HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-04-21 Transcription04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 1
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
IOWA CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Elliott, Champion, O'Donnell, Mayor
E. Lehman, Vanderhoef
iOWA CITY STAFF PRESENT: Atkins, Helling, Dilkes, Kart
JCCOG STAFF PRESENT: Davidson
JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: M. Lehman, Chair Neuzil,
Thompson, Harney
JOHNSON COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: Sullivan, Dvorak
CORALVILLE CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Herwig, Mayor Fausett,
Lundell, Gill, Schnake
CORALVILLE STAFF PRESENT: Hayworth
IOWA CITY SCHOOL BOARD PRESENT: President Reece, Left, Franker
IOWA CITY SCHOOL BOARD STAFF PRESENT: Behle
NORTH LIBERTY CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Soukup, Mayor Mekota,
Salm
NORTH LIBERTY STAFF PRESENT: James
CALL TO ORDER
Lehman: It's five after 4:00. First thing we're going to do is introduce ourselves so
our tape, so our names are recognizable on the tape, starting with Dee
Vanderhoef. (participants give name and designation) First item on the
agenda is road construction progress, as requested by the school board,
12th Avenue. Who wishes to speak to that?
ROAD CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS (SCHOOL BOARD)
Mekota: We were just wondering if there was any information that the other
entities had to report at this point and time.
Thompson: Well we met with citizens for 12th Avenue and (can't hear; others talking)
that would allow us to do any (can't hear) of that project, with a potential
to start (can't hear) January and a completion date for August.
Champion: And we already allocated money from the STP Funds.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City
Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 2
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
Thompson: So we've got a million dollars in federal funds from STP and a $132,000
in federal funds from (can't hear).
Champion: That'd be good.
Neuzil: Yeah, it's definitely moving forward. I mean, the you know, right now the
biggest part if communicating with the residents. Obviously their lives are
going to change with a pretty big arterial road system right in their front
yard so (can't hear) communicating.
Schnake: Biggest challenge we have right now as far as could be real interesting
situation if we don't get the situation resolved along Forevergreen Road
pretty soon you could have both of those roads being built at the same
time, and you're not going to be able to get from Coralville to North
Liberty so potentially that year. So I think there's some challenges there
that we need to resolve sooner rather than later or it won't get dealt this
year and then you're going to have potentially both those roads being built
at the same time and that situation I don't think anybody wants to look at
so. We were talking about this the other night --- we're getting closer.
Well closer doesn't cut it. It's not like horseshoes. You either have an
agreement or you don't. Really, my understanding, Clair, is we don't have
an agreement at this point so.
Mekota: We don't have an agreement, and actually I'll let Brian...
Lehman: Brian, you need to...why don't you sit at the table? I think we have
enough chairs.
James: Currently we're still trying to figure out a way to get the property annexed
in it, okay? We go through involuntary procedure, we're talking (can't
hear). So we're still trying to find a way to make that happen without that.
Until that point, when both cities decide to make that decision to move
ahead, and the Council will be talking about this, or North Liberty
Council, will be talking about this at the next meeting.
Schnake: And there's nothing much we can do at this...I got real excited the other
day. I was out there and they had all these flags out there and I thought
"oh they came to an agreement, we're gonna build the road", you know,
but it's not...
Champion: And when is that school opening?
James: The elementary? September of 05.
Schnake: 05, which is why they need to get, and you're trying to push for 12th
Avenue (can't hear) we would have everything resolved so that we could
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Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 3
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
do Forevergreen Road this summer, this building season, and then 12th
Avenue next so that they weren't all going to happen at the same time. So
either they won't both be done, or you could potentially have the, have it
going on at the same time which as I said, I don't think it's anything we
want to look at.
Harney: Let me clarify something on 12th Avenue. As far as the County and the
City of Coralville goes, that is pretty much an agreement that was before
the Board (can't hear) at this upcoming meeting. There's still a long ways
to go to be able to go along with the planning phase of that, but until the
residents agree to allow the work to occur, agreements with them to
voluntarily annex into Coralville, set the whole pace and put everything
together...until they do that, it's not really a go so that remains to be seen
what happens. The residents did have a meeting recently (can't hear)
voluntarily go along with the plan proposed.
Lehman: The ball's in whose court?
Hamey: It'd be Coralville's and Johnson County's, when that particular portion,
and the residents.
(male): The residents are waiting to see the designs, I mean, that is really what
they want to see. But the next step...
Schnake: And we've got these, and we've initiated that phase. We've got the
agreements in place to get that done. That's being done right now.
Thompson: (can't hear) beginning the design in July? (can't hear; others talking)
M. Lehman: Well our consideration tomorrow on the Board is for the planning and
design. Once the design is presented to the residents out there, then they'll
decide how they want to proceed, and we've got 29 of them so hopefully
it's unanimous that they're going to be in agreement with that so the first
step is tomorrow for the financing of the planning and design.
Thompson: The federal money won't be available until October (can't hear) design
phase (can't hear).
Lehman: Well Coralville got a significant REAP Grant, what, last week? Is any of
that for Forevergreen Road?
Fausett: The what?
O'Donnell: RISE Grant.
Lehman: RISE Grant, I'm sorry, right.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City
Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 4
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
Schnake: No.
Lehman: For you folks who just came, we're talking about 12th Avenue and
Forevergreen Road, the status of it.
Lundell: No, that was all for the 9th Street into the conference area.
Lehman: That's right.
Fausett: By Perkins.
Lehman: Well, it sounds as if everything is kind of in limbo until the planning is
complete and, although it also sounds as if the neighbors are not agreeable
to being annexed and whatever, that this could take a while.
Harney: And the reason for the agreement is that the way that is set up, we made
the agreement to, the property owners ~vill pay 15% (can't hear) cost of
the project, and you know, if they don't voluntarily become (can't hear)
and then they could end up (can't hear).
Lehman: Anything else on either of those two? Okay, Creative Communities
Intergovernmental Cooperation with Johnson and Linn Counties and
Cities Within - this is also put on by the County.
CREATIVE COMMUNITIES - iNTERGOVERNMENTAL COOPERATION
W/JOHNSON AND L1NN COUNTIES & CITIES WITHiN (COUNTY)
Neuzil: Yeah, the Board of Supervisors was very interested in intergovernmental
cooperation, and Carol Thompson and I serve on a bit of a sub-committee,
as we're preparing for a real interesting meeting that we hope that the
mayors of all the communities with Linn and Johnson County will be
going, to be a part of. It's Public Leadership Summit, scheduled for
Thursday, May 6th, at 4:30 PM, and it's at the Howard R. Green facility,
which if you are at the Iowa City Airport exit, instead of taking a left at
the exit, you take a right and it's in that facility. You have received at
least one notice. We'll be mailing out another. Carol Thompson, you
want to maybe talk a little bit about some of the items or maybe the
agenda, or...
Thompson: Sure. The meeting is focused around the (can't hear) What we're hoping
to explore is ways that we can, collaboration in our communities (can't
hear) and as co-sponsors of this meeting, we're hoping that all of our
cities, all the mayors will attend, or send a representative.
Fausett: You received information about that from Lou (can't hear).
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Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 5
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
Neuzil: Yeah, that's right.
Thompson: And you'll get further notice (can't hear) agenda. You have to RSVP
(can't hear).
Neuzil: And the idea is that they would chair the first and then we would chair the
second, and kind of make this a kind o£a bi-annual, twice a year we would
get together to talk about potential ways in which we can really develop
the corridor and how we could work together.
Thompson: At this first meeting, we'll be talking about ways that we already
cooperate, and we'll use a facilitator from Grant Wood to help us identify
(can't hear), and at the following meeting we'll (can't hear) and talk about
the results.
Champion: Who organized this?
Fausett: This was....County Supervisors is the one that sent me the information.
Neuzil: Yeah, actually, yeah, it stemmed from the...
Fausett: Creative class discussions.
Neuzil: Yeah, fight, it came out of the creative classes and quite frankly I think it
stemmed from the fact that Lou Baron and I got to sit next to each other in
the airplane in Washington D.C., and that's kind of where that all came
from as far as just trying to get something put together about how Linn
and Johnson County, what are some of the things that we do that works
together, and ways in which we can cooperate, look at opportunities, look
at challenges, and all those things, and they could bring these two
communities together, similar to what Priority One and ICCAD has done
with their technology corridor, so I hope you folks will be able to attend
that. Again, that is on Thursday, May 6th, at 4:30 PM. It's called the
Public Leadership Summit.
Reece: Are your school districts invited?
Neuzil: That's...again, at this point I think it's just mayors, and supervisors.
(can't hear) first thing we brought up today...
Thompson: And then we said we (can't hear) school districts (can't hear) so we'll
(can't hear). 19 in Linn County
Lehman: Okay, school attendance boundary changes.
SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BOUNDARY CHANGES (SCHOOL BOARD)
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Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 6
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
Behle: Good afternoon. If you've been watching, I guess the last School Board
meeting, a week ago yesterday, we started the process that evening to
work on the boundaries for the new elementary school, and addressing
also any of the other overcrowding that we have in that north corridor
area. So, the Board asked that we give you just an update as to what will
be occurring over the next several months, and then for more detailed
information, on our school web page, you will see a link that right now
says "Building Projects", and it should say "Building Projects and
Boundaries" at some point, and then it will give updates periodically, both
in regards to our parameters, our time lines, any issues that we're
covering, and then eventually as we start developing scenarios for
potential boundary changes. So we wanted to let you know first that that
was occurring. Second, I guess I just....I'm not going to go through all
the information because you can access it there, but I think just the
parameters are probably what's most important that may be of interest.
The parameters that we've selected are not unlike what was used for
Wickham and Weber, but we've added a little bit to that. One is that as
we look at students we want to keep communities of students together -
neighborhoods are what might be natural communities together as much as
possible. Obviously we want to have boundaries that support safety,
minimize busing. We'll be looking to balance social, economic, as well as
ethnicity, within the schools, as much as allowed within the population in
those areas. We will work closely again, as we have for many years, with
the cities on future residential development as best as we can map out
where, what's occurring, and how soon that will occur. Obviously look at
natural boundaries that kind of either help, or in most cases prohibit.
Some times you're transporting students to certain areas. We'll look at
making sure we have space available for special programs, such as special
education. Always the most challenging one is that we want to try to
minimize student disruption. Opening a school, sometimes families are
more willing to change schools because of the newness of the school and
the excitement that goes along with that, but we also know that that can
cause disruption to families and ties to schools, and so we hope to
minimize that. At the same time, we have to move students to a new
building, and the one that the Board talked about at the last meeting that
added to the parameters, and really was a significant one, and that is while
we don't anticipate changing all the boundaries in the entire school
district, at the same time we do want to take this opportunity to kind of
look globally across our current district at the growth that's occurring, and
at the same time, you know, make sure that any changes we do make, are
also there for the long-term and not just a short-term. As much as we can
predict that, and so for example, one of the things we'll do, our first step
will be to take our most projections, which we just got within the last
month, and from the University of Iowa, and we'll look at
comparing...those go out to 2008....and we'll look at how those
projections compare, for each attendance area, compare to the capacity of
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City
Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 7
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
the buildings in each of those, in each attendance area, and so it will be
obvious in some cases that, you know, we'll be over capacity with those
projections, and if there's situations where a building may be under
capacity, we'll look from that global perspective. Another perspective,
~ve'll just look at how we can best use our facilities overall, so while we
do have a major undertaking in regard to the opening of the new school
and the assignment of students to those, to that attendance area
particularly, we also want to look at what other opportunities and what
other needs may be here at the short....at the immediate time. The other
thing, just from a time line, we started it with setting the parameters. As a
district, the month of May will be used primarily to, again, we hope to
meet with the cities to kind of update the progress of residential
development that they see, get their input, so we'll spend the month of
May doing that. Toward the end of the month we'll start working with the
University of Iowa, in actually trying to develop some scenarios, and that
isn't quite as easy as just drawing lines on a boundary map because, in
addition to...because actually I could do that...but, in addition to that, it
really involves looking at when we start moving students, we have
statistics that can project out, and growth for that new attendance area. So
we don't want to say "this looks good now" and then not look at what the
progression rates, what the growth rates in those areas may be. So there is
quite a bit of analysis that goes along. So we'll start with some scenarios.
I anticipate we'll then share those. Our goal is to share some, at least
initially with the Board in the June 8th Board meeting. We'll use the
months of June and July, and probably into August, to get community
inputs. There will be several opportunities for community to see these
scenarios. I looked at the Wickham, and I didn't count them, but they
started with scenarios A and they were up to S-T-U-V, so I think that that
process will probably continue to be numerous as they develop over time.
And then, in August, I think we hope to have it kind of start narrowing
down to some specific parameters, and then actually hold some public
hearings. I guess, to actually present what may be kind of the final plans,
and then we hope that by I think it's September 14th will be the final
decision. A real ambitious timeline. At the same time, our goal is to have
for the elementary that we have those attendance areas set you know
within a year, close to a year, within which the building will open and then
allow for other plarming to take place.
Lehman: I have one question. The University's talking about eliminating Hawkeye
Court. Have they visited with you (can't hear)...?
Behle: That's one of the groups we need to sit down with because I know it has
been published in the paper, but I'm a little unsure of the time line and
what all that will entail, because that will certainly impact a great deal. So
that will be one of those kind of global perspectives that we'll need to look
at beyond the immediate attendance areas. IfI could just add a couple
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Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 8
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
other pieces quickly. If you're interested in the demographic report for
those of you that like that type of reading, that will be on our web page
very soon, and that projects out to 08. There have been some excellent
summaries in our press on that. Tomorrow is a big day for us - we open
up bids for City High, and so tomorrow afternoon, so that's our next big
project. We're excited about that, and the other thing that you will be
getting an invitation to is next Thursday, April 29th, at 1:30 PM, we will
have a groundbreaking ceremony for our new north corridor elementary
school. You will all be invited. You'll get specific announcements to
that, and we anticipate by that time we'll have the name so...
Champion: When will you hire a principal? Will you do that early?
Behle: Yeah, we'll do that sometime during I guess late fall, early winter, and
have someone...we haven't set a specific timeline but to have someone
usually about six months ahead of time so that we can start working on the
staffing and the next step, the building.
Thompson: Is the alternative school still on schedule?
Behle: Oh, yes it is. The alternative school will be bid in May. That'll be our
next big project, and, well we're receiving our bids in May, and I think it's
early May, like May 5th I believe, and so then construction would start
right away, and that would also be scheduled to open in 05. Both the
elementary and the alternative school would be open in 05. I should
mention, back on the boundaries, we're working with just the elementary
boundaries at this point, and we won't be addressing the junior high
boundaries, but that's what's occurring there. Our junior high project is
still in design phase, and will probably I think bid sometime early next
fall. That'll be....and we'll have other smaller projects at that point.
Fausett: Ground breaking?
Behle: 1:30 PM next Thursday on the site of the new elementary school, and you
will be getting specific invitations.
Reece: Jim, are the plans up on the web site yet for the alternative school?
Behle: I don't believe so. They weren't as of Monday.
Reece: (can't hear) by the end of the month?
Behle: Oh yeah, yeah. And you probably read about the elementary will be using
the, it's been a big focus, is the sustainable energy design, and actually
there'll be components of that in all of our buildings, but the elementary
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City
Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 9
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
and the alternative school will probably have the most complete, and most
involved components of that. So, we're still continuing to work on that.
Mekota: Have you decided to build the extra wing... ?
Behle: That will come as a decision after tomorrow's bids. We have to make a
decision shortly. I think the Board will take action on Friday on the
formal bid, and at that point we will know what the bids from the City
High, how we're coming total budget-wise, and then we'll have three of
the big projects we'll have amounts on. I think that as we've talked about
it, as we look at our projections out to 08, that if we look at Penn,
Wickham, and the new elementary school, that we're projected that if we
just have the three wings, that we will be full by 08. So that's the
challenge of that.
Mekota: ...be full before then.
Behle: And we...
Schnake: That was my question. I was thinking, how full's the school going to be
when it opens?
Behle: Well, a lot of that will depend upon again how many people we move at
that point. You know, we certainly anticipate that they'll be somewhere, I
want to say somewhere around 300, upper 200's to lower 300's...
Schnake: Without even moving anybody though, I mean, I drive through there twice
a day. There's constantly, I would say probably four kids per double unit
going in there, and those double units are going up left and right. It's
going to be filled before...
Behle: So I don't think the question is the long-term need for that fourth wing. It
will all come into how we can best fund that.
Mekota: (can't hear)...first of the year. We just approved 120 acres residential.
We've got another 200 acres coming in for residential. We've got another
120 in town, that's going to be residential. And I think (can't hear). You
can have the University do all the studies they want, you need to talk to us
and actually bring stuff...
Behle: And that's exactly what we're...
Mekota: North Coralville's doing the same thing, and we're going to run, we're
working on getting Forevergreen clear through to First Avenue. That's
going to open up a whole bunch. It's very important. And then my other
question was, how soon are you going to start on high schools?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City
Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 10
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
Behle: (laughter) We'll get these done first.
Mekota: Well these wheels turn pretty slow, so I want to get going on that.
(laughter)
Behle: That's exactly what I talked about, what we do in May when we meet with
the different government bodies. We'll meet and get all those updates, but
I...that's how my wife and I spend our Sunday afternoon. She gets to
drive around to all the towns and start mapping out maps for me, but we
were up in North Liberty just on Sunday, and seeing just the comer there
of 965 and again the development off of Front Street. It's nice what
you've done there. We're well aware that...we...all of those things are
going to affect these decisions.
Mekota: The other question I had is how is (can't hear)..wind?
Behle: I don't have any update on data. I don't think we have analyzed, or we
haven't received anything more recent. I think last fall we got some
initial, and that was only like a month or two into it. It wasn't very far
into it. At that point it was kind of, I would say borderline, you know, we
didn't have enough data really to say whether or not it would make it or
not, so I think the key will be having a long enough period of time, and I
think we're doing that, and Dave, I can't remember if we go through the
summer on that.
Franker: I think, actually (can't hear) just got an email this afternoon, that we'll get
shortly.
Behle: And I think that, again, the building, the building itself, if it's, at whatever
point it's decided that if it is decided, that it's something that would be
energy efficient and worth our while to invest in, you know, that can be
put in at any point in time. We don't have to define....the building is
designed to accept whatever energy, from the traditional ways as well as
from use of the wind, so that will probably be this fall, I guess, before the
final decision.
Reece: When did the anemometer go up?
Behle: First week of September.
Reece: And that's what we're waiting on, right?
Franker: Right. Just to respond to your one point, Clair, that was on the rapid
growth, that was expressly why we added the parameter, take a global
look, and if you'll recall, to this group, Jim, about a year and a half ago
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Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
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North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
presented the idea of what we call a flex policy where we would look out,
like spokes in a wheel, to try to maximize our use of existing space in all
the different schools before we leapt to another round of building, in a
fashion that would make the most sense for the long run, so I don't kno~v
what that will mean for Lane's and Jim's drawings of the maps. It might
include not just the area, and Wickham also might touch on those other
Coralville schools, Central and Kirkwood. Even potentially that northern,
if you look at the map, the northern expanse of the Weber area goes way,
quite a ways north, and so there's some potential there, to sort of flex out
from a couple of the other schools. But the main thing is, look at the
whole picture.
Elliott: Jim, are there, especially at times like this when you have new schools
come on board, and you're planning new boundaries perhaps, are there
any things that the cities or towns could do routinely that would help you
as, with your projections? Just a little conversation here about "did you
know this is going up and how many acres, and how many developments,
and how many kids"...are there any things that the cities can do routinely
to help you with that?
Behle: Actually what we've done pretty much on an annual basis, although we
haven't done it this year yet, but we'll do it like I said, this month we'll
meet with the cities and then literally Karin Franklin, Kelly, Mary Kay, sit
down with us and they give us their big map and they sho~v us what's been
approved for zoning, what's coming up for zoning approval,
what's....where there's plats already approved. That's probably been the
most...it's been very helpful for us. And certainly all the staffs have been
very responsive whenever we need any update on that, so I think we're
okay there. Again, if there is information that the cities, or the counties ---
anyone has that they think would be helpful to us, you kno~v sometimes
we don't know what's out there and so if you have some information you
think we're not asking for it just because we don't know it's there, so
make sure you let Lane and myself...
Lehman: Okay, Riverfront Redevelopment.
RIVERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT - TRAILS AND STREET PLANN1NG
(CORALVILLE)
Fausett: Kelly, you want to...
Hayworth: We got a chance a week ago, a couple weeks ago actually, to hear Jeff
give us some presentation as part of our planning on where trails,
connections, roads, all these things, come together, where the Peninsula is
.... all these different things then, we thought it would be good for others
to see how all these different pieces fit together, and how Iowa City, and
Coralville, and North Liberty, how these different pieces are coming
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Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
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North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
together is real important. So we asked Jeff to share some of that same
information with all of you. Riverfront Redevelopment Committee, and
thought it was something that you all might like to see just very briefly.
Davidson: This ~vill not be a long and boring presentation, especially if we dim the
lights down late in the afternoon. But I did have just five slider that I
thought I'd mn through quickly. As Kelly mentioned, we had the
opportunity to do that for Coralville's meeting. Thank you very much,
Marian and Mike. I'm wired up here that's why I didn't go to the rescue.
Real quickly here, just a couple of slides. This is the JCCOG Arterial
Street Plan, which I think a number of you are familiar with, and of course
the area where Coralville is doing their planning is in here right now. I
think a couple of key things with the Arterial Street Plan is that this
redevelopment area and this river area here which we're just going to
discuss very briefly, is bracketed by the two most high volume traffic
corridors, that being Interstate 80 and Highway 6 in the community.
Those are the work horse traffic corridors of the community and I think to
the degree, that through the arterial street planning we're doing, we
already have one additional gateway between Coralville and Iowa City in
the Oakdale Boulevard area here. Right now it goes through some
residential areas that hopefully within the next few years that'll be put
through the final alignment here to Dubuque Street. The County and Iowa
City then are doing some planning right now for the remainder of the
corridor, but this is an important gateway between Coralville and Iowa
City, for taking some of the pressure off of these two here. Also in the
relatively short range you will see Camp Cardinal Road constructed here,
which will provide an additional gateway on the west side, reduce some of
the congestion problems occurring along Highway 6. That's scheduled
for, I guess, the next two, three years as a joint project between Coralville,
Iowa City, and private developer, and then a little bit further out, will be
the 965 extension. This one will relieve enough of the pressure in here,
and allow some redevelopment to occur, so that this one is probably a little
bit further out, but nevertheless, you can see we have a network here. We
very deliberately don't put the municipal boundaries on this map because
we want to make sure we've got a network that regardless of the
municipal boundaries, functions as a network and allows traffic to
circulate in the community. Similarly then for trails. This is getting to be
a very impressive map because of the efforts of all of you, and I would
point out that very shortly here --- we've actually shown this little piece
right here as being completed because it is going to be completed by the
end of the year, by the City of Coralville. In fact, I was just out there over
the weekend and the grading is already being done for it, but when that is
completed, you will be able to go from my house --- I live by City High
School in east Iowa City, and actually further out in Iowa City, you will be
able to go from east Iowa City to the North Liberty Recreation Center, all
on either trail or wide sidewalk, and I think that's extraordinary. It's about
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Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
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North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
17 miles, and that system will be in place once Coralville has completed
this little piece here. Once again, focusing on the riverfront
redevelopment area here, the river corridor trail, which is the main north,
south regional trail. I would point out that parts of this trail have been
completed by Johnson County, Iowa City, University of Iowa, and
Coralville, and so having the overall plan in place so that individually we
can complete pieces of it, have it all hook up right now --- you can go
from Napoleon Park in south Iowa City to the Coralville Dam on
separated trail, except for this one missing piece right there. Otherwise it
is all in place. The City Council of Iowa City is considering possibly
putting this into the Capital Improvements Program. At the present time,
sort of waiting to see what happens with some of the private development
in that area before making that decision, but once again, a very impressive,
13-mile long regional trail system, north and south. This is the main
north, south trail. There is a trail of similar scope east and west --- the
Clear Creek Trail, which has had the majority of it completed right now by
the City of Coralville, but will also in the future involve Tiffin, the
County, and Iowa City as well. So two very considerable regional trails
that provide, you know, we are already starting to get calls from people,
from outside of the community, who once you have a regional trail of this
kind of scope, you start drawing the people in that spend the day, spend
the weekend or whatever, and ride the trail, and we're seeing that already.
Moving on then, a little bit more detail here. The next two slides are of
the Waterworks Prairie Park and the Peninsula, which are essentially the
east half of the part that Coralville is now dealing with right across the
river. This is getting to be a pretty impressive park. If any of you haven't
had the opportunity to be down there, it's just had basically the first phase
of development completed. A number of trails that have been completed,
primarily to serve the well areas that are part of the, the sand point wells
that are part of the new Iowa City water treatment plant, which is located
here. There are two parking areas - one here, one recently completed
right here - that allow public access to this area. The City of Iowa City
has received a grant just recently to do some prairie plantings which will
result in this being the largest urban prairie in the state when it's
completed, and you'll see that implemented in the next couple of years.
Similarly there will be additional development. There's one pavilion right
here --- there're going to be some additional pavilions constructed, some
additional facilities around the lake here to provide public access,
principally for fishing. There will be an amphitheatre here, initially
constructed as an open-air amphitheatre, and possibly eventually with
some kind of a roof structure over it. The Butler House is a historic
structure, located right here, which there is a project that'll be
implemented this coming year to provide some access to it. There are no
plans right now for any further restoration of that facility, but that's once
again something that can possibly be done in the future if funds
materialize for that. So you can see a very elaborate park here of several
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04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 14
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
hundred acres that is directly across, actually this one is catty-comer
across from the redevelopment area in Coralville. Here's the one that's
directly across. Actually this shows .... this is the area we were just
looking at, and this shows the Peninsula area then. Coralville's
redevelopment area is in through here, excuse me, in through here, directly
across the river. This is the traditional neighborhood, Peninsula
Subdivision, that's currently under construction. There are I think just
under 200 acres of property in this area that were procured with federal
flood control funds after 93. They will always be park land and also well-
head areas. The dam here is being reconstructed. If any of you have been
out there, very impressive project that will provide a very nice trail
connection between Coralville and the redevelopment area here, and the
Peninsula area. There is some private property here that is in the process
of, well being speculated on for redevelopment, and I think in the very
short future, with the completion of Foster Road now providing good
access to it, you're going to see that completed. The Elks Club Golf
Course here is once again seen as an amenity for this entire area as well.
So, and certainly, and Kelly may want to elaborate a little bit, but
Coralville's plans for this area I think are very, you know, we have a lot of
consistency between Iowa City and Coralville, and what we're seeing
happen here and I think a very, very nice redevelopment of the area, and
the public access part of it is going to be very, very nice for the
community when we get done. Kelly? Was there anything you wanted to
elaborate further?
Hayworth: (can't hear) real impressed with how all these things have started to tie
together, and how these different pieces we hear about - the Peninsula or
the Waterworks Park, and some of these areas, and how it all ties together,
and how our plans are tied into that, we thought it was really important,
and really impressive, once you start seeing it all on one map and so I
think it's just good to start to find out where some of these places are and
(can't hear).
Champion: And what's happening, it seems at one of the JCCOG, there were some
county trails, the ones at the end of town? Between, like off Prairie de
Chen, in that area, are those trails...do you have a trail map?
Davidson: Let's go back...
Neuzil: You go through JCCOG but that is the proposed (can't hear) it's called the
(can't hear) Trail right now, which is the shoulder...
Davidson: Yeah, I think what Terrence is speaking of right here on Prairie de Chen
Road, that is a design standard that the County has adopted. They've used
it on Sand Road to the south, the part of Sand Road that will be
constructed this coming year as well, with the 5-foot shoulder. Basically
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04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 15
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
it's a much less expensive, as you might imagine, way of accommodating
bicyclists, very nicely, especially in a rural setting, accommodating
bicyclists very....we've gotten very good feedback from the bicyclists
about that, and I think that's generally the design standard you use
for...(several talking at once) yeah, right.
Neuzil: The real question them will be, as we go through the planning process, if
the Board chooses to put a separate trail system through there to reach the
reservoir, or to (can't hear). One of those two are going to be a part of that
plan.
Davidson: And this of course is a separate trail, at least this portion is a separate trail,
and the County, that's part of the River Corridor Trail.
Neuzil: Jeff, on that very last page, there was a big blue line that went through the
number 3.
Davidson: That's a pipe line. It's pipe line easement.
Neuzil: I was trying to figure out if that was a creek, a road, or what that was.
Davidson: That, no, that's just a pipe line that requires a little creativity to
accommodate, but I know Coralville is certainly accommodating it into
their redevelopment plan.
Lundell: I think it's just important to point out too that in planning we've been
talking about two user groups. One of those that want to take the 17-mile
trip across town and up to North Liberty and back, but there's also the
group of families that want to come with the mom and dad, and a couple
of kids, drive somewhere, park, and just do some internal circulation
things too, just for a little 2-hour bike ride with the family, and we're
trying to accommodate both the long-term commuter, but also those little
family routes as well, and I think this works well that way.
Davidson: Yeah, and one thing I wanted to state that I'd forgotten, but goes right
along with John's comment, is that these are the regional trails, and since
we've started circulating this map, we've actually gotten several calls
from folks, saying, well, no wait a minute. I have a trail by my house.
How come it's not on here? That's because it's a neighborhood trail.
They're a lot of neighborhood trails that do connect to these larger,
regional trails, but that's what's focused hem on this map.
Vanderhoef: Jeff, you might want to just follow the Clear Creek one because of how we
are extending that clear on south of the airport, south of the runways, and
along with the Mormon Trek.
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04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 16
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
Davidson: Yeah, the one Dee is talking about is actually the Willow Creek Trail,
rather than the Clear Creek Trail. The Willow Creek Trail, and I'm sorry,
I'm going to need my specs for this ..... okay, yeah, the Willow Creek Trail
is the trail right hem. A piece of it....this is like very near the West High
football field, goes down through Willow Creek Park, terminates right
there now. What Dee was speaking of is probably initially this will be
connected to the extension of Mormon Trek Boulevard, which if you
might have seen in the newspaper this week, is now on a little bit faster
track to actually be extended over to Napoleon Park, and there will be a
wide sidewalk as part of this project, that will basically complete the
Willow Creek Trail up to this point. There are plans for taking it under the
Interstate. We hope to be able to use a drainage corridor, just like
Coralville has for their trail underneath 1-80, and then the recently
completed redevelopment plan for the County Poor Farm property, also
accommodates that trail with a trailhead at the actual Poor Farm. That is
in the County's plan, so once again, we have a number of entities here that
have all kind of come together through the planning process to coordinate
something that's going to be a very nice regional trail eventually, and then
of course you hook up here to the River Corridor Trail, which could
possibly take you up to the dam then, so...and then eventually this trail
will follow a separated alignment along Willow Creek, possibly as
redevelopment of the airport property occurs.
Mekota: Is there a timeline for the (can't hear) Ridge upgrade for bicyclists in
particular?
Davidson: Terrence? Yeah...(several talking at once) You're talking about the part
further in to North Liberty, in other words on the other side of Mahaffey
Bridge, yeah.
Neuzil: It's not in the 5-year road plan, however, it's likely in the 10-year plan as
Johnson County prepares to rebuild the actual Mahaffey Bridge, and that
section of it by Solon and North Liberty. So I think the Board was
interested in moving forward with that as soon as that bridge was not
structurally sound any longer, which our latest study showed about a 10-
year life span left, so another 10 years that should be a part of that.
Davidson: And you can see, John, that that's included right here, and I'm almost sure
we've done a separate trails plan for the City of North Liberty, and I
believe that's on there as an element as well.
Mekota: It's just in the summer with the boat traffic on land and (can't hear) it's
pretty hairy though.
Davidson: Right. Any other comments or questions? Okay, thank you.
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04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 17
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
Lehman: Thank you, Jeff. Okay, Youth Development Grant, School Board.
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT GRANT (SCHOOL BOARD)
Left: I'm going to be speaking about that. Some of you perhaps attended a
conference last October 11th that the District sponsored, and the title of
that conference was "Removing Barriers to Learning", and we were
looking at barriers which students in the Iowa City Community School
District face that get in the way of their receiving a quality education, and
as we studied this and the end of the day there were still those people
interested in pursuing this and continuing on, and from that, Joan
Vandenberg and the representative of the Iowa City Community School
District and the Johnson County Juvenile Justice Youth Development
Program, as well as the Empowerment Board, went ahead and applied for
a grant, and the grant was given by the Io~va Collaboration for Youth
Development, and we applied for it and found out in January that Johnson
County was going to receive $100,000 for the next 4 years to work on
youth development, and the idea is to come up with plans for youth
development in our county, and thus far the task force has met about three
times, and thus far also I would have to say only people from
(TAPE ENDS)
have been contacted so I think that in the future we may go to them as
opposed to them coming to us, and talk about this, but we've taken the
task force, which is quite large, and broken it into four work groups, and
those work groups are titled "Safe and Healthy Families, School and
Community", "Prepare for Productive Adulthood", "Healthy and Socially
Competent Students", and the forth is "Successful in School". And these
were focuses, foci, that the state group, the Iowa Collaboration for Youth
Development, came up with, and so we adopted those because they pretty
much met the same parameters we were talking about at our October
conference. These work groups then are meeting, and their tasks are to
study the existing data, and to gather any additional data that we feel that
we need to know before we can make some educated decisions. We will
then identify the resources which already exist in our community, and then
finally we would identify gaps and come up with some sort of a plan, that
we would hope to have a draft of the plan by the month of June, and by
coming up with a common plan, we feel like we can support all of these
agencies' works better. I mean right now we know that there's a lot of
duplication of services that go on, and because quite honestly not all of
those groups know what the other groups are doing. So this is
informational, and by doing that we think we can be more effective, and
work more efficiently, and I think also we can better communicate to the
people in our community, what agencies and services are available for
young people.
Elliott: Is that $400,000 over 4 years, as opposed to...
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City
Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.
04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 18
North Liberty, Coralville; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
Leff: $100,000 each year for 4 years.
Lehman: Questions? Comments?
Neuzil: And Johnson County got that, you know, with the schools, because we
were the number one selected participant in that process, which meant that
~ve became eligible for federal assistance with this. Ross Wilbum and I
attended the meeting, along with Joan and others, about two weeks ago in
Des Moines, to kind of accept that and to meet the representative of the
federal government who is going to be working closely. What makes this
exciting is that Johnson County is one of seven communities in the entire
United States who is going to receive this kind of funding so that makes it
really neat for us. UAY and two others.
Lehman: Any other issue besides scheduling the next meeting?
Vanderhoefi I would just like to have the County report on their meeting on the new
Readiness Center. Just tell people what's happening there, if you would
please.
Thompson: (can't hear) representatives from the National Guard $14 million facility
there at the corner of Melrose Avenue and 218, and it's a 25-acre site that
is being sold to us. (can't hear) which we're paying for, and it's going to
be...it's a lovely project, and they were able to show us the footprint, what
it might look like on land.
Neuzil: Well, I mean, Pat Hamey and you really took the initiative on this and...
Harney: The only other comment that might concern the communities is that the
Readiness Center, they got the money from the state, I believe their
design. Now they're waiting for money from the federal government.
Congressman Leach (can't hear) need to get the approvals through the
federal government, but more concerning to the cities is, if there is interest
through the cities and the county, they are willing to participate and
actually take some financial backing, but they're willing to put in any
facilities that might benefit all the cities and the county, in training
facilities say for fire, and police, training for the S.W.A.T. team, maybe
even an indoor range if there's enough interest in the communities to help
support that. So in the future there'll be some chances to visit with them
about perhaps becoming a participant in this.
Thompson: (can't hear) if it's just zoning for the National Guard (can't hear) but if it
could be a joint facility, say with the Army Reserve, then there will be
their money. Still working on that(can't hear).
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04/21/04 Joint Meeting, City Councils of Iowa City, Page 19
North Liberty, CoralvilIe; Johnson County Board of Supervisors;
Iowa City School Board
Vanderhoef: And it is growing - they did comment on that. They had had around 320
people, based out of this facility as it presently is, with about 36
permanent staff. Well recently they moved another whole unit here from
western Iowa so the compliment is now up over 400 reservists, or National
Guardsmen, working out of this facility, and they plan this to grow even
further, so the number of permanent staff is over 40, and then you take that
times salaries and so forth coming through, it's a huge impact on our
community, and certainly it's a good one to have in our community.
Thompson: They mentioned how many million dollars (can't hear)...
Vanderhoef: They did, and the number escapes me. I didn't bring my notes with me.
Thompson: We were looking at the $14 million in construction costs and the jobs...
Vanderhoef: Well, the jobs and economic impact, but the total impact, and most of
these dollars are federal dollars. It's in the 85% federal dollars, only about
15 spread out with the state and a little bit local, but they buy so much of
their supplies here locally to service this area, so it certainly is a biggie,
and remember that we do have an Army Reserve base here also that is on
the airport land at the present, and there was some discussion with them
about collaborating on this project, and like Carol said, we would love to
have it do a joint facility, but there's to different kinds of funding that
comes through for these things.
Hamey: A little bit on that Army Reserve portion...the Army was offered the
option of becoming part of the project, and at least twice they turned it
down. So right now the process has gone so far where it wouldn't be
feasible for the Army to join in (can't hear). They may end up paying the
Army (can't hear).
Vanderhoef: Uh-huh, they're looking at sites up there also. So, they will still be in the
corridor, either way.
Lehman: Okay. Next meeting? June? (several talking at once) The 23~'d of June,
tentatively, does that work? June 23rd, Wednesday? All right. Next
meeting, we think it may be Coralville's, but we'll all be notified later. If
nothing else, we are adjourned. Thank you.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:00 PM.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City
Council joint meeting of April 21, 2004.