HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-01-13 Transcription January 13, 2004 Council Work Session Page 1
Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn
Staff: Atkins, Helling, Dilkes, Karr, Miklo, Franklin, O'Malley, Mansfield, Herting,
Lewis
TAPES: 04-04, BOTH SIDES; 04-09, SIDE A
JOINT MEETING WITH PLANNING & ZONING
(Tape problems ............. discussion unavailable)
Lehman/I don't think...them aren't many houses...
O'DonnelI/Excuse me, Emie. Did you say 50 or 60?
Lehman/60. I don't think there are many houses that are built 40 feet, but on a small lot
you want to build a 40-foot house and a 2-car garage, you could not do that. With
the 50% regulation, you have a 20-foot garage, and you can't do that, and I'm not
sure that's desirable either. We're trying to, in this particular subdivision we're
basically talking about a lot more than just this because I think there may be other
subdivisions that don't have sand prairies and don't have issues where u~e have to
concentrate density. We're talking about perhaps normal subdivisions where it's
all developable, and we're going to do it with 52 or 3 foot lots, and we're going to
do that. Basically I think the biggest incentive to do that for the developer is to
get the price of the land down. If we impose restrictions on smaller lots, and
cause the cost of the houses to go up, seems to me we're defeating the whole idea
of lower cost housing. I don't have any problem with requiring garages, or
houses with garages that are over 50% or garages that extend out in front, be 30
feet back, a 30 foot set-back. And I think that does soften the appearance of the
garage, but to prohibit them, I think that may be just a little farther than I'm
willing to do. And I've heard the pedestrian friendly discussion. I do not believe
that a pedestrian has a great deal of discomfort in walking down a sidewalk that
has a driveway on one side. I've heard the discussion on street parking. A 2-car
garage with a 30-foot driveway, there's room for 2 in the garage, 2 in the
driveway, and there's far more room for parking than if you had a single car
garage. The curb cut for a 2-car garage would house one car on the street. If you
have a 2-car garage, and you have 2 cars in the garage, 2 cars in the driveway,
that's 4 cars. I'm sure there's less on the street parking, but the total amount of
parking in the subdivision is significantly greater with 2-car garages than it is
without. So I understand your concern. I really think it could be mitigated
somewhat by increasing the setback, but I think this has gone just a little too far.
Champion/The only question I have, Ernie, when you say increasing the setback, then
you're, that's going to really cut down what the contractor can do with the
attached garage.
Lehman/But it's his choice.
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Champion/Well it is but...
Lehman/He doesn't have to do it.
Champion/No, he doesn't have to do it, and he's probably not going to do it.
Lehman/Well, but if he doesn't do it, then he has to have the porch out front and
whatever to do it, but if he wants...
Champion/I don't have any problems with garages in front of the house. I don't care
where people have their garage. I personally don't want mine there but I don't
care if somebody wants their garage there. I think the difference here, because
these are very small lots, and so you're not going to have this kind of
spaciousness between the garages, and it's going to look like one garage after
another garage, and sort of one house after another house. Theydo have three
choices: flush with the house, 6 foot back, or a porch with simply means a roof
over, they have to built some kind of stoop or something to get in the front door.
it's just a matter of putting a roof. It certainly can't cost that much money. So I
think I agree with the Planning & Zoning. I think these are three very good
choices, and I think the neighborhood in fifty years, will look a lot more like a
very comfortable neighborhood. I don't think we're dictating anything that's
going to be that difficult to deal with, and I also think that if their lots were sixty
feet, I mean and bigger, who cares where the garage is. But the fact that these lots
are small and I mean very compact, that there should be some regulation on
design and this is a minor regulation. It's a very minor regulation.
O'Donnell/Well, you know, my very first house I bought was a split-level, and I had my
garage out in front of the house, and I had my steps up and then I was off to the
side, and my garage was bigger than 50% of the rest of the house, and I really
liked that house because it was personal taste. I enjoyed that house.
Champion/How large were the lots though?
O'Donnell/I had a, I'm not sure, Connie.
Champion/Yeah, well, I bet it was more than 60 feet.
O'Donnei1/Well let me finish this, we're talking, you know there's been a garage door
discussion in this city for years, and we started offwhere we all had alleys at one
time in this town, and the garage was behind, and you parked in a single garage,
and then walked up to the house, and that was convenient. If you had a couple
children or bags of groceries, so we attached a single car garage, and then
eventually each family has 2 cars now, and a lot have 3. Those with 2 cars have a
snow blower, a riding mower, or some type of equipment that you need to store
somewhere because you're not allowed a shed outside to put all this equipment in.
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But, I really do not have a problem with the garage doors, and to me design is
personal taste, and you know maybe we should let the buyer decide. If the buyer
doesn't go for it, then the project won't go and it'll change, bm I really see, you
know I've seen a lot. I'm an Iowa City native and I've been in every
neighborhood in the city, and I just don't have the same problems with the
garages that a lot of people do.
Feerks/Well I like garages too. In fact I have garage envy because my garage is, you
know, not very usable, okay (laughter) but I think it's more about you really have
to go back to how narrow these lots are, and I think when you go and really look
at this, you wilI understand what we're talking about. A few feet makes a big
difference. To me this is an issue of placement on a lot, which is very different, I
mean which is very much within our right to address. We look at placement of
structures in relation to lot width in many zones, and we look at bulk and height in
relation to the lot size and the distance between buildings all the time, so I don't
really see this so much as a design issue but as an issue of set-back and placement
on a lot. You can, you know in looking through this code book, it's not an
uncommon thing. We do that lots of places and lots of areas for good reason, and
I think it would be easy to say I won't live there. I probably won't drive by there.
it's not a big deal to me. People can do what they want to do. But I think I'd be
ignoring what I'm here to do and that's to assist and guide in creation of good,
livable neighborhoods that age well, and you know, to form communities, to form
neighborhoods that are really an asset to our community.
O'Donnell/And see that's what I think we're all here to do though, and it's just a
difference in opinion on how we think things should develop in town, and you
know, address affordability. The issue I understand if you do set the, bring the
garage forward and you build a roof over it, it adds $8,000 to $10,000 to the
house. Well that's what I'm told.
Franklin/Well I've not been convinced myselfthat that's...
O'Donnell/Well I'm not a builder so I don't know that.
Franklin/Well I'm not either, but...
Bovbjerg/I don't know, having heard the Council meeting the other night on cable, i
don't know how many styles there are with garages in front, or flush, or back, or
what restr/ctions there are. Surely there are more than a few styles. If you did not
allow a couple of styles with garage doors in the front, it doesn't seem to me that
there would be that restricted choice for people to be building. I don't know, and
I would want to see, how flush garages are less affordable because of how you
define affordability, I realize there are structural differences with how extensive
the flooring is, things like that. But, if this development is going to offer 8 to 10
styles, as I understand it, the neighboring development had several restrictions or
guidelines for people to build, there are other neighborhoods that've had that. I
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apparently had one in mine although I didn't know it a long time ago. If there are
ways of saying this is what we would like to see, appropriately, then that's part of
the development. Being part of the development, looking at the whole thing as a
whole, is exactly what we were looking at, and it gets back to the plan
development and to the conditional zoning agreement. Because this is a
differently styled, because the lots are narrower than usual, because the different
housing styles are not what would ordinarily be allowed in an RS-5, there are
allowances to the developer and there are allowances to the City. And the City is
allowed to say, you may do this if. A developer can say I would like to do this if,
and so it is a trade-off we have here. The density as I understand it is, the total
density, as I understand it, is no different from whether they had developed all
across or whether they had concentrated, so this is a benefit not only for the
developer, but the neighbors. It's a benefit to the City. You have the same
number of people, and if it were a commercial development, you'd be able to
have those commercial things, which would benefit the City. So you have
housing for the people, you have a diversity of housing for the people, you have
different styles, you have different prices, some alleys with garages underneath
the row houses, so that you potentially have the same market in terms of numbers.
You have different marketing styles, which might be very, which would be very
good for the City, and very good for the developer. But these are the trade-offs
that a city will give and what a developer will give, and that is what we're looking
at. It comes down to how long do you want the garage to be, but that's just a few
styles in some of these lots, and it's part of the whole planned area.
Wilburn/Just a few things that come to mind for me as I've been thinking of this, and I
know some organizations have brought this up as a concern in terms of cutting out
their options for building, but I find myself in agreement with you, the
Commission, and there're some things that come to mind as I hear you talk
tonight, and I've read through your minutes, and I've heard some of you talk
about before. One of those being the fact that several of you pointed out, you can
build here if. It is a condition and there are some things that you negotiate about.
Another thing that comes to mind in hearing a lot of you talk, whether you're for
or against this, hearing you use terms like future, vision, permanent. You're
really talking legacy type terms, and for me, looking at an individual house, what
it, how it feels from the public's point of view is perhaps isn't as salient a point as
what it looks like collectively, and does the public have an interest in the
collective positioning, how these relate to each other, and I believe the public
does have an interest in, people use different terms but for me the term is a
residential feel to the area, and with a certain positioning it has more of a
commercial type feel, potentially in some cases. And I appreciate the developers
working with, ordinarily when there's negotiating going back and forth like that, I
look at well is this something I'm willing to concede on, but really what we're
talking about here, and since there are some organizations, home builders and
others that are focusing on this, this is a fundamental principle of the
comprehensive plan, and I, because there was the public interest, and because we
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are talking about legacy and maintaining a residential type feel, I think it's a
legacy, a fundamental principle that I'm wanting to continue to hold on to.
Elliott/When I said earlier this is about esthetics, that's ~vhat I meant, but that's not
negative because we deal with those all the time in this type of discussion.
You're talking about esthetics, what our city looks like. I think that the difference
is it doesn't bother me. It appears to bother some of you folks. I think there is a
question of fairness to the buyer. You're limiting what the buyer has to choose
from, to end a sentence in a preposition (laughter) and you're, I think it's a
question of fairness to the developer. The developer has provided, what I
understand, an exorbitant amount, not exorbitant, that's a bad word. A highly
unusual amount of space for the sand prairie, and therefore, has had to have
smaller lots, and now you're saying you can't do what you want to on a smaller
lot. So ifI were the developer I'd think, what exactly did I gain by giving up all
that land for the sand prairie? I'm assuming they gain wanting to be a good
citizen, which they are by providing the space, but they put themselves to needing
smaller lots and now you're saying you can't do what you wanted to on a smaller
lot. So I see fairness in the fact that, I'm anxious to go on the tour, maybe I'll be
born again (laughter) but we'll see.
Wilburn/You know, when you bring up fairness too, another thing that ! forgot to
mention that comes to mind for me, on that issue of fairness and whether or not
I'd be willing to concede on a point or a principle, is whether or not there's
options, and what options are there here? There's, it's already been mentioned
the option within the design of the layout, but within this particular rezoning,
conditional rezoning, there's also another option. A person can go to one of the
larger lots. So that's kind of what I look at in terms of fairness and flexibility.
O'Donnell/But to me, we have to look at the price of the lot. That's an option if they're
the same price, but if the larger lot is more money, which it should be because it's
larger, then you're looking at an affordability issue.
Hansen/It's still more than what it would be; in fact, being on the south side of town it's
probably a little cheaper than it would have been on the north side of town. But
you know, I just want to expand on Ross' point a little bit. You talked about a
legacy a little. You know I wonder why it is that citizens fought so hard in this
town for neighborhood stabilization, for historic preservation districts in the older
neighborhoods, that are presentable the way that we're talking about. Why was it
that so many more homes are being renovated in those neighborhoods now, after
those zonings were put in place, and why is it the price of those homes went up so
much after...
Lehman/It's pretty easy, when people are tearing down homes and building apartment
houses, and that's where those came from. That was a matter of necessity.
Hansen/They like the neighborhoods enough to invest in them.
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Lehman/Well they liked them enough to try and preserve them, and we certainly agree
with them. You know, I think I don't want to be like Tiffin. I don't want to be
like another community. I want quality of life and quality neighborhoods, I think,
foster that, and I think if you have a high quality of life in your town, you attract
high quality (can't hear), and I don't think that's a point that falls on deaf ears
when it comes to employers.
Chiat/I would just like to make one final comment for me anyway, to Mike and to Bob.
When you talk about what doesn't bother you, you're talking about what you see
and will be allo~ved, and what we're talking about in this conditional rezoning is
things that are not now allowed, that a lot denser and a Iot tighter than what you
see, so you can't really, fairly I believe, say it doesn't bother you when you've
never seen it. And Ross, I think your word legacy is perfect and much more clear
than what I think the vision of how we want this community to be and how of
course we don't want it to be, so I think legacy is exactly what I'm talking about.
Lehman/Okay. Does anybody have anything to add? I think most of the Council is
either going on the tour or has been on the tour, and obviously this is an issue
we'll be taking up again Tuesday night. Are there other comments?
O'Donnell/I appreciated meeting with you. Thank you very much. I value your
opinions.
(BREAK)
Atkins/Well, you've got this book and it's got lots of numbers in it, so I betcha it's a
budget. Ignore Connie's slip-less past? (laughter) Okay, we've now lost control,
is that it? Ail right. What I'd like to do is not a lot different. And for Bob and
Regina, we'll go over a little old ground. The handouts that I've given you are the
overheads I normally do. You can make your notes on those. They are, some of
those we prepare, and some are pages from your budget. We do have an errata
sheet. A couple pages have to be changed. Nothing dramatic. We'll get those
out to you a little later on. First comment is, it seems like we just did this a
couple months ago, and I realized we did do this a couple months ago. (laughter)
One of the things that you may have noticed, and sort of to our advantage, when
we did our budget reductions and changes back in June, we did it for a 2-year
period. That's why our budget is balanced. Our friends to the north, I suspect,
are going through the throes of because they only chose to do it on an annual
basis, and I'll explain the consequences of that as we move through here. Okay.
We have some ground rules. Tonight's meeting will be major issues and
generally revenues. On Thursday morning, the 15th, at 8:30, that meeting will be
substantially capital projects. Staffwill be here to present the capital project plan.
The meeting of the 22 ~s now open, dependmg on how far we get tomght, and
the meeting of the 27th is not officially scheduled. It was an evening meeting, but
it too will be open. I hope to get through my presentation tonight, and then the
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capital projects on Thursday. So I think ~ve have plenty of time to do what you
got to do. I would remind you that individually you may find this, something
really a great idea or a bad idea, but it's the collective that counts so (laughter) I
just feel compelled to remind you that as long as you can count like that, then
we'll move ahead with something. IfI happen to say during the budget
presentation, again more for Regenia and Bob, you can't do that. Please don't
take offense. It's either something illegal. IfI say there's something you
shouldn't be doing, consider that a note of caution and as for the other Council
Members, I will step you through what I think some of the consequences might be
of a particular action. We do have our deadlines, the state forms. But again as I
indicated to you, I think we're going to be okay as far as timing. Now, during the
review process we're about to go through this today and any other, if you have a
question, we'll try to answer them immediately. If you've got an issue that
something we're discussing peaks your interest, we'll record it. That is, we'll jot
it down. It may take some additional staff work, or you want to have more
discussion, so for something you want to throw out, ! want to talk about this, if
it's something that can't be handled in a few minutes, it will get recorded and
we'll come back to it. Hopefully this will be our reminder. Now, we do a 3-year
operating budget, and we balance the budget for 3 years. To my knowledge,
we're still the only one in the state who chooses to d this. We also have a multi-
year capital improvement plan that we close out our budget every year with a
comprehensive annual financial report. We do use the 3-year plan. We balance
for 3 years. The further out you get, the harder it is to predict. I would remind
you that while by law we can only appropriate 1 year at a time. We try to balance
for 3 years but during that 3 years, you get 3 legislatures, 2 congresses, a
president, and a governor. Those things can happen during that period of time,
and like we found out last year, who knows what might happen. Now, the budget.
The budget is an estimate. Above all it's important to remember, of expenditures
and revenues over a given period of time. It's a real simple definition. An
estimate of our revenues and expenditures over a given period of time. If you step
outside of that, then that is an extra budget issue and you have to weigh what the
implications are. The budget is balanced. By law I have to submit to you a
budget which is balanced, and it's been balanced in accordance with the State
law. The current State law. Tax rates can be changed. Applicable regulations
about how they affect the budget, can come along, so we're never really quite sure
what's next. A couple examples, we're building a parking garage. We have the
potential for two more floors to be built on the parking garage as we await
Congress to decide on their transportation funding, whether that is going to be
funded or not. CDBG program - that's a Congressional appropriation. STP,
Surface Transportation Program those on JCCOG are familiar with that. Well
the State Legislature has convened, and is there the possibility, I just want to deal
with this up front, that they could reduce aid to the cities even further? Well right
now, all of the direct aid programs are gone. They'd have to start taking money
virtually raised locally. That doesn't mean they might not take a run at that. The
only major property, or the only major general fund aid from the State, is
something called the property tax exemption, and that's when you buy your
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house, you (can't hear) $4, 850, is that correct, Deb? You get an exemption. The
State pays that. Pays it to the County, who pays it to us. Could they take that
away? And the answer is yes, if the State were to do that, I believe it's well over
$100 million in State monies, so I suspect it could be a target. Could they take it
a~vay? Yeah. Would it directly affect us in the operations of this budget? No,
but if they were to take it away and say you have to provide that exemption, then
it would, and that would be close to an $800,000 hole in the budget, if they chose
to do that. You know, heart palpitations. We have made the assumption in
balancing the budget, that the question I would pose to you, is there any
likelihood that the State aid will ever return? And I want to break forth into song,
he never returned, his fate is still unknown, well I think it's known. I don't
believe the State's ever going to provide us a population allocation, bank
franchise, any of those things. Just to give you a quick example of what has
happened in the short-term, in the last few years, just last year, the State
population allocation, this is one year's annual, right out of the general fund.
Allocation $570,000 gone. Personal property tax replacement, they took away
personal property as a tax, they said they would replace the revenue. That's gone.
The rollback effect in one year, this year, the values are down substantially
because of the rollback. We calculated that effect, that's another $800,000 out of
the general fund. Bank franchise, that has been pushed around a bit, but the
bottom line is we got it in this current fiscal year. The proposed fiscal year, it
would need new legislation to extend the money to us. I can't imagine the State
passing that. It's about $8 million. Machinery and equipment - that happened
about four years ago. That was a portion where 30% of the value of machinery
and equipment was subject to property tax. The State took that away. They were
going to reimburse us. Didn't do that. They have changed our gas and electric
utilities from a property tax to an excise tax. They had guaranteed the revenue. It
would remain revenue neutral. This isn't the utility companies fault. The State
just simply may chose to not make that guarantee anymore, and we just simply
will have to track that one. And finally, remember back in the spring, the federal
government was writing rather big checks to the State. I don't know how else to
say it, but the State of Iowa got $100 million and the State kept it all. It was
intended to be provided to local governments. They funded some of their capital
projects, Vision Iowa and things such as that.
Lehman/Steve, how many of these are for the next fiscal year, are different than they
were for the last fiscal year, of these?
Atkins/Well do you count...remember, we just did this in June? Do you count that?
That's the last fiscal year. Last fiscal year we had a population allocation
property replacement, bank franchise, yeah, we had those three. Two years before
that we were, ! think it was two years; we were getting machinery and equipment
replacement monies. They took that away. That's been gone, and then the
rollback, chart, yeah. Ten years ago the rollback was like 70, and it's 48.4 this
year.
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Vanderhoef/And our new assessments have just kept us about even this year with the
rollback or... ?
Atkins/You're going to see that in just a minute. Okay. I'll show you that. Okay. The
point is, the State, this is a little soapbox. Clearly the State doesn't like property
taxes, and they're doing anything and everything they can to make the property
tax, it's the most painful form of taxation. Taking these things away from us just
simply means that the property tax has to be used to offset that, however, as you
know, the property tax is also regulated in the sense of caps and limits and so
forth. In your budget book, on pages 5, you don't have to look them up, stop.
Pages 5 through 11 are our fiscal policies. They am long-standing. They have
served us well. They're clearly things that have a great deal to do with the
management of this organization. It affects our credit rating, budget planning,
cash management. They are often noted in our financial analysis when we go
through a credit rating that we record our policies, and we follow those, and the
important thing to think about these policies is they carry over from council to
council. As time goes on, as council majorities change, if there's a policy that
doesn't appeal to you for any reason, you certainly have the ability to make those
changes. Next up, for summary purposes I prepared what I call sort of the budget
issues. Issues is not intended to be negative, but it just sort of gives you the flavor
of the budget and how we balanced it, and I'll just move through this rather
quickly. Number one is our general fund cash reserve. We have a policy that at
no time will our cash reserve position at any given year go below 15% and we
must have a 5-year average of 20% on our cash position because we are property
taxed based, and we get paid twice a year, we still have to pay the bills over the
course of the year. This cash reserve serves as working capital for us. We have
met that policy - that's on page 29 in your budget if you ever want to make a note
of that. This year our general fund contingency, we have had a long-standing
effort to keep it at 1%. That is pure contingency. Something crazy happens, you
have the availability of cash to go and deal with that issues. This year for the first
time in a number of years, we're actually at a full 1% of our proposed
expenditures, as set up as a general fund contingency, and I'll flag that for you
again. Thirdly, we have a 25% debt policy. That's our own internal policy,
approved by Council many, many years ago. It precedes me, is that our levy will
never go beyond, or our general levy will never be more than 25% devoted to
debt. Well last year, it went beyond that. And the reason it went beyond that is
that we sold that big bond issue because of the library referendum tacked on top
of that. This year in balancing the capital project, we are back below the 25%.
So, it was noted by our, the folks who do our credit rating, and we indicated to
them we were putting together a plan for capital projects, that would keep our
debt position below the 25% policy. Folks like Moody's, Standard and Poor's,
those folks who do credit analysis, look at it much more as fiscal discipline. Can
we discipline ourselves in our spending? Just as an aside on this so when it comes
time for you to discuss capital projects, our position in road use tax happens to be
very good, and that was one of the tools by which we were able to use some road
use tax money to offset some debt, and the position of our road use tax fund still
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January 13, 2004 Council Work Session Page 10
remains very positive. Also, State financial aid, I don't believe it's going to
return. We have a declining residential rollback. Last year it was 51,300; this
year it's 48,400. The value of property, that's a 6% decline in values for taxable
purposes. In this budget it shows a loss of 16 jobs in the general fund. We had
originally proposed 18. We've made a modification with respect to a
recommendation on our police officers. This budget is balanced, making the
assumption that you remain committed to the reductions we proposed in June. I
have a summary page, particularly for Regina and Bob to show you in summary
what we did, and where we are in each of those, and that will come up later.
Operating expenses, health insurance - well, folks, you know all you have to do is
read what's going on. Our rates are probably a tad bit, we're a little bit better off
than some of the other communities, but it's still, and when you see tax rates
you'll see the impact of that on our expenditures. Our property insurance and
other general insurance programs are up almost 18% this year. Last year was
$650,000; this year it's $770,000. We also had to expand our self-insured
retention in order to get the level of, to get that down to a reasonable number.
Yes, Emie?
Lehman/Steve, is health insurance and employee pensions part of employee benefits
Ievy?
Atkins/Yes it is and I'll show you that.
Lehman/So they don't affect the budget?
Atkins/Well, they're a tax levy, Ernie. It does not...
Lehman/But it doesn't affect the general fund though.
Atkins/It has to be, it's levied separately and then put into the general fund, and you'll
see that when I ...... but it's a separate levy.
Champion/Because it directly affects people's property tax.
Atkins/It's a direct property tax, absolutely.
Champion/And have we done anything about trying to do (can't hear) bargaining? Have
we done anything? I know it's probably impossible.
Atkins/Well, it really is very difficult, Connie, and I would just as soon have Dale speak
to it. We are in the bargaining with police and fire. We believe getting a 3-year
agreement with ASCME which we just settled, 2.65, 2.75, 2.85. Bottom line,
they were anxious to settle I suspect, just simply because we know that these kid
of....and they have this written into their contract. It would be very expensive for
us to try and buy ourselves out of that. Our Triple A credit rating, i'm assuming
we will continue making every effort on our general obligation debt to keep this
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January 13, 2004 Council Work Session Page 11
as a goal. There am always state cuts that are going to be beyond our control, and
our policies on our reserves are very important, and our approach. In the last
bond rating analysis it was specifically pointed out that we did a thoughtful,
responsible job in making the reductions quickly and as painlessly as we possibly
could. That had a lot to do with our Triple A credit rating. We have an A-1 credit
rating in our water revenue. As you remember just a year ago, it was upgraded.
In the midst of all the craziness that was going on, our water position was
improved. Our reserves are good. We do not have any major borrowing plan for
water for some time. Most of our projects, we would intend to operate out of
either our cash position or not do them. We're in good shape them. The airport,
the subsidy, the airport again is subsidized at approximately the same level.
That's page 115 in your budget. As it has been in the past, we do need to set a
policy. We've got to decide that. I'll be, when I do my summary at the end of the
evening, the airport commission, in fact, through Ron called, Ernie, and asked you
and I to come to a meeting on the 12th of February. I'm not sure what the meeting
is, but they want us there. We, they've given us that report. You've all seen it.
Nothing really dramatically changed, but the level of subsidy has not declined
substantially, and our projections are it's going to stay at approximately the
$170,000 to $180,000 level it is now. The library is proposing a cash contribution
for part of their fund raising. $500,000. We did not project that out in the future
years but we believe, Kevin, help me, that we have about a $I million
commitment from them?
O'Malley/That commitment has been reduced.
Atkins/What's it down to now?
O'Malley/They're going to try to give us $100,000 over the next four years.
Atkins/So it's $900,000?
O'Malley/Right.
Atkins/That's something you may take up with the Library Board. I had been under the
assumption ail along, when the library project was approved, it would be in the
million dollar range, and they're not, apparently the giving is not coming in at the
level they thought. Yes, Dee?
Vanderhoef/Was that $100,000 a year or?
Atkins/$500,000 for this coming budget year, and then $100,000, $100,000, $100,000,
$100,000, yeah, for four more years.
Vanderhoef/Thank you.
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Atkins/We'll talk about that in a little more detail. Capital projects - in balancing the
budget, we wanted to get under the 25% policy, and secondly what we tried to do
is as we pay off debt, we can initiate new debt, so ~ve're trying to keep it current.
In other words, we don't want any spikes in the thing, and the implications there.
I bring the next one up because the passion with which this issue was presented to
me by the Commission, they really, really want to do a master plan. I did not
include it in the budget. They were willing to actually even spend some of the
Parkland acquisition monies to pay for the thing. Until the State legislature sorts
out what they're going to do, this is a source of cash that we could use. They do
want to come and talk to you, so...tuck that one away. Municipal electric studies
I have not budgeted anything simply because we don't have a policy. I'm not, if
you ask me to guess what it would cost for studies and litigation, I, folks, do not
know.
Wilburn/Was there any further conversation --- maybe Dale knows --- with the group of
cities about that next step in which city might go next to challenge...the issue was
brought up during the meeting about a possibility of another smaller city doing it
first to resolve, or get an indication from the utility board.
Atkins/Do you want to talk into my necktie?
Helling/There has been some discussion, but there's not been a decision to my
knowledge.
Wilburn/Okay.
Atkins/I approached it with we don't have a policy. I've not had an expression from
Council of this is what we want to do, this is what we're proposing. Also those
that are advocating it have not put forth any numbers. Personally, I'djust as soon
hear what they've got to say. And then practically speaking, this is a tough one,
to spend large amounts of money on these studies in the face of some of the other
budget reductions you might have to make. And finally, budget issues, we are
proposing another 5% reduction in water rates. Cash position remains good. This
~vill be the second one. It's in keeping with some of the long-term commitments
we had made on this issue. Okay. Anything on those? Now, what all this means
in the budget balancing, is we are fiscally sound. We have a property taxed based
fiscal policy. Everything that we do revolves around that major source of income.
Now there are upsides and downsides to that. Generally speaking it's a little
slower to react when there's an economic downturn. That gives you some
comfort. When things begin to take off, you know retail sales, a number of other
things, it's a little slower to respond, but the point about the property tax and its
strength, is its steadiness. Now we're paid twice a year, as you know. That's why
our working capital reserves are so important to us. And, the second item about
being fiscally sound, is we live on growth, new construction. The State takes
away, by rollback, much of our value. IfI can just digress for a minute,
remember about three years ago when we did the comprehensive assessment of all
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the property values and city-wide it went up about, oh it was pushing 10% on a lot
of properties. It was due to have a comprehensive revaluation. Those of you ~vho
were around, remember the budget. That same year, the State rollback was down
about another 9%, which completely offset all of that value increase, and if you
remember the budget process, not a peep. Everybody is concerned about property
taxes are going to go way up because of new value, new value, new value, and the
State took it away. Our economic development policies are very closely tied to
property tax growth. We've had recommendations in the past for revenue
diversification. We as a community have chosen not to pursue those, and so our
economic development policy substantiated around the brick and mortar issues
associated with capital projects, privately funded capital investment for taxable
purposes. It's not that we don't promote in part of our policies, retail, for
example, Pepperwood and Sycamore where retail development would have
significant bearing upon the quality of life in those neighborhoods. Sycan~ore
being a very positive one. And then ultimately in May, as Sycamore did increase
the taxable value of that property, and again, a lot of it depends...again, our
bottom line is that we have an economic development policy based upon property
tax. Many of our capital projects, as we will present them to you on Thursday,
are intended to create opportunities to cause that to occur. The problem we have
is we are fiscally sound. We've got a good cash position. Our credit's good, but
we can't take any initiatives. I mean truly can't take any initiatives. What I tried
to do, and I don't know whether this chart does it or not, so, let's say you want to
fund something out of a reserve because you're saying our reserve position is
really, we're really in good shape. Well, there's a short-term impact. Example, if
you were going to build a road, let's use Mormon Trek for example. You build
that road. There's automatically a lot of advantages to it. We've already seen it.
It's got a $3 million automobile dealership that's under construction that fits with
the economic development initiatives. But if you wanted to use our cash position
to finance something like a 4th fire station, I'd strongly recommend against that,
because then you're just spending that reserve down for the operating costs. We
can afford to build it, to buy the land and to build it. What we can't afford to do it
staff it. So, we're in a strong financial position but we just don't have a lot of
latitude, and the real bottom line, you'll see it shortly, is that it's because of all the
regulations we have on the monies made available to us. So, I always express
caution to you. Our weakest financial source is our general fund levy but it's also
the one (tape ends) sources.
Elliott/Steve, could you just run back a minute to the previous one, you said you live on
growth, new construction, residential, commercial. I presume you're talking
about expanding the tax base.
Atkins/Yes.
Elliott/Could you give it just a quick one sentence summary of the difference between
residential and commercial?
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Atkins/If you wait about two minutes, I'll have that for you.
Elliott/That's coming up? Okay, good.
Atkins/Okay, but anyway, I think you understand the, you always have the ability as the
Council to cut services. I might encourage you to be cautious about that because
all you do is create a void in something the public has become accustomed to.
Wilburn/It's a really, I think I asked this question before in looking at the budget,
whether the budget reflects growth or stability, or cutting (can't hear) besides our
good financial position, it's a budget of stability.
Atkins/That's right.
Lehman/it's like living on social security. (laughter)
Atkins/Somebody else paying for it?
Lehman/Fixed income.
Atkins/Yeah. I wouldn't know that. You're now getting that, aren't you, Ernie?
(laughter)
O'Donnell/Five years ago. (laughter)
Atkins/Okay. This, Bob, will hopefully, let's talk a little bit about our property values.
We just got our final number come in, and ~ve have to give Deb a serious talk.
This is her estimate done. She missed it by 800ths of 1% so we're going to have
to have a chat. (laughter) Okay. Let me just read some of these numbers, and
some of you may remember it from the campaign because I tried to walk you
through this. Fiscal 05 100% assessment residential, $2.155 billion, that's the
total residential value of property in Iowa City. The next line, reading across, is
commercial, industrial and our utilities. That's $1.039 billion, you with me now?
Okay. So we have a total assessed value of $3.194 billion. Now figured into that,
is increase in the values of property, the assessment process. Your house goes up
a little bit, remember we're in a cycle every two years, and figured in there, is
new' construction. You'll recall, we're into our fifth $100 million year in new
construction. Now that's the building permit value. The taxable value is higher
because the building permit only represents the building, not the value of the land.
gut $100 million year, we've always targeted as an exceptional year. The
importance of these numbers in that first row is it's unregulated. I mean, it's true
value, and it's important to our long-term growth that we remain aware of that.
It's the foundation of the fiscal health of this community. But, and the big but is
that the regulations are that applied, and if you read down then to taxable assessed
value, I'm going to use the one for debt levy, don't be concerned about that, but
the taxable assessed value is after you roll-back the value, residential is $1.044
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January 13, 2004 Council Work Session Page 15
billion and commercial, industrial and utilities $1.032 billion. So if you note, we
lose approximately $1 billion worth of taxable, or of property value, because of
the rollback and other regulations. But the important thing, those regulations are
changing all the time, and those folks that evaluate our financial position, so if the
regulations went away, the property tax would go zip. Now, let me just kind of
give you a demonstration, is that okay, Bob? Did that help you on that?
Elliott/You bet.
Atkins/Okay.
Vanderhoef/So we're losing about 33% of our assessed value.
Atkins/Here's another way of looking at it. Is that in 05 we had a value of $3.194
billion, got that number? Well, last year was $2.96. It was up 7.9% -- that's
values and new construction. Now residential went up 8.6%. Last year I think we
had 200 new single families, and maybe another 350 apartment units. I mean, it's
not uncommon, unusual for us to build 500 housing units in the course of a year.
And commercial, industrial went up 6.7%. Our tax base foundation is 67%
residential, 2/3rds, 1/3r°. Then you go to apply the regulations, that's when the
State steps in. So when you do the regulations from the State, our actual increase
in value is about 4%. Our residential 2.3; commercial, industrial about 6, and
here's how the regulation changes your tax base dramatically. It goes from
2/3rds, 1/3rd to 50/50, where your commercial, industrial plays a much greater
role in the financial strength of your community. One of the staff people and I
were talking about this, made an observation, is that service demand clips along at
this peak, 8.6%, new units, new housing, people need services, but the State only
allows us 2.3% for tax purposes to generate the income off of that. So you've got
new housing, new people move into town, new citizens, have service demands,
but the residential base to support that is substantially less because the State
regulations. Okay?
Vanderhoef/That isn't even typical inflation.
Atkins/No. If we did not have the growth that we had, have, it would, we would be in
deep doo-doo. We do live on our growth.
Vanderhoef/But we're providing services for that many more people, but with the
same...
Atkins/Doo-doo is a financial term for troublesome. (laughter) Okay. But no, Dee, I
understand your assessment. The important thing I wanted to make here is how
that dramatically changes, and when you think about your economic development
policy, it seems to me that the residential is going to occur at a rather healthy clip,
sort of regardless of what we do. I mean, this is still a popular address. But
commercial, industrial is clearly that component of the tax that is paying the
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January 13, 2004 Council Work Session Page 16
freight to provide the services, and so when you think about your application of
economic development policies, keep that in mind. Okay.
Champion/If ~ve're not providing, I mean we don't provide really services to commercial
property, like trash pickup, and all that.
Atkins/No, no.
Champion/So we're...
Vanderhoef/Police and fire.
Champion/Police and fire, that's true.
Atkins/We provide police and fire. Police is not a huge demand. Fire is. We have in
our fire contingency plans that there are some, we have some expensive gear that
we have to maintain. You'll see in your capital plan, the big aerial ladder truck. I
was, we, I was here when we bought that in 1986. It was $500,000. We expect
about a million five to a million six for the same piece of equipment, next time
out.
O'Donnell/Steve, how long do we keep those?
Atkins/Twenty years.
O'Donnell/Twenty years?
Atkins/Yup.
Lehman/Can we get the State to put a rollback on them?
Atkins/Yeah, yeah, you do have....(laughter). Okay, let me talk to you a little bit, now
you understand the tax base. Let's talk about our tax rates. Because these are
also highly regulated by the State. Looking at 05, I think the ones I want to point
out to you, remember these are the 8.10 state max, 95 cents transit state max, tort
liability, that's to pay for our insurance. That went from 244 to 349, and that's
just strictly because of the cost of insurance. We did increase our self-insurance.
One of the things that Erin pointed out to me is that insurance companies used to
be able to, or could, a few years ago, support themselves a lot on their investment
income. Well, the investment income is not being generated at the level it had in
the past, so now they have to use pricing to help pay for, is that correct, Karin?
Did I get that right? See, I listen. Moving further down you can see employee
benefits levy, that's an independent levy unregulated. Unregulated, it's regulated
in the sense of what you can charge against it. There's no cap on it. It's gone
from 3,192 to 3,437.
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Elliott/And how much of that is mandated by the State? The police and fire?
Atkins/The State, about ten years ago, took over all pension plans. Benefits, everything
about it, is the state legislature. We used to manager our own police and fire
pensions, and then there was this thing called IPERS, Iowa Public Employees
Retirement System. What is paid, bottom line, Bob, is the benefits are determined
by the State --- we pay the bill.
Elliott/But, only for police and fire?
Atkins/No. Everybody. All employees. Kevin, Deb, Erin and I, we're all in IPERS.
We're not in the police and fire pension plan. It's a different pension plan.
Elliott/And that's mandated? How much the cost of the benefits?
Atkins/The cost of the bene...yes, yes. Every year, every other year in the legislature
there's a big debate over the, three years ago, the fire and police folks got some
really nice increases in their benefit package. They worked the legislature and got
them. Well, investment income declined rather dramatically. Somebody's got to
make up the difference, and the legislature sends us a bill.
Lehman/But we chose to do it by levy, rather than from general fund.
Atkins/We chose to do it by this levy. You have to be at the 8.10 max before you can
use this levy. And so you know, I had a check today, there are 950 cities in Iowa,
and 780 of them are at the 8.10 max so everybody's suffering the same, as we are.
Okay. Debt service is the taxes that we need to generate to pay for any general
obligation debt that we have outstanding and plan to sell. Now you'll note in 05 it
goes down. I was called by the press about a week or so ago asking about, they
were going to do an editorial on us, saying how can you make all those budget
reductions and lower your tax rate? And I explained to them that it's an
aberration and the aberration is the one time contribution by the library, paid into
the debt service fund, means we don't have to generate that kind of taxed income
for that year. That's why it declines. And an important number for you to look
at, is in 06, under debt service levy, and it goes back up. Are you with me? See
where it says 4,395 in fiscal 06, and that's up from, it's almost a dollar increase.
Vanderhoef/And that includes the $100,0007
Atkins/It does not, Dee, and we will have to correct that. We were working on that, and
yeah, that will change downward, not a whole lot, but it will change downward,
and we'll do that later on. Okay, so our tax rate as you know it, is actually going
down this year.
Champion/Well I can't wait to tell people that. (laughter)
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January ! 3, 2004 Council Work Session Page 18
Atkins/Okay. Now, most of those rates are again set by some state regulation. We did a
quick calculation and something like 85% of all of our general fund revenue, has
some form of state regulation on it. So you don't get to make a lot of choices.
How some of this translates - we've gone from tax base to tax rate. You'll
remember this in our budget, what we have here is the property owner on the
$100,000 house. Last year was $904. This year it will be $840. With me? And
it's due primarily, to the reduction in the debt service, as we use those monies to
pay against the library debt. Okay? Okay, this is our generaI fund. This is the
largest of our operating funds. By the way, these should be in the same order, I'm
putting these up in the same order you should have in your packet. And ! want to
take you through kind of explaining some of our general fund revenues. Just to
give you a read on a couple of them, the property taxes, reading across, you'll
notice the beginning balances and that's that cash position, reading across. We
would intend under our 8.10 to levy $16.1 million worth of property taxes. And
as you note, if you read in 06 and 07, it grows to $I6.4, $16.8. That's not huge
growth, folks, and that's because you anticipate the rollback continues to peck
away at that. And from the fact that we're overwhelmingly residential property
valued. Transit levy, library tort, further down...personal property replacement.
We used to be able to tax personal property, many, many years ago. The state
said we don't want you to do that anymore, and we will reimburse you. Well the
reimbursement came for a couple years. Then it became a fixed number. It was
this fixed number for the last ten years, and then last year it was taken away
completely, and we are projecting it won't come back. As we read down a little
further, housing permits, my highlighter didn't show up on some of these, folks,
excuse me. Housing permits and fees, if you read across, it says 255. That is
understated. We have got to make a correction on that. Last, in June as part of
your budget reductions revenue increases, you made the housing division self-
supporting, and that number will be more like 305 instead of 255. We will correct
that.
Vanderhoef/That's for 06?
Atkins/No. 05. Yes, we will correct that. Moving further down, you can see parking
fines. There was, that's the $10 fine, remember it went from $5 to $10 and that's
why the big increase.
Champion/Where's that at? Thought we went from $3 to $5?
Atkins/Parking fines...well the meters went from $3 to $5. The parking fines, that's the
illegal parking, and...that's correct.
Champion/And where's that at? I can't read...oh, I guess I could...
Atkins/It's right in front of you, Connie (laughter). I didn't want to say that. I thought
Regenia would give you a shot and say...this is hard to read. It's a page right out
of your budgets. If you want to flip to your budgets, you can look at that. Okay,
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January 13, 2004 Council Work Session Page 19
moving on. Senior Center fees this is something you're going to have to have a
conversation I believe, with the Senior Center, and I bring it up as a budget
highlight later on this evening, is that they had projected $57,000 in new monies.
$44,000 looks much more realistic. I'm going to be talking to Linda and Jay later
on this week. I've encouraged the Commission to take the issue on reasonably
quickly. I don't know what their plans are. We have budgeted to cover this
throughout fiscal 05, but after 06 we did not. We can cover it, and a lot of it is a
policy issue.
Elliott/You say after 05, or after 06?
Atkins/After 05, so it would be 06 and on. We can cover that. I mean we can cover
whatever you direct us to, that's more like it. But the bottom line on this one
folks, is I think, you'll need to visit with your Commission on that. I don't think
there's any doubt they made a sincere effort to cover for the problem they got
handed to them by the County. Remember the County used to pay $140, and now
we're estimating they'll pay $75. The County did that, Mike.
O'Donnell/I know that.
Atkins/Okay, thank you.
O'Donnell/Thank you for pointing that out. (laughter) Steve, do you know how much
the membership has declined there?
Atkins/You know, I hear all kinds of things. Well, I hear they're busy. They're running
their programs, and I don't know how you would even measure that. That's a
good question to ask, I just don't know, Mike. I can't believe over the $10 or $20
fee, people are refusing to go to the Center. I just, that just, I know there's all
kinds of gyrations and ffiction that goes on. Are they, Regenia?
Bailey/That's what I heard.
Atkins/That's what you're hearing? Huh. Yeah, see I'm not hearing it. We certainly
do. But the important thing here is we're doing the budget, and how much money
they're going to be bringing in, and it's not going to be where we had anticipated.
Champion/Well, we promised them we'd support them through this year, did we,
whatever they needed?
Atkins/No, you didn't really make that promise. They said..they said to you, they would
try and make an effort to offset...we made a rather reduction in their operating
budget, and it still wasn't enough. They were at $57,000 short. They would
entertain fees and other charges to make up that difference, and that assumes the
County is going to provide them at least $75,000 this year.
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January 13, 2004 Council Work Session Page 20
Vanderhoef/And we dropped the fee that the Commission recommended to us, so when
they made the pledge of $57,000, they made it with a proposal for a different fee,
higher fee.
O'Donnell/Well, also, isn't there like a scholarship fund there?
Atkins/Oh that's a huge flap over who's going to, whatever, it comes down to who's
going to get $10. Okay, moving on. This is just to kind of remind you that we
have a fire service contract. We provide all fire services to University properties
by contract. It's somewhat elaborate formula but it's based upon the square
footage of their property. It's worked very well for us for a long time. I just
pointed it out to you because it is a big-ticket item in our general fund.
O'Donnell/Steve, what is the police services?
Atkins/Oh sort of miscellaneous things...Deb, Deb, what's the police service, or Kevin,
one of you? The police service, the $100,0007 Microphone.
Mansfield/It would have unlocks in it. It also has overtime reimbursement for like the
quick trip.
Atkins/Oh, if we send someone...oh, okay.
Mansfield/Right.
Atkins/Any more you need, Mike? Okay.
Champion/What do you mean if you send somebody down on a quick trip? What does
that mean?
Mansfield/Some of the businesses have, well, it's actually like extra police protection.
Atkins/They as for something extra. An off-duty officer is sent, I mean in uniform. We
pay them, they pay us. Yeah.
(several talking at once on issues)
Atkins/Okay, moving on. The transit fees, just under the County support for the Senior
Center, that transit fee. That's a new one. That's the income from the Court
Street transportation center, and that will be recorded in our general fund.
Moving further down, the gas and electric - I've already mentioned that to you.
We have projected that it will continue at least a moderate growth. What the state
chooses to do in the formula, I don't know. State Population Allocation, you're
familiar with. Bank franchise. Hotel/motel tax I want to flag that one for you at
$550. We expect that to go up in 07, and we need to do a little more work on it.
We're assuming by then the Moen project will come on line, and that there will be
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January 13, 2004 Council Work Session Page 21
income generated for hotel taxes from that. Exactly how much we've done a
number of estimates, but nothing really to nail that down, so I said we'll just leave
the number the way it is, but we're flagging the issue that we will be getting
additional hotel/motel tax income, when that project comes on. Oh, moving
through sale of land. That's the Peninsula. That's as the developer pays us back
for the property that we had pumhased, and we just staged that over a number of
years. The loan repayment. This is the last year for the Englert loan. Remember,
we loaned them money, and they're paying us back so they're square with us
now. And, you'll see those transfers. That means it may be, for example, the
employee benefits levy is $7.4 million. It's a separate tax levy, but it must be
receded into the general fund and shown as a general fund expense. The same
whenever you see that transfer, that's just a matter of the state law and how xve do
that. That's our general fund. Ending balances, we're right on the money as far
as balancing that fund.
Elliott/Steve, were you going to hit those lines on the bottom?
Atkins/The expense side?
Elliott/Yeah...
Atkins/No, I wasn't going to d the expense side unless you want me to.
Elliott/I just wondered, what's included in personnel. Is that everyone?
Atkins/No, that's only general fund employees. There's about 380 employees that are in
the general fund. We have 600 full time, but water, sewer, refuse, those are all
separate funds, and you, they'll be shown separately.
Vanderhoef/But we still keep growing as we lay off: I shouldn't say lay off --- as people
are not rehired.
Atkins/Yeah.
Lehman/As the attrition process...
Vanderhoef/Thank you, thank you.
Atkins/Well, we have had, this, we've worked very hard to make sure that it's strictly
attrition. We've had a couple employees we had to give notice to, and it ~vas
just...
Vanderhoef/I misspoke. I knew better.
Atkins/Thank you. (laughter) That's not one of the more pleasant things we get to do.
No. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about our cash position. I mentioned that to you.
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It's well within policy. Again, that's a page from the budget. We've tried to
flatten that out and keep that number fairly consistent, and I think we've done a
pretty good job with that. That goes a long way in our credit analysis, on how we
do. Okay. Now while this is probably better off for tomorrow night, I want to
bring it up to you tonight so you can be thinking about it because it has to do, it's
debt service. Thursday night...I'd be alone here tonight talking. (laughter)
Okay. But I wanted to explain it to you because there are some important factors
in there. The total property valuation for debt purposes, remember we were at
3.194 billion? Well, when you have to go through some gyrations with the State,
in 05 we have a total property valuation for debt purposes of 3 billion in 05.
Under the state law, we are permitted, our allowable debt margin is we could
issue up to 152,569,000 etc., in debt. Our current debt position is 89,495,000, and
that's including some of what we have planned for the future. Important thing to
note is last year that 62, what we're doing is we're beginning to pull that down a
tad bit. Now that cuts into capital projects and you'll want to think about that
when you're going through projects because them are some that are not funded
that you're interested in seeing funded. That's a very comfortable number.
Again, the folks who do our financial analysis wouldn't even look at it unless it's
about 75% or more and we're at 59%. And, the important thing about keeping
some kind of a margin is, one, in case of an emergency; secondly, a special
opportunity would come along, something we didn't anticipate; a citizen
initiative. Folks, you didn't know, the library could have passed the bond issue
and if we didn't have any capacity, we couldn't have sold the bonds to (laughter)
SO...
Champion/What would happen?
Atkins/You can't sell the bonds until you have sufficient margin. Nothing would
happen.
Elliott/Steve, you said that you, that we had a self-imposed, what was that, 25%
Atkins/Yeah, I'm going to show you, next one up, it'll take care of that. In fact, our GO
position is strong enough that what we will do is actually sell GO debt because of
the lower interest rate, and retire that debt with water or sewer revenues, and
finance a water project with GO, and that just simply, it simply pulls down the
cost for water and sewer. We're very fussy about that, and we want to make sure
we don't burn that all up, but it does allow us, you will note when you do capital
projects. We had a deliberate debt reduction policy that...
Champion/So the water debt is in GO?
Atkins/GO and I think some sewer too. Yeah, both of them.
Vanderhoef/But that we don't have to keep a reserve then if we don't use utility...
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Atkins/Lower interest rate, don't have to keep the same level of reserves. We get all
kinds of opportunity because of, again, the strength of our GO position.
Champion/But it's paid with water revenues, isn't it?
Atkins/It's called abatement. We abate it with water revenue. We sell it, pledge the
property tax to support it, but as far as the bond holder's concerned, as long as
they get their check, they don't really care. And we chose to pay for water and
sewer.
Champion/Would it be difficult to know what percentage of our debt is true debt, for
roads or, is that difficult?
Vanderhoef/How much is being abated?
Champion/How much is being abated, yeah.
Atkins/Yeah, in fact I think we usually try and keep that number, but I don't see it on
this report. We'll get that for you. Kev, you'll get that? Okay.
Champion/So right now ~ve're at 59 or 60?
Atkins/59% is our proposal, of the allowable debt. And in that is some water and sewer
too.
Champion/Yeah, that's what I...
Atkins/Okay. Now, our self-imposed debt service policy, it popped up, if you'll
remember, last year's council when we sold the almost $30 million ~vorth of debt
we had...what happened was the library approved their bond issue at the same
time we were planning to sell, and we just decided let's just go with the whole
thing, and we got a good credit rating, and it was a great market if you'll
remember. We were 3% money, but it popped it above the 26%. To our financial
analysis folks credit, they said why did this go up? We explained that position,
we said we will bring it down in future capital project planning, because they look
at that, again, as a fiscal discipline. As you can see, we've begun to pull it down.
If you were going to go out a little further, it will start to tick down a little bit
more.
Champion/When you talk about that 26%, is that an actual percentage like bills that had
been paid or ..... an estimate.
Atkins/No, what it is, it's the levy. Policy. The actual levy, Connie, that's what it is. So
in other words, in that year, 26% of the levy was for debt. We're saying that's
contrary to our policy. We try to stay at 25%, and it's our policy.
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Champion/So that's actual levy.
Atkins/That's actual. Yeah.
O'Donnell/Steve, it's 26%, and then drops to 23% in 2005. Why does it go back up in
2007?
Atkins/Probably goes back up in 2007 because of some bond issue we have planned, we
have a TIF bond we have to sell for the Moen project. That counts against it. I'm
trying to think of what the factors there are, but that would be one that comes to
mind. It's the biggest one.
O'Donnell/Okay.
Atkins/Okay. That answer that, Bob, for you? It's a self-imposed policy. Okay. Next
up is, as I said to you, we've balanced the budget, making the assumption that we
would stand by the reductions and/or revenue increases that we made. You've got
in your packet a summary. And I hope, again, five of you should remember these.
What we did is we did this for two years, not just one, and that we made those
decisions to do. Star means it's done. Now, for example, it says "reduce police
by 5% or equivalent". And I'll show you in a minute, they're down three.
Reduce parks and recreation by two; they're down one. So if it's not done, done,
we didn't mark it. But virtually everything else is we told ourselves eighteen
months, January of 05, we would have fulfilled our goal, made our reductions,
and we are on track to do that. We have sixteen positions, in fact, we had one just
I believe Thursday or Friday, fire was four and they just had their first resignation,
so now it's down to three. So of the sixteen positions, we're at eight and a half
reductions on the staff. Yeah?
Champion/I think just for the new people, part of the reason we're cutting the fire
department, because we weren't going to build the new ones but...
Atkins/We were at a compliment of 52. We hired to 58. We had a dismissal. We filled
that. The person who was dismissed was reinstated. So we're at 59, so we
allowed them to run long over their table of organization for a while. It is now
down to 58. Three more reductions still puts them at 55, which is three better
than they've been in twenty years. Yeah. So we did make a commitment to
additional staffing there, and we have fulfilled that commitment. Not to the level
that we'd like, because we need at least nine positions to open the new stations.
So, we check this, when I say it's done, that means parking revenues are coming
in at a rate that should fulfill that goal. The housing inspection fees are coming
on at a rate that'll fulfill the goal of self-supporting. I mean, those things are
happening. Okay?
Lehman/Steve, I presume at some time during the discussions the next two or three
meetings, we may want to readdress some of these issues.
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Atkins/And that's fine, Ernie. All I ask of you is that, that's why I'm saying, I balanced
this budget based on that. If you want to change that, that's okay. But you've got
to tell me, we need to calculate the dollar, and we have to have an offset
somewhere.
Elliott/We'll get more mild weather for you. (laughter)
Atkins/Hey, I needed something to balance. So I said we're going to be optimistic about
this thing and we're going to have...(laughter), and we have had some good bids.
These bids are more internal kinds of things where there are pencils and papers
and things like that, but we're, no we're generally doing okay, but this number is
important because that had been our targeted.
O'Dormell/Steve, didn't we have an opportunity to address in here what we maybe might
want to take a look at?
Atkins/What I thought, once I finish with, I've got one more summary page to do on
highlights. I'd like to get you through tonight. I'd like to get you through the
capital projects, and what I'm going to do, not only I record, for example, I'm
going to remind you you've got to have an airport policy. I'll give you those
things, even if it's just a list of decisions, because we can't implement until you
make those kinds of decisions. And I'm hearing, at least from ~ couple of you,
you may want to take a crack at these again, and that's fine. Just so we
understand the consequences of it. Okay. I saw time out (laughter). What if we
say no? (laughter)
Vanderhoef/I'll leave anyway.
Atkins/All right. I need about another twenty minutes so why don't we take five or ten
minutes.
(TAPE OFF)
Atkins/Okay, this is page thirteen and eighteen in your budget. What I try to do is pull
out highlights, things that are a little different, to flag them for you, to give you a
chance to say no (laughter). However you want to put it. So I'm just going to
move through these rather quickly then to give you my thinking. Again, they're
in your budget document, and there's a narrative attached to them, explaining
them. Complement of police officers - when we went through the reduction
process in June we had proposed that we would eliminate five officers from our
complement of 75. This budget proposes that that number be 72. That we would
get rid of three. Reason, and I hate that word get rid of so be kind to me,
reporters. The three positions would be vacated, there ya go, and the reason is
R.J. went through his budget and we had given him the opportunity to make
equivalent, we'll cut some training and a number of other issues, where he has
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fulfilled the goal of $250,000 reduction, and that we would expect to be at 72
shortly, and we would stop them. We would make no further reductions. That is
as far as personnel is concerned. Some of the other stuff will catch up with us in
later years. We can deal with that later on. Portable alarm system - this is
something new that the investigative services division wanted to do. It allows us,
it's actually a personnel saver. We can actually take this system out, set it up at
businesses. It's portable. Those who are experiencing break-ins, that then can
send a message right back. It's visual. It's ail kinds of good things, and it seemed
to be a time-saver. We often spent a lot of police time camped out, watching
something. This will...
Vanderhoef/So you're taking that, you're doing the portable system so with bonding...
Atkins/No, I am not. We're doing it with general fund money. It's a one-time expense,
Dee.
Vanderhoeff General funds? Okay.
Champion/So, Steve, this is something they would use in a situation like, I'm just
going....like my store, when my store was broken the policeman stayed there for
quite a while actually.
Atkins/And we can set this thing up and hopefully avoid some of that. Again, if we're
going to be shorter on staff, the idea is to get more people back to the street as
quickly as you can. Permit plan is a new idea that's put together by our HIS
folks, and I just put it in there because it's really kind of fun. You have this big
plastic bag now that says "permit" on it, and on a construction site, they put all the
permits in one spot, one place. We can send our people out to go check the
paperwork, put the paperwork back, we don't have to be there, they don't have to
be there....it just makes life a lot easier.
Elliott/In a secure location?
Atkins/No, it really has to be in, in a pretty visible location. They usually put it on the
electric post that's giving the temporary electricity to a construction process. We
have not had any theft problems with it.
Champion/They usually just post it right on the building.
Atkins/This idea is to make it even easier.
Champion/Well I mean they're not stolen then.
Atkins/Yeah, okay. Senior Center fees revenue shortfall, given you the heads-up on that.
Senior Center, I find, I raise this one with you because the County has been
reluctant to put together a multi-year agreement with the Senior Center, and as I
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was doing a little research, I found it kind of surprising that they insisted on a
multi-year agreement when it came to seeds, I mean insisted on it. So when we're
giving them money, they want the multi-year agreement. When money's coming
back our way, we don't want any multi-year agreements, we only want....I say
that to you because it's as much a political question as any, when we get into
discussions with them, if we're going to fund the Senior Center, they've got to
have some reasonable projections. I mean, that's not happening now. It's like,
well if the mood strikes us we'll give you money.
Vanderhoef/And I asked them about multi-year budgeting...
Atkins/Yup, 1 don't think that's going to happen, Dee, but I understand your point.
Vanderhoef/They didn't acknowledge it at all, and made a comment, something about all
the paper we chose to use in Iowa City.
Atkins/All the paper? Okay.
Lehman/Steve, didn't we insist on a multi-year contract every bit as much as they did for
seeds?
Atkins/Initially, yeah, but, fine, we came to an agreement. My point is the payment of
the money. The money, we're sending money their way.
Lehman/We were trying to cover ourselves because of...
Atkins/Well we went through the issue of you know, could we provide the seed service
better and, well you understand.
Elliott/Who conducted the survey to which you allude here?
Atkins/The County, thank you for asking that question because I, that was another one of
those. I got this survey from the County on their services, and they ask that they
be rated. And I don't know whether I was randomly chosen, but it came to my
house. So I said sure, I'm going to fill this out. (laughter) Why not? So I filled
it out. Well, I'll be happy, will you make a note for me, Deb. I'll send you a
copy of this. The following services were rated on a scale of I to 10 for their
importance to people. The number next to them is the average, one being lowest,
ten being highest. The number, and there are fifteen services. The third and
fourth service, third: services to the elderly; fourth: seeds. Their own survey
said, the most important service to them, is the ambulance, followed by public
health, followed be services to the elderly, followed by seeds. Others in there are
drug treatment, assistance to the elderly, economic development, web site. I just
found it interesting that the things we're having the most difficulty with, their own
citizen survey says those are important to us. You should take care of those. And
they don't think I read this stuff. Moving along. Recycling coordinator this is a
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position we would like to propose. It's a new position. It'd be financed by
landfill fees. Those of you who've seen our recycling center, I think are hopefully
reasonably impressed with ail that goes on out there. The furniture pro,ject had
been run by human service agencies for a long time. We were contributing up to
almost $35,000 - $40,000 a year to help run the furniture project. It seemed to
me, for the same money, we could run the furniture project and possibly
coordinate all (tape ends)I can't remember when it was. It's been several months
ago, and we talked about what we might do. It would be a new position. We
would work with our own bulky item, we have our own bulky item pickup, and
normally that stuff goes fight to the landfill. If we have somebody whose got
another set of eyes, as that comes in it gets sorted. We've got to believe that some
of that stuff could be made into usable, for other folks. We would schedule the
pickups. We would train our folks for doing the pickups. Sort out the bulky
items now that, from the bulky items that could be useful to us. We would
certainly maintain the furniture project identity so the human services agencies
know that's available. We'd like to have an inventory. I mean we'd really like to
be able to do it right. And I've been thinking about this offand on for a couple of
years, and the whole thing, I think we can do better and expand our landfill
recycling services without a huge expense to us, and I'm proposing, again we can
go into more detail when the time comes, proposing that as a new position.
Elliott/Did the $35,000, the funding to the agencies...CDBG funds?
Atkins/Yes, went directly to the...no, landfill. Everything came from landfill.
Elliott/So it's going to cost the city $15,000 more?
Atkins/A little mom. I think we get a big bang for our buck. What's that?
Vanderhoef/Remind me again. From our enterprise fund personnel, do their benefits go
out in benefit levy, or are they paid by the enterprise fund?
Atkins/Water, sewer are all enterprise fund. Landfill is enterprise fund. Refuse is
enterprise fund. Which ones am I missing? Parking is enterprise fund. The only
one that we don't is road use tax, correct? And that's not an enterprise fund.
(several talking at once) I'd like to say, Dee, there is no property tax involved in
this.
Wilburn/Bob pointed out that for that little extra, I think what we get, correct me if I'm
wrong, Steve, we capture more stuff that was going into the landfill, and people
who are coming out of homeless situations, getting set up in an apartment or
whatever, are getting to utilize. We're recycling, we're doing exactly...
Atkins/A lot of folks won't notice a dramatic difference, other than I think at our
receiving end. I mean, if you have a table and chair you want to get rid of, you'll
call and we'll.just take care of it, and we'll just take care of it for you. It'll go out,
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if it's worth anything it'll get inventoried in. I think we can make contact with a
whole variety of human service agencies. It's, I think we can do a much better
job for really very little money.
Vanderhoef/Is there any way that we can capture the tonnage, the increased tonnage, that
we are saving out of...
Atkins/Yes ~ve can. What will likely happen, Dee, is, and I think we have those
numbers. Kevin's nodding. We will weigh the stuff so we will know what kind
is being diverted from the landfill. We'll have that number for you.
Vanderhoef/Because that's real important for our regional refuse plan, and meeting the
state goal of 35% reduction.
Atkins/I'm almost positive we can accomplish that.
Vanderhoef/Okay. If not, I would like to see it done.
Atkins/Kevin's nodding his head so we must have that already. Landfill compost
equipment- I'd like to buy a new piece of composting equipment. It has become
very, very successful. I was very surprised about it. Again, it would come from
landfill monies. It would also increase our fleet for snow removal, where we
could charge a portion of it off against road use tax. Again, no property tax
involved. Yes, Emie?
Lehman/What type of equipment is this?
Atkins/It's like a big end loader, it's got a big scoop on the front of it. Big huge tires.
They're really neat. (laughter and several talking at once)
Lehman/Steve, are we buying an end loader for using, working with compost?
Atkins/Yes. We used up most of our compost last year. I mean, and that's around 4,000
tons.
Vanderhoef/But these are the ones that they bring out to take care of the circle, and get
the snow up on top of the circle.
Atkins/And we have four of those. We can divert this to snow removal like that, and
that's part of the idea also. And at that time it would be paid for with road use
tax. Parks master plan - you'll have to think about that. Municipal electric -
you'll have to think about that. Language line that's a newer service we put in
place about a year or so ago. It's become immensely successful. I mean, I'm
really surprised at the number of times we've used it. It's gone from an expense
of a couple hundred dollars a year to about $3,000 a year. I don't know how we
can do without it. Just to give you some idea, the Human Rights Office used it
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recently and they were speaking, we do have a couple of employees, one in HIS, I
think two in police, that speak fluent Spanish, and we do use them. Boznian,
Mandarin, and Chinese - we had to get somebody to do some translations for us,
and it's virtually instantaneous. You pick up the phone, you get on it with
somebody, and...
Elliott/You just dial up the language you want?
Atkins/Sort of dial up the language you want. Yeah, that's the way it works. Okay.
Cable franchise negotiations we've set aside $30,000. We have, Dale, three
years to go before the franchise expires, and we need to start the process...two
years to go. You'll want to talk about that. The homeland security...yeah.
Champion/Can I just ask a quick question before you move on? Does that mean we
could go to a different franchise if we wanted to?
Atkins/Here comes Dale ..... that's his bailiwick. (laughter)
Helling/No, cable company has certain rights under federal law for renewal, and we
would have to bear the burden of proof to deny that renewal.
Champion/What if we said we didn't like them?
Helling/That's not quite good enough.
O'Donnell/Yeah, but we voted to approve McLeod.
Lehman/McLeod is authorized to provide cable service in Iowa City.
Atkins/Yeah, we've done that already. They just never did.
Lehman/We voted on that four years ago. McLeod could come in and we'd have two
companies.
O'Dormell/They could be competitive.
Lehman/Right, except they can't with 80,000.
Helling/All the franchises would be non-exclusive.
Elliott/Dale, you said you had to show just cause to not renew. Forever, or for a period
of time?
Helling/Well, you'd have to show some performance issue or something to justify not
renewing. Once you don't renew, then they, then there's no franchise.
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Elliott/No, but in perpetuity, unless we can show just cause, they've got it?
Atkins/Yeah.
Elliott/I'd like to have a job like that. (laughter)
Lehman/Just cause could be excessive fees, when compared with other communities our
size, if we could show that?
Helling/No, because we can't regulate, and that's a legal issue we'd have to address. But
to try and force them to compete, and within the parameters we would establish,
would be a form of regulation. I think it would be very questionable.
O'Donnell/Are they not supposed to have a 24-hour hot line to answer complaints?
Helling/Customer service issues...
O'Donnell/I defy anybody to call that. I've called that and I've talked to sixteen
different robots, then it hangs up on me. (laughter) (several talking about issue)
Atkins/It means franchise negotiations are going to be a little bumpy. (laughter) No, it
comes out of cable TV revenues. Next one is homeland security. This is just to
give you a heads up. First of all, we're going to have to make some security
changes out at the water plant, and a couple of other places. I certainly don't want
to tell you the whole world is no longer secure, but there will be some physical
changes you might see. We are not going to fence in the whole....no, we're not.
(laughter & several talking at once) This is a mayoral, manager disagreement.
Hopefully you'll be in the home then when that happens. Anyway, you will see
some things, some technological things, some security cameras and things of that
nature, but we will have to make some additional investment. It will occur and I
don't expect the feds to give us anything back. First of all we'd probably have to
fill out a mountain of paperwork, which would make it public then and then
everybody would know what the security is....you know what I mean. Okay,
moving on. Lost financial assistance, I've explained that to you. Increasing
health, employee benefits, water rate reduction - I think those are all in pretty
good order when it comes to the highlights. And I've listed five future issues to
think about. And I'll summarize these and you can decide how you want to deal
with them. One is the possibility of a spec building at Aviation Commerce Park.
Is it something that we want to think about doing? We would finance it likely
from our water and sewer reserves, in effect borrowing from ourselves. If we
leased it, the money would simply go to pay back our investment. If we sold it,
the bottom line is, is this a way that we can jumpstart the commerce park and get
some activity out there.
Elliott/Steve, you said the land purchase and construction. To whom does the land
belong now?
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Atkins/The land belongs to the City, but the City Council authorized $1.8 million in
investment in that land, streets, water, sewer, and it was the sale of the land that's
expected to repay, in other words the deal with the airport commission was that
the sale of the land would repay the City for their investment. Now if this whole
thing coming up with the airport and all that, may change, but the bottom line,
Bob, was that we had to calculate in the sale of the ground just as much as the
construction of the building. Unless you were to change that policy, and before
you do it I'd really like to take some time to think about that one.
Lehman/Steve, aren't there FAA regulations involved there too? That if the land is sold,
that the revenue from the land, I think, has to go to the airport.
Atkins/It has to be applied to airport related, yeah, there's something like that, Ernie. I
don't recall. It's not real easy to do and I'm not so sure ~ve'd want to do it
anyway.
O'Donnell/Steve, you know I've never heard a definitive answer. Can we sell that?
Atkins/Yes, we can.
O'Donnell/We can. Are we pursuing that?
Atkins/We're, it's being marketed and it's just, it needs a....and that's the thought
process. I just want you to think about it. Okay. Another future issue is, this is
something Dee and I banged around a year or more ago. I can't remember what
even prompted it. Oh, I know what prompted it. We both heard that Ames was
going to be doing something similar to this, is that you know the large sand pit
just south of....it seems to me, that when that is mined out, that's a great
recreational opportunity for us. I don't know what we've go to do. I mean, its
value I understand is in what's minded from it, but it's in a location where you
already dealt with a housing project tonight. There's a major roadway that'll
come across. It would seem to me, and we don't have any real major water,
recreation, outdoor recreation. If we could get it reasonable, wouldn't it be
something that we'd like to consider? Or at least incorporate it into our planning
process?
Lehman/Absolutely!
Elliott/Couple years ago I talked to Jeff Davidson. I thought at that time that he said
City was looking into it.
Atkins/We may have been, Bob. Oh gosh, Dee, we've been knocking the idea around
for some time. We've never kind of really figured a way to fit it into our agenda
of things to do, and what we're doing the budget, with this new housing
development, our location of our new public works yard, the possibility of
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Mormon Trek's going to get finished, gee, we ought to begin thinking about what
~ve might want to do with this.
Elliott/I hope we can start talking at least.
Atkins/But that's...yeah. We've got, I've got a nice, fancy map here of the thing and we
can show you all that. Downtown alleys - say what again? (laughter and several
talking) I will tell you, that this is one of the most frustrating things. We invested
in all the money associated with steam cleaning it. We've gone from none to
once, I think we do it three times a year now, trying to keep them clean. And it's,
what really tore it was about a year ago, I was walking through an alley, and the
back of the restaurant that will remain unnamed, the door opened and out came
this bucket of ice, and it kind of hit my shoes. Now you know me and my shoes.
(laughter and several talking at once) I'm a little fussy about...so anyway, and it
was full of bottle caps. The ice didn't bother me as much, but there was this mess
that was left behind. Overflowing dumpsters. I mean, I'm not sure what we need
to do, but we need to do something. I think that those alleys, if they could be
cleaned up, they could actually become thoroughfares, I mean pedestrian ways.
Light them, clean them up, do some paving.
Lehman/This has been on the pending list. We've talked about, I mean this is something
we really need to go over.
Atkins/Well, I wrote letters to the haulers, letters to the property owners, and we simply
don't get anywhere with it. And it seems to me that if you're willing, we have an
ordinance that we can't, really can't even enforce.
Lehman/Well let's get one that we can.
Atkins/Well, it's not that easy, Ernie. I think the real bottom line is we may have to
think about contracting out and haulers are not going to like this. Drawing a
boundary, setting up a district, and that then we will regulate the pickup and we
will make sure those things are picked up and cleaned up. That those dumpsters
have to be painted. They have to be marked in some fashion.
Champion/They have to be locked.
Atkins/They have to be locked. I mean there's all kinds of things, and that's going to
cause...
Champion/But you can't stop people from dumping stuff in the alleys downtown. It may
not even be the person ~vho has the dumpsters.
Atkins/Oh I know that. There are people who are responsible for it, but if it's just...that
tore it when that came flinging out the door. I know you think it's funny.
(laughter and several talking)
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Champion/It's not funny. It's terrible.
Atkins/Well, I really believe that the alleys, for little investment, I even thought do some,
clean up the paving, maybe even paint the walls eight or ten feet up maybe some
bright white or light color, light them, and encourage people to use them.
Champion/Well when things are really clean, you think people are going to keep them
cleaned? But when you steam clean them they look great, they smell wonderful,
and two weeks later there's junk all over.
Atkins/Yes.
Elliott/I contend it's all a public relations problem. New Orleans draws hundreds of
thousands of people to the French Quarter, and if you've been on Bourbon Street,
those streets off Bourbon Street look a lot like that. So, what we need to do is just
write a song about it and people will think it's nifty.
Lehman/Well you're in charge of song writing. (laughter)
Atkins/Okay, well, I'd like to summarize a program of some kind. I just want to hear
you say we've got to do something. The current situation is just not acceptable.
Okay. Economic development - how to finance it. This is simply an observation
! made when we were going through how to fund certain programs. You know
we reduced ICAD's contribution from 50 to 45, it's been 50 for ten years at least,
and I found it interesting that the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Economic
Development, receives $120,000 year from us from hotel/motel tax. ICAD is a
general fund contribution, but doesn't it seem that ICAD and their policies are
more in tune with brick and mortar, industry, jobs. I'm not trying to diminish
CVB any, but just trying to point out that...
Wilbtaxff If we're real heavy on growth and property taxes, financing, then should we or
should we not support more efforts that are congruent with that?
Atkins/It just seems that the CVB that will tell us, again, please, I'm not anti-CVB, I'm
just simply trying, where we allocate our resources. The jobs they create, are, is
that the type that's going to have the long-term, Iasting influence, and has
dramatic economic change, or effectiveness, and I'm not so sure they do.
Lehman/Well, I think there's a lot more than just the jobs they create. They have been
incredibly successful the last two or three years. Obviously the hotel business, the
restaurant business, the people who come to this town, whether it be to tour the
University of Iowa or the Amana Colonies, or all of these things, bring people to
the commtmity, and there's a significant other difference, is that their funding is
from a hotel/motel tax. I mean, the folks who come here are paying to fund the
CVB.
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Champion/But we decide the allocations.
Lehman/I'm well aware of that, and of course by the same token, the industry that
locates here, generates the income from taxes that we use to help fund ICAD. I
mean, they're certainly two different things but I think they're both very, very
important.
Atkins/But my point is that you've got $45,000 commitment to one, which for bang for
my buck..., and I've got another $125,000 to the other one. Is my economic, am I
balanced?
Lehman/Well obviously not, but if you look at the, I think that I'm prejudice for having
been on their board for a few years, but if you look at the accomplishments that
they have had the last two years, and then look two years in a row after some
very, very hefty successes, they are cut in their funding, it makes it a little tough
for them to get excited about what they do. You know, do people notice what we
do? Apparently not because the more we (can't hear) the more successful we are,
the more the City wants to cut our funding. That's pretty hard to keep your level
of enthusiasm up.
Atkins/But, Ernie, and I mean this respectfully, I do...we could say the same thing about
ICAD. We took money away from them.
Lehman/And we shouldn't have.
Atkins/Yeah, well I recommended it, I realize that.
Lehman/And you're entitled to make a mistake too, but we went along with you so we're
equally (laughing).
Atkins/My point is that I'd like for you to just think about your economic development
policies because it's, where are we putting our money?
Elliott/You're talking about one gets almost three times as much more funding as the
other, and you're wondering proportionately, if that appears appropriate.
Atkins/Where's my bang for the buck.
Elliott/Yeah.
O'Dormell/Well, ICAD I bet could directly account for 2,500 to 3,000 jobs in the
community, the last five or six years.
Bailey/Do we have some way to measure some return on our investment? I know it's
all...
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Atkins/No. The purpose of future issues, Regenia, was ifI sent you, you all want me to
start...then we're going to do just that, particularly for discussion purposes
because you're going to want to know, give me some facts before I decide the
thing, that's why these are future.
Letmaan/I think it's unfair to try and compare those too. What kind of bang do we get
for our buck $i80,000 for an airport? How much bang did we get for our buck
with the $3 million bus system that cost $3.50 to ride and we charge 75 cents. I
don't think we can do that with everything.
Atkins/But, okay, I understand that, Ernie. And I don't like to think of myself as unfair
so that wasn't my intent. (several talking at once)
Atkins/My intent was, you know, ~ve've made a decision on our public transit system of
what is an acceptable level of service. We're about to decide, I'm assuming, on
the airport sooner or later because you're going to have to figure that out, and I'm
saying that our economic development policies, I had not thought of it, I've got a
specific tax going to a group of folks who do what? You know, restaurants and
hotel, where over here I'm putting that money, and I've got (can't hear), Owens
Illinois, I mean, it's a different, it's just different. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/And the bang for the buck, when we entice a new company here or a
company to expand here, we put out a one-time expenditure and that is a
continuous payback for us for many years in that property tax base. When we put
out money to entice a traveling group or a convention to come to Iowa City, that's
a one-time, one to one. We spent the money that year to get them to come one
time, but it doesn't mean that they're going to come back. Hopefully they'll like
it, and want to come back on their own, but...
Champion/...producing jobs, real jobs.
Vanderhoef/No. (several talking at once)
Atkins/Okay. And the last, huh? The last one is the joint communication center. We've
talked about it, and talked about it, and talked about it. We're at a point where
we're going to have to make an investment. R.J. and Andy will be here on
Thursday to go over this item with you because it's one of our capital projects as
well as the other directors will be here.
Elliott/What's the chance of that last sentence coming to eventual fruition?
Atkins/Joint communication center? I think a lot of it has to do with the sheriff decides.
If they don't want to play, that doesn't mean we can't do it on our own. Well,
yeah (several talking at once), well my thinking on the thing is you've got all
these various cities spending their money now. You pool the resource and create
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one,. I mean, why do they have a dispatch center and a million dollars worth of
equipment, and we have a dispatch center and a million dollars of equipment,
when we put them together, for a million and a half, we could have a really Jim-
dandy dispatch center.
Champion/Does Coralville have one? Does the University?
Atkins/Coralville uses the University, no, Coralville uses the sheriff. University uses us.
University Heights, remember we just, they just came over to us, yeah, and so it
seemed to me the timing was good to give this some serious thought.
Lehman/I believe Cedar Rapids last year when we went on that one trip, was visiting
with Congress about appropriating money for a joint...
Atkins/Yeah, you know, Ernie, I heard about it, in fact the press called me from Cedar,
and we were, I was talking with the editor guy about it, and he says you know this
got tried a couple years ago, Dick Newman, I happen to know him. It just never
went anywhere, and they talked about getting federal monies. To me this is a
local service, and if you're going to have a police department, you have to have
some sort of a dispatch function. It'd be nice to get some federal money, but I
wouldn't want to burn up my chips on a federal...
Lehman/My point wasn't the federal money. My point was that I think this is the sort of
effort that's going on all over, where we're trying to consolidate communication
systems, so you don't have within a county, five different communication
systems.
Atkins/Well we're going to spend a lot of money on this in the near term.
Vanderhoef/Who dispatches ambulance?
Atkins/County.
Vanderhoef/It is part of the County, or do they have their own?
Atkins/No, they wouldn't have their own. No, they couldn't afford that. Dee, I don't
know. That's one of the questions, I want to get working with this. If you think
about it, in the last ten years you've got two new police departments in town.
University Heights finally expanded, and North Liberty, created police
departments for a lot of reasons. I'm done.
Champion/That was it?
Atkins/Yeah, I'm done. Next thing, I want to walk you through the next few issues.
Okay, one, is that, hold on a second. Okay, you're all set for your schedule. 15th
will be capital projects. 22nd, huh, 8:30 on Thursday, here. 22nd is open from 1 to
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4. The 27th is open. I'd like at the end of capital projects on Thursday, to have
some idea, I mean, if you want, I'll just go back and make a list I think the
decisions that you have to think about to give you kind of a working list since I
don't know of your own, you know, I like this program, but I don't like that one.
I want to change. We will have, by the way, a crack at the book, and I'm
prepared to go through page by page if you want. We can jump around. At the
meeting of the 3rd of February, we would call the public hearing, remember you
can't go up but you can go down. The 17th you're going to be gone, which
means, and I really think you all should be there for the public hearing. I mean
that's been our tradition. That would leave us, or that would allow us to have the
public hearing on March 2nd, regular Council meeting night, but would you be
willing to vote that night? Normally you don't do that, which means you have to
have some sort of a special meeting shortly thereafter, because we have to have it
in by the 15th, and how many days in front of that? Yeah, we need several days.
The 2nd, that should be a Council meeting night. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/I travel on the 4th of March to go to NLC for...
Atkins/Well, you need to think about it then. If you're not going to be here, and she's
going to be gone, um, you know you need a night to vote on this thing.
Vanderhoef/The night to vote on it would be Wednesday the 3rd.
Champion/Wednesday the 3rd?
Vanderhoef/You know if we...
Atkins/Well, Dee has to be gone. I'll bring this back to you on Thursday. Okay, later in
February. You know, we could have the meeting on the 24th of February in a
special meeting, and then vote on the 2nd.
Champion/What day of the week is that?
Atkins/Tuesday. Always on Tuesday. All right, I will bring this back to you on
Thursday, but we need to confirm that. By a nod of heads, you don't want to vote
on the same night you have the hearing? I mean, generally you don't do that.
Well, that's been the thinking. (several talking at once)
Lehman/i've got to be gone from the 17th through the 25th. NO it's a little cold for that,
but no, I'm probably going to miss a meeting. I mean that's...
Atkins/[ hate to see you miss the night of a public hearing on a budget.
Champion/I think we can have the public hearing on the budget, and we can vote on it
the same night. Because...
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Elliott/I would rather not, Connie.
Champion/Well we never have, but...
Elliott/I don't' know how the rest of you feel but I would rather not do that.
Vanderhoef/We have very few people show up usually.
Atkins/I'll get you a schedule and then you'll have to decide on what you want to do, but
my inclination now is to have a special meeting on the 24th, and then you can vote
on it on the 2nd if you have to. It still gives us plenty of time, okay? Okay. I got
a couple more. I will be done as soon as I can get this to you. Human service
agencies have sent their request to JCCOG. The typical joint hearing, funding
hearings, are not going to be held by United Way this year. Coralville and
Johnson County have decided that, and have informed the agencies, that there is
not any new money. We sent a letter out, you remember, a few months ago,
saying the same thing. I can get you the written applications, I can do a summary
for you, we can do that, but the bottom line is from what I understand, there is not
going to be the need to have an aid to agency committee of Council from what
I'm hearing. Because the United Way wants to do this thing differently?
Wilburn/I'm going to walk away from the table because I will be....I shouldn't
deliberate on the process. (laughter)
Champion/I think we should discuss it, we should, or whatever, a separate agenda and
we'll look closely at who all we're giving money to, and I don't have anything
against any of the agencies, but in these tight economic times, it's the agency that
gives direct service that's really desperate for money. Some of the "feel good"
agencies, might have to drop back on a little bit.
Atkins/Okay. I'll put that on your list of decisions but then you do not need to have a
committee amongst yourselves to go to those hearings.
Champion/Well I think we should discuss openly at our work session.
Lehman/Well when we get your summary. I think it's time for us to...
Vanderhoef/It may be that there's two or three agencies that we ~vant to come and
present...
Atkins/That's okay too. (several talking at once) Now, meeting with other boards and
commissions - the library board wants to meet with you. Airport Commission
will ultimately want to meet with you, and so will Parks and Rec.
Vanderhoef/Parks and Rec needs to be soon.
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Atkins/If you're okay with those, I'm going to schedule those three but I'm not going to
extend it to anybody else unless I hear differently.
Champion/I think it's important that we meet with the Library Board before we do the
final budget.
Atkins/We're done, Ross. Oh, they...
Vanderhoef/Their subject is parking. (several talking at once)
Atkins/Oh yeah, if they want us to reserve spaces, that dings our parking fund. Okay,
I'll set those things up for you. I'll get you a schedule. I may not have it by
Thursday, but for the meeting on the 22nd we should be in good shape.
Lehman/Well we're meeting again on Monday, or Tuesday, of next week.
Atkins/I just need some time to talk to folks and do whatever.
Vanderhoef/Is it possible to, since it seems all three of those hit the budget, or we
suspect they're going to be budget issues. Is it possible to have one night and do
those three. Give them each half an hour.
Atkins/We could do that on the 27th. That's open. Oh (someone talking from audience)
No, the 22nd is during the day. Yes. If needed you could do the 27th. That's
right. Okay. And then, finally, just to remind you, Monday's a holiday. We'll
start the Council meeting early on the 20th, likely. I don't know. We'll do the
agenda tomorrow. Just remember that Monday's a holiday so you'll have to start
early. That's all I have, Ernie.
O'Donnell/See everybody Thursday.
Elliott/Before we leave, and before the press leaves, I think it's appropriate that we
extend our condolences for those who were pulling for the Green Bay Packers.
(laughter) Terribly disappointed.
Lehman/I think we, Steve, stayed too long. (laughter)
Atkins/Thank you.
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