HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-01-27 TranscriptionJanuary 27, 2004 Council Work Session Page 1
January 27, 2004 Council Work Session 6:30 pm
Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilbum
Staff: Atkins, Helling, Kart, Trueblood, O'Malley, Kopping, O'Neil, Fowler, Craig
TAPES: 04-14, SIDE 2; 04-15, BOTH SIDES; 04-16, SIDE 1.
WORK SESSION - BUDGET
Lehman/Some boards and commissions tonight but ! think it's important before we start,
that we are hearing from boards and commissions. This is not a time where the
public will provide comments for Council. This will be only for boards and
commissions. And the first is Parks and Recreation Commission.
Pacha/I'm Matt Pacha. I'm Chair of the Parks and Rec Commission. I've been here
speaking to several of you in the past. ! see there are some new faces so ! won't
assume that you know me or ! know you. I've been on the Parks and Rec
Commission going on my 12th year. I've been the Chair since 1997. Those of
you that have had a chance to read the letter that ! drafted know that the main
focus here for me tonight is to get your approval and support for funding of a
Parks and Recreation Master Plan. It's something that has been in the budget a
couple different times, and cut out a couple different times, and we as a
commission feel that because of the tight budget constraints and so forth, that it's
exactly the time that you need a plan to kind of guide you a little bit. One of the,
just to kind of give you an idea, and ! want to introduce a couple of the
Commission members, members of the Commission that are here as well. John
Westefeld, Nancy Ostrognai, ! guess that's it, here for moral support, so if you
have any questions, you can ask them. In the past, ! think we've done a real
adequate job of coming up with ways to serve the public - projects, trying to get
things done. Basically every year as a Commission, or every year and a half, we
sit down and we try to prioritize as a group, okay, what' s our top ten, what' s our
top five list, what do we want to accomplish this year, what do we want to
accomplish over the next five years, and then, you know, we bring that, we make
that a matter of record for you folks so that you can hopefully provide some
funding. Some of the things, in the 12 years I've been around, and unfortunately !
was jotting this stuff down after my son's freshman game so I'm going to mention
it how it came out of my head. It's certainly not chronological because ! don't
work that way, but ! just want to name a few. Ryerson Woods trail system and
parking lot, renovation of the Mercer Park softball and baseball diamonds,
College Green Park renovation, Kiwanis Park acquisition and development,
Napoleon Park has been renovated, new parks, forestry, CBB, maintenance
facility out by Napoleon, Wetherby Park has been expanded and developed.
Obviously the Scanlon Gymnasium, one that's near and dear to my heart. Over
15 miles of bike and pedestrian trails have been completed. The Oakland
Cemetery expansion, and of course the Kickers Soccer Park. ! mention those
things because there's one common thread that goes through he majority of those,
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and that is that they were pubic/private efforts, and the majority of them could not
have happened, and would not have happened, if it wasn't for the public/private
aspect of it. Primarily in terms of funding. And, you know, we feel as a
commission that's one of the things that the Master Plan would bring to us. One
of the key components of a good master plan is public input, and I think that
although I have a lot of confidence in that group of 7 or 8 commissioners that we
get together every, you know, once a month, and try and prioritize based on what
we think the city needs. I think that in this particular economic climate, I think
that we need to solicit the public support, or public opinion as to what they think
we should be doing as a city. Not just projects. I focus mainly on projects there
but the other things are programs and services that we provide. What types of
things, you know, for better or worse, you know I feel we're in a competitive
environment nowadays that we weren't in 5 or 10 years ago when I came on the
Commission. We've got surrounding communities that are building pools and
doing some very nice things programmatically, and I think it's not necessarily I
don't want to say that we need to keep up, but we need to keep up. So, we've also
given you, I think we've come up with a real reasonable funding, method to fund
it. I think it' s certainly reasonable, and I would ask that you consider it strongly
and see if we can't get that done. We'd like to get that thing started as soon as we
can. Any questions?
Elliott/May I make an interesting remark? You opened by saying you did a real
adequate job, and I think you're being very unfair to yourself. When I came to
Iowa City, all of our softball games were played at Brown Street. We have
softball diamonds; we have swimming pools, ever since, just since I have been in
town. I think you folks have done an outstanding job, and I think you're being a
little unfair. I really admire the job you've done.
Pacha/Thank you. You know, and obviously my point was just that you know all of
these things, a lot of the things were brought to the table from the public. The
soccer, you know, back way before, I don't know how long ago it was, when we
tried to get a referendum passed to build that soccer park and incorporate baseball
into it and everything, and got kicked on our b-hind. You know, it wasn't long
after that the Kickers came to us and raised a lot of money, and that' s a terrific
facility out there. It's that public, that private component, you know.
Wilburn/I have a question. Can you refresh my memory and remind, and inform the new
Council Members, what will a Master Plan do for us, and what will it not do for
us? And when I say what will it do for us, one thing you pointed out is it will
give us a lot more public input, but beyond that, what will it do for us beyond the
top ten list?
Pacha/I'll let Terry answer, but for starters, one of the things when we try and prioritize
each year, one of the toughest things is we're always wrestling with this, you
know, to me there's always money involved, so I have a hard time thinking well,
am I prioritizing based on if we had all the money in the world, or am I
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prioritizing based on reality. You know, what can we actually get done. And I
think that, ! don't think that's a good way to plan. ! mean ! think that we need to
take a look at what people want, as ! mentioned, and ! think we need to look,
instead of doing every year reshuffling this list, 10 to 25 things, ! think we need to
be looking down the road 25 years from right now, and working towards that, and
I'll let Terry elaborate.
Trueblood/What you can basically look at a Master Plan doing is if you look at a road
map for the future. It' s, as Matt indicated, not just parks and facilities, but also
recreation programs, offerings to the community. A very important component of
it would be a survey, a community survey, and so what it gets you is all this
public input on what they feel is important, what they feel we ought to be doing,
and of course we have to be very cautious to let people know, okay, we're not
going to do this right away, you know, because a lot of these things you have to
have money for and so it's contingent upon the budget. But it would set together
a plan where you might have say, okay here's the items that we feel ought to be
goals for the next 2 to 5 years, and here' s some items that we think ought to be
goals for the next 6 to 10 years, and these are goals to look at maybe from 11 to
15 years down the road. Community might tell you, for example, that we need a
new leisure pool. On the other hand it could do entirely opposite. We don't need
that, we've got 3 pools, that's enough. This, I just brought this along as a sample.
This is kind of what you'd hope to end up with is a rather large document like this
that inventories existing facilities, tells us what the community says they want in
terms of both facilities and programs and activities, and then tries to lay the
groundwork for when that ought to be accomplished. Typically it also does some
comparisons with other communities so they can see. In this plan, for example,
they said while the soccer community says that there's not enough soccer fields,
they need more space and so forth, our survey shows that there are plenty of
soccer facilities, and that some changes need to be made in scheduling in order to
better accommodate and that actually exceed the standard. That kind of thing.
Does that answer your question?
Wilburn/Yep.
Pacha/Well when ! look at getting .... ! don't know if! mentioned it, ! certainly meant
to... getting the most bang for your buck, you know, when money's tight you need
to be spending it wisely. And maybe, like Terry said, maybe some of the
decisions we've made, although they sound great, maybe they're not the smartest
thing to spend money on right now.
Vanderhoef/How can you plan, um, address the balance that we sometimes can get out
of whack, just by the people that are on the commission, and a plan could give us
a better look at the balance there that maybe we need more recreation
programming, versus constantly doing capital projects. But programming also
comes back and hits us with more salaries, that sometimes capital projects don't,
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some capital projects hit us for salaries and some of them don't because they're
parent run primarily so it' s...
Pacha/Well, it sounds like you answered your own question. ! mean, ! think it does do
just that. Over the 12 years I've been on, you know, I've seen subtle shifts in the
makeup of the commission, going one way, more parks, more recreation, more
trails, more.., and ! think that's just only natural, and ! think, as you said, help to
balance that out, and look at the whole picture.
Bailey/! have a question. I'm assuming, looking at the price tag, that a master plan in
Parks and Rec is a highly specialized sort of thing, with certain consultants and
that sort of thing. Could you explain that a little bit more to me because when !
look at that price tag ! need a little bit more explanation, ! guess, to understand
what this entails.
Trueblood/Yes it is quite specialized. If we had the time, we could do a semblance of a
Master Plan in-house, but we couldn't do a true master plan because we don't
have the time, and frankly the expertise to do it. Just like a consultant for a
project. You hire an architect, engineers, whatever. It's much along those lines
except you're hiring a consultant to put together a master plan community wide.
The price tag is pretty high but it includes a citywide survey which takes up quite
a bit of time. It includes many visits to the community, by the consulting team,
wherever they may be from. It includes numerous public meetings. And there
would be a lot of staff involvement. They need input from the staff, you know, to
help them inventory existing facilities, and to help them determine maybe how to
go about contacting various community groups, and suggestions as to what
community groups they should speak with, and that kind of thing. But it just
involves a lot of, not only expertise, but a lot of time. They would be putting in
literally hundreds of hours to arrive at a document similar to this, and like !
mentioned before, comparing things to other communities. There's a lot of
research involved with it as well.
Lehman/What other communities in Iowa have Master Plans?
Trueblood/! know that Cedar Falls has one because ! have a copy of it. It's on a smaller
scale than what this is. Coralville, I've talked with Coralville. They want to do
one. We even talked about maybe doing one jointly, but they're not quite ready
to go yet. Des Moines...
Lehman/That's a really good point, because when Brown Deer's completed, it'll be a
major factor in the recreation arena. I... and I'm sure we compliment each other.
Go ahead.
Trueblood/! believe Des Moines, West Des Moines, and Ames also have them, and !
think Council Bluffs. Of the larger cities, that I'm aware of.
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Lehman/Comments? Questions from Council?
Elliott/I... Terry knows that I have some reservations and maybe it's because I have not
been around in this body long enough but I think nobody that we could hire
knows Iowa City's finances better, knows Iowa City's needs better, knows Iowa
City's people better, knows Iowa City's preferences better. I think the knowledge
to put together a plan is right here. I would also not like to see a plan that did
Iowa City alone. I'd like to see a plan for the whole county. If there is a plan, I
think, how does Kent Park fit into our plan? How do the golf courses in the area
fit into our plan? There are just a lot of things I would not be in favor of a plan
for Iowa City and if there were to be a plan, I would certainly want it to be
county-wide, or at least more comprehensive than just Iowa City.
Wilburn/You know, I went through a retreat with my Board of Directors, put my other
hat on for a second, for the weekend, and a lot of the things that, several of the
things they wanted to do, were considering doing, are pretty time intensive. And I
won't get into whether or not I have the expertise to do them or not, but a couple
of the Board members felt like they were treading, and I say no these things are
okay, as long as you're willing to give me the time, the money, and the people to
do them, on top of what, you know, otherwise what I'm doing, both jobs, so I
don't personally have a problem with having someone come in to do, prepare, and
work with the staff to do a master plan. You know, I'd like to hear more about
whether or not, I hadn't thought whether the possibility of going into Coralville.
I'd be curious to know what it is they're waiting for, what is preventing them
from being at a point where they'd be ready to go. I remember when I was in
Parks and Rec, one of the things that we considered when we were looking at
Scanlon, was that access to pool, and we looked at well Coralville kind of handles
Coralville and that western part of Iowa City. Downtown handles the central
body, and that there was something needed on the east side. And so, maybe you
can comment on, do you know what it is they're, is it just that they have some
projects going on now that they don't know, or is it the financial part, or a staffing
thing?
Trueblood/I believe that right now it's just financial. I didn't check with their director as
early as today. It's been a while back but I did, but at that time it was just the
financial end of it that was, that they weren't ready to go with yet.
O'Donnell/If we were to do a joint venture, would it affect the price?
Trueblood/Oh yeah.
O'Donnell/How much? Any idea?
Trueblood/No, there would certainly be some economies. For example, if we were to do
one now and Coralville did one next year with the same firm, it's going to be
more costly overall, but there would be some economies, and I even talked with
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one particular consultant about that, and he wasn't able to give me a cost estimate
on what the economies would be, but there would be some.
Vanderhoef/Somehow or another, if a project were done, ! know that Parks and Rec does
some collaboration with softball fields and various kinds of things, but ! think our
citizens are used to using some University facilities, and likewise University
students use our facilities. So somehow or another, ! think we need to
acknowledge in this plan, what is there at the University, and what the case of
collaboration is, and inquire of the University if they would have any interest in
looking at doing something, a plan, and for future possibly collaboration projects.
Pacha/! think when they get into it, they're going to start looking at utilization of
facilities and ! think that, you know, where are people going to play basketball,
for instance. You've got private clubs. You've got the University. You've got
City-owned facilities. ! think that's all going to be taken into consideration.
Vanderhoef/But it might be that the University would have some interest and possibly
some dollars to expand this into collecting more of that information.
Pacha/It's a possibility.
Champion/Well ! think we all, ! mean most of us probably (can't hear) not a good time
economically, but it's probably something we could look at at some point. The
other thing is ! don't know, ! like Elliott's idea of a countywide plan because you
do have connecting trails, and maybe we should bring this up at JCCOG (can't
hear) interested in it.
Wilburn/I don't know. I don't know, I mean, beyond trails we do have some use from
county folks in town but I don't know that the reciprocal happens. I'd have to
think on that.
O'Donnell/I think the biggest thing is reducing that (can't hear) by getting people
to... kind of a more the merrier thing (can't hear).
Wilburn/But otherwise, if that's something that can be taken advantage of, I would
support that, but otherwise ! think when ! asked the question what it would give
us, the primary thing is a tool for our planning and our budgeting, and, something
wrong? Okay.
Elliott/Mike screwed up.
Lehman/Are there any other questions for Matt or Terry?
O'Donnell/No, thank you.
Lehman/Okay, thank you. I'll tell you what we'll do...
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Pacha/I would just like to close out. I wouldn't let the funding aspect... I mean, I think
it's an extremely reasonable proposition to take the $50,000 out of the ParkLand
Acquisition Fund, which is what is left up in that fund for us, and like I said, we
found some room to come up with the balance of that. If there is no place to get it
out of the Capital Improvement Fund, so... I wouldn't, I agree to an extent, but
like I said, I think this is exactly the time and economic climate to do a plan so
we've got our oars in the water.
Elliott/I was...
Lehman/Thank you.
Pacha/Yeah, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Elliott/...the only one who mainly spoke against this. I don't want to come off as a
naysayer because I think... (laughter and several talking at once).., but Matt and
his commission and Terry and his staff have done a marvelous job. I think one of
the things that makes Iowa City a great place is the parks, or are the parks, and is
the recreation program we have. And it's one of the things that adds to the quality
of life, and that adds to our economic development effectiveness, so certainly I
admire and respect the work that has been done, and is being done, and will be
done.
Pacha/Thank you.
Lehman/All right.
Honohan/I'm Jay Honohan. I think, Miss Bailey, you're the only one here that hasn't
met me before. I'm the Chair of the Commission. I've been...the Commission,
the members have been glutens for punishment and they've elected me on my 5th
year now. We, on the Commission, would appreciate the approval of the budget
as submitted. I don't think there's any major surprises in our budget. It's pretty
much the same. I would point out that we are proposing that the County continue
to provide the $75,000 that they have provided the last two years. I have, I don't
know, I think I reported to you, and maybe I haven't, that I did discuss a three
year agreement with the County Board of Supervisors in December, and was told
that they are not interested in that kind of a 20/80 agreement that we had in the
past. They did indicate they were going to fund us. I didn't hear any figures set.
I'm hoping to meet with them and try to seek even more than the $75,000, but I
have no way of knowing if we'll get that or if we'll get more. We are, we have a
couple of things we're working on that might affect the current budget, and the 05
budget. We're looking, we've been talking with Steve and got some ideas that
we're trashing out about the capital improvement loans that we are currently
paying, about $75,000 a year in payback for capital improvements,
interdepartmental loans I call them, that we have borrowed from capital, for
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capital improvement projects. Another thing that we're looking at very seriously
is the dining program. It's been kind of hard for us to tie the dining program
down, but we do have more figures than we've ever had before. We also are
coming up with estimates of the costs of the dining program, and we're looking at
that in terms of how many meals are being served in the Senior Center itself, and
how many meals are going out of the Senior Center, and particularly in two or
three locations, which are profit locations, in which we're kind of subsidizing
these locations with meals for the people that live in these retirement centers. We
have, of course, there's been some comments in the newspaper about our
membership program, or our participant fee. There's a couple of comments I'd
like to make on that. The first one is that the, when they talk about 700, 725, and
I believe that's the latest figure, is about in that neighborhood, of participants who
have registered at the Center. They kind of talk like, in the newspaper, that that's
the only group that comes to the Senior Center, and that isn't accurate. I don't
have an exact figure for how many people that come to the Senior Center, but if
you'll recall when we set up the participant fee, we had two levels, and that you
can come to a great number of the programs and the services that are put on at the
Center, without being a participant and having paid the fee. So, there's a lot more
people than that 700, 725 that come to the Center every day, and I don't care for
the impression that the newspaper and their editorial kind of implied that that's all
the people we're getting at the Senior Center. Another thing that we do have a
deficit. We haven't come up with as much money as we had originally hoped, but
of course, we did reduce the membership fee because we had a lot of people at all
our public meetings that said the $50 that I was proposing was too much, so we
dropped it to the $25, and now, of course, we're half short. But we, I formed a
committee at our last meeting, and we're going to have a new membership drive
starting here shortly at the Center to see if we can get more participants. Other
than that, I'm open for questions. I always appreciate the support the City
Council has given the Senior Center. I think it is a very valuable asset for the
community. Any questions?
Lehman/Yeah, give me just some idea of how many people you surmise are using the
Center, in addition to the 725 paid members?
Honohan/Ernie, I'd be hard pressed to estimate that. Maybe, Linda, can you help me on
that one?
Kopping/The, do I need to be on a microphone?
Lehman/Yes you do.
Kopping/We've changed the method we use to count people so we don't, we're not, and
we've lost some staff, so we're not current with the numbers but as of about
October, we were running just about the same level of participation, the sign-in
sheets and stuff, that we were last year.
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Lehman/I think that' s critical to know that. That' s...
Bailey/But what's that number? Same level, ! mean...give me a number. ! mean,
ballpark.
Kopping/We have about, Senior Center programs, we have about 45,000 people a year
coming in and that's a duplicated count. If you add the nutrition program on it, it
almost doubles.
Bailey/So what you're saying is you're not seeing a drop-off from previous year?
Kopping/That's correct.
Bailey/Okay.
Vanderhoef/Linda, while you're there, the Council gave you a half time position a year
ago, and ! would like an update on that position. Whether it's working, whether
it's worth it in this tight budget time. Is it something that can be moved towards
volunteer to assist with that? ! don't know; ! just want a report.
Kopping/We had two part-time temporary employees. One worked 19 hours a week,
and the other worked 16. We combined the funding we had for that to hire one,
half-time permanent employee. The other part-time, temporary person is now
working less than 9 hours a week so we've actually cut back on hours. We are
trying to identify some volunteers, but it's kind of difficult to have a volunteer do
this because they have to be familiar, for instance, with how to use the phone
system, and answer calls and respond to questions that come in at the front desk,
and what we found in the past is that if you have someone that works at the front
desk and they only do this once every week or once every two weeks, that there
tends to be a lot of confusion at our, with our initial contact with the public. So !
think that even though we're short of hours, ! think the position, filling the
position with a half-time person, permanent employee was a good idea. It's a
good way to go on this.
Lehman/So we didn't really add; we combined?
Kopping/No, nothing was added. That's correct.
Lehman/Okay.
O'Donnell/Jay, you seemed a little bit optimistic that you were going to be able to get
the $75,000 up. Are you sure we're going to get $75,000?
Honohan/I'm an eternal optimist, okay? (laughter) ! have had conversations with a
couple of the Board of Supervisors that indicated they felt an increase was in
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order. That, it was off the record, okay? That was certainly not anything
(laughter and several talking) I beg your pardon?
Lehman/They also felt when they gave you $75,000 that it would have been a lot nicer if
they could have given you $150,000.
Honohan/That's right. That's right, so I'm always optimistic, Mike, and I'm, right now
I'm, as we had proposed, we're just looking at if we can get that $75,000.
O'Donnell/And this will be a year, two year agreement too? There will not be a three-
year agreement?
Honohan/That is absolutely correct. I was told that very specifically that they were not
interested in a three-year agreement. I was, of course, urging a three-year
agreement because that way we could plan better, but they're not going to do that.
Vanderhoef/Well they don't (can't hear) budget either or even any projection for another
year.
Champion/No, I'm glad to see you looking at the dining program because I think that's
very costly to you as far as facilities and water, if nothing else.
Honohan/Well, it's also capital improvements, that.., new dishwashers, and things like
that are very expensive.
Champion/And the Senior Center funds all the capital improvements for the kitchen for
the dining program? Is that what you're saying?
Honohan/Well, that's what they'd like us to do and that's where we're looking at and we
have invited the elder services that runs the dining program, at our next
Commission meeting to talk about some of this, and we're looking at the way
Heritage operates because we understand that Heritage, and Linda you correct me
ifI misstate this, we understand that Heritage at the Cedar Rapids Senior Center
does fund the capital improvements for that dining program, and also some of
their other expenses, and so we wonder why Heritage might not do the same for
Iowa City.
Vanderhoef/You mentioned for profit nursing care areas that we're using the dining
program?
Honohan/Meals are being served there, yes.
Vanderhoef/Can you be specific because I wasn't aware of any of those?
Honohan/Well, I can be very specific if you'd like the numbers. I just happen to have
them.
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Vanderhoef/The location and the numbers.
Honohan/The location at Emerson Point is 2,515 meals served from July to December
Vanderhoef/Are those served to the rooms then, or to the dining hall?
Honohan/I would assume it's to the dining hall, but I can't tell you that answer. We
don't have that information. Another one is Pathways, 3,792 meals served from
that six-month period. I'm not sure if Autumn Park is for profit, but they receive
1,135 meals during that same time period.
Vanderhoef/Where's Autumn Park?
Honohan/Autumn Park's out on Muscatine. Right the other side of Lucas School, the
American Legion.
Elliott/Ernie, are we going to have a session talking about commercial sponsorship of
public facilities, locations, entities, that sort of thing? Did I see that?
Lehman/Say that again.
Elliott/Commercial sponsorship.
Lehman/Of?.
Elliott/Of public services, facilities, buildings, equipment...
Honohan/Why? Do you want to name this the Enron Center? (laughter)
Lehman/We had a very, very short discussion when it came to doggie doo-doo bags, and
that's as far as it went. (laughter) I don't know.
Elliott/I just.., you know, could we have a Skillgas kitchen, could we have Sears
sponsoring the Senior Center? There are a number of things that at least worth
looking into.
Honohan/That was discussed several months ago, Bob, as to some, maybe a room or
something like that. I would remind you that we do have the Hills Bank, the U. $.
Bank, Iowa State Bank. They sponsor a lot of our activities and pay for all the
costs associated with that, and we certainly encourage that, and they're very
happy to do that, and that's been going on ever since I've been on the
Commission. And before I'm sure. It's like the picnic, I don't think the picnic
cost us anything, did it? Except staff time.
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Kopping/No, we paid for some of it.
Honohan/Paid for some of it, okay.
Vanderhoef/You need to get after the pharmacies, Walgreens, Hy-Vee, and some of
those places to start. (laughter)
Honohan/Well, we have a discount program for our participants and some of the
pharmacies give them a 5% discount on their drugs or whatever because they're a
member of the Senior Center.
Bailey/About your fees, ! know that you have some low-income fees, opportunities.
What percentage of the 725 members are paying low-income, and what are
paying the $25?
Honohan/10%.
Bailey/10%?
Kopping/There are members who pay a lower fee because they're in on a family
membership situation. So 10% is the low-income and then on top of that there are
family discounts.
Lehman/Thank you folks.
Honohan/Thank you.
O'Neil/For those who don't know me, I'm Ron O'Neil, the Airport Manager. I'm here
on behalf of the Airport Commission. There are only two Commission members
left that started this budget process back in October, and unfortunately both of
them had previous engagements. So, really ! just wanted to come and thank you
for your support, and tell you that the Commission really looked hard at this
budget. It's 8% less than last year's budget. There's just not a lot of things to cut
out of it. It's mainly the nuts and bolts. There's one small capital improvement
project, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing. It's to try and extend the life of some
asphalt around some of the north t-hangers. Other than that really, unless you
have some questions, ! was hoping, like ! said, that maybe the Commission
members could be here and just say hello and thank you for your support, but I'll
just open it to some questions.
Vanderhoef/Where have you gone with trying to work with your FBO to upgrade the
fuel fees?
O'Neil/That idea was presented to them. We would have to reopen their contract to do
that. They are not interested in reopening the contract.
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Vanderhoef/And what does the contract say about who has the right to reopen?
O'Neil/Well, the problem of that is they are the ones that would have to collect it for us.
I mean, we could put a fee on there if you wanted to associate it with fuel. We,
right now they're paying 5 cents a gallon flow HP and then there's 5 cents a
gallon maintenance of the equipment, so they're paying 10 cents a gallon fee on
that, and that is in their contract. So if indeed we were to reopen it, it would be at
their option, and at this point they don't necessarily want to reopen the contract
and pay more money.
Vanderhoef/But they already are collecting the other fee so adding a penny or 2 cents or
something, doesn't change the.., it changes the market picture but it doesn't
change their actual work in collecting and paying.
O'Neil/No, it isn't a matter...what, and the perception to pilots as they come in is a fact
that to them it doesn't matter what that total price, or I mean, what's involved in
that total price. Just like going to the gas station, when you buy a gallon of gas
you don't really look at it as how much of that is state fee, and how much is
federal, and for them to be competitive, obviously, they don't want to add any
more fees on their price per gallon.
Vanderhoef/What do you know about the market price of aviation fuel in the regions,
shall we say?
O'Neil/As comparison you mean to other airports, Iowa City's very competitive. There
may be a little on the high end of average.
Lehman/There was a time, Ron, I believe this is correct. If I'm wrong, tell me. But
there was a time when we were so high on fuel that folks would fly to Washington
or Greencastle or wherever, and they wouldn't even buy fuel down here.
O'Neil/That's correct.
Lehman/I mean, if we add on to that fuel fee, and when it isn't competitive, they're not
going to sell any fuel, which means they're not going to get their margin either.
O'Neil/Yeah, even based aircraft, if it was cheap enough, would fly some place else and
buy fuel.
Lehman/But that was common, a few years ago.
O'Neil/Yes it was.
Vanderhoef/That's why I was asking about the competitive. Where we were within the
regional prices.
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O'Neil/Like I said, I'd say, and it's a pretty volatile market, even more so than gas
station prices it seems like, and we're at, like I said, probably the high end of
average around here.
Vanderhoef/Does it fluctuate then to the consumer, just like our gas station?
O'Neil/Yeah, it does. It goes up fast and comes down slow. (laughter)
O'Donnell/Ron, do we keep track of... I know we asked when we had the group in that
was studying to identify the number of landings we had for the University of
Iowa. How many were related directly to transplants, and so forth. Have we done
anything on that?
O'Neil/Um, it' s, because the airport is open 24 hours a day, it's difficult to get counts.
The way our operations are counted, the state comes in and they put counters out
in different areas of the runways. And they do that for about a week's time
period, for about four times during the course of the year, and then your number
of operations is based on that. Now they can tell, and it' s based on, the counters
are based on sound, and they can tell whether it's a single engine or twin engine,
or they can tell when I go out and drive up and down with the truck trying to raise
the numbers up too (laughter) but anyway, they, but they don't, there's no way to
separate out who those aircraft were.
O'Donnell/I think that'd be really worthwhile for the community to know what that
figure is.
O'Neil/It would. Again, since it's not manned 24 hours a day, lot of the medical flights,
if you really wanted to get an accurate count on those, both fixed wing and the
helicopter are, certainly the transplants are at pretty unusual hours most of the
time.
Lehman/Wouldn't that information be available at the hospital?
O'Neil/You could, you might be able to track down .... certainly they would know what
kinds of transplants and perhaps how they arrived at those transplants, or organs
were procured out of here, whether it was by air or...
Champion/I don't think the hospital would have that information. They wouldn't know
what airport they were coming out of. They might be coming down from
Minneapolis to Cedar Rapids, then helicoptered...they don't have that
information. There's no way they could keep track of that.
O'Neil/Jeff Gauthier is the head of Emergency Services. I can ask him if they keep
track.
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O'Donnell/No, I'm just saying that'd be a really important statistic for the community to
know.
O'Neil/Or John Staley is on the Commission, and perhaps John could get that
information where we couldn't. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you, Ron. Shaner?
Magalhaes/It's going to take me about a half hour to set up my power point presentation.
Lehman/Fine, as long as you start it 20 minutes ago. (laughter)
Magalhaes/Okay, I will hold the microphone. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My
name is Shaner Magalhaes. I'm the President of the Library Board of Trustees.
And I want to tell you right off the bat, when we get to the question section, any
specific questions, Susan Craig will be answering - not me. Not because I can't
answer them because she's paid to do that kind of thing and I'm not. (laughter) I
know everything about the library. While I'm on that topic, along with Susan we
have a couple members of the Library Board here tonight. Thomas Dean and
Linzee McCray, our University of Iowa contingent. So, out here to show our
support. We want to thank you, first of all, for your support of the Library,
especially during the times of finding money to cut in the FY04 budget. You look
around at other libraries in Iowa and around the country, and a lot of places got hit
really hard in terms of libraries. Des Moines comes to mind for instance, where
they no longer have Sunday hours. (tape ends) You may have noticed that a new
building is going up downtown, if you happen to go by there, and we are just
thrilled to death. Every time we meet, well not every time but every other time,
we meet we take a tour of the new part of the building, and it's been really
exciting to see it rising up from the ground, so forth, and invite, Susan'll probably
kill me for saying this, but invite any of you, anytime, to come by and Susan'll
give you a tour, put a hardhat on you. (laughter) Or Joel Miller, the project
manager, will be glad to do so. It's really shaping up, and more importantly it's,
we keep saying this and I keep thinking we're going to jinx ourselves but it's
ahead of schedule and under budget. Isn't that beautiful? That is just awesome.
We are still tentatively planning grand opening events for early June, so keep an
eye out for that and there'll be special activities throughout the summer, into the
fall. We're going to really make a big deal out of this because it needs to be a big
deal. It is a big deal. Also want to remind you that the Reaching for New Heights
campaign, we felt was very successful. This was the capital campaign that will
help pay off the bond. The $500,000...first installment, as you will, of $500,000,
will be paid to the City this June so we'll be giving you one of those big check
presentation kind of things, I imagine. And also related to the new building, we
have hired a realtor to work with us on getting the commercial space leased, and
we're very excited about that. There are already several possibilities and I'm not
at liberty to disclose anything at this point, but several really exciting possibilities
for that space, basically for leases that will begin this summer, and early fall. One
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of which, actually Susan's dream tenant probably won't pan out, but you know,
it's a hope anyway. In terms of the FY05 budget, just wanted to point out that as
you know, we're looking at hopefully, in this case, a modest budget increase for
FY05, and we understand and are perfectly sympathetic to the fact that although
we're going to be in a building that's basically twice the size of the old one, that
certainly this is not a time for us to come begging and pleading for lots more
money because it's just not there, and I have to give credit to the library staff, and
Susan, for making that possible, because you'll see in the library there will not be
any visible evidence that that library is not running as effectively and efficiently
as possible, and that's a real credit to the staff there, that they're going to be able
to do that. Another thing that is helping with that, or will help with that, is that in
the new library we will have a self-checkout system which is one of the capital
budget requests for FY05 for money for that, toward the radio frequency tags that
go into the books and so forth. And if you've ever been in a library where they
have self-checkout, you'll know that it's a wonderful improvement on getting
people in and out and so forth, and we think that's going to be really neat. Not to
end on a negative note (laughter) but everybody's favorite topic is parking, of
course, and we on the Library Board, I don't know, we take some perverse
pleasure in bringing up the topic of parking periodically. Seriously, we do
appreciate Joe Fowler has done some research into the Dubuque Street ramp
situation, in particular, in terms of the amount of usage in the ramp and so forth.
The fact the matter remains however that parking is the number one complaint
that we have at the library, whether it's an issue of people just not feeling
comfortable parking in a ramp, or whatever, or the perception that there aren't
spots available, and as you know, sometimes perception is reality, we still need to
address this issue, and Joe suggested several alternatives and ideas in his memo to
the Council, and we are planning to meet with Joe very soon to talk about some of
those ideas. I will say that at this point, our inclination as a board, is to look
really hard at designating that bottom level of Dubuque Street ramp for short-term
parking. Not necessarily for just library patrons, but short-term parking in
general. I've had an initial discussion with Lisa Barnes at the Downtown
Association, and we're going to be talking to their board to see if that's something
they'd like to get involved in that conversation and maybe move forward with
that. So you'll be hearing more about parking whether you like it or not. That's
all I had so any questions or comments?
Champion/What level is the Plaza Towers going to enter that parking ramp and the
library? Isn't there a crossover between...
Magalhaes/I think it's the third floor.
Champion/The third level?
Magalhaes/Uh-huh.
Champion/The third level of the parking ramp? The third level of...
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Magalhaes/! believe it's the third level of the parking ramp. ! could be wrong.
Lehman/Depends on which side of the ramp you came in on. (laughter)
Champion/! know, ! know. So the third level of the parking ramp.
Magalhaes/And ! know when we met with the Council a couple years ago, there was
some discussion about potentially designating that level as library parking or
short-term parking, since that would be the one that would go directly through the
Plaza Tower space on down onto the Ped Mall. And that' s, ! mean, that's one of
the pressing issues, maybe not pressing because it's you know out in the future a
ways, but recognizing that when that facility opens, we're really going to have
some major problems with parking, ! think. With the hotel people and the people
that own the condos, and people coming to the convention space and so forth, you
know, ! think it's going to come to a head at that point and if we don't start
thinking about it and talking about it now, we're really going to be in sort of an
urgent situation when the time comes.
Lehman/Shaner, ! think that's right although ! also think that before the hotel is open,
that second parking, or the.., second.., the parking facility on the south side of
Burlington Street will be open, which is going to have a significant impact, or
could have, on the parking available in the (can't hear). ! would certainly hope
SO.
Magalhaes/Potentially moving more permanent parkers out and that kind of thing? Uh-
huh.
Lehman/So, and the effect of the hotel opening could actually be a positive effect when
it comes to parking if we get those permit parkers out.
Vanderhoef/Well we took a lot of permits out of there already, and we took the daily rate
off, and usage has gone down tremendously during that time, so to the tune of
about $114,000 a year, and parking is supposed to pay for itself so designating is
getting pretty touchy and how we deal with almost 300 people wanting permits,
and having empty spaces, is also another question. But the budget cannot hold at
$114,000 loss when we could be filling that and bringing money back in and as
Joe put in the options, one of the options is starting to increase parking rates in
other places of downtown to make this happen, and that's a little hard to swallow
by the rest of the folk who use the parking ramps every day, and work and live in
the downtown area. But ! do have a couple of questions. Someone asked me and
! couldn't answer the question and ! think you can. Okay? Sunday employees,
are they paid, are they all paid overtime...
Magalhaes/! can't answer that.
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Vanderhoef/Okay.
Magalhaes/I could tell as soon as you started asking the question, this is a Susan
question. (laughter)
Craig/Just the permanent staff that works on Sunday is paid time and a half, and that is in
the labor agreement with ASCME. It was negotiated in there 20 years ago and
it' s, that's the way it is.
Vanderhoef/Okay, even though they have not worked 40 hours.
Craig/That's correct. ! mean, because it says in the contract that library employees who
work on Sunday will be paid at time and a half, and they do, some of them choose
to take time off instead of being paid which saves us money, but they get time and
a half off then.
Vanderhoef/Okay, well that answers that question. ! don't like the answer. (laughter)
Lehman/Well ! don't think that's uncommon in labor agreements at all.
Vanderhoef/Well if you work over 40 hours, it's common, but...
Lehman/No, no, ! don't think it' s uncommon to, for any holiday pay.
Craig/To give premium pay for Sunday's I don't think is uncommon, whether the time
and a half is what is the usual premium pay, but it is in the labor agreement and
that's why it's done.
Magalhaes/I'm sure that's probably one of the reasons Des Moines with their budget
situation, the library decided to close Sundays then because they have a huge
(can't hear).
Vanderhoef/It certainly budgetarily that makes the most sense if you just look at dollars
and cents, you would close on Sunday because of that.
Champion/I don't think that's going to help the major problem the library has though,
whether we pay time and a half on Sunday to full time library employees.
Craig/And street parking is free on Sundays. (laughter)
Champion/I'd like to talk to you a little bit about what kinds of things you have in mind.
! for one, ! mean I'm only one person on this Council, but ! agree with you that
we have to do something that provides parking for library patrons, and we have a
new $18 million building, and people want to get to it. And the little parking lot
next door alleviated part of that problem, especially when it was like 3 hour
parking or less, or metered. So ! am interested in finding a way to help you solve
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this problem, within the budget of the City. I'm not sure how we're going to do
it, and I'm not sure what the best way to do it, because any way we do it, it's
going to be complicated, but I for one agree with you. I personally, parking is not
a problem for me. I grew up in a city and you parked a long way from where you
go, and to me, going from that Dubuque Street ramp to the library is like going for
an ice cream cone, it's a trek, it's a short trek. But because it is small town Iowa,
and it is I'm sorry. A lot of my customers will drive around the block for hours
looking for a parking place (laughter) instead of parking a half a block away at
Tower Place. I mean, so I understand the problem, so I hope we can explore this
with Joe Fowler and come up with some workable arrangement that will
guarantee some short-term parking at some point in that ramp. And we need to
kind of day dream about it.
Magalhaes/Thank you, Connie. I appreciate that.
Lehman/Do you have a meeting... I mean I thought I had a copy of Joe's letter.
Magalhaes/We don't have a meeting scheduled with them...
Lehman/I'm sure this is something that's going to be coming up.
Magalhaes/At the library board meeting this past Thursday we formed a "parking
subcommittee", hurrah, and that group will be... I'll be in touch with you, Joe, to
set up a time to talk.
Lehman/Okay, and we'll be kept up to speed?
Magalhaes/Yes, oh absolutely.
O'Donnell/And I agree with Connie. I'm not so sure if that was a shot or not because I
also grew up in a city (laughter), I mean, Iowa City, and...
Champion/I didn't mean Iowa City's a small town. (laughter) I meant small town Iowa.
There's a lot of people living in Iowa City that come from small towns.
O'Donnell/I knew what you meant. But, I knew what you meant, I was just being...
Champion/My husband still will not park in a ramp unless I force him to.
O'Donnell/Oh, well, I think about... (several talking and laughing).., we did build a
tremendous addition to a very popular library, and I think somehow we're going
to have to work out parking.
Magalhaes/Well, the fact of the matter is when we, and some of you were part of this
discussion and I was part of this discussion, when we talked about all the different
options for building a new library and so forth, one of the main criteria was
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parking, especially if it was going to be downtown. We all, at that time, agreed,
this has to be dealt with in order for this building to stay downtown.
Lehman/You know my gut feeling is that two things will happen. First of all we will do
what we can to make parking more convenient. The second thing is that a library,
an $18 million state of the art library, should be attractive enough for somebody
to walk a block. Don't you think so?
Magalhaes/Absolutely, I agree with that.
Lehman/Thank you. But I do think it' s going to be a reeducation on the part of some of
the patrons, and I think we'll do what we can do, but it is in a downtown setting.
It's within a block and a half, or two blocks, of 3,600 parking spaces. Probably
more parking spaces than any library in the state of Iowa. Unfortunately they're
not right in front of the door (laughter) but I do think to me, with some of Joe's
suggestions, as far as enforcing the time on those meters on Linn Street, perhaps
going down on College Street. Some of those things will definitely help. But
there probably is no silver bullet that's really going to, I think it's going to be a
combination of us doing what we can, and probably a little education on the part
of the patrons too.
Magalhaes/Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. There is no perfect solution.
Lehman/But I think we're committed to work with you.
Magalhaes/I'm glad to hear that there's support to figuring out a solution.
Bailey/What do other downtown libraries do about parking issues? That's my first
question, and who seems to have the biggest, I mean, are we talking about parents
with kids and that's the biggest challenge, or are we just talking, I mean, where do
you get the most complaints? What's the biggest issue?
Magalhaes/That's, I mean, that's one of the things we hear the most is from parents with
children. They're trying to juggle strollers, and big stacks of books, and so forth,
and you know they comment that in terms of parking in a ramp, and I realize there
is no, there will be no other option, there is no surface lot and there won't be. But
their perception is that a ramp is much more difficult and potentially much more
dangerous for their children, and that kind of thing.
Craig/What I know about parking in urban areas in small town Iowa, and I agree that the
people who come from small towns, you know, I have to share this comment that
the director at the public library in Des Moines said to me that her architect for
their new downtown facility when they were talking about parking, said you
Iowans, you all want to park next to your desks. (laughter) So I thought that that
was pretty accurate about what Iowans want. Parking is an issue for all the
libraries in Iowa, urban libraries. The public library in Des Moines has a parking
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lot right outside it's central library right now that's probably got 60 spaces in it,
and I was there at a meeting last week. Because it's not part of the rest of their
urban area, it's pretty easy to get a spot in there. All their branches have
designated parking lots. The meter was a dollar an hour, and I was going to be
there for about a 4-hour meeting. It was a 3-hour meter. I put in my $3. It was
running out. I said to someone, someone said aren't you going to go fill your
meter? And I said, you know, I'll just get the ticket and pay it, because it used to
be $5, and she said not anymore, it's $15, so that's how urban areas are
addressing their parking needs. The public library in Davenport has probably a 20
to 25 lot of their own that's designated as library parking, right behind their
building. The Ames public library, the patrons there complain because they have
a lot that is directly across the street from the front door and they have to cross a
street. (laughter) So, you know, people, Council Bluffs and Sioux City, the
parking lots are right there so...
Lehman/Is there a virus in the books that affects people? (laughter and several talking at
once)
Craig/The new public library of Des Moines will have underground parking for several
hundred spaces, ! think two levels of underground parking, underneath that new
central library in Des Moines.
Elliott/Shaner, if I heard you correctly, I really liked what I heard when you were not
talking about special parking for the library. You were talking about short-term
parking, and ! would like for the Council to investigate comprehensive short-term
parking for the downtown area. I'm not in favor of anything special for the
library. ! am in favor of some kind of comprehensive short-term parking for the
downtown area, which would obviously include the library.
Magalhaes/Right, and that's precisely why I've been in contact with the Downtown
Association to see what their thoughts are on that.
Lehman/Well you'll be meeting with Joe and I'm sure Joe and you folks will keep us
informed and we'll deal with it.
Magalhaes/Absolutely.
Vanderhoef/Did I hear that you are under budget right now for... ?
Magalhaes/For the construction project, yes, knock on wood. There's no real wood
around here but under budget and ahead of schedule. It's just phenomenal.
Vanderhoef/If you stay under budget, I'm...
Magalhaes/You're going to snatch up that money, aren't ya? (laughter)
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Vanderhoef/Well to pay off the bonds not because we get it. (laughter) We have to pay
off the bonds one way or the other so anything that can be returned to the citizens
and decrease their tax is very important in my mind for us to be conscientious on
how we spend those bonded dollars.
Elliott/! also noticed that Joe is sitting back there in a very prayful mode. Talk is cheap
up here about parking. He has to live and pay for it. (laughter)
Lehman/He' s just saying it' s okay guys. You tell me. (laughter)
Magalhaes/That's what we've talked about on the Library Board. ! mean, it's a matter of
priority. ! mean the City Council can say we think it is absolutely vital that we
provide ready access to the library through short-term parking, and if it costs us
extra money in parking revenue, so be it.
Champion/I'm not so sure it will. I think those parking spaces will fill up with short-
term.
Magalhaes/Actually that's our thinking is that if you say there is short-term parking
available then the perception that there is nothing there might go away, you know,
because that's the thing ! hear all the time is there's no where to park in the.
Dubuque Street ramp, and ! have to admit that when ! go in there there's never
been a time where ! haven't found a spot. But people seem to think that there's
nowhere to park in there.
Lehman/According to Joe's figures, the least vacancy is 37% in October. The least was
45% in November, which means that it was just barely over half full.
Champion/But you have to go up, because the parking ramp...
Lehman/Right, you've got to drive up to the empty spot. (laughter) It's like going
around the block to find a spot in front of the store.
Vanderhoef/Somebody's got to park up there.
Magalhaes/It's those healthy permit parkers.
Lehman/Well keep us apprised.
Magalhaes/You bet. Thank you very much.
Lehman/Thank you.
O'Donnell/Are we through now?
Lehman/No, we're not through. (laughter)
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Vanderhoef/Josh has been here forever.
Schamberger/Shaner brought up the power point because I'm the nerd that always has a
power point so he's just giving me a hard time here. (laughter and people talking)
Take a second for bulb to... (people talking). Each one of you has received about
five or six of these already haven't you? I brought a copy for .... what?
Lehman/Bring popcorn and soda?
Schamberger/No, there's not, it's not a movie, man. I actually want you to pay attention.
(laughter) Oh yeah, the mic. I want to start off too like everybody else here and
thank every one of you for granting me some time again this year. This is the 3rd
year we've been able to do this and it's been a very important part of our basically
coming to you every year and providing an annual return on your investment. It's
been one of our goals since I started with the Bureau, be three years this
upcoming May. There's a couple board members from our board in the room.
Chuck Goldberg who is the General Manager of the Sheraton, you know the
largest hotel here in Iowa City, and Nila Hoag is back there in the gold coat, and
Nila owns the Golden Hoag just around the corner. She's the leader of the pack is
what I call her. She's really the leader of all the bed and breakfasts throughout all
of Iowa City, and there's about eight of them that are members and strong
supporters of us and the Bureau. So I have a little power point that I want to go
through, and I have timed it and I will not use a minute more than my fifteen
minutes, including questions from you all. (presentation given)
Lehman/Questions? Comments?
Schamberger/Chuck and Nila are here to answer any questions as well if you have hotel
and B&B questions for Iowa City.
O'Donnell/No questions.
Lehman/Very good presentation.
O'Donnell/Very impressive.
Schamberger/Thank you.
O'Donnell/I did think the old Coralville schoolhouse did have a double entrance.
(laughter)
Schamberger/The Coralville schoolhouse, was that in there somewhere?
Champion/In the coloring book.
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O'Donnell/Yeah, ! thought it had an entrance on each side.
Schamberger/Oh no. Way to go.
Vanderhoef/It's behind the tree.
O'Donnell/It's not behind the tree.
Lehman/You know the way we are with trees. We aren't going to cut trees down just so
we can show a door. (laughter)
Schamberger/It does present quite a challenge just to get, to find somebody who can
draw.
Elliott/There's something called artistic license. (several talking and laughing)
Schamberger/Thanks for letting me do it.
Vanderhoef/And thank you for the great job you're doing. I gave you some words this
afternoon, but just for the record, they are growing our tax base, they are growing
interest in our community, they're bringing in new people, and new activities for
us just because he' s bringing the people in and we can afford to do more, so it
isn't personal. It is specifically about CVB if we carve up money a little bit
differently. ! think ! explained that well to you today what my feeling is. You
had the opportunity to grow and you certainly are growing, and anything less than
what you've normally been getting would not reflect on the job that you're doing.
It has to do with budget problems.
Schamberger/Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Schamberger/Have a good night.
Elliott/Thank you.
Lehman/Well, before we get to the next item on the budget, I... guess what is right.
(laughter) We'll get back at 8 and when we come back, folks, if we have any
ideas of changes we'd like to make to this budget, we need to give each other and
staff some clue what they are if we have any hope of making changes. ! mean,
now is the time before the public hearing.
(TAPE OFF - BREAK)
Lehman/Okay, we're back.
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Atkins/Ernie, it's your show.
Lehman/Well it's our show. If there are any issues that Council...
Atkins/! meant that as a collective your.
Lehman/Yeah. Anything that we individually would like to see changed on the budget,
you really need to talk about it. If we have any hope of making changes, they
need to be, Council needs to have the opportunity to kind of hash things through.
Atkins/Let me just give you a little thumbnail. The budget is balanced, as my
obligations are to you. If you make a change of some consequence, and ! don't
know what that is, but if you were going to make a $50,000 addition to the budget
or something, I'd say we've got to look somewhere else to make a reduction. If
you make some smaller items, remember our cash reserve position is an estimate,
but if it was 5,000 or 10,000, I'm not going to get too excited about all that. If the
budget balancing, and that is ! incorporated all those changes we made six months
ago, if you want to do that any differently, ! need to know that. But there' s, to be
very candid with you, there's not a lot of room.
Lehman/Storm water fees are not in this budget.
Atkins/Storm...what we did was we have what we refer to as a place holder. It is shown
in the budget but until such time that you adopt the ordinance then we'll actually
calculate what that number means and then we can apply --- we'd be coming back
to you with storm water projects and other issues.
Lehman/Haven't spent the money in this budget?
Atkins/There is no money. Remember, a budget is an estimate. This is not cash.
Lehman/Right.
Elliott/So you have in generalities, balanced it without that although...
Atkins/The budget is balanced. If you choose not to put one nickel into storm water
budget, the budget is still balanced.
Lehman/Thank you. That's important to know.
Elliott/But some of what will go into that budget we anticipate will come from other
budget lines?
Atkins/It can. I am trying to avoid that. One of the criticisms was that we were trying to
find ways to fund ongoing projects and one is ! didn't think that was fair, you
know, we have funding mechanisms built in, road-use tax, General Fund for
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certain projects. The thing I wanted to accomplish the most was make sure that
we could administratively fulfill the requirements of the EPA and the Clean Water
Act, and have money to do storm water projects. And those were larger projects.
Champion/I've got two things. Do I remember correctly, you said we could fund the
Parks and Rec comprehensive plan, or whatever they call it? Master Plan? With
50,000 from the land acquisition fund, if the year went well and we didn't feel
(can't hear).
Atkins/My recommendation, yeah, my recommendation to you, if there is interest in
funding the study, that you wait until the legislature adjourns. And you're going
to hear that from me probably on several things. I don't know what they're going
to do. That's enough cash that if we got nailed, for example, on that exemption
we're going to have to move fairly quickly to make those adjustments because
further budget reductions are forthcoming. If you want to say to your
Commission, we're interested, but we're going to wait until the legislature
adjourns, and bring it back, we can certainly do that. You can adopt a budget and
we can bring that back to you.
Champion/I mean, I would like to do that.
Lehman/I would; I sense an interest in that but I really think that we hit on something
quite by accident. No, but I do think (laughter) Coralville is completing
municipal golf course. They're having a huge water park. And I just have to
think that because we may have a boundary between the two cities, we are
essentially one community and it might be really well to look at a comprehensive
park and recreation plan for both communities.
Atkins/We have somewhat of a, and maybe it' s more, I try to talk with Kelly about these
things. We have somewhat of an informal relationship with them. For example,
they're building by their bond referendum a new water park. I don't see why we
would ever want to build one. We built a skate park. I don't see why they would
ever want to build one. They've chosen to have a municipal golf course. I'm not
sure why since there are plenty of private golf courses, but they choose to do that.
We've indicated an interest in the Sand Road area recreation area. Certainly
Coralville residents would use that. So we try to do some sort of just informally
an understanding. Incorporating those into some sort of unofficial plan, I hadn't
thought about it, but...
Lehman/I think it'd be worth really looking at, prior to us doing (can't hear).
Atkins/Because we'd also like to measure somewhat some of the University, because
you remember a few years ago we did that lighting project which has worked
wonderfully for us. New members of Council, we made an arrangement where
we actually paid for the lighting out at the softball park, in turn for a long-term
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agreement so in the summer time we use the softball recreation facilities at the
University for our own league programs. And it's worked very well.
Elliott/It's a great place to play. I would like to think that whenever we look at things we
look at this community, which is Coralville, the University, Iowa City, North
Liberty - we are a community, and I like to wherever possible... I understand the
constraints, but I think wherever possible, look at it comprehensively.
Lehman/I really would, I think there could be some real, yeah, I don't know. My
suspicion is that you can buy swimming pool passes in Iowa City, is that right?
Atkins/Sure, and the University is thinking about building a new pool.
Lehman/Yeah, but I mean, there may be things that we could do like our bus transfers
work on Coralville bus. I would think, it just seems to me with their new golf
course, their new water works park or whatever they call it, whatever. To me I
see that, along with the University, making a lot of sense.
Wilburn/(several talking at once) if it goes on or if there's hemming and hawing, and a
neutral response because I would hate to see for planning purposes, us to get hung
up on that.
Lehman/I would agree with you.
Wilburn/I think extend the offer, express the interest, but you know if it's clearly not
there or no indication in the near future that it's going to be there, then again for
our planning purposes, I would think it would be important to go forward and
continue those informal type of opportunities that come up.
Lehman/What do you characterize as the near future?
Wilburn/Um, I would say within the next year.
Lehman/No, then I would agree, within a year or two if we could put that to, if we could
work something out with them, I think that's a good idea.
Vanderhoef/But to hold it up for too long is not a reasonable (can't hear).
Lehman/Can we contact (can't hear)?
Atkins/Yeah, we can do anything you want.
Lehman/Somebody contact.., is there interest in doing that?
Champion/Yes, but I agree that, with Ross, we shouldn't hold up our Master Plan if
they're not interested. I mean, they might not be interested for five years.
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Lehman/If they have no interest, we have to move forward.
Elliott/However, ! still feel that maybe it' s a philosophy only ! hold, that it seems to me
that you in business and in other situations, the top executive, the top
administrator in those areas is responsible for the planning, and that's the way !
look at those kinds of things, and ! think the City has too many consultants, and !
may learn differently, Steve, as ! become more educated. (laughter)
Atkins/Hope you do. (laughter)
Champion/Yeah, they could do it but they don't have the time, just like Ross (can't
hear).
Elliott/That should be a part of the job.
Champion/Well, we've added parks and parks and parks, and trails and trails and trails,
and we've not added any staff so ! think they're probably... ! don't think they're
anywhere underworked. ! have two more things...
Atkins/Can ! make a suggestion on this one, since obviously there's some divided
opinions?
Champion/Uh-huh.
Atkins/How about a contact with Coralville? Something reasonably formal in the form
of a letter. ! mean, we'll call them and give them a heads-up that it's coming.
You can talk to Jim Fawcett and ! can certainly be talking to Kelly about our idea
to have a Parks and Recreation master plan, and make it a joint project. Give
them a reasonable period of time, you know, sixty days to give us some kind of
idea on whether they're interested, and if not, by then the legislature will likely be
on their way to adjourning. ! can bring it back to you and say here's where we
are. ! mean, it's obviously going to get news coverage anyway, so you're going
to be fully aware of what's going on.
Lehman/Could ! suggest too that perhaps the two commissions might decide to meet
together? A joint meeting?
Atkins/I, it would seem to me that if you're going to delegate this to the commission, and
it sounds like you're going to do that, that would be a natural for them to do that.
Vanderhoef/The heads-up might ought to go to John Weihe then. He is the liaison
person for Parks and Recreation.
Atkins/Is he?
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Lehman/I'm sure that Kelly will get that to him. Yeah.
Atkins/So my instructions are to contact Coralville about the possibility of a shared plan?
We've not funded, we've not put a nickel into this yet. All we're doing is
postage, and letter writing, and things such as that. ! really do think, it's big
enough ticket item financially that if we don't know what the legislature is going
to do, just wait that out and by May 1st you could have this decided.
Champion/And then the other day you talked about the possibility about co-building a
new gym at Grant Wood. How would that get financed? Where does that fit into
the picture?
Atkins/I'm not real sure other than ! wanted to make sure we didn't loose an opportunity.
! think the way the thing is playing itself out right now is the school district has
made application ...
Wilburn/! need to back out of this conversation because it involves CDBG funding and !
work for an organization that receives funding and cannot participate in the
discussions related to those items.
Atkins/Of course ! have no idea what ! was about to say. (laughter) Let me try again.
Okay, okay, the CD they have an application pending. The Housing Commission
is going to make a recommendation, Housing and Community Development
Commission, will make a recommendation to you. You ultimately have the
authority in deciding what's going to happen. My contact with Lane, both verbal
and in writing, was that if this is favorable, it's tantamount, if this is received
favorably by the Housing Commission and the City Council, let's get together and
talk about the possibility of expanding that multi-purpose room actually into a
gymnasium. Now, Lane has put no money on the table. I've put no money on the
table, but ! would suspect that for $100,000 to $200,000 worth of debt, which is
not a huge change in our debt position, and if they were willing to match it, !
would think we're well on our way to having some funding. What they currently
have, they being the school district, in their budget, plus these additional monies,
you might get a gymnasium out of it. And all ! wanted from you is a nod, that's
okay to talk about it. You ultimately have to vote the authorization of the money
in particular, but there will be some other things.
Champion/And then would we staff that gymnasium with activities or... ?
Atkins/The difficulty we have right now is that we're not at a position to staff it. ! talked
to Terry and I'm of the opinion look, we're in a fix now but we're not going to be
in this fix all.., and the capital project, that gym's going to be there long after all
of us are gone, and ! would like to think that if we have the chance to put
something together, very economical and ! think this could be economical. Yeah,
let's take advantage of it, and we need gym space in that part of town. We're
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doing lots of good things over there with the CD money as well as, the federal CD
money, but some commitment locally. That was my thinking. Okay?
Elliott/! feel the same about that as ! did with the comprehensiveness of planning for
Parks and Rec. ! just think throughout the community, we need to make
maximum use of square footage of specialized space. It seems a pity to have a
building where there is usable space, and it' s locked up for the night.
Atkins/It's kind of, simply spoken, Bob, that's sort of the thinking. 5:00 everybody goes
home. Our busy time is the evenings with leagues and other things, yeah.
Elliott/! speak in simple terms. (laughter)
Atkins/That came out wrong. ! meant to say... (laughter)
Champion/Those school buildings are not empty at night, believe me.
Atkins/No, but we feel very confident that... I've got a good relationship with Lane.
Lane's clearly saying this is great for us because we've got more space during the
course of the day.
Champion/The other.., one more thing, and then I'm... ! don't have any major questions
about the budget, but what about the alley situation? How would we finance that?
Atkins/I'm not real sure. (tape ends) ...is to put together a fee for service that would not
be tax-supported, that if we were to actually take over the management of the
dumpsters, and things such as that. They already pay a fee to a private company.
Some of the private companies won't be happy about that, but our, my notion is,
what we're doing now is not working.
Champion/No.
Atkins/It just simply doesn't work, and maybe just calling attention to it can cause some
better housekeeping, but ! mean, the housekeeping by some of the downtown
businesses is awful. Just awful. But it would be a fee for service.
Bailey/! have a couple questions. Have we talked to Downtown Association regarding
their interest and... ?
Atkins/No. ! would intend to do that though, Regenia.
Bailey/And then are we having more problems, ! mean, so ! walk the alleys a lot because
they are sort of thoroughfares to get to the light because ! can park (can't hear;
laughing) but ! noticed multiple, there are many different companies. Do we have
more problems with one particular company? Is that the issue? Or...
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Atkins/! think we have problems in general.
Bailey/Okay.
Atkins/! mean there are about three companies downtown and they will not (can't hear;
several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/Well, and the fee part of it seems to me that it isn't often enough, and if they
don't pay the fee to the private hauler to come often enough, that.., and we get
overfill. That's the biggie. And if we provide the service and we see they need it
twice on the weekend or thereabout...
Atkins/We have been called out on a weekend, ! mean we will call out City crews,
because someone's grease dumped. It just spills over. And it's in the alley, and
it's a mess, and you know, a police officer will be going by, observe it and call,
and we dispatch a crew to come up and clean it up. Now we shouldn't have to do
that.
Vanderhoef/Did you charge them?
Atkins/No.
Lehman/This is really a, Regenia, this is an issue with the people who generate the trash,
not an issue with the haulers. They rent two dumpsters when they should have
three. They rent three when they should have four. They stack them up with
plastic cups, four feet above the top, and on a day like today, they blow for five
blocks. They know that, and choose to do nothing about it.
O'Donnell/Do all the dumpsters have locks on them downtown?
Atkins/No.
Lehman/No, very few do, very few are closed, and the ordinance says they have to be
locked.
O'Donnell/Well then let' s... wouldn't that be the first step, requiring it?
Lehman/It may be... all kinds of things that we can do.
O'Donnell/If you lock the dumpster?
Lehman/Right, but we have got, and you know my business is right adjacent to that
alley, that two-block long alley, and it's just unbelievable the condition of that
alley, and we all know, anybody who walks down that alley knows that every
business that uses those dumpsters knows full well what's going on. It's their
beer cups and their whatever blowing down the alley.
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Atkins/Yeah.
Lehman/And they choose to do nothing about it because there are no consequences at
this point.
Atkins/Well we will prepare a proposal for you, but it was not to be tax-supported. It
was going to be paid for by user fee.
Champion/The other, well yeah, ! mean, to expand that, not that we can control it, but !
mean most of the litter downtown Saturday morning is from bars, and yet, they do
nothing. They do nothing to keep the downtown clean. Nothing. ! just (can't
hear).
Atkins/Yeah.
O'Donnell/Steve, ! had one thing. We've all had requests from the Soccer Club in Iowa
City. And I'd really like to see if we couldn't work out something with those
folks, an indoor soccer facility somewhere would really be an asset to town, and
again, it could be a multiple-use building.
Vanderhoef/Of the, the gym thing would add space for practices.
O'Donnell/But ! don't think that would be big enough.
Lehman/Not for soccer.
Vanderhoef/Well, they're practicing at, if we build a gym the size of Weber, they
practice at Weber. That's the whole point is to build...
O'Donnell/But my point is, ! would like to see us be able to do something to help this
group.
Atkins/Can you help me, what you'd like... ! mean, they can get their own (can't hear).
The buildings are not out there, ! mean, I've heard...
Lehman/! think what Mike is saying, and ! don't disagree with it. ! think that's probably
another discussion. It won't be in this year's budget. But ! do sense these folks
coming to us. We've all gotten letters. There is an interest, certainly on the part
of folks, and ! sense what we are saying is that it would be nice if we can
somehow work with these people and see if there' s something...
Atkins/Yeah, but ! don't know what their resources are, Ernie.
Lehman/Well which means that we can't, this can't be a budget issue for this year, but it
is an issue that ! think...
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O'Donnell/Well it's something we should think about.
Vanderhoef/Well it's certainly something that the Parks and Recreation should be talking
about. This is part of the Master Plan, and it's one of those things that as you
listen to the list of things that have been built in the way of capital projects over
the last eight to ten years, so many of them have been funded by private
resources, in conjunction with the City. So here again, this is an opportunity for
those folks if they were talking about doing a rebuild of a building and putting
turf in it, and doing all sorts of things to make an indoor soccer thing, then they've
got some sort of resources that (can't hear), or it was going to be bonded but
they're going to be paying rent, and activity fees enough to pay off the bonding,
whatever it was.
Atkins/And also given remember the nature of what you propose, if it goes above a
certain threshold, it requires a referendum. If we were to actually build and
support the thing.
Vanderhoef/Uh-huh.
Atkins/So I need to make sure that's in the equation.
Lehman/The soccer folks, I talked to some of these folks, in fact not very long ago.
They are going to be talking with Terry and he will be pretty much up to speed on
where they are. I said, you know, don't wait until the eleventh hour. You've got
to keep Terry up to speed on it.
Atkins/Why don't you kick it to the Commission right now? I mean, if there's a
majority of you interested in seeing it, get their comments on the thing.
Elliott/My thinking is that what'd we, a quarter of a million dollars for, more than a
quarter of a million dollars, for the skateboard park. $320,000, was that it?
Atkins/Oh yeah, skateboard park was $300,000.
Elliott/I don't know how many young people use that, but an indoor soccer facility not
only would be for more young people than that, but most of the events also
include their parents, making it also a family situation which I think is very
attractive in the Iowa City area so in comparison, I'd like to think that we don't
just say I'm sorry you can't use the building that you've been looking at. Go
away. I, we really need to be proactive, and say, there's got to be some things we
can do.
Atkins/All we said is the commission.
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Lehman/Let the record show that the conversation relative to the soccer field were part
of the comprehensive recreation because this is totally inappropriate to talk
about...
Karr/Well that and we've received a number of phone calls today because of the
rerunning of the formal meeting where you said you would schedule it for a future
work session.
Atkins/So we'll put it on a work session.
Karr/So I'm just wondering if you want to put it on the 2nd and then you can kick it to the
Parks and Rec...
Lehman/Fine, that's good.
Atkins/I'll put this on the work session...
Lehman/... refer it to commission.
Atkins/You got it.
Lehman/Okay. Other budget issues?
Bailey/As long as we're on Parks and Rec, there was something in the capital unfunded
projects, capital improvement projects, that ! had a question about. It's on C. 15.
It...
Atkins/C. 15.?
Bailey/Yeah, it's the City Park trail lighting. It's a safety, and also a usability, with City
Park, and ! was curious about why that didn't rise to the top, and ! was wondering
what...
Atkins/Oh, ask Kevin. To my knowledge, Kevin, I've not seen anything from the
commission to raise it any further. It was talked about. ! would like to believe
that if there were circumstances occurring in the park, that were truly seriously
safety issues, we would have known about this a long time ago, and I've not heard
them. So ! would think, Regenia, that this is to make the park more useful at
night.
Bailey/Yeah, and I think that would be a terrific... I mean, for $150,000 to make that
resource more usable at night, ! think.., it just caught my attention because it
seemed to come in at a low price point and seemed to be something that would
make that park, which is a great, great asset to...
Elliott/What park, Regenia?
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Bailey/City Park.
O'Donnell/What time does that close?
Vanderhoef/But it closes at 10:00.
Bailey/10:30.
O'Donnell/10:307
Bailey/And we also have, we've got to remember we have a Shakespeare festival there
for almost a month out of the summer, and it is very, very dark over there. Very
dark. ! mean, to get to your cars, and those, it just caught my attention. ! mean, !
just think for $150,000 to make that a nicer space...
Vanderhoef/We're talking about some lighting in closer around the...
Bailey/... it's pedestrian lighting along the trail in City Park, and I'm not sure which trail
either.
Vanderhoef/The trail that goes all the way out...
Elliott/By the river?
Vanderhoef/By the river, and out by the ball fields and stuff.
Atkins/How about ! do two things. One is I'll get to Terry tomorrow and have a memo
summarizing what the thinking was on the project. Get that out to you.
Bailey/Sure.
Atkins/And then at that upcoming work session, or something, we can go through these
and, you can send it to the commission now but they're going to ask for a memo
anyway from Terry. What would you like?
O'Donnell/This way Terry gets enough time to do that Master Plan. (laughter)
Vanderhoef/Ask about lighting to and from the parking lots and the theatre, because that
far parking lot there isn't a trail per se across that grass, and it's very dark.
Atkins/! gotcha, okay.
Bailey/But ! know that...one of the other unfunded is restrooms by that, but...
Atkins/What was the other one?
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Vanderhoef/The restrooms.
Champion/The restrooms are pretty close.
Vanderhoef/No, they're on the other side of the fountain. (several talking at once)
Bailey/And then ! had another question. It's about the Senior Center membership, and !
know this was something (can't hear) last year with the budget crunch, and first of
all, it doesn't look like they're hitting goals at all.
Atkins/ They' re not.
Bailey/But, secondly, philosophically this is something ! have a real problem with. We
don't charge membership fees for the Rec Center. We charge fees for
programming, and ! think that the Senior Center, that model ! think is a model
that works, and ! think that that might be a model that we reconsider for the
Senior Center. I've certainly heard a lot about this, and ! know that the fee isn't
very high. $25, but it seems to be a matter of philosophy rather than dollar
amounts. And ! was wondering if there was anything we could do to discuss that.
! know that it's plugging a hole basically those fees, but not doing it very well.
Atkins/If! can give you a minute or two history on it. ! think one of the things that was
disturbing was the County Board unilaterally loped $40,000 off, and then the
negotiation process for coming up with an agreement. Connie, ! think you're on
it, it just didn't go anywhere. They just would not budge. They wanted
representation on the commission. They already had plenty, ! mean that went on
for a while. And we were dropped to a hundred, and really the County said that's
all we're going to give you. End of conversation. And county folks continue to
use, so we approached other cities. Coralville said forget it. North Liberty -
forget it. And ! think it reached the point where the County Board said we'll pay
this, we'll pay 75, but it's going to be on an annual, and ! think the commission,
rightfully so, did some serious budget reductions but it just wasn't enough. And
that's sort of what (can't hear) this whole fee thing. Connie, is that pretty well -
you were on that committee? That's right. You were too, Mike.
O'Donnell/So am I. (several talking at once)
Bailey/... right, and ! recognize that but membership fee model where (can't hear).
O'Donnell/Well see that bothers me too and it has affected membership.
Champion/You do pay a fee to use swimming pools and stuff like that.
Bailey/Right, you pay for what you choose to use. You know, ! don't pay to go into the
Rec Center and ! don't pay, ! mean, choose...
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Wilburn/Excuse me, the Rec Center choose to follow the policy that 40% of fees cover
their, 40% of fees cover their expenditures, and that's probably no where near the
case with the Senior Center and their programming.
Lehman/What do the seniors get for their membership fee because Linda said tonight
that the attendance is virtually the same as it was a year ago, which ! guess !
didn't know that.
Atkins/Ernie...
Vanderhoef/... figured out that money to cover the hole, and then we cut the fee in half.
Lehman/No, ! know that. But what do they, obviously if the attendance is the same, then
we have a lot of people going there who do not belong. Don't have membership.
Bailey/Well, that story ! think varies, depending upon who's telling the participation, and
I'm not questioning Linda. I'm just saying ! have heard so many different...yeah.
Lehman/About attendance being down? But do you have to be a member to go into the
Senior Center to go... ! don't think you have to be...
Atkins/ They' re not being denied.
Lehman/No, no, but ! don't think you need to be a member to participate in senior
dining, just as you don't have to be a member to go into the recreation building.
You have to be a member to participate in some of their programs as you have to
pay to swim, or some other programs. Is that right?
Champion/Yes, you're exactly right.
Bailey/But programs will cost in addition to the membership if you want to take a class.
Champion/No, not all of them. And ! don't think you can use the work-out room
(several talking at once).
Vanderhoef/If you're a member you go in and use it any time you want to.
O'Donnell/It's just the whole idea that it's easy to give and it's difficult to take away,
and you went in there for nothing for how many, how long have we had that
20/80 agreement?
Atkins/Twenty years or more.
O'Donnell/Twenty years and then it's no longer important that, you know, there is a
problem and people are, you can tell it by the membership, but ! share that...
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Lehman/Could we get a clarification from the...
Atkins/Sure, I just don't know...
Lehman/...what do you get for your membership fee? What can you participate in
without being a member? In other words, senior dining ! think, there may be
some but just what do you get for that fee. ! don't know.
Wilburn/How do you.., and I'm sorry I'm not familiar with some of the fees for the
classes at the Senior Center, but how do fees for a class at the Senior Center
compare to fees at the Rec Center? Do you know? Like if you take... ! take a
photography class at the Senior Center. What's that relative... ?
Atkins/As ! understand it, ! really believe they try, they get the instructor. We get Ross
the photographer and Ross' fee is $500. That means that we need to generate ten
$50 fees in order to make that class. If we don't, then there's no class. That's
how ! understand it. It's much, you kind of back into it more than anything.
Vanderhoef/And the Senior Center takes a certain piece of the fee from the teacher. The
teacher uses the space, therefore they get charged a little bit for the space to hold
their class, but anything that they generate in their class is theirs.
Wilburn/I'm just trying to think in terms of, you know, relative costs.
Atkins/Well why don't ! get you some of, some representative sample of an art class, a
photo class, something such as that.
Vanderhoef/Well I think probably their handout that we give to...
Bailey/Well ! read that and that's what I'm trying to remember, and ! can't. ! mean it
didn't stick in my little...
Elliott/Regenia, I'm not sure whether ! differ with you, ! think maybe ! don't because
I'm very much in favor of people who can afford to, paying for what they use and
what they do, but ! think there needs to be equity and fairness so that things are
run, if you go to the Rec Center, it's not one philosophy, and if you go to the
Senior... is that?
Bailey/That's part of it, and also you know, I did a graduate school project over there,
and it seemed to me, just an impression, I've been there a couple times now,
lately, and it seemed to me back then it was much more active. Many more
people in the building; more people using the facilities. It doesn't seem to be as
active, so that's why ! you know asked Linda about the usage because it doesn't,
and maybe the times that I've been there have been different, but ! was
just.., philosophically ! would like to look at that and if we had a better
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understanding of the fee and then we're good with that, we can better explain that
to people when they approach us if that's the direction we're going to go.
Atkins/I can do that...
Lehman/I think that that's... I would like to know.
Atkins/! asked Linda to prepare for me, after a conversation with Linda and Jay, this is
ten days ago, and she had to do her jury thing or whatever and was gone, but I've
asked her to do a memo. Give me some summary of some other ways you can
raise monies. ! think we can get something on the table for you that opens that
whole discussion, and I'll follow up on that, but I'm pretty sure ! can get these,
specifics, pretty easily.
Elliott/I think it wouldn't be bad to say give us an idea also how that does compare with
the Rec Center.
Atkins/That's the idea. That's what I'm assuming Ross was saying.
Wilburn/What I'm thinking is ifI have a membership at the Senior Center and take a
class, how does that compare to just being able to walk in and take a class?
Atkins/And you know we have senior activities at the Rec Center?
Bailey/Right, and how are we crossed.., yeah.
Lehman/And do we duplicate? (several talking at once) Okay, well I think that's
information we need.
Atkins/Okay. I'll prepare that.
Vanderhoef/And even looking at how much more we might be able to cross between the
Senior Center and Parks and Recreation.
Atkins/Okay.
Vanderhoef/So if staffing needs to go one place or the other and the class is only offered
at one or the other.
Bailey/Well, and ! have an additional question. Because this is not hitting goal and that
doesn't surprise me the first year, what have they done about a membership drive?
If this is the way it's going to go, what have they done about marketing?
Atkins/That's supposed to be addressed in the memo, that they are planning another one.
Lehman/Well he said they were starting one next week.
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Atkins/Yeah, ! thought it was coming up soon.
Champion/Well ! hate to bring up the awful subject of senior dining, but that is costing
the Senior Center a fortune.
Atkins/Yeah.
Lehman/And it sounds like they're dealing with that too.
Atkins/Yeah.
Champion/They pay no utilities, they pay no rent.
Bailey/And that's Elder Services that runs... ?
Lehman/And they make money on it.
Champion/And they make money on it.
Lehman/Well, obviously...
Atkins/Well, we're going to find out about that.
Champion/! mean, ! don't know why they've done that. That's one reason when the
County was in charge ! think why they gave the money they did, but ! mean to tell
you, to cook all that food without even paying the water bill..it's amazing.
Vanderhoef/And transporting it.
Lehman/Well Senior Center doesn't transport it.
Elliott/! wasn't even aware of that.
Atkins/! wasn't aware of it to the extent. ! wasn't aware of it to the extent.
Lehman/! didn't realize they were making money on it.
Champion/... raise by fees.
Lehman/Steve, we talked about ICAD funding and the consensus seemed to be to return
that at least to the previous level. Is that feasible?
Vanderhoef/No, it's got to go higher.
Lehman/Then what...
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Champion/... previous level which would be a raise.
Vanderhoef/No it's not (laughter) when you consider how many years that we have been
paying them $50,000, and last year with the across the board cut, they took a cut,
and so I am definitely looking at moving up. Their costs are certainly going up as
they are in the recruiting mode and making contacts with businesses out of town.
They can't travel cheaper. They can't...
Atkins/Joe wants to do what Josh did. He's asked for some time with you. Joe Raso
from ICAD.
Lehman/When?
Atkins/I'll get him set up. He didn't say. He just said...
Lehman/No, no, but do we need to plug a number in on this? We're setting a public
hearing for the budget.
Atkins/Well it'll have to come from...
Champion/...give him money if he doesn't present. (laughter)
Atkins/Can I assume it's not coming from CVB funding?
Champion/Well, we haven't decided that.
Atkins/Okay.
Champion/I liked Ernie's idea, or somebody's idea, of capping that money.
Vanderhoef/The CVB?
Champion/Yeah.
Lehman/I don't like the idea but it sure beats a cut all to pieces.
Bailey/I don't like the idea but that's a compromise.
Champion/I'd be willing to do that.
Elliott/I just think ICAD is certainly one of the priorities of where Iowa City's future is.
Lehman/Right, so is CVB. Are we going to fund them at the same...let's settle this. Are
we going to fund CVB at the same level we did last year?
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Atkins/That's 22 1/2 % of...
Lehman/Thank you, that's done. Now, ICAD funding? (several talking at once)
Champion/But we're not going to give them any more, and they should get more out
of...we're capping them. They're going to get their 22% up to that amount of
money. Do you know what I'm saying?
Atkins/Uh-huh. I understand what you're saying.
Vanderhoef/So it might turn out to be only 21% because the increase in dollars coming
in in CVB...
Atkins/Okay, we believe from the revenue side, that the hotel/motel tax number we
budgeted is probably a little low. Yeah, 550, and it's.., our last calculation is
we're running about there so we should be on budget by the end of the year for
550. But with the Moen project coming on, we don't know exactly what that
number will mean. We've done some estimates but that will add to that.
Lehman/But that's two years away.
Atkins/That's two years at least, two years out.
Elliott/! would be in favor of whatever percent they have been getting, they get that
percent, up to a total amount of funding, whatever that total amount...
Atkins/They used to get 25. Last year we reduced it to 22 iA, and that number's about
$120,000. If you're going to cap it, you may want to say, no more than...what's
22 ~A% of 5507
Bailey/Well ! don't know. ! calculated 22% of 600,000 because you said (can't hear).
Didn't you?
Atkins/(laughter) Yes, ma'am, ! did. You heard correct.
Elliott/The total amount they received last year was $130,0007
Atkins/It was 550,000...we don't know yet, we're not done yet. (several talking at once)
Bailey/123,750.
Champion/That's what they got last year?
Atkins/And that's what they're projected to get this year is 22 lA %, because it should be
the same number.
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Bailey/How much of an increase...
Champion/! would give them a cost of living increase, that's their cap.
Atkins/! don't think it's a, Regenia asked me if to increase it. ! don't think it's out of the
question that you could see 40,000, 50,000 in new money come in.
Bailey/So that 100,000... so I'd be comfortable capping it at 135.
Champion/No, no, not for this year.
Bailey/Capping. Capping it at 135.
Vanderhoef/22 lA % or up to 135.
Elliott/Not to exceed.
Bailey/... because if they hit 600,000, which would be good for us...
Champion/This year? ! mean this.., no, she's talking, he's talking about when the Moen
project is in place.
Atkins/Yeah, when the Moen project comes on...
Bailey/! thought you said that you expected 550 to be a conservative estimate...
Atkins/We do believe it right now to be a conservative estimate. If it were to go up, it' s
not going to go up a whole bunch. Not up to 600. When the Moen project comes
on, it could go to 600.
Bailey/See, but you're still not dangerous capping it at 135.
Atkins/No you're not.
Bailey/If it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit.
Champion/For this year, I'm thinking we cap it lower for this next fiscal year so we can
give that extra money to ICAD.
Lehman/We'll give it to Parks and Rec. (laughter)
Vanderhoef/Well, I'm going to bring up something that you probably don't want to hear.
Atkins/! don't want to hear?
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Vanderhoef/That the place where we get money to take care of some of these other
things is from salaries. And I've been looking at some of the staffing, and last
year the staffing was across the board hit. I'm still interested in firefighters. ! still
think we need to be adding back on to that if possible, and ! would like to do it
before we have the opportunity to be cut by the state legislature, because when
that comes around, like last year, then it's an across the board. There are some
places that are heavily staffed with top-end salaries, and ! know Bob and ! have
talked a little bit and he's interested in looking at all of our staffing and how we
set the upper end for administrative kind of, or non-negotiated kind of contract
salaries and so forth. ! truly think we have to look at the services that we are
providing, and what are our priorities for services. And for me, the firefighter
piece is a service that we can ill afford to leave where it is because we took that
hit last year. We were in a good position to move forward with firefighters. !
didn't say anything that...
Atkins/No, no, no. That was my foot slipped off. (laughter)
Vanderhoef/There are two places of staffing that we cannot touch after we set a budget,
and ! think those are the two that we have to look at the budget very carefully
right now, and that being the airport and the library. Well, those...
Atkins/Now remember, if you were to cut the library in any way, Library Board can turn
around and overrule you, and reduce something else. All you can really do on the
library is reduce, correct me, Kevin, is the aggregate amount?
Vanderhoef/The aggregate amount, and how they spend it. And, you know, that's their
choice.
Champion/They've had that choice. We did not give them the recommended increase in
staff last year that we promised them for the new library. They're not getting that.
They've worked around that. I'm not cutting any more money on the library.
O'Donnell/And they cut last year.
Vanderhoef/And the airport?
Champion/The airport ! think is another question.
Lehman/We need to...
Champion/We need to wait until they have their meeting and decide...
Vanderhoef/But how can we set the budget if we don't know...
Atkins/You can, here' s my suggestion to you. For example, airport, set the budget. You
can reduce it any time you want.
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Lehman/After we meet, we can reduce it in June, July, September. Those are budget
amendments. You just can't increase it.
Atkins/You cannot increase it, and that's strictly your call. I mean, other than the labor
agreements that bind you, and you know, what you're proposing, you can reduce
the budget any time you want.
Vanderhoef/But you can reduce...
Champion/...the budget, period. Personnel, anything.
Vanderhoef/But that isn't the point that I'm trying to...I'm trying to exchange within the
budget amount.
Champion/You can always do that.
Vanderhoef/Well, once you... (several talking at once)
Atkins/You can send me back once a week if you wish to change the budget. Please
don't do that.
Lehman/If we said that we were going to fire five... Steve? If we were going to say all
of a sudden, hey, we don't like parks anymore. We're going to get rid of five
parks people, use the five park people's salary for.., as long as the total
expenditure doesn't ...
Vanderhoef/Right, except for the two.
Atkins/The library and the airport.
Vanderhoef/The library and the airport.
Atkins/The airport has the same, probably even more so, more power. They have the
ability, if you were to say ! want to reduce this in the airport, the commission does
have the authority to say no, we're going to do this instead. Now, ! cannot
comprehend that happening given your attitude and the interest that you have
about that airport. ! cannot imagine that.
Champion/You can cut their budget, but you can't tell them how they're ...
Vanderhoef/But if we set their budget now, then that's set for the year.
Atkins/No. What ! would suggest you do if there's a consensus among you, is that you
would set the budget and it's sort of like, set the budget but ! don't have an
authorization to spend. It's set, but there's no authorization. Folks think this is
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cash bucks. No, it is not cash bucks. It's an estimate. And if you're saying we're
going to revisit the airport commission, such as you're suggesting, that's a budget
decision. We adopt is. We proceed accordingly, and I bring it back to you, and
you simply say okay, now here's what we want done with the airport. Any extra
monies that are loped off, let's say you've made some reductions, traditionally we
would transfer them to reserves. If you wanted to transfer them somewhere else,
that's certainly your call.
Elliott/While we're talking about this, I think it's vitally important that we point out, yes,
personnel represents at least 70% of the budget, but I think the Council is
unanimity aware that we have one of the finest staffs in the state of Iowa. That
we are very interested that anyone who works for the City of Iowa City is paid
fairly, and is paid competitively. We also, we have responsibility to do that with
the staff members. We also have a responsibility for those people who are tax
payers, and who are funding the Iowa City budget. So any time we look at that, I
hope everybody understands that I'm sure I speak for the Council when we talk
about the staff being one of the finest staffs, and we must maintain fairness,
equity, and competitiveness with staff' s salaries, and we are never talking about
doing anything other than that.
Vanderhoef/No.
Bailey/Well as long as we're on the airport, I mean (laughter)...
Atkins/By the way, you haven't decided ICAD or CVB yet. (laughter and several
talking)
Vanderhoef/I'm looking for dollars that will be there every single year, you know, and
you trade one for the other.
Atkins/And I couldn't promise you that with these budgets and the way the state treats
us, I mean, there's just.., you're going to agonize like this every year.
Vanderhoef/But salaries are the one things that we know that we have an option to
decrease, and that we're looking (several talking at once)
Champion/Can I just give a quick, one quick way to settle this whole ICAD thing, and
then if nobody agrees with me, fine. Let's take the $123,750 they got last year.
Let's add a cost of living increase to that, and cap it for that for this year, and any
excess money go to ICAD, and then next year we can revisit it again.
Bailey/Any excess money from where? The hotel/motel?
Champion/Yeah.
Elliott/I do like...
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Lehman/...reserve. Let's give a number for ICAD right up front. A hard number.
Champion/Right, right. But, how does that sound? This year, as for this year only, we
cap them with a cost of living increase...
Atkins/$123,750 and 3% adjustment is about $128,000.
Lehman/Fine, put $128,000.
Atkins/Okay. Now, that's what you're going to get and that's the cap. Now I would
suggest one thing to you. I'm not a bad guy and I'm not picking on CVB. !
wouldn't intend to do that, but if you give somebody a cap, you should have as a
policy to revisit it every two or three years.
Champion/Only for this year.
Atkins/Okay. (several talking at once)
Bailey/Absolutely.
Lehman/And then ICAD, what' s... ?
Elliott/! like the same percentage, not to exceed a number. (several talking at once)
O'Donnell/Did we cut ICAD...
Lehman/Yes, we cut ICAD 10% last year to $45,000.
Atkins/We have paid history. We used to pay ICAD $40,000 a year from I believe it
was, from federal revenue sharing or something like that, no, grants.., none of you
will remember that. Irrelevant. We then bumped it to 50,000. It became a
General Fund item. It's been 50,000 for at least 10 years. Last year because of
budget reductions, we pulled it down to 45. Here's where you are. (several
talking at once) I wanted to at least get them back to 50, but it's been a very long
period of time since they've had an adjustment.
Lehman/May ! suggest 55?
Champion/Okay.
Lehman/! mean, going back to 50 is an increase of better than 10% based on last year's.
Last year, ! mean, that was a terrible thing. We didn't have a choice. We had to
find money someplace. The unfortunate thing is that we have not been keeping
up and ! think this Council should remember that in future years. If we go to 55,
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the next year we really do need to look at some sort of adjustments and the
performance of ICAD is extraordinary the last several years.
Champion/And yes, ! agree with you, and they have... (several talking at once) 3,300
tourist jobs, ! would venture to say that 80% of them are minimum wage jobs, and
(several talking at once).
O'Donnell/You know with ICAD I've heard 55 and 60. Would people be comfortable at
$57,500?
Lehman/Well you heard 50, 55...
O'Donnell/No, ! heard 55 and ! heard a 60.
Lehman/Well ! ....(several talking at once) Are there four that would go, be happy with
55?
Champion/Yeah, I'm happy with it.
Elliott/I'm not sure I'm happy but ! can live with that. (several talking at once)
Lehman/But ! think it sends a message that shows that we recognize, and ! think it's
important to show that we recognize their effort, and that we're really a partner
with them.
Champion/The other thing, Economic Committee people, is we do have money allotted
to Economic Development. If something came up and they needed some travel
money, we could give them that out of that money, couldn't we?
Lehman/No.
Atkins/! think ! would encourage you to avoid anything operationally, Connie. If they
had a special project then ! think that should rise or fall on its own merits and you
should... (several talking at once).
Lehman/...Mormon Trek. The only money available is CDBG funding...
Atkins/Well for next year we have another 250 under GO debt.
Lehman/How much of that is already allocated?
Atkins/It is not.
Lehman/We're sure?
Atkins/Yes.
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Lehman/Okay, fine.
Elliott/! don't know how well in the past the Council's collective memories are but !
hope next year at this time we remember this conversation.
Lehman/If you wear your pink shirt, we will not forget. (laughter)
Atkins/What I will do, remember you still have that decision list that I prepared for you.
You've made some decisions, ! mean, apparently you want to revisit membership
fees. That goes on your decision list. ! mean, you've built in 15 or 20 items.
Champions/I don't want to revisit membership fees. I think we need them, but I think
certainly the new people are entitled to the reason they're there.
Atkins/Okay, but you'll have that decision list with a number of items, and I'm preparing
a new one for you based upon the conversations that have.., and that memorializes
that you're talking about.
Elliott/! love being memorialized.
Atkins/I bet you do. (laughter)
Vanderhoef/Any time Senior Center can fund through other sources, and drop
membership fees, ! will look at it, but at this point in time, ! don't think we can do
that. So either a reorganization of how services are provided at the Senior Center,
maybe in conjunction with Parks and Recreation...
Bailey/... more coordination between those two departments?
Atkins/A number of years ago, Regenia, we put forth a proposal of having the Senior
Center become an operating division of the Department of Parks and Recreation.
! can remember a woman about 80 years old walking down the street with my
head under her arm. She thought that was a bad idea. (laughter) So, it didn't go
very far. It is very common to have it...it's one of the few agencies we have.
Linda, in effect, reports to me and not through anyone. My preference has always
been it' s better to work through a department director because you get more day-
to-day oversight. If the airport were to change its management, I'm sure I'd
assign it to an operating department. I've already got 11 department directors
reporting to me. ! don't need any more, but ! think you gain coordination. You
aren't going to save any money up front, but you do gain coordination of services
if it was assigned to a department.
Elliott/! think there' s a means, ! would like looking at that type of question. There' s a
means of conserving administrative costs. There's a means of being more
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efficient in the scheduling, and ! just think those things are worth looking into,
and they may not change.
Atkins/Unless I hear differently, pose the question of the Senior Center's organizational
assignment?
Lehman/The Senior Center issues, there are several issues that ! think we need to look at.
Atkins/Yeah, okay, but I am going to redo that list for you.
Champion/Well are we going to finance that building in the aviation park? We can do
that can't we?
Lehman/I sense...
Atkins/If you have interest in that, then ! need to bring that to a work session and give
you numbers, and estimates, and ! don't want to proceed with the work involved
unless you think it's worthwhile.
Lehman/Is this something that needs to be in the budget?
Atkins/No, oh no, it's a new item. For example, the Sand Road recreation area, is
identified as a policy issue. ! sense support that this is a good idea. We need to
figure out what we do next, and ! don't know the answers to those things yet
because there are development questions, Parks and Rec- they want...I'm going
to ask Terry if you were to say okay, let the commission bang this around, tell me
about your ideas.
Lehman/Well what decisions do you need relative to budget?
Atkins/You need to understand that when you call the public hearing, the numbers, the
dollars, are fixed. You cannot go up in total, you can go down, but you can't go
up. You can move around. You can do all of that you want...
Lehman/What we're talking tonight, if there are issues that we...
Atkins/... the tax rate that's critical for identification purposes going into the budget
hearing.
Lehman/Right.
Wilburn/Let me ask you a question, and you may have gone over this while ! was gone,
but the Sand Road project, is there a reason that's all GO?
Atkins/No.
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Wilburn/Can road-use be used there?
Atkins/Absolutely... ! suspect there could be some road-use. ! suspect fee for services.
think there's a number of... ! think development fees, storm water management.
All of those things have elements in this and ! just haven't packaged it together.
Wilburn/So when that all gets put together then that can.., okay.
Atkins/Absolutely.
Champion/! have one more thing, just being a little .... I'm really on to this Parks and Rec
Master Plan. Is there anything that we could move $50,000 into, out of the road-
use tax since we have a nice little amount of money.., is there anything that we're
using road, not using road-use tax, that we could use it for to finance the...
Atkins/Connie, nothing changes my opinion on what the state might do. If there's a
majority that would like to have a master plan, funding it from park land
acquisition. There is more money than 50 in there. It's probably closer to 75
because there is still money from loan repayments coming back into that fund. !
think you could finance the whole study from park land acquisition. If that's your
call, say yes, but just hold it a couple months until the legislature adjourns. Then
you confirm that decision; then you can vote it up or vote it down as you see fit.
Elliott/I'd like to hold off on that discussion.
Atkins/And ! do want to make the contact with Coralville.
O'Donnell/We can decide in two months though, right?
Atkins/I mean, I will put that on your work list, to bring it back to you as a decision,
because I'm sensing that ! think there's a majority but there's a couple that are
still hesitant about that one, and that's okay.
Lehman/Well but ! do think we have consensus that we would like to contact Coralville?
Atkins/Yes, you were unanimous on that. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/The other thing, we recognize that residential tax is going to go down, but
commercial property tax is going to go up, and that concerns me that it is going
up for our commercials, and the only way we can drop that tax is to either
decrease our capital projects, or move some of those road-use tax into projects
that we're already bonding, and therefore pay off bonds which would ultimately
lower taxes. ! don't know whether there's any interest from anyone on the
Council to lower taxes this year. (laughter and several talking at once)
Lehman/But we could not lower commercial without lowering residential.
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Vanderhoef/That's right.
Elliott/! didn't mean that laugh as derisive. ! would like for the Council to have a plan
over a period of years to lower taxes. ! think we just can't keep saying we've got
this much money. How do we spend all of it? ! think we have to look long-term,
how do we reduce taxes?
Wilburn/You can do that. You can start pulling stuff out of the capital improvement
program.
Atkins/Yeah, that'll pull it down.
Lehman/It's about the only place you can go right now.
Vanderhoef/The other is benefit levies is one of the things that keeps pushing us up
considerably because of health insurance and pensions, and are mandated at the
state legislature, so anything that we can do to influence the state legislature on
the pension requirements (tape ends) ...the majority of the citizens...
Champion/... a maximum on that benefits levy, like it only can be...
Lehman/No, it should be capped. ! think that that makes good sense.
Champion/Just like we cap our 25%, or whatever, we do that. It should be capped the
same way. It should be it can't be more than some of (can't hear) or general
expenditures...
Lehman/Well it's 2.3 million now...
Champion/It' s just crazy.
Lehman/! mean, 3.3 and there was a time it was under 3 and the way things are going,
and with funding 100% of retirement and the health benefits, we could
conceivably see that go to 3.5 or 4%, and 4% is the...
Atkins/It's 3.4 now.
Lehman/3.4 now?
Atkins/Next year it goes to 3.8, the following year it goes to 4.1.
Lehman/Yeah, see, and ! think that's...
Vanderhoef/This is where our tax-payer is just.., they don't understand it because our
General Fund isn't growing, so the benefit levy really wipes us out and certainly
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when we want to do capital improvements we need to do them, both for upkeep
and I look at our capital improvement plan and it's not getting smaller. If
anything it's getting larger over the last five years, and we're not making headway
on it, folks. So something's got to give here somewhere, and our taxpayers
cannot keep taking it so I like your idea of putting caps on benefits levy. I think
it's worth a good discussion and have some numbers prepared for us so we can...
Atkins/Some kind of an idea like that? It'll take a little work but if you want to do that.
Lehman/We either cap it, and I really think there's a lot of rationale for that, one of two
things must happen. We will either have fewer employees, or we will have
employees who will have to pick up more of their own health insurance.
Atkins/Which is negotiable.
Lehman/No, no, I understand that.
Champion/Well that'll be their choice, and then negotiate, they'll say you know what,
you're already at your cap for health benefits so that means every penny you raise
you have to make up by getting (can't hear).., make it a union-based cap.
Elliott/I think it's interesting that we had a discussion about the Senior Center and the
fees, and is it accessible and is it financially feasible for people and the Rec
Center, and what are we doing. We're talking about something right now that
will indicate how many people can just plain afford to live in Iowa City, and
that's to me more important than any of the individual services or institutions that
we have, so I think this is a very important discussion to have, but I see Dale
sitting over there and thinking you're talking about things that's going to make
some negotiations extremely difficult, and I think we have to be considerate of
those people with whom we will be negotiating, because again as we said, we all
want to be fair and competitive with it.
Champion/Well I don't know of another company, well I do because I pay my
employee' s, I pay all of her insurance, but I don't know, that is a benefit that to
me is unbelievable in a place that employs as many people. You know what I'm
saying?
Atkins/I understand, Connie.
Elliott/An 80/20 split is very common.
Atkins/And, Connie, and Bob, understand employees know that too, and that's why they
are so very protective of it.
Champion/Well that'll be their choice when it comes down to it if we cap it.
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Elliott/And as ! told Steve...
Atkins/And I'll put some work together for you to allow you to think that through.
That' s a toughie.
Elliott/As ! mentioned the other day though, we have to remember that whenever you
talk about compensation, you talk about the package of compensation. You can
have 100% medical insurance coverage, but it has to be compensated by salary
then, or the whole thing is a balancing act and ! think you can't talk about benefits
without talking about salary. You talk about the total compensation package.
Champion/That's always amazed me about the City is that when they give pay raises, it's
just on their base salary. What they don't tell you is what that employee's costing
you. What that increase and what that employee is actually costing you that year,
and that to me is a salary increase so you're giving them a 3% on the base but
when you add all the extra social security and health insurance and retirement,
that might be costing you 9%.
Lehman/Well ! think the issue here is that the employee benefits are a separate tax levy
that's on your tax bill separately. That is, we do know we have restrictions in the
General Fund. We can only spend 8.10, that' s our legal limit for taxation. There
is no limit on the employee benefits, and so the employees all know that. So
when it comes...
Atkins/Right, and so does the state legislature.
Lehman/Right, but when it comes to negotiating union contract, hey, don't talk to us
about health insurance. That doesn't come out of your General Fund anyway.
Elliott/But the tax payers pay it all.
Lehman/Well, but that's why... Steve, ! think that at some point...
Champion/We talk about this every year but we've never...
Lehman/Well, but ! think we really do need to look at the ramifications of what a limit
on the benefits levy...
Atkins/! need to think it through but ! understand you'd at least like a working paper on
what a cap, how it would work, and what some of the consequences...that's going
to take a little time, but we can certainly do that.
Lehman/Well it's not for this year's budget.
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Champion/So is it almost lA of our, well no, because if you took our levies and took the
capital levy out, the bond levy out, the rest of those property taxes more than a
third of it is employee benefits...
Atkins/Well here' s another way to look at it, Connie. Your tax levy, your tax rate, is
17.3. Okay? Your employee benefits are 3.4. 20% of your tax levy is employee
benefits. That's the way to look at it. So someone can say 20% of their property
taxes for City purposes pay benefits. No that does not. Tack bonding on top of
that.
Lehman/Another way to look at it. We have an 8.10 property tax levy. That' s the
money we get to run the City. We have a 3.4 for employee benefits. That's
almost 50% of the money that goes into the General Fund.
Champion/That's the question I was asking.
Lehman/So the employee benefits is almost 50% of the total taxes we take in to the
General Fund.
Atkins/Well, more like about 35, Ernie.
Lehman/That's all right. That's an incredible number. And when you start putting in the
tort levy, and you put in emergency, and transit, and all those, you're up there to
17% but only 8.10 goes into the General Fund.
Atkins/And ! would remind you a long time ago we made a decision that we would run
the city based on property taxes. There' s only two large cities in the state that
don't use a sales tax, and we choose to do that.
Lehman/Oh, well that's another issue. (laughter)
Atkins/Well, that's a huge issue.
Lehman/No, no, ! know that but I'm just saying this employee benefits levy is up to 35%
of the total operating...
Atkins/Well, now that's a good measurement, you're right.
Lehman/But that's huge.
Atkins/But we figure on rollout, you take your base pay, it's about 35%.
Champion/That's a lot.
Lehman/Well it's just, that's why we're talking.
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Vanderhoef/And one other thing since we're talking money (laughter) I'm sorry, folks,
but general conversation. We talk about we are a property-tax based community.
The legislature has given us the possibility of sort of working both sides here with
the one cent sales tax option. We're one of the few communities that's not passed
that law. That is the one place for new money, and ! know it was voted down
several years ago but ! think it's something we probably need to...
Champion/Oh it's been voted down twice.
Atkins/Twice. The circumstances of the sales tax, what I've discovered and I've been
through two of them, what I've discovered on the sales tax issue is we debate the
tax and not the consequences of the tax. ! mean, for example, you would be
reducing your, you would reduce property tax if you had a sales tax. Yeah.
Champion/And (can't hear) fair to low-income people. I'll tell you one thing, it reduces
their rent a heck of a lot.
Lehman/Or keeps it from going up.
Champion/Keeps it from going up. It does a lot of things that (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/And most of the basic needs are tax exempt anyway so that piece is there,
but how it affects property tax in conjunction with a different source...
Atkins/We've never made that case, Dee. Never been able to make that case.
Vanderhoef/! know, and certainly with the number of tourists, what the CVB is putting
in here, and the people, and they're used to paying it everywhere else. So why
that couldn't be used as a benefit to the property tax and certainly as you say rents
and everything else in this town, that make it possible for some people to find a
place to live.
Elliott/! had a letter the other day from a person who owns and rents duplexes, and he
pointed out that the first $183 of the rent that his renters pay go to pay property
taxes. That's the first $183 every month.
Atkins/That's not all us though, remember.
Elliott/Pardon?
Atkins/That's not all us.
Elliott/No, no, that' s the taxes that are... (several talking at once).
Lehman/We may get into a sales tax discussion at some point over the year. I think
we're really.., are there other things relative to the budget that we need to tell
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Steve. Are there other issues? ! think the sales tax issue is something we are
going to debate...
Atkins/We can make that a future agenda item.
Elliott/That will be hotly debated, ! think, right here on the Council.
Wilburn/There are no conditions in the community that indicate to me that there would
be the will to pass one.
Lehman/Well we were so poorly done the last time, but.., all right.
Elliott/! just think it' s important to point out whoever might have heard or will read
about our discussion tonight, that our staff is significantly appreciated and we
certainly want them to be paid fairly and competitively. No doubt about that.
Champion/...well maybe ! don't know, but if we used it for the library, the library would
be paid for .... instead of paying all this interest and paying it over a 20 year
period.
Atkins/... we went through all that.
Champion/It all would have been paid for in three years.
Atkins/Yeah, it was a real short... (several talking at once)
Lehman/... we had so many things that by the time we had something in there to make
everybody angry (laughter) no we though we put something in there to make
everybody happy and we did. One thing that made them happy, four that made
them mad, and it got beat. 80 to 20 almost. (several talking at once)
Atkins/Anything else, Ernie?
Lehman/! have nothing else. Thank you, folks.
Atkins/Thank you all for your attention. Good night, all. See you Thursday night.
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Council work session of January 27, 2004.