HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-02-02 Transcription February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 1
February 2, 2004 Council Work Session 6:55 PM
Council: Bailey, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilbum;
Champion arrived at 7:00 p.m.
Staff: Atkins, Davidson, Dilkes, Dulek, Fosse, Franklin, Helling, Karr, McCafferty
TAPE: 04-18, BOTH SIDES; 04-19, SIDE ONE
REVIEW ZONING ITEMS
a. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR FEBRUARY 17 ON
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE ZONING CODE REGARDING
REQUIREMENTS FOR RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS IN THE COMMERCIAL
OFFICE (CO-l) ZONE.
Franklin/The first item is to set a public hearing for February 17th on an ordinance amending the
zoning code regarding requirements for religious institutions in the Commercial Office
zone.
b. REZONING APPROXIMATELY 1.26 ACRES OF PROPERTY FROM CENTRAL
BUSINESS SUPPORT ZONE (CB-5) TO PUBLIC/CENTRAL BUSINESS
SUPPORT ZONE (P/CB-5) FOR THE EAST HALF OF BLOCK 102 EXCEPT
THE 301 SOUTH DUBUQUE STREET PROPERTY. (REZ03-00028)
(1) PUBLIC HEARING
(2) CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/Item b is a public hearing and first consideration on the rezoning of approximately 1.26
acres of property from Central Business Support, CB-5, to Public Central Business
Support, P/CB-5, the east half of block 102. This is the site of the Court Street
Transportation Center and requires the slash in the zoning because we are going to have
some private use of leasing space there. OK?
Vanderhoef/Slash?
Franklin/Yeah, P--it'll be P slash CB-5.
Vanderhoef/Oh.
Franklin/Which indicates---
(Laughter)
Vanderhoef/I just didn't know where you were going with "slash."
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February 2, 2004 Cotmcil Work Session Page 2
Franklin/A new zone with slash. We can talk about that.
Vanderhoef/Oh, OK.
c. VACATING A PORTION OF THE RIGHT-OF-WAY LOCATED ADJACENT TO 425
BELDON AVENUE. (VAC03-00004)
(1) PUBLIC HEARING
(2) CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/ Next item is vacating a portion of the right-of-way located adjacent to 425 Beldon
Avenue. OK, what this is about is about conveying square footage of Grove Street. The
square footage of Grove at Beldon in exchange for the vacation ora portion of Grove
Street so that the fight-of-way follows the line of the property as it has been used. Did that
make any sense?
O'DonnelI/I'm sure it did to you so---
(Laughter)
Franklin/OK. Evidently what has happened is that over time the property at 425 Beldon has
scootched into the Grove Street right-of-way. Likewise, the paving of the Grove-Beldon
intersection has encroached upon 425 Beldon, and so we're just doing a swap to have that
all come out good in the wash.
Lehman/OK.
Franklin/OK?
Elliott/Everything's hunky-dory with the owners?
Franklin/Yes.
Elliott/OK.
d. REZONING APPROXIMATELY 119.94 ACRES FROM INTERIM DEVELOPMENT
SINGLE-FAMILY, IDRS, AND INTERIM DEVELOPMENT MULTIFAMILY,
IDRM, TO PLANNED DEVELOPMENT OVERLAY--SINGLE-FAMILY
RESIDENTIAL, OPDH-5, SUBJECT TO CONDITIONS, FOR PROPERTY
LOCATED SOUTH OF PEPPERWOOD ADDITION AND EAST OF GILBERT
STREET. (REZ03-00020)
(1) PUBLIC HEARING
(2) CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 3
Franklin/OK, Item d is public hearing and first consideration on Sandhill. The amended
conditional zoning agreement as directed by the City Council has been signed by the
applicants so that you're free, if you wish, to close the public hearing and move onto your
first consideration. I don't have anything else on this item. Any questions from the
Council?
e. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING APPROXIMATELY 16.1 ACRES FROM
RESIDENTIAL FACTORY BUILT HOUSING (RFBH) TO PLANNED
DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY-12 (OPDH-12) AND AN OPDH PLAN
FOR PROPERTY ON HEINZ ROAD. (REZ03-00024) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Franklin/OK. Item e is pass and adopt on the rezoning of the property abutting the paddock in
the Saddlebrook development along Heinz Road that you've had discussion of in the past.
That's pass and adopt.
f. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING APPROXIMATELY 26.98 ACRES FROM
HIGHWAY COMMERCIAL, CH-l, TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY
(SAO/CH-1) FOR PROPERTY LOCATED WEST OF MORMON TREK
BOULEVARD AND SOUTH OF HIGHWAY 1. (REZ03-00027) (PASS AND
ADOPT)
g. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY PLAT OF J JR
DAVIS ADDITION, IOWA CITY, IOWA (SUB03-00027)
Franklin/Item f is the rezoning from CH-1 to SAO/CH-1. This is the Davis subdivision on
Mormon Trek and Highway 1. This is pass and adopt and then Item g is the preliminary
plat of this subdivision. Both of them will need to be deferred to February 17th if we
haven't heard from the Corps by tomorrow. The applicant's engineer is attempting to get
something written from the Corps of Engineers before your meeting tomorrow night, but
if we're not successful in that, we'll then ask you to defer it.
Vanderhoef/And you did say mitigation is going to be yet on the property?
Franklin/Mitigation is on the property; there's also compensatory wetlands that are off-site that
are across Highway 1, north of Highway 1, on property that's owned by the Davises, west
of 218 and north of Highway 1. So you know where all that grading's going on?
Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm.
Franklin/Back down the hill from there, they have compensatory wetlands there. And all of that
has to be approved by the Corps and that's what we're waiting for.
O'Donnell/Karin, I had one question on e. It says this is going to approve 78 dwelling units.
Franklin/Correct.
O'Donnell/Was the old plan 66? We increased by 127
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 4
Franklin/That's correct.
O'Donnell/OK. That's all I had.
Franklin/OK. I'm done.
Lehman/Thank you.
Franklin/You're welcome.
AGENDA ITEMS
Lehman/Agenda time.
5. L CORRESPONDENCE. (1) MARK PATTON AND BRAD LANGGUTH, IOWA
VALLEY HABITAT FOR HUMANITY: LOTS IN THE SOUTHEAST SECTION
OF THE CITY.
Vanderhoef/There was a letter about the Habitat for Humanity and how to assist them in finding
lots that were not in the district south of Highway 6, which is similar to the problem that
we have with one of our CDBG grants. And I think we need to talk to them or send them
a letter and let them know sort of where we are on investigating this whole process.
Atkins/I'll take care of that. I'm assuming a status letter of the Scattered Site Housing Policy is
still doing its thing and that's what you want?
Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm. Yes. That's what I want. What does everybody else want?
Lehman/Well, I think that's an issue that, you know, was going to be a subject of work session
as soon as we get through with budget.
Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm.
Lehman/Well---
Atkins/Well, xve've already started the work and certainly Habitat's a player in the Provision of
Housing so I quite frankly, giving them an update, I don't think does any harm. Just
here's where we are.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/I'll take care of that.
Lehman/While we're talking about that, Steve?
Atkins/Yup.
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SCATTERED SITE HOUSING
Lehman/We talked about going to work on Scattered Site Housing at some point.
Atkins/Right.
Lehman/It's going to have to be the subject of a work session.
Atkins/Right.
Lehman/Do we have any idea when we're going to do that?
Atkins/We sent a memo--Karin? We sent a memo to you, it seems like about a month ago, that
outlines a schedule and it took us into about like June when we'd have that?
Franklin/Yeah, probably into June before it formally gets to the Council. HCDC has selected
three members to be on the committee. We're working through now the membership of
the committee.
Lehman/OK.
Franklin/And we'll get an update memo out to you as to what the process is going to be.
Lehman/OK. I didn't know the process--I guess I didn't read my mail as closely as I should. I
wanted to be sure the committee was getting formed.
Vanderhoef/Is it all City and Commission folk or are ~ve getting outside developers and---
Franklin/Well, we've just been talking about that today. Steve Nasby and I were talking about it
today, and one of the other players that we were thinking definitely needs to be involved
is the school district.
O'Donnell/School.
Franklin/So we're going to ask the district to appoint somebody. At this point we're looking at
the three HCDC members, a school representative, people from the staff in the various
programs that are involved in housing. And then having a, doing some background work
to get some factual data, and then going out to various groups which would include
consumers of affordable housing, builders of affordable housing, neighborhoods, all of
those people that have an interest in this for some kind of input. But to have everybody
represented on the committee could get quite unwieldy.
Vanderhoef/No, I was just was curious how we were going to reach people like Greater Iowa
City Housing Fellowship and Habitat.
Franklin/Mm-hmm. Yeah.
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Vanderhoef/And individual developers and such.
Franklin/That's our thought at this point.
Elliott/I don't know how the rest of the Council feels but I think it ~vould be good for the
Council to get an update somewhere in there to see if the t~vo sides of the Council and the
Committee are working off of the same book.
Franklin/Mm-hmm.
Elliott/And have the same thoughts.
Franklin/Fine. OK, if that's agreeable---
Lehman/Will there be a representative from the police department on that group as well?
Franklin/I've thought about that.
Lehman/I mean, they deal with these issues. So I mean I would think they might be a very good
perspective.
Franklin/OK.
Champion/We need also, I think, there's a difference between affordable housing and (can't
hear)
Lehman/Yes.
Franklin/Oh, definitely.
Champion/So, I think when we're talking about what we're really talking about is low-income
housing.
Franklin/Yeah.
Champion/And not affordable housing, which is quite different.
Franklin/Affordable is relative.
Elliott/Yeah.
Atkins/Ernie, I'd remind you that a brief discussion during a policy decision is---
Lehman/ Oh, yeah, we're going to be in trouble.
Franklin/We're getting the look.
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Lehman/We're getting the look.
Atkins/Eleanor's---
Lehman/ Usually we get it from Eleanor. Now we're getting from Steve.
Atkins/Eleanor taught me the look so---
(Laughter)
Lehman/I think she handed the ball offto him. OK. Other agenda items?
17. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING EXECUTION OF A ONE-YEAR
AGREEMENT BETWEEN JOHNSON COUNTY, IOWA, AND THE CITY OF
IOWA CITY IN WHICH JOHNSON COUNTY AGREES TO PROVIDE $75,000
TO SUPPORT THE OPERATIONAL COST OF THE SENIOR CENTER IN
FISCAL YEAR 2004.
O'Donnell/I had a question on, not a question, on number 17, Senior Center funding from the
county. Does anybody think that it would be worthwhile to pick a group from the
Council, excuse me, to sit down and see if we couldn't work on an agreement that would
move beyond one year and $75,000?
Lehman/You know, you might be a better judge of that than anybody else--you work with these
folks.
Champion/I think at this point it would be a waste of time.
(Laughter)
O'Donnell/Fine.
Champion/Until something is more stabilized in everybody's budget.
Lehman/OK.
O'Donnell/I just think you need another, the county now is $75,000, and there is no agreement
so next year it could be zero.
Champion/We've had to pay it before.
Lehman/That wasn't any good either.
Vanderhoef/But the agreements always have that six-month or eight-month kind of up out---
O'Donnell/What I'm trying to do is find out if maybe we shouldn't see if we couldn't get
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 8
another agreement longer than a year and more than $75,000.
Champion/Mike, you're ~velcome.
Vanderhoef/I don't think you're wrong, Mike, because I think we need to keep reminding them
of this and whether we do it by letter to go on record to say that we will accept this for
one year, but it certainly is not our expectation to continue this way, something along that
line.
Elliott/I like Mike's thought though; I'm a firm believer in--I think from what I've heard--there
has been the County talks to the Senior Center, the Senior Center talks to us, and we tend
to--and then we exchange letter, and I really like sitting down and looking people in the
eye and getting a feel for not only ~vhat they're saying but how they feel about what
they're saying. I think it'd be beneficial.
Lehman/Would the Council like to see Mr. Elliott and---
Elliott/See what you've done, Mike.
Lehman/...Mr. O'Dormell meet with the County Board?
Vanderhoef/Oh, yeah.
Lehman/You guys have got a job. Let us know what you find out. Any other agenda or Council
time?
Dilkes/Are we deferring 17 or going ahead with 177
Lehman/Well, I think we have to move forward with it, yeah.
Elliott/Now the, there was a lot in here about second mortgages and is now the time to ask about
that?
Lehman/Yeah.
Elliott/i'd just like a clarification. The subordination second mortgage, I presume staff has
looked at the financial aspects of those and the City is in good, OK, fine.
Atkins/This is the, my, the planning staff as well as---
Dilkes/There has to be enough equity in the property to cover our interests.
Elliott/So I need, just reassure me from time to time.
5(1)(10). Consent Calendar
Lehman/There was a note, I think, in this packet relative to the amount of time that we give the
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 9
public at public hearings.
Vanderhoeff Yes.
Lehman/Are you folks in agreement that we allow the applicant--and I think there probably are
many cases where it may not require as much time--but we'll let the applicant have more
than five minutes to present their side. And also I'd like very much if we do this to have
th.e City present their--or the Planning and Zoning Commission--give them 10 or 15
minutes and then give the applicant 10 or 15 minutes and then go back and we'll allow
the public limited time. Is that?
Bailey/At the formal meeting.
Lehman/Right.
Vanderhoef/I would like to ask about the process at the P and Z meeting. The way I read this
letter from Mr. Holland was that they felt cut off in the same fashion at P and Z meeting
that staffhad a full continuous period to present the process and they had such a short
time to respond to the staff at that point, so I don't know that we could do anything about
the rules other than send, if we change our approach then, I ~vould suggest then that the P
and Z look at similar---
Wilburn/Excuse me, Bob.
Elliott/No, go fight ahead.
Wilburn/I think it'd be a fair thing to do and it would help with public education. I don't agree
with all of his reasoning because it's not like they don't, the developer, attorneys, they
don't approach us and have a private audience, you know, private meetings just like other
citizens do, so there's an opportunity there for that as well. But I think it'd be fine to do it.
Lehman/I'm not real sure that P and Z limits the applicant to five minutes either. I think that they
get a longer time to give their presentation. I think it is absolutely normal and expected.
Our staff works for us and I do think there's always going to be more contact between our
staff people and our Planning and Zoning Commission and our staff people and us, as
there should be. So, I mean, I don't have a problem with that. I mean that's part of the---
Champion/I think to most people it's not a problem.
Lehman/No, I don't think it's a problem. I just---
Champion/ But with a particular case there was a lot of discussion---
Lehman/Right.
Champion/They did feel cheated.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 10
Lehman/Well, we're going to uncheat them from now on if that's OK.
Elliott/We got a letter and we thought there was some legitimacy to the letter, and I would
assume Plarming and Zoning will evaluate its fairness.
Bailey/Well, I like the opportunity that (can't hear) provides for public education. I think that's
terrific. That's one step forward as well.
Lehman/Yeah, I think the last time, the issue that we're talking about, there was only one side
presented publicly and that was the side of the applicant, and the public, if they were
watching or sitting here listening, honestly did not know what the proposal really was. So
I think we'll try to see to it that we present both sides. Any other-~-
Vanderhoef/Did---
Lehman/I'm sorry.
Vanderhoef/It was alluded to that P and Z saw the letter and I'm not sure that they did see the
letter so---
Atkins/On this item from Joe, Dee?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Atkins/We'll see that they get a copy of it.
Vanderhoef/Thank you.
Atkins/Yeah.
O'Donnell/I think, Ernie, you're just going to have to do that case by case--it's just---
Lehman/Oh, no, no, but I just don't want--you know, we have a rule that says five minutes and 1,
there are times and there was this one time in particular when the applicant really, really
needed more than five minutes, and I think appropriately should have been given more
than five minutes. But I hate to break rules without Council approval.
O'Donnell/I really hate you to break rules, too.
Lehman/Is there anything else for Council time?
MELROSE AVENUE/GRAND AVENUE TRAFFIC STUDY
Lehman/OK. Melrose Avenue. Mr. Davidson.
Davidson/This is a project that at least for five of you should be somewhat familiar. It came out
of the issue we had last year with the vacation of Grand Avenue Court that was requested
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by the University of Iowa. It developed into a bit of an issue. That vacation which was in
conjunction with the Athletic Clearing Center was constructed, was approved, and has
been conveyed to the University, the south half. As part of the approval of that, Council
requested a committee be formed to take--there were a lot of issues that ~vere raised
during that discussion and Council decided that it would be a worthwhile idea to form a
committee with representatives from the University, University of Iowa Hospitals and
Clinics, the City of course, JCCOG, myself kind of wearing two hats as usual, and the
Melrose Avenue Neighborhood Association. So, such a committee was formed. We hired
a consultant, Earthtech to help us through the analysis of alternatives in this area, and
what I thought we'd do is just briefly go through the report. I mean, the report is
essentially the committee's response to you as to what was determined. There are some
recommendations in there that will require subsequent decision making by the City
Council and by the University of Iowa. We kind of want to apprise you of what some of
those priorities are as well. So, let's just kind of briefly run through the report. The
committee did finish their work several months ago. We've had the report for a couple of
months. There may very well be some things that if you want some additional detail on, I
may need to check back with the consultant and find out exactly why something was
determined a particular way and I'll be happy to do that. What we intend to do is put a
resolution on your agenda at the next Council meeting, essentially adopting the report,
accepting it as a document to be used for this further decision making then. Study area
that you see there, I mean, that is something that actually got a lot of discussion,
specifically as to how far west to extend it. It was determined that the decision making in
'96 or '97, I can't remember just exactly when it was, when Melrose Avenue, that portion
of Melrose Avenue further west was reconstructed, the determination was made that was
pretty much a done deal, that we weren't going to go back and change that, that the
decision making on that section of Melrose Avenue was done by ordinance and basically
something that was worked out with the Neighborhood Association, that we weren't
going to go back and change that at this point. And so that led to the west boundary that
you see there. This shows the area in a little bit more detail, Grand Avenue Court right
here. This is the portion that has been vacated; the Athletic Learning Center is now right
here. I put this in--I actually had hoped to, if you don't mind, I see you all have your
copies of your report--if you turn to page 9, I'd actually hoped to get that yellow box that
you see there on page 9, which is underneath this--there are a lot of functions to the
streets in this area that we are trying to accommodate in our looking at this, and for those
that are in the audience and don't have a copy of the report, obviously, the thru-traffic
function of the streets in this area, the access to the Pacilities in this area, the primarily
University facilities, a 10t of bus mutes that go through this area--this area provides the
main access to the emergency vehicles going to the University of Iowa Hospitals, delivery
vehicles--there are many in this area. There is some parking, primarily in lots and ramps,
although there is a small amount of off-street on-street parking. Certainly pedestrians and
bicyclists--I mean this is truly, truly a multi-modal area, and then utility considerations--
those things, that some are visible, some are not visible. We have a real rat's nest of
utilities in this area. And all of those things I just named had to be taken into
consideration, none of them neglected, and some type of compromise worked out for the
various issues that came up. Let's see. By the way, we're both seeing this PowerPoint
presentation for the first time--hope you don't mind.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 12
(Laughter)
Davidson/It just got put together this afternoon so if I, if it gets mixed up, we'll just bail out and
use the report; but otherwise, I thought it would be helpful to put a few of these graphics
up. Each of the--not to belabor the point--but each of the groups involved in the
committee did come with kind of their own sets of issues and priorities. I was very
pleased, I'll tell you upfront, with how all the issues were worked out. We did end up
with a final report that essentially had the concurrence of everyone involved, which at the
beginning of the process, I would have thought might be a miracle for us to get to that
point. But we did do that very successfully. And one other thing that I think is important
is the analysis of this and the recommendations that were arrived at are not for football
Saturdays. Football Saturdays will still be football Saturdays. We're not trying to
accommodate that in these recommendations. Essentially, for five or six days of the year
there will still be the same massive traffic situation that we see--we're not trying to fix
that with these solutions. The committee did meet three times in between which the
consultant did their work, and the consultant's team did include a University traffic
consultant that had been working with the University. We were able to get kind ora
combined approach by the two consultants, which was helpful. The first thing we did was
go area by--kind of take the study area and form sub-areas to take a look at. I provided an
example of the Byington Road-Grand Avenue here just to kind of walk through an
example of what was done for all the sub-areas in the study area ~vhere we essentially
took this intersection which I think most of us are familiar with; one of the things that we
noted in collecting data for and analyzing the area was that when we took what we did,
we looked at the crash data for the entire area and we noted that something that concerned
us ~vas this moving of vehicles proceeding south and then wanting to make a left turn
down the hill. There was a higher crash rate than there should be, given the volume of
traffic for that movement. There were actually many more crashes down at the big
intersection down here but the rate was really OK, what you would expect for that
intersection. So this was one we especially wanted to look at. What we would do for each
of the sub-areas was, as you see here, list the problems that were perceived at this
intersection. And these were the problems that were perceived by all members of the
community, of the committee, excuse me, and as you can see, eastbound queue from
Riverside Drive backs up into the intersection, that happens daily. Few gaps for
eastbound thru movements. Southbound, left turn, this was the one I was just talking
about. Eastbound transit buses have difficulty entering the traffic stream. That's vehicles
entering the traffic stream here--vehicles come careening down the hill and it's hard to get
into traffic at that point. And Grand Avenue Court access from the east also disrupts that
traffic flow somewhat. I mean, that's minimized now that it's not a thru street, but there is
still some of that. So, the problems outlined and then we would go through--OK, what are
we going to do? And we would develop a series of alternatives. This one, obviously, what
do you do about that left turn crash rate? Keep them from doing it. OK? Great. Build a
median. You can't do that anymore. Essentially, you'd have to go up and go all the way
around the loop, but that is a way to eliminate the crash rate. For each of the alternatives
again, we would go through a series, all right, what are the benefits? What are the
disadvantages to doing each one of these? And we would go through and say, OK, that's
alternative one, here's alternative two. We also have an issue with vehicles coming out
and entering the traffic stream. Let's straighten out the geometry here a little bit, make
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 13
better sight distance, and improve the radius of this curve here. As you can see, that
would involve a retaining wall--that's the blue area right there. And then, you know, once
again, your benefits and disadvantages of doing that. Let's keep modifying it. We want to
try and allow left tums into Grand Avenue Court, so we're going to carve out a piece of
the median here. Not a super important thing because that's not a thru street anymore. It
doesn't have that many turning movements. And then we even would look at things that,
you know, instinctively didn't seem like good ideas. All right, we built the median here to
keep people from making that left turn, but what if we opened it up and let them make
that left turn again? You know, we really tried to mn the gamut of everything that we
were going to take a look, excuse me, take a look at and come up with the advantages and
disadvantages. So we did that for the Melrose-South Grand area, which is the area up by
the Fieldhouse and Slater Hall and the parking facilities up there. The bus stop area in
front of Slater Hall--that was detemfined by the University to be an issue with the thru-
traffic competing with the bus traffic eastbound in that area. The Byington-Grand Avenue
area, which we just used as an example to go through, the Grand Avenue-Riverside
intersection, the big intersection down at the base of the hill--what we found in the traffic
analysis is that intersection really controls the whole situation. That's a very important
control point. No matter how many improvements you make in this area up here, that
intersection down there, because of the way traffic backs up through it, is, you have
limitations on ho~v good you're ever going to make things. A couple of other things we
looked at that I've illustrated here is we wanted to take a look at what the impact of
making Byington two-way through here; it goes to one-way about right at this point now.
What if we made that a two-way system? I think all of us know there are some real
advantages in one-way systems--eliminate all the opposing left tums that a vehicle has to
yield for. But we thought we'd take a look at this anyway. And for many of us who have
been around for quite some time, there's a diagonal, which has been out there as an idea
for years. This was one that right upfront the University said, you know, we're not thrilled
about this and I think everybody realized the reality of the situation that if the University
determined it wasn't going to happen, it wasn't going to happen because we don't have
the same ability to condemn property of the University's that we would in a normal
project. But the University did agree to at least take a look at this. This really doesn't fit
in with their redevelopment plans in the area, the Athletic Learning Center, and some of
the other things. You know, they see this as a potential redevelopment site. They do own
ali the properties now. But they did at least allow us to take a look at it. We looked at a
couple of sort of wild ones, if you will. Right here, this is the law school. We looked at
extending a street--there used to be a street that ran down the side of the bluff. You can
still tell where it came out--there's a house right there. You can still tell that that road
comes out. We actually looked at a big substantial project, major elevation change, cut
through natural area. But we took a look at it anyway. This one, I ~vas personally hoping
to be able to do so we could name it after Karin Franklin when she retires.
(Laughter)
Davidson/This is a bridge and man it'd be a big one, let me tell you. It would probably take off
from the top of the bluff on this side and go all the way over to Court Street. You know,
this had some, you'd end up probably making Burlington and Court into some kind of a
one-way system. But some real issues with doing that.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 14
(Laughter)
Vanderhoef/Really.
Davidson/But I want you to know we looked at everything. We ended up with a table then that
kind of summarized, you remember we have all these things up here that we're trying to
accommodate--thru traffic, local access buildings, transit service, emergency vehicles,
delivery trucks, on-street parking, pedestrians, bicycles, and utilities. We went through
and kind of graded things--if they're about same as existing, slight improvement, major
improvement, or slight problems, major problems, and tried to kind of put a ranking like
this together. What this did is we had 17 alternatives we'd looked at, 10 of them dropped
out. And we were just left with what we considered to be the seven best ones. The
consultant then after reviewing them with the committee went back to work, massaged
them, did a detailed traffic analysis on each one, and if you turn to page 31, you can see
all the things. Well, at Table 5 there is this table that we're looking at. But thru traffic,
transit, emergency vehicles, delivery trucks, everything you can see there we went
through. One of the things that we decided to take a look at was this notion of a one-way
loop, and we can go back on and off--yeah, OK. You know, because of the advantages
inherent in one-way traffic as opposed to t~vo-~vay, we thought, well, what would happen
if we did a loop here? A one-way loop. You know, obviously you're going to create some
problems when you do that, but you're also going to fix some problems when you do that.
When we, if you look at that Table 5, initially there were a lot of problems with doing
that, as you can see here. Significant issues with transit service, emergency vehicles,
delivery trucks. What we ended up with was a, what ~ve called a modified, to specifically
alleviate those issues that you just saw all those negative twos there, the decision was
made. All right, we're going to make this a two-way street in here. We're still going to
have two-way traffic on this. That was a big help for the University emergency room. A
big help for transit vehicles. The other piece that transit vehicles needed--we're going to
leave a contra-flow lane in here so a transit vehicle can come down here, have some type
of a radio-controlled or card-operated system and be able to get down in front of Slater
Hall and still be able to--and this is as you might imagine between Rienow and Slater,
that's a major, major, major transit stop for the University of Iowa. They didn't want to
have to run their buses down the back here and have a transit stop down at the bottom of
the hill. So that was agreed as part of that as well. The other thing we decided because it
didn't affect many vehicles and it would be a major inconvenience--is Grand Avenue
Court vehicles would be able to come and go left, which is the one-way loop direction, or
still go right down this contra-flow lane that was there for transit vehicles. So that became
the modified one-way loop system, and basically alleviated all those negative twos that
you saw on that table. And the committee ended up endorsing this concept. I mean, the
University representatives really, really scrutinized this carefully, but it was determined to
be something that and once again, this is the committee members that agreed on this, that
this was something that they would endorse, as something that the City and the University
should discuss and possibly decide to implement. So, then to kind of wrap it up,
essentially what we ended up with were some recommendations. This is one that I think
those of--most of you are familiar with--those of you who are on JCCOG are familiar
with because there's been some decision making already at JCCOG to fund this project
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 15
through some money available from JCCOG. But this is South Grand, here's Grand,
here's Melrose, Melrose Court is up here. And essentially you see, I've talked through
some of these things already, the right turn for authorized vehicles--that would be transit
and delivery vehicles here. We want to leave some handicapped parking here. There's
already some there. We wanted to make sure we didn't lose that. We want to try and
improve the situation for pedestrians in here. This is a fairly major pedestrian travel route
here. We want to have a median with a break, provide a refuge area. From a traffic
standpoint this would now be a five-lane section through here, which would--the major
improvement there, your thru-lane capacity would be improved by getting all the turning
vehicles out of the thru-lanes. This is a big traffic snafu right now. The parking facility 4,
which is right here for the University, is going to be expanded do~vn into this area and
just compound the existing problems that are there currently--so essentially this takes care
of that. We also want to allow an additional lane through here. The turning movements
are very, very difficult in here right now, and an additional lane would improve that. And
this intersection would be improved, the geometry of it, the ability, as any of you know
who have tried to get through here, all you need is one left-turning vehicle and all the
right turners which are 98 pement of the vehicles going through there, ail get stacked up
back behind that right turner, so this would alleviate that as well.
Vanderhoef/While you're at that corner, tell me how you have improved it for the thru traffic
going east on Melrose and that turning traffic trying to get onto Melrose.
Davidson/Well, remember, Dee, that the big snafu right now for eastbound traffic is this left
turn, and this would go away with the one-way loop system, which we haven't actually
got to, but I think most of you know that that's part of it. All the eastbound traffic would
be going straight through.
Vanderhoef/Yes, but the traffic that's coming out of the parking ramp that wants to go east---
Davidson/Mm-hmm.
Vanderhoef/OK, so they would go south and then to make that turn east---
Davidson/Yeah, they would have a, they would have their own left turn lane here to go east.
Vanderhoef/But there isn't any signalization.
Davidson/OK, that was something we looked at was possibly signalizing this and then working
these two signals, coordinate it with each other. It didn't look like from the traffic
analysis that we would need to do that at least initially. But certainly that's something that
we could accommodate in the future. With this increased lane geometry, that could be
done fairly simply. It could really not be done right now.
Vanderhoef/I'm thinking of peak time coming out of the ramps.
Davidson/Yeah, and one thing that I was going to say in my summary but let's just say it right up
front. We're not making it perfect here. OK. I mean, we rarely have the opportunity to
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 16
make it perfect and we're not making it perfect here.
Vanderhoeff Shucks.
Davidson/Yeah, I know. Overall, the traffic system in this area, the major intersections are at
level of service E, you've heard me use those terms--it ranges from A to F. E is not where
we like to see things. We like to see things around C and D. What you see on the street at
level of service E is what all of us have been through. During peak traffic periods it does
not work well. During off-peak traffic periods it works OK. You know, it works all right.
What we would do, Dee, at this intersection is improve it between 25 and 40 percent, so
that's a pretty good improvement but it does not make it perfect and you know, the same
constraint I said we had with the big intersection down here, you also have a similar
phenomenon down here on the three-lane section of Melrose. At certain times of the day,
that's, there's just not enough pavement there to accommodate the traffic volume.
Elliott/Jeff?.
Davidson/Yes.
Elliott/While you have that on there, would you go again, the street which appears to be going
north-south.
Davidson/Mm-hmm.
Elliott/That is basically one-way with something like an access road?
Davidson/No, this portion of it, Bob, is all two-way.
Elliott/Oh, OK.
Davidson/So that if an emergency vehicle or if you were going for a regular person in a motor
vehicle going to the emergency room, you'd be able to come down here, make a left, and
go to the emergency room.
Elliott/But you can't---
Davidson/You can't turn right there.
Elliott/OK. With the exception of the one again, whatever you call it, the little access.
Davidson/Mm-hmm. And one thing we discussed was all right, what if somebody accidentally
makes a left turn, gets back in here and realizes they don't want to be back there. That's
something that when the project's designed we would have to look for the opportunity for
U-tums to be made. Remember we have a lot wider pavements so that vehicle may be
able to make a U-turn. There's also probably plenty of opportunities to get up here into
some University parking areas and, you know, do a wide turn or something like that and
then come back out the way you wanted to go.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 17
Elliott/And my other question, when they come down Byington--I think that's out of the Quad
parking lot--come down there and they want to turn left but can't, they have to turn right.
Davidson/Right.
Elliott/Where are you leaving for the to U-ee and do you think they will or where will they U-
ee?
Davidson/That's the movement that's really not made any better by this project.
Elliott/Because there's a lot of cross pedestrian traffic right there too.
Davidson/What we do with this project, Bob, is we're trying to make people safer.
Elliott/Uh-huh.
Davidson/We know that there's a high crash rate with that left turn movement. Now, if you can
make that left turn movement, it's pretty fast, that to get eastbound---
Elliott/I just wondered where you're suggesting---
Davidson/What you would do is if you would come up, you basically have to do the whole loop
to get back and go the eastbound.
Elliott/You know they're going to try to find another way to do that.
Davidson/And that's why you've got to build that median. If you don't build that median, they'll
find a way to go.
Lehman/Yeah.
Elliott/Yeah.
Bailey/I have a question of Jeff. Just, he mentioned pedestrian--there's a raised median to allow
for pedestrian refuge area. Is there going to be some kind of crosswalk or---
Davidson/Oh, yeah, there'd be a marked crosswalk, and then by the way, there's sidewalks on
both sides. In fact, a big sidewalk here and a smaller one on this side.
Bailey/So would this be a marked crosswalk similar to what's over by the Med School that has,
it has a light that flashes?
Davidson/Oh, it can be whatever we want it to be.
Bailey/OK.
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Davidson/We're, I think, you may know- right now we're evaluating some high-visibility
crosswalk. There's a lot of ideas out there about pedestrian crosswalks, and we'd like to
see some evidence that they're actually effective before we recommend using them and
we're testing a bunch of those right now.
Bailey/Mm-hmm.
Davidson/We're going to be even testing more this spring, if you're interested, what are called
continental crosswalks, which are the big white squares that mark the crosswalk. We're
going to test those in a bunch of places and look at them before and after and see if
vehicles pay any more attention.
Bailey/OK.
Davidson/So you know you could something like that there as well.
Bailey/Yeah, OK, thanks.
Davidson/OK, this is that intersection we looked at earlier but this is the recommended
alternative, build the median out so that this left turn cannot be done. It makes a less
convenient movement for those people but that's a tradeoff for the increased safety. You
would be able to come down here. This area would be reconstructed such that a vehicle
coming down Byington could come up here and then make a left turn. We also want to
improve the geometry of this intersection here so that vehicles coming down can get into
the system at this point a little more easily. Improve the, probably, maybe the big expense
is improving this radius here and that would entail the retaining wall that you see here as
well. But it ~vould make this a much more comfortable. You know, if that's the way,
essentially we're going to make everybody go, we thought it would be good to make that
an uncomfortable movement as you see here. And we also left this so that with this
geometry this could potentially be a signalized intersection there. I mean, if you wanted
to. We wouldn't do it initially but you could possibly signalize that if you needed to at
some point in the future.
Champion/The cars that are going east---
Davidson/Mm-hmm.
Champion/...I thought that was just going to be (can't hear)
Davidson/Right.
Champion/...Grand Avenue so why would we need to signalize that?
Davidson/Actually at this intersection I've, well, we don't think you would. But if there was ever
any need to, our consultant did look at it far enoug~ to know that that would be set up and
it could accommodate that. We would all be transit vehicles, delivery vehicles and
potentially emergency vehicles would all be that would be using that.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 19
Vanderhoef/I'm not an engineer but it appears to me that it would be easier and less costly to
widen the curb on the opposite side.
Davidson/You know, I'm not an engineer either.
(Laughter)
Davidson/And the ones that did this were engineers so---
(Laughter)
Vanderhoef/I understand. I'm just thinking of the retaining wall and the bluff to cut down there.
Davidson/Yeah. Well, that would be something when we got around to designing the project
certainly one thing the engineers will tell you is that retaining wails are expensive and if
there's another way to do it, we'd, you kno~v, try and figure that out.
Vanderhoef/Yeah. That's (can't hear) thinking.
Davidson/And maybe that's another thing I should clarify. This has received ;vhat's called a
planning level analysis. The report was initially produced with no cost estimates in it at
all for the recommended improvements. We said, hey, listen, we need, you need to do just
a real cursory kind of look at some of the costs, so it's only been a real cursory look at the
costs. And further analysis, Dee, could make some sense that way.
Elliott/Where you have that left turn arrow right above, right there.
Davidson/Mm-hmm.
Elliott/Are you going to rely on signs to make that very uninviting for people coming down
Byington and thinking, oh, I'll just sneak right across there and turn down that way.
Davidson/Yeah. I mean, we need to make sure that that's designed and signed and pavement
marked and everything so---
Elliott/They're going to try to find every way they can to keep from driving around the block.
Davidson/But there's a way to design that so it works.
Elliott/Great. Yes.
Lehman/Jeff; if what you've shown us which is obviously the realignment of Byington and
Grand Avenue and South Grand, is that all part of the project that we have JCCOG
recommended funding and---
Davidson/Yeah, this---
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 20
Lehman/...and it's going to start this spring? Or summer.
Davidson/This is the project that JCCOG's recommended funding for. The $400,000 project that
the University's going to pay the local match for, that's this. Now, as part of this, the
report suggests--and remember this will take the rest of this year to design. I'm not sure
they plan on starting construction this year, get a design this year and build it next year, I
think is the intention, Emie.
Lehman/OK.
Davidson/So that gives us a couple of years to decide what we're going to do about the one-way.
Lehman/So this does not--what we're talking about now is strictly South Grand Avenue. We're
not talking about Byington.
Davidson/OK, but it would be nice to design this part of the project up here and have it---
Elliott/Yes.
Lehman/Right.
Davidson/...have the one-way loop decided one way or another so that we can design this part of
the project accordingly. The other thing--you do not have to do all of this to implement
the one-way loop. But you do need to extend the median up here. At a minimum you need
to extend the median up there to eliminate this left turn. You can do that without this big
retaining walI and improve the radius of this curve.
Lehman/You can do that with your canes, can't we?
(Laughter)
Elliott/Quiet. There's a way to do it.
Bailey/(can't hear) somewhere.
Davidson/Well. To do this big project here with the retaining wall is another $450,000.
Bailey/Yes.
Davidson/So you--but I want to emphasize you don't have to do this to do that other one, but we
would need to, you know, temporarily extend the median up to eliminate those left tums.
We do recommend that.
Lehman/But that could be done rather inexpensively. Relatively.
Davidson/Relatively, yes. The other kind of high-dollar item that's part of the recommendations
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 21
is adding a right turn here, a separated right-turn lane. Right now it's a combined right
and thru-it. And although we, you know, we have a lot of traffic demand at this
intersection, there is some opportunity for some free right turn movements, right turn on
red basically, that right now get stacked up behind thru vehicles.
Lehman/Mm-hmm.
Davidson/So, that was the biggest improvement to make this intersection work better given the
constraints that we have, obviously the bridge being here, and the bluffs and some other
things. This was the one that really improved it. We also looked at making this a dual left
tm'n, because I think all of us know, it's not that uncommon to be stacked up in this left
turn and not get through on the initial cycle of the signal. That can happen even during
off-peak times. But believe it or not, that dual left turn lane, it was better to have the thru
capacity with the two thru-lanes than to make this a single thru or a thru here and a thru-
right. We looked at all those permutations and, believe it or not, leaving it this way was
the best. That's something we'll continue to look at in the future; those kinds of things
could change, but for now leaving this side the same worked the best.
Vanderhoef/Jeff?.
Davidson/Yes.
Vanderhoef/Before you move that, was there any discussion of putting--I know it's on a DOT
street, but on Highway 6--to make a right turn lane designated one to come to go up
Grand?
Davidson/Right turn lane--so in other words---
Vanderhoef/Headed south, headed south on Highway 6 and you want to turn west on Grand.
Right.
Davidson/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/That is a big impediment all the time for thru traffic.
Davidson/Mm-hmm. Now that's one of those, Dee, that I know they looked at but I'll have to
check back with the consultant and let you know at the next Council meeting exactly
what the conclusion was about that.
Vanderhoeff OK.
Champion/There's a lot of opportunity to go that direction---
TAPE 04-18, SIDE TWO
Davidson/...right turn on red because if you get stacked up behind thru vehicles--that happens all
over town.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 22
Vanderhoef/So, it gets reallyjammed---
Davidson/I mean, that's what we're trying to eliminate here. But the conclusion of the analysis,
Dee, was that this one was the one we really ought to try and get in there.
Vanderhoeff But there's space, isn't there, to do another lane in there?
Davidson/Yeah, there is space. I'm not so sure the space isn't on this side and then scootch
everything over because there's a pretty substantial bluff right there.
Lehman/Right.
VanderhoefJ Uh-huh.
Davidson/So, anyway, those are the major recommendations of the report. Let's see if there's
anything else ! was going to mention here. Oh, I mentioned that 20, in general, what the
whole, ail the recommendations do are at 25 to 40 percent improvement in thru-traffic
movements through here without making all those other factors, any of them, you know,
awful. This intersection though unfortunately it's only, it's more like 10 to 15 percent
improvement in this intersection. This is just such a massive intersection traffic-volume-
wise, it's hard to squeeze much more out of it. So, as I mentioned, we're going to ask if
you will consider adopting the report at the next meeting. Let me know if there's any
further information or detail that you need on anything. We're asking you to adopt it as
something to then provide further, you know, to use as a guide for the further decision
making. Even on the JCCOG project that we've been talking about, you know, the plans
and specs will eventually come to you for approval and that's when you'll have the real
scrutiny of that individual project. Is there anything you see here that you have a problem
with?
Lehman/Well, let me ask you this just for my own information. This ~vas a product of the
neighborhood, the University, the City, and Earthlink.
Davidson/Mm-hmm.
Lehman/Now, I believe you told us a month or so ago that you were pretty happy with this.
Davidson/I'm very happy.
Lehman/Given what we had to work with, you feel this is a well-designed---
Davidson/Given everything that had to receive some priority and the disparate viewpoints of
everyone involved, I'm very pleased with the results.
Lehman/Yes, OK.
O'Donnell/That was good.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 23
Lehman/Thank you.
Vanderhoef/The sad part of it is that we can't bring it to a higher use because we know the
traffic is going to get even worse.
Davidson/Mm-hmm. Do, let me see if! can do this at this meeting, do I have acknowledgment
that it's OK to go ahead with a one-way loop and pursue that with the University?
Champion/Sure.
O'Donnell/It's very good.
Lehman/Absolutely.
Davidson/OK.
Lehman/Oh, absolutely.
Davidson/So then xve can get that resolved when we're getting that other project designed. OK.
Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you. We have a request for a (can't hear)
O'Donnell/We just started.
Champion/I'm out.
Vanderhoef/What do you mean we just started? I don't know which clock you're looking at.
Atkins/Mm-hmm.
(BREAK)
HISTORIC PRESERVATION HANDBOOK
14. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ADOPTING REVISED DESIGN GUIDELINES AND
PROCEDURES FOR REVIEW OF PROJECTS THAT CHANGE THE
EXTERIOR APPEARANCE OF PROPERTIES IN HISTORIC AND
CONSERVATION DISTRICTS AND HISTORIC LANDMARKS.
Lehman/Historic Preservation Handbook.
McCafferty/Well, I just will presume that you have read this thoroughly and understand every
last phrase here. I just want to quickly summarize the major changes to the Historic
Preservation Handbook. The handbook was originally adopted in June of 2000. Prior to
this time the Historic Preservation Commission used the Secretary of Interior's standards
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 24
to evaluate projects. Those standards are in the handbook that you have now, the revised
handbook. They're very broad, rather loose. So, in 2000 they adopted these standards in
order to provide more specific guidance to Iowa's cities. Since that time the
Commission's had three years to evaluate the guidelines and the process and hence they
are proposing, recommending that you adopt a resolution to adopt this handbook. The
major changes to this--I think first of all what I'd say is a lot more information has been
added in here to clarify the process of historic preservation, both the designation of
landmarks, districts, as well as the historic review process. Previously, with the old
handbook there just ;vasn't enough specific information, so often, there was difficulty
with communication in the process. So this will alleviate much of that issue. It's been
reformatted for the purpose of being much more user-friendly. The Commission feels that
at this point basically you should be able to sit down, read this, read through the
introduction sections, sections 1 through 3, and understand the expectations that the
Commission has as well as then continue on with the guidelines. Trying to spell out all of
the anticipated situations that they can think of that would be common for people to come
to the Commission for approval of. Just a few specifics--on page 5 and 7, at the last
meeting we talked about this initial section. Dee Vanderhoef recommended the addition
of a couple flow charts, which ~ve thought (can't hear) good ideas. She also had another
recommendation in terms of doing a footnote. I received that today from Karin. Basically,
explaining what HDO and CDO meant. Conservation District Overlay and Historic
District Overlay. Let's see, one of the major changes that we had was to add a category
for non-historic properties. Currently we have two types of properties classifications in
Historic and Conservation districts. They are "noncontributing" and "contributing." What
this handbook does is it specifies, it clarifies non-historic properties. We have had some
issues in the recent past regarding the criteria for non-, making changes to non-historic
properties. What the Commission did with this is they classified those, they indicated the
non-historic properties on the maps in the back of the handbook, and basically the only
guidelines that the owner of a non-historic property has to comply with is that it does not
further detract from the district. It does not create a false historic character and is
compatible with the style and character of the non-historic property. So that's the criteria
for making changes. Any of the other guidelines do not apply to historic, non-historic
properties. So it provides a lot more flexibility for properties that are not considered to be
historically significant. Another change I'd like to point out since the last time you saw
the handbook in the information packet, ! don't remember how many meetings ago that
was at this point, it's been a few--is per the recommendation of the City Attorney some
additional criteria was added regarding possible changing of the classification. At this
time, classifications are based upon the professional recommendation of architectural
historians. Periodically there are erroneous classifications or as a property may be
changed and the classification therefore should be changed. It may be improved, most
likely it'd be improved but it may also be altered for the worse as well. So the criteria for
making changes to the classification of property has been specified. And so that criteria
was included in your packet of information for this meeting. In terms of the guidelines
themselves, they were massaged extensively but there were not major changes to them. A
lot of clarification of language, ~vhere "existing" is important versus "historic" or
"original." So you'll see a lot of minor changes within to make clarifications so that we
know specifically when we're talking about historic versus non-historic materials. There
were some guidelines that were added. Guidelines for site and landscaping, guidelines for
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 25
decks and ramps, some additional guidelines for demolition. They were reorganized as
the lowa City guidelines, based upon project types so that you could more easily figure
out what type, what guidelines apply to your particular project. And then I guess finally I
guess what I would say in terms of these changes is a lot of additional information was
added to educate the owner, the contractor and the public about properties. The section on
architectural styles has expanded to include multi family properties so that if you're doing
an apartment building, duplex or something, there would be more information on how to
design that. There was more information added in terms of definitions, terms,
architectural terms so that the guidelines would be better understood and you could
understand what the terms were. More guidelines, I guess, were also added in terms of
additions, ne~v construction. Previously there were no guidelines so we basically outlined
the expectations if you're doing a new building or an addition. I guess, do you have any
question specifically?
Lehman/What percentage of the folks who'd like to make improvements, remodel or whatever,
do we presently have--use the word "promised," but--my understanding the vast majority
of folks in Historic districts work with us very, very well and we really don't have very
many difficulties.
McCafferty/Right. Again, we've had only 2 percent.
Lehman/That's the number I was looking for.
McCafferty/Right. Of all 300 plus, I don't know the exact number, applications that have been
reviewed by the Historic Preservation Commission, only 2 percent of those have been
appealed to Council. I would say that taking those into account, plus some other cases
that we've had ~vhere there's been some contention between the Commission and the
applicant that at least half of those would have been taken care of had these guidelines
been in place.
Lehman/So, this really should streamline the process.
McCafferty. It should. This, and some other things that are being enacted, just procedural things
with staff should help things significantly, I think.
Lehman/Questions for Shelley?
Bailey/I did find this very interesting reading. I think it's very clear and it's a great job just to
become more informed on what's available and seeing what's out there.
McCafferty/Sure. That was the intent is to make it much more informative, much clearer.
Lehman/I think they worked really hard on this.
McCafferty/They were at it over a year I think. ! forget--it started, we quit for a while, thinking
that the ordinance was going to come in. That didn't happen and so we just proceeded
with it.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 26
Lehman/Well, thank you for your work.
O'Donnell/Thank you.
Champion/It's going to solve a lot of the phone calls that we get.
Lehman/Yeah. No, I think it's good.
McCafferty/I hope so.
11. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 3 ENTITLED "CITY
FINANCES, TAXATION AND FEES," CHAPTER 4, "SCHEDULE OF FEES,
RATES, CHARGES, BONDS, FINES, AND PENALTIES"; AMENDING TITLE
14 ENTITLED "UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT CODE," CHAPTER 3, "CITY
UTILITIES," ARTICLE A, "GENERAL PROVISIONS," SECTION 14-3A-2,
"DEFINITIONS," AND SECTION 14-3A-4, "RATES AND CHARGES FOR CITY
UTILITIES"; AND AMENDING TITLE 14 ENTITLED "UNIFIED
DEVELOPMENT CODE," CHAPTER 3, "CITY UTILITIES, ARTICLE G,
'STORMWATER COLLECTION, DISCHARGE AND RUNOFF," TO CREATE
A STORMWATER UTILITY AND ESTABLISH A STORMWATER UTILITY
FEE. (DEFERRED FROM 1/20) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Lehman/Mr. Rick. When the snow melts, does that form storm water?
Fosse/Yes, it does.
Lehman/OK. We're about ready to deal with it.
Fosse/And that can be some of the nastiest runoff that's been---
Lehman/Is there a little salt with it?
Fosse/Salt and also it just accumulates ghme all winter long. What I want to do tonight is review
the Chamber proposal with you and answer any questions that you may have and
hopefully get you in a position to make a decision tomorrow night on where you want to
go with this. And in the simplest of terms, the Chamber proposal goes about the fee
structure a little bit differently than what was proposed by staff. And what they're
proposing is something that's more aligned with the way that we charge for water and
~vastewater now where you have a base fee, or a minimum charge, and then an
incremental charge on top of that. And it also proposes some credits and in this case,
credits for having like the NPDS permit for stormwater runoff and quality.
Atkins/Rick, you want to explain NPD?
Fosse/Oh, OK. That's the National Pollution Discharge Elimination---
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Atkins/System.
Fosse/I'd need to write it out to get it all right, but basically it's a permit; it's a federal permit
administered by the state that applies to some industrial uses in town and they need to get
that in order to operate, and presumably businesses that have those permits in place really
have done everything that's necessary with regard to stormwater quality. Now, there's
still stormwater quantity issues there. So, from staff's perspective, the Chamber proposal
is a logical one. It works within the database that we already have. We're not throwing
out the upfront work that we've already done. And it keeps, I'm sorry, and then the credit
system that they're proposing is relatively easy to administer. Now that may gro~v into
something over time that is more difficult to administer but at least initially if you only
factor in that one component, that's relatively easy for us to do. Now the Chamber had
put together some different scenarios with different base fees and different incremental
costs, and all of them produce about the same revenue stream. It's just a matter of how
you want to divvy it up. I believe that one had a base fee of $2.50 and the incremental unit
is 25 cents. Or you could go with a base fee of $2.25 and an incremental of 50 cents. Or a
base fee of $2.00, which is what our existing proposal is and then an incremental fee of
75 cents. They all produce about $715,000 of annual revenue which isn't too far off from
our original proposal that came out of the Economic Development Committee, which was
about $735,000, and both of those figures represent before credits. As nearly as we can
determine, there are about 17 customers out them that have those permits and I don't
think the financial impact would be too significant on our total revenue stream.
Questions?
Lehman/Do you have a recommendation?
Fosse/I wasn't at the Chamber board meeting but my sense of things is that the proposal that has
a base fee of $2.00 and then an incremental fee of 75 cents, has probably got a broad base
of support because it keeps the residential fee the same as what exists today and let me
add as well that the, within this proposal apartments stay at $1.00 per unit. Those don't
jump up there.
Elliott/Do you have some idea of the cost, the first time you came with a fee structure, you
indicated what it might be for different entities of which we're aware right now. Can you
give us an idea of what that figure is?
Fosse/Yeah. IfI can find the right handout here. Here we go. So, for somebody like a Handimart,
the, what I'll do is I'll compare the fees from the proposal that came out of the Economic
Development Committee to what would be proposed if you went with the $2.00 base fee
and 75 percent incremental fee. Handimart goes from $11.24 to $10.43, not much
difference.
Elliott/Monthly.
Fosse/Yeah, monthly. You get into the larger places like Menards, it goes from $140.00 down to
$107.00 Now, some of your real small businesses actually go up a little bit because of the
way this is structured. Like the Deadwood is, you go from $1.43 up to $3.07. City hall
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 28
hem would drop from $4.41, excuse me, $24.41 down to $20.31. So you save $4.00 a
month.
Elliott/So the end result of the cost for, there's no difference for residential.
Fosse/Correct.
Elliott/Yeah, that's---
Fosse/ That stays the same.
Elliott/There's very little difference then in the cost for commercial properties from the original
to this. By very little, I mean, it's still, if it's around $100.00, it's still going to be
somewhere in the neighborhood of $100.00.
Fosse/Well, for your small- to medium-sized commercial properties, there's not a lot of
difference. When you get into the big ones, like let me show you here, Procter and
Gamble goes from $531.00 down to $400.00. That's about $130.00 a month difference.
Vets Hospital goes from $221.00 down to $93.00.
Elliott/And the Chamber has signed off on this---
Fosse/ Well, what they've done is they put out, they proposed a different fee structure, the one
that I've reviewed with you, but I don't know that there's a Chamber recommendation yet
on which numbers to plug into that fee structure--whether you go with a base of $2.00,
$2.25, or $2.50. I just gave you my sense of it. You'll probably get their sense---
Atkins/Bob, I attended the Chamber meeting at which, when they took the vote and I guess I
can't say they, they sign off on it but there was a clear indication in the vote and there is a
little difference of opinion amongst Chamber members on it but the bottom line was the
use of the quantity-quality component as well as the credits for the big issues, and I
believe we satisfied those. I would be very surprised that the Chamber--my conversations
with them before I talked to Rick, knowing what he was going to present this evening,
was I think we're on point with it. Have they signed off'?. No, they've not officially done
that.
Elliott/My concerns previously were with fairness and competitiveness for commercial
properties and it seems to me that the Chamber has agreed that this is the way they'd like
to go and they think it's fair and reasonable.
O'Donnell/Are we going to have somebody from the Chamber here tomorrow night?
Fosse/I believe there will be.
Atkins/Yeah.
Lehman/And is it correct for--Eleanor--this represents a significant change for what we have
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 29
passed twice. Do ~ve then vote down on our third reading? Obviously, I suppose we can't
set a public hearing until we have an ordinance prepared.
Dilkes/No, you'll have to set a public hearing on the new ordinance. You can either defer the
one that's on your agenda tomorrow if you want to leave it out there in case the other one
falls through or you can vote it down and it'd be dead.
Atkins/If this meets your interest in general, we have to go back and actually, you know, prepare
a draft ordinance for you and then give you an addition of those examples. We don't want
to do that work unless we feel---
Lehman/ Right.
Atkins/...you're generally on board with it.
Lehman/I'm just asking procedurally how we would handle this. And you're telling me we can
defer it until we get the new ordinance written at that time, vote it down, and set a public
heating on the new ordinance.
Dilkes/Right. Or you can choose to vote it down tomorrow night. That's up to you.
Atkins/It's already, Rick--I'm assuming it's your intent that we'd have this back within t~vo
weeks if you give us a nod of your head tonight that this is what you're talking about.
Fosse/Yes.
Lehman/Then we would set the public hearing.
Fosse/Yeah.
Lehman/At the next meeting.
Atkins/You have to have an ordinance in place to set the hearing.
Lehman/Right, which means the first, the public hearing would be the first meeting of March at
the earliest.
Elliott/And we defer tomorrow night.
Bailey/Can I go back one step?
Dilkes/The advantage to--
Fosse/ You bet.
Bailey/In the packet there's a reference to an attached comparison that compares the city's
current proposal to other scenarios, which I don't have and---
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Atkins/No one has that.
Bailey/OK.
Atkins/They did not give it to us.
Bailey/All right.
Atkins/They brought it over the next day and--I think it was Friday--and they were not prepared
to have that distributed. I think there was a little communication---
Lehman/That's the one you just read off.
Atkins/Yes. He's working from their---
Fosse/What I just read off is---
Bailey/ OK.
Fosse/...are some numbers that our staff ran based on their proposals.
Bailey/Right. I just had the C. numbers to compare.
Vanderhoeff Tell me exactly how the incremental you keep talking about, the 25, 50 or 75.
Fosse/How that works?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Fosse/OK. Everybody across the board pays the base fee for the minimum charge, for the sake of
discussion, I'll call it $2.00. The exception being apartment dwellers and that'd be $1.00
per unit. But single-family homes and all businesses. And then for non-residential
customers that are larger than an average sized home, they would pay an incremental fee
based on how many times larger than the average home they are. That's where the 75
cents per unit comes in.
Bailey/So we're still using that basic ERU.
Lehman/Right.
Fosse/Yes.
Bailey/OK.
Dilkes/Right. The other way to look at that is where we were doing 50 percent of the ERU when
it came out of Economic Development under the 75 cent per ERU, it would be 37.5
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 31
percent.
Bailey/OK.
Lehman/Right.
Bailey/OK.
Wilburn/Eleanor, you were going to say the advantage of deferring or taking it out?
Dilkes/The advantage to deferring is that if something falls through with this new one, then
you've still got the other one alive.
O'Donnell/So ~ve defer this, is that it?
Lehman/That's your call, Council's call.
Vanderhoef/I think it sends the message to the public that we are continuing on with this
whereas if we voted it down, it might get some play that we are chucking the whole thing.
Atkins/I would agree with Dee. I think it's probably better to defer because it's been taken
through all sort of processes to that point, and I would agree with you.
O'Donnell/And I think you need to say once again that this is a mandate. The cities aren't going
to have any choice on it. You're going to do something.
Lehman/OK, then we'll just. I'll ask for a motion to defer and indicate that there's being a
replacement ordinance being drafted which we will set public hearing on (can't hear) if it
meets our approval. OK. Thank you.
Fosse/Sure.
Atkins/Good.
Vanderhoef/Like for two weeks?
Champion/Oh, definitely.
Atkins/It is two weeks.
Elliott/Two?
Vanderhoef/Just two weeks, on the 17th.
Bailey/2/17.
Atkins/We want to get it back up in front of you as soon as you can, give us a decision. Rick has
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 32
the next one, too.
Champion/(can't hear) have an ordinance, will they?
Atkins/Well, but you'll have an ordinance that's in, that's drafted, and that's the thing we can
hand out to folks for the public hearing.
Champion/Right.
Letmqan/We, at that meeting you can vote this one down and set the public hearing on the other
one.
Champion/OK.
O'Dormell/There's also a provision in there for businesses that have made provisions to clarify
why they're for some type of reductions in that.
Elliott/Yeah.
Atkins/A credit.
Lehman/Right.
Bailey/Right.
Fosse/And what that credit would be a 50 percent reduction in that ERU.
O'Donnell/OK.
Fosse/That extra incremental charge. The $2.00 base would remain in place.
Elliott/That was a clincher for me. I like that.
Fosse/Good. And i fully expect that over time that there will be other credits out there.
Lehman/Right.
Fosse/But as I said a couple weeks ago, to get this thing in place and we'll work through on
those and see what's involved.
Lehman/But this will be crafted in such a fashion that if new credits come up, you'll be able to
handle those administratively?
Fosse/I don't believe we can do that.
Lehman/All right, then---
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Fosse/Now Eleanor can speak better on that---
Dilkes/No, i don't think staff can do that. It's like utility rates should be set by ordinance.
Lehman/No, I understand the rate would be set---
Dilkes/Well, but a credit is a rate. You get a rate---
Atkins/It's a discount.
Dilkes/...it's a discount, it's a rate.
Lehman/OK. Nice try. We should have done this without talking to her.
(Laughter)
Lehman/She'd have stopped us. Thank you, Rick.
Fosse/OK.
MEMORANDUM FROM PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR TO CITY MANAGER:
ENGLERT REQUEST FOR USE OF PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY
Fosse/The next item on the agenda is the Englert letter regarding the access out into the alley and
the request to put stoops out into the alley right-of-way, and the stoops are about three
feet wide by four feet out into the alley, and approximately seven inches high. And 9can't
hear), too, my predecessor Chuck, denied that request, and ! was in my new job a couple
weeks and it came back. And without going back and looking at what Chuck did, I came
to the same conclusion. And the reason for that is is that our alleys are just so intensively
used. There's only 20 feet back there and inch for inch, it's some of the most action-
packed right-of-way that we have. And also the International Fire Code requires a 20 foot
pathway to be used for emergency access, and that's another thing that we base that on
and we don't want to put obstructions into that area. Granted there are dumpsters out
there now, but you can move a dumpster whereas you can't move a stoop. I've passed out
some pictures that show a number of things. The first picture is looking west down the
alley. The library is on your left, and that building that protrudes right about in the middle
of the picture there is the back of the Englert. That's right up flush with the alley right-of-
way there.
Lehman/It sticks out farther than any of the other buildings?
Fosse/Yeah, the other buildings are set back a little bit off the property line.
Lehman/All right.
Fosse/Picture number 2 there shows the right half of that picture or two of the doors on the back
of the Englert, the left half of the picture shows the neighboring property that's already
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 34
been modified to set that door back from a previous remodel. Picture 3 just shows the
back of Meacham Travel. That's another one. If you go up and down the alleys you'll see
that virtually any new building or building that's been remodeled in the last 30 years has
these recessed openings to meet Fire Code.
Bailey/Are those lit? Those recesses?
Fosse/Some are and some are not. Yeah, I think---
Bailey/ That would be good. I mean, there is a safety issue there.
Fosse/Mm-hmm.
Atkins/All right.
Fosse/Pictures 4 and 5 are the back of the library and those look a little rugged yet because
they're still under construction but that shows that we've put recessed doors in the back
of the library and then ~ve also have those garage doors and Susan made a good point. She
pointed out to me that one of those garage doors is across the alley, directly across the
alley from where some of those stoops ~vould go, and they'd have a real hard time getting
their van in and out with those in the way back there. Where we're headed long-term is
represented in pictures 6, 7, and 8, and those were all taken along Tower Place, that most
recent ramp constructed by the City, and recessed not only the door~vays, but also a place
for the dumpsters and a place for transformers. Ali that is set back out of the alley, and
you'll see that required of new construction in the future. So where we're headed with
this is good, clear, clean alleys. And number 9 is in there just to show that we do not
arbitrarily deny every request for use in the alleys. There's, occasionally, you'll see some
utility pedestals out there and they generally consume less than 18 inches out in the alley,
and there's really no alternative for those back there.
Vanderhoef/That one also has a utility pole beside it.
Fosse/Right. That was an existing obstruction so---
Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm.
Champion/I was looking at the wrong direction. I was, what are you talking about?
Fosse/Yeah, that one's oriented differently.
(Laughter)
Fosse/Questions?
Champion/What was the, remind me what the purpose of applying to use the alley. I know they
want to put a stoop in, but what was the reason that they wanted to do that?
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Fosse/The reason being is the, if they put a stoop out in the alley, they would not need to recess
their door. And the stoop would in effect prevent anybody from parking in front of the
door, and that way the door could always swing out into the alley.
Wilburn/And from their letter it doesn't appear that they xvere aware about the issue with the
library either and not being able to back out. They're a little (can't hear), really---
Atkins/That's right, Ross, that came late.
Bailey/So, will they be required to recess their doors to ensure that---
Lehman/That's what we're talking about---
Atkins/That's your decision.
(several talk)
Bailey/If they can't get a stoop; the only other answer is recessing. Right?
Fosse/Recessing works, yes.
Lehman/OK.
Bailey/That's the only option.
Fosse/As far as I'm aware, yeah. Housing may be able to speak better to that fact.
Vanderhoef/They have to have two exit doors to meet Code?
Bailey/That are accessed---
Atkins/That's correct, Dee.
Vanderhoef/That's what I presumed. And they're talking about all this insulation and so on and
so forth, does this do anything to the historic nature of that building because it's an
exterior change?
Atkins/If it does, I don't think there's much choice in the matter because the Fire Code is
certainly--safety is going to come first before---
Lehman/But there is another issue that in these pictures that show the recessed exit. If a truck or
a van parks in front of that exit and you have a fire, it don't make any difference whether
it's recessed or not, people can't get out.
Wilburn/Yeah.
Fosse/Well, the difference being, at least you can get the door open. If it's a truck, you can get
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 36
under it; if it's a car you can go over it. But if you have your door flush with the alley and
you can't get the door open, you don't go anywhere.
Atkins/I was assured that the vehicle wasn't too great a size, a pumper will push things out of
the way if it has to be done.
Lehman/Told that it works pretty easy.
Atkins/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/So the pumper sits in front of the door.
Atkins/Well, so, you, we did consult Andy on this and while he's a strong advocate of keeping
the alleys clear, ! asked him about fighting a fire and he said it would be rare that they go
into an alley simply because they would be trapped; it's simply too close and that's, as he
explained to me, some of the fires we've had downtown, you almost always have to fight
those from the front.
Lehman/Is everybody familiar with what the Englert is asking us?
Elliott/Mm-hmm. I believe so.
Lehman/And we all know what the issue is.
Vanderhoef/I don't see how we can go with anything but a recessed door.
O'Dormell/No, that's what Andy's recommending.
Lehman/That's, the entire City staff has said that, that the recessed door is the correct way of
handling this. That's why it had come to us.
Elliott/It's not a minor point, but it's one of the things that the Englert people mention and also
Regenia brought it up that I think that the recession, I certainly hope that we have good
lighting in those recessions. And I also like the fact that if it's a double door, it's going to
be a good-sized recession, too.
Bailey/Mm-hmm.
Elliott/As opposed to something like on number 2.
Bailey/Number 5.
Elliott/Or number 5.
Lehman/Well, are those---
Elliott/Those are a little bit scary to me.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 37
Fosse/Well, probably what you'll see and I think what's on the plans that have been improved
already are---
Lehman/Two single doors.
Fosse/Yeah, are more like what you'll see in 3 or 5 there.
Lehman/Right, they're two single doors, one on each side of the building.
Fosse/Yes.
Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm.
Atkins/Yeah.
Lehman/Now, is there a problem that we're aware of with these recessed doors that are presently
being used? I know they expressed some concern about safety in these places and people
hanging out and sleeping, I mean, have we experienced any problems that you're aware
of?.
Fosse/They're secluded. Sometimes they're used to urinate, graffiti back in there, trash. Those
are problems.
Lehman/That's just a normal alley.
(Laughter)
Fosse/But---
Atkins/Ernie, the simple answer is yes, they're a concern. And that---
Lehman/But there's no problem which is my question?
Atkins/Nothing more than what, you know, you find urine and vomit in there on a regular basis
and the property owner has to clean it up.
Elliott/Someone sleeping back there, the police make runs down the alley.
Atkins/Yes, they do.
Elliott/And they would route them.
Atkins/Yes.
O'Donnell/And if they were well lit, there would be less of a chance of it---
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 38
Atkins/Well, that's part of the whole alley business we were talking about.
(Several talk)
Champion/(can't hear) I really do. I mean, I am a total support of the Englert, but I cannot
support their stoop out there. Not that I don't want them to get City space, but I would,
but there's just other considerations with that. They're just going to have to bite the
bullet.
Bailey/(can't hear)
Fosse/The issue is not unique to Iowa City. It's across the country and the way it's been dealt
with is with the recessed doors.
Vanderhoef/WeI1, the Universal Fire Code for number 1 has been, really brought this to a head.
And I support it.
Lehman/All right.
O'Donnell/It appears like there's really not much choice on it.
Atkins/We will communicate with the Englert on your behalf.
Lehman/It appears as if the Council confirms the staff's recommendations.
Fosse/Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
IP 4 RIVERSIDE THEATRE--ALCOHOL
Lehman/Folks, it's time for a drink. Riverside Theatre. We've all received a request from the
Riverside Theatre along with a letter from Matt Pacha, chair of the Parks and Recreation
Commission. They have voted by an 8 to 1 vote to see if we could figure out some way to
allow the Riverside Theatre to become a, I suppose, become a bar is not correct, but I do
think they have to---
Bailey/ No.
Lehman/...acquire a license?
Elliott/The word is (can't hear)
Lehman/(can't hear) I mean, all of---
Champion/ This report really got me down on my (can't hear) tonight and I feel very strongly
about this, and last year when they brought it, it did not pass. I don't see any reason why
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 39
we can't write a really tight ordinance that would allow alcohol at certain events on
public property. It's not new to Iowa City. I mean, it happens in other communities ali
over the country, and for the amount of alcohol problems that we have devoid of the
Riverside Theatre (can't hear) serving of alcohol before and during intermission of a play
is pretty petite. I know how this feels and I feel fine that this is common; nobody really
drinks to excess at these functions. It's not the idea, the idea is not to drink. But I think
it's time we came into the next century of alcohol.
Vanderhoef/Well, Cormie, i'm going to agree with you and I would like staff to look at putting
together an ordinance for us, but I want us to take a look at, you mentioned the public
buildings, and real specifically I'm thinking of our public space that we just built in the
water plant, and the airport facility that has been upgraded and has--we've had some
requests to rent the space and if we can form an ordinance that allows a temporary party
to exist, a private party and to serve alcohol at a private party, I think we should take a
good look at it. So I want an ordinance if there is anyone who is interested to have an
ordinance put together and then we can take a look at it and see if it does what we want it
to do.
Elliott/I have mixed emotions. I think I could support an ordinance that would be inclusive as
opposed to exclusive. I think because someone enjoys Lady MacBeth should not be the
only reason why they deserve to have beer or wine. I think if there's a wedding that is at
the park, if there is a some kind ora gathering--maybe the UI Foundation wants to have a
gathering in the park. I think we need to--! would like the staff to do something that
would be, excuse me, inclusive as opposed to exclusive.
Champion/I don't know that we would do that all the time. I mean, I don't know if it's legal or
not, but you, people have beer ail the time at city parks.
Atkins/No, that's not legal.
Lehman/Connie, and I think---
Atkins/The goatskin gave you away.
(Laughter)
Atkins/Ali right, we have---
Wilbunf I was going to say I don't know that we could make it exclusive to Riverside Theatre
group. It seems to me that you have to construct it that even if it's tied to anyone who
wanted to, whether it's an insurance requirement, or you know, etc., that they would---
Atkins/I'm assuming the specificity would have to be geographically and ~ve pick a spot and
that's it and I'm not so sure you could do that.
Bailey/Could it be written for the Festival stage area, so if you rented that for a wedding, for
example, ~vith the right sort of insurance and those sorts of things?
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 40
Dilkes/It could be.
Lehman/OK, are we talking about only situations where the alcohol is sold? Riverside Theatre
would like to sell it.
Bailey/Mm-hmm.
Vanderhoef/Well, I want to look at the private party situation also, where it will not be sold.
Bailey/So you're talking about serving. Serving as well as selling.
Lehman/Eleanor, you need to give us a little thumbnail sketch of what we're getting into.
Dilkes/Well, you know, it seems to me there are a lot of different things. You're talking about
just allowing people to use alcohol in a park. You're allowing people to provide alcohol
at events where they're not going to be, they're not going to need a license, they're not
selling it. And you're talking about someone, like I think we're talking about with
Riverside, who's going to be selling alcohol and will need their own license. Those are
three different situations. It seems to me that whatever you choose to do, unless you just
decide to open it up and let people use alcohol in the parks and the public facilities, that
you're going to have to do some kind of permitting process where there is a written
agreement whereby at a minimum, whatever entity is sponsoring the event agrees to
provide the insurance and agrees to provide indemnification to the City in the even that
there is a loss, you know. But how far you want to go is an issue for you all, whether you
want to limit it to affiliated groups, whether you want to expand it to anyone who can
provide that insurance and do that indemnification or whether you just simply want to
lessen the restriction for the, the restriction on use of alcohol in parks and City facilities. I
mean, that's a range.
Wilburn/They had suggested certain types of restrictions. I guess I wasn't clear as I was reading
through them, which would be something that would be allowable in an ordinance and
which would be things that they would do on their own. For example, they said sales
would be limited to beer and wine only. Is that something that you can do?
Kan:/The state of Iowa does have a beer and wine license application, yes, that is possible. You
could restrict it.
Wilburn/OK.
Kan:/That could be handled through their license process as well as the agreement.
Wilburn/OK.
O'Donnell/What would be the liability issue? I know that we're mentioning you have to have
your own insurance policy to handle this, but I'm wondering what would be the liability
issue if you consume alcohol in like a City park or public property?
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 41
Dilkes/Well, I think that, I mean, I think are liability issues, which is why you're talking about
with Riverside getting, their proposal includes an agreement to indemnify, meaning if the
City is sued as the result of an event held there for which alcohol is provided, that they
will take responsibility for that loss and will have insurance for that loss and the City
won't be named Insured under that policy. So there certainly are liability issues that we
can protect for in a written agreement. And you may want to, I mean, the only way I can
envision this is with, unless you want to limit it to a specific entity is some kind of
permitting process like we do with our, like you're seeing in our, you know, the ordinance
revisions that are in front of you about private use of streets, where we require, have
certain insurance requirements and that kind of thing. Now this is different because
there's no free speech right to drink. But, you know, so we can be more restrictive and do
basically what we want to do, I think, to protect ourselves.
Wilburn/So along those lines, one of the recommendations is that sales would be limited to 90
minutes prior and during 20-minute intermission, I'm presuming, then nothing after. Is
that--would there be any time allotted to an event or---
Dilkes/You could build that into the ordinance but I think the first question you all need to
answer is are we talking about Riverside or are we talking about any entity that can satisfy
your permitting requirements?
Wilburn/And I'm talking about any entity that could satisfy the permitting---
Dilkes/Well, you could certainly have a time period, I mean, you know, you could only go on for
whatever period of time.
Lehman/Well, I suspect that what they were talking about would be restrictions they would
impose on themselves. They would not sell during the performance. It would be before, at
intermission, and perhaps afterwards.
Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm.
Lehman/I think that'd be really hard to put in an ordinance.
Wilburn/Well, I don't know, I mean, because they're aware that, when I was talking with a
couple of them, that at least from my perspective in terms of how you go about being
flexible with this is that other groups ~vould come forward and be asking, I think they're
aware of that, and so I was under the assumption that they were talking about these are
the types of things that---
Lehman/Well, I think, I personally am not crazy about the idea, but I sense that there is a
majority of Council who is interested in trying to work out some sort of an ordinance that
would permit the consumption of alcohol on City property. Is that correct?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 42
Wilburn/Me, too.
Lehman/OK. Now, what Eleanor's asking, I think, is we need to narrow that down so that she
can put together some sort of an ordinance. Are we going to restrict it to certain pieces of
City property? Is it going to be any City property? Is it going to be City Park only? Is it
going to be City Park, Water Park? Soccer fields? Napoleon Park?
O'Dormell/Mercer.
Lehman/Memer Park.
Champion/I just (can't hear)
Bailey/I'm with Connie. That's exactly what I want to see and I---
Lehman/ No, no,---
Bailey/ So I'm interested in seeing Riverside be successful and incorporate this into their summer
festival.
Champion/I don't think I want to see private parties at the water plant. That does not, that's not
an entity that's in control. So, if we're going to write a general ordinance that's could
meet other needs, then I think it has to be some entity that wants to do it, like the
Riverside Theatre or Hancher Auditorium, or I don't think it should be inclusive to the
public. I mean, I think, things can get out of hand. I mean it's not a control---
Wilburn/You need someone who's responsible, identifiably responsible and---
Vanderhoef/Well, what I was thinking was that it may well be that there are two different
permits. There's the permit to sell, which is what Riverside Theatre is asking for and
they're asking for the summer season.
Champion/Mm-hmm.
Vanderhoef/OK. And then a single day event permit with certain guidelines of what goes on at
that event would be a second kind of permit but still would allow alcohol on public
property or in public buildings.
O'Dormell/How about, for an example, if we have a family reunion with like 80 to 100 people
and like the Lehman family. And can you go down and get a permit to consume alcohol at
shelter number 7?
Lehman/Or shelter number 6.
Vanderhoef/Well, that's kind of thing that we would have to be looking at. I was thinking more
of the indoor variety versus the---
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TAPE 04-19, SIDE ONE
Dilkes/...which is limited to entities which are going to be obtaining their own liquor license or
beer and ~vine permit and can provide these indemnification insurance requirements, etc.
Lehman/OK, now---
Dilkes/Now that's just, you know, selling alcohol because that's the issue you're addressing
here. They have their own liquor license, etc. If you want to go beyond that, maybe you
need to have more discussion about that.
Lehman/But then what would happen---
Dilkes/But that certainly would address this situation as well as other similarly situated entities.
Lehman/If! owned a bar do~vntown and I wanted to use, apply for a permit and sell beer and
wine in City Park, would I qualify?
Champion/No.
Lehman/Well, I'd have a license. I'm going to sell it.
Bailey/Yeah, what---
Lehman/I'm just saying we need to write this in such a fashion that we don't have that sort of
thing. If somebody already has a permit to sell, they have a liquor license---
Dilkes/Well, it's attached to the establishment.
Karr/It is attached to the establishment, Emie, so therefore the question in that scenario would be
could I for one day transfer my license ~vhich in the state of Iowa you are allowed to do;
you could say I'm going to close the Deadwood and I'm going to distribute out at the
softball diamond, can I do that? Because ! already have dram shop, I already have a
license and I already have the approval from the state, would you transfer my license?
Dilkes/You could further limit it to those entities that are affiliated with the City in some kind of
partnership with the City like Riverside is or I guess like boys baseball---
Lehman/The Englert, for example.
Dilkes/Englert or those kind of entities. I mean, that would, that's the narrowest way I see to
write it and not exclude others that are really in the same situation as Riverside, which I
think is something that you're trying not to do.
Karr/You have other festivals in town that the City sponsors that I can almost guarantee that they
will be in here asking for clarification.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 44
Elliott/The thing that I don't want is anything that is or by de facto is perceived as elitist. Just
because you like something or other, or just because you belong to this, you can do it, but
the regular run-of-the-mill people can't do it. ! want something that is fair and open to
reasonable people, reasonable groups.
Karr/Well, 1, ifI may, Bob, I think that was Eleanor's question to begin with is, if an individual,
if an entity, can secure a liquor license or a beer-wine license, ~vould the Council be
amenable to allowing them to distr/bute on City property?
Elliott/Yes, I see.
Karr/i mean, that's---
Elliott/We're going, we really need to discuss this because I would be pretty firm on it, if it's
limited to just people who want to go watch Shakespeare, no.
Champion/Well, no.
Bailey/Connie suggested not-for-profit groups, which would be an interesting limitation
because---
Vanderhoef/But they're there to make a profit on that particular item.
Lehman/But they're a nonprofit group.
Bailey/They're there to make revenue but not profit.
Elliott/But if you can do that, why can't somebody having a wedding have champagne or beer?
Why can't the family, why can't--Cedar Rapids has a number of festivals where they have
beer---
Bailey/ Especially not-for-profits.
Champion/Those would be not for profit.
O'Donnell/So do surrounding communities.
Champion/Yeah, they all do.
Bailey/Like Coralville---
O'Donnell/I mean they have like a Fourth of July celebration and parade for instance---
Elliott/I come from a background of playing softball for years and years and years which was
usually an excuse to drink beer, softball games. In Iowa City, you knew that when you
played softball in our diamonds, there was no beer. That's kind of in the back of my
mind. Shakespeare lovers can drink but softball players can't.
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Lehman/That's a good rule.
(Laughter)
Vanderhoef/I'm comfortable with that actually.
Lehman/Yeah, I do too, because softball players are sometimes 4 years old.
Champion/They're just rowdy. That's true too.
O'Donnell/You know, and I share that, Bob. There's parts of me that say why not? These are
adults at a Shakespearean event, for Pete's sakes, I don't know why it shouldn't happen.
But I share that concern that there are other events in town.
Champion/About nonprofit events.
Bailey/But if you were talking about the sale, that wouldn't necessarily apply to the--I mean I
don't deny that softball is much better with beer---
Wilburn/On Coralville Days they sell it out at their concession stands.
Elliott/Yes.
Wilburn/So that, I think that's what Bob's talking about. Not just folks showing up with a
cooler.
Bailey/OK.
Dilkes/Yeah, I mean, I think it would be hard to write the ordinance unless you're going to limit
it to Riverside and exclude, for instance, I think, like the Boys Baseball organization. I
mean, I don't know how to, I assume they're a not-for-profit organization. You know---
Wilburn/One way that I was trying to look at this was in what ways do we currently show some
type of flexibility, but the difference is it's tied to some type of organization--I mean like
the side~valk cafes. We allo~v alcohol in those and the establishment is responsible
internally and externally to that so that's kind of how I was trying to sort through.
Elliott/I agree with you.
O'Donnell/But if you step outside the patio, then you've broken the law.
Lehman/You know, I really think that if we extended this sort of thing to include softball and
boys' baseball and this sort of thing, you're going to have some folks who aren't real
happy.
Elliott/I ~vould be willing to compromise if the Council agrees to. Let's take it a step at a time
and do something that would be reasonably inclusive, meaning as opposed to "exclusive."
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 46
Lehman/Meaning including Shakespeare?
Elliott/Yeah. And say, maybe start by limiting it to nonprofit groups or something but with the
understanding that ~ve would continue to look at other ways that we could work and
include people. And that may or may not be workable.
Champion/Well, the other thing is it has to be a nonprofit that's doing a function. What do you
call that? You can't have Ross decide to buy a liquor license, the Crisis Center, and
walking all over City Park selling beer to people.
Lehman/Why not?
Wilburn/Our bylaws say that ~ve can't have alcohol in our midst so we're, that's (can't hear) by
Champion/OK, well, you know what I'm saying?
Wilburn/I understand.
Champion/You don't want the license to sell the alcohol anywhere, like you don't want them
selling it at Hoover Elementary or the boys baseball team. So, it has to be associated with,
what do you call those?
Bailey/An event specific but I don't know what you call it.
Champion/Well, I wonder how you---
Karr/Connie, would this---
Lehman/Wait a minute, I think there may be a way. We have shelters in the parks and we can
require--although I am not crazy about this--that if alcohol is to be sold in the park, it
must be sold in a contained area such as the Shakespearean theatre, one of the shelters---
Karr/Ernie?
Lehman/Yes, Marian?
Karr/It's taken care of through the liquor licensing procedure. The state won't issue a license
unless you have a contained area and a diagram.
Champion/Oh.
Lehman/OK. So then it couldn't be softball.
Champion/Right.
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Lehman/And it's not going to be baseball or volleyball or whatever. It would have to be within a
shelter or the Shakespeare theatre.
Wilburn/It can be softball.
Karr/Well, it could there's a concession stand.
Dilkes/There is a concession stand that's a defined area.
Karr/It's a defined area.
Wilbum/Yeah.
Karr/You have to have entrances and exits and restrooms, and etc., etc. You have to have a---
Champion/ You bet, specific. It has to be a state ordinance so we don't get ourselves in trouble.
Dilkes/Well, I can write a tailored (can't hear). I have to know what I'm aiming for, you know.
(Laughter)
O'Dormell/Maybe we should look at this thing at our next work session.
Champion/No, no.
Lehman/Well, I think the Shakespeare--if we're going to do this, as much as I don't think it's a
great idea--they need this thing done quickly because I think they really need this in place
for summer. And they have to go through the process, I'm sure, of making application for
the license and getting insurance and doing all those sorts of things. So I think if we're
going to do it, we need to get started on it.
Elliott/I would be in favor of, Eleanor, what you suggested. One of the alternatives is identify a
type of group that could sell and monitor the sales, obtain a permit, sell, and monitor the
situation, provide everything that's needed. And then at a later date we can at least
consider expanding that to other situations. Isn't that one of the alternatives?
Dilkes/Yeah. Well, I--why don't I write it in a way that is--I'll use Riverside as the guide and
limit it to---
Lehman/ Riverside.
Elliott/No.
Dilkes/...things that would be similar to Riverside in as many respects as I can and you guys can
take it from there.
Bailey/I have a question about liquor licenses. You can get gambling licenses for 30 days or 90
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 48
days. Can you do liquor licenses in the same kind of---
Karr/We have, the state of Iowa, we have a three-day, a five-day, a 15-day, and then you can get
temporary 30-day and then you get yearly. And it's all prorated anyway, so you get
refunds based on quarters.
Bailey/Could we do an ordinance that incorporates the time limitation as well because then it
would be for these kinds of things, for limited, like Connie was saying, a limited type of
event or a season.
Champion/No, they'd have to have, to get permission from us to do it.
Bailey/Right.
Atkins/It would seem that you may have to put together some rules and regulations for
permitting.
Champion/Right.
Atkins/And that's ~vhen you would nail what you're suggesting, Regenia.
Dilkes/Well, and maybe one of the distinctions that I can think of when I'm thinking of
Riverside, the Shakespeare Festival is, it has to be at that location on our property.
Bailey/Right.
Dilkes/I mean, somebody can hold a wedding at a number of different places, and so that might
be a distinction that you want to focus on.
Lehman/And licenses are site-specific.
Dilkes/Yes.
Lehman/That would honestly take care of the time thing. Anyway, no one's going to sell beer
out there in January.
O'Dormell/I don't know.
Lehman/You're right.
Champion/You're right.
Wilburn/There's a (can't hear) next week.
Karr/Chances are, Emie, they're not going to buy--licenses are not inexpensive--and the price of
them goes up considerably the longer the period of time.
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Lehman/Right.
Karr/So chances are a nonprofit organization isn't going to buy one that exceeds past their
season.
Lehman/OK.
O'Donnell/Well, dram shop insurance is incredibly expensive.
Dilkes/Yeah.
Lehman/So, what have we just told Eleanor?
O'Donnell/I have no idea.
Champion/She is going to write a draft ordinance using Riverside Theatre as an example of---
Lehman/ Something that will work for them and probably very few other folks.
Bailey/And we're talking about sales and not served.
Elliott/Yes.
Champion/And not served and nonprofit associated with the City in some way, shape or form.
Lehman/Is that--all right?
Elliott/I see that is---
Dilkes/And we're talking about right now parks only, right?
Champion/Oh.
O'Donnell/Yeah.
Dilkes/This has just been through Parks and Rec. We're not talking about other City facilities.
That's a whole another--or are we? But that's another item.
Vanderhoef/But I want that, I want that to come.
Chan~pion/Later.
Bailey/What about (can't hear)?
Vanderhoef/Well---
Lehman/ We can have parties in the alleys. Clean them.
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 50
Elliott/I agree, Dee, but I'm willing to say let's go this first step.
Vanderhoef/Oh, yeah, I want to go with this one but I don't ~vant to say sometime. I want it to
keep moving forwards.
Wilburn/And then along with--they would be subject to, you know, a police sting like anyone
else with a liquor license and subsequent penalties if there's any infractions.
O'Donnell/Good. Down at the airport, was there not a reception planned at one time?
Lehman/They had a reception but it was without alcohol.
O'Donnell/On public ground.
Atkins/Without alcohol.
Bailey/Didn't they have a Chamber PM that had alcohol?
Vanderhoef/Hey, we had the request to have the alcohol and they finally just said we'lI do it
without because---
Bailey/ Isn't Chamber PM have alcohol?
Lehman/I didn't go to the airport Chamber PM. If they had alcohol, it was an inappropriate use
of City facilities.
Bailey/Well, I don't know if they did. i'm not saying that they did. I just know that they had a
business PM and---
Atkins/I was involved in the hanger wedding reception and in effect told the Airport
Commission they could not.
Lehman/Right. But the (can't hear) the Chamber had down there probably was also without
alcohol.
Vanderhoef/But there was beer down there.
Elliott/Have we agreed on what we're asking Eleanor to do?
Dilkes/I think I've got this---
Lehman/All right.
Atkins/Ernie, before you confirm giving us the direction, there are a number of Riverside folks
in the audience. If it's not necessary--I suspect a number of them were going to appear
tomorrow night in front of the microphone. Is it--do you need to send the message---
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 51
Lehman/I think--how many folks here are willing to do something to facilitate the sale of alcohol
at the Shakespearean Theatre? I don't think there's any question a majority of the Council
will go with that.
Atkins/So, it wouldn't be necessary for them to be there unless they want to be. OK. Thanks.
Vanderhoef/Curl up by the fire tomorrow night.
Lehman/All right. It's supposed to be 9 below. Have a little.
(Laughter)
Vanderhoef/This is where you have your hot toddy.
Indoor Soccer Facility
Lehman/OK. indoor soccer facility. We've been approached by several folks by letter or
whatever and I think we have indicated, Steve, this has been referred to Parks and
Recreation Committee?
Atkins/It will be. What you were going to do tonight was refer it to them.
Lehman/I sense that---
O'Donnell/There's nothing we can---
Lehman/ I sense a fair amount of sympathy for an indoor facility.
Bailey/Yeah.
Lehman/But the place they had requested was probably not one that would work.
Wilburn/Yeah.
Lehman/And that the folks that are working on an indoor facility be put in touch with Parks and
Recreation folks and see what, if anything, we can do to facilitate their finding a facility.
Atkins/I think that's about it.
Lehman/All right.
Elliott/My first reaction was to see if we couldn't perhaps even make it work, but I believe they
wanted something like an eight-year lease which to me seemed out of the question on it.
It just isn't going to work.
Atkins/Well, i didn't sense any interest on the part of the City through you of subsidizing the
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 52
thing.
Elliott/No.
Atkins/And that we were there to give them some assistance and that you were asking the
Commission what kind of priority does this have, what interest would they have in
assisting these folks.
Vanderhoef/As the discussions go along with the possible addition to the Grant Wood School, if
the soccer people were to be involved with that collaboration in some way, it might be
useful.
Atkins/Whether it meets their needs or not for this, I don't know.
Lehman/I .think the reason (can't hear) facility large enough that they can really do---
Wilburn/OK.
Lehman/...unless this is going to be a lot bigger than I think it's going to be.
Vanderhoef/Well, it will be---
Wilburn/If this is going to be an extensive discussion I need to withdraw because these involves
a CDBG application. I have a conflict of interest.
Lehman/We have just terminated the discussion.
Vanderhoef/No, I just---
Lehman/No, wait a minute, we haven't.
(WILBURN LEAVES ROOM)
Vanderhoef/No, I just want to answer your question. It would be of the same size as the
Wickham gym, which is an oversize that Coralville did a collaboration with the school
district on that one. And that is the one that has a big enough space that the soccer does
practice there.
Lehman/At Wickham?
Vanderhoef/Yes. That's the only school gym.
Lehman/Well---
Bailey/ And I got the sense that they wanted something that would be specifically for their group
and they---
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Vanderhoef/Well, they did.
Atkins/That's the stone sense I had, Regenia, is that they wanted something for themselves.
Champion/(can't hear)
Vanderhoef/Well, they practice on gym floors all the time for the indoor, but---
Champion/I know.
Vanderhoef/No, what they wanted was certainly an indoor facility with turf.
Elliott/They did previously play indoor soccer games on a school gym---
Vanderhoef/Yeah.
Elliott/...when my grandson was playing.
Vanderhoef/Oh, yeah, they still are.
Lehman/But the Kickers have demonstrated a rather unique ability to raise money.
Elliott/Yes.
Lehman/They've given the City a lot of---
Champion/ This is not the Kickers that want this.
Lehman/No, no, but it is soccer, and my feeling is that there may be a way they can work with
Parks and Rec and maybe there's some way that over a period of time we can help them
build what they're looking for. Or work with them.
Male/But that--you'll refer that to~--
Lehman/Yes.
Atkins/I'll take care of it.
IP 5. MUNICIPAL ELECTRIC LIGHT AND POWER SYSTEM PROPOSAL
Lehman/The municipal electric petition, Eleanor.
Dilkes/I think the memo was pretty self-explanatory. You have a valid petition seeking to put the
proposal to establish a municipal electric utility on the ballot for November 2005. Council
is required to put it on.
Vanderhoef/We don't have to do a vote or anything, do we? To put it on?
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Dilkes/We'll do--we have to do a resolution putting it on the ballot.
Vanderhoef/Oh, OK.
Dilkes/We've done that before. We got to get it to the auditor. The only, I guess, question we
haven't had answered yet from the auditor is when he'll accept the paperwork. And so, I
mean, there's deadlines for, you know, the minimum amount of time that we can get him
that stuff. But there's no outside time so I guess my inclination would be that as soon as
we know, he'll take the paperwork, put it on your agenda, have you pass a resolution, and
it'll be done.
Elliott/Could you address the process? For instance, my understanding is a "yes" vote would
authorize the Council to go ahead. Would a "no" vote require anything?
Dilkes/No.
Elliott/So the Council either way can do--this is to provide the Council with a sense of the
community?
Dilkes/No, no, not just that. It's a prerequisite to moving forward to the Utilities Board.
Elliott/But the Council can do what it wants to afterwards, but it would do so at the risk of---
Dilkes/Right.
Elliott/If the vote is no or the vote is yes, the Council can go ahead or not?
Lehman/No.
Dilkes/No, if the vote is no, the Council cannot go to (can't hear)
Elliott/OK, that's what I was asking. OK. And---
Dilkes/If the vote is yes, the Council can go to the Utilities Board but does not have a legal
mandate to do so.
Elliott/And are we constrained promoting anything during any period of time prior to this?
Dilkes/Public money cannot be spent on a ballot issue.
Wilburn/So, you can, in your private time you could but you couldn't use your City Council e-
mail account to---
Elliott/OK.
Dilkes/And you know we can resurrect all that stuff that we sent out in connection with the
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February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 55
library referendum, all those, that same kind of stuff[ You can't use public money. Public
money can be used to inform but not advocate. Sometimes there's not a clear line there
but Charlie Smithson at the Elections Board on the board in Des Moines that oversees
these kinds of things has been very nice in giving me opinions on that kind of stuff, so.
Bailey/I want to make sure that I understand. A "no" vote--that ends the discussion? Or a "no"
vote ends the possibility of this round? I mean, is that it, I guess?
Dilkes/A "no" vote means that without a "yes" vote, you cannot go forward to the Utilities
Board and you cannot establish a municipal electrical utility without permission of the---
Bailey/But you could have another---
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/I think there's a time period. I'd have to look at the statute, you know, in fact, you can
pull that out for me now, if you want. I think there's like a two-year, if it's not successful,
you have to wait.
Bailey/All fight. OK.
Dilkes/But let me check that.
Elliott/I think that as a Council, Ernie, we might want to have an agreement of how we want to
conduct ourselves during any time of a campaign. Does that sound reasonable?
Lehman/I don't really think that the Council would want to do anything to restrict the activity of
its members in promoting a municipal utility or--I just don't think we would want to do
that.
Elliott/OK.
Lehman/I think as a Council we are prohibited by law, but individually I think Council people
should follow their conscience.
Elliott/Yeah, ! guess, I just feel that for me, I would probably want to remain neutral.
Lehman/Well, I think a lot ofus---
Elliott/Each ofus---
Dilkes/You are certainly free individually to spend your own time and resources for political
purposes. But just not the City's resources. If it fails, the stone or similar proposal may
not be submitted for at least four years from the date of the election.
Bailey/OK. That closes it for quite, for awhile.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session February 2, 2004.
February 2, 2004 Council Work Session Page 56
Lehman/Right.
Bailey/OK, thank you.
Dilkes/Mm-hmm.
Lehman/OK, anything else for the good of the cause?
O'Donnell/See you tomorrow night.
Lehman/We're out of here.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session February 2, 2004.