Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-05-02 TranscriptionMay 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 1 of 51 May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session 5:00 PM Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn Student Rep: Schreiber Staff: Atkins, Dilkes, Jackson, Helling, Karr, Kelsay, Klingaman, Nasby, Winkelhake Tape: 05-28 Alcohol Issue Lehman: It's 5:00 o'clock. Let's get started. First item on the Agenda is a report from the bar owners alcohol committee. I think...Leah, are you going to make that report? Cohen: Yes. Lehman: Alright, you're up. Cohen: Okay. I also have Brian Flynn, who is with me, who is the Chair - er - Co-Chair of our board. First of all, we want to thank you for taking this time with us again tonight to kind of go through what we've done and hopefully come up with some solutions that we all can look at together. I just wanted to say that Rebecca Neades is not here. She expressed her regret. She's with the Chamber and is one of our representatives. Chuck Goldberg and Marc Moen are also at a hotel convention or something going on in regards to Moen's project - so they can't be here tonight, either. I wanted to first start out with just telling you a little bit about how our board has worked. As you know, we had our first meeting on November 1st of last year. We had met several times before that...some of us bar owners...just to kind of look at 'what can we do?' 'are there things we actually can do would make a difference downtown?'...and what we found from the very beginning is that there was really no camaraderie amongst anyone downtown. It's very limited. People weren't talking to each other. It appeared as though there was a lot of....you know, whether it was jealousy going on or worrying about competition and those sorts of things. So, what we did initially is that we really felt it was essential to set up some sort of trust system and camaraderie amongst the restaurants and bars downtown so that we could start working together in regards to these issues. In doing that, we knew that we could not come in and crack down and say 'here's the whip and this is what we have to do' because had we done that we did not feel that we would not get any cooperation whatsoever. We really had no legal authority behind us either. So, what we ended up doing is that we put together...as a .... I think probably many of you are aware of what we've done .... we did an accomplishment list for you and I'm just going to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 2 of 51 highlight a few of them. Basically we had set up four committees. We set up an educational committee, a compliance committee, a public relations committee and .... where's my fourth... I'm going blank here...ordinance committee...ordinance was the fourth committee. So, in working with each of those committees, we did different things. The things that were big accomplishments for the year is that we really felt we worked in a lot of ways on several educational points. We brought this Bob Anastas to campus - who was a packed ballroom at the IMU. He had started Students Against Drank Driving and was very impressive. The students we talked to were just extremely impressed with what he had to say. We started a long-term program with RVAP and what we are doing is each semester we're putting together materials that will go into the restaurants and the bars. In turn, we may in time get that expanded a little more. We found that to be extremely effective and we're working with them each semester on that. We have put together an "Ads Program" - guidelines for restaurants and bars to use in regards to ads. We talked about the 19 to socialize and 21 to drink. We have tried to get the.., most of those signs out of the windows...if you notice downtown, it used to be just plastered with those big beer signs. We have been successful in getting most of those out of downtown. There are still a few that haven't taken all of there's down - but most are gone. We also put a monitor system in place. Some bars are complying, some are doing better than others...it's an ongoing project. We keep saying that we're only six months.., but one of the things that has happened with that monitor system is an awareness within all of the bars of what's going on. We actually put out a 'here's a j ob description for a monitor'...you know, checking for excessive drinking, checking for safety issues - which are a big thing for us - whether it's a broken glass on the floor or wet floors...the security issues have really become far more aware in the bars because of this monitor system. Whether they're using the red shirts or not...and several are using the red shirts regularly...others kind of so-so. What we have seen really happen is a big uniform change going on in a lot of the bars. So, you're able to go in and tell who their staff is on duty. We feel this helps to drastically reduce incidences that happen. The other big thing we have done is that we have secured about $20,000 through the help of the State for TIPS training again this fall in August and September. It was a big program - last time we had about six hundred employees and we expect one thousand this time. So we're really looking forward to that going on. That was our accomplishments. What we're looking at now and some things that we're really working on...those are large accomplishments I should say because we've done a lot more. What we see, that we really need from here on out and that we are here to talk to Council and providing that you agree for us to continue long-term, we really have some issues that we would like to see worked on...a few ordinances that Brian is going to talk to you about...but we really need to start working a little closer, we feel, with the Police department in regards to some of these issues that we're looking at. We just had, in fact, we just had compliance checks last weekend. Two people out of sixteen, I believe, failed the compliance check. Those are two bars that are not participating with us right now. I've already had one call from one of them and is real anxious to get involved and we're really excited to see that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 3 of 51 The... we're working with a new student government now.., we have a new student president...Jason Shore has just been exceptional this last year in working with us on student issues. Mark Kresowik is going forward with it. He's talking to the University on an Orientation program - with an educational program connected with that .... so it will be connected with their Orientations. It's very successful on many campuses and we're hoping that this will really start getting the University working with us - which we think we need a lot more University involvement in this issue. We are continuing the monitor and compliance checks...as far as we ourselves are concerned. We check the newspapers each day, we're seeing, surprisingly, a lot more about downtown ads in the Daily Iowan than we used to see from outlying bars or Coralville bars. We can't do anything about those .... which makes it frustrating some times...but.., some of them are our Iowa City outlying bars that are becoming pretty big bars now and others are Coralville. We've researched some ordinances that Brian will talk about. We are looking at researching non-alcoholic events. We continually hear this thing about non-alcohol events. There are all kinds of non-alcohol things to do in this town. I raised two children in this town and I know there are. There are not campuses that have...it's very difficult for people to go in as...whether it's a bowling alley or whatever it may be and not have some other type of income in order to pay the kinds of rents that people are looking at. This is not just Iowa City - this is across the country that this happens. So, we feel that it would be good to put together some sort of booklet.., and again in accordance with student orientation...look at all the non-alcohol events that are available to students. The one thing that we have just gotten in to is getting a little tougher with individual bars. We felt is was essential to have cooperation, to work with people, and I think we have made it very clear now that as we see individual problems, we intend to address them very specifically. We, I think as a board, have decided that we love our city as our city is and what can we do to improve upon that. As part of that, as we have problems, we don't want all of us to suffer for the problems of a few and that's what's basically continues to go on here. So, we've made it pretty clear that we intend to be tougher on those issues...again, we hope we can work a little closer with the Police department in pointing out some of those things so that we can go forward on that. That has just really started. We have had a tremendous amount of concentration on excessive drinking in the last six months. That is where we felt we really needed to look. So, what we're looking for is we really are looking for...to bring long-term results. We can't do that by doing an immediate one-thing fix. It's all these little things going into effect that we hope will bring those results. Flynn: I'm going to try not to reiterate a lot of the things that Leah has already talked about other than there is a huge camaraderie right now downtown with the bar owners. She's been in this business for a long time and I've been in it for over a decade and I've never seen this many people that actually go and try to work on the same things together. It's really hard to accomplish that. That's what we've been accomplishing for the last six months. That's the biggest thing in my opinion that we've accomplished. We've started to address a lot of the issues that This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 4 of 51 are important to this board and are hopefully important to the City Council. Realistically, we need the Council's help in enforcing some of these things. As Leah said, we have no legal authority over the bars, we have no way to really do a lot of the things that would be really effective - I think the City Council has a lot more power to do that than we do. Some of the things that we've talked about as far as - what you've read in your packets with zoning and some of our ordinances. We met with Lynn Walding and one of the things that - he's the head of the Iowa Alcohol Beverages Division - and he said that some of the problems we have in Iowa City is not that .... is .... we should look at zoning to try and restrict the number of liquor licenses downtown. It's something that the City Council has looked at before and it's something that is possible to do but he said that the biggest problem is the size and capacity of drink specials. We don't have any way to say what kind of drink specials or what people can charge or do anything.., so to try to figure that out is going to be hard for us to do. They are the biggest contributing factor to excessive and underage drinking in this town. The other problems that we have addressed - and you've read most of them in your packets - one new thing we're talking about right now is 'bar crawls'. I think there were approximately twenty-some bar crawls running around Iowa City. We've been talking about a way to try to find a way to restrict that, to reduce the number of bar crawls. Its little things like that that we can do. It's not to say that we're powerless about that - but with the City Council's help, we can definitely do a lot more...given some time we can do a lot more. Cohen: ! think just being specific about bar crawls...we had talked about some sort of adding on to our ordinance 'restriction on not being able to bring cups with bar crawls'. I think that's what we'd specifically like to see. Bar crawls are going to continue, we can't stop it - you know and that sort of thing - but what's happening is that they're buying very big cups and this has been coming for three or four years and it's just gotten progressively worse. Bars are doing the 'fill the cup with alcohol' and that's why people, we feel, we have seen public intoxications the last couple of weeks and we feel this has a lot to do with it. We do have a City ordinance that says that you can not increase the amount of alcohol without proportionately increasing the price, however, there are exceptions that you can have a certain price for certain sort of groups and that's what bars are doing. We have totally failed in being able to control that right now. Most of us would like to see a very specific ordinance in regards to things like that so it doesn't continue. Most bar crawls go to maybe six bars and if they have one drink at each bar, they're going to be happy - but they're not going to be staggering dnmk. But when you get this big of a cup -that's one of the problems that goes on with it. Many of us do it responsibly or will only allow beer or will only do it in our cups and those sorts of things - but a lot don't and we feel we really need to get a hold on that. It just gets worse and worse every year and its real bad this year .... and it's all ages, it's not underage. The ones that come to mind are all of age. You can't say no bar crawls because they're all legal, they all have a right to come in and have a drink - so that' s a real problem. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 5 of 51 Lehman: Did you see the report that Officer Kelsay gave the Council? Cohen: Yes. Lehman: How do you respond to that? Because six months ago you asked to have six months to show what you could do. In almost every category, the problems are worse than they are six months ago. Cohen: Ernie, I think that when you look at any kind of statistics - and I know we've talked about a board in regards to statistics - but I think statistics can tell you very little. I think it depends upon...so many factors are involved in those statistics. What kind of concentration is put on whatever level, etc. I don't feel that we felt within six months that we were going to see basically any change in statistics - to tell you the truth. We talked about that and I think looking at that...there's no way that that can happen. Lehman: But why would they get worse? Cohen: I don't know that they're worse for any particular reason. I would imagine if we went back and looked at - not just last year but several years back - you have years where one may be worse and one may be better. I don't know that .... that we see anything different. In fact, we think we've seen a much calmer downtown to tell you the truth in the last six months. We feel we have seen far less instances. We have seen far less big incidences. I don't think, as far as looking at a six-month statistic, is going to do much in that regard. Lehman: I don't know that it does either - but when you asked to do this - you asked for six months. 'Let us show you what we can do in six months'. I think you folks have spoken...Troy .... Sgt. Kelsay is here...would you care to...I think if you would like to give your take on the last six months. Obviously we have your report .... if you'd come up here please. Cohen: I would just like to reiterate that we never said we would look at statistics. We never thought that that would be an issue. Kelsay: Mr. Mayor, the numbers that you're looking at that are included in that summary report, I was only able...and in Leah's defense...I was only able to look at the first three months of this year because of the way that the statistics are kept and the way that I keep my numbers. In those first three months, any individual statistic has fluctuated. Some are up, some are down. The big, most noticeable change, if you will, is probably the one that you are referring to and that's if you look purely at PAULA. Our number of bar checks really haven't changed in the last three years. They remain fairly constant. The number of PAULA's that are being charged on each bar check this particular year and that's for the first three months, and that's a small slice of the pie, but during that first three months they are significantly up. We have a hit rate, if you will, of 85% for the first three This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 6 of 51 months of this year. For every PAULA check, we have an 85% check of writing a PAULA charge. As compared to last year, for this same time period, it was 44%, but then you get back to 2003 and it was 79% and 2002 was 56%. There are many, many factors that could contribute to that. You are correct, that when I look at the numbers for the trends for the calls for service - it is hard for me...and we've had this discussion as far as sitting down and what has improved and what has worsened. There really has been very little measurable change that I can find. The numbers that are skewed that show a large difference are not favorable. Vanderhoefi Has there been any change in licenses suspended for bars for serving underage people? Kelsay: In the time period in which the alcohol board has come in to affect - everything that has happened as far as suspensions or sanctions to the bars were things that already had begun - they happened in year's prior. It's just a long, drawn-out process for it to go to the alcohol board, the ABD and for it to be heard. In the first three moths...I was out last month...more as a monitor...I did not do compliance check...but I wanted to go partly in response to questions from my chief, I wanted to get out there and see who was using bar monitors and what was the atmosphere downtown. I did not do compliance checks because I did not want my observations to be tainted by enforcement going on at the same time. As Leah pointed out, I did go out last Thursday night. I picked Thursday in part because it is a night that continues to be a fair amount of advertised drink specials...that and Friday afternoon clubs - are really only the two times pretty consistently there is a special going on in a majority of the bars. I was out Thursday night and Leah's right - there was a lot of bar crawl people out. I picked an earlier time to go out. We checked sixteen establishments, two failed. That is again fairly consistent with where we were in the past. When I initially began compliance checks two years ago - there were nights when more than half of the bars failed. They've showed an improvement in their service. Their procedures that are in effect to ID at the door, to mark - whether that be with a stamp or a marker or a wristband - and then to ensure that service is made appropriate to how that person is marked - and again for the most part the majority of the procedures appeared to work. Even at the bars that I was in, where I felt like I was painted fluorescent orange - because everybody appeared to be eighteen to twenty-two years of age - I watched the servers behind the bar at this particular establishment that I am thinking of- ID the bar crawl people as they ordered the drinks and only served those who were properly marked. I also, in that same bar, observed those people redistribute - those legal patrons - turn around to bar crawl people - and as Leah pointed out, ! don't know that it's specific to the bar crawl - but redistribute among their peers, among the group that they were with. The bar was doing a great business. They did not have monitors out. I don't know that they could have successfully had monitors in their crowd. They were that busy and it's a shoebox of a bar. So, the atmosphere still exists. It's still a common practice. I do think that bars have made an effort to police themselves and to tighten up their procedures - when it comes to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 7 of 51 training and service - I still think there are many that there's a permissive attitude in a bar. Bailey: When I look through these PAULA reports from year to year to year, it seems that particular establishments that have particular problems. Kelsay: Yes. Bailey: And that's your observation as well. Kelsay: Yes. Bailey: So...and they don't necessarily seem to be larger ones...but there seem to be places where people seem to know that they can go and drink underage consistently. Kelsay: Size is a factor as you pointed out. The clientele that they serve is a factor. If you look at which of those bars that you identify as problem-bars, if you will, which of those serve or allow nineteen to twenty year olds and which don't. Even within those specifics, there are those bars again that have a reputation of...they may do very well on police enforcement or doing compliance checks, their sale and delivery is good - but beyond that they have done what is minimally required of them. Then you have bar owners, for instance Leah and Brian here, and her organization, that they're interested enough, that they are working together and they are interested and concerned enough that they go above what is minimally required. But, you're right, there are certain bars year-in and year-out continue to be a problem. Vanderhoefi Those same statistics I was looking at...if you look at the average number per visit per check, that handful of bars - about five or six of them - are constantly going up over the three-year period. So they are 'getting worse' if you want to put it that way. Kelsay: When I became involved in 2002 and we focused on this issue, there were some numbers that were initially very high and I felt that, as a whole, there was a gradual decline in PAULA's...but you're right...those that now realize or have sense that there's not consequence, possibly, for PAULA's, they have started to creep up. When I've talked with Brian and the organization, these people identified that too when we looked at numbers, and very accurately pointed out exactly what you pointed out. That if you identified a group of, perhaps a half- dozen, and removed those from it, the rest of the numbers may show an improvement. But there is a problem. Cohen: I would like to add one thing - not necessarily in defense with anyone who gets PAULA tickets or what goes on with it - but it depends upon partially on what areas the Police department is concentrating on some times. I know the past This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 8 of 51 couple of years, and not so much right now with the night shift, but the past couple of years, they've had officers who have tended to just stop in the bar and kind of see how it's doing it, see how busy it is, walk around town, and they would make more of an effort to get a feel of what was going on downtown. So they would come in and leave on their checks more specifically coming into establishments looking for underage. I think now, when officers are out on the late night, I think the ones that go into the bars go in more for that specific issue. So I think that that skews those numbers again. It's very hard to tell with those numbers because of that. We've talked about .... Lynn Walding has said and we just think that's it's essential that we look at zoning with what we're doing. Its size and capacity- which leads to a lot of the drink specials that are going on. When you have large establishments and those large overheads - they have to bring people in those doors. It just magnifies that problem and that seems to be where we have most of the problems. I think it's essential that we look at that issue and what's going on with that for future reference. Kelsay: As far as the rest of the report, Mr. Mayor, when I talk about not the numbers but my observations...that you were asking about...monitors, there are monitors...but it is difficult for me to evaluate that for the reasons that I've pointed out. When I talk to staff, and I took a fair amount of time last Thursday talking to staff at various places, there are people that use the uniform shirts...they tend to come on later in the night, maybe after ten o'clock or maybe eleven o'clock .... and again, I think there has been some progress with that, whether it has met what your expectations are, I don't know because I don't know what your expectations were. Police response, I encourage the bars to continue to call us. I would not fault any of the bars because they have a high-call for service from the Police department. I would much rather deal with it that way than to deal with the following morning when I get called to the hospital or I get called by a parent. I would encourage them to call us and they have. Education, I know that the board .... I'm sorry, training was the next thing. Again, Leah pointed out that the Police department is going to work with ABD and trainers provided by this organization to have the TIPS training this fall. That may or may not happen without the board - but the board has certainly been instrumental in pushing forward and making sure that that didn't get put to a back burner. It has been difficult to get funding in the more recent years and I would give the board credit for making that happen. Education. I get contacted from neighborhood groups throughout the city to provide a police speaker for this particular event or that particular event. Many of them have volunteered. It has come up in conversation that Leah or some other member of the alcohol board has already contacted them about making themselves available to come out to speak - so I know there is some community outreach that is going on. Advertising. It's hit and miss. I went out last month...I went out a little bit later and there were signs. There were a lot of signs and stuff in the windows. Even more so - they were posted on the doors. When I was out last month - it was a warmer night and when they throw their doors open - a sign that might not be visible from the outside when the door is closed, now that the door is pulled or propped open, there are advertisements that are visible. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 9 of 51 Last week when I went out - I didn't note that anywhere. It was very different than it had been the month before that I went out. Again, I'm willing to give them the benefit that it's hit and miss. Leah said that there have been some places that have been better about participating in that than others. I hear and see the disclaimers...the nineteen to party, twenty-one to drink - but I also continue to hear the advertisement happening. Again, I can give you my observations. I don't know what your expectations were or what you feel the board did or didn't promise. I see some changes. I don't know if they rise to the level that you wanted. Vanderhoef: On the advertising, can any of you tell me if it's true whether there are websites that advertise the drink specials and/or telephone numbers to call in where the answering machine gives the drink specials for the day? Kelsay: I don't know about the answering machine part. There are websites that advertise, if you will, and I don't know who sponsors those - but it goes beyond just the bars - it also talks about 'here's a house party' - but there are sites that have that information available. Bar crawls. They know where they want to go. I do think that the bar crawls...much of what they do is binge drinking. I also happen to agree with Leah that when we dealt with bar crawl fall-out, if you will, probably disproportionate to our other calls for service, it tends to be people that are not necessarily local...they're down here, they come in to town because they're visiting a friend that's here...or 'hey, come down and do a bar crawl in Iowa City, it's a great thing to do' and then we get into the 'you can't tell me leave, this is a free country, you can't tell me to go home'. 'I'm sorry, but I can. You've had too much to drink. It's a public safety issue'. The bars...pretty much two a bar when I was out last Thursday complained about the bar crawls...that they were having difficulty controlling them...that it was a problem and an increasing problem from their perspective...but, with the exception of one bar, and it was only because I went in after the magic cut-off hour they had for bar crawl, with the exception of one bar, they were also serving bar crawls also. So, it's a business decision to some degree. Leah's bar, I wasn't able to get in...or I was turned away at the door there so I'm not sure what happened in there. Champion: You're not twenty-one? (Laughter) Cohen: We have a policy that they can't come in after nine o'clock at night for bar crawls. But then we have...no he means his compliance operation...his twenty- year-old was turned away at the door. But that is a major issue that we deal with. With regards to websites or those type of things. There is one called "UI Light" that had a lot of publicity. The more publicity you give those people, the bigger it gets and they start getting all these hits on this website. They had my specials on there and I had no idea that they had my specials on there. They simply called on the telephone, asked what your specials were and they have the response and they post them on it. There is little we can do about that. We did get a hold of them. Brian talked to them specifically. He talked to them about getting some This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 10 of 51 educational things on there and I think that they have changed their focus a little bit...not their focus...I shouldn't say they. They're young students, entrepreneurial that want to make a little money doing this. They did put a few more disclaimers and put more responsible things we felt with it. But that's all we can do. We can't control what those people do. O'Donnell: You know, about five years ago, I had never heard of a bar crawl and I had never heard of the t-shirts...didn't know how many people participated...I really didn't know how rowdy they can get...I've never been on a bar crawl. I was too busy taming the West. (Laughter). As far as what we expected of this group, I don't think that I expected immediately results. The problem did not happen overnight and I don't think that the remedy will happen overnight either. ! did want to hear about the red shirts more. I .... ! had not heard of that before. Cohen: The monitor system is using red shirts. We specifically had red shirts made up that say 'Monitor'. The whole idea with that is to get them into all bars so that it's really .... we feel it's more of a safety issue than anything. Someone will know if there is a problem that that's what that person is or that person will detect...their job is to just continually walk through to detect excessive drinking, underage drinking, and all those sorts of issues. We feel that it is fairly effective. As big bars get very busy, it is very hard to find the monitor in them and because of that we have worked with certain bars in regards to their entire security staff. Uniforms for their staff that we feel is maybe even more important than this monitor system in place. So we are working a little further...we're getting further into the monitor system...but ! would say that half the bars are every single night. Remember, it isn't as though these bars are packed downtown every night. I would say Thursday night, Friday and Saturday night... 1 lpm - 2am is pretty much .... usually they have someone come on at 10pm. I've been doing checks on them for about two months or maybe even longer. They see me go out the door and they're used to seeing me flying in those doors...usually Friday and Saturday nights is when I go in. I've had some that are not compliant all the time, I've had some that have not complied at all. You know, one thing we see in this town, it's a little disheartening sometimes .... is we have a couple of bars downtown that are from out of town owners and you know they just come to town and take their money out of town and they are absolutely...they do not contribute to anything, they do not give a gift certificate, or anything towards whatever we maybe decide we do. We're doing fundraisers each semester and we're working on this extended retail night downtown. People say, 'how does that fall within your mission', how it falls within our mission is that our total image of downtown gets overshadowed by this alcohol issue. Just on a consistent basis. Part of our mission is working on that image and you know, we have been successful in getting almost all those retail stores are going to be open until 8:00pm on Friday nights starting May 20th. We've raised about $2,000, maybe more, it isn't all in yet, for a wonderful television campaign - we're getting The Press Citizen - great cooperation for coordination with the concert series...we have all sorts of things going on...but this is another thing we've learned that our board can do. When This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 11 of 51 you have large numbers like that...you know, we have a little bit of power to get some really good participation in these sorts of issues that has never happened before. For ten years people have been trying to get stores to stay open consistently late one night and it was simply going around and saying 'You know, it's just going to cost your staff. We're going to raise the funds for you to do this.' So, each semester we can do something like that. That's another way that we can beneficial. Dee has commented...you know last time she said 'Would this board be in effect if we went 217' and we have decided that no, it would not. And the reason it would not is that we would have no authority over anything. We would have nothing. It would be just all up for grabs at that point because everyone would be trying to keep their business afloat and we would have absolutely nothing to say about anything any more. Lehman: But you don't have any authority now either. Vanderhoefi You don't have any now either. I want to go back to your mission statement because as I read it 'to provide proactive, effective, community-based leadership for the prevention of excessive and underage drinking in downtown Iowa City establishments and the community.' It is only...the mission for alcohol. When I started reading through the things that you are doing, including this Friday night keep the stores open and stuff, and a couple of other things that struck me, that's the DTA. Those are the same things that the DTA has done off and on for years. Has not anything to do with addressing alcohol. So all your energies on those things...I appreciate them in the community that isn't the problem...but the problem is that if that same amount of energy were used in addressing alcohol, which ! see as your mission .... so that's one thing that I have a problem with how this is. ! have another problem with...number one, we didn't get a response from the committee when we asked for 'how you were going to measure and tell us what was happening and so forth'. This was our first anything coming back from the committee during this time and then I started looking at your objectives and it just brought up more questions than answers because I was expecting things about measurement of what you had done on the various objectives like how many people have signed up to be part of the group, how many of those when you monitored- and I'm not real clear of what you are monitoring or looking for when you go in - so that was another thing. There were some things about press releases and I'm not real clear that the Council ever received a press release, but maybe we did and I just don't recall it - so I'll just let that one go along, then you talked about sending letters to bars that didn't seem to be following the objectives and there's not report...I'm not asking for names...I'm just saying that there is nothing in your report to us that says we ever sent a letter, whether we sent a follow-up letter, any kind of outcomes.., so those were the things that I was expecting for you to report. Cohen: Those things can be found in our minutes. If you look through our minutes...and we have reported to Council prior to this. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 12 of 51 Vanderhoef: I have read all the minutes but there is not report on this. Cohen: With regards to what has happened with the bars in particular. It is our policy to meet with bars in particular problems that we see. We do not choose to go publicly with that initially. We feel that we need to give them a chance to respond to it. We have had cooperation in that regard every time and I think it is usually reflected in our minutes. We just had one a week or two ago that was reflected in our last minutes - if you would read them. What we have done is met with them, sometimes just privately, sometimes we've had to meet with them as a board...and we have had, what we have felt, was cooperation so that we did not have to go further on it. We don't feel that we should publicly put out information in regards to - Vanderhoefi I'm not asking for that. Cohen: We just recently had talks with the Police department and Eleanor with regards to a particular issue and we feel that it is adequately resolved right now. I think in regards to, and I won't remember all of your questions, but if you look at our mission statement and it talks below the mission statement on things we intend to do, I think we get into a little more in regards to our public image and how important we feel that is. That is part of the alcohol issue because there is a perception out there that is not always accurate, so it is very much, we feel, a part of what our mission is. There are .... I feel that we can take any individual...any individual can take us and pick us apart if they would chose to. We feel at this point that we have done tremendously with cooperation amongst the bars downtown. We feel that we are on a very good path that has never been done in this city before. We will never say we are perfect and we will never say that every bar is cooperating because that is not fact and that is why it is one of our future goals in the next six to nine months to work a little more closely with the Police department in regards to specific bars and where we are seeing specific problems. There is a total difference in excessive versus underage drinking and we feel that excessive drinking has caused a tremendous amount of trouble and that does not necessarily know any age. I think we have concentrated a little more on that in our first six months. We cannot do everything in six months. We just can't. Lehman: How would you suggest...obviously you have a few bars - because you don't have any authority other than the camaraderie that you have been able to establish, and I really do respect the amount of work that you people have put in...I think you're far overdue...obviously there is going to be this group of five or six that aren't going to pay any attention. How do we deal with those people? How does the Council deal with those issues? Cohen: I think what we need to do...there are a few ordinances we need to look at in regards to dealing with some particular issues that are blatantly skirting the law or we don't like it...or promotion of excessive drinking or whatever it might be. I This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 13 of 51 think the other way that you deal with them is I think through our Police department. I think that more direct communication with regards to where the problems are and talks with the bar owners. We tend to have pretty good success in talking to the bar owners. Lehman: But you're going to have a few that you can't talk to. You talked about compliance...but then the Sergeant said that during the bar crawl that he watches that the bars are they are absolutely following the letter of the law, they don't serve anybody that they shouldn't and the bar owner sets there and watches them take the booze and give it to the people who shouldn't be drinking it. They know it when they're serving it. Now, what kind of compliance is that? Cohen: I don't know that the bar owners are sitting there watching that. Maybe they are. Lehman: Are you saying that you don't think they know that's happening? Cohen: I think they know that's happening. Lehman: They're doing it...how do you deal with it. Obviously these are your people? Cohen: Well, I think, again it's a matter of very specifically talking...we have had pretty good success, very specifically talking with these bars saying that we want better conformance here. 'We want you to do a better job or we're going to have a little more trouble with it.' Lehman: But they do comply, don't they? They don't serve anyone that's not of legal age, they those people take the alcohol and serve it to those who are not. Cohen: We would catch it if they are not compliant. I think that... Lehman: I think I heard Sergeant Kelsay say 'This is what goes on during bar crawls'. Bailey: I don't think he said that they were watching them redistribute it. Schrieber: The officers watched, not the bar owners. Bailey: Not the bar owners. Kelsay: In the example that I cited, I was there in plain clothes. I was doing compliance checks. It was happening openly in front of me. I didn't take any enforcement action because I was enforcing something else. It did happen that the place that I was citing as an example that one of the bar owners was sitting a few feet from where it happened. I don't know if they saw it or not. Should they have reasonably been aware that it was happening...yes, probably in this particular case. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 14 of 51 Elliott: I think we've had enough questions. I'm ready for us to start talking. I have some things that I'd like the Council to do, but I don't think that we're getting anywhere further (Tape Ends) Bailey: I would respectively disagree with Dee saying that this is outside of their prevue to do these cultural things downtown. I think if you can change the culture in the area, I have observed...one night when I was in line for a Harry Potter book with a bunch of young kids, I have observed that the behavior changes when you have not a concentration necessarily of young people down town. If we can promote that and promote a different culture downtown, I think it will change the excessive drinking - or at least the acting out behavior that we find so difficult and inappropriate - so I think that it's great that they're pursuing these other sorts of things because it's a cultural challenge. I just want to express my appreciation...you're all small business owners and the amount of time you've been spending on this is just incredible and I just want to thank you for those efforts because I know it's taking time away from your businesses to do this and I just wanted to say thank you. Champion: ! just wanted to say thank you, too. I think you've gotten a lot done in six months. It isn't perfect and I don't expect change overnight. You don't go gray overnight...it takes a while to get to that point. Although you can go to not being gray over night. (Laughter) Some of the things that concern me...and Leah knows that this has been a concern of mine from the beginning...is the monitors...because the bar owners promised the last time that we skirted the twenty-one issue that they would all do monitors. The big bars ought to have more than one monitor because you're still seeing public intox downtown and you're still seeing some fights and that's always excessive alcohol I bet 99.9% of the time. Is it possible...can we write an ordinance that if you have so many people in a bar that you have to have a monitor? Is it possible to do an ordinance that controls monitors? Like...if you have one hundred people, you will need a monitor. If your bar capacity is 150 people then you need two monitors. Because that to me...I am going to tell all of you up front that I love what you're doing...but if the bar owners want to control the excessive drinking downtown - they could do it. They just aren't quite ready to do it. They just don't feel threatened enough yet. Cohen: Some are, Connie. We just need the law there to get everyone to conform. It's just harder to get some. Champion: That doesn't mean that I'm not happy with what you're doing. I think you've done a great job. I think we need to talk about bar monitors...because we've been talking with the bar owners for three years now...and it's still hit and miss. Leah, I know there were some problems, or I heard on the street, that kegs are being sold in bars to fraternities and then they were selling alcohol. Is that legal? Bailey: That's bootlegging. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 15 of 51 Champion: That's not legal. Is your group addressing that problem? Dilkes: I'm sorry, I didn't hear what Regenia said. Bailey: Isn't it bootlegging to resell alcohol? Dilkes: I talked to Leah about that and it's unclear to me exactly what was going on. It never...we never went beyond that. It could...it would be bootlegging if it was being sold by someone who didn't have a liquor license but it's not clear to me that that is what was happening. What I told Leah is that we'd have to know and the Police department would have to do an investigation and figure out exactly what was going on. Champion: You talked about capacity being problem. You're talking about not too many people in the bar but just the size of the bar? Cohen: Just the size. If we can do something on sizing of bars...the other thing we talked about would be...right now there is lots of exciting things going in downtown but there is a big trend for very upscale, smaller restaurants sort of things and if you look at most cities, it's restaurants and boutiques and that sort of thing. We're getting very good things happening there, but one thing with it is the upper and lower level ordinances, and we've talked about size...we have, I know, when you look at...that you have to sell 50% food to get a liquor license...for instance, there is an upper level sort of thing. I think that something needs to look at in regards to a higher percentage of food. I think when you get in to 50% food, which is about close to what I am, and I am clearly a bar at night and a restaurant in the day. So I think, if we want to attract and stay away from bars as such that I think we need to look at whether it's a 75% or something along that line to accommodate these upscale nicer places that we want and stay away from the bars. That's just my opinion. I don't know whether... Champion: What else can we do to help your group move this forward? Cohen: I think we need to look at some sort of...and I don't know exactly...Eleanor would be good at you know, talking about this, what we can do in regards to this cup thing with bar crawls...to just get those eliminated...not bringing cups into an establishment. I don't know what kind of ordinances... Schrieber: I'll tell you what else will reduce bar crawls is to ensure that the students pay cover in every bar that they go to. That will shut down bar crawls in a second...because the whole point of a bar crawl, from a student's perspective, is to get to get the atmosphere of a bunch of a different bars and not have to worry about paying that pesky coverage charge. Once people are shelling out $25 a night for cover, that's a lot for a student and they don't want to deal with it. That's an option with bar crawls. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 16 of 51 Bailey: That's a good idea. Kelsay: That's a good observation because when I was out Thursday night...it wasn't unusual to see a variety of different stamps and the bar crawl people were treated differently at the doors as far as what they paid and how they were marked. Schrieber: I've planned them myself and that's the first thing that you ask for... 'Can you give us cover?'...so say 'No' and there will be less. O'Donnell: Just say no, eh? Cohen: We have gone away with female/male issues that we dealt with. You know, females don't pay cover but males do. We've talked to bars in addressing that issue and getting that done. Dilkes: Have you had conversations with bars? Kelsay: It was happening Thursday when I was there and they told me on Friday that they had reversed that policy. Kart: I'm sorry, I can't hear the response. Kelsay: I'm sorry, I said that that is still happening. One of the bars that I was at on Thursday was letting females in with no cover and then they said on Friday that they reverse it and do the opposite. O'Donnell: We could talk about this for another couple of hours. Lehman: No we won't because we're about done. O'Donnell: I am hearing some things...I am hearing zoning, size of bars, monitoring...I think there are some positive things happening and I guess our decision now is... I thought I heard Officer Kelsay say that you believe that most of the bars downtown are trying to participate? Kelsay: I don't know about most. There are more now than...there is an increased concern. The concern goes up every year. It's gone up with increased enforcement, there is more of an awareness now...this particular alcohol awareness board. When I was out Thursday night, easily the majority...all but a very few said that they had had contact with a representative of the board, within the past week, saying 'You know what, this is happening, you need to climb on board and participate or bad things are going to happen. There is going to be negative consequences.' So, they're out there... I really think that measurably there has been very little impact so far. It depends on how fast you want changes. When I have done increased enforcement, when I have had the resources This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 17 of 51 available for me before we suffered the whole budget thing that we went through, and I could dedicate resources to it - I could get my PAULA numbers up but it didn't change the atmosphere. But it didn't change it. So far, nobody - law enforcement, the Council, the Alcohol Bar Committee last year or the Alcohol Board this year - nobody has found that silver bullet - and nothing that has been done to date has made anything more than an incremental change. Wilbum: I'd like to ask a couple questions. One of one Leah specifically, if you don't mind going up. In your opening comments, you mentioned.., and I'm paraphrasing.., in terms of who you all feel is not cooperating or participating with your group as far as bar owners. You said you intend to address very specifically their action or inaction or non-compliance with the law...you talked about talking with them and having meetings. Did you have any other ideas or suggestions on what that might mean for the future? Cohen: Well, I think that we could...and this goes along with working with the Police department...is we feel as a board that our particular problems that are not being addressed, we first talk with the owner, and in turn we would send a letter to the Police department and the City Council in regards to basically a citizen's complaint, expressing our concern and asking for additional Police cooperation. If establishments have additional police in them, they lose business. It's a pretty effective means, I think. Wilburn: I'm just thinking to myself...you know, Connie, you pointed out about the monitors and since we started talking about this...two, three - however many years it's been - several of the ideas were discussed then too and I guess I feel .... I guess this is maybe a third go-around, just feeling like 'here we go again'. I've heard increase cooperation or willingness to talk with Sergeant Kelsay...I've heard that before...it's interesting to hear the talk about how to monitor a cup or container - which we've had trouble with and were poked fun at as that being part of an ordinance .... and I guess it's just like 'here we go again' type of thing. Sergeant Kelsey mentioned that regardless of the efforts to monitor the process of who the liquor is sold to because of the redistribution factor.., someone giving someone who is underage a drink that they have purchased...the fundamental question is...you know...whether we are sanctioning ease of access to alcohol in an area that we are required by the State to monitor the liquor license permit and the fact that the legal drinking age is twenty-one. It's wonderful...I would have hope that...you know...the group, regardless of whether there is a nineteen or twenty-one ordinance, that you would be promoting downtown because it behooves you to do so, in addition to it being a positive environment or atmosphere for the City. I just don't know where we go from here without repeating ourselves a year from now, two years from now. Vanderhoef: I would like to just report...Bob and ! attended a meeting of the University Parent's Association Board of Directors a week ago Saturday and they are very concerned about everything that they hear about the safety for their children. I This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 18 of 51 would say, without them taking them a vote, that they were 100% in favor of going 21 and thought that they would like us to go immediately. They asked what they could do to promote this and whether emails would be effective or not. I said we certainly have had that experience in previous times that we have talked about alcohol and that perhaps a letter from them in total would be a better way to go. They asked what they could do specifically to help with this whole bar scene. We talked a little bit about fines and fees and those things and taking care of some of their misconceptions on what powers Council had as far as licensing and where fines and fees go and so forth. That being said, there is a support there. They were interested in moving forward again and looking at the Stepping Up Program and promoting that more with the student body and they thought that the committee was a very representative committee now because it did have both citizens and University people and the Mayor, and the City Administrator, and it had a variety of people that were interested in this and that's one thing that I'm not hearing today that there has been any collaboration between that group, which was originally set up to do...they were out to do responsible drinking...that was their general thrust from day one. They weren't trying to say 'no drinking'...so that's just a report that I will give to you. The other thing that I was going to report to Council tonight on alcohol was that I got notification yesterday and tracked it down today...House file 275 is waiting on the Governors desk right now. The bill does refer us back to the misdemeanor charges and those are to go up to $200 for first offense, 2nd offense, which is now $200, is going up $500 and the person arrested would have a choice between a substance abuse class and evaluation or suspension of a driver's license up to on year. Third and subsequent offenses would go up to $500 and supports removal of drivers license up to one year. That was in response to Council talking to our legislative group from Johnson County. They put a bill forth and it has passed up to the Governor's level at this point. So, I would certainly like Council to look at sending a letter or an email to the Governor to encourage him to sign it. Lehman: Okay, we're going to take a break now. Elliott: I want to have a - Lehman: I'm sorry. Elliott: I want to have a say...but are we going to come back and visit this when we get back? Lehman: Probably not tonight. It will go on a work session. We got the report from the alcohol committee and Sergeant Kelsay. Elliott: So we are going to spend some time? Because I'm tired of the Council looking at this unilaterally. I think that we need to see what University is going to do. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 19 of 51 Lehman: That's fine. That's for another evening. We have to break now because we have to start the regular work session in twenty minutes. We will put it on a work session. Elliott: We talked about one thing tonight and there must be at least a dozen things to talk about... Lehman: Yeah, but tonight's only purpose was to receive the report from Leah and her folks and we've done. We will get it on a work session. (BREAK) Lehman: Ms. Franklin. Planning & Zoning A.) CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MAY 17TH ON A RESOLUTION TO AMEND THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN BY AMENDING THE SOUTH CENTRAL DISTRICT PLAN TO CHANGE THE FUTURE LAND USE MAP DESIGNATION AND PLAN TEXT TO CHANGE THE AVIATION COMMERCE PARK DESIGNATION FROM INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL TO RETAIL / COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL. Franklin: First two items are setting public hearings for May 17th. The first on an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan to change the South Central district plan from intensive commercial to retail community commercial in the area of the Aviation Commerce Park. B.) CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MAY 17TH ON AN ORDINANCE CONDITIONALLY CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION OF APPROXIMATELY 54 ACRES FROM PUBLIC/INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL (P/CI-1) ZONE TO COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL (CC-2) ZONE FOR PROPERTY LOCATED ON RUPPERT ROAD. (REZ05-00004) Franklin: The second is the rezoning of that same area from commercial intensive to community commercial, which is the retail zone. C.) REZONING APPROXIMATELY 29.26 ACRES FROM INTERIM DEVELOPMENT RESIDENTIAL ZONE (ID-RS) TO PART LOW DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL ZONE (RS-5-10.92 ACRES) AND PART MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL ZONE (RS-8-18.34 ACRES), SUBJECT TO CONDITIONS, FOR PROPERTY LOCATED ON SOUTH SYCAMORE STREET EAST OF NORTH OF SOUTHPOINT SUBDIVISION. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 20 of 51 Franklin: The third item is on for public hearing and first consideration of the rezoning of approximately 30 acres from ID-RS to RS-5 & RS-8. This will provide for a 106- lot single-family, residential development. There is a conditional zoning agreement with this. The project is called Brookwood Pointe. It is on Sycamore Street just south of one of the Mount Prospect additions, north of South Point, and near Wetherby Park. The conditions that are in the conditional zoning agreement relate to a pro-rata share for the construction of Sycamore at a future date, which now is scheduled in your Capital Projects for fiscal year '09. Our estimated costs for the project totally is two million dollars and the contribution of this particular development would be approximately $73,000. The second condition for the conditional zoning agreement is to provide the storm water detention area with the first phase of the development project. The project is divided into phases, the first of which would be along Terrapin Drive...whoops .... would be along Terrapin Drive along the southern part of the project...I'm trying to be very delicate with this. The storm water detention basin is on the west end of the project and out lot A and the first phase would just bring in Terrapin off of Sycamore. So, one of the conditions is that storm water detention basin be construction concurrently with Phase One, since it will provide storm water detention for that area. Elliott: Karin, what did you say? Franklin: Terrapin Drive. Elliott: Is Terrapin Drive the street that goes to the soccer fields? Franklin: Well, not directly. Terrapin comes around, goes up, and then will intersect with Covered Wagon Drive, which comes from the Sandhill Estates to the .... Sandhill Estates to the west. Then you'd take Covered Wagon and this is Wetherby Park, where the arrow is. The streets are broken up here so you don't have a lot of people who are cutting directly through this neighborhood. Elliott: So this would all be west of Sycamore? Franklin: Yes, it is all west of Sycamore. The third condition in the condition zoning agreement is if necessary to provide an easement for sanitary sewer between Southpoint, which is the development immediately south of this project, and Sandhill Estates. This is to enable an obligation that we have, the City has, to Southgate to get that sewer line in. It is likely that what will happen is that is will be constructed as part of this project, but just in case the phasing of this project is not as quick as we would wish it to be, there's a provision for an easement so that sanitary sewer can be put in place. The fourth condition is to commit financially to landscaping along Sycamore. This would be done at the time that Sycamore is improved and then there is also a provision that covenants that any fencing along the lots along the west side of Sycamore will be set back twenty-five feet from the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 21 of 51 Sycamore right of way so as not to interfere with the construction project in the future. O'Donnell: Karin, you're talking...not fencing design but fencing set back. Franklin: Exactly. Bailey: And the landscaping is to buffer, right? Franklin: Right. Bailey: Why do we tend to be expensing landscaping rather than burms? Franklin: It's a choice that we leave to the developer. In this case, usually the fencing is put up by individual property owners. The landscaping will be something when the Sycamore project is done...whether there is fencing there or not. There is a provision that any landscaping that is done will be done on the outside of whatever fence might be there. All of those conditions have been agreed to by the developer. We have a conditional zoning agreement .... the final signatures may not be in yet - but they will be tomorrow. There was just a glitch in the notary. Questions? Vanderhoef: Yes, where does the trail intersect with Wetherby Park? Franklin: It will be in the sidewalk system, Dee, and will come along the sidewalk here. I'll try to describe it. It comes from Covered Wagon Drive on the west end of the development where it is abutting Wetherby Park and will come through the sidewalk system out to Terrapin and Sycamore where at then you will connect with Sycamore drainage way across the street. Elliott: I have a question back on B, number 4 on the design standards for large retailers. What are we talking about for design standards? Franklin: The Planning & Zoning Commission wished to have a certain building design provision with any large retailer that would be in the Aviation Commerce Park - the whole area. Elliott: So they wanted to have a common look to the exterior of the building? Franklin: No, it has more to do with design features relative to the very large buildings that have to do with breaking up the appearance of the masts, having at least two entry-ways so that at some point in the future when those large buildings are not used by that single user any longer - they can be used by smaller retail users...because we're talking sometimes around 200,000 square feet for the building, which is quite big. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 22 of 51 Elliott: So we're talking about the lines of the building as opposed to whether it's brick or what have you? Franklin: Yes. Champion: Just a different design to break it up. Franklin: Yes, just to break up the appearance of it also to allow to be divided into smaller spaces in the future, should it redevelop. Okay? Lehman: Just...I'm sorry...the design standards that Bob was referring to...are they relative to this project only? Franklin: They are relative to the conditional zoning agreement for Aviation Commerce Park, yes. Lehman: So it would not apply to any other large box or store built anywhere else in the City? Franklin: No. Lehman: Alright, thank you. Bailey: I was just wondering, generally, because we're doing a lot of development in this area, when is the full build-out this expected and how are we communicating with the schools? Certainly there is going to be an impact on schools and the district. Franklin: Usually twice a year, Lane Plugge and Jim Bailey and I meet and go over all the development projects that are either in the works or are anticipated and try to...by the housing type that is being anticipated...it helps them project their numbers that they will have in the schools. It's really difficult to say what the absorption rate is going to be. If you use South Pointe, which is to the south of this, and Mount Prospect to the north of it, it's probably within about a three-to-five year time range in which it builds out, although not totally. Neither one of those are done yet. Bailey: Thanks. Vanderhoefi And are these...these are all Grant Wood. Bailey: Yes, that's why I asked. Champion: But a lot of times, some of those neighborhoods are getting a little older now a then the kids move in to the new ones. Bailey: That's one of our impact schools that we've been discussing. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 23 of 51 Franklin: Yes, Dee? Vanderhoef: Has there been any conversation yet with the school district about a future site south of Highway 6? Franklin: Yes, although it's one of those that will also expire in 2007. If you recall when we annexed Sycamore Farms, that was the same time that we annexed Windsor Ridge and we got a reservation for a school site in both of those developments. The reservation of the school site in Sycamore Farms was south of this area, down close to the soccer fields - generally speaking. There wasn't anything that was landed on...but that was, because it was also a reservation and not a dedication, it's something that expires and will expire in 2007. ! think it's safe to say, as in Windsor Ridge, there will be nothing built on that site and that site will be forfeited. As we go through further development of this area and south of South Pointe is in the County, there is potential there for annexation and zoning and at that point we would be working with the school district to see if there was an opportunity to acquire a school site as we've done with Clear Creek. Okay? Moving on to Item D. D.) CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CONDITIONALLY CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM COUNTY A1 TO CC-2, COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL (APPROXIMATELY 16.05 ACRES), CI-1, INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL (APPROXIMATELY 20.22 ACRES), CO-l, OFFICE COMMERCIAL (APPROXIMATELY 10.92 ACRES) AND RR-1, RURAL RESIDENTIAL (APPROXIMATELY 2.83 ACRES), FOR PROPERTY LOCATED NORTH OF HIGHWAY 1, WEST OF HIGHWAY 218 AND EAST OF KITTY LEE ROAD (REZ04-00030) (SECOND CONSIDERATION) (DEFERRED FROM 3/22, 4/5) Franklin: This is a project that we've had quite a bit of discussion on. The Davis annexation and rezoning. Lehman: They want it expedited, I see. Franklin: Actually, now that I think about this...I should have thought of this earlier. We can only do second consideration. We have to get the annexation notice back from the State before we can do the third reading. I'm so glad I thought of that tonight. So, just second consideration. Disregard that request to expedite and then we will hold the third reading of that ordinance until we get the annexation notice. And I'm done. Lehman: Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 24 of 51 ITEM 13. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING DISTRIBUTION OF THE "PROGRAM FOR IMPROVING NEIGHBORItOODS" (PIN) GRANT FUNDS Klingaman: Good evening, I'm here on my annual review of the P1N Grants. This year things have taken a little bit of a turn just recently, so basically what I'm going to be asking the Council to do at this time is to defer consideration of the resolution until probably your June 7th meeting, The Longfellow Neighborhood Association -their application for sidewalks...the two gap areas of the sidewalks in the neighborhood - they found out late last week that there is no interest on the part of any of the property owners to see those sidewalks installed. They got notification from the folks that live directly next to the trail and that letter is in the packet that Marian distributed. I had a conversation with the homeowner of the property on 7th Avenue just last Thursday who again suggested that he would not be interested in seeing the sidewalk installed either. In the spirit of keeping the process positive, they've decided to withdraw their applications. So, my intentions are to go back to the neighborhood councils, take the $2,000 that they have available and suggest to them to reallocate it to the some of the projects that you have before you now. What I'd like to do, simply because we've already organized all the neighborhoods to come in tomorrow evening is to go through the process and then have it again on your agenda on June 7th. Lehman: So, are you asking that we accept the presentation tomorrow night and defer it? Klingaman: Defer it. Lehman: Defer everything? Klingaman: For accepting the resolution...because the dollar amounts will be different. I don't expect that the grant applications will be any different so what you will hear tomorrow night is what the grant funds will be used for - it's just the dollar amount. Champion: So the next meeting we'll just pass the resolution. Lehman: Well, wait a minute...next meeting? I thought I heard you say June? Klingaman: Probably June 7th because the neighborhood council won't be meeting until May 12th now and that's a little tight. Lehman: So we'll refer it to the 7th of June. Okay. Klingaman: Yes. I'd like to go through them regardless and answer your questions and do what we usually do. I won't discuss Longfellow but I'll kind of go in the order in which your memo is written. The Melrose Neighborhood Association has a grant application that has been approved to create a master plan for Brookland Park. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 25 of 51 The park has not been improved for decades. They'd like to see some improvements made to it and they'd like to do it comprehensively so that entire plan is established and then they can strategically have funds allocated to have that plan actually implemented over the next few years. Parks and Recreation has graciously...the department has graciously agreed to provide matching funds up to $2400 so that they can get the project done. Any questions? Okay. Southwest Estates. They are being recommended by the Neighborhood Council receive $4500 for playground equipment for Weber School. This is just a small portion of a large project that they are doing fund raising for. They have already succeeded in collecting over $38,000 for a $70,000 total playground renovation. They are seeing a lot of growth in the school district and the need for that school particularly and they need a larger playground. I know...Regenia had mentioned the conflict with the Parks & Recreation Commission and the fact that routinely any time that they review these applications for playground equipment to be funded by PIN grants to be installed on school district property, they don't feel comfortable with it. The Neighborhood Council kind of takes the stance that any time that they approve funding for this type of project it's usually because there is no public park area immediately available and so the school playground is their park. So, it benefits the neighborhood even though it is on school property. The school district is required to provide a letter verifying that they will continue to maintain it and that they will always allow access to it to anybody who wants to use it. Vanderhoef: During school hours? Klingaman: From what I understand, that's up to the discretion of the principal, although Weber has said in their letter that they would allow that to be used whenever. The risks are obviously if you have the toddler playing on the playground when there are six graders running around. There can be potential for injury. It is up to the principal ultimately to make that all. Champion: We've funded neighborhood PIN grants for Longfellow for the same reason because there is no park nearby and the neighborhood does use the Longfellow playground as a park. Klingaman: Longfellow has received several grants for their playground. Hoover School received a grant three or four years ago for the surface that they poured in there. Southwest is just asking for one piece - a climbing wall - which I don't think your photocopy turned out very well, but that is what it is - a climbing wall feature. A conversation that I had with Terry Trueblood about Parks and Recreation Commission's continual concern about this.., we... the Neighborhood Council is going to be asked to consider writing a letter to the school district to kind of remind them of the fact that these funds are continually made available - assuming that this request is approved - and should kind of reiterate how much funds have gone in to it and that they will continue to maintain it and allow access to it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 26 of 51 Vanderhoef: As I recall, there is play equipment in the park out there that we put out there just about two years ago? Bailey: What park? Lehman: There's a new park out there. Bailey: What's it called? Lehman: Hunters Run. Klingaman: It's not necessarily as convenient. It's considerable distance from that part to Weber, particularly for Southwest Estates, which is on the west side of Weber. It's not very convenient at all. That's what they're saying is that Southwest Estates children are using that playground. Champion: I don't have any problem with it. Bailey: I don't have a problem with it. I was just checking in as I didn't know the history of it. Klingaman: It's been constantly contentious and we're planning on addressing it to some degree. North side Neighborhood is being recommended for $3,000 for playground equipment for Happy Hallow Park. The park hasn't seen any substantial renovations for quite a while. They were approached on the possibility of doing a master plan, similar to what Melrose is requesting for Brookland Park, but they wanted to see some equipment installed there immediately, simply because what is there is fairly deteriorated. It is not unsafe but it's deteriorated and they'd like to see some immediately improvements. Miller Orchard is planning a fabulous kick-off for their Benton Hill Park and they'd like some assistance in getting some funding for entertainment, specifically. Their original application was for $900 but they're accepting $500 with the intent that they can find a musical group to come in and entertain and hopefully we can come up with some snacks for the $400 that they were originally requesting. Vanderhoef: Is there a date yet on that? Klingaman: No, not yet. We're still working on it. We'd like to have it as soon as possible, but we'd also like to think possibly that the Public Art archway be installed so everything is kind of soft right now. As soon as we find out we'll let the Council know. Wilbum: Regenia, you could probably sing for them can't you? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 27 of 51 Klingaman: Galway is asking for street trees. Specifically on Kearny Lane. There were no street trees planted in the subdivision when it was developed. Four or five years ago, they received about $4,000-$5,000 to plant along Galway Drive and a few other streets in the subdivision. This is just an extension of that. Whetherby Friends and Neighbors is continuing its tradition of a Saturday night drive-in. With their $600 they will be providing pop and popcorn, basic necessities, and also renting a screen. They would like to fit this one in shelter. They have a huge screen that can be difficult to manage under some circumstances - particularly when it gets real windy - so they're planning on paying for that a karaoke machine to entertain the group before it gets dark enough to show the movie. I went to the last one and it's really popular and becoming more popular all the time. Questions? Vanderhoefi So they can't use the screen they already purchased? Klingaman: They can. Last year they secured it to the basketball hoop - but with wind it gets very tenuous. You just don't if it's going to stand up. Longfellow showed a movie last fall in September and it blew over. It was very calm when they started the movie but then halfway through it got really windy and just blew over. It's still being used. Over the winter it was used exclusively and very intensely by the Parks & Recreation Department over at Mercer. They've been doing 'Dive-In' movies. It's a great concept and I guess the kids love it. They've also been using it at Mercer for the junior high parties and playing video games on it. It's been well used. Vanderhoefi So it's being used, just not how we purchased it for. Lehman: Very good. Thank you Marcia. ITEM 9. ADOPTING IOWA CITY'S FY06 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN, WHICH IS A SUB-PART OF IOWA CITY'S 2006-2010 CONSOLIDATED PLAN (CITY STEPS), AND AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO SUBMIT SAID PLAN AND ALL NECESSARY CERTIFICATIONS TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND DESIGNATING THE CITY MANAGER AS THE AUTHORIZED CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER. ITEM 11. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A CONDITIONAL OCCUPANCY LOAN TO THE EXTEND THE DREAM FOUNDATION FROM IOWA CITY'S COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT - ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FUND Nasby: Good evening. It's PIN Grant time, but it's also CDBG and HOME Funding time of year. You may have gotten stuff from the Council packet. This year we have about 2.33 million dollars to allocate. Some of that is due to having excess program income - more than we budgeted for and then we also had about $5,000 This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 28 of 51 in recapture funds. We had a couple of projects that didn't go - so we're reallocating that money. You probably got - but didn't read through the behemoth 485-page. I know Regenia did because she caught an error it. (Laughter). This document has all of the applications in it, the background information, the HCDC process, their ranking, their scorings, and their budget recommendations. In the Council packet for this meeting you have the much shorter but equally stimulating annual action plan. This is the document that goes to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Basically, it outlines the budget and then the actions that we're take for the upcoming fiscal year. Last, but not least, also in your packet and kind of something that I wanted to spend most of your time looking at. I had a memo in your packet. There are a number of waiver requests this time. There are a number of agencies that are looking to have CDBG and HOME allocation and are requesting terms that are slightly different than the investment policy that the Council has set. We do have a policy for housing projects and public facilities projects. I've included a summary of all the requests in your packet with the accompanying letters from the entities themselves. On the Council agenda, there are two items that deal with this. One is the annual action plan. There is a public hearing and then an approval of that. We need to have that done by May 15 so we can get it submitted to HUD. They have to have it 45 days prior to the start of the fiscal year and that's July 1. Also, kind of in tandem with that...the Council on Economic Development committee approved some funding for the Extend The Dream Foundation under a separate funding item allocation and that's Item #11. Item #9 being the whole action plan and Item #11 is just the Extend The Dream. Wilburn: I will not be participating in discussion on this item. I work for an organization that receives Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds and I'm conflicted on this issue. Nasby: Questions? Elliott: Are you going to be in in the morning? I have a question. I tried to get in touch with you today. Nasby: Okay. Atkins: You do need to answer the question on the loan. That has to be answered. Nasby: The question on the request for the waiver of the investment policy. I would appreciate some guidance on that as you do have a set policy. Lehman: Which ones are requesting that? Nasby: All of them on that list. Lehman; That's just about all of them. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 29 of 51 Nasby: Yeah, there are a couple that we don't have a Council policy on. One is tenant- based rent assistance - which is essentially using HOME funds like you'd use Section 8 funds in tenant-based rent assistance. It's something we have included in our five-year plan, we just simply haven't funded it since we have a Council policy on investments. So, that's a new one. Also, our office is getting a few dollars to start a down payment assistance program, so effectively we're the recipient and would give it to ourselves. We have a policy for for-profits and non-profits but not for how we would use the money for ourselves. So, that's a couple of new ones. The majority of them are really public facilities projects that are asking for a declining-balance loan versus a conditional occupancy. The difference is that conditional occupancy is just a lien that sits on the building for basically ever and ever as long as they use the building, there's no interest, and no payments. That would stretch out to ninety-nine years - which is our current policy, or at least our current operating procedure on those. A number of them, because they're doing improvements that are depreciating in nature - they're putting in carpet or siding or windows - it's depreciating so the applicants are asking for a declining balance on those rather than a long-term COL. That would cover the majority of the differences here. Atkins: Steve, can you walk them through the consequences of the (TAPE ENDS) Nasby: It had come up initially because CDBG had bought a building. The sub recipient had satisfied its requirements so they then owned that building free and clear. The sub recipient then moved to a new building and their old building was for sale and someone came in an asked us for CDBG money for a second time so we then gave them money to buy the same building. That's why we instituted the COL process to make sure that we recovered that money when there was a long- term capital investment. Part of the Council's discussion on the investment policies that you looked at a couple of years ago was to generate future sources of income so that we could keep the program going. I guess that was one of the consequences from changing the policy. If we go with conditional occupancy versus a forgiven position, we wouldn't have those dollars to us in the future. Elliott: The scenario that you just describe, though, in effect means that the building pretty much belongs to the City. It doesn't belong to the individual because you said they could not sell it. Nasby: They could sell it, but they would have had to repay us the initial investment. Bailey: Like we're doing with Extend The Dream. It's the same arrangement. Elliott: Okay, okay. Fine. Champion: They don't pay any interest. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 30 of 51 Nasby: No interest, but they have to pay back the initial amount of money. Elliott: Okay. Apparently that didn't sink in the right way with me. Lehman: They have to pay it back only if they sell it. Nasby: Yes, if they sell it or if they discontinued the use. Bailey: Although there are some of these facility rehabs that are depreciable rehabilitations but I guess it's the roof at the Emma Goldman Clinic. Nasby: Yeah, I'll cover of them, if you'd like. Emma Goldman...there's a roof and some other minor rehab projects that they're do...some electrical, I think there is some flooring. The Goodwill project is air-conditioning. They're going to be air- conditioning that large space that they use for sorting the goods in the warehouse portion of it. Hill-E1 Student Center is doing an accessibility project...widening a doorway, redoing a bathroom, reconflguring a bathroom. The Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County...they're doing some cabinet repair and flooring repairing and some other interior projects. Old Brian, they're repointing - which is basically looking at the building .... they got a State grant from Historic Preservation. They're going to dig out the deteriorated and soft mortar and replace it with mortar - so that's what they're doing at Old Brick. Planned Parenthood is putting a new entrance on their building. The Wesley Foundation - they're doing fire suppression system. The one that they have is kind of kept together by band-aids. The Wesley Foundation - the last one for free med and free lunch...that's for flooring. They have asbestos tile in that facility and they're taking that out. Bailey: Planned Parenthood leases, right? Nasby: They do. They lease their space. They've got a long-term lease on that building. Bailey: Until 2009? Nasby: I think the one goes through 2009 and they have the option to renew. Lehman: Steve, are the terms as they appear on this in the resolution that we're going to act on? Does it require a change to these? Nasby: The resolution simply approves the funding. It doesn't address the terms. Bailey: But you would like to have some policy - Nasby: Some policy or direction from you if you wish for us to negotiate the terms on these or if you want to say 'If they're depreciable, then go ahead and... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 31 of 51 Elliott: Do you need formal action or just an indication? Nasby: Well, you have a formal City Council policy on investments to these dollars, so maybe it's a discussion you want to have at a later date for a policy discussion. Right now, these are the ones you have with the existing policy. Dilkes: I think it's .... in the best of all worlds you would have a policy that you would act in compliance with. If you think there is going to be...ifthere are some reasons why you want to waive that policy in certain instances, you can include that in the policy .... but it doesn't make a lot of sense to have a policy and not follow it. If you want to change it, change the policy. Bailey: Okay, restate what the policy is right now. We do conditional occupancy loans? Nasby: Conditional occupancy loans is the policy. Bailey: How did we come up with this declining balance? Nasby: It's something we used to do before we had the COL policy. Vanderhoef: Basically they're looking for a grant again with a different terminology on it. And these were kinds of things, as I recall when we had the discussion a couple of years ago, was that there was never enough money to do all of the requests that people wanted to do so we were thinking in terms of the long-term future of this and saying 'Okay, we'll do a very low interest loan, therefore we'll get a few more dollars in to spread them for future projects'. Champion: Then we immediately gave in on that on one project...so that's how it happens. Vanderhoef: The project that really came up was the Habitat for Humanity, which is the one that can't have a loan by their national... Bailey: They can't pay interest. Champion: I think we need to look at our whole policy. If we're going to revise it all the time.., it' s... Bailey: Right...because a conditional occupancy loan doesn't really bring back dollars. I' mean, if you look at these...I mean the chances .... Planned Parenthood is the only one that leases and the likelihood of any of these moving in the near future is probably minimal. Vanderhoef: You just never know. I'm thinking right now of the move right now of the Goodwill Building. When they bought that building not too long ago.., five years, six years, something like that, I can't remember...but it wasn't all that long ago and now they're selling it and moving into another location. So, it does happen. I This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 32 of 51 think we need to think about it and bring it back when we've all had a little chance to think about them. Lehman: I don't disagree with that...but it seems to me that rehabilitation...for example the Emma Goldman Clinic and a couple of other remodeling projects.., a conditional occupancy loan doesn't seem at all appropriate. Bailey: I agree with you. This is depreciable. Lehman: With a capital investment I can understand conditional occupancy, but when you' re talking about putting in air conditioning that's going to be worn out in fifteen years, thirty years from now they sell the building and they pay us back for the air conditioner that has been retired for...maintenance projects don't seem appropriate. Champion: Those are maintenance projects...they're not really improvements. Bailey: Right. Lehman: Capital investment, I can understand...but maintenance doesn't seem to make any sense. Bailey: Then how do we classify it? Is tuck-pointing capital investment or is rehabilitation? What's the life span of tuck-pointing? Lehman: 100 years. Bailey: Then a conditional occupancy loan, clearly. Elliott: Eleanor was getting ready to say something. I'd like to hear what she says. Dilkes: There is something in between these two things. You can have a no interest loan that stayed on for a period of time. The balance didn't decline but it...it came due in ten years if they sold it within that period of time or something like that. A conditional occupancy loan is kind of a term that we have used and we have set a period of ninety-years on it but it doesn't have to be ninety-nine years. It could be thirty, it could be ten...depending upon the life span of the thing you're financing. Elliott: I like to be able to make exceptions to policies but when we have wholesale exceptions to policies, then I think the policy needs to be revisited. Bailey: I agree with you. Elliott: Thanks, Connie. (Laughter) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 33 of 51 Champion: Did I agree with you? What about writing something that's like...if it is a maintenance thing like carpet or air conditioning - Lehman: Or rehab, yeah... Champion: If it's rehab, that if the building is sold within five years or so then they need to pay us back the money because the project is probably still good at that time. If it's sold...I mean people usually make money when they sell a building. Nasby: Would you like us to come back with something tomorrow? Lehman: Kind of hear what we're saying? Nasby: Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Champion: If someone has carpeting for five years in a commercial building, it's probably not going to be worth anything. So, I don't want people paying us back for things that aren't usable anymore...I'm not against the grant theory... Lehman: Right, but we don't have to give them $15,000 for an air conditioner, have them sell the property the next year, and - Champion: - and we get nothing. Bailey: Right. Agreed. That's just not right. Lehman: It can almost be associated with a depreciation schedule, which are available from the IRS. The IRS tells you that an air conditioning, I think, is fifteen years, paint is seven years... Vanderhoef: A roof is ten-to-twelve. Lehman: Yeah, it depends upon what it is. A depreciation schedule would be well to work into rehab. Bailey: I agree. Nasby: What we'll do for purposes of tomorrow, if you want to approve the resolution that approves that funding, we'll then put something together and come back at a future work session before we enter it into contracts that you can then address this. Vanderhoef: Then I think we need to have someone state that up front as we're approving the resolution. Nasby: Subject to Council direction on... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 34 of 51 Atkins: Tomorrow evening you'll make it clear, particularly for those folks who do not appear before you pursuing their projects, that there at least is an expression of an intent to change the policy. It may not be exactly as they have asked for, but you're still thinking about changing...okay. Vanderhoef: Yep, that's what we've got to do up front. Lehman: We will be approving the funding and not necessarily the terms. Nasby: Yes, but like you said, I would make that clear that you're... Atkins: Does that take care of us with HUD? Nasby: Yes. HUD doesn't care about the terms... Dilkes: I'll revise the resolution... Lehman: I think you get the general idea. Anything else for Steve? Champion: There are some really good projects on here. Bailey: Yes. They did a lot of work. Thanks. COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS Lehman: Okay. Council Appointments. We have two appointments as I recall. Vanderhoef: HCDC and P&Z. Bailey: Michael Shaw. Wilbum: Since I'm sitting here, could we do the P&Z first? I can't appoint to HCDC. Vanderhoef: I'd like to nominate Terry Smith. Lehman: Okay. Elliott: I'd like to nominate Jerry Hansen. Bailey: I agree with that. Lehman: Any other nominations for P&Z? Champion: I'm confused. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 35 of 51 Bailey: We started with that because Ross is abstaining. Lehman: How many would go along with Terry Smith? I see one, two, three...uh, Jerry Hansen...I also see three. Karr: Connie, did you vote? Champion: Yes, I voted for Terry Smith. Dilkes: He didn't count you. Lehman: I'm sorry, I guess I didn't see you. Then Terry Smith will be appointed to P&Z. Elliott: Were there only two nominations? Wilbum: I have a conflict of interest with making appointments to the HCDC commission because one of their primary responsibilities is the decision of Community Development Block Grants and HOME funds and I work for an organization that receives such funds and I cannot participate in decision-making with that. Lehman: You ought to have a green card - (Laughter) Bailey: Can you just hold up a sign when you have to say that? Lehman: Okay, nominations. We have one vacancy and my gosh, we've got lots of applications. O'Donnell: I'd like to nominate Michael Shaw. Champion: I'll second that one. Bailey: I agree with that. Lehman: We have Michael Shaw, do we have any other nominations? Vanderhoef: I was just going to ask if there was any conflict of interest because of the school district getting funds and he being employee of the school district? Lehman: The school district doesn't get that many funds...do they? Bailey: He could recuse himself... I would rather have that experience around the table with an occasional recusing himself. Vanderhoef: I have no problem with him...it was just a question I had about conflict. Lehman: All in favor of Michael Shaw? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 36 of 51 Elliott: Before we vote, I'd just like to say that when I saw the University student applicants, I was extremely pleased and I was ready...there was a first and second choice among University student applicants, but when I got to Michael Shaw, I think he is just an exceptional candidate and I will be supporting him, but I hope that.., please take back to the University students.., our feeling. Schrieber: What kinds of things can we talk to the students about...obviously they're at a disadvantage to some of these community members who have massive amounts of professional experience.., so what kinds of things can we tell them on their applications, something that will help them in the application process? O'Donnell: They were given a lot of consideration this time. Bailey: I think the volunteer work and where they're working and also their majors. All those things figured in on how I was considering them. I think all of them spoke very well to their qualifications. Elliott: One of them, with whom I talked, was a student but had lived in this community all of her life, is a law student, has a job with a local law firm, and those are the kind of things.., their community involvement, the extent that, in addition to simply being a University student...I think those are the things, to me individually, that I think are very important. Champion: I thought their applications were very well filled out. Lehman: All those in favor of Michael Shaw? Champion: Aye. Elliott: Aye. Bailey: Aye. Lehman: Okay. The Deer Task Force Report. DEER TASK FORCE REPORT Lehman: Is someone going to speak to this, Steve? Atkins: I thought Pat was going to be here. Lehman: Well, Pat is not here. We have the report... Atkins: Yes, we have the report. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 37 of 51 Elliott: Emie, can I ask one quick question? Marian, these people, on their applications, are asked if they'd like to be informed. Do you routinely inform these folks? Karr: Yes. Elliott: The applicants for the commissions? Karr: Yes. Elliott: Good, thank you. Lehman: Okay, everyone has read this. By a split vote, the Deer Task Force has recommended that we entertain the possibility of bow and arrow hunting. I assume, after reading all the regulations put out by the DNR would have to be followed, plus whatever regulations the City would have to pass enable legislation to allow it to even happen...because you can't hunt in City limits...so I guess we're being ask as to whether or not we concur with the recommendation of the Deer Task Force. We did receive a memo from the City Manager's office, which I think indicates some concerns, probably about seven different ones...what's your pleasure? Elliott: I concur enthusiastically with the Task Force recommendation and would like to see us proceed with it. O'Donnell: I, too, support the recommendation. I think each and every one of them know far more than any one of us do. It's not our choice... Champion: They're not going to be the ones shooting the bow and arrow. O'Donnell: They've done the research. There's none of us here...I don't think...but I look at it as an opportunity to do more of a sustained control as well as it's a substantial chunk of change that we're spending on a yearly basis. Elliott: I think what Mike just said is clearly illustrated in the materials from the Deer Management Task Force of April 28. In the most recent deer kill, we spend $390 per deer and that's not including about $10,000 for processing. While we acknowledge the fact that we are short changing the North side of our City in fire and first responder protection, I have said in the past that we have sufficient funds but it's the priorities that we have to have and I think if we don't support something like this...and this, I think, does not say that they want to only do bow hunting, they want to incorporate bow hunting particularly in areas that are having serious problems with deer and not are not appropriate for sharp-shooting. With our priorities, we have to put more importance on people than on deer. If it were my personal preference, I could not bring myself to shoot a deer with a rifle or anything. I have not fired a weapon since 1958 in Fort Leonardwood. I think people are more important than deer, that's where our priorities should lie, and I This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 38 of 51 think paying $390 almost $400 dollars per deer to get rid of them, while our fire protection goes wanting is sadly inappropriately. Bailey: Because people are more important than deer, I can't imagine a scenario in which I would want to allow bow hunting within the City limits of Iowa City. I think it's dangerous and not the way to go at all. This deer management was never intended to be a hunting opportunity for sport hunters. My father and brother have done bow hunting and so it's not...it's not the humane kill that was the compromise that we reached in 1997. I support that very carefully crafted compromise and I support maintaining that. O'Donnell: I don't look at bow hunters as a sport. This is a method of control. More deer are killed each year with a rifle in the name of sport than with a bow. Lehman: The only reason they're asking for bow hunting is for sport. The hunters are asking to be able to take animals for sport. Elliott: No, it's a deer management tool. Lehman: I know but the hunters want to do the sport, that's why they're asking to hunt. Bailey: It's not an effective tool. O'Donnell: Other communities do it safely and I see no reason why we can't. You know...you certify a hunter, they shoot in a downward position...to me, if we're talking safety, a bullet goes considerably farther than an arrow and has more killing power if we miss. Bailey: But we have a contract for current situation and we won't be contracting with every one of these hunters. The liability issues, I think, are immense. O'Donnell: But we're going to be certifying each one of them. Lehman: I do have some questions about the liability issue with the bow hunting. The DNR issues the tags, I presume. Is there any liability to City for a bow hunter hunting on private property? I mean right now we do not allow that to occur within City limits. If we permit that to occur, do we have any liability associated with that? Dilkes: You've got to have a big disclaimer on any of the liability questions because it really is depending upon whatever the particular facts are. Simply, if the only fact is that we allowed hunting on private property, I would say probably not. Lehman: But if we allow them on City property... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 39 of 51 Dilkes: Well, I think allegations could certainly be made on terms on which you allowed that were inappropriate, not safe, etc., etc. I don't think I can say there won't be a claim. We might defend it successfully. You don't know until you know what the facts are. Champion: I agree with Regenia. Even though I know bow hunters are pretty safe and it's safer than a bullet. I agree, Mike, that ifa bullet goes haywire, it's going to go a lot further than a bow and arrow and it's going to do a lot more damage when it hits something. The way that we've been doing it with sharp shooting, the bullet is going to hit the ground if it's going to hit anything. I can just see a deer running down Burlington with an arrow in its head. I just have real problems with it. I just don't think it's a surer thing. I'm sure there were some missed by the sharpshooters, too, I'm sure that happened, but even though I know...my brain tells me that I'm foolish not to approve this, by my heart tells me that something is going to go wrong. Wilburn: I have to agree with you. I think the greater likelihood of the kill occurring with the sharp shooter...I have friends who hunt do some bow hunting too. I haven't done the hunting but I've helped do the searching for the deer that...a margin of error or a slight reaction can happen.., and then I also just have trouble with...you know, we contract with sharp shooting to happen as opposed to hunting in the municipal area. I just trouble with that. Champion: I just trouble with the whole thing, don't you think? Wilburn: Yes. Elliott: You were aware when you read the Police report that four times in March the police used side arms to kill an injured deer. O'Donnell: Running down the street? Elliott: What kind of liability do we have for people hitting deer with a car and becoming seriously injured? Lehman: None. Bailey: Let's get back on the sharp shooting schedule. It was my understanding that we were a little off schedule this year and didn't get access to the University properties that we have had access to before because of winter break.., it must have been? Lehman: We've never been able to shoot. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 40 of 51 Vanderhoef: We haven't ever had...this was the first time they approved it but then they put it into a very narrow time period and the DNR told us that we could not start our hunt until after a certain date, which was after the students came back. Bailey: We don't hunt, we manage. Elliott: We hunt. Champion: On the other hand, we had talked about looking at alternative sharp shooters... there must be someone who lives closer to us that could be a good...I think we could reduce the cost. Elliott: Oh yeah. Even the sharp shooting needs to be reevaluated but there are areas and properties where you can not sharp shoot where you can bow hunt. Lehman: Where might that be? Elliott: There are private properties. Lehman: I can think of places where you might be able to bow hunt where you - Elliott: Can't sharp shoot? Lehman: No, I can't think...for example...Hickory Hill Park for example is an area where I suspect you can do sharp shooting. Bow hunting would be totally unacceptable to anybody. There's too many people, too many dogs, lots of things there. Elliott: Why would bow and arrow hunting be more dangerous than sharp shooting? Champion: Because sharp shooting is all set up, it's a trap. Elliott: So is bow and arrow hunting. They're talking about the same trajectory. O'Donnell: They sit up in a tree and shoot down. Lehman: Sharp shooters bait, they bring them in, they shoot them on site, they're here one or two nights and then they're gone. Bow hunters are there every night for thirty nights. You have no idea how long they're going to be there. Elliott: Well, you regulate that. Lehman: I do believe that there may be a couple of places in the community where bow hunting might be less objectionable. For example, there is an area south of Highway 6, west of Sand Road, south of Napoleon Park, where I understand there is a pretty good sized deer herd - This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 41 of 51 Elliott: - It cost me $4,000. Lehman: Pardon me? Elliott: It cost me $4,000... Lehman: What did? Elliott: A deer. Bailey: Thank you for your contribution to deer management. O'Donnell: University Heights and Coralville have been doing it and they've been doing it successfully. I'm a native Iowan and I've never seen this deer running down the street with an arrow in it, I've never seen a wounded deer, but I have seen a deer get hit by a car. Lehman: That's going to happen whether you shoot them with bow and arrows or sharp shoot them. You're still going to deer hit with cars. O'Donnell: Ernie, my point is that I've never seen that had been shot with either a bullet or an arrow, running anywhere. I've lived in Iowa my whole life. It's considerably worse, I my mind .... I was coming down Dubuque Street where Foster Road came out the other day and I saw a car have a fairly rough accident with a deer and but for a stroke of luck we didn't have any injuries there and that's my priority. I think we do the bow hunting, I'd like to see it as a means of maintenance, and sharp shooting is more a control issue. Schrieber: Did anyone do any research as to whether or not more people are injured through car/deer accidents than bow/human accidents. If it reduces ten fatalities through getting hit by a car and injures one person through negligent hunting, I think that if you're on the positive of nine people...I think that's probably a plus. I don't have any figures. I was wondering if anybody did. Elliott: Two hundred per year are killed with car collisions - Bailey: In the nation. Elliott: Two hundred per year in the nation. One thing also to consider when you're talking about the humaneness. I don't how many of you are naturalists - naturalists - nature lovers...but both sharp shooting and bow and arrow hunting are much more humane than nature taking care of this problem. We ran the predators out of here. We've killed them off. If you ever seen film or videos of how a predator takes care of deer management, a bow and arrow is nothing compared to an animal being eaten on the way down. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 42 of 51 O'Donnell: The predator today, Bob, is a '94 Chevy. Champion: We're not arguing that we need deer control. Elliott: I'm talking about humaneness. Lehman: The issue is not whether we have deer control. We are going to control the deer one way or the other. Or the recommendation is for both ways. I think the Deer Task Force is recommending the limited use of bow and arrow along with sharp shooting - a combination - to help reduce the number of animals. O'Donnell: Wasn't the vote like five to two? Lehman: Actually, I think there are three out of eight that wrote dissenting opinions. There are some very, very strong feelings...obviously I think they're on this council too. It isn't a matter of us harvesting or not harvesting the deer. It's the manner in which we harvest the deer. I don't think there is going to be any more or any fewer automobile accidents whether you use bow and arrows or sharp shooters. We're going to take as many deer as we can take. The relevancy is how is it best to reduce the herd? One is very expensive. Sharp shooting is very expensive. There may be a less expensive way of finding of local sharp shooters that we may or may not have as qualified local sharp shooters. The other way is less expensive, not as acceptable to a lot of folks. Elliott: The deer management people would...I think, as I have talked with them, would have an argument with one of the statements you made because they feel that because there are areas that you can use bow hunting and sharp shooting would be inappropriate. That there would be a better process for managing deer therefore less deer, therefore less accidents, therefore less concern. So I'm not sure that what you've said is a given. Champion: We're not sure about any of this. Lehman: Dee, what's your... Elliott: Dee has been strangely silent. Vanderhoef: Isn't that interesting. It's one of those things that I've been truly weighing because I can see it both ways. I think since it has been recommended to us, that it behooves us to look at it perhaps in a very limited way...if as in the Coralville plan there has been some areas identified that is away from the populated areas, like along Sand Road down south along the river, that's a possibility. I don't know whether it's a possibility on any of the University land. I am more concerned with getting our timetable actually put together with the University so that we can get at that deer herd that is residing on the west side of the river in and around the University property and the Peninsula and Camp Cardinal area. That This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 43 of 51 whole big area has a huge pocket of deer that we have not addressed at all. I would look at very limited trials and very distinct areas for one year to see how it might work. I think the Coralville plan, and it's quite similar to the Des Moines plan, those are the kinds of safeguards and training and certification that I would be expecting. I am sort of appalled at some of the other plans that were put in to the packet have almost no control, no requirements for licensure or receiving a tag for hunting. Elliott: To me, my vote is clear. I'm going to be emphatic about it but I also understand at least some of the disagreements with the recommendation, I don't understand. I do understand those who simply can not in their mind and in their heart see shooting any deer for any reason, let alone doing it with a bow and arrow, but I think there are times that you have to look at things fiscally, put things in priority and say 'I think people are more important than deer'. I'm ready to vote. O'Donnell: I think the deer hunters are kind of getting a bad rap on this. I mean they're dedicated.., imagine going out and smearing black all over you, they spray themselves with something that is really not friendly...and dress in green, sit in a tree stand for five hours. That's either dedication or the guys got a problem. Lehman: No, its sport and they do it all the time. They just can't do it in the City limits. Heck, why don't we just have a kegger and go shoot all the deer. Vanderhoef: Did you just actually say that? Lehman: Yes, I did. O'Donnell: But, Ernie, we can use that sport as a way to control the deer and safe an awful lot of money. Lehman: But they do it all the time. Champion: My brother is a deer hunter and he does all those things but he doesn't hunt in the City limits. Bailey: So is mine. Champion: He also hunts with a shotgun or a bullet...what do they call it? Bailey: A gun. Champion: Yes, a gun. Bailey: They make a loud noise and - (Laughter) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 44 of 51 Champion: He also is a bow and arrow hunter. Frankly I love the deer tenderloin and I'm not afraid to eat meat that has been killed by my brother. But, I don't want it happening in the City limits. Elliott: I'd like to follow Dee's suggestion that we ask the task force to look into implementing it on a reasonably limited basis and do it next year and see what happens...but incorporate all of the safe guards. Our City Manager has brought several concerns - very legitimate concerns to our attention - meet with the City Manager, the City Attorney or their staff, consider those concerns, but incorporate it on a limited basis for the coming year - because they need to start tight now. Bailey: I don't believe that can go forward, in all good conscious and being good public representatives, until we have some public heatings. As I mentioned before, this was a carefully crafted compromise between those people who could not image killing a deer for any reason and those people who were concerned about deer management for whatever reasons, for car accidents or for eating their hostas, or whatever. It's a balancing act. That's the important thing that we have to remember. It's our responsibility to maintain those balancing acts in our community. There were no public hearings that the task force did...so it behooves us... either.., if we're going to move forward in this direction, we have to open this up to hear the public's opinion. Elliott: Would we need a public hearing to change the City code? Dilkes: No. You always allow input when you make an ordinance change but there is not public heating requirement. Lehman: This would require ordinance changes which obviously would be discussed a public meetings. I'm basically not in favor of bow and arrow hunting within City limits. I can think of very few places in the City where I want people shooting bows and arrows. However, I can think of a couple of spots on the west side...around Walnut Ridge...where we have very, very, very low concentrations of populations and very, very high concentrations of deer where bow and arrow would probably be the least offensive place to do it. It's not in conflict with a lot of people, people don't see the hunters and people don't see the animals that have been shot. As far as telling the deer committee that they can hunt with bows and arrows in designated parts of the City...that's way, way, way too generally from my perspective. There may be a couple three places that I could get along with but by far and away most places in this community I do not think it's appropriate to have bow and arrow hunting. Bailey: Can't we do something with sharp shooting on the west side to minimize the deer? Lehman: Oh, I think we can. I think that Bob has a good point. It is a lot less expensive if you have hunters go in. If we have a large herd, for example down in the Sand This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 45 of 51 Road area, if bow and arrow hunters can take a couple of hundred deer out of the west side and the south side and they're paying $26 for a tag and we would have paid $300 per animal, it's a significant difference and there are probably two hundred fewer deer. Bailey: The last time that I looked at the statistics, the property damage - that would be vehicular damage - amounted to about the same amount that we spent on deer control. We're not really making... Lehman: We're never going to make any headway on this. Bailey: Why don't we just do more efficient sharp shooting? If you're interested in cutting costs...I would entertain some other ideas. One liability issue and we have not cut costs...we've just increased our costs dramatically. Elliott: I can't imagine why you would see more liability with a bow and arrow than with a high-powered rifle. It doesn't make sense to me. Lehman: Well, you've got a professional shooting the rifle and that's not the same with the bow and arrow. Elliott: You'd have certified bow hunters and certified marksman. Lehman: That's not the same .... and I don't know if there is a huge liability issue...but I don't know that there is either. Other cities have done it successfully all over. How do we want to handle this? We need to send some sort of indication to deer committee as to what we're going to do. I hear some adamantly in favor of it, some adamantly opposed to it, and some would be willing to try it on a very limited basis. Bailey: We've got three, two...where's Dee? I think you're it. O'Donnell: I think we should take their advice, do it on a limited basis and at the same time look for an alternative with local sharp shooters. Lehman: I am willing to do it on a limited basis. I am not willing to do it unless Council...or at least as far as I'm concerned that we have the say as to where it occurs. Where it will occur has to be approved by the Council. Elliott: I think...what's wrong with having them come back to us...I don't know if a couple of months would give them time enough to set up - Lehman: - They have to be quicker than that. Elliott: With a plan .... as a matter of fact they may be able to come back to us in a month with a plan. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 46 of 51 Bailey: I just don't support bow and arrow hunting. Dilkes: Can I interject here for a moment? Steve, correct me ifI am wrong, and maybe the deer committee people can, but it's my understanding that they are making this general recommendation and the details were going to be left to staff and the Council to formulate. Atkins: That's correct and fair. Bailey: It doesn't go back to them then? Dilkes: I think that has been the understanding. Atkins: If you were to approve of bow hunting of any kind, first of all you have to amend two ordinances - it can't happen. Secondly, I assume you'll send us back and say put together the best bow hunting program that you can. Any restrictions, as a matter of policy that you want to put on it, I'm sure the task force will be listening to those. Whatever 'limited' means, for example. Dilkes: Let me give you an example. When the recommendation by the committee was to do sharp shooting they did not get into the what's, when's, where's, and how's about the sharp shooting. I think that has been their understanding with respect to this proposal as well. Elliott: However, I would think that staff, rather than setting up any program unilaterally would certainly want to...the Deer Task Force has certainly looked at this long and hard in conjunction with the DNR and I would think that staff would certainly want to meet with the task force and sit down with them as such a program is put together. Lehman: Coralville laid out specifically the areas that it could be hunted in. Atkins: We would not act unilaterally. It would have to go to the task force. Lehman: What I'm saying is that it was not left to the decision of the DNR or the Deer Task Force or anything else. It was specifically stated where they could hunt. Elliott: Yes. O'Donnell: It's in sparse areas. You know, they're not sitting on the top of Handimart... (Laughter) Schrieber: I live next to the Handimart. Lehman: Oh dear me. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 47 of 51 O'Dormell: They do set designated areas and I'm all in agreement with that. The whole thing is about safety. Bailey: No, it's become about hunting. Lehman: I'm not sure where we do know where we are. Elliott: Again, I thought Dee... Lehman: We know where you are. Elliott: Well, how many agree with me? Bailey: Mike does. O'Dormell: I vote yes. Lehman: You vote for bow hunting. You vote no. No. No. No. Maybe. No. Forget it, we're not going to do it. O'Donnell: You voted in down? Lehman: Yeah. Bailey: Yes. O'Donnell: Way to go Ernie...I thought we were talking compromise here. ! think it's time to break or go home. Lehman: Break? Bailey: No, we've got three more items. Can you hang in there? AGENDA ITEMS Lehman: Agenda Items? ITEM 15. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A CHAPTER 28E AGREEMENT BETWEEN CLEAR CREEK, LLC; SOUTHGATE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, INC.; THE CITY OF IOWA CITY; THE CITY OF CORALVILLE, AND THE IOWA CITY COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT FOR DEDICATION OF A SCHOOL SITE IN CONNECTION WITH THE PROJECT TO JOINTLY CONSTRUCT CAMP CARDINAL ROAD. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 48 of 51 Dilkes: I just have one comment on Item #15. It's the school site agreement for Camp Cardinal Road. The comment has an error. This is one we've been trying to get done for months now. The comment refers to a percentage allocation and that has since changed to a $56,000 contribution my City. Elliott: Rather than 1/6th? Dilkes: Yes. Correspondence F{1) Oakcrest Parking O'Donnell: I want to talk a little bit about F(1) of the consent calendar. Oakcrest. The last I heard on this was that we had a meeting, people agreed to have parking banned between 10-4 and then they had a meeting after that meeting and most of them recanted the entire agreement. Did you read that in the paper? Atkins: That's exactly what I thought, Mike. O'Donnell: I don't whether we defer this thing until we get a definitive thing to vote on. Lehman: Can I suggest that we remove it from the consent calendar - Elliott: What are we talking about? O'Donnell: Fl. Elliott: I'm still licking my wounds here...I'm sorry. Lehman: Consent calendar, Fl. Take it out and defeat it. When they can come back to us with something they can agree on then we'll pass it. No, they were 48% now. They were 21 out of 23, then they were 11 out of 23...they have no idea what they want. Bailey: And staff has no opinion, right? Atkins: Yes. O'Donnell: So you're suggesting that we remove this entirely. Lehman: Take it off then vote on it and defeat it. Don't defer it any more. Let them wait' until they can come back to us with something they can decide on. Elliott: Do we remember what the status is now? Is it a 'No Parking' now? Bailey: Yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 49 of 51 Elliott: It's 'No Parking' now. Bailey: We're going to keep it that way and if they want to change it then they can figure it out. Vanderhoef: The bus drivers will be pleased. Champion: Yes. O'Donnell: But the neighbors won't. Lehman: They don't know what they want. Bailey: They'll be motivated to figure out what they want. Lehman: I think they'll be far more motivated if it's completely taken off...we leave it alone and it's not going to change until they come to us with some sort of consensus. I had a staffperson today that at this point 48% want the signs taken down. That is just too close to call. Let's just vote this thing down. Bailey: Let's leave it the way it is...and if they want to change it then we'll be here. Lehman: Does that sound reasonable? O'Donnell: That sounds good. Elliott: Except is it a compromise... Atkins: Take it off, defeat it, leave it alone, and wait for white smoke...(TAPE ENDS) Lehman: All right, any other agenda items? COUNCIL TIME Lehman: Council time. I have one thing. County has approached us...I got a note from Karin Franklin .... we're going to be updating and reviewing our Fringe Area Agreement with the County and the County would like to meet with a couple of us. I've asked Ross...with your permission, he and I and Karin Franklin will meet with the County representatives and go over...my guess would be very little to go over. Champion: Terrific. Lehman: Is that okay? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 50 of 51 Bailey: Sounds good. Lehman: Anything else for Council Time? O'Donnell: Yes, there was a baseball game on Sunday at Regina and you were to throw the first pitch out. Lehman: No, I was not there. O'Donnell: I know, I said no because you were going to go...and you didn't go. I told them the situation and they're fine with it. Bailey: I should have brought this up with Marcia was here...but the board commission application on-line works now and it looks great. I think we should do the same for the PIN Grant. Some of those are kind of hard to read when you're reading on the screen, so I think all of our applications for the City should be available to fill out on on-line. I think it's easily enough done. So, could we look into that? Atkins: Sure. Vanderhoef: They still would have the option to... Bailey: Oh yeah, they will always have the option.., but wouldn't you.., most people would prefer that. Wilbum: It would make it more convenient for some. Bailey: For others. Lehman: Any other things for Council time? PENDING ITEMS Lehman: Steve, we're going to need to put the alcohol thing on a work session and we will then at that time determine if we're going to do anything, let it go, drink to it, whatever. Bailey: Were we going to talk about County/City Assessor? Is that on that list yet? Atkins: No. Lehman: It can be. Karr: It can be. You had last discussed that at your last city conference board meeting.., rather than separately. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session. May 2, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 51 of 51 Bailey: Are people interested in...? Elliott: You mean combining? Bailey: Yes. Elliott: Absolutely. Wilbum: We can talk about it. Lehman: Well, let's put it on a work session. Any other items? All right folks... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the May 2, 2005 Iowa City Council Work Session.