the poor image thing. Sometimes even though communities don't have an overwhelming fondness for their airports, they still don't want anybody else to have them. So we don't want to take what's a tenuous relationship and fracture it completely; we would rather see that that become improved in this instance. We feel that this--the quality of life and everything in this community is more close-knit and we feel that in being so that they still think that this is their airport and wouldn't like to see it otherwise. That's our opinion. On privatization--privatization became very dominant overseas before it really got dominant--or it's not even dominant--before it came to the U.S., and the reason for that had to do with the way airports are funded outside of the United States and the way airports are funded here. Outside of the United States, you did not have the benefit of the airport improvement program and for all the capital and grant money that's available to airports within the United States. As a result, private capital became very attractive for those airports. A lot of it, you know, and make no mistake, private enterprise is there to make money. So, several years ago, the FAA developed what they called a pilot program for privatization. In that program, they were going to allow five airports to enter into that program after reviewing the proposals and accepting them. And in that program, those companies could actually divert revenue, which some of you may know and others may not, that you're not allowed to take revenue from, that's made on the airport and put into, like the City's general fund. It has to stay on the airport because you have received federal public funds for your airport. So, what the FAA decided to do is to, OK, we're going to put a waiver on that if private capital wants to come to an airport and invest serious money and develop that airport where the community that owns it cannot, given their fiscal constraints. To date, only one airport has been accepted in that program although several have applied. And that was Stewart Airport in New York, but in that instance the private operator put up about $32 million upfront. I mean, it's quite an ante, a busier airport than what you have here, certainly. But a lot of people would question whether it was a $32 million ante was really a wise This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 9 fiscal decision. There are other airs--one airport pending in that program right now that has gone through the federal register process, but the FAA has not made a final determination on. The final public hearings on that were last May and it's still pending with the FAA. There's some that have been turned down, some that pulled out-- Brownfield in San Diego had been part of that program, but after three years of trying to negotiate with a private operator, the City had a window of opportunity to cancel those negotiations and pull out of the program, which they did about two or three years ago. There are, however, a number of airports in the United States that are contract managed. This is where a private enterprise comes in, that is not the FBO, they come in specifically to manage and develop the airport. There's some grand success stories, and there's some horror stories. Currently, there's probably more horror than grand successes. Probably one of the best success stories is Tidabur Airport in New Jersey, which most people do not even realize is a privately managed airport. It has five full- service fixed base. And I'm not sure--I use that term all the time, let me kind of define what a fixed base operation is for those that aren't familiar with it. A fixed base operator, as defined by the FAA, is a service provider on an airport with the primary responsibility of providing fuel and usually at least two other services, such as aircraft maintenance or flight training or charter. Or it can be a full range of services to include everything you can think of to support general aviation on an airport. Now, the contract manager, as I've said, is not typically the FBO operator, does not generally provide the fuel services. Although in some instances, like the County of Los Angeles, they do in fact have the fueling services. Los Angeles County is probably a very bad example. As the contract manager got entrenched there, what they found out was that they probably bid too high and in order to make their monthly financial commitment, they've had to cut a lot of things because they didn't get the development that they thought they would on some available land. So since that didn't come to fruition, they haven't had the cash flow that they'd hoped for, so they severely cut staff, they've severely cut training, and those are the kind of things that you don't particularly like to see because then service certainly tends to wane. There's also a company out there called Adports???? that has about five airports under contract management. Republic Airport is under contract management. I'm trying to think of some off the top of my head. There's probably about 30 airports across the country that are contract managed. And again, some have been very successful; others don't do so well. Piedmont Hawthorne is another company that manages airports and they're also an FBO at some airports. They happen to serve in both roles at North County Airport in Palm Beach. Now, with contract management or with an arrangement with an FBO to serve as both the FBO and manager of your facility, we don't recommend long-term leases, and we do not recommend that those agreements run concurrently. We think that typically a five-year term is more than adequate for the management of the facility because it gives you better controls. And while in the future, you may not want them to manage your airport, you may still want them to be your FBO, and you have already negotiated an agreement with them as an FBO. So you don't necessarily want those two documents to be the same agreement; it is better if they are segregated. Does that help? Does that answer? Kanner/A little bit. One other question I had in regard to the figure that you're using, in here it says we don't have a way to count the amount of operations, but then in your figures This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 10 you say there are two years where there are quote-unquote "actual counts." I didn't quite follow that. Thompson/Yeah, well, the state actually comes in. The state rotates around or the state DOT rotates around Iowa and does fiscal counts as they can, based on staff and when their availability to do it is. So those were the actual counts. Kanner/So they come in for a few hours maybe a couple of days, and then they project that figure for the whole year? Thompson/And I would have to go to Ron on how they did the count here; that varies in different states. Some actually put counters out there, you know, like you'd see on a road almost and do counters. Some have cameras that they use, and usually, they'll do it for peak periods of time and slow times and then interpolate. Kanner/So the actual counts for the two years are much lower than the estimated counts for the other year? Thompson/That's correct. Karmer/Does that--we have been going on that other estimated count for a number of years and so it seems like it's significantly lower, 20 percent or more lower for the actual counts of what we're getting there. Thompson/And counts are an important statistic, but you shouldn't base all your decisions on counts because sometimes counts are simply local flight training, and if the weather's bad, local flight training is not going to happen and local flight training can fluctuate. I'll give you a good example. That Van Nuys airport in California, which is touted as being the world's busiest general aviation airport, always has over 500,000 operations. Probably 300,000 of those are flight training, which certainly helps when they go for funding for the airport, but it does not necessarily mean it generates a lot of revenue on the airport. Kanner/What do you mean flight training? Someone who takes off from an airport for a lesson and comes back? Thompson/Or doing what they call "touch~and-goes," or in England, they call "bumps-and- circuits," where they land and immediately take off and just come around again and just keep practicing landings. Kanner/So if they do five of those, that's counted as five operations? Thompson/Yeah--an operation--actually, it'd be 10. An operation is defined by the FAA as "a landing or a takeoff." So each time they would do a touch-and-go would be two. Karmer/So the amount of people that are using the airport is perhaps even lower than--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 11 Thompson/Well, that's why--- Kanner/...much more than the operation. Thompson/Well, that's why I mentioned earlier that I think a very important figure that we found was the fact that most of your traffic at the airport is not locally based traffic, your local flight training. It's people coming from other areas and using this as an access to your community. And I think that's a very important number that we don't want to lose sight of. Kanner/Thank you. Mascari/Can I just go back to that one question I asked about how much would it cost for the FBO to do that? You had said it would be about 50 percent of the total--- Thompson/That was a very rough estimate. Mascari/...administration. That's a total administration fee or just one person's administrative salary? Thompson/No, there'll be--I'm thinking in total. Mascari/The total administration fee. Thompson/Right. And the reason I'm thinking in total is, as I mentioned before, as we had the question over here, it really doesn't mean that they have to add people. It just means that they'll be able to better utilize the people that are there with perhaps the exception of some summertime mowing. Mascari/Like retirement and all those other factors--you take all those into consideration? Thompson/Right. I mean, the City here as they should takes care of their people reasonably well. Mascari/Sure. Thompson/And rightfully or wrongfully, Ron has done OK, as he should. He's spent a lot of time here, and as I talked about earlier, he's kind of hit that glass ceiling and exceeded it, whereby the FBO has people at lower rates with much less of a benefit package than the City would typically have for any of its employees. So therefore, there's some economy to be realized through that operation. Mascari/And of course you take into consideration two employees--is that correct? Thompson/Well, what they would do is they would take over the defined management duties, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 12 and they could use six employees or 18 employees, whatever they want to use; they just have a defined duty that they must perform and things that they must accomplish by contract. However many people they use, it will be up to them. Mascari/All right--now to clarify my question--is you took into consideration two City employees there. Is that correct? Thompson/As far as being no longer on the payroll? Mascari/Yes. Thompson/Yes. Mascari/Fifty percent of that figure? Thompson/Correct. Mascari/Thank you. Kanner/What does the 50 percent figure work out to be? Mascari/I don't have that. Thompson/Wait a minute. I--- Champion/ It's $111,000 right now. Kanner/Half of $100,0007 Champion/Half of $111,000. Kanner/That's what the two employees make with benefits? Champion/I think so. Thompson/And in going forward, I've got some numbers here. It's in the financial analysis section. It's generally a 4.5 percent increase here? Champion/It's on page 4. Karmer/Page 4 from the beginning? Champion/No, on the Airport Business Plan. I mean on that special analysis section. Thompson/Yeah, we think that we've taken some out and then added back in and what we said and direct add back in because we considered also, not in the direct payment to the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 13 FBO, also some equipment, maintenance and cost, because in a situation like this, you have some good equipment in place; you'd want to utilize that equipment and there are some costs still associated with that. But for direct compensation to the FBO, we think that would be less than about $20,000 for the initial five-year term. I think--if you look in the financial section, page 7, in that efficiency analysis chart. Which then we're talking, as you look at all of the s here, we talked the subsidy, if it would escalate over time. We even, you know, we decided not to stay at the $180,000 it is today but over a five-year period it would take it up in 2008 to $208,000, and with the salaries and benefit package being about in 2008, being in general, about $146,000. Mascari/Just so I understand that--I don't mean to harp on the same thing. Thompson/Oh, it's an important issue. Mascari/According to your chart here, it says here that add back compensation for FBO is $12,000. Is that the number that you're expecting the FBO to do all this for? Thompson/Right. Mascari/I see. Thompson/Because he's, to use the trite term, multi-tasking, you know, initially, at first, to get some people moving it would just be perhaps a 12, and it could be a credit; it doesn't have to be direct pay. It could be a credit towards this lease, however it happens to be worked out. That, of course, would escalate. But when I talked the higher number, I was talking the fact that there's still equipment out there that needs to be equipment reserves, so we have to be thinking what those costs are as well. Karmer/And so these other things that you're suggesting, marketing and other things, those would be done by the Commission and not by the--let's assume the FBO takes over the management--who will do those things? Thompson/I very much think that that's a joint effort. On a day-to-day basis, I think the FBO does it. But I think that they go to the Commission for approval on special events and things and the Commission has to agree to what it is they're doing. They just don't have carte blanche to do whatever they think. They must secure permission from the Commission and they can also work with the Commission. I think the Connnission is obviously very linked to the balance of the community and I think it's important that they work with the Cormmission on a daily basis and interact always to make sure that the Commission not only approves of what they do but to kind of toss ideas around and talk about how this Airport can be marketed forward. Especially as it deals with the land on the Airport. I think that's a direct Commission responsibility; that's not an FBO manager's responsibility. I think that land as a development opportunity as well as the securing grants, doing capital improvements, all that still is retained by the Commission. We're talking day-to-day management. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 14 Lehman/Excuse me. No, go ahead. Robnett/I was going to say the Commission currently doesn't do grants and we're an unpaid Commission as well, so that has been under the purview of the Airport Manager. Did you see some change--- Thompson/Well, when I said the Commission does grants, I meant that sort of in conjunction with the City. Obviously, the City's the signer on those grants. And perhaps if this is the way it goes, I would hope that the City would take advantage of Ron's knowledge and have a nice job for him downtown and he can continue with that effort from that position. Lehman/I'm sure that you're aware that this, in Iowa, this airport is autonomous. It is rrm by a Commission. Thompson/Yes, sir. Lehman/The City Council has no authority to decide what this Commission is going to do or not going to do. Much of the things we've been talking about for the last 20 minutes are issues that bear directly with that Commission. My personal take, and I don't know how the rest of the Council feels, we've seen your report and I think you've got some really good points, which I'd like to hear the rest of them too. But from my perception we need to see what the Commission does with the information that you've given them. Because the information that you're giving us--we can't do anything with it. I mean, this is their decision, and I would hope that they've read their report and will come back to us because I think the whole idea of your study of this was to kind of set the bar by which we could measure the performance of the airport. I mean, we weren't particularly enamored with it; the Commission wasn't particularly enamored. We want to see it do better. And we're here to hear obviously your conclusions, but the nuts and bolts and the everyday operation--I mean, these are decisions that this Commission needs to make as a recommendation back to Council as a result of your study. So I would really like you to continue your presentation of the things that I think are really relative to Council as well, because those are things over which we really don't have any control. Thompson/Although I will say that I was very happy to hear about this meeting because I do think there had been some miscommunication and it's nice for everyone to be in the same room. Lehman/We agree. Thompson/So we can discuss this and get some things on the table before we go to final. Pfab/I have a question. You're saying that your recommendation appears to be leaning toward having the FBO manage the Airport. At that time, do you see a lot more interaction or a lot more--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 15 O'Donnell/Assertiveness. Pfab/...assertiveness--- Lehman/Irvin, you're not speaking in the mic. Pfab/You're seeing a lot more assertiveness and work on the Commission actually involved? Thompson/I'm not sure I understand the question. Pfab/In other words, as now, would that change without the resident manager, whatever the term is, if that position was taken out and was turned over to the FBO, do you see the interaction and the work of the Commission increased? Thompson/I think that that would totally depend on and how the contract is structured. It could remain the same. If the contract is structured and everyone clearly understands the line of responsibilities that they have, I mean, it really, I would hope if it will go the way that I would hope it would, that that role would be very similar. So, in other words, now you have a business entity that takes the place of the day-to-day management and the Commission still has the oversight and sets policy, which would be very much the same as it is today. Pfab/But you definitely would see a tug in--I don't like to use the word a conflict of interest, because I don't think it's a conflict--but what there is more entities involved in a sense of people looking out for their own interest. Thompson/Well, I think the interest here happens to be the same in the success, the financial success of the Airport. I think everyone that would be associated with it would have that same goal. Now, they may have differing ideas of how to achieve that goal, but I think the goal remains the same. But the Commission is still in control. Absolutely. Robnett/I wanted to bring up one point. From chapter 6, page 4, they have the actual Airport employee wages and benefits for 2002 actual to projected 2006, and then if you look at page 7, I look at the two pages, because she said it would take approx--you know, like roughly from about 50 percent of that actual Airport salary and benny, and so I just roughly ball parked that and said, OK, it's $50,000 to $60,000, not $12,000 on page 7. The figures that I came up with are substantially higher. Up to 2008, I got, from these projections on page 4, I got almost $68,000. Thompson/Yeah, again, the difference there is one is direct compensation to the FBO and the other is to make sure that you have enough reserve for equipment and supplies. Robnett/OK, so part of that 50 percent would be reserved for--we already have that figured into our current budget, so that wouldn't need then to be added to--- Thompson/Well, it's not an addition; that's correct. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 16 Robnett/OK. So that's where you say the difference is? Thompson/Correct. Robnett/Gotcha. Thompson/Well, let's see, where was I? (Laughter) Champion/I have a question. Lehman/Well, before we started managing the Airport for you, you were starting here. (Laughter) Champion/I have one more question in relation to the FBO, is that what it's called? Lehman/Right. Champion/There was also some indication of more involvement by the City Manager if we went to this, if we changed--did you mean with the Commission or with the FBO? Thompson/With the Commission. Champion/OK. Thompson/Yeah, we feel that that's the more appropriate place, because the Commission should be the direct contact with the FBO. But we felt that because the City is involved and they still own the Airport that there may be--some of the problems that have been in the past, if there was more direct involvement, there would be more direct understanding and realization of what is, in fact, taking place there and not what people think is taking place. Airports are wonderful breeding grounds for rumors; they truly are. Lehman/Barbershops. (Laughter) Thompson/And that's tree across the country. I've worked on about, I don't know 1300 and some airports and every one of them is a wonderful fertile ground for rumors, and Iowa City's no exception to that. So, we thought that I'd say either the City Manager or his direct representative to attend Commission meetings and we would think also that the FBO would be required as part of their contractual arrangement to provide a detailed report, both financially and activity and operationally to the Commission at each of their meetings. A written report as well as verbal presentation. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 17 O'Donnell/As long as this an autonomous group I'm trying to determine what value is it having anybody else attend the Airport Commission. Thompson/Only for direct knowledge of what's taking place. Not in a voting capacity. O'Donnell/And we get that from the Airport Commission (can't hear) Thompson/Well, there seemed to be a gap somehow, as we went through our analysis. There seemed to be a gap between the information that was heard at a Commission meeting and then when the City Manager, if he had access to or how it was reported to him. There seemed to be a breakdown of commtmications there that we thought that perhaps this would fix. In a nonvoting capacity because, like you say, the Commission is an autonomous organization. Champion/The other point though that I'd like to make about that, Mike, is we do appoint the Commission members and we do give direction and we do have the right to close the Airport. So I think we have a little more power over--- O'Donnell/We don't. Because that's a referendum process. Lehman/Well, it's not--closing it isn't. O'Donnell/I mean, you can close it. Lehman/Yeah. Champion/I mean, so I think they may have a lot of control over the Airport, but we do have actual control because we do appoint Commission members. Atkins/Ernie, Ijust--I want to point out--Mike is not completely wrong on the referendum. If we were to close the Airport to raise the kind of capital that would be involved, I'm sure would require a referendum. O'Donnell/I say close the Airport--you're looking at so much money, Ernie. Lehman/I'm not looking at closing the Airport. Champion/I'm not looking at closing the Airport either. Thompson/Now, I think everyone that's involves understands that when you, first of all, you'd have to look at your deed of restrictions--- TAPE 03-69, SiDE TWO Thompson/...You borrowed money from the federal government. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 18 Lehman/We aren't seriously thinking of closing the Airport. Thompson/No. Lehman/Let's move along. Thompson/OK. Pfab/OK, I have a question. Where communities that are not such rumor mills, I guess, that's--- Lehman/There's no such thing as one that isn't a rumor mill. Pfab/OK, to a less than that degree, do any of those ever televise their Commission meetings? Thompson/Yes, sir. Pfab/And what--do you see any effect one way or the other when that's done? Thompson/I think that's personal choice. Pfab/OK, but, I mean, you can't say one way or the other that, how a community reacts to it. Thompson/No, I think it's like most public meetings; on some days it's very positive and some days it's not so good. Pfab/OK. Thompson/But it's certainly done in many locations. Kanner/And just to correct what you're saying--in your report you said the City Manager should be a full voting member. Thompson/No. Lehman/That's what it says. Thompson/Oh, then that's an error. That's suppose to be a nonvoting member. Kanner/Well, I think, actually, a voting member wouldn't be such a bad thing, but one thing I do want to question is saying that there's not communication with the City Manager, I don't quite understand that, and we have the Airport Manager attending the weekly managers, department managers' conferences, and I assume at that point there's communication back and forth about what's going on. Thompson/It was our understanding in the interviews and discussions that we had that there was This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 19 a definite communications breakdown somewhere along the line, and I always like to see these things because there's important issues discussed at these Commission meetings; I don't like to see that done verbally. I like to see that in nice minutes and written report. Lehman/You are not wrong. There's definitely been, over the years, a history of communication hasn't been as good as we like to see it. So--Irvin--let's let her go on. Pfab/No. One more thing. What about rather minutes and maybe transcriptions of Conunission meetings? Lehman/We've got the minutes. Pfab/No, I'm saying that versus--does that help any? Thompson/Oh, I think it does, but I think that direct interaction is even better. Lehman/We have six minutes until the formal meeting--we have a Special Council Meeting in six minutes, so we really need to wrap this up. Thompson/I think I'll go to this third on here, because it's something we have not discussed, whatever. We found that a lot of traffic that had initially perhaps planned on coming here and we talked to different flight departments that would have a preference to coming here because they wanted to--the activity that they were going to do was in Iowa City--but due to the weather, and you do have a lot of instrument flying days, and were not able to come here due to the lack of the precision approach. And we think that seeking out and trying to get that funded should be a very high priority for the Airport. It goes right into the next bullet; obviously that helps to maintain safety at the Airport. Security, while we certainly need to say to the Commission, as well as the City, should be on a very high, have a high regard in it and an intensely modem security activities, the TSA, as you've all seen at the airports and the DHS, which is the Department of Homeland Security, is now in the process of determining what security is required at general aviation airports, and that has not been finalized. I just recommend that you continue to monitor that so that you can understand if that comes forward, as very likely there will be some unfunded mandates associated with it and you just need to be aware of those for your planning purposes. I think that more due to the previous FBO out there, there was certainly some customer services that became an issue. As that kind of soured, I think that is turning around but I think that we need to brag about that and talk about it; there's been a couple of houses out there and I think that that needs to be better. I really felt that in access to the manager, that the manager's office ought to be in the terminal, not in a separate building that's located in a place hard to find. I really felt there's areas within the existing terminal building that you, that have very nice renovation on, that are not paid for by the FBO and I felt that that was a good place for the manager's office. Obviously, if it's the FBO, that becomes a moot point. We suggested development of a leasing policy; we provided one for you in here. You can certainly use that, modify it to suit your needs at your airport. Although it works pretty This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 20 well actually for you now. The rates and charges policy--a rates and charges policy does not say the fee for a hangar is. It says this is how we establish the fee for a hangar. This is how we escalate that cost for that fee. So it's the how-to methodology, not the prices. The minimum standards--it's important to know that the minimum standards have gone through the advisory circle, but the FAA has gone through some changes in recent years with the most recent changes in June of 2002. We think the minimum standards out there need to fully address what's going on out there and be current with the AC. Mascari/Excuse me, one second. You do realize that we do have minimum standards in place? Thompson/But they were done prior to the change. Industry standard lease language--there's been a lot of work done out there on leases. The hangar lease example that we reviewed actually was pretty decent. There's a couple of quirks in it that could perhaps be fixed. But we think it's important that the leases are standardized. We also agree with the policy that they all start and stop on the same day so you don't have to worry every six days about a new lease being done. We think from an administrative standpoint that that's a much better way to do it. And then constantly monitoring the industry for changes--there's obviously liability associated with airports as there are most things. And that you need to be sure that your lease language tries to address all those contingencies. Security deposits on leases are also important. If you go out for an apartment, you pay a security deposit--first last month's rent. You should have security deposits on your hangars. Emergency phone number lists and address on all tenants. You know, if there's some catastrophic event out there, you don't want to be trying to find the owner of an aircraft in a particular building. You want to have an easy access point to go to for that. Kanner/Bobbi, in the report, you mention that there should be a certain amount of insurance written into the lease. I thought we had that written into the leases over the last year. We required that--- Thompson/In your new document you do have that. Kanner/So, I'm not following you. The report says you recommend we do it, but we're doing it? Thompson/It's sort of a reinforcement. The interesting thing that though is that in talking the FBO, I found that your requirement for the FBO is the same as for your hangar tenants, which I thought was odd. You know, usually your hangar tenant's exposure, the liability exposure for a hangar tenant is much less than that of the operations being done by the FBO. So that probably needs to be revisited. Kanner/So you're just saying rewrite--- Thompson/Keep it there; keep it there. Kanner/...and keep it there but you're doing keep the course and just adjust it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 21 Thompson/Adjust it as necessary. And make sure that you have the proper coverages that you need. Dilkes/ Those limits as I understand it are all run through our Risk Manager. Thompson/Oh, OK. Then I would like to talk with him because if the insurance number that I was given is correct by the FBO, this is probably too low. The--we talked many type of sort of easy marketing; easy as defined in "low-cost" marketing events that could be held out there. Some of these have been done in the past; I think there should be a coordinated effort by all parties concerned. A number of things we have displayed within the document itself. We don't think that there's really been a good marriage with the student population at the University and the Airport, to try to sort of get those people involved and their tenure here in the community, involved with your Airport. The updated media list when an event's happening, it's a lot easier if you have a media list to go to instead of trying to find out who it is you need to call and how to get a hold of them. Constantly survey your users even if it's just a suggestion box. Then a marketing plan itself. You know, define a marketing plan. This you can work with with your management and the Commission. A marketing plan with milestones so you can measure it as you go along. Trade associations--and there's so many of them within the industry that can offer you a lot of information, a lot of assistance. One thing the FBO can do through their fuel supplier is get some 50 percent code share on marketing so that the marketing is haif the price it normally would be. An airport is not a local facility; an airport is a national facility. You're part of what they call the NIPIA--the National Plan of Integrated Airports. You should take advantage of that because as we mentioned earlier, you've got a lot of activity, more activity from out of the community than in the community, so that's a good niche market for you; I think you should compound on that. Some of the strategies that we want to see in the financial portion of this, and we programmed in some phasing in of some increase in your hangar rents, in looking at the marketplace, and we defined some of the other airports that we looked at and that we felt you had some room to adjust upwardly the hangar rates over--and it's not ail in one year--it's in a period of years. The fuel volumes are starting to go back up again. They had certainly gone down for a period of time, but they have started going back up again. We think that's a very positive sign that should continue forward. We talked about before the restructuring of the management. The milestone says for the FBO that these would be milestones in marketing and as well as financial gains for the airport, if, in fact, they have that responsibility. The financial tracking, while you had good financials for the City, it was hard for us to pull out of those financials exactly what the minimum costs to the Airport were. There were some budgeted line s, but clear definition wasn't available for us. But we do think that we got a fairly reasonable handle on that. But we do think that whoever is managing the Airport going forward should really know exacting details of what it costs on a day-to-day basis to run the Airport. Understand the direct and indirect economic impacts of the Airport--we talked with the City and we heard--and I'm still confused on this, I'll readily admit it, on how the land issue works, the land swap. We heard some things that were in place and then some City people said we don't know anything about it so we don't know where that is, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 22 but we do think that that should take place to reduce some of that financial burden of the Airport. Facilities audit, facility needs--has to do with what is the condition of the facilities, do they currently meet Code and if they don't meet Code, what do we need to do to get them there? And then an energy and environmental study, the energy study--is usually the local power companies will come in and do that for you and make suggestions for free, so I would suggest that you take advantage of that. There's been some environmental impacts done on proposed capital development, but make sure that you understand on a daily basis what your environmental requirements are and that those are adhered to. Dilkes/OK. Lehman/Now, we're going to take a real quick short break here and have a special Council meeting that started five minutes ago. And then we're going to continue this discussion because I think we need to have a little wrap-up, and I think it's OK, Eleanor, if everybody stays at the table for the meeting. All fight. (BREAK - Special Formal) Lehman/I suspect that--we certainly thank you for your presentation. What's the Council's pleasure? My own perspective is, and I'll start the discussion, I suspect; we've all--- Karmer/Bobbi, do you want to sit down at the table here? Thompson/Oh, OK. Lehman/Well, you certainly may. You don't have a PowerPoint anymore. Somebody cut your power. (Laughter) Lehman/We do have the report; we do have your recommendations. More importantly, the Commission has your recommendations. And from my perspective, this report, it does in many respects, sets some sort ora plan or gives some sort of direction, all of it you may take; I'm sure you're going to sift it, digest it, and some of it's going to be very important to you; some of it may be less important to you. And obviously, these are decisions that you folks really have to make. But from my perspective as a Councilperson, I would like to have some sort of response from the Commission prior to the first of the year, which is when we start our budget discussions. You know, we, obviously, all have access to the same information, and I guess the bottom line is, you've got the information, I'd like to know what you're going to do with it. Atkins/Emie, may I comment on--just real quick on that? Lehman/Please do. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 23 Atkins/The Council does begin their budget review in January, but you expect my recommendations--- Lehman/Mr. Atkins needs your information as quickly as he can get it. We're almost at the first of October. What is a reasonable timeframe? Atkins/We have started the budget process already. Thrower/We had a detailed picture of the findings that ABS provided us in the last Commission meeting, and so we're already well on our way, culling on, if you will, the actionable items. And our next meeting, we have on our agenda the detail, selection of what those items will be and hopefully we'll be codified in our business plan for the next fiscal year. Lehman/Now what timeframe do you think is reasonable? Thrower/Coming out of that, the next month's general session for the Commission, I would imagine two weeks after that we should be able to have a special session, collect all the information, put together a final report, and then provide it at that time to the Council. Lehman/Which then would be by the first of December or so? Thrower/That's correct. Lehman/Steve, that's, I think, that's the closest we're going to get. Atkins/It's the best you can do. Vanderhoef/Emie? I also have a request. One of the questions that I read in the report was exactly what Bobbi said she couldn't comment on either and this land swap thing and if there isn't anyone prepared to tell me what that is, could we have a memo from the Commission to tell me what that land swap is all about? Thrower/Yes, we may for that. Vanderhoef/Thank you. Lehman/Well, I would expect you to respond to the report. Thrower/That's correct. Lehman/Some of it obviously is going to be more acceptable than others and whatever, but we really do need some sort of a response I think for budget purposes and I also think the whole idea of the study was to see how we can have a better airport, which I think is something that I think all of us would like to see. So--kvin? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 24 Pfab/Do we want to direct the City Manager in any way about attending those meetings? Lehman/We're going to wait and get the report from the Commission. And I think we can-- when we get that report which will be based on this analysis, I think we can probably go from there. I think we really, the ball is, honestly, it's in your court now. We all have the same information. I'm just interested in, and I hope the rest of the Council is, the response. Wilburn/I would like to--since part of our discussion about this was--involved the goal or the road to self-sufficiency or an acceptable level of subsidy, specific comments or address the self-sufficiency analysis that was provided and whether or not you accept this plan, this path towards that and if not, speculate on what the route might be or elements that you believe will lead towards an acceptable goal, because that, I feel, will drive my decisions towards further, you know, subsidy and (can't hear) and, you know, give me a gauge. Pfab/Sir? Lehman/Yes. Pfab/Is the Commission prepared to make any responses this evening? Lehman/They're going--we're asking for the response for the first of December. Pfab/No, but I mean, I was just wondering if they had come prepared to make any other responses, which they had anticipated? Robnett/We also had questions from my perspective as we went through the report, we had to send some off to Michael Hodges to ask exactly what they meant by some of the subdetail, and we just got those at the end of the week. So, we didn't come with the intent to make any specific comment on any one part or in the other. We're clarifying just as much as you and wanted to hear your questions so we could have further questions answered by our consultants and we could develop further methodology. Pfab/Did you come up with any questions that you might have? Robnett/I want to ask one that Mr. Kanner pointed out. Bobbi, in the financial chapter, these are real--in the financial chapter, I just want to ask one last time, I'm a nuts and bolts kind of gal. Page, the last chapter, chapter 6, page, I think it was 3 and 4. Mr. Kanner pointed out the subsidies don't appear to show in the Airport expense. Kanner/Revenue. Robnett/Well, in the revenues or however we would report them in the period of being either-- well it says total revenue plus subsidies. So is that where the subsidies went? Into total revenue on page 3? It says total revenue in--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 25 Thompson/Right, if you add up that column of numbers, they won't reach that 378 without adding that subsidy in there. Robnett/Gotcha. So I can (can't hear) Pfab/Should a line --- Thompson/We'll make a separate line then so that's clear. Robnett/Thanks. Lehman/OK. Anything you'd like from us? Kanner/Well, I just want to comment--well, first, Bobbi, thank you, and the Airport Business Solutions. I appreciate your report. I think you did a lot for, especially for the amount that we were paying. And it looks like a very thorough job, and it's a very tough job to come in and make some critical analyses with your employer. So, thank you for doing that. And I think I'm piggybacking a bit on what Ross is saying, perhaps saying it in a stronger way. Personally, I think we as a Council need to set reductions in the subsidies and it's up to you to say how you're going to get there. I think you have a blueprint here that gives you some good steps to get it down within the next few years to close to zero. I think from the perspective of the City Council that's what I'm looking at, representing the overall citizens of the City and so I--Mike, I think contrary to what you're saying, I think we have the power of the purse. And we could if we wanted to instruct our City Manager to say our budget this year is going to be only $100,000 subsidy, and then leave it to them to determine how they're going to spend that money. O'Donnell/And if there are four members, Steven, we can do that. Until then, we proceed on this course. We've funded a study, a business study for the Airport Commission. I'm willing to wait until December 1st for the recommendation. Kanner/Well, that's another question--but you just said, Mike, that we don't have any power and we certainly do if you want to take that power unto yourself. Thank you, Bobbi, I--- O'Donnell/Well, it's not an individual power, Steven, it's four people sitting. Kanner/Right, right. You're one of possibly four if you wanted to change that. O'Donnell/You got it. Kanner/You can go along with the City Manager's recommendations. We had recommended getting a blueprint for reducing--- Champion/We're working on it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 26 O'Donnell/Whatever we do, we'll discuss it in December. Lehman/Do your meetings run as smooth as ours? (Laughter) Thrower/Well, we definitely have appreciated the opportunity to spend some time with you all this evening and to have the information provided to us in a very professional and thorough way and look forward to a continued dialogue on this subject so that we can both jointly work together towards bringing the Airport back into its appropriate role in this community. Lehman/One of the things that I really appreciate in this report and something that I have very firm conviction for a long, long time is that the Airport is a very valuable asset to this community. It's very important for this community and I don't disagree with you--the perception of the Airport within the community has been less perhaps than it should have been. Those folks who use it, who have reason to know people who use it, recognize how valuable that Airport really, really is. And I think it's very important to this community. It's important enough that we wanted to spend the money for the study and we want to see it be an even better asset for the community, Pfab/I would like to make a comment. I think it's interesting to see how the interaction, the climate of the interaction have a lot more businesslike and less confrontation, less adversarial and I think--- (can't hear). O'Donnell/Let's take a break. Lehman/OK, guys. Wilburn/Thank you very much. Lehman/Thank you very much. Thompson/Thank you, everyone. Lehman/All right, we'll have the informal in 10 minutes. (BP AK) REVIEW ZONING ITEMS a. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING APPROXIMATELY 8.7 ACRES FROM INTERIM DEVELOPMENT (ID-RS) TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY-LOW DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (OSA-5) LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF FOSTER ROAD. (REZ03-00017/SUB03-00019) (SECOND CONSIDERATION) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 27 b. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CONDITIONALLY REZONING 5.69 ACRES FROM LOW-DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-5) TO LOW-DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RM-12) LOCATED AT 1715 MORMON TREK BOULEVARD. (REZ-03-00018) (PASS AND ADOPT) Franklin/You have two s. Oakmont, second consideration, and All Nations Baptist Chumh pass and adopt. I'm done. Lehman/Thank you, Karin, that's the quickest you've every done. Franklin/I think so. O'Donnell/Thank you for coming. Champion/I have a question. (Laughter) Lehman/No, Coimie doesn't. REVIEW AGENDA ITEMS Lehman/Council Items. Review Agenda Items. 4. d. (2) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A LEASE AGREEMENT WITH ELDER SERVICES, INC., FOR SPACE AT THE SENIOR CENTER TO OPERATE THE ELDERLY NUTRITION PROGRAM. Kanner/Oh, the Senior Center lease, I'm going to withdraw from the Consent Calendar for a separate vote. It's with Elderly Services, e. (2), with the Consent Calendar. Lehman/OK. 4. d. (1) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE OFFICIAL FINANCIAL REPORT FOR CITY STREETS AND PARKING PROGRAM PROJECT STATUS REPORT FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 2003. Kanner/And for the d. (1), the street report, I do not see that in the packet. Kan:/I believe it's in there. Atkins/Did I miss it? Karr/But I'll--let me just check and--I know I have copies and I thought it was in there but I don't have--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 28 Vanderhoef/I don't think so. Karr/OK. I can distribute it tomorrow evening, if you'd like. It's several pages. Atkins/Yeah. Kanner/OK. Atkins/Yeah, we did miss it. Kanner/It's--- Atkins/Steve, it's the annual boilerplate--- Karr/The state form. Atkins/...state form. Kanner/Yeah, I know, that's an important one I think in that it's--- Atkins/Yeah, we'll, I agree with you--- Kanner/...an indication of how much we're spending on certain forms of transportation. Atkins/Right. I just wanted to point out there's no real surprises on the thing. It's a routine report. OK. Lehman/Other agenda items? O'Donnell/Nope. Lehman/I have a question about one. Where is it? Vanderhoef/Well, while you're looking that one up--- 11. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CLERK TO ATTEST TO AN AGREEMENT TO PURCHASE A NINE-UNIT APARTMENT BUILDING FROM GREATER IOWA CITY }lOUSING FELLOWSIIIP (GICHF) AND TO ASSIST GICHF IN TIlE FINANCING OF AFFORDABLE IIOUSING IN TIlE PENINSULA. Lehman/Oh, the purchase of nine-unit apartment from the Iowa City Housing Fellowship, are we adding nine units to our--- Atkins/Yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 29 Lehman/...stock of public--why are we doing that? Atkins/Ernie, this project started I can't remember how many years ago. Part of the Peninsula Plan involved the provision of affordable housing units. Greater Iowa City chose to participate. We were involved as the housing authority. It was a matter of--this is really being on track for the position we established, Karin, how long ago? Two, three years ago, it seems like we've been doing it. I mean, Doug is going to come tomorrow night, Emie, if you have any real specifics about it but the intent was to fulfill--- Lehman/Where is this nine-unit apartment building? Atkins/It will also may be up in the peninsula. Champion/It' s--- Lehman/ OK, fine. Atkins/Yeah. Lehman/I didn't understand where it was. Atkins/Oh, OK, I understand. Kanner/Where was it? Atkins/It says Peninsula. Franklin/It's in the Peninsula. It's right across the street from the row houses. Atkins/Yeah. Lehman/All right. Pfab/That's not the one that's under construction, is it? Atkins/No, Irvin, no. Lehman/I couldn't tell for sure that this was part of the Peninsula project, but it is. Atkins/Well, it is. Lehman/All right, thank you. That was my question. You (can't hear) Vanderhoef/So, tell me, ultimately, those--that apartment building is going to be managed by the Housing Authority, not by Greater Iowa City Housing Fellowship? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 30 Franklin/That's right. Atkins/That's right. Vanderhoef/And they will all--will any of them be sold as condos? Franklin/I don't know--- Atkins/Probably many are for sale. Franklin/...that's something you'll have to ask Doug tomorrow night. Potentially, they could go to the tenant to owner program but I don't--initially, not. Atkins/They're not. No. Dilkes/I don't think that's the plan but--- Atkins/It's not. Dilkes/...OK. Franklin/I think that's right. Dilkes/I think that's right. Lehman/Well, it would have to be constructed in such a fashion that they could be condominiumized to sell off the parts of those nine units, which I doubt they are. Franklin/That's true. Kanner/Well, why the change in philosophy is--- Franklin/ I don't know. You'll have to ask Doug tomorrow. Kanner/Doug will be here tomorrow? Atkins/Yes. What was the question so I can give him a head's up again? Kanner/Well, why the change in philosophy in us taking it over as opposed to the Greater Iowa City Housing Fellowship? Atkins/It had something to do with the financing plan. Lehman/Money. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 31 Atkins/Yeah, there was a, only the Authority could get certain funds. Greater Iowa City was in the business of the development end of the thing. We had not done that. I'm sure, or Steve, I'm sure that Doug can answer that for you. It's--- Vanderhoef/OK, and have him be prepared to talk about tenant to ownership program and/or condominiumize and affordable dream home program. Atkins/OK. Pfab/So the primary reason we went to (can't hear) was that the reason that it was another source of fund? Atkins/It was an opportunity to partner with Greater Iowa City to get the affordable housing units which we want. The financing plan, their availability of funds, our availability of funds as the Housing Authority created circumstances whereby they're going to develop it, then we're going to purchase it from them. That's how I understood it, Irvin. Pfab/OK. Atkins/But I--- Pfab/Well, but if it's something different than that, I would like kind of a summary ifI could on that. Atkins/Sure. Lehman/Well, they're just converting property into capital to do the project. Atkins/That's sort of the bottom line. Champion/But what kind of money do we use to buy these with? Vanderhoef/Wouldn't it be the money that comes back from the sale of our previous--- Atkins/That's part of it. VanderhoefJ ...part of the--- Atkins/And, but there's more, there's another source of funds in there. You know, when we sell these units under Tenant to Owner, that goes into our reserves. And those reserves, I mean, in effect sit there and accumulate, and then we have as a matter of policy taken those monies and reinvested them in other housing units, where again, folks with low income. Vanderhoef/Usually in the Affordable Dream Home program--- This represents only a reasonably accurate txanscription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 32 Atkins/That's the general strategy and usually, yes, that's where the money comes from. Vanderhoef/...and that's why I wondered if this wasn't a possibility out of, since there are nine all in one building, that would also do more scattered site kind of approach to it. Atkins/Well, you know, there was an economic point that, and we didn't have the ability to build duplexes and we already have some of those within our inventory for folks with low income; I think this, in keeping with the spirit of the Peninsula Project, which is a more compact development, that's why we ended up settling in on the nine-unit apartment building, which is not an extraordinarily large apartment building in case you think about. Yes, Irvin? Pfab/So, we could expect tomorrow a kind of a summary--- Atkins/If that's what you'd like. Pfab/...(can't hear) and also to the public. Atkins/I think what we need to do with this one--this one has been lingering for a number of years, and let me, I'll just have Doug get you--- Lehman/Explain it. Atkins/...take you through the history of it. Lehman/I'll ask him to explain it before we ever start discussion. Atkins/OK. Vanderhoef/Good. Atkins/OK. Kanner/And it says here, bonds will be at an interest rate lower than GICHF could obtain from a private lender. Atkins/Yup. That's the--- Lehman/I'm sure that would Kanner/That's, I'm sure, the crux of it. Atkins/Yes. But I'll have Doug walk you through the history of the thing before you vote. Champion/You know, because it does say you have $256,000 in GO debt. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 33 Atkins/Mm-hmm. Dilkes/You did a resolution authorizing the selling of GO bonds to finance this project. Champion/Right, a long time ago. Lehman/OK. Other agenda items? 9. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND AUTHORIZING TItE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A CONTRACT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF TItE SCOTT PARK TRUNK SANITARY SEWER PROJECT. O'Donnell/Just number 9. It's the Gut Park Sanitary Sewer Project. What an incredible bid that was. Atkins/According to Rick, the nature of this work is we've got some hungry contractors and--- Lehman/ You're sure they all bid the same project? (Laughter) Atkins/Well. O'Donnell/I've seen them low, but they were half. Atkins/The thing that I think sold us was that it was a good bid is look at your first three. Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm. They're all $200,000 under. Atkins/I mean, they were all close. Yeah. Vanderhoeff...so--- O'Donnell/That's a great bid. Lehman/We think it's five miles long and they think it's a mile and a half. Pfab/They found a shortcut. 4. CORRESPONDENCE e. (8) MIKE SMITItEY: ALCOHOL. Vanderhoef/I found it interesting our correspondence from Mike Smithey and wondered if we need an update from PD on what's happening down there. I mean, this is one person reporting and I don't know whether this is--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 34 Atkins/Yeah, it's a little disconcerting. I mean, the officer certainly has his ability to sit us in the report, you know, what he believes and thinks, and for you to absorb that, but it has to be done in its proper context. And I think what it is is, beg the question of let's put something together in a little more summary fashion. Vanderhoef/I would appreciate that. Atkins/Not the opinions of one officer but what the department says and what the numbers are and we'll do that for you. Dilkes/Well, although if we're talking specifically about the Under 19 Ordinance, Council's direction was that we would wait--- Atkins/That's correct. Dilkes/...I believe, we were talking about a year to evaluate that so--- Vanderhoef/That isn't what I'm asking. Dilkes/OK, you're just talking about PAULAs and--- Atkins/If you just want raw numbers, we can do that for you. Vanderhoef/What seems to be the action down there, I mean, we have one person's perception and I don't think that speaks maybe perhaps for the entire police force. I'd like to--- Dilkes/But Mike Smithy has talked specifically about the Under 19 Ordinance and whether, in his opinion, that's effective or not. So that's what I was addressing. Pfab/I think in that letter also is an invitation to follow him around some evening. I know he told me that himself. And personally I was out one evening and he said follow me. Atkins/OK. Wilburn/I was (can't hear) always go out some--- O'Donnell/I haven't really talked to him. (Laughter) Atkins/Well, I would ask you--I'm asking you--- Vanderhoef/Been there, done that but not recently. Atkins/...if you--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 35 Vanderhoef/Yes, it's probably time to do it again. Atkins/...if you want to go out, that's fine; we'll certainly set it up for you, but just don't pick a particular officer. You know, give R.J. a call, tell him where you'd like to be and we'll make arrangements for you to go out. That's not a problem. Wilburn/That wasn't the type of going out I was suggesting. (Laughter) Atkins/Oh. Lehman/You walked into that, Steve. (Laughter) Atkins/I gave the responsible answer; he gave the other one. Lehman/OK. 8. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE 2003-2004 DEER MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR IOWA CITY. Pfab/Wait, I have one item here. I just received a packet of information after visiting with somebody. This information I was expecting, on number 8, the deer kill. It's interesting what's going on in Cedar Rapids, and it just came in the mail this afternoon so I was going to try to get a copy made--there's about 40 sheets of it. Cedar Rapids has never had to kill deer and they have no deer problem. Champion/I'm sorry. What, Irvin? Pfab/Cedar Rapids never has had to shoot deer and they still, they haven't, their deer problem is very manageable. Lehman/That's why they don't have to shoot them. Pfab/Right, but there's a, the reason it's manageable is they're doing things that are proactive, yeah, proactive. O'Donnell/They're hitting the poor things with cars. (Laughter) Pfab/No, no, ! mean it's--but, so I'm going to suggest that after we get a chance to get that material, at least to postpone this until the next meeting with the--I'm just, I was hoping to have I could have the information today, but I just didn't get a chance to get to it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 36 Kanner/Did you read it yourself2. Pfab/I haven't. I saw it's in the packet. It looks extremely and I had a discussion with the person that sent it to me about three or four weeks ago and I was expecting it sooner, but it's, you know, $100,000. Atkins/We were contacted by Cedar Rapids a number of years ago to get our information and we sent that to them. I mean, Irvin, I'm sure--from what you just told me, that's the first I've ever heard they do not have a problem. Pfab/Yes, I mean, this is, this came from somebody that was--- Atkins/Their incorporated areas is far greater than ours. They're going to be 40 square miles or more. Lehman/We have people who have the perception that we don't have a problem, too. O'Donnell/Yes. Pfab/No, no, just the, the citizens don't think they have much of a problem them either. I mean, it's not a, so, and one of the--and I'm going to speak a little offthe record here and just sort of off the cuff--is I recall what it is is by shooting the deer, we put the deer into high aggressive multiplication management for the deer itself. And--if you just kind of, if you work it through quietly, they just say, well, we're happy. But I'm--- Atkins/Yeah, I--your Deer Management Committee is substantially recommending what we've done over the last few years. How aggressive the deer are, I'm not going there. (Laughter) O'Donnell/You can say you don't have a deer problem until one car has a deer go through a windshield or one motorcycle runs into a deer and you have a fatality, and then that kind of, that will really tell you that, yes, you do have a deer problem. And if you read it in the paper, that's not infrequent. Pfab/But is that--is a deer problem where you have an interaction with a motor vehicle. I've hit, I've hit probably five deer in my life. O'Donnell/You're going too fast. Pfab/Right and that's exactly the reason why it happened and so--- (Laughter) Pfab/...and so I never bitched. The deer couldn't get out of the way. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 37 Champion/You know, I stop them. (can't hear) deer problem in Cedar Rapids, because they're surrounded--but the town is much bigger for one thing. We're surrounded by countryside. O'Donnell/Yeah. Champion/And we have Hickory Hill Park in the middle of the City. Lehman/Can we discuss this tomorrow night? Atkins/Yes, we will. Champion/I want to discuss it tonight. Pfab/We'll discuss it, but I'm going to propose because of the--until we have a chance at this material--and it looks rather substantial and--- Champion/ Bring it up to the Deer Committee, Irvin. Pfab/OK, well, but OK, so--I think we have the political decision what to do with it and spend this kind of money. They can make recommendations, and that's it. Atkins/If you postpone it, please do not--because I've got to get a contract together with, to get these folks here in town in January. Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/They want to do that before Christmas. Pfab/I'm going to very strongly suggest we postpone it. Delay it until we--- Kanner/Will you bring in information tomorrow--- Pfab/Yes. Kanner/...as much as you can, who--at least who gave the report (can't hear) Pfab/Yes, it's fascinating information. I just thumbed through it. Lehman/OK. Is there any other agenda item? COUNCIL TIME Lehman/Council time? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 38 O'Donnell/I've just got one thing. Lehman/Yes? O'Donnell/I've had several calls recently about skateboards and bicycles downtown. Lehman/Yeah, lots of them. O'Donnell/Damage to the back of benches and--- Atkins/We had some vandalism this weekend unfortunately, and several of the benches, I'm not prepared to--I personally think it was drunks-- O'Donnell/(can't hear) Atkins/No, I don't, but we do get that fairly common complaint. You got to shoo them along, try to get them out to the park, but inevitably there's the fascination, you can do like mad downtown. O'Donnell/Tell me, Steve, that they're jumping up and sliding down--- Atkins/Yes. O'Donnell/...the benches or whatever. Atkins/Yes. Yeah and it scars them. If you'll look at the edge of one of our benches downtown that there's a scar on it and that's where that's run that. Lehman/There are significant numbers of skateboarders on the sidewalk. Atkins/Yeah, there are. Yes. Lehman/And some of them traveling at high rates of speed. Atkins/We've tried, you know, what we do initially on bicycles is that we sort of have a period of where we don't get too aggressive about enforcing the thing. Maybe it's time to start issuing citations for bikes, particularly on the ped mall because that's the complaint I get. You step out of the store, a bike goes whizzing by you. Champion/On the sidewalks. Atkins/Yeah, I know, yeah--- O'Donnell/I haven't had a call though in a couple of years. And I had two within the last week. Vanderhoef/I've had two whiz by me that snuck up behind and I thought, oh, ifI had just This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 39 changed my direction I would have been totally wiped out because they're whizzing along. Champion/You are running for reelection, aren't you? (Laughter) Pfab/I personally have observed something that just floored me. Do we have a kind of a monument sign, a lit monument sign at the comer of Iowa Avenue and Clinton Street, right next to the (can't hear) store, out on the comer as it gets to the intersection, there's a directory. Kanner/You mean, University has a--- Vanderhoef/You mean the kiosk. Pfab/Yeah, well, no, it's not a kiosk. Well, anyway, but it has a metal box around it, it's about yay high. Atkins/That's University land. Lehman/That's University. Pfab/And I'm sitting there talking to some people and all of a sudden (choo-bang-bang???) and somebody went, they got up on a skateboard, rode across that and they got out down the other side. I had a charlie horse a little earlier but I didn't get it from that. Lehman/We'll take your word on that. Pfab/But I mean, it is--I just couldn't believe it. O'Donnell/Well, maybe it's something that we should look into. Atkins/Well, one of the things we can do is we often have the officers talk to the kids and say get the word out, you know, this can't continue, and quite frankly, most of them, they don't want to get hassled either. They'll go away. Champion/They do. Atkins/Yeah. O'Donnell/Did we put a lot of money into the skateboard park? Atkins/We put a lot of money in those benches--- O'Donnell/Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 40 Atkins/...to have them replaced entirely too frequently, yeah. Lehman/Is there other Council time items? Pfab/Yes, one thing. Someone suggested--and I'm tending to as I went back and looked at it--the bench that sits there looking at Irving Weber, I like the name, he's got a wonderful first name, but anyway there's too many letters on it, but the idea is to sit there and just look at him is kind of--- Atkins/Can I explain it, lrvin, to you? Pfab/OK, go. Atkins/The bench was put there--- Champion/Before Irving. Atkins/...before Irving Weber's statue, that's one. Secondly it was put there to help define that intersection. We were having people that would come, stop, get--because if you look straight ahead, it's open enough that folks were getting confused and actually driving up over the curb, realizing they're sitting in Seashore or whatever it is, and that's why it was put--it was really doing nothing more than to cause them--yeah, it's not intended to have you sit there and contemplate Irving Weber. Pfab/All fight. So, but someone did come--- Lehman/You can't. O'Donnell/Have you done that? Pfab/No, I haven't. O'Donnell/OK. Pfab/But someone suggested that that's a nice place for a park but put it off to the side. Atkins/We've got some more ideas about actually putting some bollards and some other things around the statue. If you just give me some time, we'll deal with it. Pfab/OK, so I mean, it's just, someone, and I said I wasn't aware of it. I knew there was a bench there. Atkins/It was simply there to discourage motor vehicle traffic. Pfab/OK, so this will be under advisement, so to speak. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 41 Atkins/Yeah. Vanderhoef/May I suggest that we put Irving up on some sort of a base and get him up higher? Atkins/Well, that was contrary to the interest of the folks that were involved in it, even though I agree with you and I made the same suggestion, but it didn't go very far. Champion/He's life-size. Atkins/And he's life-sized. Vanderhoef/Well, he's life-sized and certainly with benches or anything else in front of him, you lose the whole effect because you don't see the statue and I'm really not pleased with what I'm seeing, because I'm seeing him from the waist up right now. Atkins/The idea was--- Lehman/Well, that's your problem. (Laughter) Vanderhoef/Well, when I drive by in my van I'm looking up a little higher. Lehman/Park it around behind him. (Laughter) Atkins/The idea was to sort of be able to hug or--- Kanner/The idea was what? Atkins/To be able to hug him. He's there. I mean, he's life-sized. (Laughter) O'Donnell/Oh, stop it. Champion/Those guys (can't hear) Atkins/OK. Lehman/This is going well. Any other Council time? (Laughter) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 42 O'Dormell/I wouldn't dare. Lehman/I'm going to--- Champion/I want to know how much it cost for you and Dee to fly to Ames. Lehman/I appreciate your asking that. That one, I don't know how much it cost, but I can tell you the state didn't pay for it. I'll remind the public of that tomorrow night. Also, tomorrow night, I want to remind the public of the first anniversary of your 39th birthday Sunday, Ross. Champion/Thirty-nine. Wilbum/Yes. Lehman/First anniversary. First, first time around, 39. O'Donnell/Jack Benny was 39 for a long time. Lehman/He's just a kid. Anyway, what else for Council time? We're done? Good. MUNICIPAL ELECTRIC STUDY--FUTURE SCHEDULE Lehman/Municipal electric study. We alt have received copies of the study. I did receive a call from Mr. Latham on Saturday and we hadn't discussed it so I was a little reluctant to discuss it with him at any great length. I would like to suggest that perhaps we set this up for a work session where we have an opportunity to read through it and encourage the staff to also look through this, come up with whatever sorts of questions that we feel we need Mr. Latham to answer, and I guess I would suggest that we set that meeting at our next work session on the 13th. Collect a list of questions that we collectively have and also ones from the staff. Contact Mr. Latham and schedule a public meeting where he can answer our questions and whatever questions we'd like to be posed to him by the public at a meeting that, where we consider nothing other than this study. And from the, it's a public meeting, I personally would suggest that the questions from the public be a written question so that we don't get folks pontificating about the relative merits of the utility company or whatever. And I think written questions will keep it orderly, it will keep it moving along, and we can get answers to the kinds of questions that people actually have. Pfab/Is this a, I would suggest, rather than a meeting maybe some kind of an open forum, but with written questions and a--- Lehman/What's the difference between a meeting and an open fortan? Pfab/Well, in a sense, it's less structured, less formidable, or less intimidating to the public, so and more of a community discussion rather than it looks like a business meeting. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 43 Lehman/I don't know that--I guess what I want is what you're talking about. Pfab/OK. Lehman/But a meeting where he will address the questions that we have come up with, the questions the staff has come up with, and be available to answer questions from the audience, but I would just recommend they be written questions. Atkins/Ernie--- Pfab/I agree with you on that. Atkins/I need to understand this. Are you talking two meetings? One where the City Council meets with Mr. Latham--- Lehman/One where we meet with ourselves. Atkins/...you talk to him yourselves? O'Donnell/You set the date. Atkins/OK. Pfab/That is a formal meeting, an informal? A work session, OK. Atkins/So, Latham would come here, you would question him, whatever, no other public--- Dilkes/No. Lehman/We would meet at the next work session, come up with whatever questions that we have on this~-- Atkins/OK. Lehman/You and your staff would--and we would collate those questions, contact Mr. Latham and set a meeting at some time after the next work session to meet with us and the public to address these questions. Atkins/So, the next meeting is you'll come up with questions, I'll take all of those, then I'll contact Latham--- Lehman/Put that at my suggestion. Atkins/OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 44 O'Donnell/Ernie, I think that's a good idea. But what you're talking about is the 13th of October? Lehman/Right. O'Donnell/And then we've got one meeting scheduled for December? Lehman/We have November. O'Donnell/We have November. Lehman/Two meetings. O'Donnell/One in December. Lehman/Right. O'Donnell/And then we'll be moving into the budgeting process. Atkins/Yeah. O'Donnell/So, I'm wondering--- Atkins/We also have to figure out what this, Latham's schedule is going to be. O'Donnell/And we got to get (can't hear) Lehman/Well--- O'Donnell/Well, you have a good idea. Let's just do it. Lehman/If we come up with the questions on the 13th, that is basically two and a half months from the first of year. There should be a time between then and the first of the year when we can schedule a meeting with Latham, I would think. Pfab/I would just like a point of clarification here. OK, you're saying at the Council meeting we have written questions, not a follow-up? Champion/No. Lehman/No. Pfab/OK, all right, that's fine. Lehman/Let me just go through this one more time. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 45 Atkins/Yeah, please do, Emie. Lehman/On the 13th, I would suggest that we study this individually, contact your friends, neighbors, whoever you want to talk to, and come up with the kinds of questions that we have, and I think we can discuss those on the 13th among ourselves. Some of those questions we may have answers to; some we may not have answers to. I think some may be legal issues that the legal department can answer; some may be issues that we can determine. But those questions that we cannot determine the answers to, we need to record those questions along with questions that the staff may have, organize those questions, contact Mr. Latham, set up a meeting for sometime after the 13th, the public meeting, and give him those questions ahead of time so he has, he does know some of what's going to be asked. We would then meet with him at a public meeting along with anyone from the public--- Pfab/Open forum. O'Dormell/Who would choose--- Lehman/...anyone from the public who wished to ask a question could write their question down. It would be presented to Mr. Latham and he could respond to it. Atkins/OK. Lehman/There would be a meeting devoted to only municipal utility. Pfab/But the first meeting that we have with Mr. Latham would be a give and take? Lehman/The only meeting we have with Mr. Latham. Pfab/Right, OK, the first meeting with Mr. Latham--- TAPE 03-70, SIDE ONE Lehman/I don't see any point in having him come twice. We may decide after the public meeting that we have to have another one. But it would be kind of nice if we're going to have him come here, have some sort of idea of the kinds of questions that we need answered. And I think we need to go through this, study this, and among ourselves decide what questions that we have so that we can contact him. O'Donnell/Is the 13th too early, Eruie? Lehman/That gives us, today's the 22nd, that's three weeks for us. This is just for you and for all of us to go through this; staff will obviously have gone through it. I don't think it's too soon. O'Donnell/OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 46 Atkins/Is there any problem with--I'm sure when this gets reported I'm going to have folks saying, you know, I'm going to suggest, well, send me YOur questions and I'll just put them in with the rest of ours--- Lehman/ Right. Atkins/...so that they would go to--all right. Champion/We should have a waiting period--- Pfab/In other words, each City Councilperson would expect some questions that (can't hear) the public--- Atkins/I just would encourage each Council member as you pick them up along the way, would you send them to me so I can put them all in one spot so we don't end up repeating ourselves. Lehman/Well, anyway, that is kind of what I suggested to Mr. Latham and he is meeting with, I think, several of the other municipalities who also were subjects of the study. I mean, I think his schedule is going to include visiting with those other municipalities, but if that works, is that all right with folks if we discuss that? Champion/Yeah, I just have another question. Lehman/Yes. Champion/And this is not in support or against the populated (can't hear) utilities, but how do we get rebuttal from people who are not for municipal utility? Lehman/They can ask questions that would indicate, I think--- Champion/ OK, that's fine, that's fine. Lehman/Obviously, questions will be asked, I think, to try to get the result of the person asking the question. Champion/Of course. Lehman/So if you favor the utility you'll ask those questions; if you don't, you won't. Champion/You're right, Ernie. Lehman/But I would think we'd get a pretty good, a pretty good cross-section of both. Kanner/Yeah, people, for instance, one of the big issues is the rate freeze that's projected in This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 47 2005 and 2010 and whether or not, how did that figure into the report. I'm sure that's going to come up. We all want to know about that from both sides of the issue and so--- Champion/ Sure. Kanner/...I think you'll have people who are against it asking that. Atkins/I just--- Champion/What if the disagree with the answer though? I'm just trying to be fair about this. Lehman/They can ask another question. Atkins/Yeah. Vanderhoef/I guess what I would like is since we're heading into this, and I think Steven is right that this is a huge big question, and I would try to get a date of when that will be acted on. It's obviously been requested quite a while back, and perhaps a call to the regulating group would give us a--- Atkins/You have to help me, Dee--what do you mean "acted on"? Lehman/What do you mean "acted on"? Vanderhoef/Well, they have not acted on whether they're accepting the proposal of the rate freeze. Atkins/Oh, oh, I see. I'm sorry. Now I see. Vanderhoef/...(can't hear) public utilities and if we had a date when that was going to come back, I think that's real important and I think it would be for us and for anyone else who was involved in the study. Gary's shaking his head--he can maybe find that out. O'Donnell/Are we going to have--it's set up for questions from both sides, Connie said, and then what--is MidAmerican going to be represented there or are we going to have a separate meeting where we can supply these questions to MidAmerican? Lehman/Well, the idea of this whole thing and I'm not sure that it's, you know, totally unbiased, but the whole idea of Mr. Latham doing this study is that he does work for utility companies for cities, for industries, and whatever, and the report is purported to be basically an unbiased report. So, I mean, MidAmerican is going to ask him questions; we can ask him questions; those folks who favor the municipal power study can ask him questions; those folks who think that municipal power is crazy can ask him questions. O'Donnell/You answered my question, MidAmerican (can't hear)just can be there. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 48 Lehman/Yeah. One of the things we could do, Steve, though, if it would be possible prior to the 13th is perhaps get a list of dates open for Mr. Latham. We might be able to set the date of that meeting at our next work session rather than waiting--see what dates he has available. Pfab/I'm a little concerned and I think, I feel that other people are saying basically the same thing. We hired him to bring us the information; he has. Now, is there any reason why MidAmerican and the opponents, the opposite side, couldn't all be at that meeting and maybe run by some professional person and he could present his? I'd like to get the thing expanded to flesh it out and to educate the public. And I--just by his report--his obligation is to us to make a decision but there is also community information that should be shared by--- Atkins/Irvin, it would seem to me, MidAmerican is likely to have reviewed this report, we know already, and made comments on it. That's--- Pfab/Right. Atkins/I've got to believe it's in their interest. And it's also in their interest to likely prepare a rebuttal report. Now, I can't tell you when that's going to happen, who's going to do it, where it's going to come from. But I suspect sooner or later we will see something that challenges it. You know, then you have in effect the documentation--then it gets down to, I mean, your questions, the political questions. Are we going to pursue this or are we not? Pfab/But at the time that we start fleshing these things out with the person that drew up the report, which we hope and trust is a neutral report. Now there are interests on both sides. Is there any reason that those interests can't be brought to the table at that same time? Atkins/Well--- Vanderhoef/With their questions they can. O'Donnell/That's what we just said--we're going to have both sides there. Pfab/No, no. We're just saying that they're--but they're written questions, that's it. Vanderhoef/Mr. Latham is the--- Lehman/Yeah, but I think the questions can be asked to reflect the position of the person asking the question. Pfab/So, what I was going to say is if you want, I'm thinking you wanted a lively discussion with a give and take and maybe have some professional person run the meeting and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 49 there's this issue, the middle issue, there's this issue on one side, and this issue on the other. And somebody, some person that's riding herd on that so every interest--- Champion/What Irvin is suggesting is a panel discussion with a moderator. Pfab/There you go. Lehman/Why don't we just think about that and we'll discuss that at the next meeting. O'Donnell/We can discuss that on the 13th, huh? Wilburn/Yeah. Lehman/Yeah. O'Donnell/OK. Karr/Mr. Mayor? Pfab/I think there's lots of questions and lots of information and--- Karr/Mr. Mayor? Lehman/Yes. diverse Karr/I'm sorry, but a clarification because I think we are going to get asked this question. Is there a deadline for submission of questions? Or is this going to go--- Lehman/ Marian, I think we have to decide that on the 13th. Karr/OK. Lehman/But my guess is that anyone who attends that public meetings who hands a question to whoever is the moderator will have their question asked. It's not something that has to be submitted ahead of time. Karr/So then Mr. Latham will have the ability then to research all of the questions--- Atkins/No, he will not. Kart/...simply the questions that you'll submit. Atkins/Yes. Lehman/Oh, yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003. September 22, 2003 Council Work Session Page 50 Atkins/I don't think he's going to (can't hear). He's going to have to be spontaneous on certain questions, because some questions are going to precipitate other questions. O'Donnell/Absolutely. Lehman/My suspicion is that most of the questions that we would answer him he could probably answer without going into some long research, but-- O'Donnell/I know. OK. Let's talk about other (can't hear) Pfab/So, are we getting any closer to the possibility of a control panel? Lehman/We're going to talk about that on the 13th. OK? Atkins/OK. Lehman/I'm done, guys. Anybody else got anything.'? We're adjourned. O'Donnell/See you tomorrow night. Vanderhoef/Sounds good. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of Sept. 22, 2003.