HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-01-22 Transcription January 22, 2004 Council Work Session Page 1
January 22, 2004 Council Work Session 1:00 pm
Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn
Staff: Atkins, Hefting, O'Malley, Mansfield, Karr, Helling
TAPES: 04-11, SIDE 2; 04-13, BOTH SIDES; 04-14, SIDE 1.
WORK SESSION - BUDGET
Lehman/We are prepared, Mr. Atkins.
Atkins/Give me about 30 seconds here.
Lehman/Give you 30 seconds? You've been standing up there for twenty minutes.
Atkins/...to get wired. (laughter) Now I'm wired. Ready to go to work? Okay, let me give
you, for a couple minutes, some updates on some budget related matters, specifically the
State Legislature. In the Governor's budget message, he did not restore the bank
franchise. We were not real sure about it. We did not budget. We made the assumption
he would not, and I can't imagine the legislature in any sort of...
Vanderhoeff The League of Cities had talked, in that update I put in the packet for today's.
Atkins/Yup, oh, I haven't seen today's.
Vanderhoef/There's comment about it that there are some legislators that have been talking to
the banking people and that this may come back.
Atkins/The banking industry, my understanding, is they want, if you're going to tax pay them,
keep the money here at home.
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Atkins/That's kind of their bottom line.
Vanderhoef/Yeah.
Atkins/Because the State capped it a number of years ago, and now they have it all, so...
Vanderhoef/These were House people, not Senate (can't hear).
Atkins/About a $100,000. What?
Champion/...to do that?
Atkins/They need the money.
Champion/They must be illegal, and...
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Atkins/They do have to make budget cuts.
Lehman/The do. They take it from us. (laughter)
Atkins/They just write new laws.
Lehman/I'm just glad you didn't include it in the budget because I don't think we're going to see
it.
Atkins/Well, I don't think we're going to see it either. Apparently, Senator Sievers from the
town of New Liberty, which I'm not sure I know where that is, in the face of all the
things we're talking about getting along better, is introducing property tax freezes or
limitations, so we'll go back at that again. Another item that's being kicked around is
something called "freedom communities". The shortened version of trying to explain
that is it will be a brand new law where communities that can demonstrate to the State,
cooperative, .joint consolidation efforts would be "freed" from certain regulations, tax
policies, would be more able to, in effect, determine somewhat of their own destiny. I
don't know where this is going to go. I find it interesting that we have to call if"freedom
communities". We have to be free from the State, in order for us to function
satisfactorily?
EIliott/That's financial incentives (can't hear) to consolidate.
Atkins/It is, but in the, this PSG group which I'm serving on, that State steering committee,
we're having trouble getting the State to, first of all, how do you define whether we've
satisfied...what are the measurement standards? So that's kicking around. We
understand today, Congress is to vote on that major government finance bill, which has a
bearing on our parking garage. $2 million. Apparently the Democrats and Republicans
have reached some sort of an agreement where the Democrats say we've made our point.
As you know this is a bill that operates the government. It's close to, I forget, it's some
obscene number, and we'll have to wait and see, so we'll find out about that.
Lehman/That's also the bill that has the funding for the rain forest?
Atkins/Has the rain forest in it, yes, yeah. As I understand that funding, Ernie, and we were
talking a little bit about it, it's not our parking garage as a direct grant. They write a
check, here, you can go do what you want, well with respect to that project. I think this
rain forest thing is a tax credit, and if that's the case, that means they've got to go out and
raise the $50 million so the rich guys who are putting $50 million in this thing, can take
the tax credit. That's how it's being done, so it's not a direct grant. I think Senator
Grassley was taking it on the chin because he gave the appearance that you're going to
write a check for $50 million bucks for this project, and that's not the case. Yeah.
Champion/Is it a direct tax credit?
Atkins/See I don't know any of that, Connie. It just made sense to me that they would do a tax
credit as close to...(several talking at once) They did?
O'Donnell/Yeah.
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Atkins/What was that? Oh no, you're thinking of the Homestead Exemption tax credit.
O'Donnell/The Homestead Exemption credit, yeah, and I think we should do that too.
Atkins/Okay. Do you all know how that works?
Champion/Kind of.
Atkins/All right, why don't we take a minute? When you buy a home, you get $4,850 tax
exemption, credit, whatever you want to call it. Whenever you buy your home. There's
a little yellow card you filled out. So you buy the house, you get this credit. It's that
credit, times your tax rate, times the number of them in your community, the State
reimburses the County for paying us for that exemption. The County is fusing about it,
and rightfully so. lfthe State were to say, gee, we don't want to do that anymore, and by
the way it's $160 million bucks so you know the Legislatures got their eyes on that kind
of money. We're not going to fund it, but we're still going to require you to pay it. And
that means it would fall likely on the County, unless they had some specific legislation.
It could fall on, obviously, ultimately on us. It's over $800,000 in our General Fund so
it's a huge amount of dough. If they don't do it right, it would also affect our debt
service position on debt we've already sold, so I'm assuming the State legislature will
think this through (laughter), think this through, before they might do it. But I think what
the County was trying to accomplish last night was sort of put us on notice, and I don't
know how they could cover that kind of bill anyway.
O'Donnell/Well I don't think they could but I think as a Council we should also send a letter and
(can't hear).
Champion/...need to eliminate that tax credit. There's no sense to it.
Atkins/I'm okay with that. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/...we are increasing taxes, and that's the thing the State legislators don't want to do.
Atkins/They don't want us to lay it, just like, at their doorstep. You just raised local taxes. Well,
they don't want to do that. But of course on the other hand, I didn't think they'd do what
they did last year. Lot I know.
Champion/Have they talked about just raising sales tax one percent?
Atkins/They've talked about a whole package of tax, but according to the leadership, and I think
at Ways and Means, they've said nothing's coming out. They won't even consider it.
O'Donnell/But do people agree that we should send the letter in supporting the County's efforts
on that?
Elliott/Who prepared that?
Atkins/I'll prepare it and I'I1 get it to Ernie. I'll take care of it for you.
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O'Donnell/I think that's a good idea.
Atkins/Okay. Deb knows these things better. Deb, did I explain that okay? Thank you.
Champion/And what ever happened to the military credit? The County was thinking of throwing
that back on the City too.
Atkins/That was a very small number, and they just choose to cover it, I mean, very small. IfI
recall it's $10,000 to us, or something like...
O'Donnell/But it was only people in the county, right? That's the way I understood that.
Atkins/No. Deb, do you know? What was it?
Mansfield/It would be everybody, city.
Atkins/The unincorporated and cities are dealt with the same way when it comes to that. Okay.
27th is set for boards and commissions, to give you a heads-up. We'll start the process.
Your budget hearing will be March 1st, with a vote on it on the 2nd. And yesterday, and
he's not here, Dale signed a tentative agreement with Fire for a two-year labor agreement,
so we've got two of our three out of the way, and we've got multi-year agreements.
There's some language and some other amendments, but it's 2.75/2.75 for two years. It's
a good, I believe it's a very good agreement. So that's, we're getting those kinds of
things behind us as well. We're into fact finding with Police. That'll be a little while
before we get to that one.
Champion/You know, Steve, sometime what I'd like to know when we okay these (can't hear)
what the real cost is. I mean, if they're getting raises, we're paying more Social Security,
we're paying more unemployment, obviously we're paying more health insurance right
now. (can't hear) to know what the actual increase was, is.
Atkins/I can do that. 1 can calculate something...
Champion/Is that difficult?
Atkins/It's difficult, but it's not not doable. I mean, we could do that.
Champion/Doesn't have to be in any big hurry, I'd just be curious.
Atkins/I can tell you that I think most of the unions are anxious to have their settlements because
of the cost of health insurance, and they've all written those into their agreements, and
several years ago we were able to get a small co-pay and as these numbers began to
almost exponentially seem to take off on us. The wage settlements are going to be, our
wage settlements are well within, if not a tad bit less than what you see going on it the
market. But again, our big thing is we virtually pay 100% for health insurance. That's
the biggie.
Lehman/You know, there is also, I think the public hears we signed a labor agreement for 2.75%
increase, and they presume that's the increase, but that is only the cost, basically that's
the cost of living increase.
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Atkins/Pay plan moves up by that much.
Lehman/Right, and that is an issue that instead of 2.75, the actual increase in salary are probably
closer to 5 or 6%.
Atkins/Those people that are still moving through the steps...
Lehman/Right, but I think ' ' ' -
it s a b t ofa m snomer from the pubhc s perspect ve because, you
know, we only, or we gave a 2.75%. W '
ell, that s great. That's within inflation, but when
you go through the steps, that 2.75% ends up being more Iike 5 or 6%.
Atkins/But remember, when you do 2.75, both ends of the pay plan goes up.
Lehman/Oh no, I'm well aware of that.
Atkins/And it...all right.
Vanderhoef/Did I read something about perhaps it was Des Moines, that they were talking about
a freeze on pay increases?
Lehman/Saw that in today's paper.
Atkins/I don't know. It's been pretty common talk.
Vanderhoef/It's...
Atkins/The unions are traditionally rejected. Now the state unions have said no to that.
Vanderhoef/I don't understand how that works then. If you put a pay freeze in place, and you
have a binding contract, how does that ever...?
Atkins/You cannot put a pay freeze in place in the face of a contractual obligation you have.
Period.
Vanderhoef/Well that's, so I...
Atkins/They can talk all they want, but the contract says this is what I'm entitled to. This is what
I get.
Lehman/Dee, ifl read what I think you're talking about, it was not for union boys. It was for
non, for salary employees. I believe that's...
O'Donnell/1 think that's...
Atkins/I didn't read it so I don't recall that. Okay.
Elliott/Steve, you said, virtually we're paying 100% on health insurance?
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Atkins/Yes, it's about 97%. We have a $20 month, no, it's up to almost, $40 a month now in co-
pay so...
Elliott/It seems to me that anywhere from 50% to 80/20 is a split that most people are
accustomed to.
Champion/Well now that the State allows it, the tax (can't understand) for that. It's a real flaw in
the state legislature.
Atkins/But many, many years ago, and to their credit the union figured this out and put them into
their labor agreements, and to take something out of the labor agreement, if you're going
to get, somebody that's going to be neutral, they're going to say, okay, what'd you trade
for it?
Elliott/Uh-huh. But...
Atkins/What we trade is usually trying to get multi-year agreements, because it makes it that
much easier for us in budgeting. It's just easier financially to plan.
Elliot"t/Somewhere on the horizon, that has to be that we just can't continue paying 100% of that.
Lehman/Well, the problem is that we can because we're taxing for it on the employee benefits
levy and it doesn't affect the General Fund.
Elliott/Yeah, but we have a responsibility to taxpayers.
Lehman/1 don't disagree.
EIliott/And it is not in the taxpayer's best interest for the City to continue paying that. On the
other hand, we certainly have to look out for the employees. Not only contractual
arrangements but what is fair and ethical and reasonable, but 100% is no longer
reasonable, I think.
Atkins/Well, it's been...
Champion/We all agree with you.
Atkins/yeah, and I think, when do you want to dig your heels in, and it's a very long, very
tedious...
Elliott/Maybe in five years.
Atkins/And I don't know you can win it. Dale's here by the way. Dale, we're talking about
collective bargain...put your hands down. You're not under arrest. (laughter)
Wilburn/Just to play advocate for a second. A municipal job is a, it's a good job, good benefits,
urn, someone might say, well is it worth it for you to have someone go down in that
sewer to go have you pay. Is it worth it to you the taxpayer to have someone pick up the
trash, get down in the sewer, all that stuff, is that worth... I'm just pointing ....
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Elliott/Oh, it's worth every penny of it, but we have responsibility, both to employees and to
taxpayers. And employees are taxpayers.
Wilburn/But ali I was gaying is that for some taxpayers, myself included, I don't want to get
down in the sewer so...
Vanderhoef/One other question that follows on to the discuss though, Ross, is a question that
we've been asking at my National Finance (can't hear)Committee, and I have requested
that it go on the survey of cities next year in that I want to know how many employees
are past their "retirement date" in that they are fully vested, and have been on payroll for
20 years, and we used to have a number of people that would say, I want a second career,
and with the cost of the health insurance right now, that maybe isn't happening, and we
don't have statistics to prove it one way or the other that they're staying on another l 5
years because they started working for the City when they ~vere 21, and they could have
retired say at 45 and had a whole other career. So what is that costing?
Atkins/Well I can tell you, we have 600 full time employees, we're at now, and 16 are eligible to
retire. It's not a big number. (several talking at once) No it's not. Sixteen...I mean,
they have met the eligibility, and choose to work.
Champion/We have a young...
Atkins/Yes. Yes, generally we do have a young work force.
O'Donnell/Steve, how much is health insurance increased over the last couple of years?
Percentage-wise, just roughly.
Atkins/50% easily.
O'Donnell/It's been huge. It's been...
Atkins/Yeah, I can remember I think about 3 years ago, a family plan was in the $6,000 range,
and we're going to pay $10,000 this year, so yeah....$10,000, if not more. Another one
too, remember, in that benefits levy, is pension, and there's where the State legislature
grants pension benefits, and sends us the bill. Yeah, remember they took it away from us
a number of years ago when we used to manage our own pensions. There's not much
you can do about that. Social Security too is in a virtually indexed where the base keeps
going up. Yeah. There's no way you can kind of get out from under that one. Yeah.
Elliott/Follow up on what I said, but I think we always have to look at total compensation
package that perhaps 100% reimbursement, or 100% pay on the health insurance is not
out of line if salary compensates for that. So I think we always have to keep that in mind.
I didn't mention that when I stated earlier.
Atkins/Well l don't think there's any doubt we're a good employer. You know, and folks seek
us out.
Lehman/At some point in time the one thing we may have to consider is putting a cap on the
amount that we're willing to tax for employee benefits.
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Champion/We've talked about it but we've never gone any further...
Lehman/That's the way, if you just put a cap and this is all we will charge, then that is, you
either...either jobs or you end up having to...
Atkins/That's a tough decision but, a tough decision to implement, but it can be done. Okay.
Dale, I was just reporting about the fire agreement, that you had settled that. Okay. One
other thing, I want to do a real quick, kind ora cursory review of the expense side of the
budget, and this is page 30 in your budget document. You also remember this from our
other, the overhead that we used before. Okay, the important numbers is the middle
column. It's a little fuzzy, isn't it? Or is it my eyes?
Champion/That's good.
Atkins/That good? Okay. What I want you to look at here is read the personnel line across, $29,
769,000 - all the way at the ~b,ottom. It's the very last, near the bottom of the page. Page
30. ~ot that? Page 30. That s our estimated General Fund payroll. It is up, our
previous, our current year estimate is $28,575,000. Now, you might ask, and well you
should ask, but I thought we were reducing a number of jobs. We've had some
settlements. The number that I want to point out to you is just a tad bit up, oh, thank you.
(laughter) I sort of feel like Mitch Miller. (laughter) Okay. Employee benefits- last
year 6.5. This year 7.4. When you put that into that number, the big increase in
personnel is strictly due to pension and health insurance increases. If you took that
number out, our payroll is up about 1%. If you look at our other major line items,
commodities is up about 2%. Services and charges is down. Capital outlay - down.
Transfer's about the same. So sort of the bottom line, if it wasn't for the health and the
benefit, those numbers are going to be real close to each other in what we have proposed.
Okay? And you'll see that kind of all throughout all the rest of the budgets. It's a big
increase in personnel, is for the cost of the benefits to support that personnel, and when
we do the expense side, we show it's all figured into that. Okay? Good. Lights? Thank
you. Okay. With that, I'm making, what about self-insured, Ernie?
Lehman/Oh, Mike just asked if we looked at other carriers but we basically self-insure all health
insurance...
Atkins/We self-insure our health insurance. We have stop-losses and other insurance programs
to protect us, but we are self-insured. Yeah. We pay Wellmark, I don't know what the
percentage...well, a percentage to manage it for us, but the, and we're pretty good about
predicting those numbers. Okay? Bottom line now, folks, is that it's sort of open to you.
If you want to get into capital, give me a heads-up because there are staff standing by and
I'll drag them down here to talk about that. If there are just other issues, I think, I gave
you a little summary of the Council decisions. I did a little summary for you on the
capital, the unfunded, just to give you some idea of the projects the staff thought
were...there was a discussion about wanting to go over the earlier budget reductions we
made back in May and June. There was some interest in Aid to Agencies, and of course
we have the budget highlights and then the assignment of money for the extra road-use
tax. Those are the issues.
Elliott/Steve, 1 have a question. On page 29, and perhaps it's something, probably it's something
I don't understand, but it indicates that the guideline is to have a 5-year balance of 20%.
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Atkins/Correct.
Elliott/And that 5-year balance shown here is almost 30%.
Atkins/29.9, that's correct.
Elliott/Which is an indication that is there a reason why we wanted to go so much above what the
guideline says, and if so...
Atkins/The policy is a no-less-than policy. If you were to say that you wanted to spend down
your reserves for a one-time expense, I wouldn't quibble with you, as long as we can
keep that number close. If you wished to make a recurring expense, staffa 4~h fire
station, I would strongly recommend against using your reserves.
Elliott/But the philosophy behind that, or the financial reasoning I should say, behind that,
appears to indicate that 20% is a very reasonable and appropriate amount, and we're
almost at 30%.
Atkins/Okay. It is...
Elliott/Has the reasoning changed?
Atkins/No, no.
EIliott/Doesn't that mean that if the reasoning hasn't changed, we have several million dollars
that are at the disposal to use?
Atkins/Other than, if you read down to the other chart down below, remember we get paid twice
a year. We have 26 pay periods we have to cover, but we get paid twice a year. That's
~vhen our big lump sums of money come in from property tax, and we have to evaluate
that. These reserves are our working capital. We will spend those dova~ during the
course of the year, then we replenish them as taxes come in.
Elliott/This has to do with effective cash flow?
Atkins/Absolutely, absolutely. Now one of the things we choose to do is, in business it's not
uncommon to establish like a line of credit, and that allows you to, let's say you have a
million dollar line of credit. You can go andjust simply draw on that from the bank to
run your business, but you have to pay for that. We don't, we use our own reserves as
our working capital so we don't have to pay any interest charges on our operations.
Elliott/So, you're, the feeling is then that maintaining this considerably above the 20% is
financially very appropriate, and almost necessary?
Atkins/I think it's a smart thing to...it's a smart thing to do. It certainly strengthens our credit
rating, which means we save money over the long pole, but if the Council were to say I'd
really like to be able to do this, a one-time say capital expense, and draw down the
reserves, I wouldn't quibble about that. I'd want to talk it through to make sure I
understood. Ernie?
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Lehman/Steve, but if I understand this correctly, we're showing an ending balance of
approximately $12.8 million. At some point during the fiscal year, that, instead of $12.8
million, will be reduced by about $6.5 million.
Atkins/Easily.
Lehman/So instead of us, I mean, that may be the ending balance but the operating capital during
that period, the effective reserve is probably a lot closer to $6 million or less.
Atkins/That's correct, that's correct.
Lehman/Because there are times it will be down to about a $6 million number.
Atkins/Yes, sometimes it could be dramatically down. Remember the storm of 98, we spent our
reserves. We spent millions of dollars out, now we were reimbursed through FEMA but
we were able to react to those things by the use of our own cash. Now that doesn't mean
we can't go out and borrow, l'm just suggesting, why pay an additional expense out of
your budget when you can use your own money. But again, it works like a line of credit.
l think that's the easiest way. Kevin, okay?
O'Malley/That's correct.
Atkins/Fine.
Vanderhoef/I have something that I don't know whether there's any answers on Council, but I
would like to just take a fast look at whether we should be considering another census,
mid-time census, since our funding comes off of that and that is one place where perhaps
we could get a pay-out.
Lehman/l would really (can't hear) audit water accounts or something before, last time we spent
I can't remember what it was.
Atkins/It's over $200,000, almost $300,000 to do a census.
Lehman/$300,000 and it turned out that we...did we pay for it?
Atkins/We barely paid for it. We did pay for it through road-use tax.
Vanderhoef/We paid for it but that was all. So if we can get a preliminary, just to see whether
maybe that's something to talk about later.
O'Donnell/I think we can do that internally. (several talking at once)
Atkins/Now remember, if you....much of our aid, much, road-use tax for example, is based upon
the official census. We could do a census on our own, but its standing is not the same as
the Bureau of the Census. We have to have them do that, and then if it, if our population
is up, then of course that improves our position with respect to aid.
Bailey/So in what areas does it benefit us to do our own census, if the official census is...?
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Atkins/Oh, as a planning tool it's important.
Vanderhoef/That's not the kind I want.
Atkins/Yeah, no, I, Dee mentioned to me in passing, we want the kind that will make money.
Vanderhoef/I want them to do just a down and dirty look at it and bring it back and make a
decision of whether we ask for an official.
Champion/I think you would wait until at least the middle of the census time. I mean like...
Atkins/Well it's drawing close. This is 05. We started in 2000. Think about it. (laughter)
Bailey/You do believe that there's a dramatic...
Vanderhoef/Well, I want to see the cost, possible cost benefit, of this. I don't know, and the
other thing is that our funding comes back to us. Just because we do a census in 2010,
we don't start reaping the benefits of that until almost 2012 because of reporting times
and so forth. So someplace along in this time period I think is, if we ~vere going to do
one, it's probably the time to do it.
Lehman/My suspicion is that the staff looks at this and feels that this is something we should do,
you'll get back to us with that recommendation?
Atkins/I will be candid with you. Dee's assessment is not wrong. I've been very soured by the
whole census project. I mean, last year., or the last go around, our population increase
was 2,000 people, human beings, and I argued with the census folks, who we built 4,000
housing units in that same decade. Now that doesn't make sense to me that we would
only, and the University's population did not dramatically decline. We had not noticed in
our utility billings, none of that. Now whether they blew it in 1990 because that was the
year we went up 18%. Remember from like 51,000 to 59,000. That may have been an
overcount and they were squaring up. We actually last time around sent staff around to
neighborhoods where they said you've lost 50 people. Well we couldn't find any
demolitions. You know, we know all of that kind of information, and we just simply
couldn't, couldn't substantiate it. I could give you kind of a quick and dirty, and give you
some kind ora number on that. That wouldn't be too hard to do if that's what you're
interested in doing. I mean, that's just a staff report. It'll take a little time but we'll get
that for you, if that's - want to hear what it means in numbers?
Lehman/Well I think if there's a, fi'om my perspective, if there's a genuine concern on the part of
the Finance Department, that we have based on water meters and a building department
that there's been a significant change, then we look at it. But I think I'd have to leave...
Atkins/Well I thought we had that last time.
Lehman/Yeah, I think we all did, but it turned out that we didn't.
Atkins/Yeah.
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Lehman/Bali's in your court. (laughter)
Atkins/Thanks, thank you.
Champion/What are we talking about now actually? I mean the census, but what kind of random
stuff are we talking about. Anything we want to talk about?
Lehman/Oh yeah.
Atkins/Oh, anything that has to do with this. I'll do my best to answer those questions for you.
Dee brought up this issue. I can do some staff report and give you some idea of what we
think it will cost us, and those kinds of things.
Lehman/Preliminary sort of(can't hear) as to whether or not, I don't think we even need cost
estimates (several talking at once).
Wilburn/Are there any indicators that there has been a significant (can't hear)?
Atkins/Well in our case, building permits are way up.
Vanderhoef/The thing is for five years now we've been over 100 million and it's like we know
we're filling up neighborhoods building houses, so what's happening?
Elliott/Steve is saying once burned, you need to be cautious.
Atkins/l'm just very cautious because it's so expensive to do one of these things. I mean, you're,
there is a real big leap of faith because you sign a contract with them and they're going to
charge you about $300,000 to do this.
Elliott/I'd have to be...
Atkins/I swallow hard.
Elliott/...awfully swayed to think we want to spend that kind of money.
Atkins/Okay.
Elliott/But I think your point is well taken.
Atkins/Let me put the numbers together for you and (can't hear) (several talking at once)
Wilburn/Well Coralville benefit, but they had some strong indicators.
Lehman/Right.
Vanderhoef/So did North Liberty.
Bailey/It sounds like Dee thinks we might have some (can't hear).
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Atkins/Before you ask the next question, this is at your place, this is something that we prepare.
It's for your information, Citizens' Summary. We mail one of these to every board and
commission member that you've appointed. So about 150 of them will go out. We have
extras if you've got some folks that you'd like to have a copy of it. You can get the
budget on our web pages, and things such as that, but we try to do this so somebody has a
hard-copy document. That's all.
Bailey/Can I ask a really simple question?
Atkins/Simpler than this one? (laughter)
Bailey/Much, I think. Can we talk a little bit about Aid to Agencies. I'm not sure I fully
understand it, and I mean...
Wilburn/I would ask to be, to wait for Iike 15 minutes to do that because I have to run out and by
the time I get that done.
Bailey/Sounds like a plan. Okay, good, thanks.
Champion/The other thing is I know the Parks and Rec people are going to talk to us. But how
would you pay for a master plan, which I think they do definiteIy...?
Atkins/Here's what they had...let me tell you what they had proposed. They had proposed that a
master plan to be funded from the Park Land Acquisition fund. Anywhere in the
neighborhood of $75,000 to $80,000. This is something that's been a very high priority
for them, and I've been hard pressed to recommend it for a couple reasons. The biggest
reason is it's a lot of money early in the State budget legislative process. If the State does
something really crazy, we're going to be running around looking for cash for budget
balancing purposes. Remember, and we've already chosen to draw that down as in this
budget. They're going to tell you that they feel very strongly, and 1 don't, I don't have a
basic disagreement with that. It's, they need to do this comprehensive planning process.
They want us to use Park Land Acquisition monies. There are sufficient funds in that
account now to do that. To me it's the timing of the thing. If you waited until like you
know, May 1 to report back to them saying I think we can do it, but in the meantime it's,
it's just a pool of cash that 1, I'm just kind of jealousy guarding wherever we have
accumulated cash within the budget because we don't, for example, if we were to loose
that exemption. Would be a huge hit. Yes?
Bailey/What is a $75,000 master plan?
Atkins/You know, I'm not real sure myself, Regenia. They have discussed it, oh gosh, we've
met, what was it like 3 years ago.
Lehman/At least.
Atkins/They've been anxious to get this done. We don't' have anything comprehensive with
respect to...we have an open space plan and we can identify areas where open space has
been occurring, and property's been accumulated on the part of the City. One of the
other thoughts is that is this the time to do a study when we're as bummed as we are
about our budget position? (can't understand) a question I think you need to think about.
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Bailey/Or is it time to do better plans?
Atkins/Yeah, absolutely. When they come to you, please, I think Matt Pacha is the chair of the
commission that's going to promote this. Please feel free to, and I can have Terry
prepare something if you all are interested.
Elliott/Just before coming today, I wrote to a good friend on Parks and Rec, and told him of my
concerns about that because when we were campaigning, virtually all of us, maybe !
shouldn't say virtually, but so many of us were saying our highest priorities are clean
water, police, and fire protection. We have the great water but I'm not convinced that
eliminating numbers of fire persons, fire fighters, and police, is in the best interest. As a
matter of fact, I'd like to start planning right now to have the City maintain its force, and
increase it if necessary for fire fighters and police, and start planning for the northside fire
station, and I think those are the kinds of things that we have to, as a Council, what are
our priorities, and how do Parks and Rec fit in that priority? They're very important,
because economic development is important, and if we don't have quality of life, we hurt
our economic development, but I think there are those kinds of priorities that we really
need to look at very strongly. That's the way I feel.
Vanderhoef/I don't think you're wrong, Bob.
Elliott/But you don't think I'm right.
Lehman/No, Bob, I don't...
Vanderhoef/No, I'm not saying that. It's a matter of on-going costs versus doing this as a capital
project, and there are two different budgets, as far as I'm concerned. So if there's a way
that even if we wait until May 1 and we've settled our budget and we see what the
legislature is or isn't going to do to us, on May 1 if that money is still sitting there, I
would support a master plan at that point in time. I don't want to take that money to
balance the General Fund or monies that are missing because of legislative activity,
because if our budget goes through the way it is, then we could...
Elliott/l just don't want to get done with the budget, and then be told, well, you see, we don't
have enough money. We've already made those decisions in absentia, and my concern is
clean water, police, and fire protection, and...
Vanderhoef/But the acquisition money, when it's spent out, then it's gone. It gets slowly
replenished from hotel/motel taxes, but it isn't enough to fund a firefighter.
Champion/No.
Vanderhoef/For an on-going position, it isn't there.
Lehman/Well I hear what Bob's saying. Bob, I think that over the years we've been very
judicious in looking at a couple of indicators. Response time for fire departments
probably is the most critical measurement of how effective a fire department is. I think
our response times am really very, very good. A couple areas are not as good as we'd
Iike them to be, which is why we talked about an eastside fire station. And the other
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measurement I think, that's pretty accurate measurement of the effectiveness of your
police department is crime rate. And not policemen per thousand folks, because if you
compare us, for example, to a Waterloo or a Quad Cities where they have a much higher
crime rate, they do need more police officers. We're basically a pretty peaceful
community. My gut feeling is if we have a problem with crime rate, Steve and R.J. are
going to be beating on the door to hire more police officers. So, I don't think these are
issues that we ignore, but I think there are pretty good indicators as to how well we're
doing.
Vanderhoef/Well there's that, and the other thing when you look at the fire, not fire - the police
officers per population, and compare them across the state, you have to watch out
because there is no indication in that figure that we have a community service policing
force through the University. So ~ve do have a lot more eyes and ears and cars out on the
street than that ratio would show. So, I'm much more interested in the fire fighter
position than the police officer position because I do think we're fairly well covered.
Elliott/As am 1 and that's why I think that first of all we need to know what figure is appropriate,
what figure is necessary for us. But ifI were to find out that we were to send a
policeman out on a night call for any kind of call that might incorporate danger, and
there's only one person, I would be very, very upset.
Atkins/Yeah, well we have policies to cover that.
Elliott/And that's good, and that's why I think maybe 1 simply need to know more about it,
Steve, but those am my concerns, and perhaps as I gain information about it, 1'11 find out
that...
Atkins/Let me show you where the 4th fire station is right now that we have budgeted money to
buy the land and to design it. So it's not that we're ignoring it, it's just that we do not
have sufficient funds to staff it, and that's the bottom line, we have the ability to create
capital assets. Our problem is the ability to put human beings in there to provide the
particular service you're talking about.
Vanderhoef/So then the only other alternative is to realign staffing within the City.
EIliott/That's why, in the budget, I think we have to keep that in mind, but I think after we're
done with the budget, I'd like to look at City services, and those kinds of things, and set
our priorities. Are there any services that we have that are less important than opening a
new fire station, and adequately staffing it? That's life and death.
Atkins/Yeah, well, and I would argue back with you on behalf of all the other employees, the
person that cuts the grass feels they contribute just as much to this organization as the
person who polices the streets and responds to fire calls.
Wilburn/I think too, part of what Ernie and Dee, a piece to what Emie and Dee were saying, is,
and a lot of folks don't appreciate this, but it really is two different budgets. How does it
affect the General Fund, and if them's, if for example we had also had a conversation
about how do you look at prioritizing new hires at the point you're able to do them. One
way to go about it is to just say well, on all new positions, we're going to start by filling
those high priority fire, police, whatever you feel it is. Another way to go about it is,
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well, for example with the furniture project thing. That's money that's coming out of
that, there's a revenue stream for that expenditure, and that's kind of the way ! view it.
Elliott/Well, you know how I feel.
Atkins/Good. (several talking at once)
Champion/Well I suppose we all agree with him and the fire station certainly is high on our list
to at least get the land so as that area develops even more out there, that we do have a
fire...
Atkins/Three years ago we had a great plan put together. We were way ahead of the whole
process. (laughter)
Champion/We had three firemen already hired. Six...
Atkins/We hired six. We hired six of the nine that we were going to need and we were way out
in front of the issue. Unfortunately you have to play the hand that was dealt you.
Champion/But we were well on our road.
Atkins/Yeah.
Champion/And so the firemen that were, I mean, in the budget now, are not firemen to staff what
we already have.
Atkins/So you have the history of it. Our department had 52 personnel, and we had intended to
go to 61. We hired 6 and went to 58. There was a dismissal and a reinstatement, so for a
while we ran over our compliment, and ran at 59. We've just had a resignation so we're
back to 58. In accordance with what we did in the spring, they would be at 55, as the
final number. Again, that's accompanying the retirements that we anticipate. Yes?
O' Donnell/How long had it been since we had increased that staff?
Atkins/Oh, 25 years. Long time, long time.
O'Donnell/And see I agree with what Bob is saying here, and I know we all do. A top priority
has got to be first responders, police and fire. And I really think they should be a top
priority for us, but I'm...
Atkins/Now this budget, as you'll recall, we had originally anticipated a reduction of 5
personnel, and I'm proposing that become 3 because of other reductions that were made
within the operations of police. So instead of going from 75 to 70 authorized
compliment, we would go to 72. And that's how this budget was balanced. So we
backed off a tad bit on that one.
Vanderhoef/And that was in training.
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Atkins/It'll bite us later on. It's just that fire doesn't have the same level of flexibility with
respect to their commodity services and charges and other things that other departments
have.
Vanderhoef/And that's the training part is a piece that I am interested in looking at more regional
.kind of training rather than individual with our staff.
Atkins/Well you know we took that the old waste water building down at the north plant. It's
been converted to, we turned that over to fire, and if you'll also notice in the budget for
fire, we haven't really cut back upon, on hardware, capital outlay. In fact, we're buying
some new things. There's a trench rescue training device, and a couple of other new
things that we're actually purchasing for training purposes, and we do most of our
training in-house, you know, we do our own thing.
Vanderhoef/But how much, how many people come in from volunteer fire departments...?
Atkins/1 don't know the number, Dee. I do know that under our mutual aid agreement, I'm sure
Andy has offers, I mean that's, and they probably pay for the consumables. You know if
you go in there and you need something, they would reimburse us...
Vanderhoef/Do they pay for our staff?
Champion/No.
Atkins/No.
Lehman/Sure they don't.
Atkins/No, I'm sure they don't.
Vanderhoef/Well, is that something that needs to be talked about?
Champion/1 don't think so. (laughter)
Lehman/We'll talk about it but it's in our best interest that they be welled trained as much as...
Atkins/Yeah, yeah. The volunteer departments clearly look to us for their training.
Champion/Absolutely, and we should provide that.
Wilburn/I'm going to step out.
Atkins/Okay.
Bailey/I was just going to ask another question.
Atkins/You want to go to Aid to Agencies?
Lehman/Yes. No, no, we have questions relative to Aid to Agencies and CDBG's, it's a good
time to do it because Ross won't be...
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Atkins/Let me get my overhead and we'll do that one. Okay.
Champion/No stopping for lunch.
Lehman/Unless you're bringing it back.
Atkins/It's on page 101 and I02 of your budget. I just have to find the overhead I made for it.
Okay. Is everybody okay with that one? (tape ends) (several people talking at once)
Atkins/Let's...that's I 01, yeah, page 101 is the one I think you want to start with. Those are the
Aids to Agencies, because page 102 is the Community Events, and...okay. What we do,
just a little history on our budget, we created an account called Non-Operational, and it's,
Aids to Agencies is a title that's been here forever, and it's a indicator of monies
provided substantially to human service agencies by the City Council on an annual basis.
As you kno~v, we're not going to be participating in the United Way's portion of this.
We do give about, it's about $400,000 toward these agencies. Many cities give nothing.
We are a little bit unusual in that. These numbers represent the May/June, I used spring
time process and we went through and we knew the state was going to be taking a lot of
money from us, and reductions were made, and then the budget was balanced in
accordance with that particular policy position. So that's kind of where we are with this
thing.
Champion/And, Regenia, last year we talked about, we did some manipulation of funding,
mainly because the agencies that had been getting money the longest are getting the most
money, and it seemed to me that it wasn't really quite fair because people who give direct
aid were getting very little money, like a crisis center, well they're treated quite well.
Neighborhood centers, Shelter House, the Free Medical Clinic, and things that are nice to
do but aren't necessarily direct aid, were getting the bulk of the money that the City
gives. And so we did increase Shelter House, and we decreased Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
We decreased the youth, oh what's it called - the Mayor's Youth Employment because
they were not doing what they set out to do when we started giving them money. Their
whole philosophy had changed, and we felt it was a duplication of services.
Bailey/So that's part of my question, is, what are the numbers based upon, and what is the
accountability? I mean, you know that I work in a not-for-profit sector and have a great
respect for all of these agencies, but I just wonder what, what's the sort of dialogue and
where do we come up with these numbers?
Champion/Well we went out, well they started a long time ago.
Bailey/Right, so these are based on historical...
Champion/Yeah, for support, and as we get increases every year, those people also got increases
who had been on the list forever, and as you know different groups come forward and we
visited quite a fe~v of the agencies to see exactly what they were doing, and a lot of their
missions had changed since the City started funding them. Or we felt there was
duplication of services, and so, it's kind of up to us what we do.
Vanderhoef/We also had gotten these big books that everybody filled out, financial statements...
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Bailey/Is this the United Way sort of... ?
Vanderhoef/It was United Way, and we sat in on those for the agencies we traditionally funded,
and that's what we don't have this year and they're trying to do a (can't hear) I have one,
thank you.
Atkins/If you're desperate to have one...
O'Donnell/Well everybody should sit in on this Aid to Agencies at one time...(several talking at
once) But that, you do learn a lot when you go and you listen to...
Atkins/It's clearly an incremental policy. Incrementally they'll bump it, and it was an across the
board adjustment made in the spring. This does not prevent them from applying for
CDBG, for example, Shelter House as you know got a big CDBG grant and that's, this is
our General Fund, and a small amount of CD money which we're permitted to use under
HUD regulations.
Elliott/Steve, when you say it's an incremental policy, you mean just without looking at what
they're doing...
Atkins/Oh no, we had a (can't hear) review, but traditionally if you got $10,000 last year, many
of them might ask for $20,000. Council might recommend $12,000. Incrementally you
see it bumping...
Elliott/1 really liked what Dee and Connie did last year. Went out and, this shouldn't be done by
seniority. This should be done on a basis of their worth to our community.
Champion/And it was being done on seniority, kind of. And it isn't saying that the agencies that
we cut that we thought they should be gone. We were trying to equalize some things, and
instead of just on seniority.
Vanderhoef/Well the other thing you'll see, clear down at the bottom, you'll see the $15,000 for
the job training. Well I guess the $15,000...well it shows the $15,000 and some had been
spent out. That was the piece that we sa~v that ~vas missing from what used to happen at
Mayor's Youth. So instead of awarding it to "any agency" per se, we put it out as a grant
with what we wanted to see happen with it, and everybody was allowed to bid on it, if
they wanted to provide that program at that funding. So we'll be getting a report...
Atkins/Pretty soon; we're about due for another one. I think it's about that time.
Vanderhoef/UAY is the lead agency. They are collaborating with Goodwill on this, and
certainly Neighborhood Services and Mayor's Youth can refer young people into that
program.
Lehman/And if I'm not mistaken, United Way is trying to do kind of an evaluation of all of the
agencies. How this is going to...
Atkins/Ernie, I'm real sure exactly what they're trying to do. (several talking at once)
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January 22, 2004 Council Work Session Page 20
Lehman/Well, that was their plan. Now how it's going to come out...
Atkins/They've got them grouped into segments as Dee calls them. There's like three or four of
those...
Vanderhoef/One for children, one for elderly, one for health...
Atkins/...leaving, yeah, they don't have a director right now, and I'm not so sure how that's all
going to shake out, but that's...
Lehman/...tough, it really is tough.
Vanderhoef/It is.
Elliott/I know the United Way used to take a very close, very hard look at all the agencies, what
were they doing, and how the relative importance, the relative benefit of each agency to
the community, and...
Atkins/That's being taken, I was campaign chair in 96 or 97, and it was pretty much just lock
step, and then shortly after that you began to see some change in attitude, and I think Bev
Weber had a lot to do with making some changes, some of them not very popular either.
But that's sort of where it is right now.
Vanderhoef/Well, there's...there's one of the agencies that is no longer a United Way agency
that is on our list.
Bailey/Which one?
Vanderhoef/Mayor's Youth.
Elliott/There's none of these agencies, or any, that doesn't do good things, but I think we're at
the place where funds are very tight, and we have to use funds where they're the best use
for the people of our community.
Champion/Well I think we...
Bailey/And I wasn't questioning the. expenditure, I was just trying to get a sense of how it's
done, and that sort of sense of history.
Atkins/I think we answered your policy position you took in the spring with the 5% (can't hear)
community events.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/Any other adjustments you would make would be new money.
Vanderhoef/Who's going to make the list of which agencies we go back to this year before we
set this funding?
Atkins/1 don't know. (laughter) I don't know that.
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Vanderhoef/We choose not to do a committee and yet we've, several of us, have said we'd like
to hear or get some updates from some of these agencies...
Atkins/Oh I'm sorry, Dee, yeah, we have, in fact I've asked Linda to kind of put together a rough
schedule. We'd like to bring at least one human service agency before you, like at a
work session, just 15, 20 minutes, of what they're....then kind of throughout the course
of the year, you'll get to see everybody. That's what we were thinking about doing. Is
that what you were talking about?
Vanderhoef/Uh-huh. (several talking at once)
Atkins/Okay. And I think they're anxious to do it too.
Champion/Um, proposed for 2005, who put those in there?
Lehman/Those are just 5% off of 2004...
Atkins/Take the 04, and yeah, take 5%.
Elliott/And the proposal, the subtotal, is this, how much of this is going in 2005?
Atkins/You would read down where it says 281...
Elliott/2817 That's the number.
Atkins/That's the number that you would have, yeah.
Elliott/The 421 then less CDBG, puts it at 2817
Atkins/Yes, yes.
Elliott/Okay.
Atkins/And the wastewater and water. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/If there's anyone else interested, I would like to hear a preseutation from the ARC
real close to the time that we hear from Mayor's Youth. We've not funded ARC. They
have asked us for funding, but for comparison purposes and overlap of services, I'd like
to hear from both of them. Is anyone else interested in doing that? (several talking at
once)
Lehman/That or I do think that prior to hearing from them though it would be nice to have some
sort of, of memo from each of them as to what, you know, so we have an opportunity to
become a little more familiar with them before they make their presentation.
Vanderhoeff Uh-huh.
Atkins/Oh, okay, some sort of a handout that you have going into the meeting?
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Vanderhoef/So we have it before...1 don't read well and listen well at the same time.
Atkins/I'm talking to that. I'll take care of that. (several talking at once) 1'11 take care of that.
Did you want to look at community events, as well? That's page 102.
Lehman/Steve, if I'm not mistaken, the numbers that we plugged in hem are going to be, unless
we change them, these will be the maximum numbers that we will allocate to community
events, and/or social agencies. Now, how they fall out individually, we may want to
arrange ourselves differently, but the totals...
Atkins/If you want to change these numbers (several talking at once)
Lehman/So we're dealing with the bottom line on all of these, not necessarily individual
allocations...
Atkins/I'~n not sure, I'm not sure what you're telling me, Emie. Let me just take an example.
Big Brothers/Big Sisters, $33,402.
Lehman/Well, no, the conversations that I've heard from a couple of Council people, is that we
may want to look at the actual numbers. But for budget purposes, we're looking at this
bottom line, $281,000.
Atkins/Oh that's okay. That's not going away unless you decide...
Lehman/...that will be the same. We may choose to mallocate something here or there, or we
may not choose to.
Vanderhoef/Remember, last year we didn't do it until later, and Steve Nasby told us that we
didn't have to have that CDBG one done until July 1.
Lehman/Right, so, but for budget purposes we're looking at totals.
Atkins/You can make changes, but please remember I sent a letter to each one of them, giving
them a heads-up that this was the number that was in the budget, so if you (several
talking at once) and if you do something dramatic, I think they're going to want a crack at
you. (laughter)
Champion/For instance, why did not give Shelter House any money this year?
Atkins/Why didn't we give any?
Champion/(can't hear; several talking at once)
Atkins/Because there was no proposed 04, I'm assuming that's why.
Bailey/They requested $20,000...
Atkins/I think there was nothing to base it on. They didn't get any that year.
Champion/We gave them, year we did, we increased them last year.
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Atkins/In 03?
Bailey/Was that the CDBG grant?
Champion/No.
Atkins/Deb, can you help me out on that?
Mansfield/I can't, but I'll check.
Atkins/We'll find out for you.
Champion/Because I thought the budget took away from Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and we gave it
to Shelter House (several talking at once).
Vanderhoef/...an increase to Shelter House. No, you're absolutely correct. They requested
$20,000, and we have a blank there.
Atkins/Okay, we'll get you an answer to that.
Vanderhoef/I bet that STAR program is the one in the...
Bailey/Well, isn't Shelter Housing (can't hear) emergency project?
Atkins/Yes, that's the same thing. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/That's where it is, that's where it is.
Champion/Okay. That's where it is.
Atkins/Okay.
Bailey/So actually emergency housing project shouldn't be on the list any longer, it should be
Shelter House (several talking at once).
Elliott/Way to go, Regenia.
Lehman/Good, thank you. We could have looked all day and not found that. (laughter)
Atkins/So we're cool with that? Okay. Anything else in human service? Do you want to go to
community events? Look at that? The most noticeable one is we dropped the Saturday
Night Concert here.
Lehman/Which we said we were going to do. In fact, we would have cut it last year but they
were in the middle of...
Atkins/...contracted already, that's correct.
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Lehman/...contracted for. So it's consistent with what we decided last year. They may be able to
get other funding, but we just won't be involved.
Atkins/Friday Night, Regema, was far and away the most popular. I think we knew that, and
Saturday was way down.
Lehman/But again here, we're just looking at totals.
Elliott/But the Jazz Festival is still on?
Atkins/Oh yeah! Yeah.
Vanderhoef/I was uncomfortable adding Uptown Bill's last year, and for the number of people
that it supports and considering that we're doing another cut in that overall budget, I'm
uncomfortable funding that one.
Bailey/You know, that's one of the only things that happens in Iowa City on Labor Day though.
Everything else really shuts down, 1 mean, that's one of the advantages of it.
Champion/It was a celebration. It didn't go directly to the mall.
Bailey/...the Neighborhood Fair and Flea Market. l mean...(several talking at once)
Lehman/From a procedural standpoint, I really think if we need, want to look at these
individually, we should do it some time other than right now because I think we're
looking at totals for budget right now.
Atkins/It's really very much up to you on how you want to do that.
Lehman/But do we have time to those?
Atkins/Yes we do, because remember going into the budget hearing, we'll need to set a max.
You can go down, just can't go up.
Lehman/Right, right.
Atkins/You can move it around too.
Champion/If we're going to move money around, I think we need to do it as soon as possible so
these agencies know what to expect.
Atkins/My next comment was going to be just that, because I, again, sent them a letter, told them
how we were going to do this, and again, nobody squawked. We understand, everybody
has a tough time. If you were going to make a dramatic reduction in any of these, they
need a heads-up. Yeah.
Bailey/And do we use any CVB money? I don't think we do, but in community events? It's
mostly Police, Parks and Rec ....
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Atkins/Yeah, the CVB money is the hotel/motel tax, and there's a policy, a formula, that
distributes the money. You have in one year future issues, an indication of using some
CVB money to finance ICAD, or at least a portion of it. I would, we believe the
hotel/motel tax budget, that is the revenue, is pretty conservative. Yeah, because when
the Moen project comes on line, we're expecting income...that's not calculated in there,
but we didn't know how to calculate it. So ! think if you can put 550 with a little star
next to it, I think you can have some sense. Then those monies may be available if you
wanted to do that. Other~vise it will get distributed in accordance with that formula, that
policy.
Bailey/Well 1 mean, Bob's point about the Jazz Festival really brings it in. We do have some
community events that really do, are very much in line with hotel/motel sort ora tax, and
that (can't hear) short-term economic development goals.
Vanderhoef/There used to be grants co~ning out of CVB that they spent out for those, and I'm
not clear for sure whether they're still doing those. Ernie?
Bailey/Yeah, $5,000...
Lehman/Yeah, and I think at one point we told them they had to. Isn't that right? Didn't we do
that a couple three years ago?
Vanderhoef/Well, they were there all the years that I was on CVB (several talking at once).
Okay, so they are doing grants from CVB.
Bailey/Yeah, but it's, you know, it's $5,000. It's very small.
Elliott/The 4th of July Jazz Fest is something that, I think, brings people in, therefore boosts the
tax. The tax should go partially to that, I think. That's one of the marvelous things that
Iowa City has, I think.
Vanderhoef/The Arts Fest is another one that definitely brings in people for overnight stays.
Lehman/Can we talk for just a minute about the CVB funding? Which is near and dear to my
heart? There's a recommendation from....yes, as a dagger in your heart, Mr. Atkins
(laughter). From my perspective, I find...
Atkins/I simply wanted to offer you a new alternative and opportunity. Is that good?
Lehman/We appreciate being offered, but I hope we don't honor your offer. The CVB, and l
think...
Atkins/You'll let me down easy on this one.
Lehman/I'm going to... no, just let me... first of all...
Elliott/Oh my God, he's prepared!
Lehman/Actually I am prepared. (laughter)
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January 22, 2004 Council Work Session Page 26
Atkins/Oh now, Ernie, how can I resist?
Lehman/CVB has formed a very significant partnership with University Hospitals and Clinics,
and I think most of us know the kind of visitors they have over there. They put out, for
years, a publication listing the sorts of things that occur. That knowledge became part of,
l'ln sorry, has become part of the tour guide.
Atkins/This is well done.
Lehman/The success of the CVB in the last two years has been absolutely phenomenal. They
were instrumental in working with the Englert. They've been instrumental with the
cultural aspect, and set up the cultural aspect. I think they have been very successful.
They turn, according to their numbers, and I suspect they may be a little inflated,
although I don't know that. $6 for every dollar they get tums in the community. It seems
to me to be somewhat punitive to reduc~ funding on an organization because they're
doing so well.
O'Donnell/Who's on this committee anyway?
Lehman/Which committee?
Atkins/Regenia's on that one.
Bailey/1 am, and I'm with everything that Emie says. (laughter)
Lehman/To me, it is, it gives us a whole lot better return on our money than the money that we
put in the bank at 3%. I just think they do a wonderful job, but my frustration, i think
with this more than anything else is they have shown such incredible success in the last
couple of years, and particularly last year, and to decrease their funding at a time when
they are showing their ability to perform, to me doesn't recognize their achievements,
and it isn't that much money. 1 think it's the principle.
Elliott/You laid this out for us earlier, Steve, and...
Atkins/...front part of your budget under budget highlights.
EIliott/Okay, because I think it would be helpful to know, Ernie, exactly what you're talking
about. How much, I think the difference was economic development and...
Atkins/It's a different approach to economic development, and I wanted to raise this issue with
you. One, because ~ve reduced ICAD funding a couple of years ago. It had been where,
it had been where it is for like ten years and we had to cut it back because of some budget
balancing, l understand what Ernie's saying.
Elliott/Yeah. You indicated reducing it $5,000, from $50,000 to $45,000.
Atkins/Yes, that was done back in the spring. That's done already. I want to restore.
Lehman/We're talking about doing it again. (several talking at once)
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Atkins/But I would like to see more money from the CVB for the hotel/motel tax, be pushed
toward an economic development policy, and that policy is the brick and mortar,
employment opportunities, property tax. Whereas I did not see that in CVB. CVB is
substantially money that goes into the hospitality industry. The hospitality industry does
not pay as well as the kind of things....yeah, that was my argument.
Bailey/ICAD's getting more funding would be great. I think the thing about the hotel/motel tax
is that's what CVB generates in our community, and we've become rather dependent on
those dollars, what $275,000 in the police budget alone?
Atkins/It goes into the General Fund.
Bailey/Right, but we earmark it...
Atkins/What we had to do at the time, because of the law, we had to show it, where it goes, and
police is where, you can pick an operating department.
Elliott/For those of us who are mathematically challenged, can you lay that out for me? CVB,
Convention and Visitors Bureau?
Atkins/Yeah.
Elliott/How much you ~vant it to go down, and economic development, how, what are the
differences?
Atkins/Okay, the CVB, Convention and Visitors Bureau, receives from the hotel/motel tax
approximately $120,000 a year from us. They also receive monies from Coralville.
Vanderhoef/Which is about 25% off..
Atkins/Coralville is the big player in this because of the hotel/motel tax. Oh yeah, they've got
over 1,000 hotel rooms. Yeah.
Vanderhoef/And, Coralville for instance, builds parks and lots of things, with those dollars. I'm
real torn because I understand CVB and I don't argue the rationale. However, where do
we find, because I think we need to be moving up the number of dollars. CVB is getting
more just in that we have higher occupancy, or same occupancy, but because the rates are
higher, the percent goes on a higher room rate. Therefore, we're seeing more dollars
come in so CVB's is growing, and we took $5,000 away from...yeah, they have that
opportunity. The only opportunity we have to change what goes into economic
development and ICAD is ~vhat we sit here and decide now, and $50,000 is what we have
been paying for a number of years. They haven't had an incremental increase for a long
time, and then we took $5,000 away from them last year, and yet CVB has been getting
incrementals because of growth in the industry, so I think it's time that...
Bailey/But that's what they create though, I mean, that's part of the...(several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/...economic development that they create the same kind of thing. When you bring
in teams of people to the industries that are here, and then you bring full time workers,
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and you bring new salaries in that recirculate through the community multiple times
because...
Bailey/I don't have a problem in more funding, I just don't think it should come necessarily from
CVB...
Lehman/...are tied together. You may...(several talking at once; laughter) Both of those
programs are vitally important to this community. The partnership between the
University of Iowa and the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, the hotels and
restaurants in this community, and the CVB is a huge partnership that means a great deal
economically to the community. Obviously, ICAD, tremendous, they've done, another
organization that has been incredibly successful the last couple of years. But I don't see
how one of those affects the others funding, ljust....we're penalizing them for doing a
good j ob.
Atkins/Emie, what I saw with CVB was they have a percentage ora base number.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/ICAD does not; they get a lump sum. So that's one. Secondly, that base number,
Regenia and I were just chatting, is going to increase as the Moen project comes on line
so that's going to push that number up and that's going to push that number up for CVB.
ICAD doesn't see any of that money. I'm saying, as that number gets pushed up, they're
going to get their percentage. I'm saying take a portion of that to help contribute to the
ICAD budget. They're the ones who have not had an adjustment in years. CVB, on the
other hand, when we raised the hotel/motel tax a couple years ago...
Lehman/But they're also instrumental in governing how much money they collect. (can't hear)
generate funds. I don't think there's any question.
Vanderhoef/Some of the incremental is new hotels, but more of it is coming from increased room
rates. You raise the rate and you automatically get an incremental increase.
Bailey/(several talking at once)....I mean, they're doing their job. You can't raise the rate if
people don't want to come...and we may not have as many rooms as Coralville, but we
have the full service hotels, which is nice. I mean that's where people want to stay.
(several talking at once)
Lehman/I can't imagine taking it away from an organization that turns (can't hear; several
talking at once)
Atkins/This sounds like I'm out trying to raid CVB and that's...
Lehman/It does seem like that.
Atkins/1 can't win with the two of you. (laughter and several talking at once)
Bailey/I'm understanding this simplistically but how, the 550's is divided, it's 50%. I mean, I
know it just goes into the General Fund, but how I saw it is 50% police, 22.5 CVB, and
the Parks 27.5, so what if we just (can't hear) cut one of those percentages.
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Atkins/Oh you could, you could make those adjustments. But my point is that if you're going to
see growth in it, ICAD I think is entitled to some additional funding. That was one. But
the most important thing to me was the economic development policy, and that is what
ICAD goes out and attempts to create for our community, and ~vhat CVB does. Now
1CAD is intended to get $12, $13, $14/hourjobs. CVB doesn't do that. They don't
create those kinds of jobs (several talking at once). CVB is not a brick and mortar policy.
ICAD is a brick and mortar policy, property tax related. That's how I saw the difference.
Lehman/But they're apples and oranges. CVB is good for Iowa City. It's good for this
community. Whether or not it's bricks and mortar or property taxes, it brings people in
here. There's how many, 3,000 people work in that industry. I mean, I think they're as
important as well. 1 don't see why we pit one against the other.
Atkins/I'm not pitting one against the other.
Lehman/Yes you are. (several talking at once)
Atkins/I'm looking for a source of money in order to finance ICAD.
Lehman/Then why don't we say that the percentage to CVB will be a certain percentage, up to a
maximum amount, and not cut the percent.
Atkins/Fine.
Lehman/What was the funding...God this is getting easier. (laughter and several talking at once)
So we give them funding of 22.5 or 125, and that's the max. If they collect 140, we get
the difference.
Atkins/Well they don't collect it, we collect it, and then we send it to them.
Lehman/We collect it, whatever, but don't show a cut for them. At least guarantee them exactly
what they got last year.
Vanderhoeff Time out. Let's put this on hold until we have had some more of the other
discussions for budget, and then we'll come back to it.
Champion/No, I think Emie, I think your idea is fine. Put a cap. (several talking at once)
Elliott/My concern though is economic development has to be one of the things that is of just the
utmost importance to Iowa City because if we don't get it, we aren't going to survive.
Bailey/But there's short-term and there's long-term, and we've got a nice sort of dual mix, and
let's boost the long-term is what (can't hear; several talking at once)
Elliott/...blame it on Steve. (laughter) I like the idea of not putting it one or the other. I think
that your point is well taken about the Visitors & Convention Bureau, but I certainly, I
think instead of cutting economic development, we need to add to it.
Lehman/Oh absolutely, we all agree on that.
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Vanderhoef/I'm looking for 60,000 by the way. (laughter) Well, I might as well put my number
out there and we can negotiate from there. (several talking at once)
O'Donnell/And what did we do with Coralville...what did we do with the Convention Bureau?
Atkins/Nothing, oh, 25% to 22.5%.
O'Donnell/See, and I think they're both incredibly valuable but I think ICAD can substantiate
like 2,000 to 3,000 jobs over the last 5 years in the area. Good paying jobs, benefits,
good wages, so I'm supporting Dee here saying that they need an increase.
Lehman/Absolutely. We all agree with that.
O'Donnell/Well then quit arguing with me. (laughter)
Atkins/All I wanted was an economic development policy, sort of(can't hear) You want to take
107
(TAPE OFF)
Atkins/Okay.
Lehman/Okay, what's next?
Atkins/Well, still your call.
Wilburn/I wanted to know if others were interested in seeing if we could move into a funded year
but an out year, one or two of the capital projects?
Vanderhoef/The memo?
Wilburn/The memo. There were a couple that I was wondering about.
Atkins/Okay now, we're talking about...where we gave you some ideas on capitaI projects, the
unfunded?
Wilburn/Yeah, road-use tax. It's...it looks like this. (several talking at once) A couple times
over the last, well several times over the last three years, we have had that Sandusky
storm sewer thing, and then the other one that I was thinking about...
Atkins/Sandusky? Okay, 7.
Wilbum/And then the other one was the Park Road, Dubuque Street.
Atkins/Can I give you just a, before we proceed too much further, these were just staff ideas. I
said to them are there things, you know, that are out there pesky, or really nice to have, or
whatever. We just came up with these ten. You've got an unfunded list of..yeah, of a
bunch, and then we added this selected engineering, and let me just give you the thinking
on that one because I think it will influence some of the things you're thinking about. We
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have some available road-use tax money. Therefore it has to be for roads-related
projects. Bridges, that all qualifies. And what we were thinking there is that you could
allocate your money to direct us to do some of the design and plan work for a project, roll
it up, put in on the shelf. An example we talked about is the Mormon Trek extended, the
bridge that would cross the Iowa River as we keep on going to that part of town. Bridges
are always difficult projects. You could allocate the financing for the planning of that
project, I mean take it pretty much as far as you wanted to go. So, when you're thinking
about that, is there something out there that l'd least like, then when we head off to
Washington, D.C., we might try to get an earmark on one of them. That's kind of...
Champion/Because when do you anticipate that? I thought that would be years away.
Atkins/Well remember, if all goes..it depends on what you decide on this north/south runway,
Mormon Trek you have yet to discuss, once you decide that we'll cross, we'll be at
Riverside Drive. 1 mean, just think about it from that perspective, and then, now that's
the hardest piece of it through there, but we think we have a route through there that'll
cross and then be south of the public works yard and on it goes.
Lehman/I think that one is one that we really need to get at least preliminary design work done. 1
don't mean huge amounts of money, but my guess is it will take a couple three times or
four, of asking for assistance from the feds before we get it? I know the feds are
particularly impressed when you have plans, if you can show them a picture. When we
did the ground transportation center we met here with the transportation folks, and we
met in the law library downstairs. They were just totally amazed. We had everything
ready to go. The plans were done. They knew what it was going to look like, and they
had just left a meeting in Cedar Rapids where they were requesting transportation money
for a project that they hadn't even had a sketch of. So they're very impressed if you can
show them that you actually have plans that you're going to move forward with. The
other thing that I think on that bridge that is particularly important is that, for example,
Gilbert Street intersection is going to be a lot of money. It's a very mundane project if
you're a senator or a congressman. I don't think there's anything real exciting about
adding a turn lane, but a bridge has got a lot of excitement. It's got a lot of political
clout. It's going to have a trail going across it. It's probably going to be four lanes, Bob.
(laughter) No, but I think there's a lot going for that if we have a plan for it. So, and l
don't know what we're talking about as far as cost to...
Atkins/Well I don't know that either, Ernie. I...
Lehman/I don't think it has to be engineered, but it has to be laid out.
Atkins/What I wanted to do by adding that is Ross has already proposed a couple projects. You
may want to propose those just for engineering purposes. I mean, you can use those
road-use tax monies...yes, ma'am?
Chmnpion/This Sandusky storm sewer though, that doesn't come out of, that comes out of storm
fund, right?
Atkins/No, it'll...yeah...
Vanderhoef/Storm sewer water...
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Atkins/But you haven't decided on that (several talking at once) You can do a general
obligation, what you could do is take the road-use tax money, transfer it to an existing
project, then that opens up your debt, in other words substitute it, and then you can help
pay for that one.
Lehman/Steve..yeah but there is a, my suspicion is that in the next two months we're going to
pass a storm water management fee. Part of that fee is capitaI improvements. My guess
is there will be enough in that capital improvements over a two or three year period to do
this project.
Atkins/I would think so.
Lehman/And that might be a really, really, really good use to start with. It is storm sewer. It's
something that needs doing. It's something that people have talked to us about for years
and years, and we can fund it through fees.
Atkins/Connie, we can't...(several talking at once). Pedestrian bridge over rocky shore, it's
unlikely that you could pay for it with road-use, but if you do the substituting. We just
wanted to say that's, that's a project that Terry identified as something that his
commission had expressed some interest in for some time.
Champion/And ~vhere would the pedestrian bridge go, just remind me?
Atkins/It's over, 1 don't have a map, it's over off the Peninsula, it would hook into the Peninsula.
I don't have the exact spot. You guys know where it is, back there?
Lehman/Pretty much from the comer where Mike is, or around that area, to the Peninsula
(several talking at once).
Atkins/Crandic Park, Connie, Crandic Park, the railroad overpass.
O'Donnell/Is it down by Crandic Park or out a little more?
Atkins/It's anywhere you want to put it, l suspect.
Wilbutn/I thought that when Parks and Rec had talked about it it was up closer to like around
Mike's house area. They were looking at somehow getting it closer to City Park.
Atkins/If you're going to get real specific I need to round up some staffpeople so kind of let me
know if you're taking offon one you're really interested in.
Vanderhoef/That's not one I'm...
O'Donnell/I don't think that would be a priority.
Vanderhoef/It isn't, and there's another storm water one that's on this list, or at least part of the
project, and that's the Highway 6 widening project.
Atkins/Highway 6?
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Vanderhoef/Because it gets storm water, remember we've done Phase One and this is the
continuation of that and it would be widening the highway which is Iowa DOT dollars,
and then the storm water that goes along side of that and then we have put a trail on top
of that and done landscaping along the roadside, and that's a big 80/20 kind of project.
Atkins/The Lakeside, Highway 6, the state would love to see us throw in on this one.
Lehman/That's a good one to get the plans ready for as well.
Vanderhoef/Get the plans ready on that one, and get the state funding. That was one of my
questions. I had several questions on different ones before I earmarked anything. Just
one other thing that I wanted to say about the Mormon Trek bridge is that when we go for
earmarks, Ernie's absolutely correct when you talk about if you've got your plan ready,
they're more apt to do it. But our senators get these requests all the time from all sorts of
communities, and they pass them around in their district. And so we're just finishing up
hopefully to get the list, the last of our money for an earmarked project, the transportation
center, which we got from this area. However, if we have this up and ready by then, the
transportation center will be done and we have to be on the senators' list for two or three
years so it was first started mentioning it to these senators and congressman, I've talked
to all of them, about this a year ago. Rementioned it again this summer when Richard
Bender was here, who is Senator Harkin's aide, and he was looking at projects here. So
if we mention it again this year, and by a year from now when Mayor goes into D.C. and
any of the rest of us that go in, and meet with our delegations, say, we're ready to go
because Jenna Doran was very impressed from the fed transportation office with our plan,
and that's the cycle we need to be on to get on the list now and go for it and hope we'll
get it in three to four years.
Elliott/Well, I would like to say, that unlike Ernie, bridges don't tremendously excite me. I get
excited about other things, but not bridges.
Lehman/I'm talking about congressmen getting...
Vanderhoef/Transportation system.
Elliottd But one of the things I would like, I hope the Council agrees, that when we build roads in
Iowa City, I'd like for us to build roads. 1 certainly am disappointed we don't have Scott
Boulevard being a 4-1aner. I just, I just think we've got to move traffic. If we're going to
be a city, we're going to have traffic and we've got to move it.
Vanderhoef/Here, here. (laughter)
Champion/That's going to be 20 years before that road needs to be four lanes, at least, maybe
longer than that.
Elliott/Well I think it should be now.
Lehman/It isn't on the CIP though.
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Elliott/But anyway, I just hope when we talk about building roads, we build roads that...instead
of semi roads.
Lehman/Is there any kind of thoughts about moving forward with at least preliminarily getting
the (several talking at once). I think we really should do that.
Atkins/...a number because probably the most we could do is the preliminary design which will
take us a long way, because when you go to build these things, you got to get
environmental permits and a whole variety of things, but those are only good for a limited
period of time. But that doesn't mean we can't be able to demonstrate to the feds here's
where we are, this is where it's going to be, here's what it looks like. We may not
engineer it for bid, but we can certainly engineer it for presentation.
Wilburn/The only other thing I was thinking of was looking at these and considering road-use, I
was wondering, I mean a lot of these are related to some intersections where there have
been some problems. (can't hear) as well the peek times and when there's certain events
going on, so it made sense to me if it were possible to try and, maybe we can't fix all
three intersections, but if we can target one intersection with...j ust to try and help with
some capacity issues.
Vanderhoef/Yes, and I have one question on one of those projects. Number 4, the Park Street
bridge. Down in the verbiage on it, they talk about removal and replacement of the
bridge expansion joint, and I wondered how soon those were coming up for routine
maintenance because I'd like to get the full life of what we have there, if it's 2 years, 3
years more before that comes up, then I'd like to at least...
EIIiott/What's the Park Street bridge?
O'Donnell/Park Road bridge.
Elliott/Oh, Park Road.
Atkins/I'm sorry, Park Road bridge. That intersection needs work, it's decaying.
O'Donnell/Not only does that need work, but this Church and Dubuque Streets, that was part of
it. That's a terrible intersection.
Champion/Yeah if you want to make a left-hand turn there, you're in big trouble there.
O'Donnell/And when you have a Cambus beside you, it's even worse.
Bailey/But you know, that's a big deal in that neighborhood. There's a lot of disagreement
whether that would be a good thing or not. Bring in traffic on Church Street which
shouldn't really be going down to Jefferson, the way it was designed, one-way.
Vanderhoef/Well Jefferson picks up so much more traffic from the west side, and Church Street
is an arterial.
Bailey/Well, and Gilbert (can't hear). I think there's some concern, so. You had this on the list.
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Vanderhoef/Gilbert is an arterial, and Church is.
Atkins/We tried, again, tried to identify those that we hear about, without choosing up sides on
these things.
Bailey/Right, I'm just saying what I hear about.
Atkins/You could take these, toss them, go to the unfunded list and come up with your own list if
you'd like.
Bailey/To build on what Ross was saying about capacity, I look at this lower Muscatine Road
down by Kirkwood and I think that's something that we really should look at.
Atkins/Let me give you a little background on that one because that, a lot of that has to do with
the whole Sycamore revitalization.
Bailey/Right.
Atkins/And the TIF district, the alternate school is now in, um, a road, I know Kirkwood
Community College and OralB are discussing whether we can get a road behind them,
get another exit in and out. It's our notion, and when we got together as a staff to talk
about this, is that area is going to continue to blossom and that road improvements are
going to become necessary just to accommodate what's going on over there. 1 can bring
Karin Franklin's the one that drew this one up for us. 1 can bring her down if you need it.
Yeah?
Vanderhoef/I have a question and also a comment. When we did election forum down there, that
was one of the questions about that intersection from the students and professors. The
second one is a question and since we expanded the TI]? district over to at least
Sycamore, how soon would we have (tape ends) TIF dollars available to use in that
project? Because Sycamore and that intersection of, um...
Elliott/You talking in front of Kirkwood?
Vanderhoef/Well, and that little stretch of Sycamore that is north/south, between south of
Highway 6, down to Lower Muscatine.
Atkins/Part of this to clean this up, remember there's no sidewalks on that one side of where
Sycamore is. I mean, we believe that that area is going to become very pedestrian.
Vanderhoef/And that needs to be four lanes.
Atkins/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/Coming down through there.
Atkins/That I don't know. I don't know what the decision is on that. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/Sycamore on the other side is and all the students are heading out, all the, see we'd
be redoing the intersection and the street alignment of Sycamore and Kirkwood College.
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Atkins/Oh you mean all the way do~vn, that four lane. That was tried a number of years ago.
Vanderhoef/No, 4 lanes on the north/south part, on the Sycamore part, on the west edge of
Sycamore Mall.
Elliott/Between Highway 6 and Lower Muscatine?
Vanderhoef/Yes, just that block and a half. (several talking at once)
Lehman/That's going to be a tough sell. Neighborhood won't put up with that.
Champion/You can't destroy ...
Vanderhoef/No, the mall is there.
Lehman/One side.
Bailey/On the left, but there are actually houses.
Atkins/They back up to it on the other side. I don't know the answer to that, Dee.
Bailey/I was, when I looked at this, I was, have you ever tried to make a left hand turn into
Kirkwood?
Atkins/Yes. My daughter went to school there and...getting in and getting out (several talking at
once).
Elliott/I drive that multiple times every day, and there are times when there are at least a dozen
cars backed up. It's really a mess.
Lehman/But this Lower Muscatine Road project as it is described in your handout, deals with
Lower Muscatine.
Atkins/Yeah, but what I'm saying is we can only do so much, and the point is that that
neighborhood is, well it became successful. We did all those improvements and the
policies that occurred and now its popped.
Vanderhoef/And would Kirkwood have any dollars to assist us with at least the intersection for
that?
Atkins/We'll work on them. My impression and with knowing Norm Nielson the President
who's a good guy, what can we do to help out.
Elliott/While we're talking about streets and intersections, it's already set. We're going to do the
intersection at what is it, at Dubuque and Taft, is that right?
Atkins/Dubuque and Taft? Foster.
Lehman/Foster.
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Elliott/Foster? Is Foster the one that goes out to (can't hear; several talking at once).
Atkins/It's in your CIP. Four of you will decide, yeah, it's proposed now.
Elliott/That's considered a dm~gerous intersection right now?
Atkins/Dangerous? I think most of the complaints we get are the inconvenience caused by a lot
of the folks who live off Foster. There's that Meadows, I can't think of the name of that
street, and they get hung up there, particularly at rush hour.
Elliott/But how much of the planning has to do with whether or not the Peninsula will or won't
flourish?
Atkins/Oh it's going to, yeah, even if you stopped the Peninsula dead in its tracks and tomorrow
sold the land, it's going to fill up. Yeah, oh yeah.
Bailey/There's a lot of housing already down there, and with that (can't hear; several talking at
once)
Elliott/Is that road planned to go straight on over and connect with Prairie de Chien?
Atkins/Eventually, but that's not in this plan. That's another million dollars.
Elliott/No, in the future.
Atkins/That had been the plan, and remember when we presented it to you the other day, I can't
remember who presented it, said we don't have pressure yet from anybody interested in
developing that property. We do have the Peninsula, we have the Peninsula property
which is going, and the guy across the way, the old Glassco property, they're interested
too.
Lehman/Well we have approved a subdivision out there for 30-some lots as I recall.
Atkins/Yeah, and Idlewild is continuing to do its thing. Yeah.
Elliott/Good.
Champion/That road does need to be done. It's going to just get busier and busier.
Atkins/Okay, well that's already on your CIP. That's not part of the...this is an understanding,
so I have an understanding, is that we had some additional road-use tax monies we could
apply to some projects. That's where I sense your discussion is going, and right now
what you have told me is at least initial planning on a bridge over the river, Mormon Trek
extended, and this one I have a little, I have a question on it, planning for Lakeside and
420th Street.
Lehman/You know, that needs to be ready. That's not going to go until the DOT has the money
which is, because our share...
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Atkins/That's right. Our share is not huge. And they really want to do this, it's just a matter of
they need to round up the funding because it's their road, and they're going to make the
call on that, but do you want us to do some planning on that?
Vanderhoef/Absolutely.
Atkins/Good. I hear that. Okay. And I sense at least the Lower Muscatine area, you have some
interest in that. We're not real specific on that one because we're not real sure yet of all
the issues.
Lehman/Well there's too many questions there but I think it's one we should pursue.
Atkins/But I'd like to summarize that one for you.
Elliott/It's a problem which will only get worse.
Atkins/And Kirkwood, they're putting up another building, and I think they're pushing, they're
over 3,000 students there so, and then again, the alternate high school. That's come in,
that's come in for construction.
Lehman/Steve, do we have to have in our budget all of the expenditures that are paid for out of
revenue funds? That's a, stop, no, no, let me be straight forward with my comment.
(laughter) The Sandusky sewer really does have a great deal of appeal for me. The
number of times that people have been here to complain about that problem...
Atkins/It does for Rick because Rick has tried this...
Lehman/Yes, yes, I know, and we worked very hard with those folks and the problem is not
corrected. But that, isn't that a project, my suspicion is we're not going to have final
reading on this storm water management fees until after the budget is done. But my
sense is we are going to, we're going to pass something that's going to raise enough
money to pay for this. In two or three years, and if we do, is it possible that we do this?
Atkins/Oh sure. Oh in that case you're fine. You approve the storm water, we'll start the
process of collecting monies for the thing, and we can apply it directly to this project.
That's not a problem. You could even borrow in the short-run and pay yourself back,
yeah.
Lehman/Does it need to be part of the budget? For us to do it?
Atkins/Well you need to give me direction...
Lehman/Are there four folks who would like to see that as part of the budget? I would. I think
this is something...
Vanderhoef/I want to see the, I agree that it needs to be done, but I want to see how we can fund
it.
Lehman/Well I'm talking about funding it with storm water management fees.
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Vanderhoef/I understand that, but we still have to fund it and if it means funding it with outside
bonding versus internal loaning.
Champion/We would do internal loan.
Vanderhoef/Well I'm not sure that we will because we talked about some other things for
internal loan. If we can do it from internal loans...
Atkins/Why don't we try this? IfI, I sense that the majority, why don't we bring back to you a
project proposal, how it would work, then you can vote that up or down, before we do the
final engineering. Okay.
Champion/The problem with that funny intersection that I use all the time...
Atkins/The funny intersection that you use all the time? (laughter)
Bailey/Gilbert and Bowery?
Champion/Yeah, Gilbert and Bowery. I mean, why is, is there any solution to that intersection?
I mean, I use it all the time and there's not, you're never there for very long.
Elliott/Oh, coming up from City Electric?
Atkins/It's just a badly designed intersection. (several talking at once)
Lehman/I don't see that being a big problem.
Champion/It works actually quite well. I use that road constantly.
Atkins/I think most of the complaints you get is most drivers like the (can't hear) and I'm done,
well this one you've got to stay awake to find your way through the intersection.
O'Donnell/As you're going south on Gilbert, a left turn signal would really help.
Champion/It would make a big difference. Because Bowery's a really busy street.
Lehman/But that can be done with a light, not a change...
Atkins/Well there's already a light there, remember?
O'Donnell/Yeah, but there's not a turn one.
Atkins/Oh, then I don't know...please, I don't know how to answer those things.
Lehman/That's a Jeff Davidson question.
Atkins/Yeah, that's a Jeff question and what it competes with...
Champion/Oh no, he's not going to talk to us about it, it has to be redone. I know it, but that's
how...I've been waiting for years to do this. (laughter)
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Atkins/How about I make a note here and I'm going to call it "spot improvements".
Lehman/We did a good job on that turn light at the intersection of Gilbert and Kirkwood. it
works extremely well. The same thing would work there.
Atkins/Gilbert, yes we did .... widening that street too, we created some space for ourselves to
do that.
Champion/And why couldn't we do that at that Church intersection too? Church Street?
Atkins/Well no, wait a minute. You want to be able to have people pull off into a turn lane so
the through traffic can keep moving?
Lehman/There's no turn lane on south Gilbert Street. On Gilbert. Gilbert and Kirkwood. Works
great. (several talking at once)
Atkins/You know, you're going to gang up on me and talk me into these things, and the staff is
going to tell me everything that I shouldn't have agreed to. (laughter)
Lehman/Believe the staff. They're the engineers.
O'Donnell/Didn't Jeff Davidson say at one time that if we, if you're going up Dubuque Street
and turning left on Church, didn't he say that they found that a turn signal, a left turn
signal there would not be that efficient?
Atkins/For some reason, Mike, I remember the conversation. (several people talking at once)
Champion/It would have to be like the Gilbert Street intersection. You would go
straight...moving all the time (several talking at once)
O'Donnell/No, I'm talking going right up the hill, going south, and then turning left. That just,
~vhat?
Atkins/I'm going to bring somebody else down there for you to beat up on.
Lehman/Before we totally destroy the traffic circulation of the city, get somebody down here and
tell us what they're talking about. (laughter)
Atkins/Everybody with a driver's license is a traffic engineer.
Elliott/Well, we were talking about Connie's funny intersection. I'm, I traverse that with some
frequency, and I'm always a little bit surprised at how efficiently it does xvork. It works
well, and I always come up there with some trepidation and find out, hey, it works fine,
but the next time...
Atkins/I don't recall why, this is Jefffs...(several talking at once) ...the Vine, Mansion, right in
there.
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Champion/Now this is not what we're talking about budget-wise but we've got a terrible
problem with that tower place parking lot, and the intersection at Iowa Avenue and
Gilbert. That is a ridiculous situation.
Atkins/Iowa?
Champion/I came out of there yesterday. There were, these cars are backed up, past Linn and
only two cars got through at the signal because if somebody wants to make a left-hand
turn there...
Atkins/Where again, Connie? Say it again.
Champion/As you come out of tower place, Iowa Avenue, that is a ridiculous situation.
Bailey/If you want to make a left turn...
Champion/You hold up all the traffic, and it'll take you a stoplight to make that left hand turn.
Now not all times of the day, I mean, mostly...
Vanderhoef/...down that sticks out that keeps people from having that opportunity to make a
right-hand turn.
Champion/No, I'm talking about...yeah.
Lehman/In the interest of making a beautiful street, we've narrowed it to two lanes at that light.
It needs to be a third lane.
Champion/The green just needs to be on longer.
Lehman/Or a turn lane.
Bailey/She's just going to fix every single light. (laughter)
Champion/You can. I mean, I'm from the city. I think we don't have any traffic hang-ups in
Iowa City, but that one does irritate me. (laughter)
Elliort/it has a lot to do with a lot of student activities, looking for parking places, and the block
between the lights fills up, and when the light turns green at one place there's no place to
go so you sit through a green light waiting for the traffic to move ahead of you. It's...
Champion/And you can't come out of the ramp because that's backed up for two blocks...
Lehman/This is the second time that you've brought it up.
Champion/I know, and it's...(laughter)
Lehman/...and I agreed with you the first time. (laughter)
Vanderhoef/I think we should wait for Jeff on those.
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Atkins/Well they're trying to round him up. Erin made a phone call to him.
Vanderhoef/And I'm interested in making a first stab at some of the Council decisions, and I'd
like to go right down the list, and...
Atkins/Okay, hang on a second if you would.
Vanderhoef/I mean, some of them we may put up or down in two words.
Champion/Yeah, the airport we can't deal with until we have the meeting with them.
Atkins/Let me, just before you move on to that topic, remember the road-use tax is a projection
so you can still adopt the budget. That projection won't go away. It'll, with time we can
refine it more, so it's not like you need to say absolutely because if you voted, when you
do vote on the budget, you are voting on that reserve position. It's your policy on what
you're going to take out of that reserve in order to finance some projects. And you've
already given me three or four things that you need some more background on before you
can.., so I just wanted you to know that on that case, don't feel stampeded that you have
to have this decided immediately. We can bring these back to you incrementally.
Elliott/But, from what Dee would like to talk about, these Council decisions...
Atkins/This is difl'erent. I'm just talking about what we just went through.
Elliott/You were ~vrapping up. I think things related to the airport we need to discuss that rather
comprehensively at a later date, don't we?
Lehman/1 think a lot's going to depend on what they present on the 12th when we're going to
meet with, the joint meeting, is relative to the possible change in governance where it
would actually become the City's department, pros and cons, that sort of thing.
Atkins/We expect them to be here on the 27~h, and so barring, you and I are supposed to go on
the 12th, Emie, and I gave them the go-ahead on that, but on the 27th, you certainly...there
he is! I'm tired of being beat up. (several talking at once)
Elliott/Do you have a big Superman emblem on your chest?
Davidson/Questions for me?
O'Donnell/We want to know why (laughter). Jeff, going south on Dubuque Street, up the hill,
when you hit Church...
Davidson/Gotcha.
O'Donnell/Would it be feasible to put a left turn signal there?
Davidson/We have looked into changing the phasing of that signal to have protected left tums,
and what the conclusions of our study, and then the study included not only the
congestion and delay aspect of it but the safety aspect of it. There is not currently.., right
now it's a convenience issue. It's not a safety issue. There have not been collisions
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related to the fact that there are not protected left tums there. There are, during peek
periods, pretty significant delay. Just occurs really during the peek periods. Changing,
what you have to do to put protected left turns in now, since there aren't separate left turn
lanes, is do what we call split phase the signal, and the split is in the Dubuque Street
phase. Right now it all goes at once. When you split phase it, half goes, and then the
other half goes, and that introduces much more delay overall into the intersection. Even
though it helps those left-turners, if you're one of those left-turners, it's a wonderful
improvement, but for the overall intersection, it increases the amount of delay per
vehicle. And that's why we've resisted doing it so far. Now, another example would be
at Gilbert and Kirkwood. You remember we put a split phase in there a couple years ago.
That was related to a safety issue. There ~vere crashes occurring at that intersection,
related to the fact, and so the crash rate became the impetus for increasing the delay, so
that you could reduce, increase the safety, reduce the crash rate. That's why we did it at
the one intersection and we have not done it at the other intersection.
Lehman/But the Kirkwood, south Gilbert doesn't seem to cause much delay. That really moves
traffic through there extremely well.
Davidson/Yeah, it works okay, but overall, Emie, the delay is more per vehicle, when you
include all the vehicles going through the intersection.
Vanderhoef/Is that true when we are now using the camera, and...?
Davidson/Well, this would have been before the video detection, Dee, and we haven't run any
more analysis since then. To the degree that you were having failures in the loops, when
the loops in the pavement fail, what it does is go to the maximum. The maximum
amount of time for that approach. That's the fail, when it fails. Like at, for example, at
Dodge and Burlington. Those loops have been failed for quite some time. It
automatically goes to the maximum, and so you get wasted capacity. You get green time
when there's no vehicles using the green, and that's what would have happened at
Kirkwood. Now we haven't done an analysis since we put the video cameras in, but
maybe your perception that it works even better is related to the fact that we know it's at
least measuring whether or not there's a vehicle there. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/Maybe that's what...
Davidson/Could be a factor, yeah. But anyway, that's the reason we have resisted doing that
until we get the left mm lanes.
Lehman/We thought you had told us that before.
O'Dom~ell/How about south on Gilbert where Prentiss comes up and you turn left on Bowery?
Davidson/Prentiss and Bowery? Okay, that's where the off-set intersection is. That is one where
we (several talking at once) Okay, you'll recall, you might recalI, that last, I think it was
just last year, we modified the median on the Prentiss approach to that to allow left turns.
Before then, you could not make a left turn at that intersection and finally we kind of got
scratching our heads saying I wonder why you can't make a left turn here? And we had
the median came way out and essentially prohibited you from making that left turn, and
there was this little nose of it that stuck out in the street. Guys were al~vays scraping it
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off so we'd have to put it back, so any~vay, we looked into that. We determined there
wasn't a reason for you not to be able to make a left turn, and when we did that, we
modified the median and that works great. However, we discovered there was a much
higher crash rate than we thought at that intersection, related to, not so much to the oft;set
intersection, but to the lack of left turn lanes. That there were many more crashes than
we thought, and so, because of that, what we propose is doing a traffic safety application
to try and get some money from the state because they judge those applications based on
your crash rate.
Champion/Oh I see, so this wasn't just because you thought it was a funny intersection?
Davidson/No, no, and in fact, Connie, putting the left mm lanes in on Gilbert Street will not
change that off-set between Bowery and Prentiss. I mean, if you want to do that, we're
talking about buying some buildings and I'm not so sure you want to get into that.
Elliott/It will help if you mn into a few cars there.
Lehman/Yeah. Increase the accident rate. (laughter)
Davidson/Yeah, so we are proposing in the upcoming year to do that application to see if we can
get some money to improve that.
Vanderhoef/Okay, while we're on that one, the railroad overpass right south of it, when is that
due for a rebuild, or is there any way to get that jog...
Davidson/Yeah, the jog of course went in, I mean, many of you have been around here longer
than I have. That went in in the 70's I think, when Maiden Lane and Gilbert Street were
realigned. The overpass belongs to the railroad, Dee, and my guess is that they're
probably going to want to do something with the Capitol Street one before they do
anything with that one, because it's a much older one, and at least to the untrained eye,
looks to be much more deteriorated. Yeah, there's stuff falling off of it and that, so 1
don't know of any plans on the railroad's part to improve that.
Lehman/Would you assume sometime in the next hundred years or so?
Davidson/You know, sometimes those could, that could be awhile. That one looks like a
relatively new bridge to me, so ! would guess it could be quite a while.
Vanderhoef/It's just the closeness to the street of the abutments that always bother me when 1 go
down there, and it's slippery and some of that...we haven't had an accident but I was just
curious if there was any way to straighten this out a little bit more. (several talking at
once)
Elliott/I have a mundane question when the important ones are done.
Lehman/Do your mundane.
Elliott/The traffic signals at Sycamore and Highway 6 - do you monitor those with some
frequency? I usually become very irate sitting there, waiting for a light to turn south on
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Sycamore, because it must give a red light for at least 45 minutes there, at the least.
(laughter)
Davidson/We do receive some fairly regular comments, not just about Sycamore, but pretty
much all the side streets along the Highway 6 corridor. The situation there, Bob, is the
signal system is set up to favor Highway 6. Depending on what link, what part of it
you're in, there's between 22,000 and 30,000, even getting down by the river bridge,
32,000, vehicles a day. And on a 5-lane road, that's really maxing out the available
capacity, so we have got the signals...you may notice On those times when you're not
frustrated sitting on Sycamore Street, that if you get yourself on the highway, you can
pretty much go from one end of that corridor to the other, a lot of times without stopping,
and that's because the signal system is set up to favor that through movement. By
favoring that through movement, is what we're making harder for the side streets.
Elliott/i make multiple trips to Washington, always using Sand Road. My daughter lives down
off of Sycamore, so I make that turn with just so many times, and I set there, and I sit
there.
Champion/Try another route.
Lehman/Why don't you take a book and read it? (laughter)
Davidson/There are 3 signal plans that operate in that corridor. One is during the morning peek
period when there's a dominant movement of traffic in one direction. The other one's in
the PM peek when, it's from the other direction, and the rest is the rest of the day.
Elliott/So, you're saying the same thing my wife says. Get over it! (laughter)
Davidson/Let's just attribute that to your wife, shall we? (laughter) Anything else for ~ne?
Lehman/Were there any other intersections that we have redesigned that we...
O'Donnell/I just don't think I'm ready to be told no anymore. (laughter)
Davidson/Yeah, Highway 6, Lakeside to 420th Street is a project that is looking really good.
We're working with Iowa DOT on that project. Iowa DOT is going to be able to put
together some maintenance funds. You all know that their regular projects, they're
having trouble with some of the cash flow issues, that's why Dodge Street has been,
looks like it's going to be pushed out an extra year, but this is a project that they've got
some maintenance funds that essentially by doing a reconsh'uction project, they can sort
of allay the need for the maintenance and that's why they're able to use the maintenance
funds. They're saving up two or three years worth. What we're going to do there is
between, at Lakeside Drive is where it goes from four lanes to two lanes. From that point
to 420th Street, which is the county road just past Scott Boulevard, we're going to do to a
3-lane section. We've determined that at Scott Boulevard and at Heinz Road, the big
problem right now, a lot of people think it's that we need a traffic signal there. What our
studies have shown is it's really the turn lanes that are needed to get the turners out of the
through traffic stream. But that will really improve things a lot. Now when we do this
project what we'll do is we'll add some pavement to the edge of the, what's right now a
rock, granular shoulder, and then we'll overlay the whole thing and get a 3-lane section
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through there. Three lanes, center turn lane, and the two through lanes, and we'll put the
infrastructure in for signals at both Heinz Road and Scott Boulevard, but at least for the
time being, it doesn't look like we need to have a signal, and as you know, being a state
route, you have to show that the warrants are met before signals can go in on a state
route. Now I think probably within three to five years, maybe even two to three years,
we'll have signals at those two intersections, and so we want to be all set up for it. But
anyway, that's something that it looks like not this current year, but perhaps next year
we'll be able to get done with the state, and that'll be a great improvement. We also, we
get comments, I had an email just today about the, it seems dark at the Scott Boulevard
intersection to people and so we'll increase the illumination there at the same time that
we do that project.
Lehman/Jefi; as part of this project that could occur in two to five years, would that include the
installation of an 8-foot sidewalk along the south side?
Vanderhoef/Storm water.
Davidson/Because we're not going to an urban section, there's not the plans for a sidewalk.
Lehman/So that would be up to us?
Davidson/It would be up to us, yes. It would essentially mean, Ernie, carrying through the
project that we had that terminated around Hollywood Boulevard or Taylor Drive, that
went down to the river. Basically carrying that on out but that would probably be city-
initiated and city expense.
Vanderhoef/That would be storm water and then the trail on top of it.
Davidson/Yeah, you essentially put a storm sewer in and put a trail on top of it. But it is looking
like maybe 75% funding from the state, 25% from the city, for this project, pavement
project, 3-lane project.
Vanderhoef/And you're saying only by using maintenance funds, we can get at this. If we
wanted to go to the standard 4-lane...
Davidson/We're way out past five years, unfortunately. Yeah, and I do want to emphasize that
this isn't a project where we would do it and then no more improvements for twenty
years. I mean, this is a project that is seen as kind of a stop-gap, temporary, for five, six,
seven, eight years, and then hopefully eventually be able to carry the more city, urban
street concept with the sidewalk out past that...
Lehman/Well that might work well...
Vanderhoef/Which may by that time have to go out to Taft anyway.
Davidson/Yeah, Taft is ultimately where the corporate boundary will be if you look at the
comprehensive plan.
Vanderhoef/So if we put that in the plan now, that when the time to rebuild...
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Davidson/Right, eventually 420~ Street is going to need to be rebuilt already, or eventually.
Already there's getting to be more and more truck traffic on that, and that chip sealed
road is not going to hold up.
Vanderhoef/I'd like to see the map on 420th because I'm not real clear on what that does to
opening up the possibility of more industrial park to the east.
Davidson/Yeah, that's a real critical route. If you can kind of visualize, the railroad comes in,
and 420th Street, and Scott Boulevard and it makes a triangle, that right now the western
piece of that is the Scott Six Industrial Park. But that leaves this long triangle, that
eventually goes out to the tip of the triangle, hits right at where the railroad and 420tl~ and
Taft Avenue comes together, is where that triangle is. And that's all shown in the
comprehensive plan as future industrial ground for the city.
Vanderhoef/I know, but what, would it spur industrial activity if that were taken care of now?
Davidson/Yeah, although the one aspect of that, Dee, that we might want to give some thought to
is that if we could get somebody on the line that would create some jobs out there, we
could go after a RISE application from the state. And we've kind of been waiting for
that, but that would be a way to get state funding for it if we could get somebody on line
that would create some jobs, because the RISE program is predicated on creating j obs.
Vanderhoef/Okay, and that would have to be new land, annexed into the city?
Davidson/No, it can be existing. Even in existing Scott Six, if we could get somebody to locate
there that would create a bunch of jobs, we might be able to do 420th Street.
Vanderhoef/Okay. Well, that's what we tell our ICAD people.
Lehman/Thank you, sir.
Elliott/The four lanes on Highway 6 transitions to three lanes to two. And that goes out to the
turn-off for Fareway, whatever, that's...
Davidson/Yeah, right out there.
Elliott/Thanks.
Atkins/Got what you need from Jeff on that? You asked about moving on to talking about some
of the Council decisions. I've asked Jeffto stay because he may have some knowledge
of the first one. It's up there.
Lehman/Steve, my guess is that even though the Airport Commission may make a presentation
on the 27a~, that the kind of answers we're looking for, we're not going to be able to come
up with until after we meet with them.
Atkins/Well this is, just so you know, the north/south runway issue is a matter of policy. We
were going to leave it open until we extended the runway. Extension of the runway is in
at least 06. We can not finish the road until the north/south runway is closed, and so the
question becomes it's really a matter of priority to you. Do you want to finish up the
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Mormon Trek project? If so, we need to pursue getting that runway closed, and thereby
we're, have the potential that we'd be a one runway airport for a while, while the other
one is being extended.
Vanderhoef/Which would be much of one construction season? I don't know exactly how long it
takes. It doesn't seem that big a project to do the extension on the runway.
Atkins/To what now? 1, that I don't know, Dee. I think it was a matter of funding, Dee, was the
biggest deal...
Vanderhoef/Well I know why it's put out, but what I'm asking is, my decision will be weighed
on the benefit of getting Mormon Trek done, which I'm very intent on having happen,
and what the length of construction time would be for the new runway that we would be
down to one runway, if it's three or four months...
Atkins/That's a question 1 can ask for you. Excuse me?
Champion/Are we willing to finance that airport anymore? Because that's going to be, isn't 20%
our money?
Atkins/What's that? Ten.
Lehman/We've already agreed to the master plan so we do have that as a...
Davidson/I think we should probably count on at least a year construction season. There's a lot
of dirt work at that project, and we all know if you get a little rain, you know, a lot of dirt
work can extend out quite a ways. The paving won't be all that big a deal once the dirt
work is done, but if we get rain, that could go on quite a while.
Lehman/Isn't there a big box culvert too? Where the Willow Creek goes under the runway?
Davidson/l think they're talking about doing that one this year though. Getting that done ahead
of time.
EIliott/Also, where when Mormon Trek is extended and comes to, what is it, Highway...south
Riverside Drive. Where will that come out?
Davidson/Just north of the bowling alley. Between the bowling alley and the airport property.
Elliott/Clear over there, I see.
Davidson/It'll miss the bo*vling alley.
Vanderhoef/So then that's the alignment then for the bridge. It goes on across...
Davidson/It'll go across, just south of the old (can't hear) building that the University has.
Elliott/That could still take some of the pressure, when you go from eastern Iowa City to western
Iowa City, during the rush minute or rush hour, whatever. It's really a difficult process
and that could take at least some of the pressure...
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Davidson/Once the river crossing is built, that will do exactly what you say.
Lehman/How far...
Vanderhoef/...traffic at that corner, Highway 1, Highway 6.
Lehman/Is Mormon Trek intersect that north/south runway?
Davidson/No.
Lehman/It goes south of the end of the runway?
Davidson/Yes.
Lehman/So, and I mean, I don't know, I have not talked to any of the folks from Kansas City,
but, and 1 don't really know that it would be totally impossible for them to leave that
runway open, even after that road is done.
Davidson/You're under the impression that it is impossible.
Lehman/It is impossible.
Davidson/We're proceeding as though that's got to be closed before we can construct the road
through there.
O'Donnell/Jeff, Riverside crosses the river. Where's it going...
Davidson/It'll come out between the old Quonset (hut) that the City owns now, and the old sand
and gravel quarry there.
Atkins/This is the north/south runway we're talking about.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/This is the one that wants to be extended. Well, if this was under construction, that would
only leave this one...
Lehman/Actually it's the other one that gets extended. That one.
Atkins/Up here?
Lehman/No, no the other one, right there. That's the one that gets extended.
Atkins/Oh I'm sorry, yes, yes, yes. Excuse me, excuse me. There I got myself straightened out.
Any~vay, we can't finish this with this being open. That's your bottom line.
Vanderhoef/We have to finish that.
Atkins/Yeah.
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Bailey/So that closes that runway and because funding for the extension is out, that would leave
them with one runway.
Atkins/For a while, while the others being...
Bailey/During the construction...
Atkins/Yeah, a year to build it we'll say.
Vanderhoef/See, the feds are only going to fund us two runways. The people at the airport
would love to have all three forever and ever, and that decision was made a long time
ago...
Atkins/...that's was lead to that decision, yeah.
Vanderhoef/So, that was the one that was going to go away.
Atkins/Yeah. (several talking at once)
O'Donnell/Where's the development ground that we have in them?
Atkins/Well here's the new Carousel Motors is right in there, all of this, well...
Lehman/Actually both sides of the street.
Atkins/Yeah, both sides. Yeah, there's a lot of land that's open, yeah. Here's a piece down here.
Here's the Lakeside, Lakeside? No, not Lakeside. Lake something. (several talking at
once) Lakeview? There's a pond. (several talking at once) It's Lake something.
Elliott/So, that intersection, where, yeah right there.
Atkins/Where? And here's Hargrave-McEleney, Chezik Sayers, that's all right there. This is
the new building that's under construction right now.
Elliort/I am directionally challenged as well as mathematically challenged.
Atkins/Well, we'll try to get you through that. (laughter and several talking at once)
Lehman/Okay.
O'Donnell/Tremendous project when that gets done.
Atkins/I don't know how to emphasize enough is that it's going to get down to, the airport, I'll
tell you one thing, we've got to make this call pretty soon.
Vanderhoef/That's an economic development piece that has got to happen.
Atkins/That call's got to be made pretty soon. And I think, you know, we may just have to, you
may just have to go to the airport and say tell me what the consequences are because this
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is clearly one of those. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is what $8 million we're talking about.
We made a huge investment here with the intent of opening a lot of new ground for
development, and also has an influence on this intersection. Up to 218 intersection.
EIliott/When you say development, that's commercial development?
Atkins/It's overwhelmingly commercial, industriaI, yeah. It's, 1 think, is it the 1-1, Jeff? I think
most of it's the 1-1, yeah. It's a mix, yeah.
Vanderhoef/While we're talking about that area of town, I'm also interested in doing some
preliminary planning on the east side of the river at that Gilbert Street intersection with,
where the bridge would come across (can't hear) sand pit is and so forth.
Atkins/Jeff; Council gave some general indication that it might be desirable to spend some of this
available road-use monies to actually design the bridge that will cross the river. Yeah,
and of course there's a lot of policy issues there, but just south of that is the sand pit.
While I propose that to you, it was somewhat visceral, wait a minute, a water, recreation
area.., it's not going to be any...it's going to sit there forever. Why can't we make
something out of it that would be to our community's benefit over the long pole. The
road is okay. I mean the road finds its way around it.
Vanderhoef/Well the piece that I'm especially interested in sooner rather than later, is looking at
the storm water drainage from the (can't hear) Southgate project, and where the ridge line
is and everything starts, the water starts moving south and ~vest off of that ridge line, and
it's going towards the pit, and I would like to just check and see if we could do something
about a drainage way that would be a storm water collaborative with a lot more land.
Ho~v it works, the one I saw in Ames, they actually had three different ~vater sheds that
were coming into theirs, so implications of storm water and I don't know all the
topography, but that kind of planning.
Atkins/Well, I suspect some of that water is just from the river, finds its way through there.
Lehman/Into the pits?
Atkins/Into the sand pit, yeah, yeah.
Vanderhoef/But the runoff, the ridge line over, because we've also probably got wetlands in that
area along the river, and that's where our trail comes down that east side of the river.
Elliott/But what we're also saying, as you're talking about the bridge in the future and the
extension of that main road, keep in mind the potential for that recreation area.
Atkins/I think the sooner you start talking with property owners, visiting about what the area's
going to look like. Sandhill certainly has a bearing upon, because you're looking at a
major residential area within a stone's throw of it. But it just seems, the bottom line is it's
a feature in our community that we shouldn't ignore. There should be something we
could do positively...we really don't have any major water recreation in town. I mean,
you have to...I'm not talking about speed boats. I'm talking about paddle boats and
simple things.
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EIliott/Potentially, that's the neatest park, recreation potential that we have in the area.
Atkins/Waterworks Park, Waterworks Prairie Park, has that too. As long as we don't fence it.
(laughter)
Champion/It's going to be a real expensive fence. (laughter)
Atkins/When you retire I'm buying you wire cutters and you could...(several talking at once and
laughing)
O'Donnell/All you have to do is talk about the Convention and Visitors Bureau. (laughing)
Champion/I'm still interested in this alley clean...oh, I thought we were going to go right down
the line. Probably don't have time.
Atkins/Yeah, I was going to say, we ought to get close to the...airport subsidy, you know they've
submitted their report to you. Folks, it's kind of your call. The subsidy is substantially
the same as it was the year before. If you choose to take a strong position and order that
you want to have it managed through our, directed through the City organization. I
clearly would like to have some sort of the ability to go out and do an assessment and
inventory of property, and figure out what, you know, what we're buying when we get
this because I don't know those things.
Champion/Go for it.
O'Donnell/Well (can't hear).
Atkins/To ultimately change the management of the airport requires a referendum. (several
talking at once)
Elliott/This subsidy cannot continue.
Atkins/The municipal electric system, is that out officially?
Karr/It's out officially. They just don't have their packets yet. You can tell them.
Atkins/We've received a referendum request with satisfactory signatures for November of 05.
Karr/Correct.
Atkins/Something to think about.
O'Donnell/How many signatures?
Atkins/ 1,200 and change.
Kart/They had 1,276. They're required to have 10% of those who voted the last (can't hear)
election, which was 8,101 which means they only needed 811 signatures. This is well
over.
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Elliotl/That's the next general election?
Karr/The next regular city election.
Atkins/You don't have to decide anything right now on that.
Kart/November of 05 council. Eleanor will be preparing...we've scheduled it for your work
session on February 2'~a to talk about some options and get some direction as far as
further information for you.
Atkins/Parks and Recreation master plan - they'll come and appeal to your budgeting interests.
Road-use tax, I think we've, what I'm going to do by the way is do my best to summarize
all those things you talked about on the.., so you'll have to take another list of decisions
to take a crack at. Reductions in revenue - that occurred earlier. I would remind you,
and I think somewhat to all of our respective credit, we made some very difficult
decisions in May and June, and that's why we're not getting bludgeoned today like some
of the cities are, because we prepared for this.
Bailey/There is one thing in that area that I have concern about and it's the senior fees, the Senior
Center fees.
Atkins/Senior Center Commission, the word is right now, I made the assumption that you all
were going to be concerned about it because you had given them direction to raise the
monies. I'm sure Jay Honohan as Chair will appear on the 27t*,. I've asked them for a
report to put together some of their options. As soon as I get that, I'll share that with you.
Ultimately you're going to have to give direction to your commission on what you expect
them to do. But they are working on a number of items, and Linda is in the process of
preparing a memo for us so we'll get you something shortly.
O'Donnell/And the City, Steve, is still funding (can't hear).
Atkins/Yes, we are funding, the County had originally provided us $140, and then they dropped
$200 and now we're down to $75. I have no, I'm making the assumption they will
continue at $75. The commission was to have raised $57,000. We made reasonably
severe budget reductions. They were to raise $57,000. They're going to raise $44,000,
yeah $44,000. We can carry this for a year, but you're ultimately going to have to make
some sort of fee adjustment. Downtown alley cleanup - I think really what I wanted
from you is that you all agree we gotta do something. I've got to figure out what to do. 1
don't know just yet but we're going to go to work on that to give you some proposals.
Vanderhoef/Yeah, find out the cost, expenses.
Atkins/We will. We'll put all that together for you. Financing economic development. I'll
move on on that one (laughter; several talking at once)
O'Donnell/We'll just have to increase funding to ICAD.
Atkins/Okay, what I'll, again, prepare a revised decision summary list. Spec building - we
didn't talk a 10t about that. That's not something that directly affects this budget. It's
something that I wanted you to think about. My thinking was that we'd go to like our
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water, or waste water reserve, put those monies, build the building, lease it, and pay
ourselves back, sell it, roll it back in, some way to jump start that project.
Lehman/1 think it's a great idea. You're talking about doing this...yeah.
Atkins/Joint dis...sand water, or Sand Road, which...this sounds silly. I want to call this the
Sand Road Water Recreation Area. We need names to latch on so we all talk about the
same thing. Is that sound okay to you? All right. Joint dispatch - you will get, I think in
this packet, we met briefly with the Johnson County Mutual Aid Association. They think
it's a really good idea. So we're starting to make those contacts for you. We don't have
a program put together for you, just (tape ends) If there's anything in the budget
highlights, if there's anything, but I think most of those we've talked about, or beat
around enough.
Vanderhoef/One of the things that's coming towards us, we have the memo from Joe Fowler
about parking and (can't hear), and I think for my purposes, I would like to talk some
policy ~vith him before I talk to library, or else just listen to library because until I had a
full council discussion on policy, some of these things that he recommended or to revisit
some of the things that we did.
Atkins/And I think you're correct. I know that there's divided interest on that. What I wanted
Joe to do was sort of set the stage, lfwe were to provide some additional parking, that's
a General Fund hit. You know, we'd have to...so you need to kind of think that through.
I suspect that on the 27th that's part of the presentation. Again, I don't think it directly
affects budget adoption but you're going to have to think about whether we're willing,
we traditionally have not used General Fund money to subsidize the parking fund.
Champion/Now why...
Atkins/Because them'Il be a loss of income.
Champion/...loss of income, but he's not sure about that. (laughter)
Atkins/No, 1'11 buy that, Connie (laughter). You're right.
O'Donnell/There's still going to be meters though.
Atkins/Jeff, I don't need anything more from you if you want to take off. See you later. Thank
you, Jeff.
Vanderhoef/What I see here though is $l 14,000 that some of our policy decisions have already
cost us and they were done, some of them at least, were done in relation to the requests
originally from the library for parking, for the short-term parking, and the 2-hour parking.
So I think we need to revisit a whole lot of that, and then just one other little thing that
came up and I want to clarify at least with the old Councilors. (laughter)
O'Donnell/I resent that. (laughter) I resemble that. (laughter)
Vanderhoef/Of the old Councilors, I'm the oldest. So whatever! My understanding was when
~ve took the parking out of 64-1A to have half of it become a conslruction site that we
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would be reimbursed in our parking fees for that site, that that was part of the
construction fees that...I talked about that. (several talking at once) Well, but it was to
be part of the fee, the whole big plan of the 18.4, that if they had construction site off of
that and we lost revenue off of that, that they were to...well the construction company
would be paying...
Champion/Who would be paying us?
O'Donnell/We no longer own the block, Dee.
Vanderhoef/No, no, during the construction of the library. (several talking at once)
O'Donnell/You know, I don't remember anything about that. One, two, three...sorry.
Vanderhoef/Okay. So be it.
Lehman/Remember, we're old.
Atkins/You know, I've got to think about this. There's something...
Champion/It might have been your idea. You might have mentioned itto somebody...
Wilburn/I don't remember...
Vanderhoef/I guess it was an assumption that they would, because they always have to rent their
space.
Atkins/Remember, I proposed CVB so you don't want to go with me. (laughter)
Champion/...of the construction and we just need bonding for parking fines...
Atkins/Okay, Ernie, that's all I have for today.
Lehman/Well there may be issues from Council folks, I mean other issues.
Champion/There might be something. This parking thing is kind of interesting that the Dubuque
Street ramp now, no, the Capitol Street ramp? What is that?
Atkins/Capitol Street's next to the mall.
Vanderhoef/The Dubuque Street.
Champion/Did you say that the use was down on that ramp?
Atkins/Dubuque Street is way down.
Champion/Dubuque Street I know.
Atkins/That's next to the Sheraton, yeah.
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Champion/Right. Capitol Street, did I read that's down too?
Atkins/1 can't image that, no.
Champion/But we took a lot of permit holders out of there.
Atkins/Yes ~ve did.
O'Donnell/When did we do that?
Atkins/I asked Joe to be here the 27th. You may want to entertain what the library has to say, and
then question him if you'd like, because he couldn't be here in time ifl called him now.
But he should be prepared, I told him to prep for some of that kind of question.
Champion/To~ver Place is full?
Atkins/Tower Place is doing, yeah, Tower Place is the one there was some concern, and it's
doing real well.
Champion/1 always, because I don't go to work until about 10, 10:30. I always have to park on
the roof.
Elliott/Is that AM or PM?
Champion/Well it depends on what job l'm doing. (laughter)
Elliott/If other Council Members are interested, I would like for us to set up some time, perhaps
it's going to be after this budget is completed, some time to address the police and fire
issue. What is really, not only appropriate, but necessary for Iowa City, and how we get
to that.
Atkins/That's a big issue.
Elliott/Oh you bet. I can't think of any issue that's more important.
Atkins/Because I can say to you, how do, first of all, how do you draw the comparisons? You
know, we had clearly intended to move to a 4th station, and got handed a financial deal
that we couldn't deal with. Dee points out the fact that as a community, we have
currently 72 officers, and I think there's like 25 that are in the...how do you factor that
in? I believe there's 130 or 140 officers in Waterloo, a town the same size. It's just the
difficulty, folks, is how do you measure those kinds of things, and how much of your
resources are you going...you talk about adding positions, folks, you're, I mean, they're
going to drop off other jobs somewhere else.
Elliott/Oh absolutely, but if we deem it's necessary, then we do it.
Lehman/Yeah, but wait a minute, Bob. 1 don't think we make that determination. I think that
the police chief does that. He's the guy who works with the public every day. He knows
what he needs, far better than we do.
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Elliott/And I'd like to hear that, and I'm sure, Steve, you are involved in that, and you'd bring to
us. I just want to be reassured.
Atkins/But 1 also don't want to alarm the community. R.J. may say you know we could use an
additional twenty officers, and Andy could say I could use an additional twenty. Well,
folks, we can't afford that. Bottom line, cannot afford that unless you're going to get rid
of thirty or forty other employees, and I don't think you want to do that.
Champion/Do you ask the police chief how many police we need? Do you ask the fire chief how
many firemen we need? I mean, I know what I would say.
Atkins/Well, the fire department one is a disappointment because we clearly had a plan. We
were well on our way, and it got messed up. 1 didn't do that.
Elliott/Well we need to discuss it.
Bailey/Can I ask a...
Lehman/Yeah, but I think we, also our standards by which you measure police departments and
fire departments, I think there are standards that are probably used in communities all
over the country, and as long as we fall within the parameters, acceptable parameters,
we're probably providing the kind of police and fire protection that is appropriate.
Atkins/Well the last six or eight years, last ten years, we grew the police department.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/When R.J. became chief it was like 55 officers and we're now 72, so I mean it's not that
we did not commit resources to that.
O'Donnell/You know a good thing to do, Bob, is call R.J. and ride with an officer Friday or
Saturday night or something.
Elliott/All I know is that if there is an emergency on the north side, and a train blocks First
Avenue, and the closest one to it is the fire station downtown, then whether we have
adequate intersections or the sand, those become irrelevant.
Atkins/Well but I think you know if you really want to get into the debate, one of the things that
l've known historically is streets. One of the big arguments that the fire chief put forth
on the Kirkwood Avenue project is should be wider, we need more.., and Council said
no, said okay, that's going to slow me down. As long as you know that going in, that
there are other policies that have a bearing on how well you staff for public safety.
(several talking at once and laughing) Regina, you wanted to ask me something?
Bailey/I just, it takes nine to staff this additional fire station, right?
Atkins/Nine is the very minimum.
Bailey/Okay, and so are you willing to ballpark me numbers of what the General Fund expense
with that would be?
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Atkins/Oh yeah. That's about $500,000 a year in payroll alone. Just payroll.
Bailey/Just payroll?
Atkins/Just payroll, right.
Elliott/When you say payroll, does that include the compensation package?
Atkins/Yes. (several talking at once) You want to take nine people at about $52,000 to $55,000
and that's all ....yes, downtime and all those factors.
Elliott/Steve, there's a distinct possibility that this kind of discussion and maybe the rest of the
Council is not interested in it, and maybe simply I need to sit down with you and R.J. and
Andy and my fears may be allayed. 1 shouldn't say fears. I don't have fears, I have
concerns.
Atkins/As I've said to you in the past, you all want to go talk to a department director, please feel
free, I mean, I'll be happy to set it up for you. I'll be happy to be there, but...
Elliott/I would want to work through you before I did that.
Atkins/That's fine. Our chiefs and all the directors understand our financial limits. Yeah, that's
not new news to them. So...
Lehman/Are there other budget issues that Council folks want to bring up?
Atkins/I'll try to write a summary for you then of this meeting. I'm not sure. We'll see what
happens. (several talking at once) Lane Plugge letter in the packet?
Kart/I don't remember. I believe it is.
Atkins/I'm pretty sure. If it isn't, l'm almost positive it's...oh no, you can bring it up now.
Vanderhoef/I can?
Atkins/Let me do it. One of the things to give you a heads-up on, folks, one thing to give you a
quick heads-up. I'm hoping the letter's in the packet. Lane Plugge and I have been
talking off and on over the last couple of weeks. He originally contacted me about
applying for the CD grant, whether I thought it was appropriate. I told him I have no
trouble with the school district. You're in the same, we're all in this together, kind ora
deal, and so he's decided to apply for the family resource, a grant from Housing
Community Development which will ultimately come to you. Got to talking to him
about it, and we have a need for recreation. Well within their bond issue they have the
ability the build a multi-purpose room. Lane and I talked about the possibility of both the
district and the City putting money toward possibly a gymnasium. In other words, if
we're going to dig a hole in the ground, let's make it a bigger hole. I'm sorry, at Grant
Wood. At Grant Wood. You'll see a letter that I wrote to Lane saying, by copy of it to
you, let's talk about that. I don't know about the funding, I don't know about the
partnering agreement, but it seemed to make sense if they're going to be doing an
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investment in Grant Wood, we might as well get the family resource center, and possibly
take care of our own recreation needs at the same time. I don't know the dollars. I
committed further discussion.
Champion/...build a gymnasium rather than an all-purpose room?
Atkins/That's kind of the thinking, Connie.
Champion/...gymnasium would then become an all-purpose room, or would they...?
Atkins/Whatever they wanted. Our point is that at 5:00 we have some, there's some things we
can do. We cannot program it now sufficiently because of short staff'. But, it only seems
to make sense to me that we're going to get out of this fix some day.
Champion/And that'd be a great place to have one.
Atkins/And we need it. So that's in the mill. As you read the letter, understand I've made a
commitment to Lane, ultimately to the district, that we would talk about these kinds of
things. Okay? So heads up on that one. You'll hear more about it. And one final thing,
you know White Buffalo, the organization we hired to do the deer kill. They, here, he
sends this newsletter, from Mongolia, where he's dealing with wild pigs. I thought you
might get a...the guy goes all over the world. We're done.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City
Council work session of January 22, 2004.