HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-01-11 TranscriptionJanuary i 1, 2005 Council Work Session Page 1
January 11, 2005 Council Budget Work Session 12:00 PM
COUNCIL PRESENT: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell; Vanderhoef & Wilburn
STAFF PRESENT: Atkins, Karr, Helling, O'Malley, Lewis, Herting & Rocca
TAPES: 05-09 Sides 1 and 2; 05-10 Sides 1 and 2
Fire Inspector:
Atkins/From the other day, I re-recorded the list of items you wanted...okay. Yes?
Vanderhoef/Excuse me. I just got information that I misread the memo on the fire
inspector, and I don't know whether anybody else had that same problem, but
Andy would be here.
Atkins/Andy's on stand-by. He was here to come in anyway.
Vanderhoef/The thing was that we're going to annual inspections, rather than bi-annual
inspections, but I thought it was for all fire inspections, and Andy is telling me it's
only for the higher technicality inspections with the people who have sprinkler
systems, fire alarms, and all of those kinds of things. Am I the only one that
misread that highlight memo on...
Atkins/Well if you want to question Andy, he's standing right here. Why don't we just
do that right now? Yeah, you need to get a mic, and, Andy, just come on up here.
O'Donnell/I understood the yearly inspection and it is for those with fire equipment in
the stores, the sprinklers.
Rocca/The high technical in nature type inspections. Fire alarms, sprinkler systems,
hazardous materials, all those issues. The general fire safety inspection that we
do every two years in all commercial businesses will continue by fire companies.
They're looking at basic things: exit signs, fire extinguishers, extension cords, as
well as familiarizing themselves with the occupancies they're inspecting,
commercial businesses, but the highly technical ones, the sprinkler systems, fire
alarms, fire, built-in fire protection systems, we just don't have the horse-power to
do that. Our fire companies are called away so they can do the general fire safety
inspection. It's the technical in nature inspection that we're targeting with this
proposed fire inspector position.
O'Donnell/That's the way ! understood it.
Vanderhoef/Okay, well, go ahead.
Lehman/So what's the issue?
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Champion/What is the issue?
O'Donnell/Dee thought it was for everybody? Is that what you thought? (several
talking at once)
Vanderhoef/Annual inspections for all of them, and I wondered how we were going to
get that done.
O'Donnell/Is there a regular time period? Do they inspect sprinkler systems and so forth
on a regular basis?
Rocca/By the code, they're required to do that annually. Right.
Champion/But you have to hire somebody to come in, and they, you send an affidavit to
the City, the Fire Department.
Rocca/They do that, but we're going to be looking in greater detail than we have in the
past at that compliance.
Champion/Why? Why is that, Andy?
Rocca/Why is that? Well, we're just relying on those systems. If we can either prevent,
as I was telling Dee earlier, if we can prevent the fire from occun'ing, we're not
drawing on emergency services. If we can have faith and confidence and rely on
built-in fire protection, it'll allow us to use our resources more effectively.
Champion/So even though I send in a thing saying that my water, my sprinkler system
has been inspected, you're still going to come and look at it?
Rocca/Right, right.
Champion/Then I don't have to hire anybody to do that anymore?
Rocca/You will; I mean, we're going to be working in tandem with the contractors. See,
on the front end what occurs is they're submitting plans and we're trying to do the
best we can to look at the plans, but we just don't, again, have the horse-power to
look at their plans in detail. We want to make sure those systems are number one,
designed appropriately; then installed appropriately; and then maintained
accordingly each year, and all we're really able to do now is say 'yeah, here's a
certificate; we believe it's been maintained.' But we don't know.
Lehman/Isn't somebody like Vrban, far more, qualified to give you an assessment of the
reliability of the system?
Rocca/They're going to perform the work. They're going to do the actual repairs, but
we're certifying that the system, you know, the valves tripped, they notified the
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fire department through a monitoring agency; those kinds of things that we're just
simply not doing right now.
Elliott/It, you, you will not be looking at malfunctioning of them, or will you?
Rocca/Well potentially if something...
Elliott/Mercy had one that malfunctioned.
Rocca/We're routinely looking at those that are malfunctioning. And I'm not exactly
sure what you're talking about, but we're responding...any time we get an alarm
we're going to respond, and if we determine there was a malfunction, we're
accurately recording why it occurred, and then trying to follow up so it doesn't
happen again.
Lehman/If people with sprinkler systems are doing annual inspections, it seems to me a
lot simpler if, to require that those inspections, whoever does them, certifies the
systems rather than having our people go out and do what they're already doing.
Rocca/They're going to continue to perform the maintenance on there, but we don't
know...
Lehman/No, but they do. My point is, if they certify that a system is installed
appropriately and is working, that's what you need to know, right?
Rocca/That's what we need to know, and that's what we currently don't know.
Lehman/No, but if we require them to certify it annually, and you get that information
from somebody like Vrban, why would we want to mess with inspecting them
ourselves?
Rocca/Well, number one, we don't know where all the systems are at. We don't know if
they've all been tested or inspected. I mean, that's part of the problem.
Lehman/No, I understand that, but you make routine commercial inspections; every
single building that has a sprinkler because you inspect them. All you got to do is
go back and require the owner of that building or the tenant to furnish a certificate
that's been certified by a qualified inspector. Why would we spend our money
inspecting?
Champion/That's what we do. We get a letter from the City.
Lehman/Right.
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Rocca/But the component that's still not happening, on the front end of that, on new
installations, is it being designed by an architect or engineer. Is it being installed
correctly in the facility.
Lehman/Don't we inspect all the installations?
Rocca/Yes and no. I mean, it's hit and miss.
Lehman/What's the no?
Rocca/No, we're getting the plans, but we don't have the people to always send out to do
the rough-in inspection, a final inspection, a test inspection...
Lehman/But doesn't Housing Inspection Services?
Rocca/No.
Lehman/Inspect sprinkler systems when they're put in?
Rocca/No, they're checking for the backflow prevention device, and that's about the
extent of it, is my understanding. Now, maybe Bernie or Doug or somebody
could answer that more specifically, but their main concern is the state
requirement of the backflow prevention device. Beyond that, no.
Lehman/But then we've had issues with builders who come in and complain because of
what we're making them do in sprinkler systems. Now somebody is requiring
something.
Rocca/Well certainly, we're doing the best we can with modifying our code to make
those systems work to our advantage.
Lehman/But who's doing this?
Rocca/Who's doing what?
Lehman/Who works with the company, who is the one we did out here, oh I know one.
Great big warehouse out in the industrial park that was a big .... yeah, who worked
with him?
Rocca/Gerdean? Roger Jensen did.
Lehman/Oh, that wasn't Housing Inspection folks?
Rocca/No, not to my knowledge. I know we had a lot of interaction with them on
sprinkler systems and venting of that warehouse, and again, that was a special
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process, how that whole warehouse is vented to make sure it's designed
appropriately, installed appropriately, and so on and so forth.
Vanderhoef/So what you're saying is that you want the inspection really on new
installations, but all these others could be handled the way Ernie is talking about
and Connie is talking about, that they have to get them certified from, and be
inspected every year, so why would we re-do on any of them that we already
know it was installed properly?
Rocca/I think, again, it's, you know, you can get a piece of paper that says something is
done, but we're trying to follow up to make sure that the work is actually being
performed. We've had instances where, I'm not so sure that it's been done, and
we've had system failures. Are we going to catch all of them? No, but you know
it would be our hope that we can make sure that things are being maintained
according to code and we're simply not doing that right now.
Vanderhoef/Okay, if that's the case then why are we not saying we're going to do all of
the inspections, and charge that fee, instead of having someone whose building is
already sprinklered, to call somebody in to look at the system and check the
system, and say that it's all working properly. I mean, we're duplicating effort
here.
Rocca/I'm not so sure I see the duplication. I mean, if we go out and inspect a system, I
mean, it could be an existing system and we find that perhaps the maintenance
hasn't been done, or that heads are obstructed, or whatever the violations might
be, and I mean we very well could be there ahead of a sprinkler contractor. That
may trigger the contractor to come in, perform the required maintenance, and
verify to us that it has been performed. We're going to have to go back and do
some field verification on the violations that are noted anyway.
Vanderhoef/But if the requirement were put on the outside company...
Champion/It is.
Vanderhoef/So...
Rocca/It's because it's their building, it's their system, certainly it would be on, the
responsibility would be on them.
Vanderhoef/Right, but the liability should go back on them for inadequately testing the
system and making sure that it's properly repaired.
O'Donnell/We inspect for everything when a new building's going up.
Vanderhoef/Going up; I'm talking about existing.
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O'Donnell/That's what I'm...I always assumed if we put in a sprinkler system, that
would also require for us to sign off on it. Am I wrong on that?
Rocca/We sign off on the fact that it's there. We're looking at some certification. We'll
go out and do the pressure test, but when we have one individual who's trying to
keep up on monitoring the plan submittals, monitoring rough-in inspections,
monitoring and in some cases conducting final inspections, this is one person, and
you know, we get to the ones we can. We don't get to the ones we can't. It's just
that simple.
O'Donnell/Did I hear you say, Andy, that pressure relieve valve? We go in and
primarily just check for that valve?
Rocca/A backflow prevention device, and that's a state law requirement that HIS does
look for. When the plans come in to us, we forward the plans to them. They
verify that that device is there; they send them back to us and we're trying to
double-check flow calculations, system components, things like that, for code
compliance, and we do so on paper, but again, getting back out there to make sure
that some of those things are occurring as they're supposed to by design, we're
not doing that in all cases.
Champion/(can't hear) what Dee said. I mean, I have a sprinkler system. We have it
inspected every year. We send the thing to the City that it's been inspected. It
costs about $150. Now, you're going to come and do the same thing I'm paying
somebody $150 for?
Rocca/Do you take care of every item on the list?
Champion/I've never had anything to take care of; they take care of it.
Rocca/Okay, and in some cases we get these lists with known deficiencies.
Champion/No, we've never had a deficiency.
Rocca/Okay, but that's what I'm saying. That's the point of that inspection is to identify
deficiencies, and if we get that and say 'okay these deficiencies exist', what
happens to the deficiency?
Champion/Well what happens if you get my letter and it says there aren't any
deficiencies? Are you still going to come and inspect it?
Rocca/To verify that it was inspected, certainly.
Champion/Then you ought to just do the inspections and charge everybody $150.
Vanderhoef/Yeah, that's what I was saying.
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Lehman/It would seem to me that a qualified inspector could certify that a system, they
could note the deficiencies, just like Housing Inspection does when you have an
apartment, and you are given a certain length of time to correct those deficiencies.
They could correct those deficiencies; send you a card indicating and certifying
that those deficiencies have been corrected. I don't see any point, I mean, to me it
doesn't make any sense to have professional people do the inspections, make the
repairs, and then have, we go out and duplicate what they're already doing.
Rocca/But you're talking about an existing sprinkler system. Okay, and that's just one
small element of this whole issue of the proposed fire inspector. That's a very
small element of it.
Lehman/What's the rest of it?
Rocca/Hazardous materials compliance and storage.
Lehman/Oh, I don't know anything about that; it just seems the sprinkler thing, if you've
got somebody doing the inspections and they're certifying it, then it's over.
Vanderhoef/And the hazardous materials, the people who are checking for cords and exit
signs and lights and exit doors, and those kinds of things, they can check for
hazardous material.
Rocca/You know, it sounds like a good concept but it just doesn't work that way in
reality, Dee. I mean, you're talking about large quantities of material; you're
talking about exempt materials; you're talking about the manner in which it's
stored; the manner in which it's protected; state requirements on quantities; the
average fire company, as well as responding to their emergency duties, to do that
up, to set the appointment up with a local industry and to say 'excuse me, we have
a medical emergency; we know we've had this scheduled for three weeks, but we
have to leave now and we'll try to get back to you' -that's not the way we should
be treating industry when we're conducting inspections like this. The general
safety one, we can come and go and pick that up with those kinds of interruptions,
it's worked that way, but on these technical inspections, I just don't think that's
the way you want to treat commercial business and industry, to come and go, and
treat them as though their time really doesn't matter to you.
Bailey/! just want to point out that, I don't know anything about fire inspection, and I
don't know anything about sprinkler systems except when I hear about them
they've typically malfunctioned and sprayed when they weren't supposed to. But
the fact of the matter is this is a preventative sort of thing. We don't have a 4th
fire station, and I think people feel comfortable with the speed at which we are
proceeding with that 4th fire station, because we have a relatively safe community,
and this is the kind of thing that makes sure that that is safe. And it just seems to
make sense to do this. ! mean, if it has many components (can't hear). So I'm
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not following your line of thinking, because I don't work in a building or have a
business in a building with a sprinkler system, so I don't fully understand the
inspection nature, but it seems natural that we would want to promote safety,
especially of our commercial buildings and industry.
Lehman/I don't disagree with you, but if you have a certified professional inspect your
system, it seems redundant to have the City come back and make the same
inspection. If they certify that they have inspected the system and it meets code
requirements, why do we need to go back? I have a tag on my fire extinguisher
that says it's been inspected. Do we go in and take the fire extinguisher apart to
make sure the guy who signed it...no, we don't, we take his word for it, and I
think qualified folks who certify that a system has been, is functional, ought to be
good enough for us.
Bailey/And what happens if something happens and it's, it was certified and it's not
functional.
Lehman/What happens if we inspect it and we miss it?
Bailey/Well that's what I'm wondering, I mean, have there been problems? I guess or...
Rocca/You know, I don't recall specific incidences where we've missed something and
there was an issue, but there clearly, ! don't want to call them good Samaritan
type laws that we're out there performing our duties to the best of our abilities,
within the knowledge and skills that we've been trained to. It certainly minimizes
the City's liability. That's not to say we couldn't wind up in a lawsuit, as you
well know.
Champion/Like anything, the symptom may not be there the day you inspect it. A month
later it could be there.
Bailey/Oh, sure.
Rocca/Could.
Lehman/Well, ! don't know hazardous materials, and I don't know that there's any
experts out there in the private sector that do that, and I certainly don't have an
issue there, but if you're hiring a professional...last time they inspected by
sprinkler system, it was $1,100 and some, you know, professional inspectors
came in and did it, but I absolutely don't see any point in taxpayers paying for
somebody else to go back in when I just spent $1,100 to have it inspected.
O'Donnell/Was that inspection alone, Ernie, or were there repairs?
Lehman/No, no, we checked everything. I have a dry system so they checked
everything. They drained it, whatever it is they need to do, and it was $1,100
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which is okay, I mean, I needed that. Although this is good; they made
recommendations. Some of which I have not done. Now, if we had an ordinance
that required me to build the deficiencies, I would have spent some more money.
I would have had to, but once a qualified inspector certifies that there are
deficiencies, and then later certifies that they have been completed, I think that
you guys have better things to do than re-inspect.
Rocca/I'm not sure I see the difference in that and in just about any facet of construction
where we're going out and we have a licensed contractor performing "x" type of
work. They're still going out to field verify that that work is done according to
the code.
Champion/But once it's done you don't go back.
Lehman/No, I think Connie is right. Like my building, it's built. Right, I totally agree.
You build a new building; it's built according to code; you certify it; and it's
completed according to the architect's plans, whatever. After that, routine annual
inspections made by a certified sprinkler expert ought to be adequate. We don't
go back every year and inspect the wiring every year in people's homes; we don't
go back every year and inspect the plumbing and furnaces. We know it was put
in right. If we have an annual inspection certified to us that the sprinkler system
is functional; it's been inspected; the deficiencies have been corrected; why would
we want to send somebody out?
Rocca/But that's what I'm saying, how do you know the deficiencies are corrected? The
ones, the list that we get, Ernie, often times they just list the deficiencies.
Lehman/We require that, we require that the deficiencies be corrected and that the
sprinkler company certify that they have been done.
Rocca/I'm just saying that the follow up to be sure that those deficiencies have been
corrected, that's not occurring, and we've had situations where...
Lehman/No, no, where we don't require it either.
Champion/A clerk could do it.
Lehman/We don't require that the deficiencies be corrected. Now.
Rocca/Sure we do.
Lehman/No we don't.
Rocca/If it's an issue of an order is written...
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Lehman/I have deficiencies in my system, and some are pretty minor, but they haven't
been corrected.
O'Donnell/That's a good thing to know. (laughter)
Rocca/Again, I want to emphasize that this is a small component of it, and if we reach
that conclusion that you're comfortable with Vrban or whoever, a professional
contractor doing that, we can deal with that, but there are fire alarm systems out
there. Again, the general fire safety inspection, we don't know what the status of
those systems are. If they' re adequately protected, if they're meeting current code
requirements. So I think there are a couple different issues. There are the new
installations and there are the existing, and there is a whole myriad of issues that
this fire inspector position will deal with, minimally, fire alarm sprinkler systems.
Champion/(can't hear) sprinkler system is very expensive, which seemed to me
ridiculous if you have one that you don't maintain it. I mean, it costs a fortune to
put one in.
O'Donnell/When Vrban comes in to inspect your sprinkler system, is that all they do?
Champion/Yeah.
O'Donnell/They don't check the other, fire extinguishers?
Lehman/No, no, no, they're just sprinklers. Right. They check the alarm; they check the
backflow; they check, they drain...
O'Donnell/So they go through the whole system.
Lehman/And they,, for example, in my case, my basement, part of the heads in my
basement they estimate are 70 years old, which may or may not be adequate
anymore. You're laughing. They probably aren't. No, they were original
sprinklers and they're also, I think, on 3¼,, pipes or 1" pipes, and now nothing can
be less than 2", or whatever.
Rocca/It depends on the hydraulic design of the system.
Lehman/Yeah, but in any case, they do, they absolutely go from the point that that line
comes in the building, and they cover, if they inspect them right, they do
everything.
O'Donnell/You know, part of me is in total agreement with you, and I do see it as
duplication, but I have a fire chief here that's telling me that he thinks that
something isn't happening, or could not be happening, and that could be a safety
factor.
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Lehman/I think what he's saying, and I think he's right, is that we have inspections with
deficiencies, and we're not requiring that those deficiencies be corrected.
Vanderhoef/And certified.
Elliott/I've been quiet throughout this, which I'm sure is a shock to some people, but I
can remember sitting in this room long before I was on Council, and I think,
Steve, when the two people were up here, this had nothing to do with the fire. It
had to do with housing inspections or whatever, and the question was asked 'how
much of your time is spent on follow ups' and they both kind of jumped and said
'oh 80%' and the Council, within 30 to 60 seconds, said 'why can't you leave a
postcard and have a certified, whether it's an electrician, a certified plumber, a
certified to fill out the card, send it in; now I'm getting this mixed up with that,
because that seemed like an extremely logical process, that a card be left just as
we have somebody who comes in and checks our furnace and our air
conditioning, once a year, and if that had to be City certified, what they would do
is they would fill out the card, send it in, and a clerk would say 'yes it's done.'
Now, I don't know how that differs, but in that respect with the housing
inspections, that made a lot of sense to me.
Rocca/And we do have a re-inspection ordinance in place and while we do make some
re-inspections, I wouldn't say it's a great number.. We've been out there for a
number of years. People are familiar with the commercial fire inspection
program. Typically they're taking care of business, and minimal on returns.
Again, I think we're talking about a couple different things here, and I want to
emphasize that, that there are the existing and there are the new, and I can tell you
certainly that in all cases, all new construction, we're doing the best we can but
we're not getting everywhere that we would like to be. And so some of these
things are probably being installed by licensed contractors, but often times what'll
happen out there is you'll see a set of plans and it's designed and looks good this
way, but it doesn't happen out in the field that way; even though they're licensed
and certified, you need to have that followup.
Lehman/I agree. That presents another issue. If we let them build, install the system,
and they're licensed/qualified, and we give them the okay and then the fire
department comes out and tells them they put in the sprinkler system wrong, we
got some real unhappy folks out there.
Rocca/Sure we do, sure we do.
Lehman/And we need, if we're going to certify it, I mean if we're going to allow them to
install the system, and we say it's okay, and it's okay, then the last thing we need
is the fire inspector coming out and saying 'whoa, you did the system all wrong'
and now they're mad at us, and they should be.
Rocca/Well, that depends.
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Lehman/Absolutely. If we're there with inspectors on the job, we approve the plans, and
they install it according to plans, that we've approved, and then we go back out
and say 'you put the system in wrong' then we go problems.
O'Donnell/You know, we could talk about this for the next hour and a half. We can
either do one of two things: we can accept the fire chief's recommendation, or
disagree with it. It seems to me...
Lehman/Or we can accept it and disagree (laughter)
Wilburn/I don't know if this can be answered here now but there's a key word for this
component of this inspection, this specialized inspection that you brought up, and
that's verification. If it's not done by the City, whether it's certification, some
sort of certificate sent in by whoever these independent contractors are, is there, I
mean, there's a shift in that verification, but are we in-house shifting
responsibility? How's that going to effect in-house, you know, okay, I'm the
official inspector, whatever the guy's name is, and I'm sorry, Ernie, I can't sign
this, I can't certify this until this is repaired. I can repair it. Okay, so now you're
sitting there, and somewhere it's, is that in the Clerk's office? Where does that
happen then? That follow up to Ernie to...because if I'm the independent
contractor, I'm going to try and get that business so I can charge you to repair it,
but I'm not going to waste my time if you're not going to, so where does that
happen?
O'Donnell/Why would you be asking Ernie that? He's got a deficiency. (laughter)
Wilburn/Well, that's an excellent point.
Rocca/I think that's part of the problem. Again, yes, we have certified installers and
maintainers out there. That was an ordinance that we proposed and you approved,
not too long ago, and so I think we're gaining some ground on there, but I'm still
saying it's not all occurring, and that's what needs to occur - the full cycle, to
make sure that the deficiencies are followed up on, whether it's new construction,
and in some cases, existing construction.
Wilburn/My question is, if that verification isn't done in-house, do the fire department,
do we just shift something elsewhere within the City? That's just a question I
have.
Elliott/Is this a full time or a part time?
Rocca/Full.
Elliott/How about half time and starting with all new construction?
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Rocca/Well, I think the work load is out there right now to go full time with it. I think
you're just scratching the surface with part time. I don't know that it has the
impact, frankly.
Vanderhoef/But if we did that along with the suggestion of notification of deficiencies,
and the requirement if we had the policy that they had to certify again, once
deficiencies were taken care of. It still is that extra check on it, and stops an
inspector going out for each one of these older systems.
Rocca/You know, I think procedurally we can take care of that duplicate that you're
concerned about on existing, but I'm, I want to tell you again, the new
installations of these built-in fire protection systems, not just sprinkler systems,
built-in fire protection systems. We just can't be all place at all times. There's
enough work out there now to have somebody out there 40 hours a week,
confirming this.
Vanderhoef/So how are you doing it now?
Rocca/We're not. That's my point. We're not. We have an adopted set of codes. It's A
through Z. Some of it, frankly, we're just not getting out to verify. We see the
plans that are submitted by an architect. We get out there when we can to look at
some of the design or field installation work, maybe rough-ins, may not be. Final
inspections, we try to be there, but we're not always there and so we may get a
material sheet from a contractor, indicating what they've done. Well, that's fine,
but on a new installation you need to be out there because of just what you
pointed out, Emie. We get a set of plans and we approve that set of plans, and if
it's built to plan, that's good. We've probably bought into it. If there's a
discrepancy from design and plan drawing to installation, and we find it in the
11th hour, well the contractors going to have to correct it to make sure that it is
installed according to the design standard.
Lehman/Yeah, well if you find it after the owner has already paid for everything, a year
after it was built, and then you go in, you really got somebody unhappy.
Rocca/And so if we're not doing that in a timely fashion, then we go to logger heads,
you know...
Lehman/I'm just amazed that we don't inspect...I just assumed that we inspected
sprinkler systems the same way we do plumbing and wiring. I mean, I can't
imagine that we'd allow commercial construction. We got a 15-story hotel being
built down here, and you're telling me that we don't have anybody inspecting the
sprinkler system.
Rocca/I'm telling you that our Fire Marshall is out there when he can be there. I'm not
telling you we don't, but I'm not telling you we're doing the job as per the code
requires it to be done.
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Lehman/Is there any reason...we've got to get off of this. We'll be here all day. Any
reason why Housing Inspection Services can't inspect sprinkler systems?
Rocca/Well, I imagine training is an issue. Personnel's an issue. Time allocation is an
issue. ! can't speak to what they do and what they don't.
Vanderhoef/For new construction? That one can do it all.
Elliott/I think it's just mandatory for new construction. ! think the follow up on annual,
that's the point to be debated, I would think.
Champion/Well the other thing is, if you have sprinkler systems installed in buildings,
especially downtown where those buildings are connected, connected, connected,
I think there has to be some way to make sure that they're functioning, and that's
what I thought this annual inspection I do every year did.
Lehman/Does, and your neighbor ....
Champion/Yeah, your neighbor has to do it if they have a sprinkler system. So it seems
to me, and I think it's important that the Fire Department know that these things
are functioning, because if they're not functioning, then what's the sense of
having one?
Lehman/It's worse than worthless.
Champion/Worse than worthless because you think it's there, but I don't know. I do
believe you, you know what you're doing, that's your job. (laughter)
Atkins/We assume you believe us. We'll set that aside and move on from there.
Lehman/That's an accurate assumption.
Atkins/Thank you very much.
Rocca/ Yeah.
Atkins/Remember, and I do think you need to move on to some others to get some
decisions made yet today. You should feel free, if there's an issue in the budget,
that you want set aside, that you want further reports, you want some further
discussion, that's fine. You can go ahead and adopt a budget, and set aside some
of these issues for further discussion, Ernie. Andy knows the stuff, obviously, but
if you want some specific numbers, how we're doing, he needs to go back and
gather than information for you, and then you could...honestly you can vote on
the thing at some other time. The whole budget process can't get held up because
of one debate.
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Champion/No, I agree, and there's always the possibility that the fire department wants
more fire prevention; the police department wants more police prevention; the
planning and zoning wants more planning; road people want more roads; parks
want more trails.
Atkins/The best fire department, the door never goes up. We can't guarantee that, but
that's the best fire department, and that means that our prevention programs work
effectively and people don't run into each other and fall down stairs and do other
things. Yes.
Vanderhoef/Well, the question that hasn't even been brought up here is in shifting one
FTE into this fire inspector, and that's one less fire fighter that we have on the
front line for our present, and certainly takes away one of the people that we have
added to the budget, just to open the new fire station, and that's where I get a
whole lot more inquiries, and certainly as we just approved new land into the TIP
district at the Northgate Park out there, that's going to continue to grow, and
that's a concern to me, and it says in the book that you're realigning districts, but
it's also talking about moving another fire station and leveling it, and moving
further out to redo, which I think the 4th station, politically, is the thing we have to
do before we even talk about moving the station on the west side. So the quicker
we take care of the safety issue in the northeast section of the city, which by the
way the memo says the northwest but I knew what you were saying. Anyway, I
have a real trade-off problem here, too.
Rocca/And I appreciate that. I think the question is pro-active or re-active, and if we're
reactive there's been a failure in the system. Proactive, in my opinion, is going to
be a better utilization of our current resources, and you know, the delivery of fire
protection services right now is, it's pretty dynamic. We've got all the home-land
security issues and those just continue to multiply. So I think since we're in this
kind of dynamic period here, we need to look at really getting the most bang for
the buck with our staff, and proactive prevention is really where it's at right now.
I think we'll do the community far more good by preventing than reacting or
responding to an emergency.
Vanderhoef/You mentioned the home-land security issues in there, and as I read that,
that was some of the questions that came up in my mind is that we don't have any
place where we're identifying for our state leaders, our national leaders, how
much it's costing us to do home-land security, and to shift personnel, certainly
you as a professional are working both sides and you try to integrate it, I'm sure,
in to what's happening, but if this is a home-land security issue that's being
wrapped up into all of this, then somehow or another I need a memo or
information about what really is happening and what it really is costing us to meet
the requirements, the unfunded mandates that are coming down to us, so that we
can figure that into your budget or some place into this budget, and be aware of it.
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Rocca/Well, and it's really more than just public safety and emergency services, when
you start to bring home-land security into this. When you look at the national
incident management system, it calls out elected officials and your public works
officials, and virtually everybody in the community, and so that would take a
while to get a handle on, in terms of what's being required, and what's being
unfunded, as well as if you don't, it's kind of a catch-22. There's a hook there. If
you don't, then you're not going to look for any federal funding because you
simply don't qualify because you haven't met the unfunded mandate. So, yeah,
it's a problem.
Vanderhoef/Funded up front and maybe we'll give you something back. (laughter)
Lehman/Thank you, Andy. (several thanking Andy)
Atkins/Okay, I've recorded it because apparently there's going to be some further
discussion about the thing.
Lehman/Steve, would you, if the Council is, I'd really like to have a visit with Doug and
(can't hear), our chief inspector, just to see what would be involved in that
becoming part of a regular building inspection, which just seems to make a hell of
a lot more sense.
Atkins/You raised any number of inspection process questions, and as you can see, Andy
has very strong opinions about how to go about it, and I'd be disappointed if he
didn't. So, that isn't an issue.
Elliott/Are the city inspectors now using the postcard certification follow up?
Atkins/I don't know. We do...we do follow ups. I'm not so sure how they're done.
Lehman/We do random inspections, as opposed to...we don't do quite the level. If we
have a history of problems we do more inspections; if we have a history of very
few problems, one or two ...
Elliott/I just thought that conversation, to me, meant a great deal of sense.
Atkins/We did change a number of procedures. That one specifically I just don't know,
but we'll find out for you. Anyway, what I think, again, with the understanding if
when you have this much consternation amongst a staff presenter and the Council,
you can still proceed with your budget. We set this issue aside and bring it back
to you. Dee's asking for a memo on home-land security. It'll take a while to
assemble, but certainly we'll prepare those kind of things for you.
Elliott/Would it be helpful for that position to indicate the percentage of time that might
be spent on new construction?
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Atkins/That's why...here's the questions you're being asked. You have a verification
concern; somebody has on new construction, makes a lot more sense, and I just
can't answer those right now for you. All right? Okay to move on?
Bailey/I just wanted to add, when we memo that I would also like to kno~v the
ordinances and policies that we have in place that are impacting that because, I
mean, here we are second guessing a strategic plan by a department, and what
policy considerations do we need to examine to address the issue.
Atkins/That will be attended to. Okay.
Lehman/All right.
Vanderhoef/Would you like to start now?
Lehman/We're only 43 minutes late. Thanks, Dee. (laughter)
Atkins/Okay, Economic Development...the issue that you brought up during the CIP
review was the accumulation policy. We have $250,000 every other year. We
told you it's a place holder. We only sell the bonds when we have to. We do
calculated in to our budget balancing purposes for debt. The question arose, do
we want to cause that to accumulate and if so, to what point. I heard you say a
million.
Lehman/Well, Steve, you and I talked about this last week. Truth of the matter is, if we
find that someone wants to purchase property at the north airport commercial and
they want a building built and it's going to cost a million and a half dollars, we
have the ability to do that, with or without, I think this is perhaps more a political
statement more than it's a ....
Atkins/I don't think there's any doubt it's a political statement. It also allows for
marketing purposes to say the City accumulates money on behalf of economic
development initiatives. It really doesn't accumulate money; it accumulates
budget authority. We don't sell it unless we need it. So you may sort of de facto
have already done this but I do think we need to say, because we have been
operating under the circumstances that it is a new appropriation every other year.
If you're going to accumulate it, then we'll change the budget where it will show
$250,000; skip; $500,000; skip; $750,000. That's an accumulation policy, as I
understand it.
Elliott/I like for the budget to be an indicator of what our concepts are and that seems to
be it.
Atkins/Yes, I would agree with you. Are you okay on that?
Vanderhoef/Accumulate, please.
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Bailey/Absolutely.
Wilburn/If we could attach to that, no, this is easy. I guarantee you it's easy. Part of the
conversation about accumulation was the possibility of a spec building, that type
of thing. I was just...
Vanderhoef/...or land.
Wilburn/Yeah, or land, maybe we should have some more targeted discussions over the
next year with Joe at ICAD and some others, about this, so that, it'll be a better
guide and an informational, educational piece that we're interested in that.
Atkins/Grade separation First Avenue. I think there was some interest on your part
after Jeff walked you through. First Avenue, Southwest Junior High, right there.
Okay. Southeast Junior High... okay.
Bailey/I thought we were acquiring more land east and I was getting confused as to
directions.
Atkins/We discussed the possibility of a grade separation. Jeff's point was, and I did not
realize it to the point we may go down under it, the overpass portion, yeah, I
could see this monstrous.., apparently it's expensive, regardless of what you do.
(several talking at once) Yes. $4 to 5 million. Yes, Jeff has some ideas on that. 1
think what I'd like to do with this one, since I sense your interest, is that we need
to go back, kind of package up what would look like a project, do some sketches,
spend some preliminary money on the thing, so this is an okay.
Elliott/There is increasing traffic problems on First Avenue caused by that railroad
crossing.
Atkins/I think the next one has a bearing on it. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/To put that into the study.
Atkins/Yes. Sidewalk on Rochester. I wrote the Rochester area. When I drove it,
when I was going home the other day, somewhat from the bridge up to, yeah,
about (can't hear). There's a couple spots where there's sidewalk. Now, it's a
very severe slope. It may require retaining wall. I think before we actually make
a big jump on this we ought to do some engineering. Oh yeah.
Vanderhoef/What crosses my mind...
Atkins/Big time trees in the way.
Champion/There's sidewalk all the way up.
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Atkins/On the other side of the street, that's correct.
Champion/I don't think that's a priority.
Bailey/Now, have we gotten comments about this from citizens, or are there issues?
Atkins/Dee, I think Dee...
Vanderhoef/That's basically my neighborhood, and the issue is walking to town from the
south side of Rochester, number one. Number two is that parents are wanting
their kids to get down to where there is less traffic and better site distance, and
away from the First Avenue comer for kids to cross to get to Hickory Hill. Well,
that's what I mean, but if you live on the south side, or any of those
neighborhoods between City High and Rochester that crossing down there is a
whole lot easier. So you've already, you need that other sidewalk to get...
Atkins/This would become a maintenance issue, because it would be a sidewalk that
people will have in front and back. It's going to be somewhat impractical for
them to get at it, so we would have to...yeah, those houses back up to Rochester
Avenue. They have a sidewalk in the front of their house. This would be a
sidewalk in the back of their hosue.
Vanderhoef/No, most of them face Rita Lyn.
Atkins/Further down, there are houses there.
Vanderhoef/Yeah, Montrose and those.
Atkins/Those homes back up to this.
Vanderhoef/Well, what I also looked at and wondered about is the Rochester bridge.
Where is it on the bridge?
Atkins/Can I tell you a quick story? I hate that project. I admitted to Kevin. It does
need rebuilding before too long. We resurfaced it, you know, when we did that
area, and kind of cleaned it up, but the sidewalks actually protrude.., we want to
put them around, protected sidewalks. Exactly where it is, I don't know. We can
find that out easy enough.
Vanderhoef/Well it's certainly...
Atkins/Do you want an estimate on it? We can certainly do an estimate for you.
Champion/I don't think it's a high priority since there's sidewalks (TAPE ENDS)
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Vanderhoef/...the bridge. That was what I was coming towards, that put it in with that
whole...
Atkins/And that will be coming along...
Lehman/But that also is a project that we're probably not going to have property owners
paying for that. That's going to (can't hear) and maintain.
Atkins/I think if I was a property owner I would argue that 'hey look I paid for the
sidewalk in front of my house; I shouldn't have to pay for the one behind it.'
Vanderhoef/Well, we had the same thing in other places, and they complain but they're
doing it.
Atkins/Yes we do. Yep, that's true. I'm just saying that the point will be there.
Vanderhoef/Sycamore's a good example.
Atkins/Yeah, River Trail, Napoleon area...I'm not sure, I forgot what that one's all
about.
Vanderhoef/That was that little link between the south end of the trail at Napoleon Park,
down to where Mormon Trek and McCollister.
Champion/But they said they were going to take care of that when...
Vanderhoef/Well, they said there was one little section in there that they didn't own yet.
Atkins/It makes sense if we're going to be in there to do it. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/It's south of the public works area, but not in the right of way for the
construction of McCollister Road.
Lehman/(can't hear) Is that the name? That owns some of that property down there?
O'Donnell/Lloyd.
Atkins/Olin Lloyd, but he sold that comer to Southgate.
Lehman/Yeah, except there's a little section...you know the other day we were talking
there's a little piece that he still owns that we probably have to go through, but
that should be part of the bridge project.
Vanderhoef/That...
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Champion/And they said they were certainly going to consider it, I mean, put it into that
whole project, so I think that's a go, and I think it's going to be taken care of.
Atkins/Okay, Gilbert north of Highway 6, there was a lot of discussion about the
Gilbert dual lanes, but as we went further north, Connie's head kept going no, no,
no. What I think I'd like to do with this one is there is an inevitability that that
intersections going to get improved, whether it's you, me, yeah. We have aerials;
we have a number of drawings; we have some reasonable stuff that shows us
impact. Let me bring this back to a work session. Lay it on the table and just let
you think about it. Because we've done some preliminary work on it. It doesn't,
we don't have to make a commitment, but I sense...
Champion/Are you talking about beyond that intersection?
Atkins/Yeah. We've got maps that show that, Connie. That's...! sense there was almost
unanimity on the intersection, it's when we started moving up the street that it got
hairy.
Elliott/Up meaning north? Yeah.
Atkins/North.
Lehman/..that Jeff was of the, seemed from his comments, that he was very concerned
about doing the intersection, and did not seem nearly as concerned about the area
north of there, indicating that the Kirkwood intersection has been largely taken
care of with the turn lights. So I really would like, a work session is great, but I
really would like Jeff's take on it. I mean, I think that would give us a pretty good
information.
Atkins/This was a generalized discussion about the National Guard.
Wilburn/I'm sorry, Steve, can you, when you talk with Jeff about that one, can you
make, can you ask him to, as part of his commentary or his apparent preference
for the intersection as opposed to anything north of that, what issues, if any, by
correcting the intersection will be alleviated or relieved. Any problems that will
be relieved (can't hear)
Atkins/So if we fix the intersection, does it help take care of things to the north? Is that
what you're saying?
Wilburn/Say that again.
Atkins/Fix the intersection - how does that affect...
Wilburrd Yeah. Thank you.
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Atkins/These make sense to me, so...(laughter) Westside recreation needs, National
Guard. I think there was a generalized discussion, is the possibility that some
other sort of recreation improvements could be incorporated into the National
Guard. I met yesterday with Sally Stutsman and she and I were just kind of going
over, she's going to be the new Chair, some very general issues. Made her aware
of some of these, some interests, and they as a board are apparently planning on
getting together to have a little discussion about some of their goals, desires,
wishes, whatever.
Elliott/That's the sort of thing I would like to keep, keep it open for discussion, but it
certainly, to me, would not be a high priority at this time, but I think we ought
to...
Atkins/Well, they appear, I mean, they will own the armory eventually, the old armory,
and they'll clear that. That'll go, I suspect that's what their plan is. And that will
be tied in to getting, they have not received the federal appropriation to get the
new Guard Armory built, but feel very confident that it will occur.
Lehman/Steve, would it be appropriate for us to have Terry Trueblood visit with
National Guard folks to see what options may or may not be available? I think
Terry would be a really good take on first of all, what sort of things would work
into our grand scheme of things, and obviously the location of that is less
desirable for some things than others, but I think that the Guard folks are...they're
good folks and there may or may not be any possibilities, but I think Terry would
be the guy to at least establish a relationship with them, and find out what's
possible.
Atkins/You know we did the, what they call the poor farm plan. We've done those, you
know, laid out some of the ideas for sewer. I mean, we've, I think, clearly sent
out a message, at least to the County, that we're supportive of this.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/Yeah, this is kind of a new element. Taking advantage of this decision to see if
there's any recreation issues we can attend to. That's the way I read it. (several
talking at once) We'll do that. Anybody else?
Vanderhoef/At some point, I think that the Council should discuss just broadly this
whole facility and the economic development impact that is there, and in my
mind, it's a legislative issue to talk about with our state people, and federal
people, in that this Guard unit needs support from the legislative people, on the
home front, right down here where we are, we recognize how many more people
are going to be housed and trained in this facility and what that does to our
economic development in bringing people to the Iowa City area, and we need to
be on board and start pushing for the additional legislative support to get this to
happen.
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Atkins/I got the impression from Sally that who's going to be attending the Washington
trip thing, that this was on her agenda, so obviously if you run into her you want
to...
Vanderhoef/Well, if a letter from Council to say we recognize them as good neighbors,
good people to have in our town, and that they bring impact to us and certainly...
Atkins/You all want that?
Lehman/Yeah, that Washington...if she, I do not know, I haven't seen the itinerary yet,
nor the schedule for presentations. Generally speaking, that group pretty much
speaks with one voice and if...
Vanderhoef/A letter of support from us would...
Lehman/...right, would be in order, but...
Atkins/We'll work on that for you.
Lehman/Okay. I also, incidentally, I talked to Jim yesterday, and Rebecca is setting this
thing up.
Atkins/I've not heard from them.
Lehman/Well no, but I encouraged her to give you a call, if there's anything they need
from us.
Atkins/Okay, City Park Festival Stage, construction of a restroom nearby; we thought,
at least...
Vanderhoef/Shelter and restroom, please.
Champion/! think more important, the restroom.
Vanderhoef/But if they can be put together, it would be...
Atkins/Easy enough to extend the shelter off...yeah. City Park Festival Stage restroom,
shelter. I heard two things. One, is that there was a general exception you liked
the idea; and two, the possibility of doing some corporate fund raising thing,
whatever. Is that what I heard?
Lehman/I would like to see it that way.
Vanderhoef/Urn-huh.
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Elliott/In other words...
Atkins/Well, I think I'll have Terry's folks do is do a little sketch work-up, so you can
begin envisioning where it is.
Champion/And we can charge everybody to use it.
Atkins/We could charge... (laughter and several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/I think some of us would pay for it. (laughter)
Elliott/You'd like to have it the "Ajax Corporation Shelter," is that what you meant
by... okay.
Vanderhoef/I would like to add the sidewalk to the parking lots. We have a lot of people
who need accessibility down there.
Champion/...there is on the other side of the street.
Bailey/Right.
Atkins/Okay? Okay, we'll get that one back to you. This one, I think you kicked it to
me, we just need a list of smaller proiects. I'm not sure how to do that yet, but
we'll answer that one for you. Public Art, there was sort of a very abbreviated,
but generalized discussion about public art and involving Parks and Recreation
projects. I'm not sure exactly what you meant there.
Bailey/Public Art Committee has discussed about incorporating public art into new
shelters and other functional sort of projects within the parks.
Atkins/Okay.
Bailey/And I think that that just came out of a question.
Atkins/Well Terry serves on the committee...
Bailey/Right, and he mentioned that when we talked about the shelters...
Atkins/...Karin and Marcia's staff; the committee, so you've got the folks that need...I'11
send that message to...
Champion/...about it. There's none interested in it?
Atkins/Who' s that?
Bailey/No.
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Champion/Oh, okay.
Atkins/Okay. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/I didn't hear what you said, Connie.
Champion/I thought he was not in favor of the public art in the shelters, but I...
Atkins/Terry?
Bailey/...incorporating it. He brought it up, I think, when I was reading the minutes.
Champion/Okay.
Atkins/It's not going to be anything really elaborate because remember these things
Champion/Do you have a Michelangelo?
Atkins/No, I don't think that's what he envisioned.
Lehman/No, but I think given the number of new shelters we're going to be putting up,
absolutely, and I think that you can get an innovative design for the posts or
pillars, or you know, without spending a lot of money.
Atkins/Why you artistic rascal you. (laughter)
Lehman/My dark side. (laughter and several talking at once)
Atkins/Okay, moving on. Alleys, we'll come back to in a work session for sure.
Elliot/Alleys~ downtown cleanup, I think.
Lehman/Same thing.
Atkins/You want to make it the same thing? Okay.
Elliott/A high priority for me, certainly.
O'Donnell/Parking in those alleys also. (several talking at once)
Atkins/It's going to be the whole shtick.
Lehman/It's part of the discussion, but there are issues, but let's not get into that now.
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Atkins/Okay, well I put out the word to the staff folks, said we're going to convene, a
pow-wow amongst ourselves. I said, let's just put anything you want, as far as
ideas. We'll bring virtually all of them back to you and say which ones you like?
Champion/Can we add, I mean we're talking about downtown alleys, do you know that
parking in the middle of the road on Dubuque Street, the beer trucks, they park
there even when there are spaces available in loading zones, and the loading zones
downtown are full of cars, full of cars. They spend hours there, hours.
Elliott/We're going to need to put a time sometime; well no, you can't do that after 12:00
or something like that.
Champion/They' re not enforced.
Bailey/Let's not talk about it now; can we just...
Lehman/It's a downtown issue, and it looks to me like downtown cleanup, alleys,
parking, loading zones, that's all going to be downtown issues. Yeah.
Elliott/The only thing, Steve, in reading the minutes from the, what is it, the Public Art
Committee? Is that it? One of the questions, someone said, "Should we move
ahead with art for the entrance to the alleys?" and the other one said, "I don't
think there's a need to wait to see what the City Manager has in mind for the alley
cleanup." I think the last thing we want to do is draw attention to the alleys until
they're cleaned up.
Atkins/I think, yeah.
Bailey/Can you add a note to that, that I think if we get the alleys cleaned up, I've talked
to the bicycle group, that could be, alleviate some of our sidewalk problems with
bikes on sidewalks, if the alleys were kept in a way that you could actually ride a
bike through them.
Atkins/So what am I saying?
Vanderhoef/Alleys are going to be bikeways.
Bailey/Just put alley/bike.
Lehman/I'd love to think that's right, but I really don't. (laughter)
Bailey/I know, I'm skeptical too, but we have a problem every year, we talk about it,
bikes on sidewalks.
Lehman/I know, but bikers like sidewalks.
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Atkins/Okay, other cities, how they use road use tax. I haven't done that yet, but
I'11...yes?
Lehman/Is now the time to discuss that?
Atkins/Just a second.
O'Malley/Leigh has done some research on that, and the City of Dubuque and Ames also
use the road use tax funds to fund employee benefits.
Atkins/Okay. You just opened the door.
(BREAK)
Lehman/Now, I obviously indicated a concern which may be limited to me. I am a little
concerned about taking 10% of our road use tax and paying employee benefits,
and I understand why you did it, and I absolutely do not disagree with it, but it's
$500,000 out of a $5.5 million road use tax, which is about 10%. I'm a little
concerned that if something happens to our road use tax, at some point in the
future, and we're taking 10% of it for employee benefits, that we may be doing
some real harm to our maintenance and our streets and roads and whatever. On
the other hand, understanding the difficulties that we have trying to make ends
meet, I guess I would like to see, rather than 10% or in this case a half million
dollars, I would like to see us do about half that, I know it will raise the average
home taxes by $2 or $3, but put a cap of no more than 5% of road use tax money
may be used for employee benefits, so that we know we're not going to be
robbing that fund in the future. I just, I believe that once we start doing it, we
will, once you start something you kind of always do it, and if something would
happen to that road use fund and it gets down to $2.5, $3 million and we're, you
know, at $2.5 million that's 20% for employee benefits, and it is not a, an expense
that we do not have the ability to raise the funds for. Road use tax is, once it's
gone, it's gone.
Atkins/Okay, well let me take you through some quick arithmetic. You're correct,
$520,000 is the cost of benefits for those employees that we would charge against
this. That is the current tax rate, as proposed in the budget, you have that, 1765.
If you used a policy of like 5% or half of this, it would be 13 cents on the benefit
levy, that would be the new, and you would have $260,000, in effect, in new
funds in your road use tax fund. So we would be putting about $260,000 in, and
that's for this particular budget, if you were to do that.
Lehman/Well that's what I would like to...
Atkins/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/Now that would be a compromise position.
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Atkins/Uh-huh.
O'Donnell/I think that's...
Vanderhoef/I'm not...having worked with transportation, and transportation funding for
a number of years, it's something to say to the DOT that we need these dollars
and not give reasons for them to choose to hold more funds in to the state coffers
for them to decide what to be done with it. We, as a group nationally, are
working very hard to break that monopoly of control on road use tax monies
coming to states, to get it on down to where we can use them. So saying that
we're going to shift that on into benefits, when there is another funding source to
do that, goes against what I think is good policy for use of road use tax monies.
Champion/I'm going to disagree, that we already to benefit payments out of landfill,
water...
Atkins/Sure, sewer, sure.
Champion/...So it's not something we're not doing, and I personally feel, at this point,
that anything we can do to keep people's taxes down, even it's only 13 cents per,
what is it, $1,000...
Atkins/Yes.
Champion/...I think it's worth a try for a while. If the road use tax starts, if the road use
tax money starts going down, then you can always switch part of that back into
that levy. But I think that levy is out of control. And I think what we need to do
is keep it down.
Elliott/I think it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't, because what people do
when they get their tax bill, I'm not sure they're going to look at where it goes
and how it's divided. They're looking at the number of dollars at the end of the
year that they have to pay. So I like the fact of taking it out and maybe not
increasing that dollar bill. On the other hand, I look at infrastructure is the actual
guts of our City, if the infrastructure is hampered in any way, so I guess as a
compromise, I would favor Ernie's compromise. I don't like to do either one of
them. I really would cringe at doing either one, but we got to do one of the two.
Wilburn/I don't have a problem with it as proposed for the reasons that Connie
mentioned, and I believe you said you did this to help mitigate a spike?
Atkins/Yes.
Wilburn/So I'm willing to not put a restriction on it either, just to keep an eye on it and
make adjustments as the years go on.
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Vanderhoef/But see, we could do the same thing with water and waste water folks also,
if we had to do more piping or extend lines and so forth, and we've never even
talked about doing that kind of thing.
Atkins/And I look at water, waster water, landfill are revenues you control. Road use tax
is revenue you don't control. So that was one of the subtle differences.
Lehman/The other ones pay for themselves and we see (can't hear) at all cost.
Atkins/And you see to it that they do, yeah. This one was a little more...I'm arguing not
to do it because it's a point of jeopardy because you're waiting, the state
legislature will decide what that number's going to be. You know, this thing just
splits the difference.
Elliott/Were you talking about the psychological impact on the powers that be at the
state and federal level?
Vanderhoef/Absolutely.
Elliott/Have you seen that, Steve?
Atkins/Oh, Dee's argument...they'll look at, if you can afford to do this, we don't have
to help you with that.
Elliott/In other words...
Vanderhoef/Your infrastructure is okay, so you don't need this money for roads so we
know you can tax your people for "bennies" so, you know, you're telling us one
thing, and then I look at my out list of projects to do, and I was impressed with the
short list that Parks and Rec gave us last night, of things that are not even in the
funded budget, and I mentioned it last night, and I will mention it again, this east
side trail, the Court Hill Trail, it's a tough one to do. We've always known it was
a tough one to do. We've got opportunities coming right now with some other
projects that make it more possible. Steve brought that to us just recently, and I
think we just need to bite the bullet and get that one finished. I think it will make
more impact on our citizens to say 'oh, well you finally put together the
connection so now I can use the big trails that went along with the big road
projects on Scott Boulevard and Highway 6' and so forth.
Lehman/I'm not interested in how, in spending the money that we would save. As far as
I'm concerned, if we left it in the road use fund and never spent it at all I wouldn't
care. I just think that a step that I just don't think we should take is I think we'll
continue to do it. You say, you're right, Connie, if road use tax went down we
could change it. We wouldn't. No, no, but it wouldn't probably get changed, and
what we've done, rather than bite the bullet and say 'hey we have got an
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unacceptable level of taxation for employee benefits', rather than doing that,
we've taken it out of road use money so that we don't have to deal with it, and I
don't think that's the way to do it.
Vanderhoef/You know, we've had opportunity when we were setting water rates and so
forth, that if we had chosen to take the benefit levy out of the water enterprise
fund and put it in to the benefit levy, then we'd a had more money into the water
fund; therefore creating lower water rates.
Lehman/No we wouldn't; we'd have lowered the rates. (laughter) Because we used the
benefits in computing the rates.
Elliott/Steve's standing there saying you can't have your cake and eat it too. (laughter)
Bailey/I tend to agree with Emie. I think we should be cautious about spending down
our road use tax fund, and I think this is a reasonable compromise, especially
looking at our out project list and people will complain about if their taxes, about
four or five times a year; they complain about the roads every day.
Lehman/They will also complain if the levy was 14 instead of 17, or if it was 23 or if it
was 9, I mean...
Bailey/Actually yeah, you're right. We shouldn't worry about what people complain
about. (laughter)
Lehman/No, no, I do care about that, but...
Vanderhoef/...but services, which is infrastructure.
Champion/I guess I'm loosing the battle.
Lehman/No, no, we have a 3 to 3 at this point. Mike?
O'Donnell/Well, I have a problem with increasing taxes also, but...I really don't knoxv
how else you can do something like this.
Lehman/How else? What do you mean how else?
O'Donnell/Well, ! have a problem using road use tax for benefits, and I do see reducing
it down so we put a cap on it so you don't exceed above a certain level.
Lehman/Can we agree on that?
Elliott/Compromise?
Atkins/We're agreeing to this?
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Lehman/Right, no more than 5%.
Elliott/Yes.
Bailey/Yeah.
Elliott/I would.
Vanderhoef/So if we spend out road use tax for more projects, then the 5% gets smaller
and smaller.
Lehman/5% is where the allocation is.
Atkins/Okay, now that's different.
Vanderhoef/No.
Atkins/If you're saying it's 5% of the allocation, that's an annual thing. (several talking
at once)
Vanderhoef/I'm not talking about the allocation. I'm talking about, it's presented to us
in the budget as our reserve position is very good right now. Therefore, we can
do this. So if the reserve position goes down, then 5% of the reserve position, not
of the allocation.
Lehman/That's fine, whatever, I don't care. (several talking at once)
Champion/Okay, what if we say, 50% of the benefits can come out of the road use tax?
Atkins/50% of the cost of benefits from the...
Champion/The road use tax.
Vanderhoef/Oh no, because benefits are going up and up and up. You can't do that.
Lehman/The point is the setup doesn't work whether you have a large reserve or a very
small reserve, you're never using more than 5% for benefits. That means you're
reserving 95%.
Atkins/5% of your reserve is $50,000. That's...
Champion/Peanuts.
Atkins/...yeah, this is $260,000.
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Lehman/Right. We're talking about the $260,000.
Atkins/Right, well that's 5%, of the allocation.
Lehman/Right, right.
Atkins/Well he's arguing a different point. Just make sure we're all, we know what
we're arguing about.
Lehman/I was talking allocation, so we always reserve 95% from our road use fund
monies for road use projects.
Atkins/Simple arithmetic; we're 60,000, we get 80 bucks a head, $5 million bucks a
year. In simple numbers, that's about how it works out. Okay? So that's $5
million, so it's 5% of the allocation.
Lehman/Is that...are we okay with that?
Champion/Yes.
Lehman/All right.
Atkins/Wait a second. (several talking at once)
Lehman/We don't need to make this complicated. That's really simple. 5% of the
allocation is a number that's easily determined, always. Isn't it? Easiest.
Atkins/Okay, we will write that...
O'Malley/That's an easy way of doing it.
Atkins/Okay, we will write it into your policy then for budget. Okay.
Vanderhoef/Well, how many people are there to just not do any benefits out of there?
Because I'm not for using any, for benefits.
Elliott/I would be for the compromise, as I said, I find either alternative very distasteful.
Atkins/Well the 5% of allocation is the compromise.
Lehman/I can live, well I don't think I can live with it, but I think you can make, and
obviously, Steve, I think you and the staff made a strong case that it is an
appropriate use of road use monies when you look at several of the folks that we
have in public works. They are plowing snow; they're fixing roads; they're
doing...this is what road use tax is intended to be used for. It's just that I think
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we have another method of raising those funds, and we don't have any control
over the road use tax. So I think the 5% is...livable.
Atkins/All right. North Dubuque landscavin~. IfI recall, I think it was the
Dubuque/Foster Road intersection, is that where, and you wanted to see some
landscaping done?
Lehman/As part of that project maybe?
Atkins/Yeah. There is some that, yeah, Project Green is already done. My only concern
about it is I know that intersection is going to get redesigned, you know, by the
state, and I don't want, of course we don't want to put a bunch of petunias in and
then have them (laughter) you know what I mean.
Lehman/Petunias are okay; it's when the state does that, we don't want them tearing out
everything we've put in. That should be part ofthe...I would, (can't hear) project
when it comes...
Atkins/You want them to know that we want this entranceway dressed up? (several
agreeing)
Champion/I don't want those purple weeds they have growing everywhere.
Bailey/And that was in the median.
Atkins/Purple who?
Bailey/The landscaping was for the median, I think.
Champion/We were talking about medians and how you can make them look better.
They're so ugly and you can make them look better. Plants don't grow because of
all the exhaust.
Atkins/Uh-huh, I learned that exhaust is one thing, but the other thing is heat. Because
the heat of the roadway, both sides, and that's why it dries out so rapidly. I didn't
know that.
Lehman/Doesn't get a lot of water.
Atkins/Yep.
Vanderhoef/There's where astro-turf is wonderful.
Atkins/There ya go! Dubuque and Church. We have one crossed off. (several talking
at once)
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Elliott/Dubuque and Church? I've drive that every day for 30 years; I don't see a
problem.
O'Donnell/Have you ever tried to turn left on Church when you're going south on
Dubuque?
Elliott/Going south on Dubuque? I don't know. I supposed sometime I have.
Lehman/There's also, even if you...
Vanderhoef/The alley gets a lot of use, let me tell you. (laughter)
Lehman/...if you're trying to go straight through, you got a Cambus stopped, and you
got somebody making a left turn, and everybody stops all the way down the hill
because nobody can get through.
Atkins/Yeah, well I have a no, yes, no, no.
Lehman/I think eventually we're going to have to address it.
Bailey/Eventually it'll happen.
Atkins/I mean, it'll just stay in unfunded.
Wilburn/Has there ever been any conversation with the University about, and what effect
it might have just to relocate that stop, push it down a little?
Atkins/Push it down? What do you mean, Ross?
Lehman/The bus stop?
Wilburn/Yeah.
Lehman/They won't take it away from the comer, but even if they did (can't hear;
several talking at once)
Elliott/I was thinking of Dodge and Church. This is Dubuque; no wonder.
Atkins/Well I just thought you went out of the way to go home.
Elliott/No, I get lost occasionally. (laughter)
Atkins/Does that change your vote?
Lehman/Do we have any idea what that cost?
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Atkins/Oh, I would think adding a lane, spirting up the signal, is in the $300 to $400. I
mean, they're not outrageous, but they're expensive.
O'Donnell/I don't think you'd need a lane, Ernie. I just think you need a turn.
Lehman/The reason it works so well on Kirkwood is because you have somewhere
numbers of cars going both directions. This street, that's not true of, and I think
the, your arrows won't work. Yeah, you'll handle cars really, really good going
south on Dubuque Street, and you'll hold everybody else up.
Bailey/What if you had a bus lane? What if you took some of the University's property
and made a bus lane?
Champion/That's a hill.
Bailey/No, I'm just talking about in the last, like a bus length and a half, and then...I
think it's a turn lane.
Atkins/This was a question of making it a priority by moving it up, which means we'd
have to design some options for you; I don't know what those are.
Lehman/You know, Regenia's, that's, if there were a bus stop there, if we were to take
like 80 feet of curb, move it in for a bus stop, that would dramatically help
southbound traffic.
Bailey/That would make the (can't hear).
Champion/You've got sidewalks there, you've got a retaining wall.
O'Donnell/You'd eliminate that sidewalk, Ernie.
Lehman/No, no, you'd move it...
O'Donnell/Oh, you'd move it clear into the University property.
Champion/Why don't, what if they didn't have a bus stop there? I mean, they...
Atkins/You all moved it up as an item that you wanted to...
Champion/Let's move it out.
Bailey/Put it back.
Atkins/I mean, unfunded is where it'll end up.
Vanderhoef/Huh-uh.
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Atkins/This issue's been kicking around as long as I've been here. So you know...
Champion/Unfunded.
Vanderhoef/No, it' s got to be done.
Bailey/I'll create a historic district for this...
Champion/I'd do that for that.
Atkins/What are you sensing, Emie?
Lehman/I think everybody's all over the place. I think it's something that we're going to
have to address sooner or later.
Atkins/We can do some preliminary work for you, but I still sense a couple of you have
no interest in it.
Lehman/I have interest in seeing that something occurs there. Maybe not for, it may not
happen for three, four years, but I think it does have to happen.
Atkins/Do you want some work done to give you some options on it?
Lehman/How many are interested in seeing us look a little further into this?
Elliott/Ambivalent is a word that comes to mind.
Lehman/Is that yes or no?
Elliott/No.
Lehman/You're not interested. You are. We have 3 that are interested, and 4 that are
not. Forget it.
Wilburn/Can we have transportation just check, have Jeff check with University just to
see about, I don't know if that's ever been part of the equation, a bus lane type of
thing. Just see if there is.
Lehman/Or even have the bus around the comer and stop. On Church Street.
Atkins/So you're saying, so you're saying...
Lehman/No, it stops on Dubuque and loads and unloads, sometimes. (several talking at
once)
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Bailey/... sometimes if there's pedestrians it stops and the turn is...(several talking at
once) Well, that's the question too, is, I'm not sure it's only a matter of left turns.
I'm not sure the bus doesn't make it...
Atkins/Okay.
Vanderhoef/I think we need to have a little bit of work in answering some of these
questions, and then we can address it better.
Bailey/But I don't want it on the unfunded.
Atkins/Well, it can be on the unfunded list. So you're saying no, but? (laughter) No but
yeah?
Bailey/Find out about the bus. The concern with the neighborhood...
Elliott/I think the thing is, is there something other than a quarter million dollars or more
that could be done to alleviate some of the problems that have arisen.
Atkins/Probably not, but okay.
Champion/Why wouldn't a Kirkwood thing work, Ernie?
Lehman/Well you'll have to ask Jeff.
Atkins/Yeah, we'll ftnd out for you.
Lehman/I think it's the number of cars...which means the turning traffic, you're not
holding everybody up just with one lane through.
Champion/I see.
Lehman/Out here, you'd be stopping everybody just to let one through.
Champion/Right, okay.
Atkins/I wrote Kirkwood thing, so that'll...okay. Highway 1 sidewalk, Riverside
Ruppert. Certainly that was on unfunded. We've introduced that major new
residential, by the Lodge.
Vanderhoef/It's part of a project on the list, but it was put into phases.
Atkins/Yeah.
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Vanderhoef/And I'm interested in just Phase I, because I'm afraid we're going to have
an awful lot of people walking through parking lots and cutting across the street
wherever, and there's a lot of traffic down there.
Atkins/To the Lodge's credit, they try to push everybody from the building north.
Vanderhoef/I'm talking about Highway 1, between Riverside and (can't hear) which is
Ruppert Road, which is also where Aviation Park starts, so there will be a
sidewalk around the Aviation Park.
Lehman/Which side of the street are you talking about?
Vanderhoef/I'm talking about, right now I'm talking north side.
Lehman/Right, that's what I thought.
Vanderhoef/Northwest, whatever direction we are when we get down in there.
Champion/Riverside Drive (can't hear)
Lehman/We're talking about the sidewalk, along Highway 1 west, from Riverside Drive
to the Lodge.
Champion/Okay, yeah, right, I see.
Vanderheof/And I want to get those walkers or bicyclers onto a sidewalk that has some
real distinction, otherwise they're going to be cutting through all the parking lots
and...
Champion/They will anyway, because that'll be shorter.
Lehman/Well you know, when we look at Riverside Drive, there's those sidewalks.
Atkins/That's right. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/Well, Riverside there is on the east side, that's part of the trail, the River
Trail.
Lehman/I don't know, but from Highway 6 all the way up, past McDonald's and all of
those, the sidewalk, I just, no behind it there is. (several talking at once)
Atkins/What's your thoughts? Want us to look at this one? Do some sketches?
Lehman/Eventually I think we've got to do something.
Atkins/We can do some sketches.
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Bailey/Look at the issue all the way out. I mean, there are people who walk all the way
out to Wal-Mart on the shoulders.
Atkins/Yeah, they do.
Vanderhoef/Well, that's an added piece that if we took just Phase I and then moved
forward with 2 and 3.
Lehman/See what's involved, because there may not be as much as we think. There's a
number of driveways there, into Paul's, Linder Tire, whatever; Iowa City
Landscape. I don't know what's involved. Could be worth...we need to know.
Vanderhoef/Yeah.
Atkins/Okay. If you could flip, are you ready to go to Human Service? Okay, flip to
that, I think it's page 97.
Wilburn/I'm going to excuse myself from this discussion due to a conflict of interest
because I work for an organization that is an applicant for this source of funding.
Atkins/Now we will do community events separate. I'm assuming Ross can participate
in community events?
Elliott/You'll be coming back.
Wilburn/Yeah, I'm not leaving.
Elliott/Okay, good, good.
Champion/One of the things that I wanted us to look at. Steve added some money back
into the budget for this, and that was one thing I wanted us to do. But I thought
rather than give everybody a raise, that we would do a few raises for people who
aren't getting adequate funding for it, and then I'd like to see us do the same thing
with that money that we did with the joint thing we did last year...
Vanderhoef/The grant?
Champion/The grant, so that maybe in two years when that gym is done at Grant Wood,
that we would have some money for a summer grant for, ~vith the Parks and Rec
thing, and the education. That's just an idea. I don't have any, you know, I'm not
really bound to it. The other thing is, I'm still concerned about the amount of
money we're giving the Mayor's Youth Employment. They're not receiving any
United Way funds right now because to me they're still duplicating services, and
they're not doing at all when the City originally financed them. So I don't, I'd
like to see us cut them so they know that we're not going to support the
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duplicating of services. I think they started doing something totally different in
order to allow themselves to exist, and so I think by doing a small cut, we put
them on notice again that the duplication of services is not what we're willing to
finance and I mean, that's how I feel about it. I'd like to hear what other people
have to say. I also think that Big Brothers and Big Sisters get a fairly good hunk
of our money and I'm not interested in decreasing them, but I'd like part of that,
part of any increase they might get, going into this grant that they talked about,
and I think the Free Medical Clinic and the Crisis Center and Shelter House are in
need of money, so I'm just open to hear what other people have to say.
Vanderhoef/Okay, I like grant ideas, and so I'll put that in my thinking cap, Connie. I
want to acknowledge that as a possibility. In the last few days, as you all have
been spoken to a bit about it, I have always had an interest in putting together a
foundation for human services, and in talking with the director, Mike Stoffreagen,
I discovered this year that there are opportunities for some matching grants from
the state. Minimum into a new Iowa City affiliate program to the Community
Foundation would be $25,000 but it could potentially, from Iowa Values, receive
a $25,000 match. A one to one match. There's another new law that came into
existence last year that has to do with state gambling money, and a percent of this
was reserved for counties that did not have gambling revenues, to be divided on
equal shares, county by county, and the kicker on that one is that you must be an
affiliate of one of the eight approved Community Foundations in the state of
Iowa, which our Johnson County one is. So I went into looking at the human
service funding possibility, and in talking with other councilors and staff, and
Mike, to say, number one, I would like us to be an affiliate to the Johnson County
Community Foundation; number two, I would like us to go in with that minimum
of $25,000, and yes it would be a lot of policy things there that we can talk about
later, but then thirdly, that in doing this I feel that our local non-profit human
service organizations should share in the funding of this $25,000 and so noting in
this year's balanced budget that Steve approved us, there's roughly $12,000 new
dollars to put into allocations. I would like to take $10,000 of that and put it
towards the $25,000. I would like another $15,000 to be taken from our reserve
position, which I understand from Steve is a very doable on a one-time basis, to
come up with a $25,000 allocation.
Champion/Are you talking about the general reserve fund or?
Vanderhoef/Yes. The general, so it would be $15,000 from the general reserve fund, and
$10,000 from the human services, knowing and giving them the opportunity to
invest in their own future, because what I see in creating a community foundation
is that we're recognizing we have needs in this community that must be addressed
almually, and we recognize that our city budget is not increasing and certainly not
in the general fund area, so for us to continue to add more dollars to serve these
organizations, I don't see that in the near future, if ever. So how else can we
create support for those in perpetuity?
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Lehman/Let me suggest, obviously we're talking about budget. And budget is the
allocation that will go to human service funding. I don't know that it's incumbent
on us to decide right now which agencies get what, but I do think it's important
that we agree (TAPE ENDS) Regenia, ! think you had some...
Bailey/Well, I was in that meeting with Dee and Mike regarding the community
foundation, and am interested in pursuing that, but am not interested in reducing
or seeing this come out of our human services' budget this year. I mean, that's
like telling a hungry person that they need to spend their food money on a college
fund. It doesn't, I mean, I just don't think it makes sense. When we hear from
these agencies that they're getting funding cuts at every turn, and to tell them that
we're investing in their future, it's a message they hear from the government
probably a lot. Don't worry, we'll take care of you. Additionally, I was
interested in seeing that fund set up, not only for human service requests, but also
for our community events requests, and making it more of a broad-based fund, to
use for discretionary sort of either community-event type things or for human
services, and I know that we don't necessarily have to talk about dollar amounts,
but I added the United Way groups in that handout I provided for you, and one of
the things that came out in the City Steps document is youth services was a high
priority, and I think that creates a challenge because two of the organizations you
mentioned, Connie, are youth serving agencies, and I think that that's, I think
that's an investment in our future. Maybe even to a larger degree than taking
$10,000 out of this budget and putting it into an endowment. So, I would like to
look carefully at prioritizing areas of need or the service area, as we look at this,
rather than focusing on this agency or that agency. And when it comes to
Mayor's Youth, although that I too like to send messages with cuts in funding, it
also may encourage them to pursue the funding that's available to them, which
may be a continuation of the kinds of duplication of services that you're objecting
to. So, I think we have to think carefully about what message that is sending and
what that will be, what that will result in in the organization.
Champion/Well that's what they're doing anyway.
Bailey/Right, but I mean, I don't know if cutting their funding is going to motivate them
to go back to what you're describing as their core mission or...
Champion/Right, and I can't tell them to do that, but by cutting their funding every year,
I can tell them that's not what I'm going to support. I mean, they're not doing
what they originally were funded to do. They're not doing that. And I think since
the City funded them, because they were doing Mayor's Youth employment...
Bailey/Because they were doing unemployment program and this ...
Champion/Right, and so they still keep getting funded, even though they're not doing
what we originally funded them for.
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Bailey/So essentially you're saying that you would rather fund the ARC for respite care
type of things, right?
Champion/Right, or...
Bailey/I mean, that's the agency that serves that.
Champion/Right, that's the agency that serves that, and they also serve...
Vanderhoef/The waivers.
Champion/...the waivers. And ARC serves a lot more kids with the same number of
administrators. I mean, I think we've got, I know it sounds awful, but ! think we
have to start looking at What we originally funded them to do, and that's not what
they're doing, and United Way's not funding them at all now.
Bailey/Well, I understand the mission .....concern, so...
Champion/Yeah, mission I think is a real concem.
Bailey/Well and then to go to that grant idea, which we talked about the other night,
which I think is a good idea. Naturally we'll have to do some discussion, but the
people, right, and I think that's a high priority in our community.
Champion/Oh I think it is too.
Elliott/I have an observation, it's kind of peripheral to this. I was talking with a
probation officer the other day and he said one of the things that's really lacking
is jobs during the summer for I guess you'd call them "at risk youth" mainly high
school age people.
Champion/And that's what Mayor's Youth used to do.
Elliott/And I'm thinking that's, because the first thing I brought up was Mayor's Youth.
Have you talked with them? And apparently they don't do that, but I like the
idea. What kind of, Connie, you and Dee looked in-depth at these agencies a
couple of years ago, and tried to weed out as much duplication of services as you
could, is that right?
Champion/Uh-huh.
Vanderhoef/Well we sent some messages, but I think Connie is interested in continuing
to say that the mission has changed and the focus of Mayor's Youth has changed,
and one of the big differences between Mayor's Youth, when it originally started,
it was to also in the grants that they got from the federal government, they paid
the kids to work. Now we have job training programming in the form of a grant
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that actually these kids are delighted that they have an opportunity to at least job
shadow and maybe intern, and get a small stipend. What happened with the
federal program was that the kids were used to getting minimum wage to go out
and put chips in the park and so forth, and the expectation to be paid for learning
job-training skills. There's a happy medium before you get to the point to get
paid, so when your juvenile officer said something about jobs for these people,
what the experience of work force development was that they couldn't get kids to
take the jobs because the kids, that same group of kids, were able to work at a fast
food establishment and get more money. Well now we've cycled into another
phase that it appears that a lot of the young people think it's a fate worse than
death to say I'm working in a fast food place.
Elliott/All I know is it seemed, he seemed to be a person who was knowledgeable and
had experience working with young people who were at risk, and his thought was
these young people needed things to keep them occupied and hopefully, money is
the motivator.
Champion/Well if we had money in a grant situation, maybe, I mean, I think that's a
valid point you're making, but maybe part of that money, I think, we need to
accumulate for probably two years to get enough money, but maybe part of that
grant could be with Parks and Rec to hire these kids to help with the park
maintenance and be paid out of that grant. So, I think there's all kinds of ways to
approach youth. Youth need to be kept busy, and whether it's recreational
education or whether it's work, I think it's, I think the most, it's a world-wide
problem to keep people busy, whether it's youth or whether it's adult. It's a very
complicated problem. But, I think that's what Mayor's Youth started out to do
and I think it was a very valuable thing. They were at-risk kids, not necessarily,
but a lot of them were.
Elliott/How ironic, you say it's a world-wide problem to keep people busy, and we're
looking at the news every day thinking of the absolutely unbelievable job that
needs to be done, and people to do it in Indonesia, places like that. It's...but I
would like for the City to be at least encouraging some kind of coordination,
cooperation, partnering with the various agencies that work with young people,
because I like Regenia's idea. The young people is where we need to invest
money.
Champion/Oh yeah. The grant that we had last year, that was a lot. That was job
training, wasn't it?
Vanderhoef/That's exactly what it was, and it was...
Champion/Maybe this could all be tied together if we had more money to put in that
grant, and actually providing some payment for work that they could do. I mean,
that was a really good program, and that money could still be there.
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Vanderhoef/It's still continuing. They ask for 1450, I guess.
Champion/So that was the combination, I think Mayor's Youth was part of that.
Vanderhoef/Well, and recognize though, Connie, that in the grant proposal and what
they brought back to us was that they were not having much success in finding
job shadows or internships for young people, younger than 16.
Champion/Yeah, that's pretty young.
Vanderhoef/So, what Mayor's Youth used to do is they were concentrating on these kids
who were 13 to 16, that, like you say, you got to keep them busy, you've got to
find something to do, and limited meeting all the child labor laws, they were
making an opportunity for some of these kids to be in a confined, controlled
situation, learn some skills about being on time, and working in cooperation, and
some of those kinds of things. So a second grant that was more geared to that 13
to, 13, 14, 15 year olds, uh-huh.
Lehman/Are we going to decide on what we're going to allocate, or are we just going to
decide on total?
Champion/The total's good.
Lehman/What are our thoughts? The request, or the recommendation for human service
agencies from Steve is $433,954. There is no breakdown to that allocation by...is
that an acceptable number? I think that's what, 3% more than we had last year?
Atkins/Yes.
Vanderhoef/Well, what I want to put in to that formula is the fact that we are investing
$10,000 of that into the Community Foundation.
Lehman/Dee, I think that discussion, yeah, but I think that discussion, that decision
probably will be made at the same time as we make the allocations for the...
Vanderhoef/The only thing is, wait a minute. We do have to, I know we can do the
allocations after we certify the budget, but we have to have the number, as I
understand it from Steve, of how we are adjusting the reserve fund, whether we're
taking $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 out of that reserve. Am I correct?
Lehman/That reserve would come out of this year's. Is that correct? It's not the budget
we're talking about.
Atkins/Uh, boy I hadn't thought about that. That's true.
Lehman/It wouldn't make any difference with the budget.
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Atkins/I hadn't thought about taking it out of this year's reserve.
Lehman/What we're really looking at is whether or not the total number projected here is
an acceptable number.
Atkins/We, this...I digress for a moment, the whole foundation idea, we're working on.
See, it's competitive so there's no guarantees on the thing.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/But if we do set it up, and if we aren't successful in the competition for the
$25,000, it also sets us up for the availability of some excess state gambling
revenues. I mean, so it's kind of a good idea no matter what we do.
Elliott/Dee, I'm very interested in this foundation that you're talking about, the money
into there; however, I'm, I would not be interested in taking the $10,000 from the
service agencies.
Champion/I was hoping we could add that to 5% we took away, but I'11...
Atkins/Well I added 3% folks, because the budget was looking good going in. Our
human service agencies, like other agencies, have taken a hit, so I thought well,
can we recover a little bit.
Champion/Thanks for doing that.
Lehman/Is the 3%, the recommended number, acceptable to the Council? All right.
Atkins/So you've just given the okee-dokee on...
Elliott/$433,954, is that it?
Lehman/The allocation of that will be decided at a later date. Now, ~vill you please join
us again.
Atkins/This is our community events, and there is one mistake that has to be corrected.
(several talking at once) See where it says Jazz Festival? $6,075. When we
prepared this we had forgotten that last year we agreed to give them a gift of
$1,000 and a $3,000 advance, so that should read $3,075, I believe. And, you
know, it alters the bottom line by $3,000. We can balance the budget based upon
the 34, so the bottom line is you're $3,000 to the good in this for budget purposes.
Champion/We could leave it there.
Atkins/You just leave it alone.
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Champion/For something that might come up.
Atkins/You could, yes, absolutely. You could put a contingency in there.
Elliott/You're reducing Jazz Festival because we gave them advance already?
Atkins/Yes.
Elliott/That was $1,0007
Atkins/We gave them a gift of $1,000. We just helped them out. And then we advanced
$3,000 against our future funding.
Elliott/So just take 6,075 and make it 3,075. Okay.
Vanderhoef/So we're putting contingency of...
Atkins/...of $3,000. Okay.
Vanderhoef/It always burns a hole in our pocket or somebody else's when they know
there's a contingency like that.
Champion/Well, and one year we did something for somebody.
Atkins/Well, think about it. The very circumstances the Jazz Festival got a contingency,
that's what you would have done. Is granted them some money from there. We
just didn't happen to carry a contingency on this particular program. Okay, so
that number's okay.
Lehman/Now, the 34,502 is our, are we accepting the individual funding amounts?
Atkins/That's up to you.
Lehman/I mean, they're included on this one. They are not included in the...
Atkins/Because we had separate applications for them, yeah. Okay.
Lehman/No, but I'm saying that this is, this budget...
Atkins/You are under no obligation to do that. It's when we have the, obviously, the
information, we want to share it with you. We did not have the other information.
Champion/No, I think it's fine.
Bailey/I think the amount's fine. Looks good.
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Elliott/I just, curiosity, is there a reason why the Jazz Festival was $25, is that $25 less
than the Arts Fest? This 075?
Atkins/No.
Elliott/It seems like a very.
Vanderhoef/Say that again. I'm...
Bailey/Arts Fest is getting 7, they're getting (can't hear).
Elliott/I just, was there a, why is that not just an even number? There's...
Atkins/Could have been...
Elliott/It just worked out that way?
Atkins/It just worked out that way, when we did the arithmetic, something.
Elliott/Okay, okay.
Atkins/I don't have a good reason.
Vanderhoef/So this is a 3% also?
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/Was there a reason that Arts Fest went from...
Atkins/No, wait a minute. That's no, Dee, it is not. No.
Lehman/Is there a reason we had a...
Atkins/I've got to...
Lehman/Like a 40% increase in Arts Fest budget. What's the reason for that?
Atkins/They asked for it.
Bailey/I bet it's a reduction in the availability of state art's grants.
Wilburn/That's what happened last year, wasn't it? Yeah.
Atkins/Yeah. See, where we got rid of Saturday night concerts altogether, that was the
big reduction.
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Bailey/Yeah, arts, right, because the art's grant funding at the state level has been cut, so
it's more difficult to get funding. At least that's what I'm assuming.
Wilburn/I thought I remembered hearing that somewhere.
Lehman/Well I know that Jazz Fest got that, but, it runs in my mind $26,000. (several
talking at once)
Elliott/I do think sometimes that we make a huge distinction between eye art and ear art.
Champion/They're both art.
Elliott/Yeah, and for the Jazz Fest, $7,000 and for, and we spend a great deal of money
for visual art. Just an observation.
Atkins/The overall community event funding is down. Dee had asked me a question
about the percentage, and I had said yes, and I said it too quickly. It is not. It is
down because of a budget decision we made a year ago. The biggest one is
almost $9,000 for doing away with the Saturday night concerts. That took it from
45 to 35, or thereabouts, right away. And then some other minor changes.
Lehman/Well, I guess I'm a little bit, I mean, Jazz Fest asked for $6,075?
Atkins/Yeah, they did. And...
Bailey/But in previous years the Arts Fest and the Jazz Fest funding has been different.
It's not the same every year. I mean...one gets more.
Atkins/There was no method to the madness on that one, yeah.
Lehman/Are we happy with the methodology that has created this madness?
Vanderhoef/I'm okay with it.
Lehman/I think we're okay, Steve.
Atkins/You have a contingency. You can always make adjustments, and...next up is, I
don't have a next up.
Bailey/I want to talk about a CVB.
Lehman/I was going to say, Regenia does.
Bailey/I handed something out yesterday, and philosophically, as you probably know, I
think CVB should be getting a higher percentage of our hotel/motel tax. I think
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that's a reinvestment in economic development. As we saw this year, they're not
just about heads and beds. We had Herky on Parade, and a wonderful community
gift certificate program. But, the intent with this proposal was actually not to
address my philosophical issues, was just to get more dollars to CVB this year.
And it came from the police line item, simply because that's where it had to come
from. It's not a comment about the worthiness of that particular department. It's
just where it was. And, I'm looking at this year because I think we'll see an
increase in motel/hotel tax in Iowa City with the Moen project coming on line.
Champion/That's a couple years away.
Lehman/Two years away.
Bailey/But we'll see an increase, and then potentially if we get this 9% hotel/motel and
that's something we can support locally. I think we could see an increase, and I
think that now is the time to reinvest in Convention and Visitors Bureau, partially
because of the recognition of the work that they've done, but I think that they
brought a lot of things to Iowa City this past year, and it was all due to their
efforts. If it had been left up to us, Herky on Parade and the community gift
certificate wouldn't have happened. So, that's my pitch. I'm sticking to it.
Champion/If we get an increase in hotel/motel tax, I will be glad to give part of that to
CVB.
Bailey/Well, when I did this I checked with Steve and he thought that we could probably
cover an increase to CVB and it would be basically (can't hear) so, I don't want to
say "if". These people are bringing people to our community; it's economic
development.
Champion/I know, I know.
Bailey/It doesn't look like big boxes, but it's still economic development. It's all
economic development.
Vanderhoef/Well I'll make a case also that Parks and Recreation and the trail system and
the park system is in economic development.
Bailey/And there's an increase there. A small one but...
Vanderhoef/Yeah, and I looked at it and I also know that the original breakdown for
CVB had been 25%, and I played with the numbers a little bit last night, and what
I thought we perhaps could do is raise CVB to 25, and Parks and Rec to 30, and
5% decrease, meaning to 45%, for police, and if additional funding comes in, that
that would cover the rest of the police budget.
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Champion/You're just interested in redistributing the money from hotel/motel tax. Is
that right?
Bailey/But it does have an impact on our general fund in that we don't reinvest all the
hotel/motel tax as you know. ! mean, 50% of it, typically, goes to the police
department, and you know, there's other breakdowns, 27.5 to Parks and Rec, and
22.5 to CVB.
Vanderhoef/Well, the difference being actually CVB would pick up another 14 plus, and
Parks and Rec would get another 14 plus, which could be some summer
maintenance help for mowing or whatever, that we heard so much about last night
that they're really short on maintenance people and temporary summer, here's a
job for the young people that we're trying to...
Bailey/You don't put young people on...
Champion/16.
Bailey/Not on mowers.
Elliott/Did CVB take the hit last year?
Lehman/Yeah, a little bit.
Bailey/Yeah, they did. 2.5%.
Lehman/Are you suggesting we raise the percent? For CVB, from 22.5 to what?
Bailey/I suggested at 30.
Elliott/Dee says 25.
Atkins/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/Take it back to the original 25.
Lehman/I can't support anything that's going to cut funding to police.
O'Donnell/I can't either.
Lehman/! don't have any problem with raising the contribution that CVB gets to keep
from the tax, but I really don't think the police is the place we want to cut.
Bailey/Well and I'm not suggesting cutting their budget. I'm suggesting finding those
dollars somewhere else. I just messed with, I just messed with a lump from
hotel/motel, and that's how it worked out. I mean...
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Lehman/Well, why wouldn't we leave the percentages alone? If we increase hotel,
CVB, from 22.5 to 25 and let the chips fall where they may, that's 2.5%; that's
10% increase in the amount they would...oh ! see, never mind.
Champion/Where you going to get that?
Lehman/We've got a shortfall.
Bailey/Yeah, you've got to get it somewhere. (laughter) We can't have...(several
talking at once) I have to add up to 100.
Wilburn/What does, excuse me, Dee, what does (can't understand) line on?
Atkins/It's a general appropriation, directly in the police department. There's no specific
assignment of it. Yeah. At the time of the hotel/motel tax, you had to do the
percentage.
Lehman/What page is that in here?
Champion/Page...oh, no I just...
Atkins/The policy or...? CVB?
Lehman/CVB.
Bailey/I've got a different number.
Karr/Page 98 is the CVB part of the...non-operational administration.
Vanderhoef/You budgeted in 123,750, and ifI know Steve, typically he budgets low on
what we will receive out of...
Atkins/Yes. I calculated, normally what we do on revenues is we'll calculate it, run it
out at 100% and budget at 99 or 98.
Lehman/You think you did that with this?
Atkins/Yeah, but I mean, quite frankly, Ernie, all you needs a little bump in the economy
and hotel vacancies, and it goes away. It's a reasonably volatile revenue that
we're just kind of cautious about.
Lehman/Right. But I thought we were running quite a bit ahead of a year ago.
Atkins/That I don't know.
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Lehman/I don't know that. Regenia, have you guys talked about that?
Bailey/Well, yeah, it seems like it has been, but...
Vanderhoef/How about this, Regenia? If we allocate just like it's proposed right now,
anything that we collect over the 562,268 is divided between CVB and Parks and
Rec?
Champion/Well I'm not willing to go quite that far. (laughter) I think the philosophy is
good, but I would say, but CVB could not go beyond 25%.
Lehman/Right.
Vanderhoef/Okay.
Champion/But Parks and Rec would get the rest.
Atkins/Okay.
Elliott/I would say not beyond 30.
Bailey/Yeah, you've got to think about reinvestment, people. I mean, we talk about
economic development all the time, and this is the group that's doing it for you
most visibly. Year in, year out.
Vanderhoef/They're promoting what we're building in Parks and Rec.
Bailey/Parks and Rec didn't (can't hear).
Lehman/No, CVB is a tremendous, direct benefit to the community.
Bailey/And I think we should acknowledge that a little bit, and I'm not suggesting this is
something, I mean, I'm not suggesting we have a discussion about it every year.
I'm suggesting it for this year. I just think it's significant, and with the move to
the entryway to Coralville, I think there'll be a lot more opportunity for promotion
as we finish that bridge across the...
Atkins/They're getting new digs, yeah, it's really nice.
Bailey/Coralville's...that's where they're located.
Elliott/I would say something like 50/25/25 and any additional would be divided equally
between Parks and Rec, and CVB, of CVB not to exceed 30.
Vanderhoef/So you're taking away from, if we have a downturn in the economy, you're
taking money away from Parks and Rec?
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Elliott/And the first thing I would do is get rid of the flower gardens in the middle of the
street. You see people out there on their hands and knees, weeding.
Lehman/A downturn in the economy and it affects CVB, you're taking away from
police, parks, and you're taking away from all of them if the economy goes down.
Vanderhoef/But he suggested at 25/25. He's already taking 2.5% away from Parks and
Rec, which is maintenance.
Bailey/We can't do that. Not 25.
Champion/I can't cut the police.
Bailey/That difference could come from contingency, couldn't it?
Wilburn/I would support that too.
Atkins/Yes.
Bailey/There. (laughter)
Elliott/Good old conventional...
Lehman/I agree. I can't vote to cut the police either. If we can find a way to make it
up...
Bailey/He just said contingency.
Lehman/Then I, I mean, I can live with that but I can't live with cutting the cops. I'm
not a cop cutter. (laughter)
Bailey/So we're not cutting; it's just the difference of the 5% comes from contingency.
Is that doable?
Atkins/We're reducing an income to the police department budget, to the tune of
$50,000 round numbers. Now, how do you do that? If you're going to divert
that, you have to either cut the police budget someway, or make up the revenue.
And I'm suggesting that if that's what you want to do, you can reduce the
contingency from its 350 number to 300. That funds what Regenia was just
talking about.
Lehman/I think that's doable, but I absolutely agree with Regenia when it comes to the
return on the investment that we get from what CVB does, and we should have,
we should be so fortunate to have five of them. It's just unbelievable what they
do.
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Elliott/And we, it appears right now, have a bureau that is really energetic, energized,
productive, and, they were hit last year. I'd like to say that we recognize them
this year.
Vanderhoef/Everybody was hit last year though, Bob.
Champion/What did you say, 25% to CVB? I can't say it. Convention Bureau; is it
25%? I can live with going to 25%.
Atkins/That brings them back to where they were, before we cut them.
Champion/Yeah.
Bailey/And she said 30?
Atkins/Want to do it piece by piece, and see what you can find acceptable?
Vanderhoef/From 30 to?
Atkins/Can you accept 25%, an increase of 22.5 to 25 for the CVB?
Champion/If we're not going to actually cut the police department.
Atkins/No, I'm not ready to do that yet. I'm just making...one thing at a time.
Bailey/Let's just do a line at a time.
Elliott/Yeah, line at a time.
Bailey/I can live with 25% (can't hear).
Atkins/Okay, so now you've settled in on that increase. Now, what do you want to do
about police? Or is police the balancing one, which it sounds like it is. So you
need to go to Parks and Recreation.
Champion/I would leave that where they're at.
Vanderhoef/No.
Champion/And then you said any extra money that comes in.
Vanderhoef/Well that was the second proposal.
Atkins/That's the second proposal.
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Vanderhoef/There are two different proposals out here. The original one was 25/30, and
45.
Bailey/No, the original one was 40/30/30. The newer...
Vanderhoef/My original. Okay. Then...the alternative was give us another column, that
we leave the percents like they presently are, and any money earned above what is
budgeted amount here, would be split 25/25 between Parks and Rec and CVB.
Bailey/The cap on CVB at 27.5?
Champion/Yes.
Lehman/Actually I'd split it equally and I wouldn't cap it.
Champion/I would.
Lehman/CVB does more with their money than, they do...
Bailey/Just split it.
Vanderhoef/Just split it.
Elliott/And the 47.5, the difference, what is that 2.5%, could come out of contingency,
you say, Steve?
Vanderhoef/No, we're talking about the second proposal.
Atkins/Hold that a second. That's the final, final, final balancing. Yeah, you don't want
to jump there just yet.
Champion/I want to see a cap on this Convention Bureau, and the reason is we're taking
them back to where they were. I'm willing to go to 27.5% if we get the increased
revenue.
Atkins/What about this?
Champion/But then ! think there comes a point where that's a pretty generous
contribution, and Parks and Rec really needs money.
Vanderhoef/That's why I say I like the second proposal I put out. (several talking at
once)
Champion/With the cap on the Convention Bureau.
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Vanderhoef/To go straight out 50% for police, 27.5 for Parks and Rec, 25 for CVB, and
anything over...
Champion/You're over.
Atkins/You can't...that's 102%.
Vanderhoef/No, the original numbers in the book, which are 22.5, 27.5 and 50.
Atkins/That's correct.
Vanderhoef/Go with those. That one, and any money over the budgeted 562,268 will be
divided equally between...
Bailey/No, not enough of a recognition.
Lehman/That's not telling CVB, not giving them credit for what they do.
Champion/I'm willing to reduce the police share.
Bailey/Of hotel/motel? (several talking at once)
Champion/25, 27.5, any extra monies that come in...
Atkins/Extra monies over 560, does...what happens? This is the extra now.
Vanderhoef/Divide it equally.
Champion/No, I would not divide it equally. I would cap the Convention Bureau at 27,
or I would cap them at 27, or maybe even less than that, and the rest would go to
Parks and Rec.
Wilburn/I would just split it.
Bailey/I would split it.
Lehman/I just...you know, you get 6 bucks back for every buck you put into CVB.
(several talking at once) I'd just split it.
Bailey/Just, if it...
Champion/Put it for this year, because when the new hotel comes in, then I'll argue it.
Lehman/I won't be here to argue.
Atkins/I have no idea what you did.
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Elliott/Is this okay?
Lehman/That's okay, and anything over the 560 gets split between CVB and Parks.
Atkins/I want to read this: 47.5% of the estimated revenue of 560 police; 25% of the
560 estimated revenue CVB; 27.5% of the estimated revenue Parks and Rec. Any
extra over the 560, whatever that number is, what do you want done with that?
Champion/Well, do we want to replace the police percentage before we...
Lehman/Why wouldn't we just have all of the increase spread the same way the basic
formula is?
Atkins/Because that's not where everybody was going. Then drop this altogether.
Bailey/Let's just reinvest it.
Lehman/But we have cut the police by 2.5%.
Bailey/Only from this funding source. We haven't cut them.
Lehman/Well, but yeah, we're getting the money someplace else.
Bailey/Right, but we haven't cut the department budget. Let's just be really clear so
nobody...
Champion/So it doesn't get in the paper tomorrow. (laughter and several talking at once)
O'Donnell/! don't know why that wouldn't be a good idea. Anything that exceeds 560 is
cut with the same formula.
Lehman/Same formula.
Champion/That's fine.
Bailey/Then you don't need to say anything that exceeds; you just need to say this is the
formula. If it's $750,000 (several talking at once).
Atkins/What you did with that decision was you reduced the police share of hotel/motel
tax. You increased the share of hotel/motel tax for CVB, and you kept Parks and
Rec the same.
Vanderhoef/And we're not sending the right message to Parks and Rec on that.
O'Donnell/We're not sending the right message to the police department.
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Bailey/The police department, in as far as hotel/motel tax, they do not generate
hotel/motel tax. I mean they don't do anything for attractions. They manage
maybe the results of marketing, but they don't market. And so perhaps funding
them from this funding source is not...exactly... (several talking at once)
Champion/...and it takes a lot of police to police some of these.
Lehman/Do we have a sales tax at the Johnson County "Hilton"?
Vanderhoef/Well I'm saying that we're all recognizing the need for more maintenance
and so forth in Parks and Recreation, and here ~ve're giving, which I also say is an
economic development generator for our city, and that they should get the same
kind of recognition in a bump up in their revenues as CVB is.
Bailey/So split anything over 560 between Parks and Rec and CVB.
Lehman/I agree that Parks and Rec is a great economic tool, but I think when it comes to
turning money around and multiplying it, CVB does a whole lot more with...
Wilburn/That's not what she said though. She said they do generate a benefit for people
coming to town to take advantage the opportunities. There was no, there was no
bump in terms of the multiplier. It's just a flat recognition that we invested in
those.
Bailey/Can we just split it between Parks and Rec and CVB...over 560?
Champion/We'll replace our contingency fund if we have extra.
Atkins/Okay. Here's 560. This okay, this okay, this okay, this okay. So far that's where
we are. Now, there is an outside chance that we may get more income of
hotel/motel tax than we anticipate. Let's assume that number is $10,000, okay?
Bailey/Can you move that over?
Lehman/We don't want you to see, Regenia.
Bailey/I know; that's what I'm...
Vanderhoef/Working in the back halls with the doors closed.
Atkins/So we now have $10,000 of new money. It exceeds our revenue estimate. What
do you want done with that? And I've heard several...there are, I've heard take
this money and replenish that; take this money and divide it 5 grand here, 5 grand
there. That's what I heard. Those two options.
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Bailey/The latter.
Champion/I'm not willing to do that.
Lehman/I'd just put $4,750 into the police department; $2,500 into CVB; and $2,750
into Parks and Rec. That's the same formula you started with.
Wilburn/You would, the logic you used earlier was, you talked about the multiplier
effect and generating income, and it would seem to me it's more consistent to, in
my opinion, once that is met, once the projected budget is met, to put it, to
reinvest it as Regenia was saying, in those that are closer related to the source of
this income.
Champion/Well I agree with you; they are closely related to the source of the income,
except for the more income those sources provide, the more police we need. I
mean, look (can't hear) when there are convention groups, when there are travel
groups, and (can't hear) and Jazz Fest; Herky getting vandalized, I mean they, you
know, I, just leave it like this for this year and maybe next year we can look at it
again.
Bailey/But we won't.
Champion/Yeah, we look at it every year.
Atkins/Get rid of that.
Bailey/But it doesn't move. I mean, you've got a good organization that's reinvesting in
your community.
Champion/We're giving them more money.
Bailey/A little bit.
Lehman/Well, 10%, Regenia. I know where your heart is ...
Bailey/I say if they work so hard to get over the projection, which our projections are
pretty accurate, if they actually pull that off...
Champion/They'll get more.
Bailey/They'll get a little bit more. That should be split.
Champion/It is being split.
Bailey/Between Parks and Rec and CVB. Those...(several talking at once)
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Champion/We have no idea what's going to go on with our budget next year, and we
might not have that money to do... (several talking at once).
Lehman/All right, how many would like to split it just the way it starts out: 47.5, 25, and
27.5? I got, all right, I got 4.
Atkins/So right now, this is the new resolution, Kevin, that we have to prepare. This
happens just to be an estimate, and as this grows, proportionally each of those will
share in those percentages.
Lehman/Actually, Steve, the 560 doesn't make any difference. We just change the
allocation (several talking at once). That's all we did. And the shortfall will be
made up out of contingency.
Atkins/I think it's important for where Regenia...this is now back to where it used to be.
Okay.
Elliott/Everyone, nobody got what they wanted; everyone won a little battle.
Vanderhoef/Parks and Rec got nothing.
Champion/Yeah they did.
Lehman/Yeah they did; there was an increase. Okay, what's next?
Vanderhoef/A break.
Bailey/Are we going to talk about Parks and Rec policy? Open space policy?
Lehman/Probably, but this will be budget, but I think at some time we are, in fact, one of
the things that we could probably set at some point is kind of a goal-setting
session for Council.
Elliott/When we're dealing with Parks and Rec, one thing, we are not planning any more
mid-street flowerbeds. Is that correct?
Atkins/We will be doing flowerbeds on a very regular basis; absolutely.
Elliott/Mid-street? I mean, putting things in the middle of the street?
Lehman/In the middle of Iowa Avenue, you bet.
Elliott/No, I mean these circle things in the middle of the street.
Atkins/Oh, you mean like up there on College Street? We have no new ones planned.
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Bailey/Those are called traffic circles, welcome to England.
Elliott/No, if they...
Atkins/I know of none that are planned.
Champion/They weren't put in there as flowerbeds. (laughter)
Vanderhoef/Well the locals, I thought...
Elliott/They're ugly; they're difficult to maneuver around; they don't do anybody any
good.
Lehman/Oh yes they do.
Champion/Oh yes they do. (several talking at once)
Lehman/I have nothing else.
Elliott/I would like to ask the Council if they would agree with me in asking Steve to at
least look into a plan of incorporating bonuses as a part of merit increases, not to
increase the overall budget. In no way would this do it, but to look into a process
of incorporating bonuses as a part of merit increases.
Champion/I'm not interested.
Vanderhoef/On top of...
Elliott/In no way increase budget.
Champion/I think a bonus is a gift, and I think it shouldn't be tied to salary, but to me
salary is a salary, and I pay my employees what I think they deserve, what I can
afford to pay them, and then as other things come up, besides holidays, you know,
for my business it might be sidewalk days or sales or when you have a big influx
of cash and then I will give part of that cash as a bonus to my employees, but it's
not tied in any way shape or form to merit or to salaries. I think people should be
paid what you can afford to pay them, and what they deserve, and a bonus to me
is...
Elliott/The only thing, if you give an increase, that's a gift that is given for every year in
perpetuity, and a bonus is a one-time situation, and obviously, bonus has to be
based on merit, and I think incorporating it within the salary structure is
something that could represent both a financial benefit to the individual, and no
increase in budget, and in some cases perhaps even a savings.
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Champion/We use up all of our money on salaries anyway. Wouldn't have any money
to give bonuses.
Elliott/No, no; this would be a part of that, and it would incorporate, it could not
incorporate any more than we do, and it could represent a savings.
Lehman/When ! first go on the Council, and I think, Steve, you can correct me if I'm
wrong, but I think it was 8, 9, 10 years ago, there were bonuses being given, and
the comment that I got from folks in the public was why don't you pay your
people what they're worth instead of giving them bonuses at the end of the year,
because bonuses many times are very subjective. I mean, I don't know what the
guy does who reads water meters or fixes broken water mains, or I don't know
what Kevin's people do. I'm a lot more familiar with what a housing inspector
does and so I'm more inclined to give a bonus to those folks I'm more familiar
with.
Elliott/And I would say that at this point I'm talking about probably department heads.
Champion/I'm sorry; I'm not interested.
Vanderhoef/Give me an example, how it would work.
Elliott/This does not mean setting a policy by any means, but it would mean that Steve
could look into it and develop a couple of alternatives that would be possible, and
something to which we could react.
Bailey/Currently by resolution, 100 or so, I don't know, professional, I don't know what
you call, get the same raise that the unions negotiate, so it increases, and this
would entail, well you said department heads, but it could (TAPE ENDS) ...of
employees with the pot of money not to exceed what the percentage increased
total involved would be for (can't hear). Does that make sense? That's where the
pot of money would come from. So it wouldn't be what you said, we didn't have
any...
Champion/Except then you get into very subjective things. For instance, maybe Steve
Atkins has a fall out with Terry Trueblood. Or maybe Kevin (can't hear;
laughter)
Elliott/Connie, that's what management is. Management is always subjective. When it
is based on merit and increases should be based on merit because people, one year
I might do a much better job than I do another year and I might get more of an
increase one year, and another year I might get no increase.
Lehman/Steve, I have a question. As I understand it, and we hire our professional,
confidential, whatever employees, and Regenia (can't hear) I believe their
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increases in, which I like to refer to as cost of living increases or kind of
automatic, but the longevity increases, are those, are they optional?
Atkins/No.
Lehman/In other words, I guess what I'm hearing, if I go to work for the City of Iowa
City, and I see the pay plan and my job has ten steps, as long as I do a ordinary
job, ! will get to the top of those steps and receive every year the increase because
of longevity and the increase because...
Atkins/Not necessarily. In your confidential, administrative management employees,
step increases and raises are not guaranteed.
Lehman/Thank you, that's what I asked.
Atkins/They are not guaranteed. So, excuse me, but they're in the room, Kevin is
Assistant Finance Director, or sorry, used to be (laughter). Kevin is Finance
Director and has a number of professional administrative employees reporting
directly to him, one of which happens to be the Risk Manager, Erin sitting in the
audience. Erin has a pay plan Erin knows where she is within the steps in that pay
plan. Each year Kevin has to decide what Erin's raise is going to be. It is not
guaranteed. Now, he has a person who's in the ASCME union. Their raises are
guaranteed, and we have to spell out why we denied it. Whereas on the other
hand, we don't have to do that. The union employee gets the raise virtually
automatically. The administrative employee is not guaranteed their raise.
Lehman/So those are merit increases?
Atkins/We'd like to believe they are.
Bailey/How typical is it for somebody not to get the full increase?
Atkins/Oh, two or three a year. It wouldn't be uncommon. Out of a hundred people,
two to three people, yeah, would not get an adjustment, and usually there are a
variety of circumstances. It could be performance, it could be a whole variety of
matters. But that's not uncommon. But it is not a huge number, that's correct.
Champion/I hope it's not a huge number because you're (can't hear).
Atkins/Well, you know, as you know how I feel about the staff, and that goes for our
union employees too, I think we have really good employees, and they do a good
job, and there's always a few cantankerous few that cause you some difficulty and
we deal with those.
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O'Donnell/A bonus seems to be so subjective. I think the only way it could be done
fairly is if it's inclusive of everybody. Like in my mind, the guy who was out last
night putting sand and salt on the street is, at midnight, is entitled to a bonus.
Atkins/My best one is the guy standing in zero degrees, this deep in a hole in the street,
in water, fixing a water main. You couldn't pay him enough.
Champion/What about the trash man? Every week.
Atkins/Well, those are people doing their jobs. That's their job. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/It's above and beyond what your description is, and that's where the
subjective comes in on how well it's documented of expectation of job (can't
hear). What the job description requires.
Bailey/Well with a good human resource, it's not as subjective as one might think.
Vanderhoef/So if they go over and above.
Elliott/Well, my question is would you like to have Steve put together something
preliminarily to look at?
Champion/I'm not interested.
O'Donnell/I'm not interested in bonuses, I don't think.
Lehman/What's your opinion of bonuses?
Atkins/In the corporate world they work very well. Yes, they do, but in the private
world they can be made to work as well. That's a willingness on the part of the
Council to set aside sufficient monies to pay people. What I would envision, if
we were going to do this, is that there would likely be a base adjustment. Let's
say it's 1%, and then we would calculate what might be a lump sum of money,
that money would be given to the department director, I'd given them guidelines,
and you could say this person is going to get 3 or 4 or 5, or 6 or 8 or 10%. This
person may get nothing, or 1 or 2. But once you've spent the pot of money that's
been appropriated, it's gone. So you're usually, you try to be judicious to make
sure you can deal with all of your employees, but it does become very subjective.
There's no doubt about that. Bob was right; that's managing. I can make this,
well, it can be done.
Lehman/Is there interest in pursuing?
Bailey/I'd like to.
Lehman/Well I'm more interested in philosophy than ! am numbers, because I think...
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Atkins/Well, philosophy has a good bit to do with you. ! mean, and it certainly has a
role in that. If you deny your manager the resources to pay these people, and the
unions are getting raises, we're only...
Bailey/Well that would be my primary concern is if we would actually have a large
enough pile of money to make bonuses what they are in the corporate world,
which is to say a motivator and I, given that...
Atkins/See, bonuses to me in the corporate world are really a gap. You tell me as your
executive I want you to increase the value of our stock from $10 a share to $20 a
share, and you get out of my way and I raise that and I just made you a whole
bunch of money; all of our stockholders a whole bunch of money; and as your
executive, I want a piece of it.
Bailey/Bonuses are also used in non-profit, as well.
Atkins/One of the things that, it's difficult to measure my work, Kevin's work. Kevin, it
was a couple of years ago we went through refinancing the sewer bond; major
refinancing, and I think we calculated, you paid for Kevin and I for the next ten
years. By the money you saved on the refinancing. Now, that just didn't happen.
Now, does Kevin deserve a bonus for figuring out how to go about that? In the
corporate world, probably yes. Because it would have affected the value of the
stock, because the debt load would have lessened. It's getting those kinds of
measurements, and that's not subjective. That's the real world.
Lehman/But you're also telling me that every year Kevin has a group of employees, and
he looks at those folks, and looks at where they are in their steps, and then decides
whether or not to move them to the next step. And you're also telling me that
approximately 96 or 97% of the people get moved up; 3% don't. How does that
vary a great deal from giving him the money to give bonuses for his department?
Atkins/It doesn't. It really doesn't. It's just a different mechanism. That's right. It
doesn't really change.
Wilburn/And actually the, that parallel step process is probably more as objective as one
could get in terms of the amount and those types of things, so I would rather...
Atkins/Yeah, and you look at a football coach, a college football coach. Well, or a
college basketball, the point is there are all sorts of performance standards; ifI
make the top ten; ifI graduate, I mean, and those are public employees.
Lehman/But there are also performance standards up front. That's a little different story.
Atkins/There's no doubt you have to have that.
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Bailey/...you would know your goals up front, and if there's no interest...
Elliott/If there's not overwhelming interest in this, let's let it go right now. I'll bring it
up later in the year. Think about this a while. There's some things to talk about,
some things to think about, and I'll bring it up again.
Lehman/Okay. Anything else?
O'Donnell/Just one thing, and I know we'll discuss this later, this is a quickie. Scanlon
Gymnasium, Parks and Rec has been talking about a part time, or a half time
employee, or adding a half time employee, I think since I've been on Council.
Champion/They talked about a naturalist too.
Lehman/The master plan for the parks.
O'Donnell/You know, I thought that person was justified two or three years ago, and I
think more so now. I'd sure like to see that happen.
Atkins/One of the things that I've, I did in budget preparation was to have a lot of
caution about hiring staff because each staff position kind of whittles away that
potential margin for the number of firefighters that you had talked about hiring
and you know, will the budget...if you look at our cash position, it's really pretty
steady now. And I interpret that, because there's really very little for the state to
take away form us. We may be reaching, well there is. I can't imagine what they
could take. We may be reaching a position that that risk in staffing becomes less
and less. Because of our cash position, and just everything about our budget, but
it won't happen overnight. But if you whittle, you know, sort of nibble away at it
by hiring a part timer here or half another position there, that just, yeah, that just
always kind of bumping the top, and I'm trying to open that up so we can, as you
know, it wasn't long ago, just a year and a half ago, we had the whole force
planned and ready to go, were in a great position, it got taken away from us. But
I'm trying to avoid bumping that top in the budget.
Elliott/And that fire station certainly remains about the highest priority.
Atkins/Nobody's told me otherwise, Bob, right, but that is...
Bailey/But we have a department that, I think, I mean, we will talk about this. But Parks
and Rec, we really do need to discuss what the options are. We have policies that
are growing their responsibilities and we're not doing anything to help out.
Lehman/Unfunded mandates.
Elliott/The state does it to us, and we do it to Parks and Rec. (several talking at once)
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O'Donnell/...and this town has grown considerably, and the fire department is...
Vanderhoef/That's why I'm...
Bailey/...we were quibbling about that.
Vanderhoef/Well that brings us back to that question, Regenia, because in my mind
we've had this request for a deputy chief and we've had this request for an
inspector on the table several years in a row, and it's never been funded, but we
funded for new firefighters, and now all at once we're going to use those new
firefighters that we hired to create two positions for an inspector and a deputy, so
now we are down, we are down two more in funding the 4th fire station. So
that's...
Bailey/You know I've always told you, and I told you this in human services, it's
preventative measures that always pull my interest (can't hear) and I agree with
their analysis of the situation (can't hear).
Lehman/Well, Steve, we're going to hear back from you on this issue? I mean, before
we proceed with that (can't hear) All right, is there any other issue that we need
to discuss relative to budget?
Elliott/What, is there an increase in library funding being requested for this year?
Atkins/In total dollars; I'd have to look on the...
Elliott/And what page is that?
Atkins/Hang on a second and we'll look it up. 67.
Lehman/67 is a good page.
Atkins/Sorry, I didn't hear you. Regenia raised the issue of the rent. We have budgeted
$50,000, assuming they will have lease of the space sometime in the next year.
That's the best guess for us.
Vanderhoef/$70.
Atkins/Then there must be some other rents in there because it's 50...if you look down
at the bottom, under transfers to, we abate the debt with the $50,000 worth of
income from the commercial, so there must be some other kinds of rents. Do you
know what they are, Kevin?
O'Malley/I believe what we're saying there is there's going to be some expenses to rent,
some heating and cooling.
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Atkins/Okay, so the expense side, that's correct, about 20. I don't know if they have any
nibbles on it or not.
Lehman/Well what they're asking for the 06 budget is approximately 201,000 more than
the 05 budget was for.
Atkins/It's about 4.5%.
Elliott/Well, I have some concerns about that.
Champion/Why?
Atkins/Just as you begin to discuss the library, remember the library is a separate board.
Elliott/Oh yes, the only thing we control is the amount of money we send to them.
Atkins/Thank you. So if you want to take a lump sum out and send it back to them,
saying I want to reduce it by this much, the board then will have to decide how to
do it.
Vanderhoef/You say 4.5% on...
Atkins/I'm guessing, each 1% if430,000...
Lehman/It's less than 4%.
Atkins/Less than 4%, sorry about that. Didn't mean to scare you.
Vanderhoef/4%, not 4.5%? Okay.
Bailey/Why are we looking at this?
Elliott/Because I see 7 people making over $60,000, one, two, three...five making over
$70,000. That concerns me.
Lehman/The personnel costs are increased by approximately 3%.
Atkins/I don't mean to be argumentative, but if you want to go back and see what's
costing you, look at the benefits for your police and fire personnel. There's
100%. Those are off the chart.
Vanderhoef/And those are the ones we have no control over.
Atkins/Virtually no control over those costs.
Champion/I don't have any qualms with the library's budget.
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Vanderhoef/Well, considering the amount of outside revenue for that and also looking at
fourteen master degree level employees, it may be high, or top heavy shall we
say, and like Steve says, we cannot change how they staff the library, but we
certainly can change the amount of funding going, and they will adjust to that.
It's not...
Elliott/My concern, Dee, would be whether or not the positions being filled by people
with masters are positions that require a masters. If that's so they should be
compensated, but if they don't...
Atkins/Couple of questions, first of all, you would have to involve the board, secondly,
Dale, who's not represented in the library in the collective bargaining agreement?
Is it just the coordinators and the director? I can't recall because we have a
collective bargaining agreement that we have to deal with.
Helling/I'm not sure how it falls over there. It's basically administrative employees that
are exempted.
Atkins/And I think there are four or five coordinator positions and then Susan, certainly,
as director. So there's library positions, I'd have to check those, before you could
make an arbitrary, you'd have to...
Bailey/Is there a policy level sort of issue though, I mean, I don't think (can't hear) and
we have to note with the library as much as any department can they've
automated a lot of the, you know, they don't have master's degree people
checking out people with books. You know...
Elliott/No, but they could. That's not saying you can't, but my thinking is there are
some times people are hired with a master's degree, they're not required for the
job, but they're compensated for the master's degree, which makes no sense.
Bailey/But, I just want to point out, and I know very little. A good friend of mine is a
MLS and accreditation in the library world does depend upon having someone
with an MLS degree (can't hear) and probably leads the way in the state.
Champion/One of the leading ones.
Elliott/I just think the salaries are top heavy.
Champion/Well, I disagree with you. I think, it always amazes me when people think
somebody's paid too much in the public sector. I'm sorry, I could not live on
$70,000 year with eight children. I mean, I couldn't do it, so I don't look at them
and say they're overpaid. I mean, I think people have a real, people in the public
sector being paid well. I don't have any problem with it.
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Elliott/The thing is, in the public sector, we have a responsibility to insure, not assure,
but insure that employees are paid fairly and competitively, but we also have a
significant responsibility to tax payers to make sure that the pay is fair and
competitive. Not more, not less.
Bailey/And I would say the library is a very competitive field. (can't hear) people with
that degree, so I would say we're probably luck...
Elliott/I'm, as a matter of fact, I would assume we are lucky to have the people. I know
we are lucky to have the people we have. When I go to the library and ask
questions, there's always somebody there with the right answers. They know
where to go; what to do; what it's all about.
Champion/If they had me selecting books at the library (several talking at once and
laughing).
Lehman/All right, is there anything else we want to discuss? All right, then we are
officially done.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the January 11, 2005 Iowa City Council Work
Session.