HomeMy WebLinkAbout1995-10-24 AgendaIOWA CITY CITY COUNCIL
AGENDA
REGULAR COUNCIL IVIEETING OF OCTOBER 24, 1995
7:30 P.NI.
COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CIVIC CENTER
410 EAST WASHINGTON
Subject to change as finalized by the City Clerk.
Clerk's Office, 356-5040.
ITEM NO.
ITEM NO.
I - CALL TO ORDER.
ROLL CALL.
2- SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS,
For a final official copy, contact the City
AGENDA
IOWA CITY CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING - OCTOBER 24, 1995
7:30 P.M. ,~
COUNCIL CHAMBERS ~
aJ
Presentation of Citizenship Awards to students of Helen Lemme
Elementary School.
Megan Fickel
(2) Nathaniel Fisher
Allison Page
Tracy Valiga
ITEIV1 NO. 3- MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS.
~a. Pornography Awareness Week - October 29-November 5, 1995.
·
ITEM NO. 4 - CONSIDER ADI~PTION OF THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS PRESENTED OR
AMENDED.
Approval of Official Council actions of the special meeting and the
regular meeting of October 10, 1995, as published, subject to correc-
tions, as recommended by the City Clerk.
b. Minutes of Boards and Commissions.
(1) Airport Commission meeting of September 14, 1995.
(2) Planning and Zoning Commission meeting of October 5, 1995.
(3)
Historic Preservation Commission meeting of September 19,
1995.
(4)
Board of Library Trustees special meeting of September 19,
1995.
(5) Board qf Library Trustees meeting of September 28, 1995.
(6)
Riverfront and Natural Areas Commission special meeting of
August 30, 1995.
17)
Riverfront and Natural Areas Commission meeting of September
20, 1995.
#2 page 1
ITEM NO. 2 - SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS.
Presentation of Citizenship Awards to students of Helen
Lemme Elementary School.
(1) Megan Fickel
(2) Nathaniel Fisher
(3) Allison Page
(4) Tracy Valiga
Horow/ Special Presentations. I would ask the students that are
here from Lemme School to come forward please. These are
students from Lemme School. Before we make the award I would
like to ask them if they would give us a couple of words?
Megan Fickel/ I am really proud to represent Lemme School. I would
like to thank the city council for sponsoring the Citizenship
Award. I would also like to thank my principal, Mr. Kelly, and
the other teachers who selected me for the award. Thank you.
Allison Page/ I am really happy to be here and represent Lemme and
I want to thank city council for having this award and Lemme
School and my principal, Mr. Kelly.
Tracy Valiga/ I want to thank the city council for giving me this
award and I want to thank my parents and Lemme for teaching me
how to be a good citizen.
Horow/ For those of you who are new to this, the city council does
have a citizenship award to give to students from the various
schools. It says in the case of Megan- For her outstanding
qualities of leadership within Lemme Elementary School and for
her sense of responsibility and helpfulness to others, we
recognize Megan Fickle as an outstanding student citizen. Your
community is proud of you and it is presented by the Iowa City
City Council on October 24.
We do ask the teachers and the students to give us a little
information about what each of them have done and one of the
themes that runs through all of their contributions is that
they try. I try to do these sorts of things and as I read them
I thought thank you, thank you, because we are all trying in
our own way.
The next award goes to Nathaniel Fisher. Again, the
Citizenship Award. Congratulations. Allison Page,
congratulations. Finally, Tracy Valiga. Congratulations. Thank
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F102495
#2 page 2
you very much and thanks to their teachers.
Throg/ Great job.
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FI02495
#3a & b page 1
ITEM NO. 3 - MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS.
b. Scouting For Food Week - October 21-28,1995.
Horow/ We have scouts in the audience tonight and I already have
one of their bags. (Reads proclamation). Will the scouts
please come forward to receive this. You are Troop 210, Pack
210o Great. Thank you very much. You wish to say something?
Okay, please.
Boy Scout/ Thank you for support of scouting. We will see you on
Saturday.
Leader/ Saturday we will be around to pick all the bags up. So if
you can, please fill them up. We appreciate-
Horow/ You want these on our doors, right?
Leader/ It goes on the front step or we can find them anywhere.
Horow/ Okay, we will do it. Thank you.
a. Pornography Awareness Week - October 29-November 5, 1995.
Horow/ (Reads proclamation). Is there someone here to accept this?
Okay. I appreciate this very much. Thank you. Do you wish to
say anything? Okay.
Matt
Bailey/ Thank you very much, Mayor. I am with the Church of
Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints here in Iowa City. On behalf of
our members and other members of our community who are opposed
to pornography, we feel that it really doesn't have a place in
society. We feel that it is degrading not only to woman but to
mankind as well. We appreciate your taking the time to
acknowledge this and just to let people know that it is in our
community and every now and then when you are opposed to
something you need to take a stand and you need to let people
know about it. We appreciate your participation.
Horow/ Thanks for coming forth.
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F102495
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 2
(8)
Permit
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
Housing and Community Development Commission meeting of
September 21, 1995.
Motions and Resolutions as Recommended by the City Clerk.
Consider a motion approving a Class "C" Liquor License for La
Casa, Ltd., dba La Casa, Ltd., 1200 S. Gilbert Ct. (Renewal)
Consider a motion approving a Class "C" Liquor License for
Yelder Enterprises, Inc., dba The Que, 211 Iowa Ave. (Renewal)
Consider a motion approving a Class "C" Beer Permit for Inland
Transport Co. dba Kirkwood 76 Mart, 300 Kirkwood Ave.
(Renewal)
Consider a motion approving a Class "B" Beer Permit for Rigel
Corp., dba Godfather's Pizza, 207 E. Washington St. (Renewal)
Consider a motion approving a Class "B" Beer Permit for Rigel
Corp., dba Godfather's Pizza, 531 Highway 1 W. (Renewal)
Consider a motion approving a Class "C" Beer Permit for Fareway
Stores, Inc., dba Fareway Stores, Ihc., 2530 Westwinds Dr.
(Renewal)
Consider a motion approving a Class "E" Beer Permit for High-
lander, Inc., dba ExpresStop, 2545 N. Dodge St. (Renewal)
Consider a motion approving a Class "E" Beer Permit for QuikTrip
Corp., dba QuikTrip//548, 955 Mormon Trek. {Renewal)
Consider a resolution issuing Dancing Permit to The Que, 211
Iowa Ave,
Motions.
(1)
Consider a motion to approve disbursements in the amount of
$12,424,182.84 for the period of September 1 through Septem-
ber 30, 1995, as recommended by the Finance Director subject
to audit. Disbursements are published and permanently retained
in the City Clerk's office in accordance with State Code.
(2)
Consider a motion to accept Abstract of Votes for the Iowa City
Primary Election held on October 10, 1995.
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 3
e, Resolutions.
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ACCEPTING THE WORK FOR THE
FY95 ASPHALT RESURFACING PROJECT,
Comment: This resolution accepts the work for the 1995
Asphalt Resurfacing Project, The final contract amount is
$578,875.12. The project included local City streets, portions of
the Cemetery and the Airport, and a street in Coralville.
Coralville's portion of the street resurfacing is $43,461.01.
(2)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ACCEPTING THE WORK FOR THE
ROHRET ROAD RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT, PHASE 2.
Comment: See Engineer's Report.
(31
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A SUBORDINATION
AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND UNIVER-
SITY OF IOWA COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION FOR PROPERTY
LOCATED AT 918 E. BLOOMINGTON STREET, IOWA CITY,
IOWA.
Comment: In November of 1985 the owner of the property
received rehabilitation assistance through the Rental Rehabilita-
tion Program in the form of a declining lien for an original amount
of t~5,000. University of Iowa Community Credit Union is about
to refinance the first mortgage to $68,800, The appraised value
is $86,000, which provides enough equity to cover the City's
second lien position, which was the City's original position,
(4)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE RELEASE OF A
LIEN REGARDING A PROMISSORY NOTE IN THE FORM OF A
SEVEN-YEAR DEPRECIATING LIEN EXECUTED FOR PROPERTY
LOCATED AT 712 IOWA AVENUE, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Comment: The owner of the property located at 712 Iowa
Avenue received assistance through the City's Housing Rehabili-
tation Program on November 5, 1986. The financing was a
Promissory Note in the form of a seven-year depreciating note for
the amount of $17,500. The terms of the promissory note were
satisfied on November 5, 1993; thus, the lien can now be
released.
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 4
F.5- .~'7 (7)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE RELEASE OF A
LIEN REGARDING A PROMISSORY NOTE IN THE FORM OF A
SEVEN-YEAR DEPRECIATING LIEN EXECUTED FOR PROPERTY
LOCATED AT 632 RENO STREET, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Comment: The owner of the property located at 632 Reno Street
received assistance through the City's Housing Rehabilitation
Program on September 15, 1986. The financing was a Promisso-
ry Note in the form of a seven-year depreciating note for the
amount of 92,500. The terms of the promissory note were
satisfied on September 12, 1993; thus~ the lien can now be
released.
(6)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE RELEASE OF A
LIEN REGARDING A PROMISSORY NOTE IN THE FORM OF A
SEVEN-YEAR DEPRECIATING LIEN EXECUTED FOR PROPERTY
LOCATED AT 820 HUDSON AVENUE, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Comment: The owner of the property located at 820 Hudson
Avenue received assistance through the City's Housing Rehabili-
tation Program on March 19, 1987. The financing was a
Promissory Note in the form of a seven-year depreciating note for
the amount of 917,500. The terms of the promissory note were
satisfied on March 19, 1994; thus, the lien can now be released.
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE RELEASE OF A
LIEN REGARDING A PROMISSORY NOTE AND A MORTGAGE IN
THE FORM OF A NO INTEREST LOAN EXECUTED FOR PROPER-
TY LOCATED AT 1908 F STREET, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Comment: The owner of the propertv located at 1 908 F Street
received assistance through the City's Housing Rehabilitation
Program on October 3, 1990. The financing was a Promissory
Note and a Mortgage in the form of a no-interest loan for the
amount of 93,800. The note was paid off on September 5,
1995; thus, the lien can now be released.
f. Correspondence.
Letter from Wanda Evans regarding amendment to Human Rights
Ordinance,
(2)
Letter from Don Swanson, Mayor of University Heights, regard-
ing the Melrose Project.
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 5
ITEBfi NO. 5-
(3)
Letter from the Free Medical Clinic expressing appreciation for
the Council's support.
(4)
Letter from nine residents of Ecumenical Towers regarding high
temperatures in apartments.
(5)
Memorandum from the Purchasing Division regarding notice of
the purchase of equipment, This is placed on the agenda in
accordance with State law,
(6) Letter from Greater Iowa City Area Apartment Association
regarding housing code enforcement activities, A memo from the
City Manager regarding this matter is attached,
g, Applications for City Plaza Use Permits,
(1)
Application from the Johnson County I-Club for the use of the
fountain area for a Pep Rally on October 19, 1995, (approved)
(2)
Application from Rebecca Thomas for permission to set up a
table on October 20 and 27, 1995, for the purpose of distribut-
ing literature regarding her church, (approved)
(31
Application from Domestic Violence intervention Program for the
use of the stage area on October 10, 1995, for the "Clothesline
Project." (approved)
h. Application for the Use of Streets and Public Grounds.
(1)
Application from Cecile Kuenzli for the use of a portion of
Seymour Street for the Longfellow Neighborhood Associ~
meeting and potluck on October 15, 1995, (approved)
END OF CONSENT CALENDAR
PUBLIC DISCUSSION {ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA}.
City of iowa City
MEMORANDUM
To:
Mayor, City Council and General Public
From: City Clerk
Date:
October 23, 1995
Re:
Additions/Corrections to the City Council Agenda
~e~ No.4~~f(7) Letter from Robert Burns regarding Rezoning Application No.
REZ95-0010 Saratoga Springs, Dubuque Rd.
Item No. 9b.
Consider a resolution authorizing conveyance of single family
dwellings at 3331 Dubuque St. and/or 3337 Dubuque St. to
successful bidders determined at the bid opening 10/24/95.
Comment: As provided by State Law, the City Council passed a
resolution of intent to convey two single family dwellings now
located on the Iowa City Water Supply and Treatment Facility,
street addresses of 3331 and 3337 Dubuque Street, Iowa City,
Johnson County, Iowa. A notice of publication was placed in the
Press-Citizen, and also an ad informing the public that sealed bids
will be taken and opened on Tuesday, October 24, 1995, at 9:00
a.m. The successful bidders and total offers for each house,
which will include removal of the house no later than May 1,
1996, will be presented at the formal City Council meeting
Tuesday night.
*~* (note Item No. 9 - public hearing on conveyance of two
homes located at 3331 & 3337 Dubuque St. changed to Item No.
9a.)
#5 page 1
ITEM NO. 5 - PUBLIC DISCUSSION (ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA)°
Horow/ Public Discussion. This is for items not on the agenda. At
this time we invite any member of the audience who wishes to
address council on an item that is not on the agenda. I ask
you to sign it, state your name, keep your comments to no more
than five minutes and some people have signature stamps.
Bruce Glasgow/ Right, rubber stamps. Okay, well. I do live in Iowa
City. I come before you tonight to talk about a restaurant
that we tried to put on Scott Court and ran into lots and lots
of trouble. My customer applied for a 4,000 foot restaurant
and 46 parking stalls on a neighborhood commercial located at
Scoot Court, which is at the corner of Scott Blvd. and Court
Street. Now he needs 4,000 square foot in order to operate.
The lot that he was on is 32,545 square feet. He is going to
use less than 2% of that lot for his building. He needs 1500
square foot more than our current ordinance allows. However,
there is a clause in there that says you can go to the Board
of Adjustment and they will look at it. Well, we went to the
Board of Adjustment and we were turned down. Nobody looked at
anything. He gave that Board of Adjustment 15 signed letters
and they turned them upside down and voted in two minutes.
That Board of Adjustment is a rubber stamp for the P/Z. Now
when you do a restaurant with 2500 square feet, you are
talking about some bathrooms, a kitchen, cold storage, regular
storage and a place to eat and it is not very darn big when
you have 4,000 square feet. The staff required him to have
only 2500 square foot and they dropped the other two on us and
said you could only have 11 parking stalls but we are going to
allow you 10% more. So we got 12. All right? What can you do
with 12 parking stalls in a restaurant? When they open up at
7:00 AM you have a cook, you have a dishwasher, you have a
couple of waitresses and you have the owner. Six of those 12
parking stalls are all taken care of. They are gone. Staff
said we should steal them from down the street. Well, they are
not going to do that. So let's open up a restaurant with six
parking stalls. Let's remember that two of them are
handicapped. So we only have four left. This is ridiculous.
The staff presented us with the concept that 4,000 square foot
would dwarf everything else out there. Across the street we
have a dance studio with 7,000 square feet. Down the street we
have a dentists and a chiropractor in 3600 square feet. So
that argument doesn't fly very well.
Horow/ Now Bruce, the zoning on this particular piece of land was
what?
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F102495
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Glasgow/ Neighborhood commercial.
Horow/ Neighborhood commercial and it was neighborhood commercial
for how long.
Glasgow/ 25 years ago it was highway commercial until Mary
Neuhauser came around and gave you a new ordinance.
Horow/ Okay but it is commercial neighborhood right now and they
knew that when you tried to sell them that property?
Glasgow/ They knew it.
Horow/ Okay.
Glasgow/ But there is a clause in there that says you can go to
somebody else and maybe common sense will come along some
place on the l~ne and we can do something. Besides the
restaurant I hope that this council will remove that little
clause that they put in sometime this spring that says for
every-you have to have one parking stall for every 235 square
feet and then this is the clause that should be removed and
you cannot have anymore parking than you are legally required
to have plus 10%. That is where we get down to the 12 parking
spots and I don't know how that thing ever got passed but I
would hope that you will get it out of the ordinance before
the national press picks it up and we are made a darn fool of
one more time. Thank you.
Horow/ Thank you. We have sent a letter to your perspective owners
about this and we certainly encourage them to find-
Throg/ Sue, I would like to make an observation, not directly in
response to Bruce because that would be an inappropriate but
several weeks ago we had a p.h. in here that involved many
dozens of people from Mormon Trek neighborhood who roundly
condemned us for caving into a developer because the developer
wanted us to do something and we had to judge that. We had to
make a very difficult decision about that particular point and
now Mr. Glasgow is basically telling us we should pay no
attention whatsoever to people who live in the neighborhood
around that CN-1 zone and then using all this other rather
strong language to suggest that we are not doing our job up
here. I personally think that is insulting.
Horow/ Okay, thank you very much.
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#5 page 3
Kubby/ I am interested since we wrote this letter basically saying
the zoning that you were wanting to go in was inappropriate
for this size of the business that you wanted. We want you to
stay in Iowa city. We like you on the east side. It seems
appropriate to have the family restaurant on the east side but
there are some other commercial zones on the east side. We
want to work with you to find an appropriate place for your
business to remain in Iowa City and expand. We sent the
letter. It would be nice if we could follow up with a phone
call to say maybe from our planning staff or from you I think
would have a lot of power.
Horow/ I am willing to do that. I think the people who talked with
me about this particular zone for those of you who are not
familiar with it, the CN-1 zone is commercial neighborhood
zone. It is not meant for a large facility that will draw from
around the whole city. It is specifically meant for that
particular neighborhood keeping in mind that those folks who
either have their house right now or will be buying, will know
for sure what would be placed there and we have written to the
owners of the restaurant who would like to relocate
encouraging them certainly to locate on the east side because
we agree with them that there is certainly the use for a
restaurant there. But certainly that this particular zone, the
neighborhood co~mmercial zone, is inappropriate and I am
certainly willing to follow up to call them if that is
council's desire. Okay. Is there anyone else that cares to
address council on any other issue that is not on the agenda
right now?
John
Murphy/ I don't have a stamp like Bruce. I am not here quite
as often. I talked to Ernie and Bruno last week and I was
going to come down and just thank the council for a few
things. But first we had a DTA meeting this morning and John
Gross's messenger on an issue I think you all have a copy of
the letter and I will just read it real quickly (reads John A.
Gross October 23, 1995 letter). We got a whole list of things
to our members as far as regarding this.
Kubby/ I think that is a darn good idea.
Baker/ Not only that, John, I thought the council had approved it
twice already.
Kubby/ No, actually a couple of weeks ago when we said-
Baker/ We clarified it a couple of weeks ago that we wanted to do
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#5 page 4
it.
Kubby/ But we talked about doing an experiment for one year of
putting it down to $.35 and that if that money wasn't made up
in increased bus ridership that it would go back to $.50 and
people were hesitant to do that because once you lower
something, it is very politically difficult to then raise it
back up to $.50. But I don't know. If the DTA is willing to
take that risk.
Murphy/ We are receptive to that. We understand. We are not really
trying to save our members money or the current users money.
We are trying to get 10-20 more stores involved in the program
and $.35 for them on the Park and Shop and they would like the
$.35. That is the objection we hear.
Pigott/ I would say let's do it.
Murphy/ Hopefully we can make up the difference. We are advertising
a lot. You see those little ads out for take the bus d.t. and
things like that. It is in our advertising budget.
Horow/ Okay. I would like to have staff given us some sort of a
response to this in terms of what it is going to cost, what it
would not-
Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ Do you wish to have it confirmed or anything?
Horow/ Okay.
Murphy/ Let's do it. I think you should vote on it right now.
Baker/ Don't be indecisive.
Nov/
John, I have one question on this. Do you think that the
merchant who signs up the $.35 would remain if it went up to
$.50 or do you think we would just fall right back to where we
started?
Murphy/ I think they would probably remain once they got on it but
it is hard to know for sure what they would do.
Kubb¥/ But we would only put it back to $.50 because it wasn't
being used and therefore the merchants wouldn't want to be put
(can't hear). It kind of goes together.
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#5 page 5
Nov/ Well, the merchants who are currently participating would
they-
Kubby/ Oh, the current participants. I didn't understand your
question, sorry.
Nov/ If you signed up and you said I am only going to do this if it
stays at $.35, you have got an out. But there are a lot of
people who are currently doing this for $.50 and if it goes to
$.35 and then back to $.50 they may not stay there and drop
o~t.
Lehman/ If they are willing right now to pay the higher fee, I
can't imagine they would drop out.
Nov/ From the voice of experience.
Baker/ And I think they would be the~ople most adamant to the
other merchants to get involved.
Pigott/ I agree.
Horow/ Okay, John, thanks very much.
Murphy/ One more thing. Two more quick things. I do want to thank
the City of Iowa City and the city councilors for their help
with the Friday Night Concert Series this year. Again, it is
a great event and I appreciate your support and I really think
that that plaza area is our little town square and we need to
take good care of it and I appreciate what you guys have done
this year for the Concert Series.
Throg/ It worked really well.
Pigott/ Great, John.
Murphy/ And the last thing I worked a lot with the different
permits for Sidewalk Days and the Concert Series and just
threw a pep rally together on the Plaza last Thursday night
and I want to thank Steve Atkins and Dale Helling and Joyce
Carroll and especially Lorraine Saeger. She really does a lot
with that and that is all.
Horow/ John, I would ask the DTA to
Sesquicentennial Planning Committee
We will be calling-
stay in touch with the
as we move towards 1996.
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F102495
#5 page 6
Murphy/ We are already having a couple of promotions for them.
Horow/ Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Anyone else care to
address council on an issue that is not on the agenda right
now? State your name, sign in, five minutes.
Eric
Neubauer/ I am hear to discuss the proposition to make
skateboarding illegal in the City of Iowa City and the parking
garages and parking lots of Iowa City. We are students at the
University, residents and tax payers of Iowa City and also
skateboarders. We are contributing members to this community.
We have jobs. We pay rent. We buy things and all this adds to
the economy of the city. This may not have been the image you
have of skateboarders. We are not vandals or ruthless
criminals. We are individuals that enjoy riding a skateboard.
It is a positive outlet for us. For some it is weight lifting.
Others fishing. Some repairing and rejuvenating old cars. Or
playing a team sport. For us it is skateboarding. I have here
a list of alternatives to the passing of making it illegal. 1-
We could build a park. There are some advantages to this. We
would always have a place to go. We would not be in anyone's
way. We would help with the planning, building, running and
maintenance of it, and work with you at all costs. But the one
disadvantage is money. It is expensive but funds probably can
be found. 2-Or you could designate a place for some
skateboards such as a parking ramp across the street where we
do skateboard already where the police tell us to go there if
we are stopped. And we have a good relationship with the
police here and we have no problems with them. We could post
signs in there saying skateboarding welcome, at your own risk.
That sign is to warn motorists of possibilities of us being in
there. 3-You could pass the law and then plan on doing
something in the future of one of the above plans or one that
you have come up with with our help or however else you may.
We are not demanding anything but we are trying to cooperate
and help come to a solution with you about this. If the lake
that people swim in in the city is made illegal to swim in
then you build a public pool. If you don't want bikers on the
grass in certain areas, you pass a law to make it illegal and
then you build bike trails. We are only asking that you keep
several places legal or build a place if you vote to make a
law against this. We see how our taxes are going into building
these places for other people and now we would like them to
see them be used for us as well. Thank you.
Horow/ Thank you, Eric, very much. Actually council has talked
about your third alternative and I think that is where we are
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F102495
#5 page 7
at right now.
Nell
Whitacre/ I am a University of Iowa student and a skateboarder
and I am addressing the same issue that Eric just spoke on. I
would like to let you know that it is a viable form of
transportation for me to get d.t. to my jobs that are in the
area and also get to class and if you are going to propose a
ban like this just to set it straight with me, I would like to
hear some specific instances where skating has been a problem
or, you know, things that have occurred, losses, damages, what
exactly the reason is for this ban other than you don't see
this as a form of vital transportation or past time. Thank
you.
Horow/ Thank you.
Throg/ Thanks, Nell.
Horow/ Anyone else care to address council on any issue that is not
currently on the agenda?
Woito/ You might note that the issues that the young gentlemen just
raised about the skateboards is on the agenda and we will be
talking about it later under your amendment to the Toy
Vehicles Ordinance.
Kubby/ Right, it is the second to the last item on the agenda so it
would be much later.
Horow/ Okay. No further input under public discussion? We will move
onto #6-
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F102495
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 6
ITEM NO. 6-
PLANNING AND ZONING MATTERS.
Public hearing on an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by adopting
a Sensitive Areas Ordinance to regulate development on properties
containing environmentally sensitive features, including wetlands, stream
corridors, steep slopes, wooded areas, hydric soils, prairie remnants and
archaeological sites.
Comment: At its September 21 meeting, the Planning and Zoning
Commission recommended approval of the Sensitive Areas Ordinance by
a vote of 6-0. The Riverfront and Natural Areas Commission, by a vote
of 9-0, also recommended approval of the Sensitive Areas Ordinance at
its September 20 meeting. The ordinance, as recommended for adoption
by both Commissions, is consistent in form and content to the draft
ordinance proposed by the Sensitive Areas Committee.
Consider an ordinance amending the Zomng Chapter by conditionally ~ _
changing the use regulations on an approximate 2.02 acre tract of land ~
located east of Lakeside Drive and south of Highway 6 from ID-RS,
Interim Development Single-Family Residential, to RM~ 12, Low Density,
Multi-Family Residential. (REZ95-001 2) (Second Consideration) .~, .
At its October 5 meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission, b~] a
vote of 6-0, recommended approval of the requested rezoning subject
to the conditions outlined in the CZA. The Commission's recommenda-
tion is consistent with the staff recommendation contained in the
September 29 staff memorandum. Comments were received at the
Council's September 12 and 26 public hearings on this item.
Action:
#6a page
ITEM NO. 6a.
Public hearing on an ordinance amending the Zoning
Chapter by adopting a Sensitive Areas Ordinance to
regulate development on properties containing
environmentally sensitive features, including
wetlands, stream corridors, steep slopes, wooded
areas, hydric soils, prairie remnants and
archaeological sites.
Horow/ Declare the p.h. open. I would ask you to sign in, state
your name and keep your comments to five minutes. If you go
beyond this I will ask you to take your seat and then after
everyone has been heard, if you have another issue, you may
certainly come back up and re-address. If you have written
something we have accepted your written material. I would ask
that you do not re-read the letter that you have sent into us.
You may certainly summarize it but please don't re-read it to
us. I declare the p.h. open.
Tom Scott/ Good evening. I appear before you tonight as both a
member of the Sensitive Areas Committee as well as the member
and Chair of the Iowa City P/Z Commission. I would like to
start out by saying that far and away most of the developers
within our particular community are conscientious and
sensitive to the environmental constraints and or unique
characteristics of sensitive areas. Some areas of the city
contain significant amount of sensitive areas, the Sycamore
Farms development area being one. The cost in time frame for
that particular project exceeded two plus years. Under normal
circumstances I do not feel that a developer, the Commission
or city staff would have the kind of time to spend each time
a sensitive area comes before us. Every item or items
concerning the Sycamore Farms development had to be negotiated
as they came up. I can tell you that there were times when the
Commission fought with staff, staff fought with the developer
and the Commission fought with the developer and vice versa.
This ordinance before you tonight builds upon that experience
from Sycamore Farms, especially in the area of wetlands and
provides all of the parties with specific guidelines if and
when development is to occur. This aspect of additional
regulation appears to be one reasonable criteria for the
implementation of this ordinance. I feel that this ordinance
is a reasonable one and is not overly bureaucratic and if
implemented in the same spirit of its authors, i.e. namely the
Sensitive Areas Committee, this will be a workable ordinance.
The ordinance addresses wetlands, stream corridors, steep
slopes and woodlands as the major aspects. I have to tell you
that I am comfortable with the results of each one of those.
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F102495
#6a page 2
Although the area of steep slopes and woodlands may find
difficulty in the implementation stage and may need additional
refinement I do want to emphasize that the Committee did not
ignore the aspect of the importance of these areas. We did
attempt to answer many of the development issues. However,
most of the particulars of a development will not come to the
forefront until you actually have a developmental proposal
before you. You will hear tonight, I am sure, that this
particular ordinance will make the cost of housing more
expensive in Iowa City. That the council has a commitment to
affordable housing and this ordinance and like ordinances will
make it impossible. It is my belief in all likelihood that
affordable housing will not be constructed in environmentally
sensitive areas, especially in the areas of steep slopes and
woodlands. In my 14 years on the Commission I can only recall
reading one article from a national publication that was put
out by the National Homebuilders Association regarding
development of low or moderate income housing on sensitive
areas. Last evening you talked about staffing and were
presented with a memo from Public Works and from HIS on
additional staffing. I have to tell you that I agree with
council member Kubby and her comments that by her vote, in
favor if she does for this ordinance, that she is not also
voting for the additional staffing. That has been one point of
disagreement between myself and staff whenever that issue came
up. I think before staffing should be used as an argument
against this ordinance we should look at differing work
assignments within the various departments of the city. The
review time for a site with environmentally sensitive area
will be longer. But if the requirements are set out in print
ahead of time, I cannot see us being bogged down in the same
time frame with another Sycamore Farm incidence occurring.
Much of the additional work, yes, will be passed on to the
developer or developers under this ordinance. I must tell you
that by and large I have been surprised by the lack of
objections as we went through the process and if I remember
correctly we started in December of 1994 and I stand before
you very close to November 1 of 1995. A draft copy of the
ordinance was sent to 38 individuals or groups during our
public debate process and yet the objections that we received
at that time as well as the final draft copy from such groups
as the Iowa City Homebuilders Association, the Environmental
Advocates and the neighborhood associations were minimal. The
Committee was charged by you the council with writing an
ordinance that would protect or control development in
environmentally sensitive areas. I personally feel that the
Committee completed its task and completed it admirably.
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F102495
#6a page 3
personally will recall with a sense of pride my participation
in this particular Sensitive Areas Committee. They worked in
a spirit of cooperation and know one group or person thought
that they always had the right answer. I would likewise at
this time like to publicly thank the Committee members: Bill
Frantz and Johnny Moreland Jr. from the development and
homebuilders industry; Beth Hudspeth and Dick Hoppin from the
Riverfront and Natural Areas Committee; George Starr from the
P/Z Commission; Jessica Neary from representing the public and
Richard Sandy Rhodes who we asked to serve because of his
environmental experience. Likewise I would be remiss if I did
not thank city staff for its efforts, work and support without
whom the Committee would not have been able to accomplish its
task. But in closing I would say that if you have objections
to the ordinance and you don't like it or if you feel it is
important, necessary and you do like it, don't blame city
staff, blame the Committee who will either take the credit of
the blame. Thank you.
Pigott/ Thank you, To.
Nov/ The Committee did a good job.
Horow/ I appreciate it. Anyone else care to address council on the
p.h. on the Sensitive Areas Ordinance? By the way, there is
room in here for those people who were out in the lobby. There
are about 5-6 more spots. Please do come in.
Richard Rhodes II/ I live at 2014 Rochester Avenue here in Iowa
City. As you all know I also was a member of the Committee
that helped develop this ordinance. As Tom said, it was a
process of compromise and a balancing of competing interests.
When environmentally sensitive areas are inappropriately
developed, short term profits are made by private parties at
the expense of long term cost to society and the public.
During the 1993 flood we had a graphic example of the cost of
developing in one of the sensitive areas, areas too close to
streams and rivers. The city, county, state, federal
governments, private relief agencies and insurance companies
through their premiums from policy holders all spent untold
millions of dollars to only partly compensate property owners
for developmental mistakes. This ordinance attempts to
discourage such development in the most vulnerable parts, the
sensitive areas, within Iowa City's corporate limits. Even
though I personally believe that some parts of this
compromised document inadequately protects certain aspects of
the environment, I none the less also believe that it is on a
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F102495
#6a page 4
whole a giant stride forward in developing a strategy for
environmentally rational development in Iowa City. I thus both
personally and as a member of the Committee strongly urge you
to vote in favor of this adoption. Finally, Mr. Bruce Glasgow
pointed out in P/Z hearing, that the city itself and the
University of Iowa are two of the largest land owners within
the corporate limits. Although I realize that neither can be
bound by this ordinance I sincerely hope that both entities
will adopt this ordinance as a statement of principal for
their own development activities. Thank you very much and if
you have got any questions on anything I would be happy to
answer them.
Pigott/ Thanks, Sandy.
Horow/ Does anyone else care to address council?
William Knabe/ I live at 1101 Weeber Circle and I was not a member
of the Committee. I am speaking tonight as a representative of
the Weeber Harlocke Neighborhood Association in support of the
adoption of the proposed Environmental Sensitive Ordinance. I
will keep my remarks brief since this ordinance has already
been considerable attention in other public forums. My primary
reason for speaking tonight is to make certain you are aware
of the overwhelming community support that exists for the
passage of this ordinance. I assure you many of us who have
attended meetings when this ordinance has been discussed
during the past 3-4 months can bear witness to the fact that
every effort has been made by those responsible for the
drawing up of the ordinance to appease all parties and yet
present to you a very workable document. During recent weeks
there has been considerable political posturing in the media
and various other forms about council micromanagement. I do
not wish to express agreement or disagreement with such a
viewpoint but rather I do want to urge you to accept the
considerable work that has already been put fourth by staff
and by various commissions and quickly approve this ordinance
without change. There are some in our community who continue
to oppose the passage of this ordinance. As an observer the
past 2-3 months I have heard them engage in what might one
call building trade rhetoric. While they may tell you in the
words of Home Improvement's Tim Allen, real men don't need
instructions, or in our case regulations, I urge you to
recognize this is not true. Past history that the regulations
and this ordinance are necessary if we are to preserve our
environmental heritage. Therefore I urge you to adopt this
ordinance without change. By taking immediate action this
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F102495
#6a page 5
council can provide all members of the community, even those
of us who have been skeptical in the past, with positive proof
that the council 1-recognizes the importance of the work that
has been done and 2-is willing to assume the major role in
maintaining Iowa City as an attractive and wonderful place in
which to live and work and play. I thank you for giving me
this opportunity to speak.
Pigott/ Thank you.
Larry Wilson/ I am a member of the Riverfront and Natural Areas
Commission. You have a letter from us supporting this
ordinance. In that letter it states that we questioned the
minimum size of prairie remnants. I just want you to know that
at our last meeting we had input from staff, additional
information, and that we as a commission are comfortable with
the ordinance as it is written. So I not only want to strongly
urge you to pass this ordinance, I want to support the
comments of Tom Scott with one minor exception and that is two
members of the Riverfront and Natural Areas Commission served
on the Committee and that was Jessica Neary and we have Dick
Hoppin who is not here tonight and they weren't listed as
being on the Committee but they were and they worked hard.
With that I want to strongly urge you to pass this ordinance.
Thank you.
Horow/ Thanks, Larry.
Pigott/ Thank you, Larry.
John
Moreland/ I was asked by Tom Scott and some other people to
serve on the Committee from a development standpoint and
obviously I agree with the ordinance or I wouldn't be standing
here right now but I think there is some things that Tom and
I maybe don't agree on and you know, first of all the-it is a
shame to have to pass an ordinance like this because you have
very few people that come in and break the rules and do things
they really shouldn't do. Most people that are planning on
building in the community and develop in the community want to
do some things so that people respect them and want to keep
them around. but there are a few people I understand that
don't respect the environment and so you have to pass laws
like this. So I guess from that standpoint I can see why this
was passed. But unlike what some people may think in this
community that Planning staff, the Building staff, the
Engineering staff, they are overburdened with work. I deal
with them every day of the week and I have been dealing with
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F102495
#6a page 6
them for the last 15 years. They are all swamped with what
they have to do. They work extra hours, come to meetings at
night, and I think to make this ordinance effective I think it
requires a certain amount, I don't know exactly the right work
to say but you have to follow up on it. Several parts of the
ordinance developers have to have an engineer draw up a plan,
certify an area whether it is a wetland or whatever. But I
mean somebody can bring in a plan on a piece of paper, submit
it, have it approved and I mean, for the most part most people
have followed that plan. But if there isn't inspectors, if
there isn't people around I mean you can move a mountain of
dirt in a day's time and you can change the landscape
completely and if nobody has been around for a week nobody is
going to know the difference. So you kind of fail in what you
originally intended to do and so I think if anybody thinks,
especially Tom and I am not going to get too hard on him, that
you can redirect staff to fill this in in their spare time, I
think they are wrong. So, I mean, when you pass this ordinance
which I think you know, Karen, everybody has been looking for
this for a long time now and I mean from the standpoint of
developers knowing what they can do and what they can't do I
think it is good because that is better than just taking a
stab at P/Z every time you get an idea. At least you got a
little bit of a parameter to follow before you even get in
there. But I think that you have got to make a commitment to
spend some money whether it is in the Engineering Department
or the Building Department because I tell you people you got
now really work very hard and they can barely keep up with the
work they have to do now. So, I mean, you know I don't think
it is fair to say we are going to come and do this. It is not
going to raise taxes, it is not going to raise the budget or
anything like that because to make it effective, you really
need to spend the money to hire the people to make sure it is
effective.
Horow/ Thanks.
Kubby/ Last night we talked about the possibility of maybe not one
new engineer and one new inspection person but the idea of
thinking about our departments differently so that there
weren't this strict lines and maybe having one new staff
person that had various kinds of duties in the inspection
realm as well as engineering realm. What would you think of
something like that?
Moreland/ I think it needs to be-
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F102495
#6a page 7
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-124 SIDE 2
Moreland/ -engineering line and I mean it would be helpful to have
somebody that has got a lot of experience in these areas and
I think it has got to be somebody that can come out. The idea
for developers would be so that you got somebody that you
could work with that could come out and within a relatively
short period of time you can make some decisions and go on
from there. What you don't want to have happen is either
somebody will go out and just wipe out an area because there
was nobody around to ask questions to or you know, just have
to stop the job completely because you can't get somebody to
talk to for a week, especially if you get in the fall of the
year when you are worried about winter and everything like
that. So I guess the point I am trying to make is that to
adopt this you need to spend some money to do it right and I
think the community needs to know that.
Horow/ Thank you. Ernie-
Lehman/ There are two things that I was very impressed with. The
first one as a developer, you said in the paper sometime ago,
this was something you could live with and that is something
I need to hear. Tonight you said, and I believe this is true,
that most responsible builders probably don't need this
regulation. Did you say this was going to bs a major/minor
effect whatever effect on the building industry in Iowa City?
Moreland/ A lot of people would like to say that and I mean I'm
not going to lie to you. I don't think that it's a major
additional cost. Development is pretty costly in this town
just because of the prices, the things, and the price of land
and everything like that. The only thing that we're running
into much more than we have know is that we have a lot more
requirements as far as wetlands and things like that with
hiring engineers. I think that one of the things that we got
into a problem is when we had the new grading ordinance and
there wasn't some local engineers that could do the work for
you because it was a specialized area, so we had to go other
places. They knew that we needed them so they could charge
whatever they wanted. I think with the wetlands ordinance it's
the same thing. What I try to do, being on the Commission, was
to try to structure it in a way that we could find local
people, local engineers to do it because there's nothing worse
being a builder/developer and have to go to somebody who knows
that you need them at whatever price it's going to take to do
it and that's what raises the prices up. So I think we did a
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F102495
#6a page 8
pretty good job of trying to write it that way Ernie, so that
we could find people around here. The big problem is with the
wetlands because see it used to be you could go to the Army
Corps of Engineers. They told you what you needed to do and
what you could do. Now basically they want to stay completely
out of it. They have their maps and everything else which we
said you need to follow on this, but now as a developer you
have to go out and hire private engineers to do your
inspections. Just to give you an idea, at Windsor Ridge that
I'm involved with, we just hired Terracon who was out of Cedar
Rapids to do a wetlands study for us out there. And they were
pretty reasonable but because they're local and they're going
to be around here and not try to take all your money and run.
So I don't think, I mean it's going to be a little more cost
for that. I'm not sure if you spread that out over 200 acres
if it's going to add that much per lot that it's going to
change it. I think it's just the overall environment around
with what the city wants for the width of streets, everything
involved is what's adds up to it. And then of course the price
of land, a lot of people think there's oil around here.
Horow/ Thank you. Anyone else care to address council?
Carol Thompson/ As private citizen and also as a member of the
Technical Advisory Committee for the planning and zoning, I
had and opportunity to review this several times, and I urge
your adoption of it. The one thing that John's pointed out
that I somewhat disagreed with is that he was suggesting that
perhaps we had tried to pass this in response to the excesses
that have occurred in the past. In some extent, yes, that's
true but I think that Tom Scott hit the nail on the head
better when he suggested that we were trying to do is lay out
the ground rules so that everyone knows up front what they
are. When Sycamore Farms came along, that was the first
wetland we dealt with in Iowa City. And it was all new and so
bang, we had to learn it all. It took two years and we can't
do that for every development or nothing will get built in
this town. The purpose of this ordinance is not to stop
development in Iowa City. Society as a whole and I think
certainly the community in Iowa City has shown that they
support the protection of our natural resources. I think this
document is a workable compromise to reach that goal. We can
have development. We can protect our natural resources well.
So I would definitely urge your adoption and thank you.
Pigott/ Thank you, Carol.
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F102495
#6a page 9
Horow/ Anyone else care to address council?
Throg/ What did you do to your hand, Larry?
Larry Schnittjer/ I need Bruce's rubber stamp here.
Kubby/ Just make an X, Larry. We'll know who it is.
Schnittjer/ I'll just write an LRS on there. I can kind of do that.
I'm from MMS and we do a lot of land planning and site
engineering analyses. Being against the Sensitive Areas
Ordinance is like being against motherhood and apple pie in
Iowa City. I'm not going to say I'm against it here. Some
things I have some concerns about that I'd like to possible
have addressed. One of the things that really I would like to
see is I'd like to see before this is enacted a model plan
done for one of these sensitive areas to show what the impacts
of the ordinance are and how (can't hear). The ordinance
itself has a lot of Thou Shalt Not's. It doesn't really tell
us an awful lot about what we can do. And the ordinance is
hard to follow. I've read it, not cover to cover several
times, but I've read a good share of it many times and there
are parts of it I've read cover to cover, and I still have a
a hard time understanding what all it is you're attempting to
do in this ordinance. It's a good tool to draft an ordinance
with, I don't think it's a good ordinance. That is my opinion
of what we have here. It's a good tool. It's a background but
it's not the ordinance. I've had that same expression given to
me by respectable environmental leader. I won't put his name
out in front of you right now, but that's not just my opinion.
Kubby/ So do you think there are ways that things can be rewritten
so that the intent and the implementation would be the same,
but it would become a better ordinance?
Schnittjer/ A 10t of us, most of us out in the real world if we can
call it that, don't have time to sit down and try to figure
out a way to (can't hear). Tom said that this draft ordinance
was sent out to 38 groups or individuals or whatever. And I
got a copy of it at that point in time. But it was hard to
understand and I didn't have time to sit down and analyze it
and try to see what it could be or should be or what it really
was. That is my concern about this. We looked last night at
the work session, we looked at one example of the problem. We
had five or six slides and it was all the same project. We all
know what the project was. That was the only project that has
(can't hear) environmental concerns to most of Iowa City.
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F102495
#6a page l0
There are minor issues here and there but if we look today's
ordinances that we have, we~ve got the grading and erosion
control ordinance. That in my estimation would've precluded
that from occurring or at least the problems that it has.
We've got tree ordinances. We've got open space ordinances.
We've got foot lane ordinances. They're all basically part of
this. We've got national regulations on wetlands. It's part of
this. That's my concern.
Horow/ In other words, you don't necessarily see this evolving into
a more workable ordinance?
Schnittjer/ I think it could evolve into a more workable and back
to one of Mr. Scott's earlier comments, I would like, if we
were to adopt this as an ordinance, I would sincerely hope
that we, the council, the Commission, staff, are amenable to
rather rapid modifications to this thing if it doesn't
illustrate the answer and there are problems with it. The
example of a site that's undeveloped that most of us think is
a very nice looking site, the Press Citizen, I'm not sure we
could build that under this ordinance. I'm not if sure the
city adopts this ordinance as the policy of the way they
operate, that we'll be able to build the extension of 965 or
the extension of Scott Boulevard or what other ramifications
it will have for trunk sewers and things that you've approved
or set a p.h. for. If it goes through wetlands, it goes
through sensitive areas. There are very few alternative routes
that 965 can go. All three of them as far as that goes. So if
we are to bind the city and the university to this ordinance,
we need to be careful how you build on it. Granted in the eyes
of the public, the city needs to be the example but I'm not
certain the way that this ordinance is written, that you want
that example. There are certain facilities this city needs to
have just to take care of and keep on going places.
Lehman/ Larry, I'm a little like you. The ordinance is a little
confusing to me, part of it. The thing I found probably most
outstanding last night, I'm going to make a confession to you,
was what seems to be and it's flexibility. That there are
trade-off's and if you can't comply, you can trade this off or
that off or whatever, so that culturally we don't make any
piece of property unusable or economically impossible to
develop. Do you read that into it?
Schnittjer/ I see it in there, but I have a hard time visualizing
how it's going to be. That's the reason that I think it's
going to be necessary that the city commission or design a
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F102495
#6a page 11
project in one of these sensitive areas. Take the north area
where this ordinance, between Dubuque Street and Prairie Du
Chien which is the primary focus of this ordinance, although
there are a lot of other areas that will be brought into
consideration as soon as it comes into the plan, areas that
(can't hear). Take that area and try to develop a marketable
plan, something that's realistic, not just a pipe dream but
something that the public will buy or the developer can sell
it to a buyer.
Kubby/ Some of it is just a new way of doing business, both as a
consumer and as a producer.
Schnittjer/ The consumers in this community are not quite ready for
all the zero lot lines. That's one of the things a little bit
more marketable then it has been but the consumer is not ready
for the postage stamp parcel of land that he owns. A lot of
them out there still want to own a third acre lot. (can't
hear). We have to look at what the consumer wants in this
community. Maybe the consumer can't have a piece of ground out
there in the north area. It's a beautiful area and it can be
developed under today's standards doing some clearing and
grading. You will have some of this nice (can't hear). I am
not saying we can't-(can't hear) fill the valleys, cut off all
the hills. There is a certain amount of restructuring that
needs to be done on any piece of land to make it habitable for
people.
Kubby/ And that is just another part of the tradeoff that if a
person wants a larger lot they may not end up in an area in
town that has a sensitive area. That may be-
Schnittjer/ The thing-the problem I have with that, Karen, is we
got that-we designated that area as a relatively high density
zone area. It is RS-12o When the developer gets done with this
thing, my personal estimation at this point in time, he will
be lucky if he gets 3-4 dwelling units per acre. (Can't hear).
There will be so much in that area that is set aside because
he can't raise enough of it to get a level spot to build on or
whatever to build an adequate road system to get to the areas
that can be divided up and sold in lots.
Throg/ I want to make sure I am understanding you. I think you are
making that statement in the context of what you described as
marketable and realistic development for the Iowa City market
as you- So, I understand what you are saying. There is
basically s.f. homes on fairly large lots knowing that a lot
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F102495
#6a page 12
of land would have to be set aside for sensitive natural
areas. Right? Maybe you are right and we will have to find out
I think. I am much more optimistic about it than you are but
still-
Schnittjer/ You are in the academia thing and you have a lot more
background and a lot more access to other parts of the world
where that is currently acceptable what have you and Iowa City
is not that acceptable yet.
Throg/ The only point I wanted to make is to agree with you that
there is a learning process involved for all of us and then
secondly, to agree with Ernie that there is a great deal of
flexibility built into the ordinance with regard to
development standards to try to make it possible to develop in
a manner that is good for both the developer and the consumer
and the ancillaries.
Schnittjer/ I found it curious last night one of the illustrations
they had was a California developer had narrow streets and
sidewalks next to the curb and porches real close to that
sidewalk. When we proposed similar design considerations in
Iowa City we have been almost turned down if not turned down
depending on where it was and what it was. The most recent one
the Commission or the council has approved has been a
development similar to that but for the most part the public
isn't ready for that kind of situation. They still like their
front yards and their backyards and I know (can't hear) last
night. When you put an alley and a street both in the same
subdivision you are adding portland cement pavement to that
subdivision increasing runoff.
Baker/ But that is only one possible option. Can I ask Larry a
couple of questions? I want to make sure I understand you
clearly, Larry. I don't see any disagreeing with the goal or
the intent.
SchnittJer/ I guess my-If there is a disagreement it is in the fact
whether or not it is really that necessary.
Baker/ Okay. That was my second question which is it is your
impression that under the current ordinances that we have and
you listed a few that most if not all of the goals could be
met presently? And also you talked about how you really have
not had time to re-evaluate this though you have concerns
about it. I mean are you suggesting that if we took longer on
this ordinance it would be better with more revision?
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F 102495
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Schnittjer/ I don't know that-
Baker/ From the people that you deal with and who have the concerns
that you do?
Schnittjer/ I don't know that a lot more time spent on this
document is going to make it a better ordinance. I think that
if this is used as a guideline for a real ordinance then you
got a better situation.
Horow/ So, in other words, it will evolve.
SchnittJer/ I am not opposed to an evolution of a workable-working
document. I don't quite see this as a working document.
Baker/ But I think we all assume that we know that there are a lot
of things that we have not anticipated here that when the
development comes in front of this that we will have to
adjust. So, this is not concrete.
Schnittjer/ I have pressure on both sides. One who bring in a
project and think we have the bases covered and legally
satisfied and we run into roadblock one and we hit another
(can't hear). And I have somebody (can't hear) and I can't get
this thing through.
Pigott/ Sure, I can understand how frustrating that must be.
Schnittjer/ So if we had guidelines in black and white which I
don't see here of what we are anticipating or what we want to
see out of this thing-
Council/ (All talking).
Schnittjer/ -show the developer what it is I am trying to plan
there.
Baker/ It is also the nature of regulations to diminish potential
of the development, any regulation. And one of the assumptions
that not just us but most government bodies makes is that the
creativity and the what you can do will come from developers
who understand the parame%'ers and then use their minds and
talent to find out what they can do to satisfy market demand
out there and still satisfy public concerns.
Horow/ Let me make a suggestion. Larry, I wonder whether you would
be able to, you and anyone else, be able to work with our
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F102495
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staff as we put out these models, these guidelines, that you
are talking about and used as a guinea pig almost. We talked
last night about putting the-having the brochure that we have
got, the Sensitive Areas Ordinance, also put some examples. If
you are talking about the model plan, show me that that is
something that we really have to work on with staff.
Kubby/ Or a checklist so that is was easy for the development
community. It was easier for P/Z as well as their staff for
the administrative review.
Schnittjer/ I wish I had time to do that.
Horow/ Well at least run it by you and the best we can do is that
and then keep amending as we go along.
Lehman/ Larry, to me, if this were all black and white, there is
absolutely no way in the world I can support that. It's
totally unproven. We don't know how it's going to work. The
thing that impresses me is, I don't remember staff on very
many occasions indicating much flexibility when it comes to
ordinances. We pass. That's the law and that's the way we're
going to do it. The emphasis seems to be on flexibility, on
trying to make this work for a particular parcel. If we find
it doesn't work, we'll have to do some changes. But I think
the real intent is to be as flexible as we really can and
still insure that the plan will work. So the fact that it
isn't in black and white I think is the part that impresses me
the most.
Schnittjer/ With that in mind, I would like to make a suggestion.
That we put paragraph of that nature as the lead in paragraph
for this ordinance.
Lehman/ I have no problem with that. I think that's what we were
saying last night.
Schnittjer/ Everybody understands this is not cast in stone. We
have some alternatives and maybe some room for some
imagination°
Throg/ I guess I'd have some difficulty with that because then it
wouldn't have any legal enforceability at all, at least as I
understand ordinances. And when you read through the
ordinance.
Schnittjer/ There's so much said, we've got this flexibility, but
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F102495
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then when we ask for some verification of that, we don't have
any.
Throg/ But the language of the ordinance is flexible. It allows you
can't due to certain circumstances, for instance there's a
section here that talks about wetland mitigation and says,
compensatory mitigation may be permitted if it is clearly
demonstrated that avoiding and minimizing impact on a wetland
is unreasonable. That seems to say that there would be
flexibility. There another section that talks about buffer
reductions since we, that also talks giving some flexibility
too. So I see some flexibility written, literally written into
the language throughout the document.
Schnittjer/ I've been on this end of the world quite a while and
when you read something that's unreasonable, who do you turn
to?
Horow/ Well in that case be staff.
Schnittjer/ Yeah. Staff looks at the ordinance, that's not
unreasonable.
Nov/ I think we have to have some one look at the particular
property, not just looking at the ordinance.
Throg/ Thank you, Larry.
Horow/ Anyone else care to address council on this issue?
Richard Hollis/ 3351 Lower West Branch Road. I've been a resident
and taxpayer of Iowa City for something in the neighborhood of
20 years. For a great deal of my life I probably have sounded
like an environmental radical. I don't like the idea of
mitigation for wetlands for example. Over the years I've come
to realize that proposals like this with broad based support
was developed and came about using people from both extremes,
developers and people with environmental interests, are the
kind of things that are apt to last and not going to be
changed as political winds blow and councils change. We've
been asked it would be nice if there were some kind of a model
in this ordinance to show people what they can do. I think we
might be able to look on the final plans of the Sycamore Farms
project as the kind of model development that would've
occurred, albeit much quicker had this ordinance been in place
then, but of course the Sycamore Farms thing only fits that
particular property, wouldn't be very useful for somebody else
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F102495
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planning on a different piece of property. I think this kind
of ordinance is the best way to preserve the kinds of things
we would've preserved around town so that they're there for
the next generation and I think it's something that developers
can live with. Thank you.
Horow/ Thank you. Anyone else care to address council?
Scott/ I thought I'd make a couple of comments concerning some of
the things that have been said and one that I left out also
that I would like to include. The last section deals with
proposed design guidelines and you all had some comments last
evening concerning that. I have said a number of times and I
think it's a given, it's a truism, that when you install the
public infrastructure, you do more damage to the
environmentally sensitive areas. You can do more damage to the
environmentally sensitive areas than you can actually do in
the development proposal. The public infrastructure would
include the city streets, the sanitary and storm sewers, curb
and gutter and in addition to private utilities that are put
in, the IIGE lines, the cable t.v., telephone lines, etc. And
we have to if in fact we are going to allow development in
environmentally sensitive areas we have to likewise take on a
new thought process to when it comes to installing the public
infrastructure. We need to allow alternative designs when
installing those public infrastructure. We need to allow
narrower streets. Probably in all likelihood the utilities are
going to need to be put in the street. There has to be less
r.o.w. granted on each side of the streets to put in the
private utilities because if in fact you go through and rip up
the environmentally sensitive areas to put that public
infrastructure in, when it comes time to force the developer,
the private developer then to cluster their particular
structures, you have defeated or destroyed the intent of the
ordinance. I would like to say that in my estimation the
wetlands section and I said this without a pun intended the
first time but I will say it, I guess, with a pun intended
tonight and that is that in the wetlands section we have a dry
run when we went through Sycamore Farms and I would say that
by and large there is nothing in this ordinance that Sycamore
Farms likewise is not required to do in their developmental
proposal. You either have to do a sensitive areas overlay
rezoning and those times that that is required is listed in
the ordinance or you do a sensitive areas site plan and
likewise those areas are listed when it is required. There are
exemptions dealing with s.f. homes and duplexes and yes you
can mitigate in the areas of wetlands and stream corridors but
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F102495
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the requirement or the responsibility to prove that the
mitigation does not negatively impact either wetlands or
stream corridors is up to the individual who in fact wants to
make those changes. Lastly, I would only say that if in fact
modeling is done, my fear is that the modeling will be
thrusted upon the private sector as opposed to the public
sector and modeling is a very expensive process because I have
to deal with it in the federal government on some issues.
Lastly, there is one issue that I have failed to mention if I
didn't have the podium and failed to mention I would probably
kick myself. Larry talked about the requirement or the needs
to change some things if they don't work and I will tell you
that there has been a call on the part of the chair of P/Z
Co~u~ission with little heeding to this particular juncture
that in the Grading and Excavation Ordinance we need a
procedure that allows field work order changes to occur
without shutting down the entire project. Presently the only
way that the city has to force compliance is to shut the
entire project down and there have been some of us and Larry
has been one that has argued that we need field work order
changes that deal just specifically with that idea that is in
violation or that is out of compliance and that jumps to the
aspect of the areas of wetlands and steep slopes and I would
be the first to admit that we may re-visit that area once we
see a development proposal or a number of development
proposals. But I will also tell you that the Committee tried
their darnedest to attempt to answer those potential questions
prior to the recommendation to both Commissions.
Horow/ Thank you, Tom. Unless chair sees anyone else, we are going
to- Got another? Okay.
Jim Walters/ I will try to be brief. While I am not a resident of
Iowa City, I live in Johnson County. My wife and I both work
in Iowa City and my son attends West High School. I also am an
officer in the Johnson County Songbird Project which is an
organization that is intimately concerned with these types of
issues that we are talking about here and the bulk of our
membership are residents of Iowa City. A majority of our
membership lives in Iowa City. I guess what I would encourage
you to do in regards to this ordinance is to ask yourself if
you think that when the ordinance is in place it will do
anything for you on the ground that is not happening now. My
own experience as a life long resident in Johnson County in
watching development and what has happened to the county in my
lifetime if virtually everything is negotiable. There is
nothing in the county that is not negotiable and even to the
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F102495
#6a
page 18
extent if you put land in public ownership it essentially from
an environmental standpoint is still negotiable because you
still have various demands for use as other plan whether it is
a county park or Corp of Engineers or if it is city property.
So, I think if you read out of the ordinance is that in some
way it is going to give you a tool that is going to change
what is happening then you should support it if you agree with
that goal. If you look ten years down the road and you don't
think it is going to do that then I would say you can continue
in the course we are going right now and things won't be much
different if we have the ordinance or not. I would suggest,
one thing that I really would like you to do in regard to the
ordinance is change its name and the reason that I would like
to do that is that because I think to set up a distinction
between sensitive areas and what is non-sensitive area. My
personal belief is that we live on a very sensitive planet and
all the areas on the planet are sensitive areas. We share-I
don't believe that it is possible to separate areas out and
say that this is an area that is suited for whatever we want
to do with it and this is an area that isn't eminently suited.
The hubris of that attitude to me is part of the problem-is
reflected in the problem that we are involved in now and why
we are asking questions like this. A good example is the
Endangered Species Act which I am also very deeply involved
now in trying to gain reauthorization. It has been a very
effective piece of legislation in doing what it set out to do
which is protect endangered species but at the same time it
was named wrong and the reason it was named wrong was because
it really doesn't have anything to do about protecting
individual species. It has to do about protecting the place
where species live which is that sensitive planet that we all
live on. And so I think that by the very nature of saying that
you are going to be creating an ordinance that defines
sensitive areas, you are saying that the other areas are not
sensitive and I think if there is one grand thing that
happened in 1993, the one wonderful thing that happened in
that year was the Corp saying we can't control this river.
They said that because throughout my lifetime they said don't
worry folks, we control this river. We are the Corp of
Engineers and this is our river and in '93 they said nope, it
is not our river anymore. It is your river now. Live with it
and it's our community. There are areas, whether they are
sensitive or not and if Iowa City is a progressive community
we always like to think that we are. We like to think that we
are on the forefront of drafting legislation and regulations
that can serve as models for other communities. I think that
we would do well by finding another name for this ordinance.
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F102495
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I think we would do well by that and I wish that I had one
that I could just throw at you.
Throg/ That was just my question.
Nov/ We have been waiting.
Kubby/ And you might think of one or someone else here might think
of one that they could suggest.
Walters/ Again, I think that you ask yourselves whether you think
this is going to accomplish something new because if it is
more of the same old stuff that we have over the last 25
years-
Horow/ Thank you very much.
Pigott/ Thanks, Jim.
Horow/ Anyone else?
George Starr/ I promise I will be brief. 830 E. Davenport Street,
Iowa City and I was a member of the Sensitive Areas Ordinance
Committee and I am also a member of the P/Z Commission. I am
not going to say anything other than it seems to me that a lot
of the areas left for development within the corporate limits
of Iowa City are going to fall within or are considered to be
sensitive areas and possibly one of the reasons those areas
are the last to develop is because they are going to be
difficult to develop. We are going to be facing these problem
at some point in the future and the point is probably closer
than what you would like to believe and it seems to me that
this ordinance gives us the ground work to move ahead on those
areas, hence the flexibility. That is all I have, thank you.
Horow/ Thank you very much. All right. I think the chair will take
the prerogative-Council, what is your wish? Do you wish to
continue this? Do you wish to close the hearing?
Baker/ Make sure that everybody has had a chance to speak.
Horow/ We have got a lot of other p.h.s this evening.
Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ If anyone else really has a burning issue to speak this
evening, please come forward. Okay.
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F102495
#6a page 20
Kubby/ I would like to move that we continue the p.h.
Throg/ Why would we want to continue the p.h.? Ordinarily I would
say yes, but-
Kubby/ Because council has not talked about the details of the
ordinance. We talked a little bit last night and we may or may
not want to make some language changes or whatever that the
public might want to comment on before we would make those
changes at our next meeting.
Pigott/ And you want to leave them the opportunity to do so in
between now-
Lehman/ Last night, I think, I asked if we could find-There are
exemptions to this ordinance, I think. They could be spelled
out very simply. I think s.f. homes, duplexes-what
circumstances that this ordinance does not affect properties
in sensitive areas. I would like to know that.
Horow/ Are there four people who wish to continue this hearing?
see three.
Baker/ When have we tentatively scheduled a vote?
Kubby/ Two weeks.
Baker/ So we could have a continued p.h. and a possible vote but
not necessarily.
Nov/
I think we have to have our vote when it is time to do it. But
as far as continuing this, I think we are not likely to change
it. It gives us the option of making some revision and letting
people comment on it.
Horow/ I hope that will be done before the next time.
Baker/ As long as the extension doesn't mean a postponement of the
first vote.
Kubby/ My motion is to continue the p.h. until November 7 with the
intent that we would also have first consideration of the
ordinance at that same meeting. I am waiting for a second.
Lehman/ Second.
Horow/ Moved by Kubby, seconded by Lehman. Discussion.
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F102495
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Throg/ Karen, I don't quite understand it because if we continue
the p.h. until two weeks from tonight and discuss proposed
changes, nobody in the public will really have an opportunity
to know what the changes are and then come in and talk about
them unless they are watching on t.v. or happen to be present.
Kubby/ There are members of the press that come to our Monday night
meeting and I would assume that if council members are
interested in making changes that we will discuss them at our
informal meeting. It would give people at least a chance to
know what the topics are and the content of the change.
Horow/ But if that is really a content change we would have to
postpone the vote and go back out.
Kubby/ This is a very-This is a change for Iowa City and many of
the big changes that we have made we have continued the p.h.
if we haven't had a chance as a council to really discussion
about this. I think it is only fair to the public to let them
have a chance to continue to say things before we vote whether
or not we make any changes.
Throg/ I would strongly support that ordinarily but this process
that has been outstanding. It has gone on for about 11 months.
It has involved a large number of people. They have done a lot
of very fine work and we have not heard a substantial- We
haven't heard really negative comments except from one person
and I respect what Larry bad to say. But I didn't a lot of
stuff that is going to make me maul over specific changes.
Horow/ Neither did I. There is a vote on the table.
Baker/ One point. Even if we close the p.h. and we talk about
changes, we can still have public discussion without having a
p.h. listed on the agenda.
Horow/ There is a motion on the floor.
Baker/ I will support the extension.
Horow/ All those in favor signify by saying aye (ayes). Okay.
Karr/ I am sorry, was there a no?
Throg/ There were no no's. Why oppose it. I mean I tried to make an
argument, I didn't succeed, so-
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F102495
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Horow/ It will be continued to November 7.
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F 102495
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting.
October 24, 1995
Page 7
Consider a resolution for final plat approval of Kennedy's Waterfront
Addition, Part Three, a 31.23 acre, l 1-1or commercial subdivision
located south of Highway 1 between Gilbert Street and the Iowa River,
(SUB95-0026)
At its September 7 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and Zoning
Commission recommended approval of the final plat for Kennedy's
Waterfront Addition, Part Three, subject to the following occurring prior
to Council consideration of the final plat: 1) the approval of the
construction drawings by Public Works, and 2) approval by the City
Attorney's Office of legal papers which address the conditions placed on
the approval of the preliminary plat, i.e. conditions that deal with
provision of sanitary sewer to the site and the dedication of right-of-way
for the future expansion of Southgate Avenue. This recommendation is
consistent with the staff recommendation in the September 7 staff
report on this plat. Construction drawings have been approved by the
Public Works Department. Legal papers have not been approved by the
City Attorney's Office. It is anticipated that this item should be deferred
to the November 7 Council meeting.
Action:
Consider a resolution for final plat approval of East Hill Subdivision, a
13.04 acre, 36-1ot residential subdivision located north of Muscatine
Avenue, west of Dover Street and Perry Court. (SUB95~0027)
Comment: At its September 7 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning
and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the final plat of East
Hill Subdivision, subject to: 1) approval of legal papers by the City
Attorney's Office prior to Council consideration of the final plat, and 2)
approval of the construction drawings by Public Works prior to Council
consideration of the final plat. This recommendation is consistent with
the staff recommendation contained in the staff report dated September
7. It is anticipated that the legal papers and the construction drawings
will be approved prior to the October 24 Council meeting.
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 8
ITEM NO. 7 -
ITEM NO, 8-
e. Consider a resolution for approval of the preliminary and final plats of
Windsor Ridge ~ Part Six, a resubdivision of Tract "A," Windsor Ridge -
Part One, and Outlot "A," Windsor Ridge - Part Three, a 7.8 acre, seven-
lot residential subdivision with two outlots located north of American
Legion Road and west of Arlington Drive. (SUB95-0025)
At its September 7 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and Zoning
Commission recommended approval of the preliminary plat and final plat
for Windsor Ridge - Part Six, subject to approval of the legal papers by
the City Attorney's Office prior to Council consideration of the plat. This
recommendation is consistent with the staff recommendation contained
in the staff report dated September 7. It is anticipated that the legal
papers will be approved prior to the October 24 Council meeting.
PUBLIC HEARING HELD JOINTLY WITH THE BROADBAND TELECO~
MUNICATIONS CONI[VlISSION, ON A PROPOSED FRANCHISE AGREEMENT
BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND CABLEVISION VII, INC.
Comment: Representatives of the City and of Telecommunications, Inc. on
behalf of Cablevision VII, Inc. have reached a tentative agreement on the
terms of a renewed non-exclusive cable TV franchise. Major elements include
a duration of ten years; a system rebuild to provide a state-of-the-art hybrid
fiber optics/coaxial cable architecture with a minimum capacity of 78
channels (550 MHz) upgradable to an approximate 100 channel capacity
(750 MHz) in the future; continuation of the 5 % franchise fee and the
funding formula for public access; up to 50 cents per month additional
funding for local access to be used primarily for enhanced community
programming; six channels reserved for local access purposes with two
additional channels available in the future if needed; and various technical
and service-related requirements. ~ J/~-'
Action: ~L~ /~j~l~ ~ ~///~'~//~P?~'/')~' ~ ~~' _ ,
PUBLIC HEARING HELD JOINTLY WITH THE BROADBAND TELECOM-
MUNICATIONS COMMISSION, ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE XII,
ENTITLED "FRANCHISES" OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF
IOWA CITY, TO REPEAL CHAPTER 4 AND TO ADOPT A NEW CHAPTER 4
TO BE KNOWN AS "CABLE TELEVISION FRANCHISE ENABLING ORDI-
NANCE".
Comment: The ordinance was rewritten in conjunction with the negotiation
of the Franchise Renewal Agreement. See above item and comment.
#7 page 1
ITEM NO. 7 -
PUBLIC HEARING HELD JOINTLY WITH THE BROADBAND
TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, ON A PROPOSED
FRANCHISE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY
AND CABLEVISION VIIt INCo
Horow/ Our Broadband Telecommunications Commission is in the
audience. If you would raise your hands, we would appreciate
it. Great. We appreciate you being here. The p.h. is open. I
would ask you to sign in, keep your comments to five minutes.
I will cut you off at five minutes. If you have something else
to say, please feel free to come back when everyone else has
finished speaking. If you have written things, please do not
re-read your materials. Just kind of quickly summarize it for
us because we do appreciate having received written material.
Declare the p.h. open.
Stephen Cree/ I rise in support at the highest possible level to
support for Public Access Television (PATV). We lived in the
Iowa City community during the 70's. We moved away. Then we
spent the next decade of our lives trying to arrange them so
that we could come back to Iowa City. Why did we want to come
back to Iowa City? Because Iowa City is a top quality leading
edge community and that is important. That is the kind of
place we want to be and frankly, we think the kind of place
that the people we want to be around want to be. The
discussion that just proceeded this where you were talking
about the building with concerns for the environment. Not just
talking about building lots of houses, lots of developments.
We want quality leading edge development. You know, a town
needs some streets, some police, some schools and maybe a
library. We want to have quality police, leading edge. We want
to have top quality schools. We want to have the best kind of
library and I think we do. I think it is important in bringing
it back because I came and visited the library with a Leading
Edge computer when we lived away from here. And one of the
things that struck us as part of Iowa City (can't hear) has
been cable television and especially PATV. We don't go to
council meetings here, we put them on cable. I mean, goodness,
we got three cameras on. And that is the way it should be I
think. One of the important elements of PATV which gives
people who have the gumption to do so the opportunity to
speak, because words can speak in pictures and communicate
with their neighbors. So my plea is not specifically this
number of dollars, get as many as possible for PATV to keep
this top quality leading edge where we want it.
Lori Riley/ I am here on behalf of PATV and I am here to talk about
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F102495
#7 page 2
my experience that we recently had as a producer of PATV. I
found that public access is one of the things that makes Iowa
City very unique and I was really fortunate to have the
opportunity to be a producer for cable t.v. With the program
that aired this month called There Must Be A Reason To Run The
Parsons Technology Road Races. It was a half hour program with
the final airing is going to be tomorrow at 3:00. So if you
want to tune in, go right ahead. I am the race coordinator for
the Hospice Road Races and I approached the staff at PATV to
give a informational half hour about the road races in late
August. We wanted to get a show on before the end of the month
of October. Because the road races are tremendously a good
example of what Iowa City is all about, why it is so unique
and generous, helped PATV was a good thing for the road races.
The PATV staffers were very cordial to myself and to other
volunteers that helped produce this program in the half hour.
We contributed 25 hours of volunteer time to put this program
together. The staffers offered special workshops for my group
because of our lateness of getting involved in PATV. They came
in on Sunday and they are normally not meant-not their hours.
They were courteous and professional and they were nurturing.
They empowered and my group to be able to solve
problems just by getting us the information that we needed to
do that. They were good problem solvers for us. The
information will show about the Hospice Road Race, how (can't
hear) that the road race has to offer and it was put on by
very ordinary Iowa city citizens and I think that is one of
the reasons that it should exist. And PATV is a medium that
Iowa City can use to express ideas and thoughts and for us, we
dispersed a lot of information in the short half hour. I am
glad I had the opportunity to be a producer for PATV and I had
so much fun doing it and I hope that we go through a 20th
anniversary of the road races. Thank you.
Betty McKray/ As the newest member of BTC, I want to point out
something which I have found confusing and ambiguous. As I
read the franchise I came upon the term this is a franchise
the city with Cablevision Seven Inc. Who is Cablevision Seven
Inc? I have never heard of it before. I pay bills to TCI. I
call TCI to get repairs done. I had never heard of and we have
a franchise with somebody who isn't named.
Horow/ Mr. Helling, do you care to help us out on this.
Helling/ I think Anne Burnside is here, too. Cablevision Seven Inc.
is the owner of record of the local franchise and has been
since some reorganization in around 1984. While we tend to
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talk about Heritage and TCI as the parent companies,
Cablevision Seven Inc. has nonetheless been the owner.
McKray/ When I raised this issue I was told that TCI was not
willing- I suggested that perhaps they say Cablevision Seven
Inc. is owner of or subsidiary of or agent for. But in some
way identify who it is and I was told they were willing to
file a corporate structure with the City Clerk's Office. I do
not as a citizen and a cable consumer don't consider-I would
like to have a relationship of two entities clear in the
franchise that we are-that who it is that we are giving
permission to use our streets and who is it we are suppose to
call for repairs, who are we supposed to do- I would just like
to have this clear in the franchise agreement.
Horow/ Thank you.
Doug Allaire/ Chair on the Board of PATV. Basically we are not
talking about the franchise itself as opposed to the
ordinance. I have more to say on that when we get to that
part. But the Board is happy to see the continued support by
the city of public access. There are three sections in there
that state very clearly that the city is behind continuing
public access, providing non-prescriptory services to
everybody who wants to use public access that the channel be
free of censorship and control of programming and that the
widest range of alvlauals or organizations can be served and
in ....
that is all (can't hear). So, I will be back in (can't hear).
Woito/ Susan, for ease of-for efficiency, wouldn't it make sense to
combine the two p.h.s?
Horow/ Anyone who cares to also address the ordinance amending, is
perfectly-
Woito/ I would think it would make more sense.
Horow/ We have done that before. we just forgot to do it tonight.
Do we need a motion to-
Moved by Pigott, seconded by Throg to combine the two p.h.s.
Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye
(ayes). Thank you very much. So, Doug, if you want to come
back. Sorry.
Bob Soldofsky/ 229 Lowell. I have been a resident and (can't hear)
in Iowa City for over four years and as some of you may
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notice, I am also a senior citizen. In my new capacity as a
senior citizen I have somewhat more time off than most of you
so I enjoy watching political events on television and I miss
C-Span 2. During several months of the winter I am able to
leave Iowa City but always looking forward to coming back
because of the advantages of city. One advantage is not
shoveling snow. I don't come down to the city council very
often but seeing what happens here I admire those of you who
are indeed in this kind of public service. (Can't hear). I did
write a letter to the city council indicating my interest in
urging TCI of Eastern Iowa to put in C-Span 2. Do you have the
letter?
Horow/ Thank you, Bob.
Soldofsky/ I don't have to read it again. For members in the
audience, you may be interested to know that Burlington,
Clinton, little Colfax which is on your way to Des Moines,
Council Bluffs, (can't hear) and Ottumwa all have C-Span 2,
the Senate Channel. Perhaps some of you here have had a chance
to see C-Span II when you are outside of Iowa City. You only
have to go as far as Cedar Rapids to see C-Span 2 and you may
enjoy seeing Senators Grassley and Harkin on C-Span 2 as well
as other subjects° (can't hear) Carol Spaziani and John
McDonald which appeared on the (can't hear) last Saturday.
It's something you may have talked to Carol last evening. She
was (can't hear) in a training program, so she couldn't be
here. And John McDonald has another appointment.
Horow/ We appreciated the letter and we certainly take that comment
seriously, but if the public, you and the public and the
public us, have to know that these requests have to go to the
cable company, TCI. We do not have any way of saying what can
go on and what cannot, so we forwarded your letter to them.
Soldofsky/ I'm very well aware of that. And I've read in terms of
the next eighteen months, they'll be four new channels coming
on. I think, urge urge the city council to go on record in
what ever way is appropriate to encourage TCI to make C-Span
2 one of those four channels.
Pigott/ Could I just interrupt for just a second maybe? Dale, could
you explain at least part of this agreement, as I understand
it, provides for some sort of process by which the cable
company would provide, ask for input from the public about
what kind of stations they should put when they go through the
rebuilding and get at least four channels. There may be a lot
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more than four as well.
Helling/ I'm going to ask Drew to address that process, but before
he does that, I would like to spend a little bit on Susan said
in that by federal law, we cannot require the cable company to
program a channel with any specific service. We cannot require
them to provide C-Span 2, that's why we're encouraging people
to communicate with the company, not only to provide to the
survey that they are going to do or respond to that survey but
also to provide that input as much as possible. The other
thing is that while the agreement indicates that they have
committed even though they didn't have to commit to any new
channels they had committed before, they have also committed
to increase the channel capacity more than double what it is
now. So, I encourage people not to be-not to hold that number
4 as the number that is a finite number. That that is all
there is going to be. Once the system is rebuilt within two
years after the franchise is renewed, they will have the
capacity to program another 30 some channels. That is almost
40 more channels and certainly it is hopeful that within a
fairly short period of time they will program more than four.
The four was just a number they were willing to commit to as
a minimum.
Solofsky/ Nothing that was said here was new to me and so I am not
saying the show. But I am requesting the city council, if in
their wisdom, the agreement is a reasonable thing to do. That
they (can't hear). That TCI put C-Span 2 on. Both for the
residents of Iowa City and for all of the students from all
over the country and from all over the world who are visiting
temporarily or semi-permanently in Iowa City so that they,
too, may learn about our political system. I was able through
some research techniques to find a listing of the
subscribership of all the major t.v. cable stations in the
country and I would was delighted to supply that to the
council if anybody is interested.
Horow/ Just give it to our City Clerk, please.
Soldofsky/ I did also a little survey of the cities in Iowa,
calling each one of them personally, and I found to my
surprise that one of the cities is now in the process of
constructing, at least I was told, its own cable t.v. network.
I don't know the cost of that. I don't know the details of it
but I presume that we are not locked in if we are dissatisfied
with the service that we get from TCI.
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Horow/ Thank you, Bob. Dale, do you want Drew to have any more
explanation. Okay, Drew-
Drew Shaffer/ What we tried to address in the franchise was the
couple of things. The-
Horow/ Could you please identify yourself for the public?
Shaffer/ Drew Shaffer. Cable T.V. Administrator, City of Iowa City.
Horow/ Thank you.
Shaffer/ The needs assessment that was done by both Sue Busky and
Jean Rice and the'market study that was done by Jean Rice as
well-we included that paragraph within the franchise agreement
and then drew up a list in the appendixes in the back of the
franchise that listed the different kinds of programming
because we couldn't by law state that the cable company that
we would require them to supply a particular channel,
categories of programming and I believe that political
programming is on that list. In addition to that paragraph the
outline, a means by which the cable company will do an
additional survey prior to adding any additional channels that
is because we knew there would be additional channels that
would come about or additional interest that would come about
prior to the time we get to the phase of adding channels and
we tried to word it in such a manner so that it wouldn't
necessarily just be a popularity contest because some of the
programming may be very good programming but it may not
necessarily be the most popular programming too. So, that is
addressed in the franchise agreement, a paragraph right on top
(can't hear).
Horow/ Okay, thanks very much. Anyone else? Doug, great.
Doug
Allaire/ It turns out my previous comment was about the
franchise agreement (can't hear). There is part of the
franchise that PATV Board is concerned about. Should I be
specific here?
Horow/ Sure.
Allaire/ Section ]lc. Access Services. There is a discussion of
provides-The franchisee agrees to continue to provide
basically PATV's current budget continuing on into the future.
The name PATV is not mentioned of course, but to a non-profit
corporation designated by the city or other entities
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page 7
designated by the city including the city itself to carry out
the day to day operations of public access and community
programming, that's (can't hear). And one of the things that's
in question there is this public access in community
programming. And I wanted to, if I can help clear that up,
because there's been a lot of discussion over the past few
years about that and I'm not sure it ever has become very
clear. And in a sentence, the difference is who does the work
of the production. If someone has an idea for a program, they
come to media organization. If the professionals at the media
organization produce the program, that's community
programming. If the media professionals train the people who
want to make the program, then that's public access. So the
Hospice show was, I think, public access, because they did it
themselves. You got a letter I think from Dan Coughlin from
the Johnson County Arts Center. They had a workshop over the
summer with a number of junior high kids. That's public
access. If the only difference is who's doing the work. And
there are implications to that difference, and there are
several. One is about content. Who is going to decide what
content is going to be in a program. If you have, as we do
now, a full time equivalent staff of four full time people, we
have six part timers and one full time, that's not very many
people to produce all the programs that are demanded by all
the people who want to put on programs. That would be a real
bottleneck. What we, what PATV's able to do now is to train a
number of people so that we have, I'm not quite sure what the
number is, I think it's up around 200 active producers. A lot
of them are doing their own programs, but they're also
available for other things and some of them don't do their own
programs and simply volunteer for other people's programs. And
so the content then is not regulated by who chooses which
program goes first when you a very limited number of
producers. We miss, by this definition community programming
is not very efficient use of resources as I just said before.
You have so much money, we're talking about $450,000 here will
only cover so many salaries. So we have to figure out how
that's going to be spent. We think that it's more efficient to
train people to do their own programs then to do it for them.
There's also some people've been discussing the lack of
definition about the current access organization in this
section. We've been told that the city needs to retain
flexibility in case PATV dissolves. We don't see- that was a-
of course you need flexibility but on the other hand, I and
the Board and the staff don't see any reason why PATV would
dissolve. It's five years old. It's gone through a lot of
growing pains and changes. The staff, Rene's been there the
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whole time so there's not a lot of turn over which I've heard
is what one of the problems is. The Board has had a certain
amount of turn over but I've been there five years and people
stay on. They have other commitments. Things come up. So
basically that's about all I have to say. Thanks a lot.
Steve Wurtzler/ Board of Directors, PATV. The Board has asked me to
come before you tonight and expand a bit on what Doug's just
said and perhaps in a little more formal way. I am speaking
for the Board of PATV. We're pleased, we're very pleased with
the way that the franchise agreement as a whole demonstrates
the city's support for local programming of all types. What
we would like to see codified in some way is the city's long
range commitment for public access. This franchise offers you
the opportunity to renew, even expand your commitment to the
value of your own citizens voices cablecast over the system.
PATV urges you to do that. Some city officials publicly
express concern about the stability of PATV, Incorporated. On
behalf of the Board I'm here to tell you tonight that PATV
will not fold. We will not dissolve. We will not disappear.
The rest of the Board and I make this claim based on the
tremendous growth public access has enjoyed in the five short
years of service. I want to demonstrate some of that growth to
you tonight in terms of first our programming; second, the
producers and their use of the facilities; and finally, some
of the less obvious ways that we provide service to the
community. One way that you can measure PATV's growth is in
term of the programming provided. During their first full year
of operation, we cablecast about 290 hours of new programming.
During this last fiscal year, the figure was over 1200 hours
of new programming. That's an increase of over fourfold in
only five years. The 1200 hours of programming, that's pretty
impressive. But what exactly is cablecast? I'd suspect that
many of you only have attention drawn to PATV from your
constituents in those extremely rare moments that someone is
offended. But PATV's programming includes public affairs,
religious programming, educational programming, and
entertainment. I just want to give you three recent examples.
First, Dealing With the Dark Side of Life, a series produced
with PATV facilities. This program is now offered for credit
as a tele-course in the School of Nursing at the University of
Iowa. I'd point as well to our extensive live coverage of the
Pope's U.S. visit, cablecast by PATV in cooperation with TCI
and the originating network. But I particularly want to draw
your attention to the hours of programming made by local
citizens addressing local issues. Now clearly this programming
may not be addressed to the widest possible audience at any
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given moment, but it does substantially and when you take it
as a whole, address the full rich diversity of our community.
But PATV and its value shouldn't be measured just in terms of
programming. You can measure our growth, our stability, in
terms of the number of local producers as well. From little
more than a handful of local producers five years ago, we've
worked consistently and quite successfully to increasingly
involve the community in PATV. With 190 citizens in enrolled
and filled monthly workshops in the last fiscal year. Demand
for these workshops has increased so much that we recently
expanded the working hours of workshop instructor. But who are
these producers? Who are these people using PATV? Well they're
your constituents. And they're also your neighbors. They're
also members of community organizations. Recently we've
developed special workshops whereas you've heard the Parsons
Technology Hospice Road Race; but also for MECCA; for the
Council on Disabilities, Rights, and Education; for the Iowa
Sesquicentennial Video Project; for a youth group at Asbur¥
United Methodist Church. You can also measure the contribution
of PATV in terms of the equipment we supply. Last year PATV
provided the community with the commercial equivalent of one
half a million dollars in equipment use. That's worth
repeating. With an operating budget of less that $150,000 a
year, we were able to provide the community with access to
equipment that would have otherwise cost over a half a million
dollars. In terms of equipment use alone, you could say public
access is quite a bargain. I talked briefly about programming,
local producers and equipment, and I'd like to conclude with
something less tangible, less qualifiable way that we serve
the community. Besides the formal workshops, the staff at PATV
offers informal tours of the facility to local groups, groups
of children from the summer neighborhood center program,
students at Southeast Junior High, also a group of Midwest
labor organizers training at the UI Labor Center. All of these
groups received some hands on equipment experience, insight
into how television actually works, and exposure to methods of
critically viewing and critically thinking about their
consumption of television. For Cablecast Public Service
Announcement Board and our show Open Channel that Mayor
Horowitz and Karen Kubby had appeared on provide valuable and
popular information. Our close collaboration with the public
library, with the Science Center, with the Senior Center, all
speak well for our ability, to the ability of all access
centers to work together to maximize service to the community.
Horow/ Your time s about up.
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Wurtzler/ Okay. Let me just conclude. We won't disappear. Based on
our performance over the past five years, you have good reason
to believe that we'll continue to grow. On behalf of the
Board, I particularly want' to thank this council for your
support for the last five years of substantial growth. And
it's only with your continued support, specifically with your
renewed commitment to public access that we will continue
grow. Thanks.
Baker/ Steve, can I ask you?
Wurtzler/ Yes.
Baker/ I need to ask you or to ask Dale a clarification. About how
this relationship between the city and PATV is formalized;
how your funding is guaranteed? This is through a separate
contract with the city and it is not actually part of the
franchise agreement?
Wurtzler/ It is not part of the franchise and I would like you to
hear my remarks in terms of Doug's and the concern about that
$149,000 a year payment that could, according to the
franchise, go to Public Access, could go to Community
Programming, could go to a non-profit at the city's
discretion. Specifically the Board would like you in some
tangible way express your commitment to continuing to fund
public access whether it is with PATV, another non-profit, or
some other form.
Baker/ And you would like for us to consider doing it in a way
different than the past arrangement that we have had which is
in a contract?
Wurtzler/ Well, Mr. Baker, I can see a couple of ways to do it. 1-
Would be the change the language of the franchise agreement to
delete references to community programming in terms of that
$149,000. Now I assume that Mr. Helling and Mr. Shaffer would
balk for good reason in terms of entering into renegotiations
with TCI about a few words. Another thing that I think you
could do would be as a council, pass a resolution supporting
in principle continued funding of PATV at its current levels
at a minimum.
Baker/ But how-The contract that we have had with them in the past,
is that a long term contract or annual?
Helling/ That contract expired roughly the same time as the
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franchise expired in early '94 and since then as has been the
franchise agreement it has been extended on a month to month
basis.
Baker/ But the original contract was for the length of the
franchise?
Helling/ The original contract was for the remaining term of the
franchise.
Baker/ So if we have a contract with PATV for and it is worded for
the length of the franchise, that, I assume, is a long term-
Helling/ You will have a new agreement and you can make that for
whatever. That will be separate from this.
Baker/ Recognition or showing that commitment whether it needs to
be a resolution or just very clearly spelled out in a contract
that we have done with them.
Helling/ Yes.
Wurtzler/ Our issue tonight is that the ambiguity on what that
$149,000 could go to and we are looking for a little
reassurance.
Baker/ But the ambiguity could be resolved by a clear contract.
Kubby/ It makes sense that if you make those assurances to keep
community programming in there so that PATV can provide under
the definition that (can't hear) so it has to help people for
community programming as well as local producers to come in.
That would be the greatest protection as well as flexibility.
Wurtzler/ I think the concern of the Board and it is one that I
believe is justified is potentially some of that money being
shunted off to the city's community programming efforts.
Horow/ I wonder if-Is there any other questions for Steve. I wonder
if there is anyone else in the audience who would like to
address us other than PATV?
Kubby/ I do have one more question for Steve. Was there talk at the
PATV Board level about requesting the city with some of the
50% pass through money for community programming to be
delegated to PATV? As additional on top of the $149-
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Wurtzler/ Frankly there is and I believe someone else will speak
further on this. But we are concerned in that the public
library can only maintain us in our present facility for 18
months to 2 years. Originally their long range planning and
our long range planning was based on a much larger pass
through fund. One that would allow a group community
programming center that would be a new home for PATV. We are
facing not only- We are facing some concern about having to
pay rent for a space. That conceivably part of that pass
through money could help PATV out of that jam. Thanks.
Horow/ Is there anyone else who would care to address council about
this issue other than the PATV folks? Carol-
Barbara Black/ I am coordinator of Community and Audio Visual
Services at the public library. I am here tonight to express
our support for the franchise agreement particularly in regard
to its impact on local access channels, one of which we are
responsible for programming which is relatively unique among
public libraries in the way in which Iowa City, again, makes
itself unique in the United States. We congratulate city staff
responsible for these negotiations, for there diligence in
protecting this valuable medium. We believe that is takes
information and city services out into the community and
enables any group or individuals to express themselves. In any
negotiation you expect that you will not come away with
everything and certainly this agreement was no exception.
Though fulfilling the access wish list, it came up somewhat
short however, we really believe that the council support of
the franchise including the pass through fee which we think is
very important, will allow citizens of Iowa City to maintain
the quality and level of local programming and access they
come to expect. It is important, however, to note one
particular aspect of the negotiations that left the question
of operational space for PATV or public access unresolved.
Currently PATV operates out of space in the library and they
provide us with technical assistance in lieu of rent. So as
their landlord we view this unanswered question with some
concern. As you know the Library Board in working with a
consultant has identified a need for additional space in the
library, during the early stages of franchise negotiation the
hope was that there might be a community television facility
to be shared by all of the access channels. Partly because of
that preliminary planning our expansion has not included space
for PATV continued residence. We are willing to consider that
possibility in our plans but we would have to know the space
needs and the funding source in the very near future for that.
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It should also be noted that if we were unsuccessful in
realizing our hope to expand we would need to consider the
allocation of the space currently occupied by PATV. We believe
that it is really important that the visions regarding the use
of the pass through model the open and shared process that
brought all of the original franchise proposals to the table
and the a site for public access be a priority in those
discussions. We really believe that the pass through money is
the only thing available at this point in all honesty that
will allow PATV to exist in a space rather it is in the
library or in a facility of its own.
Kubby/ To make sure that I got this straight. I know there were
lots of discussions about a community access center and I am
assuming that there was some talk about, with this
renegotiation of the franchise, how that would get paid for or
at least in part. And so the public library went ahead
assuming that that might happen. The public library went
through with their planning that did not necessarily include
space for PATV.
Black/ That is correct.
Kubby/ My guess (can't hear) or anybody is what happened to those
plans? What would have that pass through have to have been to
make the community access center happen? Was that $.50 in our
minds, in the back of our minds, targeted for that? What
happened to that idea?
Helling/ We took into account all of those things when we were
negotiating but we were negotiating for the resource not the
allocation, the resource. There is probably 2/3's of what we
had hoped to get originally in terms of the funding for local
access or whatever, public access, community programming,
government access, library, throw all of them in the pot. So
there is money there and there is probably, sufficient money,
there to provide this sort of a community access center if
that is ultimately what you want to do. We just haven't gotten
that far yet. This process is about securing the resources so
that we will have something to allocate. So those are
decisions that really haven't beeD made and we had to have
some sort of framework in mind based on the input when we went
into negotiations. But we have not come out of that with some
notion that those things are in stone because clearly they are
not.
Kubby/ So what are those-Will you outline what those resources are?
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$149,000 plus inflation-
Helling/ Plus the escalator, that is right.
Kubby/ 50% pass through for community programming. Is there another
thing besides those two pots of money?
Helling/ We also receive franchise fee and that is included and
again, we tried not to allocate any of those specifically for
any specific use but rather that $150,000-149,000 with the
escalator, pass through. All that money can be used for any
combination of a variety of those things and that gives you
the flexibility to allocate it as you wish.
Kubby/ So with today's subscription numbers we are talking about
$100,000 per year approximately with the 50% pass through and
that is part of the $80,000 for the franchise fee?
Helling/ To date, yes. And then the (can't hear).
Horow/ My question is where is the BTC come into play in terms of
the discussion that we were talking about right now with these
three sources of funding?
Helling/ The Commission is advisory to the city council and so if
you are holding a p.h. I am assuming that once this is
complete you will either ask the Commission to take this
information and come back to you with a recommendation and
perhaps discuss it jointly with them-
Horow/ Does the BTC ever work with the PATV Board of Directors?
Helling/ The-To the extent possible the Commission has been
represented at PATV Board meetings. Now I don't know to what
extent that is being done right now. In other words, is a
member attending or not? PATV is normally always represented
at the BTC Commission meetings.
Horow/ It seems to me that a lot of the issues raised tonight
really should be worked out with those two groups.
Helling/ Certainly if we get into this question of allocation, the
council wish is to have the Commission deal with that and come
back with recommendations, then that is a possibility.
Horow/ Would anyone else care to address council. Thank you, Barb.
I am sorry, I didn't mean to neglect you.
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#7 page 15
Susan Rogusky/ I am the volunteer specialist at the Senior Center.
In my capacity at the Center I am directly in charge of
working with the volunteers with the Senior Center Television.
As you all know we have a group of older volunteers who video
tape our in-house programs and do a special programming for
the older population and the population at large in Iowa City.
Being new kids on the block we don't get any direct money from
the franchise to run our operation. We do depend very heavily
though on support services from Channel 4 and PATV and of
course, need air time on their channel since we do not have
air time. So we do want to support the new franchise and the
emphasis on public access and hope to get a piece of the new
pie and we will talk to you about that further when the time
is right. Thank you.
Horow/ Thanks, Sue.
Vicky Grube/ I am one of the people in the community that has
benefitted tremendously from PATV as an educational vehicle.
I am an artist and I though all I could do was just draw and
build some things and then I talked to someone who said that
I could make an animation with my drawings and I had no clue
how to do this. I am not computer literate. So I went down to
PATV and there was a wealth of staff who knew how to help me
and I brought some of my drawings. I won't flip them because
they will probably fly all over the room. But I did like 147
drawing of a woman ironing and this little movie was shown in
the window of Zephyr Copy. Then it went to University of
Minnesota and was shown to a student group where it will
return there I may. I submitted to get a grant from the Iowa
Arts Council so I could make another movie of her cleaning the
whole house. And I had a show at Coe College. It was shown
there. And then to my surprise my six year old came home from
first grade and in her free time in first grade she had taken
ten sheets of paper and made an animation of a bear eating an
apple. Well, you can't really flip it but you get the idea.
And it makes me see how valuable PATV is to teach people how
to do things and then how that sky rockets and goes all over
the community and the state and the region and I just really
want to support money going to PATV as being a teaching tool
to teach people and children and older members of the
community. So, thank you.
Jim
Larew/ Although I do serve as attorney and answer legal
questions for PATV, I think in some ways my views tonight may
disagree with the views of the Board and so I hope any
statements I make will be viewed as my own opinion, an oDinion
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based on experiences that caused me to look at the franchise
from a certain perspective. Between 7-8 years ago I had the
pleasure of working with the city council's really quite
excellent attorney John Hayek representing the city when at
that time the franchisee was attempting to usurp their
contractually bound duty its predecessor and interest had had
in funding public access and they simply looked at the
agreement and said we don't have to do this and it took us an
action filed in Johnson County Court
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-125 SIDE 2
Larew/ The lesson learned from that, I think, for Iowa City was,
among other things, we need to look carefully at our public
access. We have to make certain that we have a strong viable
corporation. I was among a group of five citizens that this
council appointed, volunteers who put together the non-profit
corporation that today is PATV. I think a very wise move so
that it was arm length and at some distance from the council.
So that every time a controversy over some programming issue
came up, the First Amendment was not necessarily invoked by
one party or the other and I think that arm's length entity
that you have established with city support was an excellent
move and I would hope and I understand that there is no
contemplation presently that that would be changed. It is my
view that and one important way that I made this agree with
the Board of Directors and I may be taking things too
personally. I don't think there is an implication that I read
into this proposed franchise that contemplates will dissolve.
It has a great group of volunteers who want to do their best
and are doing as well as they can under the circumstances. So
I hope your franchise would remain as it is presently written
to the extent that it contemplates. That even if there were a
success or an interest in PATV that this franchisee would not
have any cause to believe that it could cut off the funding.
If it doesn't hurt to call a spade a spade and if there are no
penalties for candor, something is missing from the discussion
here that certainly influences the nature of the negotiations
that you have been charged to conduct with this franchisee. It
would be nice to say gosh four years, great contract, let's
slap each others back and go forward. Something else really is
happening and the years since we had that initial law suit
virtually most of the federally protected rights under
statutes that cities have been eroded. A very powerful cable
national lobby combined with the national political current
has meant that cities like you have no rights once you
contract with them. There is nothing in the regulatory arena
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F102495
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that is going to allow you as a controversy comes up to say
hey, look at this federal statute like we were able to do
seven years ago and look at the Cable Act of '84. If it is not
in the document, don't depend on anything. Second, you are
dealing with a very powerful corporation. TCI now holds the
franchises to all urban areas in Iowa except maybe one that I
know of. And they are not here than to do anything than serve
the public, yes, but make a lot of money and we are in an era
of consolidating power within the media industry and the way
they make money is by taking more resources out of the
community than what they put in. They are not going to put
into this community anything that they are not contractually
bound to do. They want to create goodwill but they want to
make money. That is how they live. But this is the environment
in which you have negotiated this contract. I think under the
circumstances you don't have a perfect agreement. But given
the erosion of the rights of the cities in the period of time
you have been negotiating you have done pretty darn well. I
would urge you not to be so specific that even the unintended,
dissolution of PATV, would give this corporation any cause
whatsoever to be able to interpret and look back at this when
new people will be sitting in your chair and say no, that is
not what the party intended. We only thought it was for PATV.
That that would be given what you know about the
situation but may not seem that way five years from now when
maybe the attempt at that time is to get less money rather
than more to this very important resource. I commend you at a
time when within the media there are so many fewer voices. The
typical Iowa City resident can wake up in the morning, read on
Gannett paper, walk d.t. and take out of the news stand a
second one and get the evening paper again by Gannett. Where
are the voices for citizens in this community if not in
something like public access, not a perfectly tuned instrument
in most hands of citizens. But at least one that you ought to
be providing and deserving and the fact that you have it is
because people like Johnson and others when you began to
negotiate with Hawkeye years ago even saw the possibilities.
That seven years ago when it was challenged you, your
predecessors stood up for it and if it continues it is because
you are making a statement that you want this community to be
different than others, albeit in maybe meager terms than what
your aspirations were but probably a pretty grand scale
compared to what other communities were able to secure in this
environment. Therefore I applaud what you are doing. I would
urge whatever differences you have with PATV and the earnestly
held opinions they hold to be taken seriously but maybe not in
this forum. But to respect their wishes and give them their
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F102495
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best possible opportunity to carry out citizen wishes in a
contract that wait and negotiate with them, giving them as
many resources as you can to make it work. And if you do it is
a great experiment and you would be commended for it and I
congratulate you on your doing your level best to negotiate
with a tiger who did not get everything he wanted and frankly
not everything the citizens of Iowa City deserve. Thank you.
Kubby/ Jim, I heard something different from the Board of PATV. I
heard them saying if you don't change the language in the
franchise agreement, you have a signed agreement between the
City of Iowa City via a resolution with the Board of PATV to
say that that specific allocation of $149,000 plus inflation
over time would go to PATV versus the government that is
splitting it up between PATV and the government channel. But
not necessarily to change the language within the agreement.
Larew/ We may have each heard something differently and to that
extent I think a letter or resolution or some statement of
good faith on your part to be followed with a negotiation that
you intend to hold via the public interest and I don't know
who speaks for whom but clearly I don't speak for that group
and so take from them what you heard to be their position. And
I would urge you to secure those kinds of understandings by
contract or some other way as opposed to changing the
ordinance or the contract. Thank you.
Allaire/ We were not talking about Public Access Television, Inc.
We were talking about public access in general which should be
supported. PATV, itself, we will work that out in contract. It
is the idea of public access.
Horow/ Okay.
Joe Tye/ And I will be very brief. I am one of the 200 producers
and probably the newest of the producers and I am here to
encourage you to support PATV. I have been very interested in
stories of courage and perseverance, particularly people in
our community here and a couple of months ago somebody said
you know, you ought to take all of these stories that you have
been learning about and develop a t.v. show and I said you
have got to be kidding. I don't know anything about t.v. That
was less than two months ago. I went through one of the
courses and now we have the Never Fear and Never Quit Show
every Thursday night and Sunday night and it was that quick
and the support that I got from the staff here was phenomenal.
I got all the encouragement, all the training I needed. I have
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F102495
#7 page 19
gotten all the help I need and it has been a lot of fun and
the thing that just amazes me is with all the resources in
this community, with the wonderful University, with two world
class hospitals, with some tremendous businesses, it amazes me
that more people aren't taking advantage of PATV to present
some of the knowledge in this community to the people here.
Clearly they are writing scholarly journal articles for
everybody else in the world. It amazes me they are not on t.v.
for their own neighbors and friends and citizens. So I would
encourage you to do anything you can to build this resource
and as other people have said, make Iowa City a real jewel in
the nationwide communications world. Thank you very much.
Trey Stevens/ I have the fortunate circumstances of being able to
speak to you tonight as a normal citizen. I served on the BTC
Commission for about seven years from 1988-1995 and have been
here through this long arduous four year task. A little bit of
maybe history or reflection upon that time period to put this-
bring these two documents in front of you in context. We
started about approximately four years ago with this process
by first looking for a consultant that would help guide us
through this extremely difficult process negotiating with TCI,
winding our way through the technical capabilities of the
system, etc. We sent out an RFP for consultants and were lucky
to find Rice Williams Associates, we feel is probably one of
the best consulting firms in the country as far as negotiating
cable t.v. franchises. So during the four year time period
working with Rice Williams at a cost of $100,000. We had many
different community workshops, community needs surveys, public
meetings. The BTC itself has been working on this for four
years. Dale Helling, Drew Shaffer, Mike Brow and Ann Burnside
have probably spent well over 1,000 hours working on this in
preparation. Hundreds of hours in negotiations with cable
company and tonight, before the meeting, I was talking with
Tom Scott briefly. Just over the last four years while these
people have been working on the franchise agreement and while
BTC has been working on the franchise agreement, just some of
the things that have happened to council over that time period
that you have had to deal with. We made a brief list of things
like the ACT situation, pesticide ordinance, south side
rezoning, Towncrest, Fringe Area Agreement, annexation,
Greenview Estates, the airport. And even as recently as this
evening with Melrose and the sensitive areas. I know Sue has
been there for all of them and also over the time period there
is four new council members when we first met with the
consultant. Jean Rice came here to address the council and
outlayed the process for us and since that time period we only
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F 102495
#7
page 20
have three out of the original seven still here. So what I am
really leading to here is as you can see a lot of time,
effort, energy has been gone into this process. I think one of
the true stories of perseverance may be Dale Helling here
involved in negotiations, probably unlike any negotiations
that he has been in before. We came in with great expectations
about the things that we could get out of the franchise
agreement. Over that time period we have seen the world
change, technology has changed, deregulation has occurred. But
overall I think we came up with a good agreement. It has been
extremely frustrating at times for all those involved in
negotiations. There were times where we thought we might have
an agreement to get something that we weren't able to. But I
think in all we have a very good agreement. Some of the few
things that I listed here that we have had, its a disagreement
because we do have increased regulatory oversight over the
cable companies. There are certain requirements that they must
now meet and there are certain fines if they do not meet them.
We have been able to get service to everyone in Iowa City.
There have been certain areas of Iowa City that have been able
to get cable service over the length of this franchise. We
will make sure that some areas of Iowa City will be served. We
have been able to procure better service hours for everyone in
Iowa City through the use of the franchise now which I think
was a very big plus. The system that we get will be much more
enhanced than what we have now, over doubling the channel
capability as well has hopefully being less outages and if
there is outages we now have in the ordinance a mechanism for
refunding customers money if there is an outage over a certain
time period. What I am really basically saying is I urge you
to support the agreement that they have been able to
negotiate. I know there are many other issues that need to be
addressed and after we finish this agreement with TCI and of
course, access is certainly one of them. I think that is
something that is going to have to be researched quite heavily
by the BTC and the council, p.h.s and a lot of different
things going on but I think it might be premature at this time
to try and get involved in anything regarding that issue since
really the focus of this p.h. tonight and everything here is
trying to secure an agreement with TCI so we can get the
revenue and so we can work to try and see how we can best
serve the citizens of Iowa City. So I urge you just tonight to
take a look at what we have here. I don't think there is
really any changes that I guess we need. I just urge you to
support the agreement. Thank you. If you have any questions
ever, anytime, regarding the agreements or cable t.v., feel
free to give me a call. Thank you.
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F102495
#7 page 21
Horow/ Thank you for all of your time, Trey.
Lehman/ Can I ask Dale a question?
Horow/ Sure.
Lehman/ All we are really talking about is the cable agreement an~
the ordinance. Is that correct? It is securing the funds from
the cable company. It has absolutely nothing to do with public
access?
Helling/ Only in the sense that-certainly a substantial part of the
agreement has to do with funding for local access which
includes public access and government access, all of those
things. So, in that regard, yeah.
Lehman/ But those things we will probably address at a future time.
What we are trying to do right now is secure the funding?
Helling/ That is correct.
Lehman/ Get this contract taken care of?
Helling/ Right.
Lehman/ So our discussions regarding public access really are not
relevant to this contract?
Helling/ Certainly to the extent that that is part of local access
and there are funds in this agreement.
Lehman/ If they are in disagreement with the funding that we are
getting, that is fine. But as far as our commitment to public
access, I think that is another story and I think we all
probably are.
Pigott/ I think you are probably right. I would guess if we talked
about it we would probably be in large agreement about how to
support public access. But I do think there is a relationship
and as I understand the concerns of the Board members that
PATV when they see the agreement and that says and that the
concerns are not illegitimate and I hear what you are saying
at the same time, Ernie.
Lehman/ Well, I would just like to nail this thing down. Then we
can address the next issue.
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F102495
#7 page 22
Helling/ There is clearly a relationship. However,
ordinance, nor the franchise agreement make
anyway to allocate those funds locally.
neither of the
any effort in
Lehman/ Another later issue.
Horow/ In that sense it should be. In other words we are the ones
to make decisions about allocating the resources. Is that
right?
Helling/ That was our feelings in the negotiations. We should get
as much as we can, give you the most flexibility.
Horow/ We still have another hill to climb in this. I agree with
Ernie on this. It is not related but it certainly isn't
crucial to what we are doing right now. Language that we are
all talking about with PATV comes at a next step.
Kubby/ Though, if you look at it as a public access producer and
they see a paragraph that says that $149,000 plus inflation
can be used for public access and community programming, that
has some relationship as to how broadly that money can be
allocated and wanting to know what the intent of council is on
the front end of approving that language. It is crucial from
the public access producers.
Horow/ That is why I asked whether or not PATV and BTC Commision
had sat down and talked about this because I think we would
like some recommendations from both. We have primarily heard
from PATV tonight on the use of those moneys. I don't think
that is fair. I think we should hear also from-
Nov/ But the PATV people do both of those kinds of programs. So I
don't think it is ambiguous.
Horow/ But I think there is also a need for specification of
community programming as opposed to PATV and perhaps we need
to have some recommendations in terms of the percentage of who
does what.
Baker/ We have got two things going. One, I would like to hear from
somebody who worked on negotiations and the contract why that
particular language was chosen, community programming and
public access. How that language was chosen, what it means in
their minds at least. Secondly we have also heard that public
access means more than PATV. So even restricting it to public
access doesn't restrict it to PATV.
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F102495
#7 page 23
Kubby/ Maybe we could hear from Ann about that, too. In a legal
sense what does that language?
Baker/ So, what was the intent of that phrasing in this franchise?
Horow/ Sir, would you care to relinquish your time or?
Steven Hock/ I am a member of the BTC and I didn't intend to have
a comment but I see I can speak directly to some of the issues
and what at least I think is the intent of the Board in the
future. The discussion as you have described it I think is
correct. What we are talking about now is simply securing the
assets and the agreement we are simply securing as many assets
as possible to support all public access programming. I think
it is really quite a separate issue what is going to be done
with that money and all I would say is the language that was
put in is simply language that gives the Board and the city as
much flexibility as possible in use of that money and strikes
me as simply good business practice. And we will see. It is a
long agreement. It runs ten years. It is in a field that is
changing very rapidly. It is very difficult for us to know
what public access or community programming is going to look
like in 5-10 years and I would urge and we talked about it a
little bit but we really thought it was a separate issue. We
wanted language that was as flexible as possible and I think
that is absolutely in the bets interest of the city.
Horow/ Thank you very much. Ann, would you come up.
Throg/ I would like to make a couple of observations. One is it
strikes me that by providing that kind of flexibility and I
typically admire the notion of flexibility that it runs the
risk of pulling the rug out from under any particular
organization that has been relying on funds like PATV. The
other thing I am wondering about has to do with whether we
should ask PATV to recommend alternative for that paragraph on
page 11. And then to ask our legal staff to assess what the
implications would be for refranchising posture. I mean,
whether, if we modify that language in any regard whatsoever,
whether that would run the risk of.
Horow/ But also having BTC also comment on that.
Throg/ Yeah, sure.
Audience/ (Can't hear)
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F102495
#7 page 24
Throg/ Sure, please.
Hock/ The reason I would not support what you said, is that I think
we really need to discuss as a community how much public
access we want and how much community programming we want. And
they're two quite different things. If you change the wording
now or if your inclination is to change that wording now, then
I think we need to have that discussion now. You could write
into the ordinance for example that all those funds go
directly to organization X, PATV whatever it is. I think
that's ill advised at this time to do it in the ordinance,
particularly as I said, we don't know what's going to happen
in the future. There's nothing in the language that even
remotely suggests that we have the intent or desire or the
interest to pull the rug out from under PATV. Quite the
contrary, the Board is quite supportive of PATV. But if you
really want to press that issue, then we have to have quite a
separate discussion that I think is best done at a different
point in time.
Horow/ Anne?
Anne
Burnside/ Assistant City Attorney° This particular language is
some that Drew and Dale and I worked on with a certain amount
of care and our goal is very much the one that Jim Larew laid
out for you just a few moments ago and that is the
understanding that this franchise has to last for the period
of about ten years. We know now who the entities are. We know
how the entities have operated in the past. We know some of
the entities have and hoped for in the future, but we don't
want to preclude any developments and we especially don't want
to give any tools that could be used to cut off any of these
funds or any of your flexibility. And so we arrived at this
choice of language to maximize the flexibility over the log
term for the use of this body, the city council, and any
entities that were going to be doing any kind of programming
that you choose to support and that they choose to produce. We
talked about a number of different ways of wording this, and
I was strongly in favor of this particular version because it
was the broadest yet still clear method that I could find to
write what I thought would protect all of the interests, city
interests involved. That was really what was going on in this
language.
Horow/ Thank you° Any questions?
Baker/ Thank you.
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F102495
#7 page 25
Horow/ Would anyone else care to address council on this issue?
Rob Lewis/ I am an intermittent producer at PATV, but what I wanted
to say tonight perhaps only slightly tongue in cheek is that
I am disappointed in the low level, the dollar amount, in
there for public access and community programming. The reason
I say it is because cable television is only one system of
delivering television and technology is rapidly catching up
with it. The only advantage that cable television offers to us
over other delivery systems that are becoming available is
public access community programming. To award a monopoly to
any corporation when that is really the only advantage they
confer on our community, we should be saying we want more,
because by the time this agreement reaches its term in ten
years, it could be that cable television is a dinosaur except
for access programming. Thank you very much.
Horow/ Okay. Anyone else care to address council?
Pigott/ You know, Sue, I'd just like to comment on that for just a
second. I would hope that what ever new systems of delivery of
communication whether it's the Baby Bells that deliver our
next sort of cable signal or whatever, the city makes
negotiating some sort of access in the new modes in
communication that are coming down the line, to make sure that
Drew Shaeffer and the Broadband Telecommunication Commission
people are thinking about that.
Horow/ All right. Anyone else care to address this. I declare the
public hearing closed.
Karr/ Can we have a motion to accept correspondence?
Horow/ Moved by Kubby, seconded by Throgmorton to accept
correspondence. Any discussion?
Kubby/ Does this include the cable listings through E-mail?
Helling/ Yes. We have that.
Kubby/ My motion includes this. Well, we don't really have a policy
about electronic mail.
Karr/ We do have a policy about it, but it can be changed. Well,
okay.
Kubby/ My motion includes the E-mail correspondence.
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F102495
#7 page 26
Karr/ My concern, just for the record is some of it, one particular
is not signed and that's my only concern about noting it for
the record. Many of them were, but we can talk about that at
a later time.
Nov/ May we amend it to include those with names on them only.
Horow/ Is there anything else?
Kubby/ If that would be okay, to move I would in lieu of a
discussion about our policy?
Karr/ Absolutely.
Horow/ So amended. It's okay with the seconder. All those in favor
signify by saying aye (ayes). Thank you very much.
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F102495
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 9
ITEM NO. 9~.
ITEM NO. lq -
ITEM NO. 11-
PUBLIC HEARING ON THE CONVEYANCE OF TWO SINGLE-FAMILY
RESIDENTIAL DWELLINGS LOCATED AT 3331 DUBUQUE STREET AND
3337 DUBUQUE STREET, IOWA CITY, IOWA, BY A SEALED BIDDING
PROCESS.
Comment: The new Iowa City water supply and treatment facility location,
condemned and now owned by the City, included two single-family
residences. These homes are ranch homes, built in 1963, and the City
wishes to have the homes removed from the water facilities site. The City's
Community Development Coordinator has looked at the homes, and does not
desire to use the homes as "affordable housing" to be placed elsewhere. The
City will use a sealed bidding process, whereby a bidder will bid on the cost
of removal of the home, to another location.
Action:
PUBLIC HEARING ON THE MELROSE AVENUE STREET AND BRIDGE
RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT.
Comment: The City Council has indicated they will consider a resolution at
their November 7, 1995, meeting which will set the design parameters for
the Melrose Avenue street and bridge reconstruction between Byington Road
and University Heights. This action is required before the Federal Highway
Administration can give final approval to the Melrose Avenue Environmental
Assessment and release the federal funds for the project. The City Council
h. as indicated th.ey w)~re.ce~ pybJi_c .col'nment r~_gslp'.d~g thins m.~tter.
PUBLIC HEARING ON PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM 0 0
ESTIMATE OF COST FOR CONTRACT 1 OF THE WASTEWATER TREAT-
MENT CONNECTION PROJECT, ALSO KNOWN AS THE SOUTH RIVER
CORRIDOR INTERCEPTOR AND RELIEF SEWERS PROJECT.
Comment: This work involves the construction of the Interceptor Sewer
between the South and North Wastewater Treatment Plants. Approximately
11,000 feet of 96 inch and 8,000 feet of 84 inch concrete pipe will be
installed. Also included are relief sewers serving the Pepperwood neighbor-
hood and the Plum Street neighborhood. The estimated cost of this work is
$18,180,000. Funding for this project will be provided by Sewer Revenue
Bond proceeds.
Action:
#9a page 1
ITEM NO. 9a-PUBLIC HEARING ON THE CONVEYANCE OF TWO SINGLE-FAMILY
RESIDENTIAL DWELLINGS LOCATED AT 3331 DUBUQUE STREET AND 3337
DUBUQUE STREET, IOWA CITY, IOWA, BY A SEALED BIDDING PROCESS.
Horow/ I declare the public hearing open. And again the same rules
cover this. I declare the public hearing closed. Oh. We have
a resolution authorizing the conveyance. Was that on our desk
tonight?
Helling/ Right.
Woito/ You filled in the blank with the one gentleman bid on both
in the amount down there.
Horow/ Okay. Resolution authorizing conveyance of single family
dwellings. No, that's the one that we just did. That's it.
That's the resolution.
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F102495
City of iowa City
MEMORANDUM
To:
From:
Date:
Re:
Mayor, City Council and General Public
City Clerk
October 23, 1995
Additions/Corrections to the City Council Agenda
Item No.4f(7) Letter from Robert Burns regarding Rezoning Application No.
REZ95-0010 Saratoga Springs, Dubuque Rd.
Ite~~onsider a resolution authorizing conveyance of single family
-'"~---~-~-"'~'-' dwellings at 3331 Dubuque St. and/or 3337 Dubuque St. to
~,~-- $~ successful bidders determined at the bid opening 10/24/95.
Comment: As provided by State Law, the City Council passed a
resolution of intent to convey two single family dwellings now
located on the Iowa City Water Supply and Treatment Facility,
street addresses of 3331 and 3337 Dubuque Street, Iowa City,
Johnson County, Iowa. A notice of publication was placed in the
Press-Citizen, and also an ad informing the public that sealed bids
will be taken and opened on Tuesday, October 24, 1995, at 9:00
a.m. The successful bidders and total offers for each house,
which will include removal of the house no later than May 1,
1996, will be presented at the formal City Council meeting
Tuesday night.
*** (note Item No. 9 ~ public hearing on conveyance of two
homes located at 3331 & 3337 Dubuque St. changed to Item No.
9a.)
#9b page
ITEMNO, 9b-PUBLIC HEARING ON THE CONVEYANCE OF TWO SINGLE-F~iILY
RESIDENTIAL DWELLINGS LOCATED AT 3331 DUBUQUE STREET AND 333?
DUBUQUE STREET~ IOWA CITY~ IOWA~ BY A SEALED BIDDING PROCESS.
Horow/ Can I jump to the whereas? (Reads agenda comment) For both
of the addresses, the successful bidder was Eugene Keogh, Iowa
City. The 3331 Dubuque Street was for $1500. 3337 Dubuque
Street was for $2000.
Moved by Nov. seconded by Pigott to accept the bids. Any
discussion? Roll call (ayes). It's been accepted.
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ITEM NO. 10- PUBLIC HEARING ON THE MELROSE AVENUE STREET AND
BRIDGE RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT.
Horow/ I declare the public hearing open and the rules stay the
same, five minutes. If I cut you off, you can come back when
other people have finished and please do not read any letters
that have been submitted, rather, kind of concisely put them
down. And thank you for waiting.
Michaelanne Widness/ 629 Melrose. Our ranks may have thinned, but
those of us who remain are as resolute as ever. I am president
of the Melrose Avenue Association and as such I have been
authorized to read a statement from the association concerning
our position regarding Melrose Avenue project. This statement
runs 2-3 minutes longer than our allotted time. We've tried to
be patient and I hope you will indulge us in this small
matter. (reads letter and includes following comments)
We believe the 3-lane option is the only workable option now
and for the future. And I hope you'll forgive me if I state
the obvious here. We will never have better information on
Melrose Avenue than we do today. The experts have spoken. It's
all right here. I think it's very clear from reading the EA
that if the consultants could have recommended a 4-lane bridge
and road, they would have done so now. I hope you'll bear in
mind the fact that they could not do so when you get around to
deliberating on this decision.
-and those would be the intersections at Koser, Hawkins Drive,
South Grand by the Fieldhouse, Byington at the Law School, and
Riverside.
I'm sure you are aware that the Braverman house, one of three
National Register houses, was sold to the Mormon Church last
spring. The house just east of the Braverman house is a house
that is owned by the University, has been used for faculty
rentals for a number of years, and is currently in the process
of being converted to the sixth daycare center along this less
than half mile stretch of road.
Unfortunately this seems to be the wave of the future for our
neighborhood. Single family houses, many of them modest, are
sold to an individual, often a student who then turns them
into probably illegal group student type housing.
And I have copies of our statement. Thank you very much.
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Throg/ Thank you.
Horow/ Anyone else care to address council on this issue?
Gregg Geerdes/ My wife and I own a house at 3 Oak Park Court which
is basically one block south of Melrose. I have a couple of
points that I want to highlight which I think should be
strongly considered by you. The first request that I have is
that you at all possible briefly read through the most recent
draft of the report prepared by your engineers and I would
particularly refer you to the letter from largely the
neighbors who addressed this issue. If says one point that I
think those letters make, it is that we are disturbed and
disappointed by the perception that the engineering firm
narrowly defined, too narrowly defined, the area of the
neighborhood that is going to be affected by this project.
This is a neighborhood where a large number of people are
walking to the downtown area or walking to the university area
and there is a sincere felt belief that a highway which is
constructed any wider than absolutely necessary is going to
perhaps cause more of the problems than what we now have.
There's a very sincere concern over the safety of pedestrians
and bicycles which are going to be crossing this street on a
regular basis, I think that's an item which requires careful
attention as we move on down the progress of this planning.
The second point that I would like to refer you to the nature
of the topography and the land in this area. Particularly I
was concerned because my house adjoins a large ravine which is
generally bounded on the north by the University Law School
property, bounded on the east by the University parking lot
property, on the west by Lucon, and on the south by Oak Park
Ct. We believe that a street that is constructed wider than
necessary will adversely disrupt the aesthetic, the
environmental concern which we see as very important to the
preservation of that area. And I disagree with the conclusion
of your engineer that the alternatives listed one through six
would not have an impact on this area. Apparently for the
engineers belief that unless you physically invade a
particular site, you are not going to have a disruptive impact
on that area. I think when you look around town, you can see
prime examples of situations in which there was not an actual
physical invasion of a neighboring property, but which
neighboring property was still very adversely affected by the
development. The example that came to my mind immediately was
the Cliff Apartments, and I would respectfully suggest that
that project has very serious impact on the neighbors even
though the neighbors property was not actually used for that
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development. The type of road that need to be built, I want to
emphasize that I think a new bridge is necessary and I want to
emphasize that I think appropriate highway reconstruction is
necessary. But I want to see it as narrow as prudently
possible. I would like the council to investigate whether it's
the engineers recommendation that we have a seven to eight
foot wide shoulder on each side of the road is necessary or
even appropriate, The engineer's recommendation in this is
based on the engineer's belief that that extra lane is
necessary for bicyclists. It's necessary to allow a pull out
spot for cars with mechanical problems. The bicyclists that I
talked to said that they would prefer to ride in traffic
rather than a separate lane. They'd feel a lot safer. I'm not
a bicycle expert. There's a letter to that effect in your
materials. I don't believe that it's prudent engineering and
I think it's over engineering to build a road with full lane
pullouts on each side of the road in the middle of the city to
allow for mechanical breakdowns. I think it's a step which is
not necessary. I think it's going to add to the expense, and
I think that given the nature of the surrounding neighborhood,
that you don't need to go to that extreme in order to
facilitate traffic. Finally in conclusion I would like to
express my personal opinion that although there's a traffic
problem on Melrose, it is not the Dan Ryan Freeway. It's not
something that is what I would call a dire situation. I
believe in most days, home football games with the possible
exception, that you can get in the worst case traffic from the
new law school intersection at Riverside to the Melrose Market
the end is no more than five minutes at the absolute worst. I
think the situation needs to be addressed, but I don't think
that it's a situation that' we need to resort to over
engineering and I would request that you consider the least
amount of taxpayer dollar that you can expend to address this
problem and I thank you for your attention.
Nov/
I would like to clarify one point. The shoulder is not for
cars that break down. It's for busses to pick up passengers.
It may also be used in case of a car that breaks down but its
main function on a day to day basis is for buses to pull over
and for a car to be able to pass a bus.
Geerdes/ That's not what this version says. I think you have a very
good point and I would like to see that concern addressed
perhaps to bus pullout rather than a full lane curb on both
sides of the street. I believe that in consulting with your
transportation people and with Cambus, you should be able to
locate an acceptable pullout spot to address that concern.
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Nov/ I understand that pullout spots work if you have a single
bus, but there are multiple bus routes, and if two busses
or three busses are lined up behind each other, it
becomes a little difficult to get them all into the
pullout. These are problems to think about.
Kubby/ Thanks very much.
Horow/ Anyone else care to address council?
George Haskell/ Talk and write at the same time.
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-126 SIDE 1
Haskell/ I live at 223 Lucon which is a side street off of Melrose.
I guess it seems like it must be a pretty uncomfortable
situation. You have a dilemma here. You have a traffic problem
that a lot of Iowa City wants to see addressed and you have
the Melrose residents who went the least impact. My temptation
because I live there is to think that the least impact is the
way to go, and I do believe as Michaelanne has said that there
are alternatives that will probably solve the traffic flow and
still maintain minimum impact by going as narrow as you can
with the three lanes. And I guess that's really all I'm asking
is that you consider these options. Clearly the Melrose Group
considers itself a very tight community. We've waited for
years, and tonight for hours, to get up and speak before you,
so we're not going to go away. We are a group that has a sense
of unity and entity. We've pulled together on a variety of
issues and worked together as a team and I guess I'm here to
try to foster that impression. So what you can do to help
maintain the integrity of this community would be very
appreciated. I do think some of the comments made before were
good. As a frequent bicyclist, contiguous bicycle lanes tend
to be a repository for everything that's ejected from or by an
automobile and usually are not very handy. So if you are out
there where the traffic is it tends to get swept clean. So, as
a bicycle lane, usually having a contiguous attached lane is
not as handy. I think the bus pull outs are a consideration.
I don't believe there are that many lines actually stop on
Melrose, are there? There are several Cambusses that travel
along but there are not all that many stops. I am not sure.
There might bare looking into because, again, here would be a
way consistent with safety and need to minimize the width and
appease both groups and I know it is going to be a difficult
task but I know all of us will appreciate it and I also think
that the Melrose group has presented some very well thought
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F102495
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out logical arguments and I endorse them as would a number of
people were they still here. Thank you.
Horow/ I think it has been council's standard intent to 10ok at as
many other ways of channeling traffic, augmenting what is
going on here. We recognize this as Michaelanne Widness said,
putting in a new bridge is not the only solution. Thank you
very much. Anyone else care to address council?
Betty McKray/ From Brooklyn Park Drive. I have two very quick
points. The last several weeks I have been watching and
absolutely gorgeous orange tree on the corner of Melrose
Avenue and Melrose Court. And every time I turn the corner I
thought this may the last year that we can enjoy this tree and
how sad. So please save the tree if you can. Take your wide
part off the University side and not the tree on that side. My
second point is Melrose Court is only a 18 foot street. In the
Environmental Assessment you did not ask those people to give
you input about what would happen to Melrose Court if you
widen Melrose Avenue. That is the only way of getting south
from this Byington Road to UHts. The only road that goes
through south is Melrose Court. It is 18 feet. I have lived
there for about 30 years and I have gone through several
battles. We have had barricades. We have had petitions. We
have had meetings. We had one winter with 3,000 cars a day on
that little narrow street and I don't know the answer for how
you are going to get traffic out but somebody needs to be
thinking about it and you didn't ask your consultants in the
environmental assessment to give you any help with that. But
somebody is going to have- Otherwise we may be up to 3,000
cars a day because people on Melrose Avenue with blockades at
both ends are going to look for another way out and Melrose
Court is where they are going to come I am afraid and I don't
have children any longer but I have to be concerned about it.
But as you have already heard, there are an awful lot of
children and old folks that use that street.
Horow/ Thanks, Betty.
M. McCloskey/ I am at 320 Melrose Avenue which is at the
very end, very close to the Law School and a point I want
to emphasize is along the Dan Ryan engineering lines. As
I understand the final plan, your engineer still
recommends a quite wide street down by the Byington Road
turn which is a more than 90 degree turn down hill still
and I think this is strikingly irrational. In the first
place it is simply going to speed up the traffic as it
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approaches this insane turn. I hear the screeching wheels
all day long. So it actually does happen even now. It
will get worse. But what is much more important is that
it has, as you all understand, there is a long standing
plan for the so called diagonal. It is in the University
plans. It has been ever since I have been here since 1980
and before. The diagonal will make Byington and the end
of Melrose a dead end. So this grand Dan Ryan that you
are going to construct down there will become a parking
10t. I suggest that it may solve the skateboarding
problem. And I support the skateboarders. If you want to
build a $50,000-60,000 facility to them down at the end
of Melrose Avenue, I urge you to go ahead with these
engineering plans. Thank you very much.
Baker/ Can we talk about that because that is one specific question
about that part of the road that we did discuss as not-Jim
brought that up last night and maybe Jim you want to talk
about it. We talked about actually narrowing the road at that
end of Melrose.
McCloskey/ I should think so or else you are just throwing tax
payers money away.
Council/ (All talking).
Kubby/ And we clarified that we didn't have to pick one of the
consultants options. That we have that flexibility.
Throg/ Actually last night during a break in the work session I
talked with Rick Fosse, our Public Works Engineer, and Rick I
wonder if you might comment in regard to the possibility of
slightly lesser engineering with regard to that segment.
Rick
Fosse/ I think there is certainly potential to reduce that end
of the corridor. The consultant for the sake of simplicity
extended the concept throughout the corridor as an evaluation
of worse case scenario. We can always scale back from there
and I think the potential logic exists to do that.
Throg/ I also understood you to say last night that even so that
road segment does need to be rebuilt.
Fosse/ Yes, because of its condition it's kind of a money pick from
maintenance perspective, so we do need to reconstruct that.
Throg/ Thank you, Rick.
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Horow/ Thank you.
Audience/ (Can't hear)
Nancy Dejmal/ 223 Lucon. I was going to talk about that end of the
road to the east end. Can somebody tell me where you're
planning on narrowing it?
Kubby/ We haven't gotten that far in the design work.
Dejmal/ Okay. From Grand Avenue, it would be an excellent place.
That's a real different road there because it's very quiet.
There's really not much happening and three lanes will not
help us because the main traffic turning out is turning left
and we can get out there. Once we get out there we can turn
left, so once we get past all the east bound traffic we can
go. So I think that would be a good place to narrow it and
keep it two lanes and then you can always change things around
later with that but it doesn't need to be wide.
Kubby/ Thanks. Rick, I'm assuming that once we agree on some of the
larger issues, that when we get the design work done, then we
will have a pre-design meeting with the neighborhood
involvement as we have with other reconstruction projects.
Fosse/ That's correct. Once we agree on a concept, then we can
begin to work on the details and that is when we meet the
residents and learn about their expectations and concerns and
those types of things.
Kubby/ That's where issues of lighting, landscaping, pedestrian
access, the width at different places, all that can come in at
that point.
Fosse/ Yes.
Nov/ Betty can tell you which tree she wants to be sure we save.
Fosse/ I've got a note right here about that.
Audience/ (Can't hear)
Pigott/ Yes.
Throg/ So surely we would all be collectively saying to the last
part of your statement.
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/ Absolutely.
Shelton Stromquist/ I live at 316 Myrtle Avenue which is a bit off
of the thoroughfare but nevertheless part of this neighborhood
that we all consider ours. I just want to make three very
quick points. The first is that there's been a lot of talk
about flexibility as a part of this plan. Some council members
have talked about flexibility. The Press-Citizen has
editorialized about it. But it seems to me clear from the
consultants report that if we're talking about flexibility,
we're talking about flexibility to build a four lane unsafe
road out of what was originally designed or proposed to be a
three lane road. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make
sense in terms of what the consultants have presented us with.
I think what they have suggested is a three lane road, not a
four lane road striped as three. And I think they are a little
perhaps excessive in the width that in fact they purpose is
necessary for that. I would like to see council commit itself
to a legitimate three lane road and that any change or any
proposal to change, any proposal for flexibility to build an
unsafe four lane road require extensive public discussion and
consideration. Otherwise it seems to me that we're ignoring
what the consultants have presented us with. Second point is
I think one of the outcomes of this process, and I think it's
been a constructive and a healthy process for all of us
concerned. We learned a lot about neighborhoods. We've learned
a lot about traffic. We learned a lot about a lot of things
about our community. One of the things that comes out of this
report that I think is most constructive is in a sense an
affirmation of neighborhoods, an affirmation of neighborhoods
and the importance of neighborhoods to the city. We, as
Michaelanne suggested, live in what we regard to be a fairly
fragile neighborhood but a very vital one. And I think that
it's important just as we feel we had input on this decision
to this point that in terms of the specific design of this
street through our neighborhood, that the community continue
to have a voice. And I'm pleased to hear that from the traffic
people that this in fact is in prospect. That as a design is
developed, that we have a chance to react to it and have a
chance to suggest the ways in which this might integrate more
effectively with our neighborhood. The third point is that
there may well continue to be a traffic problem. It may be it
is practically inevitable that traffic volume is going to
grow. It's clear that widening Melrose is not the solution. We
need a better street. We need a more efficient street. But we
need to address the problems of traffic in a broader and more
creative ways. And this is one of the things we have talked
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#10 page 9
about from the beginning that in this sense I don't think
we've been heard as fully as we think we ought to have. The
university has a role in this. The hospital has a role in
this. They're powerful generators of traffic into that
neighborhood, and it seems to me we have to begin to think of
ways to reduce traffic or to redirect traffic or to reduce the
number of cars with single person in them driving into that
area in more creative ways then we have to this point. In a
sense the three lane road continues to challenge us to do
that. We have to continue to do it. And so I hope that we can
use this as a starting point, building on what we regard to be
a very reasonable proposition to continue to address this
problem in creative ways. Thank you.
Kubby/ Thank you.
Eric
Anderson/ I'm not a member of the Melrose Avenue Neighborhood
Association and I don't live in that area, but I want to speak
for just a moment in favor of the position that they've taken
and tell why I think they're a credible group. It's easy to
assume I think that when members of the neighborhood object to
change, you may be witnessing the not in my backyard syndrome,
that people are simply reacting to any change or fearful of
it. But I'm fully convinced through personal experience that
that's not the case with this group. Earlier this year I had
the experience of dealing with them quite extensively
concerning the purchase of the house at 503 Melrose, the
Braverman house. And I was representing the LDS Church which
bought that property. It was very clear that the neighborhood
group was very disappointed that that house would go to an
institutional owner rather than a private family. And I
understood the reasons why and I would've felt the same way
had I lived in the neighborhood. The important thing that we
learned was that they were also able to look reality in the
face and what they really wanted to do was to make the best
out of the situation which wasn't what they would prefer. And
so we got together and we worked out some compromises, some
things that would make it as good as possible for them and
still meet our needs and then together we went to the Board of
Adjustment which was the forum for that decision and presented
a plan which I think satisfied all the people concerned. And
I came to appreciate the intelligence and integrity and hard
work of this group which I came to recognize that they are not
simply concerned with their own interest, but they also
recognize reality. They recognize the interests of the larger
community, and they've done a huge amount of work in educating
not only themselves but the rest of the community on this
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F102495
#10
Jack
page 10
project. I find what they said to be very persuasive and I
hope you will too. Thank you.
Widness/ 629 Melrose. There's a couple of points I'd like to
mention to you for your consideration. I'm going to try not to
go over the points that have been reiterated before but
basically I'm glad that we are now settling on what appears to
be a three lane bridge and road. I think we all are. I would
reiterate the other points in that I too would be in favor of
the narrowest possible road that would allow that within the
constraints of safety of the neighborhood and moving traffic.
And I think if you carefully look at the points in terms of
the intersections, there's good justification for that. One of
the primary points in terms of making it as narrow as possible
is to foster the aspects of the community that will allow the
neighborhood and what not to continue and yes even flourish.
We're very close to the hospital. I would think the
probability would be in the hospital's best interest to want
to see the neighborhood be maintained for obvious purposes. As
I look at the diagrams and think about the widths of the
bridge. Then I have a handout to show you. And I look at the
road, I become astounded when I think of the widths that we're
going to be going to even with the latest, narrowest revision
that came in the final report. We're talking about a bridge
that's about 66 feet and the current one is more on the order
of, well not in the order of, but is in fact 42. So we're
talking about an almost 60% increase in the width of the
bridge. This includes sidewalks and the road itself. So it's
large. The other point I wanted to develop is one that Shelley
was talking about, I think it is important to look at other
ways to get transportation to deal with the traffic issues.
And we've heard to some extent let's build it wider to solve
the problems and also to prepare for the future for you know
what may be a four lane road. You all heard last night what
Uhts had to say about four lanes at least for the foreseeable
future. They are talking two lane and they are talking about
it firmly and they have been talking about for many years. I
think the same is true with a problem with the bottleneck on
the other end down at Riverside. So, one of the other things
if you are thinking of wider pavement and solving the problem
for the future, it was mentioned in EA and I don't think we
are ready for it right now is Alternative #7. And Alternative
#7 is a road going north off of Melrose. The need for this
would be the points that Shelly was making. The University is
a wonderful place, the hospital is wonderful. I work there
myself. But they bring in a lot of business, a lot of traffic.
They have, I believe, the incentive and the means with the
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F102495
#10 page
property that they own near the Finkbine Golf Course and I
hope that Dick is not going to take me to task tonight with
the golfers that are going to be on his back if he goes with
this. But the point is, not right now, but down the road I
think this is another possibility to solve the traffic
problems if they continue because as you can read in the EA I
think with the bottlenecks on both ends, building it for four
lanes, striping it for three, and then changing to four is not
going to solve the problem. It is going to make things a lot
worse. So I think we do need to look to these other
alternatives and as you consider this I would have you think
about this as another possibility. I know the city council
can't tell the University where the hospital and what to do
but certainly pressure. If they needed to, as I say, they
would have the incentive and I believe they have the ability
and the property to take care of this problem down the road.
So, thank you.
Pigott/ Thank you.
Horow/ Anyone else care to address council on this issue?
Dick Gibson/ Director of Planning and Administrative Services at
the University. I have a prepared statement which I am going
to read to you but I want to indicate up front that this
attempts to represent a position to the extent that you can do
so at both the University and the Hospital on this subject.
(Reads statement). I would like to add as a postscript to this
in light of the suggestions that have been made with the piece
of Melrose to the east and South Grand Avenue that I think we
would be open to some detailed discussions about that. It has
always struck us that it has been an overreaction to carry
this clear on down through there. We seem to function quite
well right now. So we would be perfectly willing to talk about
that as a plan. I mention that because it is what the
consultant's recommendation is.
Horow/ Thanks, Dick.
Pigott/ I appreciate that.
Horow/ okay, folks. Anybody else care to address council on this
issue? Declare the p.h. closed.
Moved by Pigott, seconded by Kubby to accept correspondence.
Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye
(ayes). Thank you.
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F102495
#11 page 1
ITEM NO. 11 -
PUBLIC HEARING ON PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF
CONTRACT AND ESTIMATE OF COST FOR CONTRACT I OF THE
WASTEWATER TREATMENT CONNECTION PROJECT, ALSO KNOWN
AS THE SOUTH RIVER CORRIDOR INTERCEPTOR ANDRELIEF
SEWERS PROJECT.
Horow/ Declare the p.h. open. Same guidelines. Five minutes.
Arkins/ Susan, may I comment before the hearing begins. Today we
finally received a response from the DNR on our revised
schedule and they have rejected it. We had an earlier proposal
that you will recall that allowed us to propose a compliance
August 1, 2002. They find that unacceptable and sort of the
bottom line, they are proposing and have indicated that there
will be no need for administrative orders or court orders. But
the bottom line is they are proposing that our compliance
schedule as soon as practical but before January 1, 2001. So
we have lost about 18 months. We had requested three years and
ten months and it has been reduced to two years and two months
extension. It's simply, I think, makes- We will have to go
back and refigure some of the finances because of the
shortening up.
Throg/ What was their rationale, Steve?
Atkins/ Well, Jim, it is a little different. They believe-They
started off and I will get you all a copy of the letter in
your upcoming packet. They could not agree to the year 2002.
They felt that the compliance by 2002 would go beyond the
permitting requirements the federal government has and they
felt that that was too long. While we did make a financial
argument I am not convinced, at least not the tone of this
letter, and they have a formula they use and that they were
convinced that it was a significant financial hardship. I do
want to take another crack at that with them. And that we have
no real physical constraints. Physical constraints meaning the
South Plant construction, the availability of getting
properties that are necessary. I suspect after three months
they sliced it down the middle.
Kubby/ Do we have any recourse?
Atkins/ Well, I think the recourse is that we can go back to them
and we can spend some time attempting to negotiate another
schedule. I am not convinced that it will get us very far but
they do say that this is a compliance schedule that does not
contain a legally enforceable schedule such as in a court
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F102495
#11 page 2
order or administrative order. Neither has been proposed by
the DNR. That is, having dealt with them before, that is a
clue that if we can't come to some agreement we will just
simply take this matter further and put it in the form of a
final order. We are disappointed but we did get some time out
of the deal. I don't know what else to tell you other than
that.
Kubby/ I would hope that we would ask Steve to talk to them again.
Atkins/ Yeah, I made the assumption.
Pigott/ I would hope that we would.
Atkins/ I made the assumption. The only problem is that we tried,
remember, to schedule the waste water, the water, all of-That
is kind of gone now. We will have to refigure all of that. We
lost some time as we waited to try and get through this
process and I am encouraging you that the sooner we can move
this component along which is just primarily pipe, the better
off we are going to be.
Kubby/ So the real bottom line then is we don't have as much time
to collect money up front for a down payment which may need
some increases in rates that we were trying to avoid.
Atkins/ That is what that means and I need to go back and refigure
that, the real effectiveness of what that dies. I just don't
know that right now.
Baker/ Steve, in the whole proposal to accumulate money up front,
was it built into that that the increases early were over and
above what the actual costs were for the accumulation?
Arkins/ Yes.
Baker/ So, what-the worse case scenario now is that those costs
that we hoped to have extended out will now come closer?
Arkins/ Yes.
Baker/ So the rates that we had anticipated, at least for the first
couple of years, might be close to what is reasonable to
expect anyway?
Atkins/ I just don't know that answer. I just got to go back and
take another run at these numbers. Just to let you know they
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F10249,5
#11 page 3
did shorten the time frame up on the thing and we have not
given up but that is where it is today.
Kubby/ Everything that we have to perpetuate a rate increase is to
cover interest rates instead of down payment and have it be
longer.
Atkins/ It ends up being a tradeoff and I just don't know the full
impact for you yet. It is going to take some time to put that
together.
Horow/ Thanks, Steve. The p.h. continues.
Aleda Feuerbach/ I also have some prepared remarks and I will try
and be quick about it. I am here tonight speaking for the
Kroeze Family and our business, Pleasant Valley Golf Course
and Pleasant Valley Garden Center. We wish to express to you
our concerns again about the plans that are on the books right
now. We are not sitting here trying to put flies in the
ointment. We are trying to get some sort of an agreement that
is mutually acceptable to not only you and the staff but to us
because as it was mentioned in a prior situation, we are a big
player out there too, at least from the south side and
actually from the north side and it would be nice if we could
be involved in some of these things. A little bit of history.
For the past eight years the City of Iowa City has been our
neighbor to the east. Since the city purchased the Langenberg
Farm in 1987, they have taken our land to the south so they
could put in an outflow pipe to the river. They have taken
farm ground to the southeast, cutting it in half, so they
could have an access road for their vehicles and for over a
year the city has toyed with the notion of putting the eight
foot sewer pipe connecting the north and the south plants
through Pleasant Valley Golf Course. That idea would cut
through the course with a 200 foot wide, 27 foot deep path. We
argued that this was not a good idea and to please go around.
The city said it would cost an additional $700,000 to go
around and proceeded with their plans. We suggested and the
city did agree to get the land appraised and hopefully come to
an end to this discussion. After several thousand dollars were
spent by both us and the city on appraisers and attorneys, the
city found out that it would cost over $3 million to go
through our course. Our persistence, we would like to think,
saved the city a bunch of money. The city is now poised to
move towards it next plan, condemnation and more land taking
from us and from others. Specifically from us the plans call
to take roughly a half mile long by 165 foot wide piece of
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page 4
prime ground that is very near our golf course for the eight
foot sewer pipe. The strip of farm ground that we own is 200-
225 feet wide. So they are not looking to take all of it. They
would leave us 50 feet roughly and it runs the distance from
Sycamore Street to Nursery Land or almost a mile. Under the
cities plan they would take the 165 feet of the entire
property, the northerly portion, including our newly purchased
access to our land from Sycamore Street which is known as the
Rosey House on the corner. And as a side note the city also
plans to disrupt our garden center on the north side of the
project for the eight foot sewer line to complete the
connection of the two. It could be said that we will never be
happy with what the city does on the south side of Iowa City
and you might be right. We are residents of the county and of
the city and unfortunately for us the city decided in 1987 to
move into the county and be our neighbor. Since that time we
have dealt with the taking of our ground twice, the lights,
the noise, the smell of the new sewage treatment center, the
frustration of dealing with the city and the ever changing
views and plans to connect the north and south sewage
treatment centers and a little bit of lack of concern for
their neighbors has been unsettling to us for many years. What
is before you today is yet another plan to take and we argue
that this taking will leave us effectively on the short side
again. Less useable land, less useable access to our property,
less control of our perimeter property lines and no extra
dollars to pick up the pieces. Just an attorney's bill, a tax
bill and a bill from the bank to pay off the mortgage on a
house and a piece of ground that we will no longer own. What
we have asked for from the beginning is for the city to put
the eight foot sewer pipe and now the road that must be built
for the soccer fields in the same space or close to it and
this would go on the property line between us and the
Langenberg Property. We would still give free, no charge, 33
feet to the city for this share of a road and also the pipe.
We would even be willing to work out a deal with you folks
where you could use all of the farm ground that we have there
for your temporary construction area. This proposal gets the
road and the utilities all in the same area which is
consistent for most new road construction both in the city and
the county. It would also mean no condemnation and therefore
no taking fees by the city to be paid to us. If that is not in
agreement with you, then please consider this other
opportunity. Put the eight foot sewer pipe as close to our
golf course property as possible without disturbing our
livelihood and we would give you permanent easement for where
the pipe is and temporary easement on the farm ground for
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again, the construction purposes of this project. There is no
need to acquire our house on the corner because you can go
past it and there would also be no more condemnation hearings,
no taking fees, and at least some settlement that leaves us
our ground when it is all said and done. Other details could
be worked out with the staff to get this project underway and
off of this point. I thank you for your interest.
Horow/ Thanks.
Baker/ We probably got more than we can absorb.
Pigott/ I think so.
Horow/ I have a question for Rick. Are roads that we are building
now-Or Chuck. Are roads that we are building now ones that
have sewer pipes under them?
Schmadeke/ Just throughout the city, you mean?
Horow/ AnyWhere.
Schmadeke/ Some do and some don't.
Horow/ In the city they do?
Schmadeke/ Yes. None of them have sewer pipe this size under them.
Horow/ And what is the problem if you have a pipe that size under
the road?
Schmadeke/ Well, maintenance of the pipe. This pipe is going to be
25-30 feet deep. The width of the trench is probably going to
be 60-70 feet. It will be at least the width of the r.o.w.
Horow/ And is this particular road on top of geographical material
that is as good as we can expect for putting the pipe in?
Schmadeke/ The problem here is we haven't determined the location
of any road.
Woito/ We are not building a road with this.
Baker/ My confusing is I don't remember at this time all the prior
discussions and all the details of this particular project's
location and those options that were presented earlier-Were
they presented to you earlier and discussed?
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Kubby/ Were they negotiated?
Woito/ The last negotiation was that the alternative which we
proposed to take now is the piece in fee simple and the corner
as recommended by you was soundly rejected. We need the land
now to start construction in December.
Atkins/ We have been negotiating this in this form.
Baker/ I just want to know what the history of those proposals
were.
Woito/ We have discussed them at great length in executive session.
Baker/ Those proposals presented to us tonight?
Woito/ But we can always renegotiate but we do need the land for
the contract for the first part of December and that is a
must.
Lehman/ I have one question. Aleda, I think you said we were going
to condemn 165 feet out of 200 some?
Feuerbach/ Something like that.
Lehman/ Leaving a 50 foot strip?
Feuerbach/ Yeah, that is how I understand it. It is a very long
strip of ground and you don't want all of it. You just want
that portion of it which leaves us a portion of ground which
is really useless.
Kubby/ And you are saying the golf course, this here, the strip we
want is here and there's a fifty foot strip left on the far
end.
Feuerbach/ I think (can't hear) it would be on the golf course
side, that the strip would be. But the point is, we talked
about negotiating and I would argue- I guess I have a
different definition of negotiating then what I've seen or
heard. We were asked, we got a letter which said this is what
we propose to pay you for taking this ground. What do you
think about that? Well, we don't like it. But we never
negotiate, we were never to say okay, how about we do this.
Let's try this. So let's give, let's take. Let's talk. We'd
never been able to sit down as a group and say, folks, let's
get this straightened out.
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Woito/ You won a summary judgement, or we won a summary judgement
motion and that was the last thing that was holding up the
negotiations, and from then on it's I talk to your attorney
and it's a matter of money.
Feuerbach/ In effect, yeah it's always going to boil down to money
and we've said we don't want your money. Go around us. It
doesn't do us any good. It doesn't do the taxpayers any good
to pay us money when we're offering to give you portions
cheaper.
Baker/ I hate to even bring this proposal up. But what's- I know
you're concerned about time constraints, but what's a two week
delay?
Woito/ It's a big delay for me.
Throg/ Can I ask a question differently? Would adoption of this
ordinance, which is our resolution which (can't hear), would
adoption of it tonight preclude continuing conversations.
Woito/ No. It would not preclude them.
Atkins/ This is preparing the plans and specifications for pipe,
where you situate it. And you can (can't hear)
Throg/ From where I sit, I see ten good reasons
conversation.
Pigott/ So do I.
Throg/ I also see good reasons to work-
to continue a
Pigott/ Chuck, if it's possible to-
Lehman/ I have a question for you. If you're putting in a eight
foot sewer pipe that's 26 foot deep and you have to service
that pipe, how wide is that trench going to be that you have
to have?
Schmadeke/ To service the pipe?
Lehman/ Yep.
Schmadeke/ Probably 60 feet wide.
Nov/ Once this is buried, if it has a problem ten years down the
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road, you need a minimum 60 feet to reach the pipe?
Schmadeke/ That's right. I would like to point out here that we
have shelved this sewer line as far west as we can and yet
avoid the golf course. We are keeping the 20 foot strip
between the trench and the golf course playing area. That is
where the 163 feet comes from.
Kubby/ Because the more east we go the further we have to connect
which also costs us money.
Schmadeke/ And the deeper the pipe gets.
Kubby/ Which costs a lot. I mean there is not just a one to one
relationship there.
Schmadeke/ That is right.
Baker/ (Can't hear).
Atkins/ May I suggest we will prepare a letter, Linda, Chuck and I.
We will send it to their attorney and in the letter it will
clearly spell out exactly what our proposal is so there is no
question about it. Any trouble with that, Linda?
Woito/ No.
Atkins/ That will go to the attorney. Then we can expect something
in writing back from them if you wish us to continue
negotiations in that fashion because I have a great many
difficulties from what Aleda said. We have had meeting after
meeting after meeting with these folks.
Baker/ Maybe it does need to get down in black and white.
Atkins/ Well, no. I think I would feel a lot better if we write it
down and there is no doubt and you will get a copy of it.
Kubby/ What is the time frame because I know sometimes these things
can be stalled out for just busy lives and things and that.
Atkins/ I hear you. We will take care of it.
Kubby/ That we all want to go forward on this.
Feuerbach/ Two comments. The biggest thing that I see here is that
you need-I understand the need for ground to put a pipe in the
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F102495
#11 page 9
ground. But I don't understand the need to take it forever.
You need to get the land to work the ground to put the pipe in
the ground. Chuck has said in past conferences that maybe 30
years there is going to be a problem, maybe next year. But
chances are these pipes are engineered fairly well that there
is not going to be any major problems. So okay, if you have
got 60 feet to open up the hole, what more do you need? Why do
you need 1637 Why are you taking it forever? That is the first
thing and the comment to Mr. Atkins in that we have had
hundreds of meetings or lots of meetings, we have had meetings
that we have asked questions about. What are your plans, where
are you going for specifically at the Garden Center. We have
asked time and time again what are the specifics.
Arkins/ We have written Bill Meardon any number of times.
Feuerbach/ I don't have any specifics on the Garden Center.
Atkins/ That will all be taken care of.
Feuerbach/ And it has been in the air for over a year and it does
get frustrating and we don't maybe get because we have to talk
through four different people to get a response but if that is
the way the city works then we have to try and get the
response.
Woito/ The Garden Center I think we will be able to negotiate and
we have talked about that because we are going to do almost no
movement of the building, no intrusion.
Feuerbach/ But do you understand in the beginning we were told
buildings go, intrusion maximum, golf course goes, intrusion
maximum. We are sitting here, what did we do?
Woito/ The design engineers have
accommodate your needs.
changed considerably to
Feuerbach/ This is the first reckoning that we have heard on the
Garden Center.
Horow/ I know that I mentioned that a while ago.
Feuerbach/ The last piece of paper I have on my desk shows a
temporary construction easement that takes out the three green
houses. It does not say that they are not going to be taken.
Horow/ I think this is the problem of going through members of
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F102495
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council. You are going to have
this in writing because I know
about the fact that we were no
three green houses and-
to stick with the lawyers on
that Ernie and I have talked
longer going to disrupt the
Feuerbach/ But you see that somewhere along the line it doesn't get
conveyed to the parties that make a difference.
Horow/ I see what we shouldn't do is talk about it. I think it has
got to be in writing.
Feuerbach/ You sure lose a lot on paper I think.
Horow/ I can't help it, Aleda. There is too many mis-connections
and I think that we just have to continue to do it through the
lawyers.
Feuerbach/ Okay.
Pigott/ We could negotiate this.
Baker/ Communicate.
Kubby/ I guess I feel a little frustrated because supposedly we
have done some talking face to face under different levels,
done some things via the mail and there is still a real
different perception about what information was asked for,
what information was gotten and I am not quite sure how to
resolve that because Aleda is saying she wants face to face.
Sue is saying that they gave information but it wasn't hear.
How do we have a break through on making sure we hear the
information that you are asking for and that you hear the
answers that are given.
Baker/ That is why I support-
Woito/ We gave the information to her attorney and we are setting
up a meeting to try and negotiate the northern part.
Nov/ But it is important to remember that once they have hired an
attorney I am not going to deal directly with her.
Woito/ I can't deal with her directly once she has hired an
attorney. It is against our code of ethics. So that is my
dilemma.
Horow/ And that extends to us as well.
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F102495
#11 page
Woito/ You need to call your attorney so that we can get this
worked out.
Pigott/ So it sounds like there is room for talking about this. It
is on a certain level-
Kubby/ We need to move forward on the resolution but it does not
preclude those negotiations to continue?
Woito/ No, they can continue.
Horow/ All right. This is still a p.h. Arie, do you wish to address
council?
Arie
Kroeze/ I would like to only say why condemn our property. It
cost you about $1/4 million while we are offering the r.o.w.
for nothing, the r.o.wo during construction for nothing. Why
take somebody's land away? It cost the taxpayers all kinds of
money. You have done it already twice on us. It certainly
doesn't have to be done. We are saying hey, come on through
there, stay as close to the golf course as you can and we
still have some land left yet and you don't spend any money.
Now what is wrong with that? And we have offered that. On the
estimators I think he called it a project D or something like
that. It is shown on one of the lines going that route. That
is all I have to say. Save $1/4 million. Think about that. You
have done it twice to us. That is enough.
Horow/ Is there anybody else that cares to address council on this
issue?
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-126 SIDE 2
David Dawes/ I guess I could say that I am the new kid on the block
in terms of neighborhood associations. The city has obviously
encouraged everyone within the city to become actively
involved. Specifically I am responding the Pepperwood
Neighborhood Development. There is a small number of homes in
contrast to other neighborhood associations. It is about 200
homes all together. Most of us live behind Weatherby Park and
of course we are taking an active interest in this issue
because of the construction along Sandusky. Rick Fosse at the
end of September held a forum or actually a neighborhood input
meeting. There was about 15 people in attendance and so as it
relates to the renovation project which is, as I understand
it, will be about two years from now. I just wanted to let the
council know that there will clearly be an opportunity,
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F102495
#11 page 12
especially in light of earlier discussions about letting the
public know or in this case, letting the neighborhood know. We
will take a very active interest in that as well as other
issues that become more prevalent and come before council as
it relates to the inevitable which is the growth of Iowa City
to the south, especially to the south of Weatherby Park and
that area. Thank you very much.
Pigott/ Thanks for coming down.
Horow/ Anyone else care to address council on this issue? Declare
the p.h. closed.
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F 102495
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 10
ITEM NO. 12 -
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM
OF CONTRACT AND ESTIMATE OF COST FOR CONTRACT 1 OF THE
WASTEWATER TREATMENT CONNECTION PROJECT, ALSO KNOWN AS
THE SOUTH RIVER CORRIDOR INTERCEPTOR AND RELIEF SEWERS
PROJECT.
Comment: See comment above.
ITEM NO. 13 - ANNOUNCEMENT OF VACANCIES.
a. Previously announced vacancies.
(1)
Board of Appeals - One vacancy for a licensed electrician for a
five-year term ending December 31, 2000. (Wayne Maas' term
ends,) (2 females and four males currently serving on Board.)
(2)
Design Review Committee - Two vacancies for unexpired terms
ending July 1, 1997. (Larry Quigley has moved to Coralville.
Gilda Six resigned.) (4 females and 3 males currently serving on
Committee.)
(3)
Human Rights Commission - Three vacancies for three-year terms
ending January 1, 1999. (Terms of Patricia Harvey, Dorothy Paul
and Ann Shires end. (4 females and 2 males currently serving on
Commission.)
(4)
Parks and Recreation Commission - Two vacancies for four-year
terms ending January 1, 2000. (Terms of John Pelton and John
Beasley end.) (4 females and 3 males currently serving on
Commission.)
(5)
Planning and Zoning Commission - One vacancy for an unexpired
term ending May 1, 1996, plus a five-year term ending May 1,
2001, (Sally Dierks resigned.) (3 females and 3 males currently
serving on the Commission.)
These appointments will be made at the November 7, 1995, meeting of
the City Council.
#12 page 1
ITEM NO. 12 -
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING PLY. NS,
SPECIFICATIONSt FORM OF CONTRACT AND ESTIMATE OF
COST FOR CONTRACT i OF THE WASTEWATER TREATMENT
CONNECTION PROJECT, ALSO KNOWN AS THE SOUTH RIVER
CORRIDOR INTERCEPTOR AND RELIEF SEWERS PROJECT.
Horow/ Moved by Throg, seconded by Baker. Any discussion?
Kubby/ Linda, when people get together to talk about this, is it
possible to have the ¢ity's legal representation, all of our
technical people, the Kruses and their legal folks and even a
council member, either Sue or Ernie that have been involved in
some of these discussion on a personal level as an observer.
So that questions can be asked, the lawyers can say yes you
can answer that question, the question is asked so that
everybody is in the same room around the round table to be
more thorough with maps and all of that stuff?
Woito/ We can do that.
Kubby/ I mean I don't know if that is the best way but somehow so
everybody is face to face and everybody can connect.
Woito/ My problem now is that we have discussed so much of this in
executive session that I don't know how quite to respond. All
these same arguments have already been talked about by you
people. We maybe need to go back into-We need to do some
negotiation and need to go back into executive session and get
more direction from you.
Throg/ We would have to discuss that in executive session because
there is some part of what you said that I don't fully agree
with and we would have talk about that.
Woito/ Okay.
Kubby/ With the understanding that some conversation like that will
happen I can support this resolution.
Horow/ Okay, any further discussion? Roll call- (yes).
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F102495
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 11
ITEM NO. 14-
ITEM NO. 15 -
CITY COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS.
Consider appointments to the Senior Center Commission to fill two
vacancies for three-year terms ending December 31, 1998. (Terms of
Harold Engen and Patrick Peters end.) (5 females and 2 males currently
serving on Commission.)
CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION.
ITEM NO. 16 - REPORT ON ITEMS FROM THE CiTY MANAGER AND CITY ATTORNEY.
a. City Manager.
b. City Attorney.
#15 page 1
ITEM NO. 15 CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION.
Horow/ City Council Information.
Lehman/ Sue, it is 11:40 PM. I think the only real pertinent thing
is happy 25th Anniversary.
Horow/ Thank you, Joel, if you are watching. Thank you, Ernie.
Kubby/ I will forego two things that are not necessarily timely
things. But one of the things that we were asked to do last
night is to officially refer Saratoga Springs Development back
to P/Z to ask for a recommendation from them even though we
haven't concluded our discussion about housing policies.
Horow/ Right.
Kubby/ So I would ask-
Nov/ Do we need a motion?
Horow/ I would rather have one.
Moved by Kubby,seconded by Nov to send back the recommendation
from Robert Burns, especially the letter dated October 20, to
P/Z and then come back with a recommendation on this. Any
discussion? Do you wish to set a timeline on this? We need
this by?
Kubby/ I would like them to act on it rather soon.
Horow/ Okay, all those in favor signify by saying aye (ayes). Thank
you very much.
Kubby/ Quickly, the other thing is that on November 1 there will
begin a meeting at S.E. Junior High at 7:00 PM to discuss the
site plan that is possible to happen on what was the Eagle
site that may become a HyVee site and so I encourage people to
attend. I will not be able to attend but Larry is going to go
and I don't know who else. But they will relay back to us
information from the public from that meeting as well as the
staff. Thank you, Larry, for going.
Nov/
We will check our calendars. I may get to that one, too.
I will get to the meeting where we are going to discuss the
possible Crandic RR transportation between Iowa City and Cedar
Rapids. This is a public forum, open house. Anyone in the
neighborhood come in and listen. It is at 11:00 AM to 1:00 and
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F102495
#15 page 2
it is in the council chambers here, October 26, Thursday this
week and you don't have to stay for two hours. I have been
told kind of pop in and out and find out what is going on. One
more. There is a video that will be shown on the government
channel which explains the federal deficit and what it might
take to balance the federal budget in the next 10-20 years. It
is an interesting- I saw it in Ames and our government channel
has a copy and they will run it probably two weeks or so from
now. Watch the newspapers for times.
Baker/ Is this the new version?
Throg/ Did you say 20 years? I thought plans were seven years.
Nov/ Well, this is pretty drastic and what would it take to do this
in 10-20 years would be lots of cuts. It is interesting, like
a game.
Horow/ Okay, anything else?
Nov/ That is it.
Throg/ Well, Sue. I would like to mention one point. I want to
refer to the letter from Dick Hupfeld and the Greater Iowa
City Apartment Association, October 11. So Steve, that is
right, there may be a question. It seems to me that Dick
raises some points that you quite rightly referred to in your
memo as being an item that should be addressed by kind of
having the Apartment Association recommend changes in the code
and those recommendations be directed to Housing and Community
Development Commission. But he does raise, it seems to me,
some other issues about, if you will, the fairness of
enforcement and they look pretty serious to me just reading
from the outside. I would suggest that we discuss that in a
work session.
Atkins/ Those issues are being taken to the task force anyway, Jim.
They are going to do it anyway, yeah. I am happy to schedule
whatever you would like. I just wanted to let you know that we
are taking it. Yes.
Pigott/ I had those same concerns and glad Jim brought them up.
Thank you.
Baker/ I was wondering whether it is pertinent now or at the next
informal session. Maybe we could get five minutes for an
agenda item at the next informal session. Last year we had a
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F102495
#15 page 3
meeting, a joint meeting, with our body and the U. of I.
Student Government and we said we would make it sort of a
regular thing and I think it is time we start sort of talk
about scheduling something like that again with the new
council people in or whatever. If we just put it on the agenda
for the informal discussion and work out some details and make
the invitation.
Horow/ Okay.
Throg/ Great idea. I have talked with Tim Williams several times
off and on over the last 2-3 months and every time him and I
have agreed that we have been swamped with stuff through
University activities but he would like to.
Baker/ If we can do it this fall sometime it would be good.
Horow/ Anything else?
Baker/ That is it.
Horow/ Okay, that reminds me that on behalf of you I sent a letter
welcoming to the city the new President, Mary Sue Coleman. We
received a very nice letter back saying I am looking forward
to being here. I just wanted to let you know.
I want to remind people about the Hospice Road Race, Sunday
morning. Get out there and urge us on.
The other one that I wanted to mention was the Heritage
Museum, Johnson County Heritage Museum, will no longer have
admission fee. They have received a grant from the Institute
of Museum Services and so therefore that museum which is a
dandy one will be admission free. That is it.
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F102495
#16b page 1
ITEM NO. 16 - REPORT ON
ATTORNEY.
b. City Attorney.
ITEMS FROM THE CITY MANAGER AND CITY
Woito/ I am going to the Environmental Law Seminar but you already
know about that.
Horow/ Okay.
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F102495
Agenda
iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 12
ITEM NO, 17 -
ITEM NO. 18 -
RECOMMENDATION OF BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS.
Consider a recommendation of the Housing and Community Develop-
ment Commission that the budget amendment to the Supplemental
CDBG Budget (Flood Allocation #2) be approved. See agenda Item No.
20.
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING AND AUTHORIZING EXECUTION
OF AN AGREEMENT FOR THE TEMPORARY USE OF THE E. WASHINGTON
STREET RIGHT-OF-WAY BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND M.C.
GINSBERG JEWELERS, INC.
Comment: M.C. Ginsberg Jewelers, inc. requests temporary use of public
right-of-way at 110 E. Washington Street for the purpose of providing the
ambient lighting of a tree in front of the business. This would involve
running a conduit from the basement of the business underground through
the sidewalk vault to a planter approximately 6 feet south of the entrance to
the business.
Action: ~'~/
#18 page
ITEM NO. 18 -
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING /aND AUTHORIZING
EXECUTION OF AN AGREEMENT FOR THE TEMPORARY USE OF
THE E. WASHINGTON STREET RIGHT-OF-WAY BETWEEN THE
CITY OF IOWA CITY AND M.C. GINSBERG JEWELERSt INC.
Nov/
I would like to defer this item. I expressed some concern
yesterday about halogen lights and the warmth of the tree
because halogen lights have a great deal of heat and I asked
the City Manager to check into it and Lorraine talked to Terry
Robinson and he is concerned about disturbing the roots on the
tree. So we now have two concern about that tree.
Woito/ We have another one. The owner has asked for an addition to
the resolution which would throw the light onto the front of
the business. So, that is another parameter that Doug Boothroy
has said presents a problem.
Horow/ Do you want a time finite-I am sorry.
Lehman/ It also is temporary. What is temporary?
Woito/ Temporary is temporary.
Lehman/ I think we should be talking about the times for the day or
the times of the year or whatever. If this is going to be
pointed at the front of the building going year around, it
becomes a sign.
Woito/ Well, we need to basically start over.
Arkins/ I think you need to start over. I would defer indefinitely
and come back and talk to him.
Horow/ Moved by Nov, seconded by Baker. Any further discussion? All
those in favor signify by saying aye (ayes). Thank you.
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F102495
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 13
ITEM NO. 19 -
95- 5ll
ITEM NO. 20 *
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND AUTHORIZING
MAYOR TO SIGN AND CITY CLERK TO ATTEST CONTRACT FOR THE
CONSTRUCTION OF THE IOWA CITY SANITARY LANDFIIJL FY91 COVER
AND FY96 CELL CONSTRUCTION PROJECT.
Comment: This project will include construction of an additional cell on the
west half of the landfill as well as placing the final cover on the FY91 cell.
Both the new cell and the final cover on the old cell will be constructed in
accordance with all federal and state regulations. Funding will be provided
by landfill revenues. The bid opening was October 17, 1995, and the
following bids were received:
McAninch Corporation, Des Moines, IA $1,132,764.00
Tom Keuter Construction, Bellevue, IA $ 1,170,959.00
Moyna & Sons, Elkader, IA $ 1,207,081.00
J.B. Holland, Decorah, IA $1,240,691.00
Environmental Specialists, Kansas City, M0 $1,258,661.08
Peterson Contractors Inc., Reinbeck, IA $ 1,271,928.00
Steger-Heiderscheit Const. Corp., Dyersville, IA $ 1,433,557.00
Lessard, Sergeant Bluff, IA $ 1,474,241.00
JJ Westhoff Contruction Co. Inc., Lincoln, NE $ 1,515,918.00
Tom Scheckel, Bellevue, IA $1,574,090.00
Gilbert Central, Omaha, NE $ 1,598,900.00
Engineer's estimate
$ 1,800,000.00
Public Works and Engineering recommend award of the contract to
McAninch Construction, Des Moines, IA.
Ac,,o :
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AND APPROVING AN AMEND-
MENT TO THE 1994 SUPPLEMENTAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK
GRANT (A.K.A. FLOOD #2) PROGRAM BUDGET.
Comment: On September 21, 1995, the Housing and Community Develop-
ment Commission reviewed and approved a change in the budget that would
allow flood funds to be used for rehabilitation\restoration or replacement
activities according to HUD guidelines. The Commission recommended that
$350,000 in flood funds earmarked for relocation be reallocated for the
activities detailed above.
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 14
ITEM NO. 21 -
ITEM NO. 22 -
ITEM NO. 23 -
$/'-/-
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE CITY OF IOWA CITY COMPRE-
HENSIVE HOUSING AFFORDABILITY STRATEGY (CHAS). ANNUAL
PERFORMANCE REPORT FOR FISCAL YEAR 199~,, AND AUTHORIZING THE
CITY MANAGER TO SUBMIT SAID REPORT TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT.
Comment: Iowa City is required to prepare a CHAS Annual Performance
Report (APR) for fiscal year 1994 in order to assess the City's performance
in relation to the one-year objectives set forth in the 1994 CHAS Annual
Plan. Public input was received at the October 10, 1995, Public Hearing
and the comments received are addressed within the document.
Action: '~~'~/~
CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 14, CHAPTER 4, "LAND
CONTROL AND DEVELOPMENT," ARTICLE C, "HISTORIC PRESERVATION
REGULATIONS," SECTION 3, "HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION,"
BY INCREASING THE REQUIRED NUMBER OF AT LARGE APPOINTMENTS
TO THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION, AND BY AMENDING THE
PROVISIONS FOR FILLING VACATED, UNEXPIRED TERMS. {PASS AND
ADOPT)
Comment: The Historic Preservation Commission, at its August 8 meeting,
by a vote of 4-0, recommended approval of the proposed amendments. This
ordinance will be accompanied by a resolution amending the Commission's
by-laws with regard to the filling of vacated, unexpired terms as suggested
by the Rules Committee. The resolution will be introduced at the time this
ordinance receives its final reading. No public comments were received at
the September 12 public hearing on this item.
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE BY-LAWS OF THE IOWA CITY
HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION BY AMENDING THE PROVISIONS
FOR FILLING VACATED, UNEXPIRED TERMS.
Comment: See item above.
Agenda
Iowa City City Council
Regular Council Meeting
October 24, 1995
Page 15
ITEM NO. 24-
ITEM NO. 25 -
ITEM NO. 26
CONSIDER AN OR~31NANCE AMENDING CITY CODE TITLE 9, CHAPTER 1,
ENTITLED" MOTOR VEHICLES AND TRAFFIC," ARTICLE 7, ENTITLED "TOY
VEHICLES." (PASS AND ADOPT)
Comment: The present CiW Code prohibits skateboards, rollerblades and
other toy vehicles from the pedestrian mall and on "roadways." However, the
present definition of "roadway" does not include parking ramps and parking
lots. The amended ordinance includes parking ramps and parking lots as
prohibited areas for toy vehicles.
CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 2, "HUMAN RIGHTS, CITY
CODE, BY AMEI~IDING THE SUBPOENA POWER OF THE HUIVIAN RIGHTS
COMMISSION, BY ADDING THE DEFINITION OF GENDER IDENTITY, AND
BY ADDING GENDER IDENTITY AS A PROTECTED CLASS. (SECOND
CONSIDERATION)
Comment: The Iowa City Human Rights Commission voted to recommend to
Council that it adopt these amendments. The first amendment provides the
Human Rights Commission with the authority to issue subpoenas and order
discovery in cases involving allegations of discriminatory practices. The
second amendment adds "gender identity," to all the sections in the
Ordinance where protected categories are listed. This amendment also
includes in Section 21-1, a definition of gender identity..~_p____~_~
ADJOURNMENT.
#24 page
ITEM NO. 24
CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CITY CODE TITLE 9,
CHAPTER ls ENTITLED" MOTOR VEHICLES AND TRAFFIC,"
i%RTICLE ?s ENTITLED "TOY VEHICLES." (PASS AND
ADOPT)
Horow/ Moved by Baker, seconded by Nov. Discussion.
Baker/ May I make a suggestion. Let's pass this, put it
on the
agenda for the next informal session to clarify uses in other
parts of the city. That is what I mean. Let's put it on the
agenda-
Woito/ You don't want my staff's (can't hear). We were suppose to
come back with a recommendation to you. We are looking at the
big picture.
Pigott/ I think you should.
Baker/ At the next informal session.
Pigott/ Whenever you are ready.
Nov/ This is another two minutes, let's just-
Pigott/ When you are ready about it, City Attorney, I think we
should meet.
Horow/ Go for it, Linda.
Pigott/ The staff is meeting talking about this.
Woito/ We have met once, we are meeting again and hashing out
parks, city plaza, streets, sidewalks. The whole shebang.
Kubby/ I think that is a good direction.
Woito/ The big picture.
Horow/ Is you recommendation for us is to pass and adopt this and
then deal with this afterwards?
Woito/ Yes.
Horow/ Okay, that is what I thought.
Throg/ Before we act there are a couple of people out here who came
back after first coming six hours ago, five hours ago. The
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F102495
#24 page 2
conversation just went so fast I don't
able to even follow it. While don't we
doing so that-
know that they were
explain what we are
Woito/ I would be happy to explain.
Horow/ Go ahead.
Woito/ Two weeks ago- two weeks ago? Was it only two weeks ago? The
council was concerned about where skateboards and rollerblades
and rollerskates were allowed. And they directed me and other
staff to take a look at the whole city and talked about where
we might suggest where they might be safely, where they should
be banned in the downtown area, where they should perhaps be
(can't hear). So we're looking at the map.
Pigott/ Come on up to the microphone.
Throg/ Is it possible to involve someone like Eric or perhaps Eric
in some of the conversation? He might know and his friends
might know the safest places to.
Woito/ Two, one of the places we were looking at were Mercer
parking lot as a safe place, but if you know other places?
Eric Neubauer/ The safest place I know of is just the parking ramp
right across the street, like because most of time whenever I
skate is at night and so there's no cars in there and there's
not really any people in there. And so we generally try to
watch out for people and if we see a car coming we get out of
the way just for our general safety. The only real vehicles
you really see speeding through there are police officers.
Baker/ Chasing the skateboarders.
Neubauer/ But we have a good relationship with them or they'll sit
and watch us and we'll talk to them and we wave and
everything. They tell us to go there because they know at
night there's nothing going on in there and it is safe for us
to do it.
Horow/ But Eric, that's at night and I guess what we are faced with
is trying to come up with a comprehensive situation and deal
with skateboarders 24 hours a day.
Pigott/ I think that that's you know have to give some sort of
input as to when we could do that sort of thing.
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F102495
#24 page 3
Woito/ The staff changed their mind about parking lots except for
the couple d.t. They decided it wasn't a safety risk. If the
parking ramp with the cars going around them was the safety
risk.
Kubby/ I agree with the strategy of looking at this
comprehensively. What I disagree with is prohibiting it where
they are now allowed until we do the more comprehensive thing.
For example, the roller blade/hockey league, the teams that
are playing. It will illegal for them to play until we do
this.
Horow/ Are there actually teams playing?
Neubauer/ They play up on the roof.
Horow/ Who are they organized by?
Neubauer/ I don't know. Last year before it became illegal on
Cambus we all skated pretty much at Burge and that is where
the rollerbladers did the hockey thing, too.
Nov/ You skated the University ramps instead of here.
Neubauer/ We didn't have a chance to talk with the University or
anything because they passed it during the summer when we were
at home or not in school. So we had no opportunity like this
to meet with anybody. We have tried to set up some things with
the University.
Horow/ You know, I would frankly like to ask the Student Senate to
deal with this.
Pigott/ I think these guys who skate. The Student Senate may not
deal with that.
Horow/ Right but what we are hearing though is the University is
essentially saying to them they can't do it on University
property.
Baker/ Let's put them on the agenda but I don't expect the Student
Senate to handle that negotiations.
Horow/ I don't expect them either but I do think the University
needs to get involved in this one way or another.
Neubauer/ We were in the process of trying to set up a
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F102495
#24 page 4
skateboarding club and then we would have to ratify that
through so we would be funded by the University and I have
talked to the head of the Rec Department and the head of
Facilities and Planning, I think. I think that is what his
title is and I have talked to them and they say all you have
to do is get is passed through but then mid-terms came so we
have been very busy and that has kind of gotten thrown to the
wayside and we have been focusing more on this right now as
this was approaching.
Woito/ Are your names and number on that list? Did you sign in?
Neubauer/ Yeah. I didn't put my phone number or my address.
Woito/ Why don't you do that. We will contact you and find out
about this.
Kubby/ Especially
parking lot.
indefinitely.
because staff has changed their mind about the
I think I want to move to defer this
Baker/ Can we just delete parking lots from this?
Kubby/ I tried that last time.
Horow/ What is your purpose for not deferring this?
Nov/ I would just as soon pass it and then revise it. We have spent
all of this time holding up. I just don't see the reason.
Pigott/ You don't?
Baker/ I don't see the-You know, the Roman Empire has already
fallen. I mean we are not going to save that anymore. This is
not going to affect that so I don't care.
Kubby/ Okay, let's just vote on the deferral and see what happens.
Horow/ Wait a minute. Kubby moved-
Baker/ I would vote for this if you delete parking lots.
Horow/ We are not going to get there. There is a motion on the
floor to defer this. Moved by Kubby, seconded by Throg.
Kubby/ Deja vu.
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F102495
#24 page 5
Throg/ I understand that the staff would continue doing what it has
already started to do.
Woito/ Yes, we have another meeting already set.
Nov/ Can we say two weeks?
Baker/ We have done two readings, two things.
Woito/ Our next meeting- We covered about 3/4's of the territory
that we thought we should and that took two hours and we are
meeting on November 3. So two more hours. Your next meeting is
the 7th.
Baker/ Defer it to time specific on the 7th.
Kubby/ I had said indefinitely. Linda is just saying November is
too-
Woito/ It would have to be next, November-
Horow/ The 21st.
Pigott/ Then maybe we can get these guys involved in the process.
Horow/ Defer to 11/21.
Kubby/ My motion was to defer indefinitely. If people are
indicating that the only way they will vote for the defertel
is to have that November 21 date, I would-
Baker/ Let's do it, the 21st.
Kubby/ I will so change my motion.
Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ Motion has been made and amended by both motion maker and
seconder. Deferred to November 21. All those in favor signify
by saying aye (6/1 Lehman). Okay. And you have got your name
and telephone number down there.
Neubauer/ And my address, too.
Woito/ Linda, can you also get somebody from the University? At
least notify that we are dealing with this. It would be nice
that would also.
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F102495
#24 page 6
Woito/ Terry Trueblood tried to reach five people and we did reach
someone from Security.
Throg/ Dick Gibson, he is a skateboarder.
Neubauer/ Do you want someone to come that is from the student
senate?
Horow/ No.
Council/ (All talking).
Neubauer/ One of my friend's girl friends, he skates and she is on
the Student Senate.
Horow/ That would be fine but what we really need is someone for
the University Administration-
Nov/ We need a Dick Gibson or somebody like that.
Horow/ Okay. Is there something that you have got to say that can
be told to the group that is going to be meeting?
John Castelloe/ I would like to make a short comment.
Horow/ Because we have just deferred this to November 21.
Castelloe/ I apologize for my late arrival. I have been watching
this proceedings on t.v. I am a rollerblader actually and
coincidentally I am also a member of the GSS Senate at the
University. I am a graduate student and I submitted a letter
last night. I guess I appreciated his comments about the
parking lot across the street and I wanted to second that
recommendation. We also play roller hockey on the evenings in
that same parking lot in the top level and you know, there are
hardly ever any cars up there. Occasionally maybe one or two
and we also do our best to avoid those and as I have mentioned
in my letter, I have never seen any cars moving on the top
level of the garage and just due to the conditions it is an
ideal place to play roller hockey, my particular sport, and
not play on the sidewalks and it looks like most of the areas
that are legal to rollerblade at this time it is not very
feasible to play that sport. It is an ideal place and if we
had any place in the entire city that would be the best place
regardless of the safety conditions and so forth. Because of
the location at the top of garage there is plenty of space. It
is a nice skating surface and there are walls, high walls on
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F102495
#24 page 7
all sides. So it is
mention that.
Horow/ Thank you.
an ideal condition. So I
just wanted to
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F102495
#25 page 1
ITF24 NO. 25 -
CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 2, "HUMAN
RIGHTS," CITY CODE, BY AMENDING THE SUBPOENA POWER
OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, BY ADDING THE
DEFINITION OF GENDER IDENTITY, AND BY ADDING GENDER
IDENTITY AS A PROTECTED CLASS. (SECOND
CONSIDERATION)
Horow/ This is second consideration. Is there any evidence of
council's interest in collapsing the vote on this particular
ordinance? (Reads agenda comment).
Kubby/ Why would we want to collapse?
Horow/ Someone asked me whether or not we were going to collapse
this and get it done sooner. I have no good reason for pushing
this through.
Moved by Kubby, seconded by Baker. Any discussion? Roll call-
(yes). Consideration is adopted.
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F102495
City of iowa City
MEMORANDUM
DATE:
TO:
FROM:
RE:
October 20, 1995
City Council
City Manager
Work Session Agendas and Meeting Schedule
October 23, 1995
6:00 P.M. -
6:00 P.M.
6:45 P.M.
7:00 P.M.
7:45 P.M.
8:30 P.M. -
8:40 P.M. -
October 24, 1995
6:30 P.M. -
7:30 P.M. -
November 6, 1995
6:30 P.Mo -
November 7, 1995
7:30 P.M. -
City Council Work Session - Council
(TIMES APPROXIMATE)
Review zoning matters
Economic Development Ad Hoc Committee Appointments
Meet with University Heights City Council re. Melrose
Avenue Project
City Council discussion of Melrose Avenue Project
Council agenda, Council time, Council committee reports
Consider appointments to the Senior Center Commission
Monday
Chambers
City Council Work Session - Council Chambers
Meet with Johnson County Board of Supervisors
regarding proposed Airport Master Plan
Tuesday
Regular City Council Meeting ~ Council Chambers
City Council Work Session - Council Chambers
Monday
Tuesday
Regular City Council Meeting - Council Chambers
PENDING LIST
Appointments to the Board of Appeals, Design Review Committee, Human
Rights Commission, Parks and Recreation Commission, and Planning and
Zoning Commission - November 7, 1995