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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-10-04 Transcription October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page I October 4, 20004 City Council Work Session 6:30 PM Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn Staff: Atkins, Franklin, Helling, Karr, Matthews, Severson TAPE: 04-59 Side One Alcohol Issues Lehman: It's 6:30, before we start the Big Brothers Big Sisters presentation, we got a note tonight from Leah Cohen, representing several bar owners, asking us to delay our conversation relative to the alcohol ordinance until the next work session. If that's okay with everybody. Wilburn: Before we decide that... we're getting into budgets session, with three readings of an ordinance, ifit takes too long. So I'm just pointing that out. We're getting close to the end of the year, are we not, with calendar? Karr: Yes, you've got one left in October. Four left. One in October, one in December, and two in November. Lehman: We can always do a special.. . Karr: Yes, you can always do specials. Vanderhoef: What reason did they give? O'Donnell/Lehman: There's a letter here, Dee. Lehman: I don't have any problem, I don't see that it's time sensitive. O'Donnell: I don't have a problem with it either. Champion: Well, I certainly don't. Lehman: Ifwe get into something, we can always do a special meeting. Karr: So, it will be deferred to your work session on the 18th? Lehman: That's correct. Karr: Okay. Nothing on your formal the 19th. Lehman: Pardon? Karr: Nothing on your formal of the 19th. Simply the work session. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4,2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 2 Human Services A!!:encv Presentation - Bi!!: Brothers Bi!!: Sisters Lehman: Okay, Big Brothers Big Sisters presentation. Yvonne Wernimont: Good evening, ladies and gentleman. Thank you for inviting us to address you this evening. I am Yvonne Wernimont and I am current President of the Board of Directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Johnson County. I am here tonight on behalf of the board and staff and most importantly on the behalf of the Bigs and Littles and the school-based mentors and their buddies, whose lives are shared each week when they come together for connecting in the life of a child. I want to thank you, the City ofIowa City, for your continued support ofthe Big Brothers Big Sisters programs. It means a lot to all of us that our community has made and is continuing to make a statement about the value of kids and their need to be connected to positive adult role-models. It's my personal pleasure to have been actively involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters for over twenty years - first, as a Big Sister, as a Chair of the Bowl for the Kids Sake event, and as a Board Member, and this year as President of the Board of Directors. During that time, I have seen and heard from many, many of our Bigs and Littles about the positive effect that this program has provided to the future leaders of our community. Hundreds and hundreds of kids have had an opportunity to meet a responsible, caring adult who provides a positive role-model for them to look up to. One of the unique features about the Big Brothers Big Sisters program is that is truly a resource for kids that comes from our community. From the volunteers in our programs, from the volunteers who serve on the board, and especially the volunteers that show up each year, by the hundreds, to support the program by Bowling for Kids Sake. I know a number of you have participated and I've seen you at this event. What a great community, even this has become. This event brings all of Iowa City together to celebrate the work of Big Brothers Big Sisters in a way that truly exemplifies the benefits to be derived. An entire community from all neighborhoods, from all walks oflife, becoming a part of the action, and bowling - changing our community by supporting one match at a time. We have an outstanding board, that further represents our community involvement, and we believe that kids are best served by the provision of positive connections with others throughout our city. Weare proud to represent the values of our City because we all know and believe in our program. Studies have proven that a single connection made with a child can have dramatic results throughout that child's life. As some of us like to say, it's the best bang for your buck here in Johnson County, with effects seen today and well into the future. At this time, I'd like to introduce you to Scott Hanson, our Executive Director, and an outstanding leader in his own right. Scott has been with us for three years. Under his leadership, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Johnson County has continued to grow and I'm sure he will be glad to share a few more details with you. Scott. Scott Hansen: Thank you, Yvonne. I would just like to take a few moments to highlight - actually Linda said that now we have about forty-five minutes because you won't be discussing the alcohol ordinance - so, I'll just take my time, go through the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Wark Session Page 3 history, twenty-eight years of Big Brothers Big Sisters - no, I'm just joking. (Laughter) You all should have received this (referring to the overhead slide) in your packets in preparation for the meeting this evening and I'd just like to highlight a few points. The mission of Big Brothers Big Sisters for the past twenty-eight years has been the same. We have always connected an adult, a responsible adult volunteer with a child in need of connecting with another adult in their life. Just a couple of things on this particular handout. We are a prevention-based program. So, if you take a look at the amount of money it costs us to serve children, on an annual basis, whether it be in the school-based or community-based programs, you will see that it's a pretty good return on your investment. Right now those costs are between five-hundred to a thousand dollars a year for one match - volunteer, child - for the duration of a year. If you compare those costs to a incarcerated individual, a pregnant teen on welfare, someone in a residential treatment program, you can see that our costs are relatively cheap and a pretty good, like a said, investment for your money. The other thing I'd like to highlight on here is just the outcomes. With the children matched in our program for one year or longer: 50% of these kids show an improvement in their school performance, 63% improve their relationship with adults, 83% of the children matched one year or longer in our program improved their self-confidence, 93% are able to avoid substance abuse and 97% of the children in our program increase the trust of their volunteer mentor. So those are some pretty good outcomes based on matching a volunteer with a child. I'd like to show you where, exactly, our money comes from. Big Brothers Big Sisters is a youth-program of Johnson County Extension. So we receive a lot of in-kind support from the extension office. Basically, our boarding expense to be housed out at the Johnson County Fairgrounds is completely paid for by the Extension. We are very proud of this relationship. We've built it throughout the years and are very thankful to the Extension council for housing the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. You'll see that the City of Iowa City provides about 11 % of our annual budget. That's a pretty big chunk for us and we are very grateful for your continued support. The other large chunk here is United Way and also Bowl for Kids Sake. Bowl for Kids Sake, as Yvonne mentioned, is our community-wide event, held every February, and most of you have participated in that and we thank you very much. Unfortunately, due to recent budget cuts, we've had to focus some of staff s attention on Bowl for Kids Sake and take away from the matching of kids and volunteers and this is just to keep the program going and functioning - this is just what we've had to do. But, we have been very successful with that event and hopefully we will continue that success. Just a chart here to show exactly where the kids that we serve come from in our county. You'll see that 65% ofthe kids in our school-based and community-based mentoring programs come from Iowa City. 14% Coralville and 21 % in the County and that includes small towns in Johnson County. So, a large portion of the kids do come from Iowa City. Unfortunately, even with increasing our community-based match numbers, 20% the last year, and our school-based mentoring match numbers, 84% from the previous year, we still have a waiting list. Until we're serving six, seven thousand kids a year, we're always going to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 4 have a waiting list. Unfortunately, at this point and time, we have 73 boys who are currently waiting to be matched with a Big Brother and 15 girls who are currently waiting to be matched. These kids have gone throu,gh our process, we've met with their families, we've talked with them about the program, and their basically ready and willing to go. Unfortunately, we just don't have the volunteers to match them up at this time. Like I said before, we're always going to have a waiting list. We understand that. For the next twenty-eight years we're going to have waiting list, but what we look at more specifically is how long these kids are on the waiting list. The girls are actually not - even though we have fifteen girls on our waiting list - we can match them pretty quickly. They may spend - actually I have a chart here - girls spend an average of about 157 days on the waiting list. There are some numbers in there - I'm sorry, there are some girls in there that kind of skew the numbers to the higher end - but lately we've been matching girls fairly quickly. Boys on the other hand are another story. Boys can spend close to one year on our waiting list. Those seventy-three boys, on average, will spend about a year waiting for a Big Brother. This a big concern to us. This a big concern, because when these kids are referred to our program, they need a Big Brother now. They need a Big Sister now. And whether that is because their mom or their guidance counselor or their teacher at school believes that - that's the reality and unfortunately, we just can't get them matched soon enough. We are, we have applied to some different sources and hopefully we'll be generating some funds to target specifically male volunteer recruitment. So hopefully that will pan out here in the near future and we'll be able to help these boys. Vanderhoef: Scott, did you tell us how many you're serving right now? Hansen: Yes, on the first chart of your handout. Vanderhoef: I must have just missed that. Hansen: I'm sorry if that's not completely legible. Right now we have 289 community- based matches and 181 in our school-based programs. Vanderhoef: Sorry, I missed that. Elliott: Do you have any little brothers, little sisters who come back and become Big Brothers and Big Sisters? What percentage of those? Hansen: It's tough to say. Elliott: Ball-park figure? Hansen: I'd say that we know of maybe 10% of the kids that come back and match. It's really hard to tell with people moving in and out of the community. We don't track that data. But, we do know of cases where the volunteers come back and ~ This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4,2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 5 I'm sorry, the kids come back and volunteer or wherever they find themselves, wherever they move and they go to college and then they volunteer different way. Champion: Tell us the age range, Scott. Hansen: The age range. Right now we're matching kids, basically school-aged kids, from kindergarten on up to high-school. Once they turn eighteen, then we officially end the match, but we are matching them as young as kindergarten in our school- based program. Bailey: What is your total budget? Hansen: Our total budget for the next fiscal year is $334,000. Bailey: And how many staff do you have? Hansen: We have eight full-time staff. I'm sorry, seven full-time staff, one part-time staff. Sorry, Regenia. Champion: Tell me a little bit about how you match kids to adults. Hansen. Well. Champion: Briefly. Hansen: It's a.. ..basically what we do is we have a screening process for volunteers and for the kids - I should say the families. We have staff that will go out - you know it works both ways. Whenever we get an inquiry from a volunteer or a kid, or a referral for a kid, the staff person sits down with those parties. We have an interview for them. We go through, ask them a lot of questions, their intent, what they want out of the program, a little bit about their background. For the volunteers, there is some screening done. There is a criminal background checks, child abuse registry check, a reference check, driving records check. Once we have completed all of those steps, a home assessment and a significant other, if needed. We accept that volunteer, then we find a child that has went through, not really the same process but a similar process and is on the waiting list and then we try to match them up with similar recreational or personal interests and go from there. It's a.. ..you know our staff has over forty years of experience matching kids with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Obviously some matches don't work out for various reasons, but we have matches that go six, seven, eight, nine years in length and have just been tremendous, made a tremendous difference in that child's life. But that's in a nutshell of how it works. There's a little bit more involved. Any other questions? Well, I'd to once again thank you very much for your continued support of this program. It has meant a lot to the agency and of course the kids that we served. I'd just like to leave you with a quick quote from ah. . . .one of the things that sets Big Brothers Big Sisters apart from some other This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 6 mentoring organizations is the support that we give to matches. We don't take a kid and a volunteer and match them and then just let them go and do what they need to do in public and never follow up with them. We're checking in with the volunteer, the parent, and the kid on a monthly basis. It takes a lot of staff time, but it's very important to make sure that everything is going okay and there's no problems or issues that come up. While, in these conversations occasionally we'll - a lot oftimes we hear "Oh, things are going okay. They're meeting and things are fine." Occasionally, we'll get some really interesting things said, as you can imagine. This happened when a staff member made a call to a parent, and was just inquiring about how a match with her son, who had been matched for six years, was going and she said, "Ted's match has always been wonderful. I have always been in awe that they've spent almost every weekend together for the past six years. Big Brothers Big Sisters has been a godsend to our family." Thank you. Lehman: Thank you. Additions to Consent Calendar Karr: Mr. Mayor, while Jim is coming up for the next item, I'd just like to note that the correspondence received this evening, we're going to amend the consent calendars. You'll officially receive that tomorrow night. And that includes the traffic engineering memo on the installation of the no U-turn sign that you have in front of you. We'll just amend the consent calendar. We'll also be announcing a number of vacancies for January I, because of your meeting schedule, so we'll hand those out and just announce those as item #13 on your agenda. Lehman: Before we start, if anyone is here for the alcohol discussion, it is being deferred for two weeks. Human Services A!!:encv Presentation - United Action for Youth Jim Swaim: Not because of me. (Laughter) Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to come and present information about United Action for Youth to you this evening. My name is Jim Swaim. I live at 1024 Woodlawn in Iowa City and I have been the Director of United Action for Youth now over 30 years and I've been there for 31 years. The way you can tell is that you're going to see me doing this all night long with my bifocals. The mission ofUA Y is to assist youth and families by offering counseling and intervention programs that assist them in resolving problems that they encounter and to provide prevention and youth development programs that make use of young people's talents and energies in helping themselves to a better future. I have to say that this past year is probably one ofthe more challenging years I've ever encountered in youth work and in human services in general. It's difficult to try and highlight which things to talk to the City Council about and which things to talk to you about in other settings. I'll try and touch on a few things. I gave you a little poop sheet. It's similar to the one that I distributed two years ago to the United Way. It's just some quick facts about UA Y. I won't go into all of those tonight to try to keep it to the ten- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4,2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 7 minute presentation. One ofthe highlights though, and it's a highlight every year for our agency, I think, is the number of youth and families that we serve and the nature and the character of the young people and the families that we encounter in our work. It's really a delight and a honor to be able to work with such a diverse population in Iowa City. Of course, a lot of young people have some challenges in their lives, and parents have challenges in their lives, but overall, we have a pretty healthy community. Even the young people that are challenged by enlarge are trying to get help and are trying to make lives better for themselves. Even the parents that have difficulties at home or that don't necessarily have the skills to parent as well as they'd like to, are sure making an effort, and part of our agencies job is to try and ease that effort whenever we can. Last year we served about 2500, I think it was 2469 young people and families in Johnson County. About 60% of those, a little over that, about 1624 of those were from Iowa City. One of the highlights from last year is that we see an increase in our requests for our counseling program. One of the tricks for UA Y is that we're doing both counseling and youth development and one of the good things about doing that is that anytime if you come to VA Y, you don't know how many of the young people are there for counseling, how many are there as teen volunteers, how many are there just to do an arts project. In fact, the vast majority of young people we work with aren't in any trouble whatsoever. They're down there trying to learn new skills, they're down there volunteering, they're down there involved in arts, and they're down there to just hang out with their friends and their peers. So, we're proud of that. But, for the last two years, the number of counseling requests that we've had has gone up. The past year we had 726 young people involved in the counseling program. That's higher than the prior year and the prior year it had jumped about 30% over the year before that. I get asked all the time what to attribute that to. I think the economic stress is hard, I think world events is hard on families...I also think that the child welfare system is really broke. I mean broke in a big way. Families that may have gotten served by child welfare system or other agencies, maybe aren't having as easy a time getting access to needed services. Those are just speculations on my part. The other thing that has gone up a little bit is the number of crisis intervention contacts that we had. It was about 650 last year, that's a little bit higher than some years. The one good thing is that about 10% of those are after hours and that's gone down a little bit ~ so we used to see a lot more after hours, midnight type and graveyard shift for the police department type crisis interventions. That's dropped a little bit but we're still seeing a lot of young people in crisis. We had about twenty-one hundred young people involved in our youth development programs. We get about forty-to- ninety young people a day, that come down to the youth center, and if you've ever been in our little youth hang-out room - it's about the size of right up here and so it's pretty active. I'll talk about that in a little bit when I talk about the new youth center. We had sixty youth volunteers contribute over two thousand hours last year. In the arts program, this was a good statistic. I love this one. There were two-thousand one-hundred and twenty three arts projects completed last year by young people. That's young people, coming down, trying to engage the community in some form of self-expression about what's happening in their lives, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 8 what's happening in the community, what's happening in the world and we think that's a great thing. The other highlight for me last year, was that our staff did an outstanding job under fairly trying circumstances. We had to do an across-the- board pay cut last year in order to make up for a deficit that We encountered the year before. Our staff did really wonderful work and I'm really proud of them. The other thing I'm proud of is that in addition to the schools referring to us, I think we are really popular with the schools, we're well respected, we're considered a very good professional group, you'll see on our staffing pattern that we have several staff that are Masters level in Social Work, several staff that are Masters in counseling. Our nine most-senior staff have each ,fifteen years of experience in doing youth work. I think we are well-respected by schools and other professionals. As I said thirteen-hundred plus referrals 'came from the schools. But the other one is that five hundred and thirty-thrtl:e referrals that came to our agency came from peers and from self, primarily frompeers. So, it's one thing to have the respect of the schools, but it's an even better thing if we have the respect of young people themselves. We couldn't have responded to the challenges without literally, dozens of collaborations that we do with other agencies. The biggest ones are with MECCA and Four Oaks and the schools. Those we have significant contracts for either providing worI} in conjunction with MECCA and substance abuse prevention and other work or in the case of Four Oaks in working with runaways or with our teen moms or with the schools to do school-based counseling. We also have contracts with neigh~orhood centers, Goodwill on our Youth Works project, the UI Ropes Course,' and a variety of other folks. We also collaborate, and this sometimes gets overlooked in presentations, I know I've overlooked it in some years past, liow much we collaborate with city departments that you have. This year, we're doing a lot of work with the Iowa City Police Department. We've always done a lot of work with the Iowa City Police, this is the first year that I was actually able to come up with some money to give to the Iowa City Police as part of a substance abuse prevention grant. So obviously our work with police and cri~is intervention work is important, but we also work a lot with parks and recreation during our street outreach program. Since I'm on the library board, I always make sure our staff is staying in touch with some of the things that are going on at the Iowa City Public Library. We really welcomed the City Steps, which took ad\-1antage of some of the young people that actually gave youth input into your platming last year, and continue to do that in years to come. And so, all of those thirtgs are important to collaboration. I mentioned the Youth Works. I want to touch on a couple of new initiatives that we did last year. One was the Youth Works Project. That's really just a teeny-tiny youth training program. We recognize that there are others doing a lot of work in that area, this was just an effort on our part, we responded to your request for proposals. That project is a collaboration with Goodwill. We both kind of lose money on that deal. Weare doing it for a couple of reasons. One is that it's a needed program and we think that we have some t<1!lent and some skills that we can bring to it. Secondly, though, we wanted to foster a cooperative project with Goodwill and some others, if they were interested, and then possibly use your money as seed money. Unfortunately, this past year, every place that This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Wark Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 9 we've looked for seed money and for training, and Dee can cpntest to this, there isn't a whole lot out there right now for youth job training pr()grams, but we continue to look for that. In fact, I went to the Y outh Adviso~y Council for Workforce Development this past week, with Don Carstense~, our Board President, to talk about some of the initiatives. But that one l11as worked. We got off to a rocky start with it, because of some staff turnover that was unexpected on our part, but we think it works for what we're trying to do and we're pleased that you provided support for that. Another one that we were really excited about is that we worked with the Iowa City Chamber of Commerce to kick off, what some of us have been working for several years to get off the grouijd, is the youth version of the Community Leadership Program, that many of you, I know Marian and others have participated in, so that got off the ground last year and we do that in conjunction with the Iowa City Chamber and Janie Jefferi~s, who is our volunteer coordinator, was assisting in that and provided some staffing for that and helped design part of the program for that. This coming year, we also have a new initiative with Horace Mann and the Twenty-First Cent~y Schools grant over there, and we're going to be particularly focusing on a nJeighborhood associated with Mann and trying to do some broader prograniming after school, especially for fifth, sixth, and seventh graders and then as tht1)' move on. Last year, I was able to get a new grant for what's called the Tran~itional Living Program, which is for older homeless youth, and in our case, !particularly pregnant and parenting teens that are homeless. We were able to secutre a million-dollars over five years. One of the things that I emphasize to you all every year is that the money that we get from you, we use a lot to try to seed otber grants and this is clearly a case where part of the money that you're giving is ~lping us get a million-dollar initiative over five years. That's primarily to help teen parents. We also, this past year with several other agencies, submitte~ a proposal, and we were picked as one of the national demonstration sites, and when I say we, we as Johnson County, not just UAY. But we were able to secure five hundred thousand dollars for implementing youth development programs over the next four years. And again, the Iowa City Schools, and the Johnsqm County Board of Supervisors -- actually the Board is the official lead applicant for that proposal, but we are real pleased about that. Youth Development is abput trying to really do three things. If you look at the literature that, especially tbe Federal Government and what they're trying to focus on in that grantj number one is to increase civic engagement by young people, number two is to provide skills and activities in out-of-school time for kids to engage in communiity stuff beyond civic engagement, and finally is opportunities for young people to be involved in positive self-expression. Those three things, if done across tbe board, there is all kind of research, that shows for every dollar that is invested ih those types of activities, a community will get ten dollars worth of return for that kind of investment, so that's what we're trying to be about for that. For challenges, as I said, the child welfare system is extremely broken. It is not doing what it's supposed to do. It is really almost criminal that the children ~n this state, who are in custody of this state, who are the kids that we have identified as the most in need of help from communities are not getting that help. We see that squeezing This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4,2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4,2004 City Council Work Session Page 10 the system, so that the kids that should get residential treatmqnt, aren't. Kids aren't getting shelter, kids are being put into detention center~ for sixty and ninety days because there is no treatment bed available. There are, in fact, treatment beds available, but there is a state cap on how many kids canlbe in out-of-home treatment and until we come to grips with that, everybody w~o does work with young people - especially the schools and especially service 1J>roviders are going to be having a really hard time making things work. So that's one. I think our community has a little bit of a challenge, that I think we've d~me really well with, and that is a changing demographic. That is, we have a lot more people here, in general, and they're coming from lots of different places andlI think they are welcome here. But it does present us with some challenges ~bout - or at least compared to when I first started working there - a lot of youIjlg people I worked with in the seventies, who were from families who had been from Iowa City forever and forever, and you were just dealing with second aJjld third generations. There are a lot more young people that we encounter, who are fairly new to the community, and that demographic continues to grow. I had <t conversation, early before I came over here, with a colleague of mine, George B~llitsoz (can't hear), who runs the Youth and Shelter Services in Ames, and he an~ I were just chatting. He had talked to me about responding to a teen suicide call or Friday and again, he's been there as long as I've been here, and we were kind qf comparing notes and I said, "You know, I'm just not sure I can keep doing thi$ all the time." I was talking about the politics of dealing with the agencies. He w~s talking about the demands on his service staff, which he hadn't encountered - heither of us encounter that very often. I shared with him, I said to him, "You know, encountering the teen suicide probably would boost my energy level, because that's when you know that you're doing what you're supposdd to be doing. You're helping one young person on a given situation, at a gilven point in time, and that's what our agency tries to do. Again, in comparing Jilotes with George in Ames - and by the way, I was also trying to get information ~bout potential ordinances that might be under consideration and a variety off other things - (Laughter) - but I think across the board, if you talk to anyo* involved in youth work in Iowa right now, it's not a good system. We are lucky and we are lucky in part because both the City, the County, and the United Way 40 a wide range of things to support several youth-service initiatives and I appre~iate - and you have no idea how rare that is in Iowa communities until you start *lking to people around. The last challenge I have is to try to get our youth c~nter open. I'm great at grant writing, I'm not the best fund raiser in the world and II have not been able to hire a fund-development person yet, although our board is iworking on that. But we have raised enough money, we've raised about $500,000 total, all- together. Our goal is one-million dollars. But we have enou$i1 money that we can bid the project. We're working with Mike Hahn from MpComas-Lacina, who has volunteered to coordinate and oversee - volunteered his time to coordinate and oversee the bidding process and kind of get things lined ~p and scheduled. We're trying to do that this month. We expect work to begin in November. We really think we'll be in this winter. We desperately need to be in that place for a couple of reasons. One is, we need a youth center where we're not trying to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofthe October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 11 compete with all the other things that we do in our two curre* locations. Also, our teen parent program desperately needs to get into what isjcurrently the youth center and out of the small house. We also appreciate the support that you're giving from CDBG to help us, once we get the youth center Qpened, we're also going to be remodeling the existing facility across the street ~o we have a much broader and much more adequate and useful counseling cent~r for the teen-parent program. That covers most of the things I have. I would be Ijlappy to answer questions. Again, I say this every year, I just want to empha&ize for the public, I feel very lucky to work in Iowa City. I feel lucky that we hate council members, who even if they disagree with some of the things that we're doing, are paying attention to what young people are all about and what familiejs are all about. It's been great. I'm looking forward to my next fifteen years. Champion: Tell me something about the program that you have Southea&t. Tell me a little bit about your school-based programs. Swaim: Well, we do them in several places. Southeast is the one that ~s probably the strongest. We've been doing it there the longest. Each schocH site has different governing rules. You're familiar, as a former school-board riQember, ofthe notion , of site-based decision making. We've really been at Southe1t since about 1990. We actually started the project there trying to get a grant, an I'll say this for this audience once, we didn't get the grant and it actually turned ~ut to be kind of a good thing. We sat down with the staff and said, "You knoWj, we didn't get the grant, but let's figure out what we can do with the existing resources." Then over time, we have been able to piece together a variety of funding sources with the schools. We have a staff person out there, about fifty percentofthe time during the school day and then we also do after-school programs. T at's one of the places where the Youth Development Project, we're hoping tp maybe look at doing another partnership, even with the City Parks and Rec to maybe look at how we can do an even better job during some of the out-Of-!ChOOI time and partner with some of the Mercer staff, Southeast Staff, neigh orhood center staff, our staff, and some volunteers. The other thing that was real~y helpful for us as Southeast was for four years we were adopted by a church. Iiirst Presbyterian Church adopted us and included in that adoption was ten-tho~sand dollars a year plus help in getting us volunteers, and just providing some s~pport in non- financial ways to the program there. So, that's gone a lot, th4t's been a lot more stable program at Southeast. We are also doing a little versi~n of that program at Northwest Junior High. In fact, we met this morning with th~ principal there to kind of talk about how we might retool what's happening at ~orthwest because there's a lot of things going on in Coralville. I know you're iliot as interested in that part of it, but there are Iowa City students who attend th~t center as well. I Elliott: Jim, I'm interested. You talked about counseling and my ex~erience is that people, quite often, especially younger people, don't come in! and say "I need counseling." They come in to talk about things and it comes lout in the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Wark Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 12 conversation. How, is a lot of that peer referral or how do y~ get them into counseling? Swaim: You know, people in generally don't come in for counseling.! Adults don't. The thing that we do, and this is critical to the youth developmentl programs that we do. If you have positive relationships with young people, w~n they reach a point where they're thinking about needing counseling, they have rto problems talking about their needs in that context. It's when you single a youI\g person out. You know, when I first started ~ my first job at UA Y was, I was hiired as a Street Outreach Counselor. The school district said, "We want you to go out and go talk to kids." They gave me a list of referrals and said, "These fi~e kids have drug problems - go talk to them about that. These five kids are fa~lures at school ~ go talk to them." Now, if you stop and think about it and you g~ out and you say, "Well, hi, uh.. . your school principal says you've got a drug ~roblem. Let's sit down and talk about it. Let's rap." (Laughter) Rap had a diferent connotation when I started. There are some young people who can respo*d to that, quite surprisingly. But that's a way different situation than if you $0 out to a young person and say to a young person, "We have an arts program land I heard that you are interested and have been recording a variety of rap music;.." - a different context for rap - ".. . and we have a studio that's available anq we have artists who come in an help and we can let you actually record a demo tape and we can help you get that studio time." When you have that as a basis for * relationship with a young person, you really get the counseling needs that surfac~ in that interaction. Ijoke, that when Ross was first on our staff several years agoj, we had a guy Stu Mullins, who is still our Youth Center Coordinator. Stu was hired as our studio , guy. We had all the social workers. We needed someone w~o could record electronic music, who had good basic communication and all!that stuff. But Stu was the studio guy, he was the equipment guy - well, within the first six weeks of Stu being on our staff, all the kids - it was like they didn't w~nt to talk to the , counselors. (speaking as one of the students) "I want to com~ in ~ I want to see that studio guy. That's who I want to spend some time with.'t Really quickly, Stu was doing counseling, and fortunately he is a skilled counselqr, but he doesn't necessarily market himself to the young people as a skilled c~unselor. So, I thin our ability to have engaged young people in youth developm4nt stuff makes our counseling program easier. Elliott: That's what I wanted to hear. Swaim: The other thing though, you'd be surprised how many peoplel that you don't believe would have a counseling need, do. There are young people that we encounter every year. In fact, a lot of young people that we ercounter that, on the surface, are doing quite well in the community. They're not ~howing up in juvenile court records, they're succeeding at school, but many of them encounter bouts with depression, many of them have friends who are gqing through some seriously-challenging times which are really hard for them to Ideal with. So, it is good to be able to have that as an additional thing for the coujIseling program. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4,2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 13 O'Donnell: Jim, you said that there is a state cap for out-of-home treatm~nt. Would you elaborate on that for a little bit? Swaim: Yeah, the state legislature several years ago said, "Well, we'~e spending too much on treatment, so let's put a cap on out-of-home treatment." 1]hey did not do any study about what it should be. In fact, the first cap they set Was, Yvonne, refresh my memory, was I think 400 below what our actual practice ~ad been our prior year. Then the following year, they went, "Well, since you were able to get that far below, we'll go over the cap even more." So what goes ~n is the number of beds that are available for out-of-home placement, at any giv~n time, is now a very finite number. Last year, the department of human serv\ces, which, for a number of years had gone over the cap in a variety of ways, ~aid, "We can't do that any more." So, ifthere is a young person right now, wh~ is referred for let's say a substance abuse treatment program. Yet, ifthere is not la bed available, they're simply put on a waiting list and they're actually date imd time stamped at the clerk of courts. I don't know how many people in the ge~eral public know this, but when you get a court order for a young person, it's npw as critical as to when it was date stamped as it is to what the kids needs are. Now, again, I just think that's an appalling situation. rfyou have a young persO(I1 who is such dire straights, that the court has intervened and said, "Weare goi~g to take custody of this case because this young person needs help" and then theY're not providing it is ridiculous. My wife and I this year, in order to respond to the needs in our run- away program got licensed as foster parents. I was a license4 foster-parent in the seventies, through 1979, and we just got re-licensed and went through the forty- hours of foster care training. I think it should be mandatory fur probably all elected officials to go through that forty-hour mandatory traiqing, for no other reason than to find out how serious the children in our state n~ed some help. My wife and I agreed to take three, and four, and five year-olds. $ince I work with teens, I will do teens for our runaway program - but not from! DHS. I can't tell you how many DHS workers call and say, "Would you pleasf consider taking a twelve-year old. We have a twelve-year old who's sitting in thelter for thirty days." And they're not getting any service in that. So when hose kids do come back out and they're showing up in school or they're showin$ up at MECCA or they're showing up wherever they're showing up, they have a lot of needs that could have been so much more easily served had we providet them the services that they needed when they were first identified. And I do th nk until cities and counties and folks and you all in the general public rise up an~ say, "This is intolerable." It's not going to change. They just keep getting laway with this. It's kind oflike when they shifted the costs over to you guys at t* last minute, was that a year ago with the legislature, where they just pass thosq kind of costs on to you. They just get away with that and I think we have an obligation to educate the public and say that's really not a good thing. And, it costf us more money. The irony is that we'll spend more money, we will spend thirty to thirty-five thousand dollars on a couple of young adults going into the ppson system that we were not willing to spend a couple of thousand dollars on wh~n they were This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 14 juvonil" ""d th"e i, dat. ""d dat. ""d mom dat, that 'hOW'~'t. So, "on fiom a conservative tax-payers revolt perspective, it's really an aw I situation that we're doing for children. But again, that's a part of what we do. The thing that we thrive on in our agency is having the youth development tUff keeps us pumped up and energetic. Except for me being able to read ,ithout my bifocals. (Laughter) Lehman: Good job. i I I Swaim: Thank you very much. By the way, any of you who have no~ had a tour, a private tour of the new youth center facility, that would like one, bef~re we start the construction, just call me. Several of you I think I have take~ over. I think Ernie was there when we had the one kickoff. But anybody that w</Dts to come over, just give me a call and I'll walk you through really fast. Tha.Jj1ks again. Lehman: Thank you. PLANNING AND ZONING Lehman: Ok. Planning and Zoning items. O'Donnell: Hi, Karin. Franklin: This is so short it's hardly worth it. There are three final platf' Do you have any questions. O'Donnell: No, thank you. (Laughter) Champion: They're okay. Franklin: Okay. Champion: Seriously, we're done. Franklin: Okay. O'Donnell: Have a nice night. Lehman: Thank you for the shortest presentation you've ever made. Elliott: Glad you came. O'Donnell: This is a record. AGENDA ITEMS This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofthe October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 15 Item 4g(8). Correspondence - Oscar C. Beasley. Elliott: Very quickly, Dr. Beasley has a letter, he had information - o/Id I got the L.A. Times, if anybody wants - it's a neat article on Iowa and IO\~t City and the Amana Colonies and West Branch and that sort of thing. It ,as nice of him to provide that. I Item 4e(I). A RESOLUTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING ON jrHE PROPOSED F1RST AMENDED NEAR SOUTHSIDE RESIDENTIA~URBAN REVITALIZATION PLAN FOR OCTOBER 19, 2004 A D DIRECTING THE CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH NOTICE OF SAID ARING. Vanderhoef: One ofthe things that came to mind for me with new councillmembers, it's been a long time since we had just a quick overview of this Near SOfthside Residential Revitalization Plan and it's in our consent calendar, but at so~e point in time I think it would be nice to have a five-minute overview of that rlan again just for everybody to refresh on. Lehman: We can do that at the public hearing. We're setting the heari*g, that will be a good thing for it. Vanderhoef: Okay, thank you. I Item 10. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING JOSEPH PREtHER AS THE ARTIST FOR THE BENTON HILL PARK ENTRY WAY AN AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTES AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND JOSEPH PRE CHER. I I Bailey: I have a quick question regarding item #10, the Bentonville l1ark Entry way. Karin, you probably know more about this. There was some ~iscussion in the public art minutes about materials and figuring out how to ctstruct that arch, that the artist was having challenges with materials, or contractor or something. I assume that that's all been worked out and that he feels comfrrtable with the design and the material used for the art. Franklin: The actual fabrication. .. (SIDE TWO) .. .done by subcontractors. Joe is working with those SUbCOn!actors, and also two members of the public art committee are Mark Seabold, who 's an architect, and Rick Foss, City Engineer, and Joe has been using their expert'se also to work through this. So, I am confident that in the end it's all going to come together adequately. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 16 Vanderhoef: I just had a question on the placement. I am thinking out her~. If and when do reconstruction on Benton St. , I Franklin: Okay. Have you seen where the trails are now, where the si~ewalk is now that comes into to. There are two sidewalks that come into the P~k. One from Benton and one from Miller and then they come together at point which is quite far back from the corner. The arch is going to be over the p~ce where the two come together, so it will be considerably back from Benton treet and won't interfere with that at all. , I Lehman: That looks like that's going to be a neat park. I see a treehoute is being done, I see a small building of some sort behind it, I also see a gazeb looking structure, I see that they've already seeded the grass. That's going to be la really nice park. I Franklin: . Yeah. It is and I think the neighborhood is very appreciativej ! Elliott: Before we leave that, Dee, I just want to piggy back. Tomonjow night, I will vote for this, but not because I am in favor of it. I think that thirtyl dollars - er - thirty thousand dollars for something like that is exorbitant and Ijutt don't understand how we're doing it. But, it has been approved, it has been vo ed on, they're expecting it, they've been promised it and I will certainly votF for it tomorrow night, but I won't like it. I ! I Lehman: I had to do that one time too. I voted against it when we authr,rized it, but when the contract came through I thought "Well, we're committed.,' ! I Elliott: They've been promised it and it will be very nice I'm sure an~ that's a really nice park. ! O'Donnell: I guarantee that everything I voted on I fully supported 100%f (Laughter) Champion: Bill, I think I need to disagree with you a little bit. I think thte is a lot of value in public art.. .not just aesthetically, but it just produces an awar ness to things around you, it produces usually better behavior and it also prqvides a stimulus of art to people who might not be able to afford any oftheir 0';1. I think it's like music. It's hard to put a value on it, but the value is certainlYlthere. Elliott: I don't disagree with you. I I Bailey: Public art is the most democractic of arts. Nobody has to payl to see it. It's in our parks and it's on our street corners, if you notice in Goosetooo today. It's terrific. I , Vanderhoef: Ijust came back from Albuquerque and they have a public aj;rogram there that for every construction project in the city, including the planni g part of the cost This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 17 I for the project, one percent for public art. At the corner by t* hotel, there was a nine-figure Gl~, Good,ae, poop!e in ,onv""tion kind-orin., ~d, bmnd new Native American Latino center for performing arts with uilt-in places and all the commissioned art that was put into each of these little lcoves and the big paintings that were done. It's amazing what they have done ith that one percent. , It's very expensive, but it's certainly there. Item 11. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION TO AMEND THE IOWA CITY ~UBLlC ART PROGRAM PROCEDURES BY CHANGING PROCEDURE FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD PUBLIC ART PROJECT. i Vanderhoef: I was just wondering if the rules committee had reviewed the changes suggested by the public art committee, item II. Champion/O'Donnell: No we haven't. Franklin: I don't know.. .does that go to rules? It's the public art proce~ures. It's not part of their bylaws. Champion: We wouldn't have. ! Franklin: I think it just goes through the council, that's my recollection) I Vanderhoef: Okay. I was just curious if anyone else... i Franklin: The main reason for those changes is to clarify what art is an~ that it requires the involvement at some point in the process with a person who i an artist. Whether it's at the concept stage or the actual execution. ! Lehman: Other agenda items. Vanderhoef: The letter from Oscar Beasley on the LA Times. Did we get that article? Bailey: Bob got it. O'Donnell / Lehman: Bob already said he got it. Elliott: I got it from him if you want it. Vanderhoef: You did get it. Okay. Will you put it in the packet? Elliott: Yeah. First of all, one of them is a full-page color photo - wlhch is really impressive. You really ought to look at the paper. I'll bring ~t tomorrow night. Karr: It's difficult, because of the print and presentation, to put it i~ the packet. Vanderhoef: Is it something that should go onto our Convention and Visitqrs Bureau? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4,2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 18 Elliott: I'll bring it tomorrow. You folks can take a look at it. Vanderhoef: Take a look at it and then maybe they'd like to frame it and Pft it out in the office or something. Elliott: It was really nice and it was in the LA Times. O'Donnell: You'll just bring it tomorrow night. Lehman: Good idea, Bob. Champion: Why didn't you bring it tonight? Item 4g( 6). Correspondence - Hetty Hall, Justin Putney. Vanderhoef: There w", a lert" in th"e about the pedeMan walk light.. vru' turn light.., ",d I'm sorry, I didn't get down to watch the cycle on that. But it was to do with the Linn St./Burlington St. and what this letter is saying that whe someone gets the walk light there isn't anything stopping people from making ght on reds and so forth. Bailey: Right. Lehman: Just like any other intersection. Elliott: There i, a law, hut it', unhelievahle how many people drive *owa City ",d do not use their turn signals, do not even understand even arm-t ing motions and don't understand that you stop and then you turn right on red. (Unrecognizable comment) Bailey: I heard seatbelts. . . (Laugher) Champion: I think we only have one intersection in town, Dee, where wh~n a pedestrian pushes the light, all the lights are red and that's - - ! ! Lehman: The Iowa A venue does.. . I I i I , Champion: -- the one at Muscatine and Court where the school kids cross. Vanderhoef: And the one down on the Iowa A venue Bridge? Lehman: No, right in front of your store. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 19 Vanderhoef: Well, there, but on the other side. Lehman: You mean on the other side ofthe Old Capitol? Is that a walt-light too? Elliott: There is a sign there that says "No Right Turn on Red." Lehman: Right. Nobody reads that either. Champion: Nobody reads that. O'Donnell: The number one problem we have with Burlington Street is - Lehman: Cars. (Laughter) O'Donnell: -- it's the length of the green for the walk is what we've had Broblems with and we've adjusted that a couple oftimes. Lehman: I think we've addressed that. O'Donnell: I think we still get letters saying that there's not enough time 10 get across. Bailey: The need the countdown (signs.) O'Donnell: Pardon? Bailey: It's hard to get across. Champion: The pedestrian starts across when it's flashing red. Bailey: Or you're half-way across and it starts flashing red and peoPl9 don't always understand that they have time. i Lehman: How much are those? Do have any idea what the countdown lights are? , Atkins: Probably in about two weeks you'll have a proposal that disc~sses countdown lights. Lehman: Oh, okay.. .end of discussion. , I Atkins: I think it should be ready in two weeks. Don't yell at me ifit'~ not ready. It's on it's way. Karin says it will be. Wilburn: You stole his thunder. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4,2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 20 Atkins: I'm sorry. Wilburn: No, he stole your thunder. Never mind. Atkins: I'm still sorry he said it. (Laughter) Alcohol Issues Vanderhoef: I would Ii" to ",k foc, when wm, of", "Iked ,bout akOh~"viOU'IY' aud possible things that we could do, we talked about keg ordin ce and then there were some things on drink specials and so forth, but there we e some good memos that were put out a couple of years ago for all of us th t some of the councilors have not see and if those could just be printed the~ in the next packet so that everybody has the same information when we get started. I I O'Donnell: Not a bad idea. So everyone has the same information. I I Karr: We'll put some of that out. You're just talking about other oJtions. ! Vanderhoef: Uh-hum. (Yes). As I recall there were maybe three of those temos. What you legally can do and what you legally can't do. If you'll just re urrect those for review for all of us. i I I Karr: Okay. I I I Champion: As long as you're talking about alcohol, the other thing we tared about but never followed through on is some kind of zone restriction for liquo licenses. I I Lehman: That was an issue that we took up a year ago and then chose t~ go at nineteen instead. Karr: That was also on that memo. I i Vanderhoef: All the options was on that memo and just refresh everyone's bemory as to what they were. Lehman: Other agenda items? There are no council appointments. Council Time Bailey: I had a quick question about this recycling downtown. Lehman: Oh yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 21 Bailey: Punoh",;ng thr<< ,'" uftwo re'ycl;ng ,ontom"" ""d tho ""i~g g"bago containers would be removed.. .so.. ..that's what this says.... d then in the second paragraph is says recycling containers should be plac d near trash containers. I would encourage us not to remove any trash ca~s downtown. ! Champion: Please don't. i , Helling: That's not what I understood it to be, but I'll be sure to inqui~e. ! Bailey: Well, that's how I read it, so I was just wanting a clarificati01' , O'Donnell: If you noad i!that way, I'll till<"are of;!. I have ju,t on, (ht. On "'gol" basis, on Dubuque Street at the bottom on the hill, I'm seein now the University ofIowa Police running radar and I'm wondering if they're ding that in conjunction with our Iowa City Police Department? Atkins: No. They do that on their own initiative. O'Donnell: Their own initiative. Lehman: They're trying to save students.. .it's a heavily trafficked roa1' I O'Donnell: The point is, it's a city street and I think it should be done in tollaboration with the Iowa City Police Department. Bailey: Do they issue speeding tickets? O'Donnell: They're running radar at the bottom of the hill. Lehman: I think they can issue... O'Donnell: I'm seeing these people all over town. I'm seeing them stop weople on Kirkwood. Champion: Maybe we have our police doing other things. Bailey: I think Mike's point is well taken...it should be coordinated. O'Donnell: My question was, is it in collaboration with our department. Atkins: Let me get state a better answer. I'm almost positive that it i~ not, Mike, but I understand your point. Let me just confirm with our R.J. wh t kind of communications takes place. i Champion: The thing that I want to say tonight is on a positive note. Lehman: Good. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 22 O'Donnell: Say, what? Champion: Because, you know, we had this huge wedding with maybe 7 % of the two- hundred guests from out oftown, who all stayed down-town owa City and I can't tell you.. ..these are people from Germany, Italy, from Califo ia, to Washington, D.C., and Canada, and Texas, and all over...seriously.. . all ov r.. . and how many of them were so impressed with Iowa City that they can't ev believe it. Most of them had never been here. They were totally amazed numbe one at how nice everybody was, how wonderful our downtown was, and how they really enjoyed going to the bars. (Laughter) O'Donnell: Are these all relatives? Champion: No. Lehman: Connie, could you repeat that tomorrow night, except for the ast sentence? Champion: We work with all this gloom and doom and all this stuff and 've said this before, but we don't know what a little jewel we have here and some imes we bitch about things are going on but we have an incredible town. O'Donnell: Like sand in an oyster. Champion: Oh that's good. I love oysters. Lehman: Well said, Connie. O'Donnell: We'll see you tomorrow night. Karr: One final thing, if any of you are interested.. .you have all r~ived invitations to the Chamber of Commerce Business Awards luncheon. Let e know and I'll make the reservation. It's Wednesday, October 20th. Bailey: Luncheon or dinner? Elliott: 5:30and 6:30pm. Karr: It's dinner. Maybe you're invitations were for lunch. (LaU~er) I'm sorry, I meant dinner. Business awards dinner. Wednesday, October 20th. Lehman: Okay, anything else for council time before all of us go home'and watch whatever it is that.. . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4,2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4,2004 City Council Work Session Page 23 , I I O'Donnell: Tomorrow night we should be here for all of five minutes. I i ! Vanderhoef: Eith~r tonight or tomorrow night, I'd like to just give you a Ijttle update on my meetmg. Lehman: Good. Now. O'Donnell: You've got five minutes. Vanderhoef: I can do it in five. Lehman: How about two? Vanderhoef: He told me five. This was Albuquerque and this was the Nat onal League of Cities Transportation and Infrastructure.. . and of course you' e heard be talk about the T21 Reauthorization and so forth. We got word wile we were out there that congress had passed two bills to keep funding goin through this November and an extension again on the authorizing of the T I bill through May 31 of next year. What's going to happen is that the conferenc committee will die as of December 31, so it will have to be totally reconvened d reappointments in the new year and because they have about thirteen appropriat"on bills that they're going to be working on, the best guess is that they won't start working on this until next May. The numbers are coming down. They're exp cting, ifit's President Bush, he will go as high as 299 billion. The Leagu of Cities has identified that it will take 310 billion just to maintain our tran portation and infrastructure budget as we now know it in T21. So this is p of that piece that we've been pushing for the senate bill that is 318 billion so th t we get a little growth. The breakdown within the funding as it is coming ou of the conference committee at the present time is that there will be a very flat d liar amount for transit. That we will not be seeing new monies in this bill for ransit as it is presently coming out. They are pushing - League of Cities is ushing for CPI index on the gas tax to raise it. It hasn't been raised for a nu er of years, but they're pushing for that. There are some members on confere ce committee right now that are very much in favor of this, but the bigger picture hey're pushing for is the additional two-cent tax on ethanol- which is a huge pro lem for our economic development in Iowa and surrounding states who su port the gasohol and converting it. So we have work to do from our own state rea. The last time I talked to Senator Grassley, he wouldn't say yes and he woul n't say not to me on whether he would support any increase on the ethanol tax 0 not. If the money were to be put into the new bill, then has to go directly to the t st-fund - the highway trust-fund - to be spent out and that is the other piece that we're really pushing for is to have them spend out the money and we put it in to our new policy language that the money needs to be spent out and not sed to balance the budget in numbers if not in fact because they can't use it anypl~ce else. They'd , just hold it there. That's it. ! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4,2004 Iowa City Council Work Session. October 4, 2004 City Council Work Session Page 24 O'Donnell: Thank you. Lehman: Okay, guys, tomorrow night. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the October 4, 2004 Iowa City C01mcil Work Session.