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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-08-30 Transcription August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page I August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session 6:30 PM Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn Staff: Atkins, Davidson, Dilkes, Franklin, Helling, Karr, Matthews, O'Malley, Rocca, Severson, Williams TAPES: 04-50, SIDE TWO; 04-53, BOTH SIDES TAPE: 04-50, SIDE TWO CRISIS CENTER PRESENTATION Lehmani Professional presentation. You know, it's been so long since we've had a meeting, Connie, we don't have to do that as regularlym (Laughter) O'Donnell/ Can we recluse ourselves? Anderson! I'm so happy to be part of a special presentation. I didn't know we had that kind of title tonight. Lehman! Well, you certainly do. Anderson! Thank you. My name is Jane Anderson, and I'm honored to be chair of the Board of Directors of the Crisis Center. This is a new job for me. I've been in it about a month, and it's already a little overwhelming for me. But let me pass onto you some things that I have learned about the Crisis Center. The Crisis Center has a very active board. We have an unusual board in that seven members of our board are actual volunteers at the Crisis Center, whereas eight other members are people, leaders from the local community. So we have a board that combines the people who do the actual work with people who know--and perhaps on a broader level--what our community needs are. I'm very proud of the work ofthe Crisis Center. And more than ever we are making, I think, a significant contribution to the welfare oflocal citizens at a very basic level. I'm talking about food, access to clothing and shelter, emotional support and referral for help if necessary, and help with very basic services such as paying utilities and taking care ofthe other emergencies that come along in people's lives--whether it's transportation or access to hospital services or whatever. It's a very inclusive agency that covers any number of services to people in need. I'd like to introduce tonight some people who are here. First of all, Carole Campbell Yack is our coordinator of services. Carole's sitting back there. Will you stand, Carole? Thank you. Next to Carole is Jodi, who is our student intern for the year. And Keri Neblitt, who is the crisis intervention program director which is a long name for a very important job. Patti Fields in the tront, who is our volunteer coordinator. Have I left anybody out? Oh, Laura Lovell, of course. Laura, among many things that Laura does at the Crisis Center, is secretary to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 2 the board. And so these are the people who run the store down on South Gilbert Street, Gilbert Street Court, yeah. We're also very proud of our director, Ross Wilburn, whom some of you may know from other political aspect of his life. (Laughter) Anderson! I'd like to toot our horn a little bit and just say since Ross came to the Crisis Center four years ago, we have built and completed a warehouse that has really enhanced the distribution of tons, literally tons, of food to people who need it. And with the help of a Community Block Grant, the Crisis Center now has the facility that enables us to meet the increasing demands upon us for food. I invite you all to come down and see our wonderful warehouse and food banle The need for the Crisis Center continues in Iowa City and surrounding communities. More than ever before people are seeking help. Not just for food, but for services and for help with an increasing list of other kinds of services besides the basic ones we have always provided. Ross will give you the specifics about the Crisis Center and how it works. Ross? He's wearing his Crisis Center hat tonight. I know he does other things around here, butm Lehmani We are holding our applause but it's very difficult, Ross. Wilburn! Well, they--I would expect no less. (Laughter) Wilburn! The Crisis Center has been a community resource since 1970 and for those of you who don't know, we're located at 1121 Gilbert Court, which is across the street from the Salvation Army, and we're right next to Johnson County Public Health. We provide basic emotional and material support and in light of our mission, we try to provide those services by responding immediately, effectively, and compassionately. Extensive community support makes it possible for the Crisis Center to serve those in need. Our primary services include the telephone hotline and providing supplemental food. We keep a comprehensive database on services available in the county. In addition, we partner with several area churches and other groups to offer limited emergency and financial support. Our crisis intervention line is available all day every day, and walk-in counseling until 11 :00 p.m. People talk about family issues, depression, health, and mental health issues, including suicide and suicides in progress. Our trained volunteers are prepared to offer support, to help with problem solving and to activate the local emergency assistance system when needed. While the crisis counseling is confidential, we do collect general information about the type and length of services, the presenting issues, the type of assistance provided, referrals given, and try to get a sense of the results of the interaction. Ordinarily we'll receive between 5,000 and 6,000 contacts every year on the hotline. As you can see, fiscal year 2004 was a record-setting year. We talk to individuals and various groups about suicidal behavior. Trained volunteers are prepared to assess lethality of people in suicidal episode. We sponsor a support group, formerly known as Ray of Hope, for people who have had a friend or relative commit suicide. In fact, tomorrow night Mayor Lehman will make a proclamation This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 3 about Suicide Prevention Week. And as part of the week, we will be sponsoring a workshop about understanding and responding to people thinking about suicide. The workshop will be held at the Iowa City Public Library Tuesday, Sept. 7th, from 1 :00 to 4:30 in Meeting Room A. Over 500 households per week will visit us, well, during the typical week; 95 percent of those are families who meet federal poverty guidelines. They're allowed to receive a food sack once per week. Some come weekly. Some we see just periodically throughout the course of a year. We provide supplemental food assistance to individuals and families. It's not a regular trip to the grocery store, but it's enough to provide a few meals during the week for people struggling to make ends meet and enough for people who just are not sure whether their next meal is coming. We try to provide a balanced meal in the grocery sack and the size of which is determined based on household size. We use nutrition students to determine the nutritional balance in the content of each sack. People from all the county visit the food bank program. The majority come from Iowa City and Coralville, and non-Johnson County residents are given referrals to assistance programs in their own town or county. We distribute three to five tons of food every week, which requires a lot of space, so the Community Development Block Grant that Jane talked about that we were awarded last year greatly helped our operations by giving us enough larger space to have greater quantities offood available on site. We purchase roughly 20 percent of the food that we distribute. The other 80 percent is donated through food drives held on our behalf by groups like the letter carriers, the Scouts, Mercy Hospital, Hawkeye Foods, University of Iowa Athletic Department, churches, service clubs, and the Aero Hawks. Also, people have done things like had a birthday party and asked party-goers to bring a canned good for the Crisis Center in lieu of personal gifts. Recently, Hy Vee and Cub Foods have made arrangements for customers to purchase a pre-prepared grocery sack for distribution at the Crisis Center food bank. And we operate the addition as a warehouse and try to make use of a variety of materials and participate in recycling programs where we can. We did receive waste reduction grant from the City JCCOG to combine with matching funds from donor in order to purchase Bobby the Box Crusher there. City Carton is our recycling haulers, part of that waste reduction grant, and the baler helps us save time, volunteer effort, and saves space in the warehouse. Many groups help keep the food bank supplied including Table to Table, area churches, youth groups and service clubs. Fresh produce is provided by people who will plant an extra row in their garden for the Crisis Center. We also have a community garden that is maintained by youth at the Senior High Alternative School. On a limited basis, we partner with churches to provide emergency assistance. Through interviews we assess their resources, make referrals, and in some cases provide financial support through vouchers for things like help buying a pair of safety shoes or a uniform so that someone can go to that first job; tire repair so that someone passing through the area can continue on their way; even a portion of a bus ticket to assist a transient to continue on their way. And we have some staff and volunteers fluent in Spanish and some information available in Spanish. What you see here is the Hawkeye Health Program brochure that this one is in Spanish for people--many of the folks who come to the Crisis Center do not have health insurance. Most of our volunteers complete a thorough training. Seasonal or short-term volunteers receive on-the-spot training. Groups unaffiliated with the Crisis Center, with our regular pool of volunteers, have donated This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 4 over six months' worth of combined service last year. We have over 250 trained volunteers and only six full-time paid staff. In fact, most of our staff is here tonight. It makes you wonder who's running the Crisis Center tonight. (Laughter) Wilburn! The Crisis Center would have to hire over 29 full-time staff equivalents to deliver the same number of hours of service that volunteers contributed last year--our trained volunteers. We do everything we can to support and celebrate volunteer contributions and to recognize important events in their lives. This is critical for recruitment and retention of volunteers. A significant service we provide is information and referral. We have information available on site and over the telephone. The Crisis Center is a member ofthe Volunteer Administrators Network and hosts their library of resources. Our volunteer coordinator is on their leadership committee, and they promote volunteerism and training for the effective use of volunteers to other organizations in the county. Seventy-nine percent of the income sources listed here come rrom nongovernmental sources. Johnson County and the cities ofIowa City and Coralville are the local governmental bodies that contribute directly to the Crisis Center. Your important contribution provides stability for us to generate the tremendous amount of community support that we receive and allows us to consistently deliver our services. What isn't reflected in our expenses is the impact of the donated volunteer hours and food donations. Recall that trained volunteers perform the equivalent of29 full-time staff members and consider the amount we would spend on food without those important contributions. This slide shows the impact of donated canned goods on our budgeting. Essentially, one could look at donated food as a grant awarded by the community. The value of donated food listed would be a real cost to the agency if people didn't hold food drives on our behalf. In order to provide our current level of service, we would need to find a source of income to replace this gift by people. We can't overemphasize the importance of community support that the Crisis Center enjoys. Families, faith-based groups, service clubs and labor unions give hours of help beyond what our regular volunteers donate towards keeping our shelves stocked and raising money for all of our programs. Our motto is "Help us help others," but we also try to promote the notion that we are neighbors helping neighbors, because remember, a crisis situation can touch any of us at any time and it's important for us to have someone to turn to during those times. I'd like to entertain any questions now if you have them. (Applause) Wilburn! Any questions I can respond to--- Vanderhoef/ I would love to have a copy of your table showing the resources and expenditures. Wilburn! Sure. Jane's going to pass outnit's a black and white copy but there'll also be copy scanned into the, into next week's info packet. OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 5 Bailey/ Ross, on your income, what's the difference between fund raising and donations? Wilburn! That's a good question. Let's see. Let me go to that slide so you can see. Champion! It's amazing if somebody just signed a check (can't hear) Lehmani Oh. Bailey/ OK. Wilburn! That's very close. That's very close, yeah. Very good job. One ofthe things--- O'Donnell/ That's why she gets the big bucks. Wilburn! There we go. Fund raising, like Connie was saying, was our active events. Donation is someone walks up and says, "Here, Ross, here's 25 bucks, here's 50 bucks, do something good." But some of those are unsolicited, but others you know are if our volunteer coordinator, Patti, goes and talks to a church, then that might encourage some folks to come by and give a donation. Bailey/ OK. Because that really impressed me that you would have amount of quote "unsolicited" donation without (can't hear) Wilburn! Yeah. The other thing, this might be a little misleading, the grants. Some of the fund- raising activities are the result of a solicitation letter, it's in a sense a grant, a smaller type grant. So those are perhaps blended just a little bit. We do get--that FEMA grant up there is a Federal Emergency Management grant that we get to provide food for homeless. Elliott! Ross, what are the trends you've seen--you've been there four years, right? Wilburn! Four years, mm-hmm. Elliott! I didn't--you seem to stress more about suicide and suicide prevention, that sort of thing, than I realized. What are the trends you are seeing, the unfortunate trends you're seeing? Wilburn! Mm-hmm. Well, in terms of our crisis line, more and more we're getting information and referral type calls. People who are looking for financial assertive support. They are $30 short on their rent or they're evicted. They need to start ajob on Monday, they--in one case we were able to arrange for someone to get a, some type of screening test, you know, the blood tests, those type of things, a drug test, so that they can start their job on Monday. Did I hit thatm Elliott/ Immediate money problems. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 6 Wilburn! Right. And it's, you know, it's in some ways it's a short-term-effort assistance, you can keep that person from living on the streets or going hungry or they're able to clean up, get a haircut before a job. That's part of it. But more and more, the utility bill, water bill, electricity bill, people are working with, you know, our providers, whether it's the City or MidAmerican to make some arrangements, but because of some other stresses during their life, they're not able to make those arrangements they've already made. I think another thing we've seen--the contacts in our crisis line in the morning tend to be more ofthat information-referral, they need to know where to go to get some help or they're in need of some type of assistance. In the afternoon, evening, it tends to be more of a crisis type of contact. Any other questions? All right. Lehman! Thank you, sir. Wilburn! I'll get out of the way so that Steve can go next. Karr/ Mr. Mayor, we have an addition to the Consent Calendar. We'd like to post it, ifit's OK. Lehmani OK. 3 f (7) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ACCEPTING THE WORK FOR THE SANITARY SEWER, STORM SEWER, TILE LINE, WATERMAIN,AND PAVING PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS FOR WHISPERING MEADOWS, PART TWO, AND DECLARING THE PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS OPEN FOR PUBLIC ACCESS AND USE. Karr/ And this is an addition, as I said, to the Consent Calendar. It's a resolution accepting work for Whispering Meadows, part 2, and it was inadvertently left offthe agenda. Lehmani OK. Now it's not left off anymore. PLANNING AND ZONING Lehman! OK. Planning and Zoning items. Wilburn! I've got to go put my other hat on now. Bailey/ Thanks for all your work. Lehman! Yes. a. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR SEPTEMBER 14 ON AN ORDINANCE REZONING 20.8 ACRES BY AMENDING A PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY (PDH-8) PLAN FOR IDYLL WILD CONDOMINIUMS, A 104-DWELLING UNIT DEVELOPMENT, LOCATED BETWEEN FOSTER ROAD AND TAFT SPEEDWAY. (REZ04-00020) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 7 Franklin! OK. Well, there's just three items. It's very simple. First is setting a public hearing on an amended OPDH plan for Idyllwild's condominiums. The second iSm O'Donnell/ All right, I've got a question on the first one. Franklin! OK. O'Donnell! I asked you earlier if he's got a completed unit with a prospective buyer set to close on it. Is he able to get the early occupancy permit? Franklin! Yes, I spoke with Doug Boothroy after I talked with you and as far as I know, it was going forward, yeah. O'Donnell/ OK, thank you. Franklin! Mm-hmm. b. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY PLAT OF A SUBDIVISION OF LOT 77, WALDEN WOOD PART 6,M lOW A CITY, IOWA. (S UB04-00007) Franklin! The second item is approval of a preliminary plat of the resubdivision of lot 77. This is the Jensen Street project that you had on that you expedited with the rezoning. This would have been on with it, but you went so fast it went right past us. So, now you have the preliminary plat for it. c. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY PLAT OF MACKINAW VILLAGE, lOW A CITY, IOWA. (SUB04-00021) Franklin! And then the last item is the preliminary plat for MacKinaw Village, which is similar kind of circumstance in which you completed the OPDH work. And so this is the plat that just goes with it. And that's all I have. Lehmani All right, Karin, and it might not be a record but it's darn close. Bailey/ Karin, I have one question. Franklin! Oh, no, Regenia? Bailey/ There was a lot of tree discussion with that MacKinaw Village. Franklin! Yes. Bailey/ Is thatm Franklin! That's all fixed. That's all resolved. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 8 Bailey/ Ok, good buffer? Franklin! Yes. Bailey/ OK. Lehmani Thank you, Karin. AGENDA ITEMS Lehman! Agenda items. 3 e. 1. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION OF INTENT TO CONVEY 925 E. WASHINGTON STREET TO FRIENDS OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION, AND SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING ON SAID CONVEYANCE FOR SEPTEMBER 14, 2004. Elliott/ I had a question about the property--what was it 925 East Washington. Is the City required to sell the property at that price? Atkins/ Eleanor? Dilkes/ Yes, if we sell it for more than what the condemned amount was, which was $100,000, then it goes back to the former property owner. Vanderhoef/ And it appears that they're going to rehab it and then resell it. So, does it stay on the tax rolls? Does it go off the tax rolls? What happens? Dilkes/ It's a private, it's notn- Vanderhoef/ But it's being sold to a nonprofit. Champion! Friends of Historic Preservation. Dilkes/ Right, but I think that the intention is that they will rehab it and sell it. Champion! They will. Right. Vanderhoef/ But for the year that, while they're rehabbing it-n Dilkes/ I haven't investigated that question. I don't know. Vanderhoe£' OK. Champion! They've done a lot of houses in town. It's a real (can't hear) for the City. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 9 Bailey/ Mm-hmm. 6. AUTHORIZING EXECUTION OF A CONSERVATION EASEMENT AGREEMENT FOR PRESERV ATIOON OF THE ENGLERT CIVIC THEATER. Elliott/ The other question was the Englert Theater. What are we getting binded to do with that? We have to sign an easement for what, 50 years? Dilkes/ It's a conservation easement that the Englert group is required to sign as a condition of getting the grant money, and the state understandably wanted the City to sign that as well, since we're the contract seller. And ifthe Englert Theater group failed to perform, we could forfeit the contract and get the property back. Elliott! OK. Lehman! Other Agenda items? 9. AUTHORIZING APPLICATION TO THE IOWA DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS FOR CERTIFICATION OF THE lOW A CITY CULTURAL DISTRICT FOR AT LEAST 10 YEARS. Bailey/ Does anybody have any questions about the cultural district? O'Donnell! Not tonight. Vanderhoef/ Ijust had one and I called Josh and talked with Karin this afternoon. And Josh indicated that he was going to add a little wording because they don't commit to the printer until tomorrow or the next day so he was going to do a couple of cleanup things. But my concern in question was where it talks about the incentive on page 11 and 12. It covers very rapidly and very short form the possibilities that might be there without saying who is and isn't eligible for it. So, in talking with Josh I said it seems as though the way it's written it is written as a right for a prospect to come into the district and to expect some of these things and you and I know that some things we wouldn't qualify for so all I was looking for was a statement that alluded to the fact that for qualified projects and recipients. Bailey/ And he's going to add that language, you mean? Vanderhoefi' Mm-hmm. Bailey/ Oh, good, I'm glad you caught that. Vanderhoef/ So that was it. Lehman! Any other agenda items? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 10 4TH AVE. "A" STREET TRAFFIC CALMING Lehman! OK. Fourth Avenue A Street Traffic Calming. Davidson! Good evening. We haven't had a traffic calming request for awhile. For the benefit of Bob and Regenia, I don't think we've had one of these since you've been seated on Council. So, real quickly, I would say probably four, five, it might have even been six years ago by now, we had a number of, or a couple of neighborhood associations that were clamoring for this thing we'd sort of heard of but not really, called traffic calming, and they wanted some physical changes made to a street in their neighborhood. And so we investigated this matter for the City Council at that time. And what was the desire of the City Council at that time, which contained some of you that are still here of course, was that we don't want to deal with these on an ad hoc basis. We want something to guide us so that we handle these consistently whenever we get a request for them. And you asked us to do some research on what was reasonable, what was unreasonable, we had some very good discussion over a couple of Council meetings, and we came up with a program. And so we have a very specific program that is the City Council's program, and I want to emphasize that. We have on three occasions since initially setting it up considered some modifications to the program and on two occasions we've changed it, and one occasion we did not change it. But I want to emphasize that there is a, you know, whenever we get a request for traffic calming from one of the neighborhood associations or occasionally it's from a subcoalition within a neighborhood, we send them one of these. And it very much puts the burden on the neighborhood, and that's an important thing to consider. The last thing that either staff or the City Council wants to do is impose a traffic-calming measure on a neighborhood that doesn't want it. We want this to be something that comes from within the neighborhood and that there is a solid majority of the neighborhood in favor of doing. That having been said, we have considered probably six or eight of these in the intervening time. We've implemented four, and all four of those have been--there's one ofthe parts of the program is that after a year you go back to the neighborhood and say, all right, you've lived with this for a year, do you still like it? Do you still want to continue to do it? And on all four occasions, they have been ratified then. There are a number of things that you can do, and I think that you're aware of the ones that we have. Teg Drive was the original project with the speed humps. We also have speed humps on Ridgewood alley, which is an alley that runs parallel to Muscatine A venue between Court and Seventh. And then we have the traffic circles on College and Washington streets. And as I say, we've also considered a couple that we haven't done. So that having been said by way of explanation, we did have a subgroup of the Creekside Neighborhood Association come to us--specifically the 400 block of Fourth Avenue, the 200 block of A Street. Fourth Avenue is the street that leads up to City High on the south, and this is basically the opposite side ofthat, on the other side of Court Street leading down to A Street and then the one block of Third that leads over to, the one block of A that leads over to Third--that kind of "L." And there were some issues that folks living on that street had related to City High kids parking on the street. We did some observations, had the police down there. It was determined by the people who live on these two blocks that they wanted to consider traffic calming project. So This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 11 we did our data collection and determined that those two streets were eligible for the program. Then proceeded, Marcia Klingaman and Anissa Williams to work with the neighborhood in developing what kind of strategies they were interested in. Originally took a look at traffic circles like the ones we have up the street here, determined the street was really too narrow for those. The streets are wider down here and they worked pretty well. So that's when we started considering speed humps, worked out, determined that they would physically fit on the street, and with the configuration of the driveways, we could actually fit them in with appropriate spacing. So once it was OK with us then, we went back to the neighborhood and they determined that they wanted to go forward with the neighborhood survey which they did and you have the results of that in the materials that you've received. Exactly 60 percent majority with a very, very high rate of response. Ofthe 16 survey cards that we mailed out, we got 15 back. I did mentionnthat's a very high rate ofreturn--as I did mention, two ofthenand I'm just doing this for full disc1osurentwo ofthe survey cards did come in after the deadline. I want to emphasize to you that the deadline is something we just kind of do for ourselves so that we get the cards back in a reasonable timeframe. We do typically allow them to trickle in a couple of days after the deadline. And we can discuss that more if you want, but it's not anything we make a big deal of when we do these sorts of things. So a 60 percent majority was met. The process at this point is to have the discussion with you, see if you are interested in going forward with what the neighborhood has indicated they would like to see. These would be constructed by City crews. They're not expensive. There is money in the budget, adopted City budget for doing these sorts ofthings. They would cost a couple thousand dollars, so the expense is really not a big issue. We would go back then after a year and determine if they were something that we wanted to continue with in the neighborhood, have the neighborhood determine that. And by the way we have been working with both the police department and City High School with this. The administration of City High is supportive of what the neighborhood's trying to do here, and they understand some of the concerns with the kids parking in this area. We also, as part of our process, submitted it to the Ambulance Service, Fire Department, Police Department, the Transit Service and then the Public Works folks who operate the garbage trucks and that sort of thing. You have the responses that we received back. Not any great concern there either. So, depending on what you decide tonight then, if you decide you would not wish to go forward--we would notify the neighborhood and the school district accordingly. If you decide that you do want to go ahead, you might recall that I think the last change we made to the program is to somehow be able to notify the people who use the street but don't live on the street, and so what we would do is before the next City Council meeting we would post signs indicating here's what the City Council intends to do, they'll have an item on their next meeting agenda with a public hearing and then people would have the opportunity some time during that time or at the meeting to contact you if they felt positively or negatively about it. Once you adopt it then at your next meeting, if that's what you decide to do, we go ahead and build them and see if they work. Wilburn! Teg Drive is the street that has the speed humps, correct? Davidson! And Ridgewood alley right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 12 Wilburn! I think they work pretty effectively. I think it's easy to get confused those with the speed bumps. There's a definitely difference, and traffic seems to move along well and at the speed limit on Teg whenn- Davidson! Yeah, what Ross brings up is a very important consideration that I should have mentioned. These are not like supermarket parking lot speed bumps that are designed that you have to go literally 5 miles an hour over them. They're designed to slow vehicles down to the posted speed limit. If you go over the limit, the posted speed limit, you really just feel a slight undulation. I encourage you to go out and go over the ones on Teg Drive. It does not jar your car the way a speed bump does. Elliott/ What have the police found regarding speeding tickets? Because that's the problem that I understand. Davidson! Yeah. The measurement of speed that we do as part of the program are with our traffic counters. We don't, quite frankly, I don't think there's probably been a lot of enforcement done on these two streets because they're such low-volume residential streets. But we did determine in our data collection you have to be at least 5 miles an hour over the posted speed limit. And they were, both streets were slightly over 30 miles an hour, and the posted speed is 25. Elliott! I guess I've always been generally opposed to any of these calming devices. I'm kind of like the fire chief said, he's generally opposed, but in this instance it appears that it's warranted. But I just wondered, I think the first thing to do is have police go out and see if they can lower the speeding by use of speeding tickets and the word gets around if you go down those streets past speed you're going to suffer financially. O'Donnell/ Well, I think we have done that. Or there has been a policeman down there. But school lets out between, around 3:20, that's the time when there's a shift change here. But it's a problem, you can run the police and sit in there and have them run radar there for two weeks straight, and then if they're gone for a week, the speeding goes back up. It's the history of it. Champion! We could just put a blow-up policeman there. (Laughter) O'Donnell/ Is there a history of accidents? Vanderhoetì' Well, something else came to my attention via a phone call from a resident on that street. And this was on the answering machine so I didn't actually visit with her and she didn't leave me her phone number. But her concern is someone getting hit. This is one of those streets that has no sidewalks. So my question in my mind is the response for speed humps was that in response to the safety issue of people walking on the street and going down there and then walking up the street and speeding going along there, or is it This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 13 a response to true speeding that maybe isn't as you say, it was just slightly over the minimum? Davidson! Yeah, I mean, my impression, Dee, is that it was just the overall neighborhood safety issues that having vehicles that are perceived or otherwise that are going too fast up and down a street. And as you say, especially one without sidewalks. I think that was the overall concern. It is a relatively, I think, you know, the traffic data that we have and this will be very familiar because it happens just about every time we look at a neighborhood traffic issue, there are your out-liners that are really the ones that are driving recklessly, which are the 10 or 15 percent, that it's really very, very difficult to do an enforcement action as Bob's alluded to. Well, you've got to be out there 24 hours a day to get those 5 or 10 or 15 percent. But the data also shows that overall there is a slight issue with vehicles going more than 5 miles an hour over the speed limits. So, you know, it's both those out-liners and the others. Mike asked a question about the crash history, the collision history, there's not currently a high crash history in this area. We wouldn't expect one with the installation ofthese--that's one of the things when we were first started trying these was we didn't want something that was going to create a crash history there so. We've looked at the before and after when we've put them in and there hasn't been a significant change. There really hasn't been any change from before or after. Champion! Well, I think it's a valid (can't hear). We have a high school there with a tremendous amount of young people driving and it's always kind of been the philosophy that driving fast is fun--I mean we all did it, they still do it. Not on residential streets. I think it's a good idea and those 15 percent that are really going fast, that's a concern in the neighborhood. O'Donnell/ I'm just really glad that nobody brought up chicanes. Champion! Oh, I didn- Bailey/ Thank goodness we've got a narrow street. Davidson! That was one of our failed experiments. Lehmani These things have workedm Davidson! You live and you learn. Lehmani These have worked very well on the west side. Davidson! They have. Lehmani And the neighbors were just delighted with them. And you know you can go over those things 25 miles an hour and it's not uncomfortable. I see no reason in the world why we wouldn't have this on a residential street. I understand on collector and arterial streets This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 14 the concern with the Police Department and the Fire Department. But this is such a localized thing. I think it's a great idea. Bailey/ And there seems to be good support from the neighborhood. I mean, this has been a (can't hear) concern for awhile, SOm Vanderhoef/ I would like to put it in conjunction with adding sidewalks. We do have two schools--- Bailey/ I agree. Sidewalks would be (can't hear) Vanderhoef/ ...that feed into that area and we had a problem when there was work being done on Muscatine here a few years ago, and so they were rerouting traffic and all at once they said, well, you can't reroute it on our street because the kids walk down here so you've got to send it anothernit's just wrong not to have sidewalks down there. Davidson! We do typically do this and you guys know there's no bigger endorser of sidewalks than me. We do typically do those as assessment projects though. We go in and retrofit. When we added sidewalks to First Avenue after First Avenue was extended, we did that as an assessment project. All but one property owner cooperated with us. We did have to go in as a City-initiated project. But--is that something you want us to explore, an assessment project? Bailey/ Well, if we had this dialogue open, it might be something we could start talking to the neighborhood about. Davidson! OK. Lehman! Look at it. Bailey/ Yeah. I mean, I don't want tOn- Davidson! I guess what I'm looking for tonight is a majority--is there a majority of Council for a resolution of approval at your next meeting and we'll erect the signs? Vanderhoef/ Yes. Lehmani You've got it. Davidson! OK. Very good. Lehmani Yeah, but do pursue the sidewalks. Davidson! Yes, we will. Lehmani Look into them. OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 15 Davidson! We'll bring that up maybe at our Capital Improvements planning meeting. OK, thank you. Lehman! Thank you. Vanderhoef/ Well, talk with the neighborhood right now in conjunction with this. Bailey/ Yeah. Vanderhoeti' You know, you've got two safety issues here and we want them both corrected. Davidson! Yes, very good. Thank you. Elliott! The sidewalk issue is also a fairness issue. I think it's instantly unfair that people with sidewalks have to pay to keep those sidewalks up and people without sidewalks, present company excepted, Michael, don't have to put the sidewalks in. So I dislike looking at sidewalks. Lehman! Pass the cup, Mike, and you going to put some money in for us? (Laughter) MIDAMERICAN REQUEST TO NEGOTIATE FRANCHISE Lehman! OK, the next item is MidAmerican's request to negotiate a franchise. At our last work session, we discussed, I guess it wasn't at any great length, but we did discuss the merits and demerits, perhaps, at having a negotiated franchise appear on the ballot. And I think Cormie, you indicated thatm Champion! That I was adamantly against it. Lehmani Well, yeah, and I, and then of course I think staff told us that there are certain issues relative to a franchise that are going to require Council approval before a franchise can be negotiated and that by giving that approval we are kind of tacitly approving a franchise before the public's had a chance to vote on a municipal utility. So, this is open for discussion, but I was one of those who felt it was very important to have a negotiated franchise and I have since totally changed my mind. I think you are exactly right, Connie. Champion! Thank you. Elliott/ Same with me. Lehman! How many folks here are in favor of negotiating, having a negotiated franchise on the ballot? Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 16 BUDGET REVIEW Lehman! The next item is budget review. Steve? Atkins/ What I'd like to do this evening is there are four things I'd like to accomplish with respect to this budget review. What precipitated it was, you remember in May-June of '03 when we adopted the budget reduction plan, we allowed ourselves 18 months to meet our goals. I did a preliminary after six and we did a fairly comprehensive review after 12, which this is. So our first goal is a review of the budget reduction plan which was adopted in June of '03. I want to review the assumptions with you, reconfirm the status of the budget reduction plan, and generally just assess where we are. The second goal will be an assessment of the current financial condition of our general fund. We're about to enter our process of preparation of the fiscal '06 budget. I want you to keep in mind the rollback. As you know, that's rather unpredictable and is a cause of concern, particularly what we went through, a rather dramatic change. I did check my record again, the rollback factor--again for those folks, that's the taxable assessed value of residential property is now 48.4 percent. It was at one time 83 percent. So it's dropped rather dramatically. Inflation--I've made the assumption in my projections that we're going to continue at 2 to 3 percent of the economy. We'll wait for all of the political campaigns to get over with and then realize what it's going to be. Our cash balance, our position has improved slightly. The state legislature, as you know, they have a number of aid programs. We have though some concern, tax credits, which they finance, which were in difficult times last year, a concern for some formula changes, particularly the road use tax, because it's up for its periodic review. A couple of budget unknowns. The gas and electric use tax, which is now an excise taxnat one time it had been a property tax and now it's called a utility replacement tax. We were informed by the state that we would be made whole, that is, revenue neutral. It is growing at about 1 1/2 percent per year. We can argue what "revenue neutral" means; that's not what it means to me. State transit assistance is also about 17 percent of our operating transit budget. And then finally one ofthose tidbit of good news, more than a tidbit, we have incorporated in our projections that the Court Street Transportation Center will generate $250,000 a year in new income. Under current policy, that is specifically earmarked for transit. As follow- up, our point 3 is our expense and revenue projections for '05, '06, and '07. We've revised them. And then at the conclusion of the assessment of where we are financially, I put this as an open item for Council policy--what are some of the issues, prior issues that you'd like to see us address? Champion! Steve, just a minute. Remind me when that transit center is going to be done. What's the completion date on that? Atkins/ November, Jeff? Davidson! Earlier than that. About 10 months. Atkins/ Ten months. OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 17 Elliott/ Steve, when you say income that is not met, that is strictly income? Atkins/ New income. New monies to the general fund, $250,000, yeah. We're preparing a separate report for you. I don't have that with me tonight, but we've done the rough numbers. There'll be a separate report. There's two items that we need to give you reports on: parking impact fee and then the Transportation Center. And those reports are being prepared. I would hope to have those by next meeting. Vanderhoef/ And then that $250,000, you say is general--- Champion! Transit. Bailey/ Transit. Lehman! Transit. Atkins/ It is transit monies to be deposited in the general fund. You can use it to subsidize the current transit operation. You can use it to expand transit services. Those are the wrinkles on it. And that's because of the grant we used to build the parking garage. Vanderhoef/ And that's above and beyondm Atkins/ It's new money. Vanderhoef! Above and beyond paying off the revenue bonds. Atkins/ You can't pay off your revenue bonds. You cannot use any of the transit income. We sold GO. Champion! Steve, can we decrease what we give the transit out of our general fund? Atkins/ Yes, you can. Champion! OK. Atkins/ You have options to do that. Yeah. Champion! Because if we can't pay these bonds off with any money, any profits from that, then the taxpayers are--- Atkins/ You can accomplish the same goal by doing just that. That's correct. OK. OK. Assumptions. These are the assumptions that we made in the June '03 budget reduction plan. Assume the loss of state aid is permanent. The, it amounted to $958,000, and one that's an annual number. Do you believe it will come back--and of course it's not going to come back, the state's going to pocket it. So that's a permanent loss, which is about 2 This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 18 1/2 percent of our general fund. So in one fell-swoop that's, and by the way, that's a big hunk out of our budget. Weare assuming the rollback and residential values. When we prepared the plan in '03, we made the assumption that the rollback would decline from 51.3 to 47 percent. We did not have those numbers at the time. Instead of the decline from 51.3 to 47 or about a 9 percent decline, in actuality, it only declined 6 percent, which is still at an annual rate, that's a pretty hefty hit. What that means is that when we were preparing our budget reduction, we anticipated an $800,000 reduction, whereas it was only a $500,000 reduction. Please note reductionnthere's no additions that you're hearing in any ofthis. OK. We tried to minimize the disruption of our public services. We have phased these changes over 18 monthsm TAPE 04-53, SIDE ONE Atkins/ ...balance the budget during the course of these phased reductions. The reductions--and you'll see in a little bit, the departments responded far more quickly than we'd anticipated and thereby minimizing the use of cash. We managed our attrition. As you'll see later, we're down II 1/2 positions in the general fund: nine through resignation and retirement, two through layoffs, and a half-time position was reduced hours in the general fund. There's every indication that our credit ratings shall be preserved; that was our goal. Our enterprise funds were excludednwater sewer, landfill. And I note the airport, as we know, with the change and all the issues going on out there, I don't know really how to comment on it until we see what happens. We considered fees for services, parking, building and housing. We did all of those and we also, we appropriated revenues from some of our other sources, cable, hotel, parkland, and the federal government. OK. Those are assumptions. Hopefully, you remember them as I do. These were the actual proposals. You remember, we went through a work session or two. Estimated actual savings--ignore that column if you would just for a moment. In the proposed plan, these numbers are all annualized. They occur at different times of trying to project what the actual annual impact will be for each of these items. We anticipated a reduction of 16 positions in the general fund. Weare currently at 11 1/2. That's our estimated actual savings. Other general fund reductions and revenue increases--all of those as indicated are on track to meet the particular goals that we identified. For example, if you read down under, I'm just picking one, housing inspection self-supporting: we anticipated an increase of$90,000 through rate, or through fee changes, that is on track to satisfy that. And they will be, continue to be self-supporting. These are all items taken from the budget reduction plan. Lehmani Steve, you had indicated that we had a projected reduction in staff in 16 equivalents--- Atkins/ That's correct. Lehmani ...but it's 11 1/2. Atkins/ Yes. Lehmani Are you still projecting 16? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 19 Atkins/ No. And I'll show you that in a minute. Lehmani All right. Atkins/ OK. This is a continuation of that page. We had projected savings in the form of police reductions, that is, a staffing of $100,000. In actuality, they came in at $140,000. The important number are totals. $1,456,000 projected annual savings. At this point, we estimate that we're at $1,368,000. If you go back to the first page, $958,000 plus $500,000 equals $1.458 million. So, our modified reduction plan and where we are in actual loss of revenue, we're on track. If you subtract the $1.4 million from the $1.3 million, the status is that we are $88,000, in effect, out of balance with respect to the budget reduction plan. I've broken down the projected annual savings in the form of expense reductions and revenues for the two columns. I think, they're hopefully will be self-explanatory. I've also flagged that there are some pending items, the airport commission manager's position, we don't know what the commission is going to propose. The library commercial would be applied to debt service at the library, and then Senior Center had an estimate of revenues they are going to be shortnwe'll need to go through all of those. The bottom line for me, and I'll show you the consequences, is that I'm recommending that we call the budget reduction plan done. Lehmani Steve, the income from the rental at the library is used for debt service, is that correct? Atkins/ That's correct. Lehmani Which means that it has no effect on general fund at all. Atkins/ It does not. Lehmani OK. Atkins/ And that's the point that I wanted to make was that we were not going to put those monies in the general fund. We just discussed that specifically. And I'm calling the budget balanced and, Ernie, what I'm saying is that instead of the 16 positions, because of increases in revenue and other adjustments we've made, rollback factors, and I'll give you a little more of a background, I'm saying that this is, not to sound melodramatic, but stop the bleeding. We're done. Champion! Good job. O'Donnell! Great. Atkins/ That we've fulfilled that goal and we don't need to take it any further. Champion! Good. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 20 Atkins/ OK. Now the consequences of that recommendation is that I will be recommending to you--and by the way, a 1 percent swing in the general budget, just 1 percent, is over $400,000. So you can tell, we're down to making it really snug. The ending balance projected in '04 was $12.7 million. We actually came in at $13.9 million. And that substantial increase was due to a number of factors. Some aberrations in our income, building permit activity was up $350,000 over our projections. And the reason--Plaza Towers, the Lodge, and the school district projects where they have to pay us plan check fees. We cannot budget at that extreme level, but it came in in a timely fashion because at the same time we were reducing expenses, this big new revenue appeared. But we cannot count on it beyond this fiscal year. Bank franchise paid us late. Champion! Is that good? Atkins/ That's good. Because the bank franchise is now gone. So we were able to credit ourselves with almost $100,000 in income in the general fund we did not anticipate. And that's just because the state chose to pay us in the way they paid us. OK. Ifwe were then to call the budget reduction plan done, because of the improved cash position, we would need to modify the '05 budget, or adopted revenue and amended revenue, these are better estimates, we now have better information than we had. The adopted expenditures, adopted and amended expenditures to accommodate the fact that we were not, underline not, going to reduce 4 1/2 positions. Our ending balance projected for June of '05 is $13.9 million. In fact, we're a little bit to the good. Now that assumes the rollback at 48.4. You all with me? OK. Let's go to the recommended three-year budget. And by the way, I'm dealing these in macro. We can crunch some numbers if you really feel it necessary on how we got down to, I mean, the exact numbers we have for building permits and things such as that. Ifwe are to accept a revised '05 budget and our cash position, we are slightly better than we originally anticipated in the budget documented, as you know it to be. And that assumes a rollback of 48.4. We have projectednand here's where there's some questionsnwe have projected that we can maintain our cash position in a slightly better position than we were at the time we adopted the '05 budget. However, for the purposes of projections, I left the rollback factor at 48.4. Candidly, I don't see hownthey're going to get us again. For the audience, "us" happens to be the state ofIowa. That will change our projections. Ifwe were to drop it to 47.4 and then--and the pattern by the way--you'll see that in a document I have--is it declines at a rate of just under 3 percent a year, the rollback. Each time that rollback goes down 1 point, a factor of 1, it's a little more than $200,000 a year in lost general fund income. Remember, but then it accumulates. It's $200,000 this year, then it's plus $200,000 the next. Now, for the preparation of the budget, I'd like to point out to you that our reserve positions are healthy. There are a number of ventured unknowns. But there are some positives. We have a three-year labor agreement with our largest employee group, AFSCME. We have a two-year agreement with fire and a one-year agreement with police. The budget unknowns and I just flagged these for you to think about, we don't know where the rollback will go. A 6 percent drop like it did last year could be quite a hit. We don't know inflation but I think we're pretty comfortable with our numbers. We do not know the operations and maintenance costs for the library. I mean, we've done projections, but we opened the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 21 door and we almost got a city block down there we're going to have to heat and cool and take care of. It's just going to take awhile for us to figure out what that cost is. We don't know what's going to happen with the airport. I mean, other than we--Council's policy is to give them a year to straighten out their finances. We don't know with the County. The County, you remember, we were $140,000 worth of aid for the Senior Center and that has been cut in half by the County. Transit assistance, road use tax, tax credits, all of those things are still very iffy. I do believe that the budget and projected into '06 can be balanced with some reasonable comfort. But there is really no real room for any major additions, particularly payroll, if you're thinking about it. And then the final one is the rollback history. I just wanted you to have an update on that. Vanderhoeti' The meeting--- Atkins/ That's it. I beg your pardon? Vanderhoetì' The meeting I was at this past week in Des Moines, the projection is that we have one, at least one more year of drop on rollback because it's, we're dropping out one year of high productivity and replacing it with a bad year of productivity in the five- year average that they work on and that's what is affecting our rollback. Atkins/ Thank you for that information because given that fact, that strengthens the importance of that cash position in '06, if we have to write out another dramatic decline. Champion! Dee, explain that to me. Vanderhoef/ Rollback iSn- Champion! I know what rollback is. Vanderhoetì' ...is coupled with agricultural productivity. Champion! Right. Atkins/ It has no relationship whatsoever to an urban environment but the state in their wisdom back in the early '70s decided to do it that way. Lehmani I find it amazing that if we have bumper crops, best farm income ever, and then the rollback has gone down at some pointm Vanderhoef/ Well, productivity is up but prices are down, so it's revenue on that productivity and they do it on a five-year average and so we're still dropping off when the prices were high. Champion! I never did understand how the (can't hear) Atkins/ Dee, the important thing on the rollback also is the 2.86 percent estimated decline on an This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 22 average basis. Bailey/ And so why don't we incorporate that in our production? Atkins/ We would need to do that. I did not do that because I wanted to show you our position. Bailey/ Right. Atkins/ But you know, absolutely, we're going to have to. But the important thing about that number is since '98 it's been declining at that rate. It's fascinatingnthat's about what inflation has been. We've got lots of growth going on, but we never get anywhere because we grow, it goes back, we grow, it goes back. Yeah. And you're right, Regenia, that I would go back and plan to do that. But I wanted to demonstrate the budget reduction plan first and then you can give me your direction what you want me to do first on the '06 budget, but that's where we are. Vanderhoef/ Just for another little piece of information, if we don't encourage or don't get the state legislature to look at a total revamping of state taxes, one of the things that the League of Cities is putting on their legislative policy for this year is to encourage the legislature to put that productivity average into 10 years instead of 5 years so that there wouldn't be as big a dramatic changes as what we've been getting. Atkins/ This sounds silly but I've shared this with you before, the rollback used to be 83; it's now 48. At that rate it could be zero someday which means there is no tax base with respect to residential properties. Vanderhoef/ Mm-hmm. Atkins/ It just keeps falling and falling and falling and falling. Champion! Well--- Atkins/ But if you accept this proposal that we, I would go back and redo those numbers, particularly, what we would like to do is is just do some best guessing: 41, you know, we do 47.4, do something, just so we have some money. But again the importance of our cash position then iSm Elliott! I wanted to follow up on Ernie's question regarding the positions. When you say the plan had been met, does that require that the persons in fire and police who are eligible for retirement at the end ofthis year must retire? Atkins/ No, it does not. That means that those people, if they retire, they would be replaced. Elliott! Good. Good. Atkins/ We're done with the total number of positions and that goes for all of our bargaining This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 23 units. Champion! For this year. Atkins/ Thank you, Miss Wet Blanket. (Laughter) Lehmani Any questions or comments for Steve? Champion! Thank you, Steve. It was a good (can't hear) Atkins/ Yeah. Vanderhoef/ I'll second the thank-you to Steve, but I want to thank staff too because this has come about because they've all worked and given up something in their department and budgeted as tight as they could go. I do appreciate their work because they came out of it better than what we had anticipated and we don't have to reduce staff as much as we thought. Wilburn! You know, the other caveat to that is it's not only internal but I mean it's services that the citizens aren't gettingn- Vanderhoef/ Right. Wilburn! ...in some way, shape or form, and that's the real shame of some of the effect of state control on our budget. Atkins/ And it's so arbitrary. One minute you have state aid and the next minute you don't. Wilburn! Right. Atkins/ And unfortunately as governments, we begin to rely on a certain level of income. I mean, there's always going to be political machinations you go through deciding who's going to do what. But the bottom line is you rely on those numbers. And the importance of our cash position--you know, I try to explain, folks, they don't understand that. Well, that's first of all, can ride out an emergency and ride out these kinds of bumps in the road. And we do not borrow during the course of the year to meet our expenses. We use our own cash, and the effect of that is then, the best way to explain it is that our employees get 26 paychecks a year. We get paid twice a year. We only get paid twice a year, we've got to be smart with our cash. Is that an OKm O'Donnel1l Very good. Atkins/ ...for start putting the "06 together and we'll do some projections? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 24 Champion! Ijust want to bring up something for the '06. Atkins/ Mm-hmm. Champion! I don't know, but I mean, I don't know how painful it's going to be. But since we can't possibly staff a new fire station, even though we all want--we are still proceeding with getting the land. Atkins/ Yep. We're buying the land and the chief has authority to go out and get it designed. Champion! Right. Atkins/ At your very least, it's on the shelf. Champion! Then, as, if there's a retirement in one of those departments where they don't need them, then I'd like to replace Parks and Rec. We get more and more parkland all that time, and we cut Parks and Rec, and I don't see how they're managing what they have. It's incredible. I don't know how they do it. Atkins/ I think I can probably can tell you nine departments that feel exactly the same way. With a housing inspector we went through that debate, it's likely to come back again. I mean our number of housing units requiring inspection has jumped dramatically. Lehmani Yeah, but we've also become a little more efficient in our inspection. Atkins/ Oh, truly. No, we did some new policies. Oh, yeah, those are working. Those are working, I'm not saying--- Lehmani I mean those were steps that were, we should have done. Atkins/ The Council's review of that budget reduction plan, you know, led to lots of internal changes. A lot of them you don't see, but the fact that we're able to accomplish them in the short termunot 18 months, 12 months nand minimize our use ofthe cash gives us some cushion going into next year as we see what the state is likely to do next. Lehmani Steve, don't you think, it seems to me and I realize this is tough for departmentsnit seems to me there's been a negligible change in the level of service we provided our citizens. Our folks just dug in, really dug in. Atkins/ Yeah, I would believe that, I mean in police we lost some of our community service things that we had done, the DARE program, regardless of your opinion of those things, and for police departments community relations are kind of important things. But I mean these are folks to be putting out on the street. Lehmani Overall, I mean I thinkm This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 25 Atkins/ Overall, I think when I measure some ofthe other cities around the state and what they're going through and the fact that many of those cities have sales tax, gambling revenue, franchisee and we don't--I'm really proud of the department directors. Champion! Get riverboats. Atkins/ A riverboat? Yeah. There's a group of reporters that are writing downm (Laughter) Lehman! How about a river canoe? Atkins/ Are we all set? Lehman! Yeah. We're going to take about 5 minutes. Champion! Yeah, I'll take a break. (BREAK) Lehman! We'll get started again. JAZZ FEST REOUEST FOR FUNDING Lehman! The next item is the Jazz Fest request for funding. At our last Council meeting we got a report from Steve Grismore, who incidentally apologizes for not being here tonight, but he's teaching and was unable to be here. The Jazz Fest, according to his letter to us, was I think he said the state funding was completely dropped, a grant of approximately $20,000. The weather wasn't quite what they'd hoped it to be and the bottom line was they're $9,000 short on their budget and he's interested in finding out whether or not the Council would be interested in helping them in some manner make up for the, part or whatever ofthat $9,000. So--- Elliott! I think the fireworks for the Fourth of July is just a great thing. I think those two--the Jazz Fest--is one ofthe niftiest things that happen in Iowa City. I would like for us not to provide all of it, but I would like for the City to provide something. Champion! I disagree a little bit. I don't think we can bail every event out that gets in debt. I would be willing to be give them some of the money we'd be giving them next year and then have to plan on raising that much more. Because, you know, I love the Jazz Fest and I personally contribute to it also, but I don't think we can bail everybody out that gets in trouble. I just don't think we can do that. Elliott! No, that's what I said. I'd like to do something. I certainly don't want to underwrite their losses. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 26 Bailey/ Well, can it come against next year's contribution? Lehman! Sure. Champion! Mm-hmm. Bailey/ Well, that'sm Atkins/ I think you can do pretty much anything you want. I mean, yeah, I'm sorry. I think you can do most--no--- Bailey/ I get it. Atkins/ Yeah. Lehmani Well, I think the first thing is whether or not we're interested in--how many folks are interested in doing something to assist them with their deficit. Then we'll discuss how we're going to do it later. Elliott! Here's one. O'Donnell/ Well, you'd have to do something. Lehman! Well, we don't have to do something. Vanderhoef/ No, we don't have to. Lehman! A majority of us seem to want to. O'Donnell/ Well, then we'd have to, wouldn't we, if the majority wants to? Lehman! We wouldn't have to--we could change our minds, couldn't we, Mike? O'Donnell! You can, Ernie, you've done it before. Lehman! I see. OK. Wilburn! Ouch. (Laughter) Lehmani Practice makes perfect. OK, to what degree and from whence would we like to see the funding come? Champion! What did we give them this year? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 27 Bailey/ Seven-ish. Atkins/ Seven. Lehmani And that was a decrease ofnwe cut them 5 percent like we did everybody else. Vanderhoef/ So, it's two years in a row we've cut the 5 percent. Atkins/ Uh-huh. Everybody got that. Vanderhoef/ Mm-hmm. O'Donnell/ What did we give the Jaycees for the fireworks? Lehmani I don't know that we did anything this year. Atkins/ I don't know if we did. Lehmani We did not give them money this year. O'Donnell/ I thought we did. Atkins/ I don't recall. Champion! They came and asked us late. O'Donnell/ OK. Vanderhoef/ That was the year before. O'Donnell! What did we give them the prior year? Was it $5,000? Lehman! We gave them something, but I don't remember what it was. Bailey/ And the Jazz Fest had no insurance against, no event insurance. Lehmani So, I think their biggest issue is probably the loss of that state grant. Bailey/ The department, the Arts--- Atkins/ The Jazz Fest this year got $6,100, and Jaycees' Fourth of July celebration $4,400. Lehmani We did. Atkins/ Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30,2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 28 O'Donnell/ This year? Atkins/ Budget--no, that's '05. O'Donnell/ That's '05. Atkins/ I'm sorry--'04, they had $4,900. So you did give Jayceesm O'Donnell! I thought we did. Lehman! And what did we give Jazz Fest? Atkins/ Jazz Fest, $6,075. Our Community Events budget is approximately $30,000, total community events. And we maintain a $1,000 contingency in our--that's, so there is a thousand dollars--- Champion! Hanging in the (can't hear) Atkins/ Yeah, that's there, as a contingency. Vanderhoef/ Well, I like Connie's idea, if we're going to support them, if they need the dollars to pay off right now, then we could give them $1,000 now and then subtract it trom whatever would be their normal payment, and we'd figure the debt out at budget time for next year. Champion! I would ask them how much of their next year's moneyn- O'Donnell/ This is kind of unusual circumstances this year. They had bad weather. Champion! Oh, yeah. Bailey/ Mm-hmm. O'Donnell/ It was terrible. Champion! It was awful. Lehman! This year we have a thousand dollars in contingency? Atkins/ Yes. Lehman! I guess I would kind of support giving them that thousand dollars and offering to make them an extension on our commitment next year. So, I mean, we give them $1,000 and then ifthey want another $1,000 of next year's, with the understanding that it will come off of their allotment, let them make the choice. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 29 O'Donnell! Sounds fair. Wilburn! I need to know the source of the money before I can say anything. Atkins/ General fund. Wilburn! General fund. Atkins/ You're OK. Champion! But it's money that's allocated for events. Atkins/ Mm-hmm. Wilburn! No, Ijust needed to know whether I had a conflict. Lehmani Whether you hadm Bailey/ Whether he had to leave or not. Champion! No, you can stay. Atkins/ No, I don't think you're conflicted. Wilburn! I can stay at the table. Elliott! Chow down. O'Donnell! So, do we all agree with that? Lehmani I don't know--I mean, is that acceptable? That we use the $1,000 contingency as a grant of $1 ,000 and let them take, ifthey want more, to take it as an advance against next year's commitment? Champion! That could be their choice. Lehmani Do we have agreement on that? Bailey/ Yeah, and the amount could be their choice. Yeah. Atkins/ A thousand dollars for sure, an advance-n Lehmani The fund next year andm Atkins/ And I'll talk with Steve about an additional amount. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 30 Lehman! All right. Elliott! Ijust think it's important that the Council does express the fact that the Jazz Fest is something that we really feel good about. Lehman! I think that's really agreed. Champion! Arts Fest can have the same amount of rain. Elliott! Yes. Bailey/ Exactly. Champion! We can't bail everybody out. Elliott! No, I think your points are well taken that this does represent a bit of a slippery slope, but I think the main thing was the $20,000 drop in state funding. HACAP REQUEST FOR GRANT Lehmani OK. The HACAP request is next. Wilburn! This one I do have to back away ITom the table. I have a conflict of interest because it directly involves Community Development Block Home Funding and as a recipient organization I cannot participate in this discussion. O'Donnell/ There ought to be a way to condense that. Wilburn! Just say goodbye. Atkins/ Not for the record. (WILBURN LEAVES) Atkins/ Ernie, just I'll summarize for you. The Hawkeye Area Agency, in effect, wants their Home monies to be in the form of a grant, not a loan. I gave you a memo. They gave you three options, and those are, we developed, I mean, you can probably come up with something on your own similar to that. I would want to report to you that these loans are important to us because they create a cash flow for our other CDBG Home programs. So I would be cautious about a grant, just an outright grant. Elliott! I'm certainly not in favor of what was initially a loan simply being turned into a grant, but I would like to hear what HCDC has to say about this, I would think, before we do anything. Atkins/ Do you want me to look at it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 31 Elliott! That's from whence it initially came. O'Donnell! I think that's a good idea. Champion! I think that's a really good idea. Bailey/ I do, too. O'Donnell/ How'd you do that? (Laughter) Elliott/ I made--what the hell happened here? Somebody agreed with me. Vanderhoef/ I don't think we have the wiggle room to even do that, and I think we have the big picture, and I think we could go ahead and make a decision on this. We've given the status of the time right now at both the local level and the federal level. Federal funds are decreasing and no foreseeable future increases there, and certainly we took a decrease because of the 2000 Census, and we have a quote "less" persons in our community on poverty status. So I don't see how we can unless we're planning to close out the programs. I mean this is terribly important to keep the funding stream going, and I don't see how we could possibly make it a grant. And I also questionnit's apparent from the letter that they're saying that if they have to pay off the loan, then they cannot come up with the funds for the programming that they typically do. Well, my question is then, if that is true and they are adding how many more families because ofthe units that they're buying, how are they coming up with enough for more funding for programming? So, just to add units is digging a hole at this point. So if they can only afford one unit versus two units and continue their programming, I think they're going to have to look at what they can truly support, because we're not going to have more CDBG monies coming in for support. In fact, it's going down. So their opportunity for programming dollars are decreasing and we don't have it to give them. Lehmani Steve, do you know what the repayment schedule was for that? I mean timeframe? Atkins/ No, I don't, Ernie. Lehmani I would not have a problem in maybe doing a little something abovenI agree with you, Dee, but I also think that, I mean, I would be willing to, if there were some way of working out some sort of a deferred payment schedule with us receiving the entire amount at some point in a reasonable time. And if HCDC is not happy with that and they want to make their allocation of that $148,000 to pay us back out of their next year's CDBG funds, then so be it. In other words, they would be reducing the amount that they would have allocated for their request by $150,000, which I suspect they are not going to want to do. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 32 Vanderhoef/ Well, that's just taking more of the same fund, Ernie. That, to me, is just robbing Peter to pay Paul here because it's still CDBG money that may well go into another program that will get paid back. So, I'm not willing to, you know, I can give them a different type of loan as long as the full loan is repaid. Lehmani That's really where I think we need to be. Atkins/ Well, and it would seem there's really no way you can, HCDC may agree with Ernie, may agree with Dee, but we don't, we're speculating on what they mayor may not do. If you're saying put together a deferred payment loan program, if there's support to do that, I can go back to HACAP and say, here's the deal. We want the money in X number of years following the conclusion of, I mean, something such as that. And it's a full paymentnthey have to borrow it or go out and raise it, or whatever they do, they owe it. Lehmani That's what I think we should do. Vanderhoef/ But it can't be paid off by future CDBG money. Atkins/ Oh, no, I understand. Vanderhoef! That's the point that I thinkn- Atkins/ But, Dee, HCDC could recommend that. It is incumbent upon you all to deal with that recommendation. Champion! Right. Atkins/ Yeah. Lehmani They can always do that. Elliott/ I just think usually when things like this come to Council, they come from the Commission that is responsible for it, and that seems to be bypassed. Lehmani Yeah, but in this--no, I don't think that's really true, because in this case they have a financial obligation to repay a note. And that repayment is not an obligation to the HCDC Committee, it's an obligation to the City, that's why they're asking us. They didn't write the letter to HCDC. Champion! No. Vanderhoef! That's right. Elliott/ But initially the Commission could have had the authority to decide whether they wanted to make it a loan or a grant. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 33 Lehman! We approved that. Elliott! Yes. Lehmani And we do not approve grants like that. Vanderhoef/ We don't approve them. Lehmani We make loans out ofthem, which is what we did here. Elliott! Yeah. Vanderhoef/ And it's been a policy that we've had that'sm Elliott/ I would be very surprised if this Council were to do anything other than say no to this, but I guess I'm still interested in what the Commission has to say, but--- Champion! Well, it was a good idea but now that I've heard the pros and cons, I do agree that we need to keep this money circulating because it provides a lot of help for a lot of agencies and just (can't hear) (Laughter) Lehmani Right. Are we in--do we concur that we have Steve work out some sort of a repayment schedule with them that maYm Bailey/ How long do these typically go? What's a reasonable timeframe? Atkins/ Oh, personally, I don't think you want to run it out there much, you know, three to five years. Bailey/ Yeah, I mean, that would be my inclination. Atkins/ And that'd be stretching it, yeah. Bailey/ And I know this sounds harsh but they always have the option of refusing the loan. Atkins/ Yes. Bailey/ I mean, just as somebody has the option of refusing a grant because they can't comply with the terms. So--- Lehman! Do we concur in that? Bailey/ Mm-hmm. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 34 O'Donnell! Yeah. Vanderhoetì' Yes. Atkins/ How about a reasonably short-term deferred payment loan? That's your policy. Bailey/ Yes. Champion! By deferred, it'snthey won't be making any payments? Lehmani Well, theym Bailey/ A balloon sort ofthing. Atkins/ OK. You wanted them to continue making payments? Lehman! No, they don't have to be so--they could be a balloon. They could be smaller payments now--- Champion! They could be a balloon, yes, yes. O'Donnel1l Work out a schedule. Lehmani Work out a schedule. Atkins/ They must make payments of some kind. Champion! Of some kind. Atkins/ OK. And then there will be a balloon, and that's their deferred payment, in a reasonably short timeframe. Bailey/ Right. Vanderhoef/ I would say four years. Atkins/ That's reasonably short. Lehmani I think you have to work that out with them. Champion! I don't really care. Atkins/ Well, I just want to have some guidance. Champion! Well, I think they should have some kind of payment plan, it's too easy not to make This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Wark Session Page 35 payments; some people get in trouble with credit cards. (Laughter) Lehmani OK, you're going to take care ofthat. Atkins/ I'll take care of it. COUNCIL SCHEDULING Lehman! Council scheduling. O'Donnell/ Scheduling. Lehmani Scheduling. Karr/ Just a couple things very quickly. Number one, you received a memo and an invitation from the Parks director on the parks tour. Vanderhoef/ Except that's JCCOG. Karr/ Is that JCCOG? Vanderhoef/ Yeah. Yes, same time, same place. Karr/ So I didn't know if there was an interest on the part of a quorum of you to attend or whether because of the conflict whether that was going to be possible. Champion! We have to go to JCCOG. Karr/ OK. Vanderhoef/ I don't know what's on the agenda. Champion! (can't hear) deadline is September. Elliott/ That's September? Oh, I think I called. I'll be in St. Louis at that time. Karr/ OK. So is anyone attending the Parks tour? I can respond for you if anyonem Lehman! Well, my suspicion is that if they want Council people to attend, the tour is almost going to have to be at a time when Council people can go, and this does not appear to be a time that will work out. Karr/ I'll respond. OK, I'll respond that way. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 36 Lehman! OK. Karr/ Secondly, this is one of our favorite times of year when we look at the rest of the year that is scheduled. And there are two issues. I have everyone's favorite. Two issuesnone of them is the comment made I believe by Bob sometime ago to stick as much as possible for one and three for future scheduling, which is our resolution first and third Tuesday, for scheduling. Elliott! Yeah. Karr/ Weare scheduled now through October which would be the Oct. 5th and 19th meeting, November and December we always have the holiday, and it's always better to plan ahead and have them on everyone's calendar. If we were to stay with the first and third the meeting dates would be Nov. 2nd and 16th, which would be a week before Thanksgiving. Champion! Which is good. Lehman! That's fine. Karr/ Is that OK? That'll work? Vanderhoetì' Then December is the problem. Karr/ Dec. 7th and 21 st would be your regular schedule in December. Champion! So we'd have to do something. We only usually have one meeting in December. Karr/ Or you could--ifyou'd like to move it to 13th and 14th. Champion! Yes. Karr/ Or you could be done the 6th and 7th. Stick to your first one. Vanderhoef/ And LC does not conflict this year. Karr/ No, I've checked that. Lehmani Have the LC change. Karr/ I'm sorry, which one do you wantnthe interest is to do one? Do you want to do 6 and 7 or 13 and 14? Champion! I think 13 and 14 is getting pretty up there. Lehmani Why don't we do 6 and 7, and ifthere's an issue, we can always have a second one. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 37 Karr/ But stick to the 6th and 7th of December? Lehmani Right. Karr/ And then no other meetings planned unless there's a need? Lehmani Right. Karr/ OK. Since we're doing so well, is there any interest--- Elliott! I would like to for next year suggest that we have an official Council meeting the first and third Tuesday of every month and the work session the preceding Monday. And if that Monday's a holiday, we have the work session starting preceding the Council meeting on that Tuesday. That way we can plan a year ahead. Champion! Yes. That's a nice idea. Lehmani But it doesn't always work. Vanderhoef! It doesn't work. Elliott! Why? Champion! And what's nice about the way we've done it--you may not agreenis we make allowances and so everybody can attend. And maybe you don't think that's important but --- Elliott! But those allowances cause problems on people who are planning things ahead and find out that it is not as planned. O'Donnell/ But you know what, we have always been accommodating. We'll have special meetings. We come in here at 1 :00 or 2:00, and I kind of like this break in the summertime. Not only does it give us a break, it gives staff a break. Lehmani Yeah, but I think, Bob, aren't you saying not so much that we might have a month where we have one meeting instead of twon- Elliott! Yeah. Lehmani ...but when we do have the meetings we have them on predetermined days? Elliott! Right. Lehmani Which would be first and third or first and--ifyou're going to miss one, you miss a regular one, but it wouldn- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 38 O'Donnell! I understand what you're saying. Lehmani But I think that's right. Elliott! So, if we want to eliminate a meeting, go ahead, but at least I can plan just for selfish reasons, I can plan next June, July, August, if there's going to be meetings, I know when they're going to be. O'Donnell! I can live with that. Lehmani I think we should make every effort to do that. And not just for-- Elliott! Well, I thinkm Vanderhoef! We don't. Lehman! ...well, I think if we had been saying to each other and so worried about all of us being here and I think there's a certain responsibility to the public. They need to expect that Council does meet on the first and third Tuesday. Champion! We've never had trouble getting people here. (Laugher) Lehmani Depends on the issue, doesn't it? Vanderhoef/ The two times that are really difficult to do are the Memorial weekend, which would then affect the June one meeting. And I think it's very appropriate to move that one and likewise and the July one is the same thing--so that's where we come in there and then we look at, we go ahead and schedule our vacations and ifit works out, we can work around them. We do that, and so, to be hard and fast, I'm not willing to support that. As much as possible, we can, but I think we do quite well doing our six- month--- O'Donnell/ Should this be something we should maybe vote on? Lehmani This is something that we're going to have tOn- Vanderhoef/ Well, we have a resolution, we don't have to vote on it. A resolution already is in place for first and third. O'Donnell/ But we're talking about possibly making a change. Vanderhoef/ No, we're not. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 39 O'Donnell/ Wem Vanderhoef/ All we're talking about iSn- Champion! Is not changing. Vanderhoetì' ...is not changing it and when we need to make accommodations for one month, for one in a month, we work on it. Elliott! And just because Monday is a holiday doesn't mean you can't have the official meeting the following day and have the work session preceding that meeting. That's what we've done a number of times. Bailey/ Right. Vanderhoetì' And I don't like it. Lehmani I like it. Vanderhoef/ I still don't like it. Lehmani Can I suggest that we deal with these issues as they come up? We're done for the rest ofthis year. Bailey/ Yes. Karr/ Can I make one other suggestion? Lehmani Yes, please do. Karr/ When we set aside January, that comes really quick, can we set aside the off Mondays and Tuesdays for budgets--or do you not want to do that either for scheduling? Vanderhoef/ Oh, boy. Karr/ You can always cancel those. But if you don't schedule themm Champion! Are you talking about budget meetings? Karr/ Yes. Champion! In January? Vanderhoef/ I don't have that calendar yet. Lehmani Yeah, I don't--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 40 Vanderhoef/ This is a little early. Lehman! We're going to have to wait for, yeahm Karr/ OK. Never mind. Elliott! Never mind. Lehman! My January calendar goes through the second which happens to be, I think it's Sunday. You can't have too many meetings on Sunday. COUNCIL TIME Lehman! OK. Council time. O'Donnell! A couple quick things. I don't know if anybody has noticed but Burlington Street is open, partially now. It's great. Also, the sidewalk has been completed between Hawkins Drive and up to the arena. Bailey/ Yes. O'Donnell/ And that's great. We talked that and pushed that through JCCOG, got them to move on that. Champion! And we can get a sidewalk--are we going to, is that sidewalk going to be extended past them O'Donnell/ That's for traffic parking and walking up to Carver Hawkeye. Champion! For a lot of people walking along Burlington--- O'Donnell/ I don't know if anybody's noticed or not but the students are back. Lehman! You're kidding. (Laughter) Vanderhoef/ I worked at the store last week. Yes, I noticed. As a matter of fact, I have one thing. There's a Historic Preservation resolution that was done '92 that talks about all ofthe various sections OftOWll and they were put onto a plan, and none of us at this Council table were involved with that resolution, and would you bring that back to us and maybe put it on a work session just so we could talk about that, what that looks like, and give us some background information on it? Dilkes/ I don't know what resolution you're talking about. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 41 (Laughter) Lehmani The answer is yes. Vanderhoef/ OK. I'll give you more information later if you want it. Lehmani Well, I think it might help Council have a little better understanding and to work a little closer with the Commission so that we understand what they have the go-ahead on and what we expect in information upfÌont. Champion! All I have to say is that we have a problem, we always have a problem downtown in the fall when all the students come back--but thank God, they come back--but the bicycle situation is really dangerous. Vanderhoef/ Oh, it's horrible. Bailey/ Mm-hmm. Champion! I mean, somebody is going to get really hurt. I saw two people--one person was hit, was not hurt badlynthe other person, they go really fastm Atkins/ Our sort of m.o. is the first week or two to stop, you can't ride your bike on the sidewalk. Lehmani Steve, I think--- Vanderhoef! They're going too fast, they stop them. Lehman! I think we're a little short on officers and I do think they probably get down there pretty good after 4:00, but during the day is when we really have the problem. Bailey/ It's the morning. Lehman! It really starts at 8:00 in the morning. Wilburn! Yeah. Vanderhoef/ I had five go whizzing either at me or come up behind me, just walking fÌom Gilbert Street tOn- Atkins/ We'll keep it up. TAPE 04-53, SIDE TWO Vanderhoef! I wanted to say, hey! And it was like--gone! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Work Session Page 42 Lehmani Is there anything else for Council time? Elliott! Recently, we had in our materials the Missing Link Trail project, and I think the Council probably needs to have a bit of an understanding with Parks and Rec or vice-versa. I'm just wondering how many people agree with me that the Water Plant park, my personal feelings is I would hate to see a lot of money spent on Parks and Rec in that area at the present time because I'm not assured that there will be sometime in the future when that's going to be a very secure area for a variety of reasons as the source ofIowa City's water supply. I think maybe we need to talk about that with Parks and Rec people and also find out what the probabilities of something like that happening are. Lehmani We're going to have that discussion I would assume at budget time when we get to capital improvements, because those, that money that is going to be expended in that park are going to have to be in the capital improvements budget. Elliott! Mm-hmm. Lehmani And that has been an issue at the last couple times. Elliott! I just think is--I don't know that there's any information to be found but from everything I read and everything I hear, things are just going to become increasingly tight in that area of safety. O'Donnell/ I don't think there's any question about it. Vanderhoef/ But we've already got all those trails out there, SOn- Lehmani That's an issue that if we talk any more about it, Eleanor's going to come down on us like a--- Vanderhoetì Yeah. Lehmani That will be during budget discussion. Anything else for Council time? IDENTIFICATION OF PRIORITIES FOR DISCUSSION Lehmani Identification of priorities for discussion--do we want to dig into that or do we want to get out of here? O'Donnell/ Let's get out of here. Elliott/ When are we going to talk about budget priorities? Champion! Budget time. Bailey/ We have it scheduled for September. Right? Didn't we talk about doing that as am This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofIowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004. August 30, 2004 Special Council Wark Session Page 43 Atkins/ I thought I might hear something tonight. Bailey! I thought I had it on my calendar for the first work session in September. Atkins/ I wrote that down. Bailey/ I wrotem Vanderhoef/ OK. We'll bring them next time. Elliott! Is that soon enough to be of assistance to you, Steve? Atkins/ Oh, the sooner the better. Elliott/ OK. Lehmani OK, anything else? Atkins/ Did I hear you say the September work session? Lehman! Right. Atkins/ OK. Bailey/ That's what I have. Lehman! Good night, folks. Champion! Good night. Lehman! We're out of here. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Special Council work session Aug. 30, 2004.