HomeMy WebLinkAbout1998-11-17 Transcription#2 page 1
ITEM NO. 2 OUTSTANDING STUDENT CITIZENSHIP AWARDS. (Horace Mann
Elementary)
Lehman/The second item on our agenda is the Outstanding Student Citizenship Awards.
If those young folks would come forward? This gets better and better all the time.
I understand that we have three folks receiving them and three folks making the
readings. Is that correct? Okay, why don't you read into the microphone.
Student/Okay. Devon Jackson was chosen as a good citizen for our, of our upper unit
class at Horace Mann because she spent her free time cleaning up her
neighborhood and her yard so it would be clean. She helps her mother baby-sit
when she is away. She makes lunch for her little sister. She is also a member of
St. Mary's church. At school she helps with fired-raisers such as the Book Drive
and the Campbell's Soup Label Contest. She brought in 700. She is a Safety
Patrol co-captain. For service, she gave up part of her lunch to work at the
Wesley House. Kids go to her for advice on friends, school, friends, and family.
We feel comfortable talking to her because she is very, very kind.
Lehman/And this is for whom?
Tonning/Devon Jackson.
Lehman/Okay. What did Devon say?
Student/Morgan Nicholson very much deserves this award. She is a devoted student, ask
anybody. She's extremely smart and always puts her mind to things. She is
always willing to help you and is very friendly and fun. She's been on Safety
Patrol for two years now, and has earned the title of a co-captain. She has played
the flute for two years, and is very good. She enjoys it and is always on top of her
homework. She always recycles, reuses, and reduces in her home with her family,
and supports the idea for Student Council. She also has been a member of the
Student Council for two years. She is always willing to help her mother take care
of her two younger siblings. She has been in Girl Scouts for three years, and is on
the fourth year and lives by the Gift Scouts' rules. She has appeared in the Young
Footlighters' play The Princess and the Pea and says it was extremely fun. She is
a volunteer Media Assistant in our school and helps children check out books at
least once a week. She has volunteered at the Senior Center and very much
enjoys it, too. She loves to baby-sit and does it for free. She is very friendly and I
am happy to finally see some recognition.
Student/Britney Tonning is respectful, reliable and trustworthy. She is a hardworking,
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#2 page 2
responsible student. She is a helpful and interesting person. She treats her fellow
classmates with kindness and tolerance. Britney has served food to senior citizens
and helped pick up trash off the City streets. She is active in sports, especially
soccer and softball. Britney is a Student Council member at Horace Mann. She
cares about and promotes recycling.
Lehman/I'm going to read one of the awards. They all are the same. "For her
outstanding qualities of leadership within Horace Mann Elementary, as well as the
community, and for her sense of responsibility and helpfulness to others, we
recognize Devon Jackson as an Outstanding Student Citizen. Your community is
proud of you. Presented by the Iowa City City Council." And Morgan
Nicholson. And Britney Tonning. This is especially fun tonight. Normally the
young folks read their own things. I think it's particularly nice that you read the
qualifications for these fine young people. And we really are proud of you. Your
parents, and they don't always tell you, I know because I'm a parent, I'm also a
grandparent. I'm much better about telling my grandkids. We're very, very proud
of you, and glad to give you the awards. Thank you.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#3 page 3
ITEM NO. 3 MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS
a. West High Women of Troy Girls Cross Country Team Recognition Day - November
17
Lehman/(Reads proclamation).
Marian Karr/Here to accept is Coach Mike Parker, and a member of the West High
Women of Troy Girls Cross Country Team.
Kubby/All right.
Mike Parker/On behalf of the seven girls that ran at the State Championships, Leslie
Smith, Jeni, Lauren Levy, Brittany Keith, Veronica Bordewick, Maggie Gill, and
Sara Juvenal, and the rest of our Cross Country team, we would like to thank the
City of Iowa City, the Mayor, the City Council, for your recognition of our
accomplishments. We would also like the thank the entire staff and student body
at West High, our outstanding administrators, Principal Jerry Arganbright,
Assistant Principals Reese Morgan and Joan Bums, our Athletic Director Marv
Reiland, Club West, and our incredible Cross Country Parent Support Group, and
all the other people that helped us complete an undefeated season and become
back to back State Champions. Thank you very much.
b. Regina Regals Boys Cross Country Team Recognition Day - November 18
Lehman/(Reads proclamation).
Karr/Here to accept is Coach Bob Brown and the Regina Regals Boys Cross Country
Team.
Lehman/You bring the whole school?
Bob Brown/Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Brown/I would like to quickly introduce our runners: Cam Messier was our Captain,
Tony Bothell, Misashi Shiakawa, Justin Gilroy, Matt McCue, David Welch, and
Patrick Rossman, and we have one other runner who is in Washington DC,
Spencer Kathol, who couldn't be here tonight. I too would like to thank you for
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#3 page 4
this proclamation. This is the third time we've received it, and it's still an honor
and an awful lot of fun, especially since I was bom and raised in Iowa City. I
wanted to congratulate West High and Coach Mike Parker for winning their
second straight Championship, and they also set a State record for low number of
points this year. It was really nice to see the fans from all Iowa City schools
cheering and supporting each others' teams at the State meet, and Iowa City really
has something special going. We won our third straight Championship, and I'm
sure most of you remember Mark Gannon as a player and Bob Norton as a coach
here at Regina. We are really proud that we have tied their record number of three
State Championships at Regina. And it's a tribute to these young men's
dedication, commitment, and willingness to set high goals and then be willing to
work hard to achieve them. It's also worth noting that five members of this team
were Academic All-Conference, and the team was awarded the Excellence in
Academic Achievement from the Iowa High School Athletci Association this
year. The other thing I was thinking of is you guys are going to be pretty busy
with proclamations with City High girls winning volleyball and Coach DeLozier
and I'm sure that Coach Morgan, after Friday night, they're going to come back
with another State Championship, so don't get tired of doing it, because it's really
nice. The last thing I'd like to say is when you drive by all the smaller towns
around Iowa City and around the State, you'll see their signs listing the State
Championship teams, always at the edge of town. And I know that people are
always proposing things to you, so I'll take this opportunity to propose that it be
considered that this be done for Iowa City State Championship teams. So if
people don't know it already, they will know that when they come into the City of
Iowa City, it's truly the City of Champions. Again, thank you, and this is much
appreciated.
Thornberry/That'd be one big sign, wouldn't it?
Norton/Get a long board.
Lehman/And Mr. Thomberry said "That's going to be one big sign." You know, the
Coach said something, and you know, before I read the next proclamation, I think
that we are, we're so fortunate in this community, we have tremendous schools,
we've always been very, very proud of our academics, but we also have
tremendous athletes in this community. And it's not so important whether they
wear the Regal uniform or the Little Hawk or the West High, they're all athletes
and they're all Iowa Citians, and when they do well, I think it reflects very, very
well on this community. So we're very, very proud of them.
c. Great American Smokeout - November 19.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#3 page 5
Lehman/(Reads proclamation).
Karr/They each have something to say.
Lehman/Okay. We're going to have to pass this down, kids. Read into the mic and then
pass it to the next person.
Student/I'll never smoke. Ads make it look okay for kids to smoke and that's not true. I
think people shouldn't smoke because in the smoke there are poisons that can kill
people. The reason people shouldn't smoke because there's over 3,000 teenagers
that are trying to smoke every day that is causing death where they will die from
cancer. And for every smoke you take you lose five minutes of your life, so be
smart and do not, do the fight thing and do not smoke. You shouldn't smoke
because you can get cancer and die at a young age. You shouldn't smoke because
you throw away $730 a year on nothing but smoke. I think you shouldn't smoke
because it gives you bad breath. There are over 200 different chemicals put into
one cigarette and fight here we have five of them. Arsenic, used in rat poison, and
ammonia used in toilet bowl cleaner. Carbon monoxide found in car exhaust
pipes. Tar used for roofing and waterproofing, and nicotine, the most addictive
drug in the world. Technically, life's too short. Don't smoke. Smoking is bad
because it can make you look and smell bad. H1 never smoke because smoking
makes your clothes smell. Smoking is bad for you because you can be a bad role
model to your son or daughter by smoking. H1 never smoke because it turns your
teeth yellow and it makes you have short of breath.
Amy Carson/My name is Amy Carson. I'm the Program Director with the American
Cancer Society, and Vicky Saunders is in the back of the room. She's their
teacher and their leader, and she's been absolutely fantastic about getting them
going on all of these events. They have done so many things this week and
they're not even finished yet. And they each have something for you. It's a Great
American Smokeout Survival Kit. And if you're a smoker, you might want to
consider quitting for the day. The big day is - do we have any smokers on the
Council?
Kubby/We have a majority of Council who are smokers.
Carson/Okay, well this is going to be a great -
Kubby/So I hope this is going to be effective at educating and persuading them to try to
quit.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#3 page 6
Carson/Well the big day is Thursday, so you've got some time to gear up for it and
prepare to use your Survival Kit. And if you are a non-smoker and you know
someone who smokes, feel free to pass it on. Thank you for your time.
Kubby/Thank you very much.
Council/Thank you.
Thomberry/Here, you'd better give that to Karen. She needs two of 'em.
Kubby/I don't smoke, so I can't wear this button.
Lehman/Thanks, guys.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#4 page 7
ITEM NO. 4 CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS
PRESENTED OR AMENDED.
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #4).
Norton/So moved.
Lehman/Moved by Norton.
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Thornberry. Discussion? I think, Karen, you had a question
about, what, el last night? Are we going to get an answer?
Vanderhoef/I had.
Kubby/The other Karen.
Lehman/Oh, I'm sorry.
Vanderhoef/Thank you, Karen. I had asked about the additional $25,000 for the Crisis
Center, knowing that we had already allocated $200,000 to this project. I had
some information gathered for me today. This is a wonderful group.
Professionals and volunteers that work in our Crisis Center. This group has no
boundaries. They are people who accept anyone that comes in. I see this as a
regional program. H1 support the additional $25,000 to help them finish up with
their remodeling project in their new building. And I would like to encourage
other governmental bodies in our region to support this activity also. This is not
just an Iowa City program. And what I see it filling a gap between a lot of the
Human Service activities that are in our County and our other cities. And I just
ask them to please help support this project, too.
Lehman/Other discussion?
Norton/Ernie, I just wanted to comment on accepting the work for the first phase of
downtown. I think that very significant improvements have been made, and done
promptly and effectively, and I think we're all going to enjoy it when it's all done.
But it's nice to see it started.
Lehman/And I think that I've heard more positive comments about that project than any
project we've done since, since I've been on the Council, and that's been five
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#4 page 8
years, so I agree. Further discussion? Roll call- (yes). Motion carded.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F 01117/98
#5 page 9
ITEM NO. 5 PUBLIC DISCUSSION
Lehman/Item #5 is Public Discussion. This is a time reserved for discussion from the
public on items that are not included on the Agenda. If you would like to address
the Council, please sign in, give your name and limit your comments to five
minutes. This discussion will take place until not later than 8:00.
Renee Paine/Hi. My name is Renee Paine, and I live on Ronalds Street here in Iowa
City. I'd just like to personally invite the Council and the community to Public
Access Television's Annual Meeting. And that is this Thursday evening from
6:30 to 9:00 p.m. in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library. This is an
opportunity for people to meet the staff, the producers, and the Board members of
PATV. Also this year, it's going to be a dessert-lest, so if you'd like to bring a
dessert, you can certainly do that, to share. We will be honoring PATV's many
volunteers. We're going to be premiering a locally made program about media
literacy and we're going to be electing a member to the Board of Directors. We'll
also be discussing PATV membership dues, and would like to hear what people
have to say about this. So once again, it's this Thursday, the 19th, 6:30 to 9:00
p.m., Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library. It should be a lot of fun.
You can win fabulous raffle prizes, and we hope to see you there. Thanks.
Lehman/Thank you.
Joe Lynn/I'll start out with a saying that's pretty familiar to most people.
Lehman/Could you give your name first?
Lynn/
Joe Lynn. I live at 801 Wylde Green. Build it and they will come. And this is
what I see happening here in Iowa City. I think we're getting more concerned
with adults saving two or three minutes to make it downtown from the outskirts of
town than we are about a lot of our young people, some of those which were
maybe in here tonight. I'm referring to the Benton Street reconstruction project. I
read through a memorandum that was put out by Jeff Davidson and according to
him the idea of leaving it a two-lane street is off the board. And it needs to, the
decision now is to go three or four. I would request that the idea of having it
remain a two-lane street be left on it, and strongly considered. In fact, I question
whether Benton Street should even be an arterial street. You have, I asked Jeff at
one of the meetings earlier on last fall "How close do arterial streets need to be?"
His comment was "Approximately two miles." I left that night and I drove from
Mormon Trek across Sunset all the way to Highway 1.2.2 miles. Do we need
another arterial street in-between two that already exist? My main fear here is
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#5 page 10
our, we have two elementary buildings along that street with many, many kids
walking along it. It's hard enough to cross that street presently. A lot of people
are using that street because there are no stop signs. They can save a minute or
two getting downtown. You put four lanes across that street, it's going to be that
much harder for them, for somebody to cross from one side of the street to the
other, because there are no stop signs along there. There's no place to get from one
side of the street to the other without crossing traffic. Four lanes? How many of
you have tried to cross a four-lane street compared to crossing a two-lane street?
It's a lot easier and a lot safer. Right now, you have stoplights at both ends. It
causes gaps in the traffic flow so there are times you can get across. You go to a
four-lane street, and that's not going to happen. Go out and drive Benton Street
sometime from downtown all the way out to the Quik Trip. Drive 25 miles an
hour. Notice, when you get to the other end of the street how many cars you have
behind you and how many people are trying to push you off the road, and you'll
be lucky if nobody passes you. I drive a half of Benton Street every day, twice a
day on my way to work and on my way back from work. On the average, I would
say about every month to a month and a half, I have somebody pass me. I read
through this memorandum, and on an arterial street, they've found out the speed
limit's 30 miles an hour on there. The speed limit's actually supposed to be 20, or
25 in the school zones, but the average speed seems to be around 30 miles an
hour. Are you going to tell me it's going to slow down going to a four-lane street?
I don't believe so. I think you'll see the average speed on that street go up to 35,
maybe even 40, which in some cases it already is by a lot of people. You're going
to have a little lower elementary kid trying to cross four lanes of traffic at these
speeds? Another area of reference that I noticed in here is when it's all said and
done, you have four foot between the street and the sidewalk. You're going to
clear off two lanes of snow into a four foot area? Or are you going to throw it all
up onto the sidewalk? And I think a lot of people already found out what it's like
when they tried to clear their driveways, what it's like to clear out snow that the
snowplows pushed up there. There's not going to be enough room for that kind of
snow in there. If we were in New York or some town like that, I could see where
the aesthetic value of cement might be good. But we're here in Iowa. The
aesthetic value in Iowa seems to be a little bit of greenery around, not a big slab of
cement from one place to another. And that's what we're headed for. If we really
care about our younger people, with two elementary schools, I don't think you'll
really consider making a four-lane street out there. And I question even going to a
three-lane real strongly. Because of that crossing. One of the safety concerns,
they said, well, we'll just put a ramp across there so the kids can cross up on top of
the ramp. Yeah, the kids that use it for the first few months until it gets to be old.
Then I'll tell you what's going to happen. I've been in education for 18 years. I
work with kids. I know how they act. I know what they do. I have a pretty good
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#5 page 11
idea. They'll use it for awhile, but the first time it's raining and they look at it and
they see a triangle out there, one leading this way, one leading out this way across
the bridge and then back this way, it's much shorter across here, in the wet
weather, to head out this way, cross the street someplace down there where there
are no real safe places to cross. Same thin in the wintertime when it's cold
outside. They aren't going to take the long way. They're going to take the short
way. School officials can ask and do what they want to get these kids to try and
get them to go across that ramp. But I doubt whether a lot of them are going to do
it during the inclement weather. And that's when you're more likely to have an
accident. I seriously believe, if we end up taking this route, we will see some of
our younger citizens of this town end up in some type of accident and get hurt.
And by the way, H1 give you an example of what it's like to cross a bridge in the
wintertime when the wind's blowing. When I was in High School, crossing a
bridge, I froze this ear. To this date, if I'm outside and it's cold, it still hurts. And
that's what we're asking our kids to walk across at younger ages. And so I would
ask you to really seriously consider possibly going as far as no longer classifying
Benton as an arterial street, and not make it a three- or four-lane.
Lehman/Joe, for your information, Council will be discussing this. We have not
discussed it at all. It's going to be discussed. We have the same information that
you've seen, and the information that was in the paper. We will be discussing this
the second meeting of January with the neighborhood at a Work Session, and we
would at that time, certainly welcome input from anyone in the neighborhood.
Norton/Or elsewhere.
Lehman/Or anywhere. That's correct. But there have been no determinations of any
kind as far as laying configurations of any kind or whatever. That will not take
place until after that meeting.
Lynn/Well, this memorandum, and I'm sure you've got it, more or less indicates that
leaving it a two-lane street is no longer one of the --
Lehman/Well, you have to remember that that's a recommendation from the Staff. And
the width of the street is really a political decision. And whether or not it's good,
bad, or indifferent, Council will make that decision. And that decision will, the
process will be started on that evening, in the second week of January. So, it will
be in a Work Session before the regular meeting if we're going to talk about that
later tonight. But that's when we will start talking about it.
Kubby/And that date's the 251h of January, the second meeting.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#5 page 12
Lehman/The 251h?
Karr/It's a Monday.
Lehman/Monday the 251h.
Thornberry/And we're really not going to discuss it even among ourselves, and debate
one, two, or three, before we hear from the Neighborhood Association and the
neighbors around the area.
Lynn/Okay. I thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Florence Boos/Hello. My name is Florence Boos, and I live at 1427 Davenport Street.
I'm part of a group of citizens that would like to present a petition to urge you to
delay the sharpshooting of deer in this City.
Lehman/This is going to be coming up on the Agenda later, and that will be the
appropriate time.
Boos/Oh, okay. I didn't see it on the Agenda.
Karr/Item number seven.
Lehman/Item #7. Okay.
Anna Buss/Well, I've moved back to another construction area. Isn't this going to be
fun? Of course construction, where I go, so goes construction it seems like. I was
to the west side and it was there. And now of course I'm back on Benton Street,
and I see that this is a possibility that it's going to happen again. One of the things
that I know you're going to be discussing, and I would like to agree with
everything the gentleman prior said, one of the things though that I would like to
have you guys take a look at, too, is that again, I think we're having, providing a
better traffic area. We're inviting, we might as well send out invitations for more
traffic to come to this area. And if you really take a look at it, our primary traffic
problem is from about 7:30 to about 9:00, 9:30 in the morning and from 3:30 to
about 3:30, 4:00 to maybe 5:30, 6:00 in the evening. And then the rest of the
time, it's all of us who are on it back and forth. The speed is always a factor. I
mean, you might as well take the speed limit signs down. Because it, I mean, the
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#5 page 13
traffic just flies across there. Another thing that Emie had just said was that there
have been no configurations decided on at this time. And that it is up to a Staff
recommendation, and that's all the farther that it's gotten so far. I might remind
you that the City does have a history of kind of not listening to neighborhoods.
And we are a neighborhood and we are a, well a reasonably priced neighborhood
as far as Iowa City goes. Which also means we have lots and lots of kids. And
once again, and I've been here before on this very same issue, if you sit at the
comer of Benton and Miller Streets, you can sell tickets to see the accidents. And
you can have a heart attack very easily when you see the kids go across the street.
The idea of an overpass is oh-so-wonderful, but all you have to do is sit down on
Riverside Drive, and those are older people, and they don't do it. Little kids aren't
going to do it, either. If the traffic guard has left Benton Street and there are kids
that are late for school, I'm going to guarantee you're going to have a heart attack
seeing those little kids go across the street. Because there are so many kids in the
Orchard, Miller, that whole neighborhood area over there. One of the things I'd
really like to see the City do is to step back and take a deep breath and look at the
Mormon Trek, Highway 1, Riverside Drive, that whole area traffic pattern.
Because if Mormon Trek was not bottlenecked from the light on Rohret Road up
to where it dumps into Highway 1, if you go over there in the morning, getting out
of Westside Drive, again, it's just as challenging as my one-two-three and pull-out
count from Miller and Hudson. It's a real challenge in the morning on both ends
of those streets. Especially like Westside drive is a horseshoe, and so I think that
if you relieve the problem over there a little bit, you might look at that first and
then look at the Benton Street issue and see what effects they have on each other.
I'd like to thank all of you for getting back to us, Karen especially, as quickly as
she did with the e-mail the other day, because it's something that all of us are
concerned about when we saw the article in the paper. So, anything you can do to
kind of, the other thing is, come over and measure where this is going to put the
sidewalk. I won't even be able to park a car in my driveway on Benton Street.
And I'm not the only one. There's two or three more down the street. If that street
gets widened, we can't park our cars in our own driveway. And I would not be
able to add a front porch any further out if I wanted to. It would make my house
non-conforming. I couldn't do it. So those are some things you need to look at.
Thank you.
Lehman/We'll do it. Thank you, Anna.
Kubby/And know that those Mormon Trek issues are on our Capital Improvements
Program. Yeah.
Ginny Rew/I'm Ginny Rew. I live at 302 West Benton Street. And I agree with what
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#5 page 14
the gentleman and the lady said before me. I won't repeat what they have already
said, which I agree with, especially rerouting traffic through to the highway
instead of down Benton Street. But another thing that wasn't mentioned yet is that
when JeffDavidson met with us this summer, he said that one of the reasons, or
no, this was in the article in the paper, that one of the reasons they want to
reconstruct the street is because of the storm, the sanitary sewer and the storm
sewer needing to be replaced and the utilities. And this summer he mentioned
that the repairs to the street needed to be done, too. And in that meeting this
summer, he said that once a street is repaired, it should last a good 40 years. Half
of the distance of the street that we're talking about was just tom up and repaired
just 10 years ago. So, with complete sanitary sewer, storm sewer, so, I'm
wondering where are the 30 years that are left on that street? It should still be
good for 30 years, half of this street. And you're talking about tearing it up again.
So, just take that into consideration, too.
Lehman/I don't know that we're talking about tearing that out. And we're not really even
going to get into it until January. But, you should be at the meeting on the 251h of
January.
Rew/Okay.
Lehman/When we really start digging into this.
Rew/And you might want to talk to Jeff Davidson about that, too.
Lehman/Oh, don't worry, don't worry.
Rew/Because he said that.
Thornberry/I don't know where the 30 years came liom, but they did North Dodge not
that long ago, and it's in need of repair already. And it's -
Lehman/Not resurfaced.
Thornberry/Yeah, resurfaced.
Lehman/This is replaced.
Thornberry/When you replace a street with a blacktop street, it's not going to last 30
years.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#5 page 15
Rew/Well, Jeff himself said it would last 40 years. I've got it in my notes, I can show
you.
Vanderhoef/Concrete.
Thornberry/The concrete, maybe. But the blacktop won't.
Vanderhoef/Yeah, rebuild. That's what they told us when we did the First Avenue.
Carl Whitter/Carl Winter from Benton Street. And I concur with the others who spoke
before me. I live three buildings from the Benton and Sunset. And it is a problem.
One time I was rear-ended going into my driveway, right into my driveway. And
from now on, I'm sort of scared going in and out of my driveway because the cars
are going so fast. I have 25 mile an hour speed limit right in front of my house,
and cars are going 40 miles per hour. And no one is doing anything about it.
Someone's going to get hurt. I go to work in the morning. Cars will, I go at
exactly 25, and five cars will go around me to go even faster than that. And one
time, I was going up on Koser and there was a paperboy who was delivering
papers and it's a poorly lit neighborhood on Koser, and he nearly hit a guy over
there. So that's the kind of problems that we're having. And during the evening,
those trucks, there's no law alter 7:00 in the evening. Those cars, trucks, about
1 O-ton truck going just as fast as it can down the street. And it's going to cause a
major problem. Somebody's going to get hurt. It's also going to be structural
damage because the buildings there are built back in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. They
can not take the kind of damage that they're sustaining at this point. In addition,
what's going to happen, a sense of community's going to be broken down because
people are going to move, and I'm one of them. My house is up for sale. And
what you want to have is someone moving in who can afford, I'll have to drop the
price of my house down. Somebody else is going to buy that house at a lower
price. What you're going to get is a bad element in that area and it's just going to
propagate through that whole, entire neighborhood. There will be no sense of
community. There will be a slum-lord. A whole, entire slum area. I've been to
New York, I know how things go, and in terms of those streets, I've seen streets in
New York, they're being built up every other day. So there's no kind of structural
integrity to any kind of compounds that you can use in a highway, because they
will break down and you will be spending more money fixing those streets
because of the increase in traffic and also with the kids in the neighborhood,
you're going to have a lot of problems. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#5 page 16
Whitter/Just to let you know, when the last Iowa Hawkeye game, during the rush hour, I
live just across the street. Just to go to Koser, it took me 15 minutes, just to, I was
going to drive out of my driveway, but it took me 15 minutes to walk across the
street. Just across the street, 15 minutes.
Lehman/Other public discussion?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#6b page 17
ITEM NO. 6b PLANNING AND ZONING MATTERS - The annexation of a 19.81 acre
tract located at the southeast comer of Scott Boulevard and American Legion
Road. (ANN98-0002).
(1) Public Heating (continued from November 3)
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #6b). This is a p.h. The heating is open. The hearing is
closed.
(2) Consider a Resolution Approving
Lehman/Do we have a resolution?
Thomberry/Move to approve.
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, seconded by Norton. Discussion?
Kubby/I typically don't like to annex land to the City because we have so much property
that hasn't been developed yet, but this is an area of town that is developed on
various sides of this comer, on the comer of Scott and American Legion Road,
and it's going to be developed into some senior housing, which is something our
latest housing plan has said that we really need more senior housing. And it's
going to be higher-density, too. And it's fairly near a bus-stop, and maybe as we
talk later in the night, we'll be talking about more bus service to get closer to this
area. So I will support this resolution.
Lehman/Roll call- (yes). Motion carded.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 18
ITEM NO. 7 PUBLIC HEARING ON A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE WINTER
1998/99 DEER MANAGEMENT PLAN.
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #7). We've formed a committee, and before we start the
p.h., I'm going to have some information from the person who worked with the
Deer Management Committee to inform us as to the process that's been gone
through up to this point. It's been a rather tedious project. I think it's a very
difficult task, one that has been addressed very well, and we've been very
fortunate to have Lisa Handsaker be the person who has kind of engineered this.
And Lisa will, I think, bring us all up to speed as to where we are now, and how
we got there. Lisa?
Lisa Handsaker/Hi. I'm Lisa Handsaker, and I work in the City Manager's Office, and
I'm also a member of the Deer Management Committee. I'd like to give you a
brief summary of deer management activity to date. Due to complaints to the City
Council and the City Manager's office, the Department of Natural Resources
recommended a count be performed. A helicopter count in January of 1997
showed that there were as many as 70 deer per square mile in some areas of town,
with an average of 28 deer per square mile. Many communities are determining
that 20 to 25 deer per square mile is the maximum acceptable number. Once
again, in January 1997, we had some areas as high as 70. Shortly after the count,
the City Council appointed a group of citizens with a variety of interests to
determine the best plan for Iowa City. Goals of our Committee were to ensure the
safety and welfare of the inhabitants of Iowa City; to preserve the presence of deer
in Iowa City; to ensure the health of the herd is maintained; to prevent irreparable
damage to plant and other animal life; to prevent major property damage; and to
foster a tolerance among citizens with the presence of deer. Throughout the next
several months, the Committee investigated available and not-yet-available
including immuno-contraception to control the deer. There were very passionate
and lengthy discussions and debate on whether or not deer should be killed, and if
they should, how? We also listened to public comment, and we did incorporate
their thoughts into our plan. The Committee determined that no one method
would work to manage the deer, but chose, rather, multiple components such as
preventive measures like deer waming signs and reflectors; consideration of deer
by City officials when expanding development or constructing roadways; and the
necessity to educate our public on ways to live with the deer. It was also
determined that deer would need to be killed, and that sharpshooting over bait and
trap-and-kill would be the most effective and appropriate methods for Iowa City.
In October of 1997, after a public heating, the City Council approved a
Committee-approved plan for the winter of 1997-98. We still needed DNR
approval, and you will remember the DNR initially did not support our plan
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 19
because they wanted us to use bow and arrow hunting rather than sharpshooting to
kill the deer. After personally reviewing our situation, State DNR officials agreed
that sharpshooting was necessary to kill the number of deer that we, that the
Committee had recommended. They supported our petition to the Natural
Resource Commission to allow sharpshooting. Once again, sharpshooting was
not an approved use in the State of Iowa. It had never been used before. The
Natural Resource Commission did approve our plan in March of 1998.
Subsequently, State legislation has been amended to allow the use of light over
bait. Because it was too late to implement the '97-'98 plan, the Committee
reconvened to recommend a long-term plan which, after public --
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 98-128, SIDE B
Handsaker/The Committee then met again on October 21 st of this year to formulate a
plan specifically for the winter of '98-'99. Once again, a unanimous decision was
recommended. The resolution before you for the winter of '98-'99 plan
specifically follows what you approved in March for a long-term plan. I believe I
can speak for the Committee by saying the decision to kill deer was very difficult.
And we all understand this will be a very unpleasant task. None of us believes
there was a quick, cure~all answer to managing deer. We do, however, view this
as the best, comprehensive plan using the methods currently available.
Lehman/Lisa, I have one question. Is the plan as you are proposing it been used by
other communities around the country, and if so, with what sort of success?
Handsaker/It has been utilized in states such as Minneapolis, or excuse me, Minnesota,
in the Minneapolis suburban area, Illinois, around Chicago, and it's now being
used in Missouri. They have had success. I mean, deer management is a very
difficult process. And you have to get something that's appropriate and acceptable
to your community. I think that's most important. And I would like to remind
you that you appointed a very good group of people with a wide variety of
interests and they did come up with this unanimous decision after many months of
contemplating this idea.
Norton/I take it this year you'll be concentrating in relatively few areas?
Handsaker/Yes. And certainly Ed Hartin from the US Department of Agliculture is
here tonight to address some of your concems specifically regarding
sharpshooting. But it's my understanding that the peninsula area specifically
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 20
would be the areas that would be concentrated on for sharpshooting this first year.
Kubby/Lisa, I had two questions.
Handsaker/Sure.
Kubby/One is, most of the items in the plan are education. I mean if you just looked at
the number of them. And we really haven't given you resources to implement the
plan. The Committee. And the Committee was really meant to be ad hoc and not
a working, active committee. So, has the Committee talked about any
recommendations to Council on how to implement the other parts of the plan?
Because we've really only focused on the kill part of the plan.
Handsaker/Well, actually we are working on the education component. A few of the
Committee members, and in fact a few of the folks in the audience have agreed to
help us work through a pamphlet that can be distributed to residents, particularly
new residents moving into town. Defensive driving skills, maybe some
landscaping that would be appropriate, those kinds of things that you can utilize to
live with the deer.
Kubby/So the Committee is staying together to work, not just to create policy but to
work on making it happen.
Handsaker/Yes. Exactly. And we're working with the Press-Citizen on a series of
educational items. We're working with the cable folks. They're producing some
spots for us. And also, hopefully, today or tomorrow, you will start seeing some
defensive driving tips on screen on Govemment Channel 4. So we are trying to
start implementing those educational components.
Champion/Good.
Kubby/My second question was, I'm looking at the plan, and looking at item 4, b, 2, and
I don't remember this from the March plan, that the City will utilize City
personnel to use baited traps to capture and kill deer in locations determined by
City officials. I would assume that would be the Police?
Handsaker/Animal Control and Police. Animal Control would probably go ahead and
initiate setting up the traps, and those traps need to be checked every few hours, I
mean to make sure that they are humane, and the evening and nighttime hours our
Police staff would be used to make sure that we do look at those traps as often as
we can.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 21
Kubby/Okay. So if Animal Control goes out, a trap has a deer in it, they're not going to
be able to shoot.
Handsaker/Misha, do you want to address that?
Kubby/You don't carry a gun, Misha.
Misha Goodman-Herbst/Yeah, right. No, those traps will be set at specific times. And
Police Department personnel will have to deal with disposing of the deer in them.
Animal Control officers will not be doing that.
Kubby/Thank you.
Goodman-Herbst/(Yes).
Thomberry/Lisa, I have a question. You were, early on in your delivery you cited some
numbers as to how many deer per acre. You said that there were up to 70 deer?
Handsaker/70 per square mile in some areas.
Thornberry/70 per square mile. And what was the acceptable rate?
Handsaker/For some communities, it's been 20 to 25. Now, our committee really
wanted to encourage living with deer. We have a scale that we set for our town,
that was our recommendation, at 0-24 deer per square mile, we would recommend
educational materials on living with deer. 25-34 deer per square mile, we would
review the complaints on a complaint-by-complaint basis and encourage living
with the deer. Reduction may have to occur, depending on the dollar amount of
property damage and the number of folks affected. Anything over 35 deer per
square mile, the Committee did recommend lethal reduction take place.
Thornberry/How did the number 35 come up?
Handsaker/It was real hard. Like I said, most communities are recommending 20 to 25.
But our Committee really wanted to stress living with the deer.
Thomberry/Right.
Handsaker/We wanted to make that, we wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to the
deer and only do it when we felt it was absolutely necessary, and we felt that was
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 22
over 35. Other plant and animal life start to be affected at that point.
Thornberry/What was that now?
Handsaker/Over, well, you start getting into biological situations and affecting your
ecosystem if you start to have an overbalance of deer. And so we sort of pushed
that limit because we wanted to make killing a last resort.
Thornberry/Okay. So anything over 35 deer per square mile --
Handsaker/In a district, exactly, and we divided this into districts.
Thomberry/Irregardless of the type of vegetation and, I mean, I would think that more
than, more deer could live in it per square mile if it was all woodland.
Handsaker/Yeah. You start getting into the --
Thornberry/ Or is it people plant more goodies and they can, I don't know.
Handsaker/We have created an artificial setting here in Iowa City. And you have to
remember that the deer are not going to starve in town. People will continue to
plant things. And so we just sort of looked at 35 as the maximum that would be
acceptable in any square mile.
Thomberry/And these are urban deer.
Handsaker/Exactly.
Champion/Urban deer.
Thornberry/Okay.
Handsaker/Is that all the questions?
Audience/May we have questions from the floor?
Lehman/Well, wait until after we get through it. I think you have Ed wants to speak
with us.
Handsaker/Sure. I know Council had questions regarding the logistics of the
sharpshooting, so Ed Hartin, who is a State Director of the Iowa, Missouri, and
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 23
Minnesota Division of the USDA Wildlife Services is here. And Ed will address
some of those questions.
Thornberry/Thank you, Lisa.
Lehman/Thanks, Lisa.
Handsaker/You bet.
Ed Hartin/Yes. My name is Ed Hartin. I am a certified wildlife biologist with the
USDA Wildlife Services Division. Our specific task and goal within the wildlife
management area is strictly in wildlife damage, control or management or
whatever you want to call it. We deal with all kinds ofwildlife-related problems.
Deer just happens to be one of them. I was asked early on to provide information
to this task force on various methods of dealing with deer problems, and we've
been doing that all along. And then also asked to provide information on what I
know, at least, about how sharpshooting would be conducted, or how it's normally
conducted in these sort of situations. The first thing I wanted to stress is that, you
know, it is a last resort. Other things are being tried and will continue to be used
and recommended. And it's a last resort. But a lot of communities are finding
that it is the only resort, particularly at this time that they have to reduce deer
populations. I have quite a bit of experience in the area of sharpshooting deer.
I've been over Illinois program. I've been over Minnesota program, where our
employees have conducted sharpshooting programs. I want to stress that this is
not hunting. It has nothing to do with hunting. It's, there's no sport to it. It's not
enjoyable. But it is something that is felt that it is necessary to deal with
overpopulation of animals. We've been very lucky in this country in that some
areas of wildlife management have been too successful. Deer is one of those
things that have been too successful and now we're having to deal with the other
side of that issue. But normally the way sharpshooting is done, it, there are
various people that can do it and are doing it throughout the country, from Police
forces to private individuals to people from State and Federal agencies.
Minneapolis primarily uses Police force to carry out this type of activity. I know
in Chicago, Wildlife Services employees have done quite a bit of sharpshooting in
those particular areas, at O'Hare Airport, at Argonne National Laboratories, and
other forest preserves that are right around houses and those kinds of things. It is
something that requires a lot of expertise and I want to make it clear that safety is
the number one issue. Deer reduction is number two issue. Safety is number one.
But basically, what it amounts to is shooting at night over bait with spotlights and
a specific type rifle with a noise suppresser. And it, the shots are taken in specific
areas where we know what the background is, where we know the angle that we'll
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 24
be shooting, which would always be from an elevated platform or the back of a
truck or something like that, where you're always shooting down into the ground.
The deer are normally head- or neck-shots which kill instantly and are
recommended by the Humane Society as a way of euthanization. The shooters
themselves have to normally pass some kind of very restrictive guidelines as far
as meeting the criteria to make sure that they are capable of handling a firearm
and placing the bullet where it is intended to be placed. With that, I don't, I'll just
ask if there's any questions and go from there.
Kubby/So what kind of public notification is there, about when this is going to happen?
We have people who are out and about at all times of the day and night in our
community.
Hartin/I don't know exactly how it will be done here. I know normally it's, people are
notified as to when and where approximate areas it is taking place. All the
shooting I've been involved with has been done primarily after 8:00 at night in the
winter months of January, February. Usually, not a lot of activity at that time of
night, but, you know, it is a concern.
Goodman-Herbst/The Committee talked about this a little bit. It was trying to come up
with how to handle this particular circumstance. A few of the things that we came
up with is that the Police Department would be involved to a certain extent in
either placing signs in certain neighborhoods or cordoning off certain areas where
this was taking place at certain times. One of the issues that came up through
USDA is that they're concerned about announcing exact times and locations
because they've had problems with animal rights folks or other folks getting
involved in places where they shouldn't be. And it's a safety issue for them.
They want to make sure citizens aren't there. So, you know, Cotmoil may have
some ideas also on what they want to see done in terms of public information and
Kubby/Yeah, because those public lands are open until 10:30 at night. I mean, usually
parks anyway are open till 10:30 at night. And --
Goodman-Herbst/Well, primarily what we're talking about in the peninsula is not a
public area where people are going to be hanging out like the parks.
Kubby/Not as much, but there's plenty of people hanging out on the peninsula.
Goodman-Herbst/Yeah.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 25
Norton/Is it presumed that if you do a reduction in the peninsular area, say, that that will
significantly affect some other areas? Or is it a fairly narrow range? Will it affect
areas adjacent to that area?
Hartin/We feel like that it will affect a lot of the adjacent areas. It's something we'll just
have to monitor as time goes along to see exactly how far those deer are ranging.
Norton/You need new counts, if you get a snow in December, do we need a new count?
Goodman-Herbst/Yeah, we'll be doing a new count this year.
Thomberry/You do that from the air?
Goodman-Herbst/Yeah. And we'll be counting for Coralville also. They'll be involved
in it.
Thornberry/Areas other than the peninsula, would they be, I heard that it would be on a
complaint or a request basis, I don't know what that is exactly, but there are other
areas in town that they would be doing this deer reduction? I don't know what to
call it, killing the deer?
Goodman-Herbst/The peninsula is the primary area where we have the huge numbers,
the big numbers. There are some other areas such as Hickory Hill area where we
have some larger numbers, also. Now, Ed has gone out with the Police
Department and they've looked at certain areas and what they can and cannot do
for safety purposes. Now, I don't know exactly what locations they've come up
with aside from the peninsula. But, in some of those cases, traps would have to be
used. It wouldn't be a circumstance of a whole lot of deer coming to one area.
Thornberry/Do you catch one deer at a time in these traps or do you set multiple traps or
what's that?
Goodman-Herbst/It can be done a variety of ways, but generally it's one deer in a trap,
per trap. We don't expect to catch a lot of deer in the traps. Those are primarily
used for problem deer in a specific area where sharpshooting isn't a reasonable
option.
Thornberry/I understand you're going to be shooting the does instead of the bucks. Is
that, is that the idea? Or is --?
Hartin/That's the goal.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 26
Thornberry/That's the goal.
Hartin/Yes. Because I mean, as you know, most states have a buck season or a harvest
of bucks throughout the state, and you can reduce the buck numbers considerably
and still maintain deer populations because they breed with several does So the
only way to deal with the actual population is to control does.
Thornberry/Oh boy, I can't remember my question after that. That's all right.
Hartin/The problem though, bucks do drop antlers in December to February sometime.
So there will be times when it will be practically impossible to determine the sex
ahead of time.
Thomberry/Oh, what I was going to ask is, when you catch these deer, if the idea is to
shoot the does, you don't know what you're going to catch in these traps, whether
they're does or bucks. So you're going to, what, are these live traps? If you catch
a buck, do you let him go out of the trap?
Goodman-Herbst/No. The Committee talked about that. Because we're trying to reduce
the number, any deer caught in a trap will be killed.
Thomberry/You're going to kill the dumb ones, huh?
Champion/Tell us about these traps. Tell us something about these traps. What kind of
traps are they?
Goodman-Herbst/Tim, can you help me out here a little bit with the traps?
Tim Thompson/Misha probably knows as much about the traps as I do. I've never used
one. But, Tim Thompson, Wildlife Biologist that covers Johnson County here.
Basically there's two types. One is like a box-type trap made out ofplywood and
they're about 8 foot, high enough for a deer to walk in, with a door in each end so
it looks like a tunnel. It's open, it's baited. When they trip a wire, both doors go
down on it. There's also some other traps that are more netting type traps where
it's the same principle, they're open on the two ends and then the netting drops
down and they're just trapped in that situation.
Kubby/Thanks.
Thornberry/Thank you.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 27
Lehman/If you folks would stay available for questions, we'll hear fi'om the audience
and we may have more questions for you.
Champion/I have one more question.
Lehman/I'm sorry, Connie.
Champion/I have one more question. What is your policy if a deer, I mean if somebody
really misses a deer and the deer is injured. Then do you track that deer? How do
you handle that situation? Maybe it never happens, but it could.
Hartin/Well, the idea is for it not to happen. You know, there is a possibility that it can
happen. And what we would do is try our best to, you know, go ahead and put the
animal down. It may require the use, you know, if it travels into another area, it
may require the use of a tranquilization rifle or something like that, which requires
you to get closer and that kind of stuff.
Goodman-Herbst/We do currently have deer that get injured in the City that run off that
we do have to track and tranquilize and euthanize, so that may be done in those
circumstances.
Champion/Would you be doing that?
Goodman-Herbst/It's possible we would be involved. We have a lot of the tranquilizing
equipment available.
Boos/
I'm Florence Boos. I'd like to ask the preparers of the report then a couple
questions. In lieu of making a statement, since I do appreciate the fact that, that
you're thinking of sharpshooting as a less-than-optimal, desirable solution, and are
thinking of it as something that is a last resort. Nonetheless I'd like to ask, have
you considered the argument that it's counter-productive and basically stupid to do
this because the deer population then increases to compensate for loss in the
season? Also, have you investigated or thought about the idea of transporting the
deer elsewhere? Or, using contraception, for I believe that there are methods
underway which would be relatively possible and would certainly eliminate the
possibility of causing an accident? Think if your child were killed, or, you know,
just one accident happened while this were being done, in addition to the horrible
slaughter of lovely animals. Also, have you considered that perhaps in some areas
of Iowa City, it's desirable to have deer? I can't believe an argument that deer
shouldn't be permitted to roam in Hickory Hill. That's an area where naturally
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F 01117/98
#7 page 28
they should be. Perhaps the notion of how many deer are in excess is somewhat
exaggerated, but if you believe that there are only 28 per square mile on average,
basically, that's very little above your limit. So we're talking about a very small
number of deer. Perhaps you could postpone for a year the notion of
sharpshooting, which after all is a rather radical solution, and try to look into
contraception or something that within a year or two could keep the population
more stable. So, I guess those are questions, the question part of it is
transportation, contraception, just living with it.
Douglas Jones/I'm Douglas Jones. I've been involved with the Deer Management
Committee since it was formed, what, 20 months ago? It's been awhile.
Thornberry/Yeah, it has been.
Jones/
And I feel confident that one of the important answers to all of your questions is,
yes, we considered all of those ideas. And I ended up writing the spreadsheet
comparing the options that came out of the Committee report. The options, for
example, of trapping and releasing the deer somewhere else, taking the deer from
areas of overpopulation and moving them to areas of underpopulation is an idea
which on the surface is very appealing. But if you look at communities where it's
been done, you find three major disadvantages. One of them is it's expensive.
One of them is that a remarkable fraction of the deer that are trapped and
transported end up dying of the experience. The mortality rate of trapping and
relocating deer is appalling. And apparently the reason is that deer grow up in a
native range and don't really know how to adapt to a new range without being
introduced gradually by their mothers, by their herd organization to a new range.
And the third problem is that if you try to find an area where you could transport
the deer with the permission of the landowners at the receiving end in the
Midwest, you discover that the real eager recipients are game farms, where they'll
simply sell the fight to hunt the deer, which we thought was an appalling option.
So, basically, looking around the Midwest for willing recipients of trapped deer is
extremely difficult. We're talking about having to transport deer hundreds of
miles, not just, it's not something you could do locally. With regard to
contraception, plain and simple, except for experimental studies, the FDA does
not permit use of contraceptives on animals which are potentially targets of
hunters. And because of the problem that the drugs are of unknown effect on
humans. And someone might hunt, you know, the deer that was contracepted
might leave the City limits and might get taken by a hunter and someone might
eat it. So, the drug approval process is very long and very slow, and this applies
to any drugs, but drugs for animal contraception are not a high priority with any
of the drug approval groups. There is an ongoing study which the City could
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 29
apply to participate in. The chances of our acceptance to that study might be good
in five to ten years, but are not shoa-term.
Kubby/Doug, in the previous plan, trying to become part of that study was part of it, and
in this plan it's not. Why was that, the attempt --?
Jones/
Well, I still believe we should try, and I would encourage the Council to continue
to pursue trying. On the other hand, I don't have, in terms of the shoa-term plan,
there's not much you can do in the shoa-term. The trying is a long-term issue.
And part, I believe it's still in the long-term plan, to continue to investigate this
option.
Kubby/Okay. Because it may take us a lot of shoa-term attempts to get to the long-
term, so the sooner we begin that process the better.
Jones/
That's right. Finally, with regard to the issue of should we have a deer population
in Iowa City, the opinion of the Committee is a resounding, absolutely yes. The
deer population of Iowa was hunted to near-extinction a century ago. And our
patterns of human habitation in this state that we developed were mostly
developed after the tum of the century. Our population has rearranged itself a lot
in the last hundred years. And we did most of that rearranging without deer
because we'd wiped them out. The deer we have today are, thank goodness, re-
invading the territory they once owned. And, well they shared it with buffalo and
they shared it with elk, and they shared it with wolves, and with the occasional
mountain lions. But they're re-invading that territory, and it's a good thing. And
we welcome them. The trouble is that from the point of view of healthy ecology,
the wolves and the mountain lions and the bears are not re-invading the territory,
and until they do, I think from the point of view of a healthy ecosystem, we have
to provide the balance that was once provided by the predators we also wiped out.
Quite frankly, I think many people would look askance at the re-invasion of this
territory by those predators, but we know that some of them are probably going to
be coming back as they have in other urban areas, in the noaheast we have bear
and in the Rocky Mountains the mountain lion population is finally flourishing
after years of decline. I don't know what we'll get, but that'll be its own challenge
when it happens. But the big thing that we have to be aware of is that while we
welcome the deer, there are decent populations that are good for the ecosystem,
and I think that the range 20 to 30 deer per square mile is good for the ecosystem.
I manage, or I take active part in the management of some prairie remnants on the
Finkbine Golf Course, anyone who would like to do prairie management next
Sunday at 1:30 on the bike trail in Finkbine is welcome. What we've noticed is
that since, and in the last ten years, we've seen deer re-invade that particular piece
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 30
of land. And what we've noticed is that some management problems we had
before with invasive woody plants have declined. The deer are beginning to do us
a favor as the deer population approaches this 15 to 30 per square mile range. On
the other hand, if you look in the undeveloped land noah and west of Kimball
Road, if you look in the peninsula, you find in those areas where the deer
populations are above 50 deer per square mile, that instead of being a healthy
contribution to the ecosystem, they're beginning to, you're beginning to see the
classic symptoms of overgrazing. This is classic overgrazing symptoms which
you hear all these people complaining about cattle barons in the west ruining
pasture lands, deer can do the same thing. And what they do is they convert a
diverse ecosystem into a monoculture of ferns and mature trees with very few
young trees. So, with that, I think I've said enough. So, I strongly support the
result of the Committee.
Lehman/I think you've explained the work of the Committee extremely well.
Champion/Very well.
Lehman/And I really appreciate this. And I'm sure the audience does, too.
Vanessa Jones/Hi, my name's Vanessa Jones. And originally, I didn't think this was a
question of overpopulation of deer. Originally I thought this plan came to the
table because of citizens complaining of two problems. One, that deer were
causing them a lot of money in damages in their yards, to their shrubs, plants,
whatever. And two, that there's been a lot of complaints of deer being hit on the
roadways, and this has caused a lot of accidents and problems. So, when I came
to the meeting today, these are the two things that I meant to address. And the
whole thing about overpopulation of deer, I guess I would just like to ask, I'm not
really, I'm not really clear on what exactly the symptoms of the overpopulation of
our deer in Iowa City are, other than these two issues. Again, that they're eating
people's shrubbery and that they're running onto the roadway. Are there other
symptoms? I know that the man who just spoke was very articulate about what
deer overpopulation can do. But so far as I know, there hasn't been any
devastation of the ecosystem in Iowa City from overpopulation of deer. But
before that question gets answered, so, I was just going to say that since I came
meaning to address these two issues, deer on the road and deer eating shrubbery, I
just wrote up a few things about why I think sharpshooting would be unfortunate
for the deer population. The woman who spoke first whose name I don't know,
said that it's our goal to preserve a healthy deer population. And it seems to me
that in order to preserve a healthy deer population, that we need to provide for
natural selection, which will be very much disturbed if we apply sharpshooting to
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 3 1
the deer population and kill several hundred deer a year, which is my
understanding that this would go on for a few years. This would kill deer
randomly rather than in a way, rather than the natural way which is for weak deer
to die, ill deer to die, and the strong ones to breed. It would kill whichever deer
were unlucky enough to come across a bullet. And I think that this would
significantly, would present a big problem in the healthy, in the healthy herd that
we're looking for. I mean, I suspect that it would make the herd weaker because
the strong ones wouldn't necessarily be able to breed with the strong ones. My
other concem is that it would also eliminate, it would decrease the gene pool that
these deer have to breed from. I mean, there could easily be deer inbreeding,
there could be a lot more not just inbreeding, but again, the idea of if the gene
pool is reduced, then the deer don't have the chance to breed with other deer
which would diversify the gene pool and again make the deer strong. They would
become weaker and weaker if they continue to be shot in a random fashion. I
have a solution, I think, for the deer on the roadway problem. Beyond reflectors
on the roads, which I think is a good idea and has been instituted for some places,
I have this thing that I bought. It's called "Deer Warning" or "Deer Whistles",
depending on what brand you get. And you can get it at any hardware store,
Target, whatever. And they're really cheap, they're like $6, and they'd be a lot
cheaper if you bought them in bulk, several thousand. And what it is is it's just
these two little plastic things that go on the front of your bumper on the car, and
they each have a different frequency of a high-pitched noise that humans can't
hear, but that deer can hear, and it's very disturbing to the deer. And when the
deer hear it, they go away from it. So, as your car is going down the highway, the
air is running through these whistles and it's creating two different high-pitched
frequencies that repel the deer from the roadway. And my solution, which I think
is much less economically drastic solution, I mean, certainly we should look at
this as an economic issue, that this is a lot of money that you're planning on
spending if you do it on the sharpshooting of deer. And if you really have this
money, then what about spending much less of it for a less-radical measure that
could very well solve the problem, which is, buy 2,000 of these things, distribute
them free to all the people, all the residents of Iowa City, and let us put them on
our cars, and for a year monitor how many deer are hit with the deer whistles on
the cars, and how many deer are hit with the deer whistles not on the cars. Which
wouldn't cost very much money. Already the deer are being monitored, how
many deer are being hit are being monitored. So, why not do that, why not see if
it significantly reduces the number of collisions. And I bet it would.
Lehman/Vanessa, I think those whistles work only above a certain speed.
V. Jones/That's not what this says, to be honest.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F 01117/98
#7 page 32
Lehman/But it is. We have the expert coming forward here.
Hartin/There has been a lot of research done on ultrasonic devices, and that's basically
what these are. Our research center in Denver is world-renowned in wildlife
damage management research. They've looked into these and they have found
that they have provided absolutely no benefit to the vehicle.
Kubby/You mean they're zero-percent effective?
Hartin/That's what they've said.
V. Jones/I have a hard time believing that. And I think if they don't work below a
certain speed that if you're driving 25 miles an hour, technically, there's no reason
why you should be hitting a deer. I mean, even if it's night time, if you're only
driving 25 miles an hour, you should be able to prevent that, I would hope. I
mean, it's more highway driving that causes it. So anyway, those are my
solutions. Thank you for listening.
Council/Thank you.
Bill Boos/My name is Bill Boos, William Boos. I'm Florence's husband. We live just
outside of Hickory Hill. We see a great many deer. They pad around quietly in
the middle of the night for the most part. Sometimes they're visible, very rarely, in
the daytime. And, they've eaten some of our seedling trees, and I actually did
collide with a deer once in a car in eastem British Columbia. So I've had some
experience with the problems that I think are probably, I suspect with a certain
cynicism if you like, maybe the real political motor behind all this. It's quite true
that large deer populations can destroy an ecosystem. I have no doubt about that.
But I think if one compares the effect of the deer populations in Iowa City with
the effect of us, our cars, our concrete, and our real estate development, this
becomes rather trivial. I strongly suspect that what we're ultimately talking about
is less damage to ecosystems than garden beds and this distresses me because I do
not think we need to do this. And I think that in fact we are coexisting quite well
with the deer. I looked at the damage estimates for recent years in the Press-
Citizen associated with automobile accidents of the sort I had. They are fender
benders if you look at the average repair costs. These are of course not
insignificant to the people who experience them. But I do think that culling the
deer, or whatever the jargon would be in this case, whatever the language would
be, reminds me a little bit of Jonathan Swit~'s Modest Proposal for settling the
population problems in Ireland. I, we are killing deer in order to save them, and I
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 33
think we ought to hold back in our concem about the ecosystem a few more years
to make sure that that's really what we're doing this for. Because the deer are not
likely to be able to argue back with us if we turn out to have been wrong.
However sentimental that may sound, it also, I believe, does speak to some of the
real issues here. And these are political issues once again. That's what I'd like to
close with. The people who have thought this through painstakingly in ecological
terms have done so in ways that are impeccable and much more informed about
the biology involved than any of the rest of us here. I don't doubt that. I simply
question whether this really is a genuine political necessity, and if it is, I would
like to learn in somewhat more detail why. And that question of course cannot be
fairly posed to the experts who're spoken to us so far.
Lehman/Thank you.
Charles Hughes/Good evening. My name's Charles Hughes. I'm at 1327 Cedar. And I
too want to express my hesitancy at the shooting of the deer. I'm a former
National Park Ranger, and I also a gunshot wound victim. And hence my
concerns being here tonight to talk to all of you. The deployment of
sharpshooters in my neighborhood which is actually near the southwest entrance
of Hickory Hill Park where Bloomington, Cedar, and Davenport meet, seems like
a natural area where they would be deployed, because it's near an access road.
And from my experience with white-tail deer and mule deer populations, they are
usually near an access road for deployment of said traps, and to haul dead
carcasses out. They're not going to hike in a mile and a half and do the work
there. It's going to be very close. And on page 10 of the hunting regulations, it
talks about no hunter should be within 200 yards of the nearest building. I know
this isn't a hunting issue. I do know, however, that that same rule applies here, if
I'm not mistaken. 200 yards, to the nearest residence or house, for me is far too
close. Five days a week I wake up early at 4:00 a.m. and head downtown to bake
pastries. And I'm on my bicycle and I skirt the perimeter of Hickory Hill Park
every time. It's beautiful that time of night. And I too see deer and raccoon fight
on the edge of the park. I don't want to be traveling through that area in the
middle of the night when said sharpshooters are deployed. That's maybe a selfish
reason, but, having been a victim of a gunshot in the past, it's a very real reason
for me. One of the comments that I was drawn to earlier by Ms. Handsaker was
that people will continue to plant things. That's very true. I however feel that
people will continue to feed the deer also. And I think that's an issue that really
needs to be addressed in the public education, be it in a Press-Citizen article or
anything. If people keep feeding the deer, we're going to keep having this
problem. And that's happened in the two parks I've been at. Another comment I
wanted to make, and it's actually a question and that'll help me understand this
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 34
an access road will the traps, or the bait light system areas be set up from a
roadway? Because if they're within a hundred yards of a roadway or a house or a
building, it's just far too close. And I just wanted to express those comments.
Thanks.
Lehman/Thank you.
Kubby/Maybe we could get an answer to that while it's freshly asked?
Norton/Yeah.
Dennis Mitchell/We are required to follow the State law requirement that no shooting
can take place within 200 yards of a home. I think, as Ed pointed out earlier, you
know, our main goal is safety. That's going to come first before deer reduction.
So any of the locations that we decide on are going to be locations that are well
more than 200 yards from any house or building. So, you know, I guess again,
safety's going to be our top priority here.
Kubby/Will you tell everybody who you are?
Mitchell/Oh, sure, I'm sorry. Dennis Mitchell. I'm an Assistant City Attorney.
Kubby/Thank you.
Clayton Foley/My name is Clayton Foley. I live at 612 E. Court. I had a few things
prepared to say tonight, but I kind of need to throw that out the window now,
because I realized a huge, huge contradiction here tonight that I would like the
Council to know of. First, we had one gentleman from the USDA get up here and
talk about how it wasn't hunting, it was, I don't know the exact quote,
management of some sort. And that they were going, the goal was to shoot does,
because as we all know, that is the real way of controlling a population, a deer
population. And then, we had the woman from the DNR get up here and say that
if a buck was caught in a trap, then it would be shot as well, because we're just
trying to decrease the number of deer. And to me, that's pretty much just hunting.
I believe. And if we're going to go ahead and shoot bucks that get caught in traps,
that totally defeats the purpose of this deer management plan. Because the real
way to, if you have to do it by lethal means, to control a deer population is to
shoot does. And it's just a huge contradiction. And if someone could clear that up
for me, I would really appreciate it.
Thornberry/You mean that you think shooting a buck that's caught in a trap is hunting?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 35
Foley/No, I'm saying, I'm saying the whole point of this is to shoot does, because
shooting bucks doesn't do any good. One buck can inseminate a whole herd.
Thornberry/I'm just asking the question about the hunting aspect. It's still not hunting.
Foley/Well the gentleman from the USDA said that it wasn't hunting.
Thornberry/It's not hunting.
Foley/Hunting is pretty much just going out and decreasing population by shooting any
deer you see.
Thomberry/No. Hunting is not decreasing deer of anything you see. That is not, you
are not a hunter.
Foley/No, no, most definitely not.
Thornberry/You do not know what a hunter does then. A hunter does not go out to
decrease the population of a pheasant population, of a duck population, of
anything. You go out to hunt, and it's a sport. And I was taught that when I
hunted, I ate what I killed. Whether I caught it on a hook and line or whether I
shot it, I ate it. That's hunting. It's not to decrease the population of a particular
species.
Lehman/Well, let me just briefly, the idea of, the idea of the sharpshooting is to reduce
the deer population. I mean, this is the whole concept. If you catch a doe in a trap,
obviously you will dispose of the doe. If you catch the buck, you would dispose
of the buck. You have decreased the population in either case by one animal.
And the whole idea is to decrease the population. Preferably does, as we've heard.
But certainly, if you catch a buck and your purpose is to decrease the population,
you certainly aren't going to turn him loose.
Foley/Then why aren't we, why is the USDA not going out and shooting every deer they
find?
Lehman/I think we made it pretty clear that the does produce the fawn. Right?
Foley/Yes.
Lehman/I mean, if you shoot the doe, you cannot have fawns.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 36
Foley/Correct.
Lehman/All fight, and you cm~ have 100 bucks and shoot 99 of them and still have lots
of fawns with the rest of the does. That's the whole concept, unfortunately.
Foley/That's correct.
Lehman/But the whole concept is that the does produce the babies.
Foley/
Okay. I just find it, it's horrible that we're even shooting any bucks knowingly. A
buck gets caught in a trap, it's got a huge rack on it, and we still shoot it because
it's decreasing the numbers. No, that's not what the deer management plan is
about. It's about doing it through intelligent means and not just well, we caught it
in the trap, okay, we'll just dispose of it. Because, because what that's saying is
that, I don't know, I'm not quite sure, what we're, what am I saying here? Okay.
We decrease the number of deer and time and time again, we've come to these
meetings and told you that it won't work, that the deer herd will repopulate and go
back to the original population. And actually I would like to know how long
these other states who've been doing the sharpshooting, how long they've been
doing it, and if they've had to do it every couple years, every two or three years, or
if they just did it for two years and had to stop because it totally worked. I would
really like to know that.
Kubby/As well, just to be clear, the deer management plan as outlined on paper just says
the City Council directs a number not to exceed 240 deer be killed during the
winter of '98-'99. But it doesn't specifically say "doe" in the plan. That will be
the intent, as we talked about, but on paper, it just says "deer".
Foley/
Okay, well, okay, I guess I would like to make it clear to all, because I believe
some have, I guess, been deceitful, because they've been implying that they're
only out to shoot does because that's the way to control the population and that's
not the fact. That's the fact is that --
Thornberry/You had a good question regarding if you lower the population of deer,
doesn't the population, since there's more room for them, just explode with the
ones who are left?
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 98-129, SIDE A
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 37
Thornberry/Is that the question that you, that you asked before? And I think that the
young lady asked the same thing. And I, I didn't even think of that, but I did ask
the gentleman who explained it to me, and maybe you could explain it to them
also, that this doesn't really happen. That once the deer in an area is declined, the
number is declined, the rest don't all of a sudden have five does, or little ones, to
make up for the ones that are gone.
Foley/
From what I've read, and I've done much studying up on this, he may have a
different opinion, from what I've read, they do their reproductive rates increase,
they start having twins or triplets, they reproduce at a yotmger age, it's nature
taking care of itself. I mean, they've been doing this for how many years, you
know?
Thornberry/That's a good question. I'd like them to answer it for you.
Champion/That's not always true. For instance, the problem with gorillas and pandas is
that they are being down to such small numbers. They're only producing males,
so nature doesn't always control things the way you think it would.
Foley/Uh-huh. What I've read of deer.
Champion/(Can't understand).
Foley/
That does happen. What I've read of the deer is that that does happen. They do,
someone has, possibly the gentleman fi'om the USDA, he might know the
numbers.
Lehman/Well--
Norton/Let's comment on that.
Hartin/First of all, with deer biology, fawns can reproduce their first year. The first,
they're born in the summer, they can breed that fall. Normally, that fawn, the next
spring or early summer, will normally have one, sometimes two fawns. Most
mature does, those that are over a year old, on up to whatever, do produce twins
and triplets are very common, and quadruplets have been seen. As far as reducing
a deer population, if you do it once, this winter and you don't touch it again for the
next five years, you'll be right back where you were before. I mean, that's just
common sense. It has to be maintained at that level. When you're, any kind of
management requires some kind of maintenance. But, it doesn't, the initial year is
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 38
the one that requires if you've got a population up here and you want it down here,
you get it down here, and yes, the next spring it will go up a little bit, and it's got
to be reduced again to keep it at that level. And I did say that, you know, we
would target does. Bucks will be killed occasionally, especially after antler-drop,
because it's practically impossible to tell a grown buck from a grown doe at that
stage. And either way, you're reducing the population. What we're looking at is
the long-term population, not this year's count.
Lehman/That's what the Committee, I think, is looking at, too.
Thornberry/Yeah. But that, the notion that more does will have triplets because there
aren't so many deer around, is not necessarily, is accurate?
Kubby/Maybe it's the other way around. That when the population is high, they don't
have those triplets and twins that they have.
Thomberry/I don't think that's --
Lehman/Well--
Thomberry/Well he can answer that.
Thompson/One thing I think a lot of people look at studies from around the United
States, and it's not like Iowa where we have the, we're the breadbasket of the
United States. Our ground's fertile, whether we're growing shrubs, whether we're
growing crops. Deer have good nutrition here, and we have some of the highest
reproductive rates on white-tail deer in the United States. And when they're
already up at that high level, they're not going to go much higher. There's not,
there's no room for them to go. And what Ed was saying was about like the
triplets, studies in Iowa have shown about 15% of the, 12 to 15 percent of the
does, adult does, are going to have triplets anyway. And at the lower population,
it's not going to make fawns have triplets. It's not going to make fawns have
twins. That's usually fairly rare, and it's more of a biological age type thing,
unless something would happen, if Iowa City was the size of three counties and
these deer never had access to farm crops, yeah, nutrition might play a part in it.
But as you know, there's farm crops inside the City limits. And so the nutrition
factor is not there, and reducing the deer population is not going to give a kick
into high gear for the reproductive capabilities of those deer.
Thornberry/Thank you.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 39
Foley/All right. This, I think this is great that we have a gentleman from the USDA
here, because I've been dying to talk to someone from them. He said that the
population will be lowered, of course, when you shoot the deer. Then, I believe
he said that in the next year or the following years, it will go right back up and
then it will need to be maintained. And I'm wondering how you maintain a
population at a certain level.
Norton/Take out some of the deer.
Audience/The first year you have to shoot a lot --
Eleanor Dilkes/We have to have, I'm sorry, one person talking.
Lehman/If you want to answer, it has to be at the mic. But these are questions that the
Deer Committee has addressed. I don't know if Lisa's still here. But the concern
has been not only in lowering the level of deer to a manageable level, but
maintaining that level. I mean, that is every bit as important, or more important
than reducing the herd to start with. This is only what is perceived as (can't hear).
The only real way that we're going to get the level down to where it is
manageable.
V. Jones/I just have a quick question, and then I'll leave, I promise.
Lehman/Yes?
V. Jones/Did the DNR man who was just there, did he just say that the deer do reach a
ceiling at which point they stay at a pretty level population?
Thomberry/I think it was dependent on the, on how much there was to eat.
Norton/Food.
V. Jones/Right. Okay.
Thomberry/And that if there is unlimited supply of food, it'll just keep getting higher
and higher and higher, until they get to the point where there is not enough food to
eat.
V. Jones/Right.
Thomberry/And then it will maintain that level.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 40
V. Jones/So what is it in Iowa City? Is there an unlimited supply of food or not?
Champion/Oh, yes.
Thornberry/What he said was is that there's a lot of crops inside the City limits of Iowa
City, and I don't know if we've reached the point of--
D. Jones/I'll take this one.
Thomberry/Okay, fine. Thank you.
Dilkes/Can we have people, I'm sorry, can we have people identify themselves again
when they come to the mic again so we can keep track?
D. Jones/I'm Douglas Jones. I was on the DEER MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE and
have been a happy deer watcher for a number of years along the Iowa River. Our
deer population is high, but nowhere near the limit that the land could sustain if
the only thing we wanted that land to do was feed deer. If we allow the deer
population to expand to the absolute limit of what has been called the single-
species carrying capacity, the capacity of the land to feed one species at the
expense of all others, if we let it expand to that, I don't know what the population
would be. But it would be a lot bigger than it is now. Our deer in Iowa City are
not hunger-limited in any way. They are reproducing very healthily. Twins are
the norm. You, when you look at a group of deer in July, what you're likely to see
is a grandmother, her two fawns from last year, and four to six new fawns from
last year, the grandmother's fawns and her two children's fawns. And they're,
none of them, starving. So there's nowhere near the single-species carrying
capacity. But if you're interested in the carrying capacity of the ecosystem for the
entire system where no species wipes out any of the others, I mean, if you think
about a farmer's interest for cattle on the land, the farmer is worried about the
single-species carrying capacity - "how many cattle can I feed? I don't care about
the other creatures living on that land." But if you're worded about a healthy
ecosystem, you worry about the other species. You worry about the presence of
one herbivore eating all of the food and destroying all of the habitat for the other
animals that belong in that ecosystem. And that's where discussions frequently
come up with numbers on the order of somewhere between 20 and 40 deer per
square mile or 15 to 30 per square mile. That's where those kind of numbers
come from. If we wanted to just farm deer so that the rate of deer birth was
exactly matched by the rate of deer-vehicle accident kills, we could carry a lot
more. They did come close to that in Cedar Rapids. For at least one of the years
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 41
we studied looking at the Cedar Rapids data, the birthrate of their deer herd was
almost exactly balanced by the traffic accident mortality to deer. And one of the
serious considerations we have to ask is, is that a humane way to end the lives of
deer, to run into them with cars? I don't think it is, and in fact, of all the predators
I can imagine, the automobile is one of the most bizarre and brutal.
Audience/You can't even afford to try these (can't understand).
Kristin Brandser/I don't have a name tag here. I'm K~stin Brandser. I have a question.
It's come up with the last couple of speakers how the particular environment in
Iowa has more deer, is more productive for deer, that kind of thing. Which takes
me back to one of the first questions of where the sharpshooting has proven to be
effective. And if I remember, the answers were something like in Missouri or
Minnesota, there weren't any example of at least given of in the Iowa area.
Lehman/It hasn't been allowed in Iowa. We will be the first.
Brandser/Okay. I guess I would be interested then, if we have to bring in special
considerations about Iowa and our particular environment and that kind of thing
as to deer populations, have we also looked then at the other side, that in this
particular environment, with the situation that we have, have people extrapolated
to see if taking those kind of things into account, which seem to be important on
the one side, have been taken into account in deciding whether or not this would
be an effective way of dealing with the problem. I also have one other point, and
I'm sorry, I would have verified this myself if this had been an issue. Someone
from the pro-deer side, I've come across this collection of information which has
some interesting things, and I imagine people here would be able to verify
whether this is true or not, I was interested in one of the earlier comments that
seemed to suggest that the non-lethal methods don't work. And one of the things
on the sheet that I'd like someone to provide some clarification of, said that the
Cedar Rapids Deer Task Force heard from the DNR regarding lethal methods and
a wildlife biologist who spoke on non-lethal methods. After reviewing lethal and
non-lethal methods, their recommendation was to use non-lethal methods this fall,
winter, and spring season. Like I said, I don't know my source of my information,
but if someone does, I'd be interested in light of the comment that it seemed like
no non-lethal methods would be effective if this is true. Are there any ones that
we haven't explored?
Thompson/Tim Thompson again. Besides covering Johnson County, I also cover Liun
County, so I sat in on two different task forces up there. They're non-lethal
methods. I mean they're sitting back, they're watching to see what you guys do
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 42
this year, and they're going to put out educational type stuff. They're also working
on some of the street reflectors such as Iowa City's doing. They've done some
sort of public service announcements trying to make people aware that
November's one of the highest months for hiring deer on the road and to be
cautious with your driving. And so that's basically what they're talking about by
the non-lethal methods.
Lehman/Thank you. We're going to take a quick break, for up till about 9:00. Thank
you.
BREAK
Lehman/I would like to hear, ifthere's something new to present, we'd be more than
happy to hear it. I think we've heard some very good comments. We'll take a
couple three more comments and then we're going to have to proceed with the rest
of the agenda.
Chad Gonnerman/Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name's Chad Gonnerman.
I'm a resident of Iowa City and I've been here and spoken about this issue before.
A few months ago, on August 251h, I approached as a concemed citizen the local
City Council with some legal concerns that I had with part 4, b, 3 of the 1998-99
Deer Management Plan. In particular, I was, and I still am, bothered by a number
of potential dangers that may result from any mishandling of the distribution with
each of the killed deer. As all of you are aware, the 1998-99 Deer Management
Plan arranges for the processing and the distribution of these deer carcasses for
human consumption. And as you may recall, I confronted the City with a very
likely scenario last August. And that is, what are the legal ramifications if one
was to fall ill from eating any spoiled or infected meat? The context that I placed
this issue within was the chronic wasting disease, if you may recall. Which is a
brain wasting disease similar to the Mad Cow Disease, and has been detected in
the wild and captive deer in the states of Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, and
just recently, Nebraska. And this disease has a long incubation period, and
moreover, may be spread to humans if the tainted meat is consumed. The result is
100% fatal. Now, the only way that this disease can be detected is to have the
brains of the deer examined by a laboratory that is located in Ames, Iowa. So, to
repeat the question I posed to our City, what measures are being taken to avoid
any such potential risks, and who is liable if a person were to get sick or even die
from consuming this infected meat? Now, this inquiry was replied to by a
member of our City government with the following attitude. Don't worry, the
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 43
appropriate agencies have been contacted. Competent individuals will deal with
any possible complications in an effective manner. Unfortunately this reply was
incredibly subjective, and moreover, it lacked any concrete answers to my
questions. So, at this point, has the City addressed the legal ramifications of this
issue, since I've brought it up to them? I suspect not. And are you not concerned,
is my question, are you not concerned for the welfare of those who might be
consumed, or might be, the welfare of those who might consume the tainted flesh?
Moreover, are you not concemed about the liability and the cost to Iowa citizens
and their taxpayers' dollars? The City's response to any such complication has
proven to rely on such phrases as "competent individuals", "appropriate measure".
To me, what these statements has meant is that there would be intelligent,
concemed people working with strict and fitting guidelines that would be for the
benefit of all those involved. Unfortunately this appears not to be the case. To
further illustrate this, we have found that this plan has been mishandled almost
from day one. And this is what is perhaps most disturbing about this. Because
one would think that we as citizens can trust our government to do what is right
and not to cut corners. But as the situation has illustrated to us, I have found one
who is willing to leave all the decision-making to the blind trust of others is
relying upon haphazard fortune. In particular what I'm referring to is we have
discovered that there exist some irregularities with the USDA in the procedures.
Unfortunately the USDA Wildlife Services is currently failing to follow their own
guidelines, and more importantly, the National Environmental Policy Act. So I'd
like to present this letter that I have here from wildlife biologist D. J. Scherbert
which illustrates and explains to the Council about these inconsistencies that are
occurring. And I would like to urge the Council not to vote on the 1998-99 Deer
Management Plan until these irregularities are worked out. So I'd like to present
these to, I'm not sure who. And I'd just like quickly to respond to some concerns
that have been brought up here. Just one quick statement. A lot of the debate
seems to be revolving around the ecological issues that might be associated with
deer. And it seems that there's a lot of people feel that they've got it solved, that
the deer definitely do cause a problem as far as, and that they are causing a
problem here. But I would like to say that ecologists and biologists are not, most
particularly ecologists, are not 100% determined on this, or determined the
answers to the solution. This comes from Dr. Graham Cauley. Strictly speaking,
high density of deer population decrease what is called plant biomass and not
plant biodiversity. And I have read other pieces from ecologists that do contest
the effects that deer can have on an environment. So, I would like to thank you
very much.
Lehman/Thank you.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 44
April Dirksen/My name is April Dirksen. I've lived for my whole life, and lived in the
country most of my life, and I've never had a problem with deer. In fact, I usually
plant part of my garden for the deer, and assume that they'll take it. I'm opposed
to guns. I just had my dog shot by a hunter last year. And I live in an area outside
of town where people often shoot guns. And I'm even more opposed to silent
sharpshooting rifles. I have animals that run free. I like to walk the country roads
at night and watch the stars. I do not believe that the deer are a strong enough
source of problem for our community. I do not feel that it affects the Iowa City
community in a large enough way that we need to kill over 200 deer a year. I
believe this is slaughter of another animal. I think it's unethical and I believe that
if there maybe should be a fund set aside to deal with part of the problems caused
to property by the deer. I think that would be a fraction of the cost it would cost
to sharpshoot the deer. I would like to ask everyone of you that has the power to
vote on this issue if you would be able to look a deer in the eyes and shoot it with
a gun, if you are able to shoot a gun. I believe that we need to take responsibility
for ourselves and our actions, and step away from this idea of shooting deer. It is
not a very large problem for our community on the grand scale. Thank you.
Lehman/Thankyou.
Shannon Nelson/Hello. My name is Shannon Nelson. I'm a citizen of Iowa City. I
think tonight clearly, you have seen that there are many people here representing a
population, a large population of Iowa City citizens that disagree with this Deer
Management Plan that say that sharpshooting is not for Iowa City. I hope that
you will listen to our concerns and realize that they are very real. I would like to
also suggest that I think there are many more people here that would like to speak.
And I know that time is limited, but I would like to request that we have another
public hearing separate from this to allow the citizens to speak. I also had a
couple more things. I am here tonight to ask that you vote against the Deer
Management Plan on December 1 st. I'm disa~ppointed that Iowa City would even
consider such a regressive plan to sharpshoot deer within our City limits.
Sharpshooting is a temporary fix, not an effective long-term solution. I think as a
community we need to educate ourselves so that we can learn to coexist with deer.
It has been well-proven throughout history that education leads to tolerance. If we
as a community are not ready or willing to tolerate nature, then I hate to see what
the future holds for us. I was at the meeting, the last Deer Task Force meeting,
and a member said to me that they would not approve a plan that the public would
not agree with. I found that statement a bit n~ive, since neither the Deer Task
Force, or the City has any formal way of recording public opinion on this issue.
And up until now, there has been no public heating set to talk about the issue.
How could they possibly know what the citizens of Iowa City would or wouldn't
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 45
agree with? I think they are assuming too much. I realize this is a complicated
issue which is why I don't think we should rush to make a decision. Please don't
set such a regressive precedent for the rest of Iowa. Please vote against the Deer
Management Plan on December 1 st. Sharpshooting is not our only option, and is
most certainly not the best option for Iowa City. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Kubby/Mr. Mayor, I agree with Shannon, although I don't agree with the conclusion,
that this is the first time the public has been able to talk with us in a formal public
heating, and that we should not, we should ask people to be concise and not
repeat, but that those who choose to speak should be allowed to speak tonight.
Lehman/I agree, but in three more minutes, we're going to be through tonight. I mean,
we can take a vote if we want. Everybody who does not want to shoot the deer,
those who think we should. Unless we have something new, this can go on all
night. And I don't think it serves either the purposes of the folks who are
interested in deer management or not interested, or those who are here for the rest
of the agenda. So we will stop at 9:15. Go ahead.
Seth Nieman/I'll keep it quick. My name is Seth Nieman. I'm at 530 N. Clinton. And
I'd just like to express the point that this is not a deer problem, this is a human
problem. This is a problem that we have created. And I understand that we want
to create the solution as well, but I don't think that killing deer is that solution. If
this is a problem that has been created by us eliminating the deer's natural
predators. And I think a natural solution to the problem would be to reintroduce
that predator. And while, although we think that might cause other problems, I
think in the long-run, it would be the most sound solution. And I'd also like to
point out that if they plan on putting lots of wooden boxes that trap things in
Hickory Hill Park, that doesn't sound very safe to me, because I for one know a
lot of myself, my friends, and a lot of children, that like to play in this area, and I
don't think that would be very safe for them. Thank you.
Margaret MacDonald/My name is Margaret MacDonald. Should I take a minute to sign
it or should I leave it?
Lehman/Go ahead, Margaret.
MacDonald/Okay. 400 Foster Road. I've had the joy of living on the peninsula and
apparently that's going to be a target. First, I want to say thank you to each one of
you, our Councilors, for your patience in listening to all kinds of comments from
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 46
all segments of our population. I do think we're not represented very well tonight
by some of those persons who have residences, who've taken their hard-earned
money and their labor in order to make their home and their lawn beautiful. And
we do stress trees in Iowa City, and I think it's wonderful that we're spending
more and more time, even to identify beautiful trees. But we won't be able to
have a lot of those things if we continue with the large herds of deer who come in
and eat things that don't replace their needles. The conifers won't grow any more
needles on the beautiful branches that used to sweep the ground. They will not
come back. A few of the kinds, and we search for the type that will come back,
and recently when I asked the City Forester if it wouldn't be helpful to those of us
who were at the Four Seasons, the Project Green Garden sale, if he would please
make a list of things that we could plant that the deer wouldn't like. And he raised
himself to his full height and said 'Tm here to tell you there isn't anything they
won't eat. They'd eat the City Forester if they could get to him." And so I feel
that we need to listen a little bit to people who have tried to make something
attractive and seen it mined and then we've hidden it and put a fence around it and
thought perhaps they wouldn't bother it again, but the deer will push the fence
over and I think they can not only smell but see and so they get down and I don't
know if they get on their knees or not, but they really had to bend to get some of
the beautiful hosta plants that I had hidden for them. But they eat them all off,
and then they came back and ate the new shoots that came through the ground
because they were even more tender. But I'm not talking about plants, even
though I love them and I love to plant new little trees. But I think we have a
responsibility to the general public for their safety in cars, which we know are not
going to go away. But when they start out on the roadways in Iowa City and
particularly in the noah end, either at dusk or at dawn, particularly those times,
I'm sure I can tell you that they aren't safe. Many of us have encountered these
animals who were on their way someplace else, and if we slowed down for one,
we had to stop and wait for awhile to see if there wouldn't be another pursuing
that one. And there usually has been. So we have big highways going through
our territory, Interstate and some smaller roads, State, and even our local streets.
And we did have a deer who went into the parking ramp downtown, and then
jumped out from the second floor and was injured and had to be put away. But
there could've been a really bad accident fight in the heart of town. So I think we
do have a responsibility in many directions. And those of us who love animals,
and we used to have a park where we had animals for our children to see, but we
decided to let that go, and I guess nobody is trying to re-establish one. But in any
case, I feel that we've got to look at this from several directions. And I know I
represent a number of people who would come tonight if it were not for their extra
responsibilities and all and feeling that there would probably be an equal or more
people who have suffered damages, not only to their cars, but absolutely to their
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 47
lawns and the things that they've planted to try to make them beautiful. So there
are several sides to this question, and I don't envy you all for having to make the
decision that you do on many occasions, but again, I want to say thank you for
your patience and the time you give to all of us to come and let us speak to you
about our convictions. Thank you.
Kubby/Thanks, Margaret.
Lehman/Thank you, Margaret. We'll take one more, and then we're going to call it quits
for tonight.
Ben Lewis/I'm Ben Lewis. I live at 507 N. Linn, #5. And I don't like this plan either.
Basically for a lot of reasons, but to make things quick, maybe we should have
another public hearing so that people who agree with her can speak, people who
agree with other people can speak. Maybe we can talk a little more about it. But
just a quick idea. We were talking about the traps and how we need somebody to
check these every two hours to make sure that the deer, you know, deer killing is
humane. Deer killing is humane. Well anyway, the whole thing is that I think
maybe a better use of this time and maybe the money spent to pay these people
would be to find somebody to go out, give a speeding ticket to somebody every
two hours, because people are speeding all the time. And I guarantee that would
lower the amount of deer-car collisions. That's all.
Lehman/Thank you. I want to thank the audience. I think that the participation has been
particularly respectful of each others' opinions, and I think respectful of Council.
This is not an issue, believe me, that I think any of us even want to address. But
it's one that I think we are faced with and we're going to have to make a decision,
you know, at some point or other. So, again, thank you for your participation.
We are anticipating that we will vote on this on the 1st of December. That will
again be on the agenda, although that will not be a public heating, we always take
input on items that are on the agenda. If you have not had an opportunity and have
something different to say, please feel free to come to that meeting on the 1 st.
And we certainly will take whatever public input we have at that time. Thank you
again.
Karr/Could we have a motion to accept correspondence?
Vanderhoef/So moved.
Kubby/Second.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#7 page 48
Lehman/Moved and seconded. All in favor- (ayes), opposed- (none). Motion carded.
Norton/Some of the, will somebody pursue that one question about the possibility,
however remote of tainted meat, can somebody look into that more seriously?
Lehman/I think that's obviously something that needs to be addressed.
Kubby/The other thing that I was reminded of during our break was that we could make
some changes to the plan. For example, even though trapping isn't a large
percentage of the deer-kill part of this plan, it may be that we want to say that if a
buck is caught in a trap and there is no injury to the buck, that the buck could be
released. So there are things like that that we could make adjustments to what is
put in front of us. So we should think about those things.
Norton/Yeah.
Lehman/That's true. P.h. is closed.
Norton/Will we be discussing that then on our Work Session on the 30th?
Lehman/We can talk about it in our Work Session, and we obviously will discuss it
again prior to our first reading.
Norton/Okay.
Lehman/Onthe 1st.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 49
ITEM NO. 8 PUBLIC DISCUSSION ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING SECTION
14, CHAPTER 5, ARTICLE A, BUILDING CODE, BY ADOPTING
VOLUMES 1, 2, AND 3 OF THE 1997 EDITION OF THE UNIFORM
BUILDING CODE PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
OF BUILDING OFFICIALS, AND PROVIDING FOR CERTAIN
AMENDMENTS THEREOF; TO PROVIDE FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE
HEALTH, WELFARE, AND SAFETY OF THE CITIZENS OF IOWA CITY,
IOWA.
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #8). Do we have a motion?
Thornberry/It's public discussion?
Lehman/Oh, you're right. Public heating is not required. However, the public
discussion is allowed on this ifthere's someone who would like to speak to
Council.
Thornberry/This is public discussion, not an ordinance. This is not an ordinance.
Kubby/Right.
Vanderhoef/Public hearing.
Norton/It's the same as a public hearing.
Thomberry/It's public discussion.
Lehman/It's public discussion because it's not a public hearing.
Thornberry/What's the difference between a public hearing and a public discussion?
Lehman/One's required by law.
Norton/We're listening. It's a public discussion.
Thomberry/Okay. We're not going to vote on it tonight.
Kubby/Right.
Mark Hall/Good evening. My name's Mark Hall. I apologize for this. My address is
1733 Brown Deer Road, Coralville.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 50
Lehman/That's okay.
Holm/
And I'm President of the Home Builders Association of Iowa City. In March of
1997, the Council graciously asked us to come to present several concems that we
had concerning code issues. At that time, a lot of questions were brought up and
we were referred to staff and to work through the proper channels. In the spring
of this year, a member of our Association addressed the Council about various
interpretation of codes and how they affect his business. At that time, the Mayor
asked, where's the Home Builder Association been, and to answer that, we were
still working through channels. We appreciate the help of the Mayor, and that the
City Manager has given us as far as keeping the ball rolling on these matters. In
fairness to staff, many of these issues were addressed and taken care of in a timely
manner. The Home Builders Association recommends passage of the proposed
UBC Code and their amendments with one objection, that being Section 1907, .6,
.5, item 2, to paraphrase, in regards to reinforcement of walk-out basements. We
feel the amendment is excessive. It is not conducive to affordable housing. The
Home Builders Association has presented tables to staff and the appointed Board
of Appeals, formulated by the Congress of American Building Officials and the
International Congress of Building Officials which accurately address this
situation. It's our Association's contention that the Board of Appeals made an
incorrect decision based on inaccurate interpretations of information given to
them, and we presently recommend that you do pass the proposed code and
amendments with our objection. Staff of lately has done an excellent job of
listening to our concerns, and within the last couple of months, have finally
picked up the phone, called, gotten the interpretations that were probably needed
on this. The Home Builders Association is currently happy with the progress.
It's, we feel, being made in this one particular issue, and we have been assured by
staff that the issue will be brought to you again in March. We want to go on
record as an Association, as bringing up our concern in this one matter. Thank
you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Champion/Thank you.
Vanderhoef/Thank you.
Champion/It's a pleasure to hear that you were all able to work together.
Kubby/Will we be, I would love to hear from our Historic Preservation Commission
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 51
about the two items that currently, the roof needing any kind of sheathing, and the
replacement of windows without changing any structural part of the exterior, not
needing a permit so they would not have to get a certificate of appropriateness.
So, before we, that's voted upon, I would like us to get some thoughts from our
Commission.
Norton/We ought to get that cleared up.
Kubby/They, we should, this is part of their duty, to give us some feedback.
Lehman/Is there a timeframe, is there a timeframe we need to follow on this as far as -
there is no timeframe that I'm aware of, that this needs to be passed by a certain
time?
Dilkes/You'll have to ask --
Lehman/ Is that correct? So if we do wish to get the information that Karen has asked
for --?
Doug Boothroy/We can try to get it before the First Consideration.
Lehman/You need to talk into the microphone.
Boothroy/You have to give three readings on this ordinance.
Lehman/Right.
Boothroy/So we would have time to get some feedback on that, before you have your
final consideration.
Lehman/Okay.
Kubby/Personally, I think it can be difficult when you've made something with a vote,
even a first and second consideration, less restrictive to then go back to the more
restrictive position. It would be very difficult to do.
Boothroy/You've lost me.
Norton/It means she'd like to have it before the first reading.
Kubby/Before, yeah, thanks.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 52
Boothroy/Oh, you want the comments? I'll try to have the comments back from the
Commission before the first reading.
Kubby/But they may not meet?
Boothroy/They may not meet, and that was the only thing. But we'll do what we can.
Norton/It seemed like a fairly obvious inconsistency, I guess, with Historic Preservation.
Boothroy/Last night I thought --
Norton/I mean you want to go around changing the different windows without even
going through Historic Preservation.
Boothroy/If we make the amendment like you suggested last night, to change it back to
the way the code reads now, there needs to be no comment from Historic
Preservation on that, because you would have to get a builder permit for buildings
in Historic Zones to change windows, they would get a chance to review that.
Now if your concern is should that even be a matter of review, and you want
comment back, I don't know what your, I don't know what the comment, I don't
know what the issue is with windows, because I thought we've already agreed to
amend that one.
Lehman/I think the concern is that if you're able to replace windows without requesting
a building permit, and you live in an Historic District, you can then change the
style of your window or whatever, without any review by the Historic
Preservation Commission.
Boothroy/Exactly. But you directed me last night to make sure that that would not be
the case.
Kubby/Okay.
Lehman/Right.
Norton/Oh, you fixed it already.
Boothroy/Right. We will have that fixed by the next meeting.
Kubby/Okay.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 53
Boothroy/But I don't know why we would bring it back to the Commission.
Kubby/Okay, then --
LeEman/ No, no, that's fine.
Boothroy/Okay. That's what's confusing me.
Kubby/Okay, then it's just the roof question.
Boothroy/Okay. That's what I thought.
LeEman/Okay, fine.
Kubby/I forgot that we made that change. So thank you.
Boothroy/Okay.
LeEman/So we will be voting on this the first time on the 1st of December. Is that it?
Boothroy/And if I don't have comments, we might be able to defer and take it to the next
meeting and do two considerations at the same time or something like that.
LeEman/Well is it important that this be done by a certain date?
Boothroy/Well, I would like to keep it moving on if possible. But --
LeEman/ I think we would, too, although it would, rarely to we collapse things ifthere's
any sort of disagreement of any kind. I don't know that there is here. But --
Kubby/Well there is the Home Builders.
LeEman/Pardon?
Kubby/There is with the Home Builders.
Council/(All talking).
Lehman/They're recommending that we approve this because they're going to be coming
back in March with possible changes. So I see nobody complaining about it.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F0 1117/9 8
#8 page 54
Boothroy/Just let me find out what's going on and I'll get back with you.
Lehman/Okay.
Thornberry/Now this --
Vanderhoef/The roof thing, we could do the same way as the foundation, that as they
work through it, we can do the amendment to the whole thing like we're --
Lehman/ I don't think --
Boothroy/ Let me try to get with the Commission.
Lehman/Okay.
Dilkes/Can I just --
Thornberry/ Since you were, since you said you could do that, and you said at the Work
Session last night, Doug, that you would be considering the amendment, I guess,
that the Home Builders brought up this evening, could that be done at the same
time?
Boothroy/Well I understand the Board has another meeting --
Audience/ First Monday in December.
Boothroy/First Monday in December, which would be before your first meeting.
Lehman/The next meeting is the 1st of December.
Boothroy/So it would be after your next meeting. So we would be having another
meeting in early December --
Thornberry/ To address that question?
Boothroy/To address that question. We can begin addressing it at that time.
Thornberry/Okay.
Lehman/Well, Doug, would you answer this --?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 55
Norton/Hey, I'm getting so confused, there are so many referents here without
antecedents. I'm having trouble. "That", I'm not sure which "that".
Thornberry/All right. The question, the question regarding the walk-out basement
question.
Norton/The walk-out basement, that's kind of a big question.
Thomberry/Well,--
Norton/And I --
Thomberry/Well, they said that they would be working through that and then Doug said
last night that they would be considering that question and could see the
legitimacy of the Builders Association, their question about that regulation and so
that they would be putting forth later an amendment reflecting that --
Norton/On the basement.
Thomberry/That walk-out basement question. And I was just wondering if that could be
done at the same time as this other.
Boothroy/Right. They have them, and as I was responding to Dean, I was saying they
have another meeting coming up the first meeting of December, the first Monday
in December they'll be meeting. Whether or not we can get it resolved, we've
already been working on it for quite awhile, but we'll do what we can.
Lehman/Doug, if I heard correctly though, I believe the Home Builders are
recommending, they're endorsing these changes with the understand that the
basement issue will be being addressed until whatever time it is resolved, and I
think I heard March. So I mean, whether or not that's resolved as of the first
reading doesn't seem to be critical as far as the Home Builders are concerned.
Boothroy/That's my understanding, too. All I'm saying is that I'm telling Dean is that
we're committing at the next meeting to begin considering it and try to move it
along as quickly as we can so that we get it resolved before we get into the next
construction season.
Lehman/Okay.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 56
Norton/But the window replacement business in Historic Districts will be cleared up by
the 1 st.
Boothroy/We're going to make that change, since that's what you asked me to do.
Lehman/Okay.
Kubby/Good.
Thomberry/On these, on the last night's Work Session, I asked if this ordinance, this
amending the chapter and article of the Building Code, if it would make it more
expensive or less expensive to build houses in Iowa City, and would it make it a
level playing field throughout the state? And I asked if it costs more to build a
house in Iowa City than it does in other major cities in Iowa. And my answer was
no. Is that still hold true?
Lehman/Hasn't changed?
Thornberry/Hasn't changed from last night?
Boothroy/What I said was that all the major cities have uniform codes, so that does level
the playing field. And to answer your question, as far as the building codes are
concerned, the costs should be generally about the same. There are other factors
that lead to the cost of housing like land cost and the land and --
Thomberry/Right. I understand that.
Boothroy/The land in Iowa City's more expensive than in Coralville, so you're going to
have some additional costs there.
Thomberry/Okay.
Boothroy/But it should be fai~y close, within a few thousand dollars.
Thomberry/Okay. Going to that point then, I've got a question regarding fees. In the
Iowa City Building Code, or the Building Department. It used to be, as I
understand it, when a house was spec'ed out for a customer, and that builder went
in to get a building permit, his permit costs were predicated on the amount of the
cost of building that house. Is that it? And it was the amount for the electrical
and the plumbing was subtracted out from that because the plumber and the
electrician pad for their portion in their fees. In other words, when an electrician
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 57
went in and said I'm going to be spending $5,000, his fee was going to be a
portion of that, and he wasn't, it wasn't going to cost him that, that's what the
amotmt of he was going to be putting into the house. Or the plumber. And then
his license cost, license or fee --
Vanderhoef/Permit.
Thornberry/Permit fee was predicated on how much he was putting into that house. Is
that still the case?
Boothroy/Well, I'd have to ask, I think in terms of plumbing, it's on number of fixtures,
so it's, the valuation is different than square footage.
Thomberry/Right. But I mean the plumber is charged for doing his work predicated on
how much he's putting into the house.
Boothroy/Right.
Kubby/Are these things part of the Building Code?
Thornberry/Now, recently, and I don't know what recently means, maybe three or four
years, now the builder is being charged for the whole thing, including plumbing,
electrical and everything.
Boothroy/Actually, soon to happen.
Thornberry/And--
Lehman/Is that in the --
Boothroy/No, it's in the amendments.
Thornberry/And, then the plumber and the electrician when they go to get their permits,
they're also going to be paying their portion, their percentage also.
Boothroy/Right.
Thornberry/So it's double dipping.
Boothroy/Well, I wouldn't call it that.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 58
Thornberry/What would you call it?
Boothroy/One of the reasons that we're, and I should have Tim address this, is that my
understanding is is that we get a truer value of the cost of the house in terms of
our reporting by eliminating those fees out of the building permit, we're
undervaluing the cost of the housing in Iowa City. And so those numbers that are
going in that are being reported statewide and nationally and stuff like that, they're
inaccurate based on the way we're doing it. And the builder --
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 98-129, SIDE B
Boothroy/Naturally. I mean, that's the way the Code is done. And we have in the past
taken them out to give that break that you're talking, so that there wouldn't be the
appearance of double dipping.
Thomberry/Right.
Boothroy/And I guess maybe Tim can give you a better answer than I can.
Thornberry/But my question then is, are the, are the electrician and the plumber still
going to be charged according to how much work they do on the house, or what
they put in the house?
Boothroy/Those fees are still being computed the same way.
Thornberry/Well then you're not getting, you're getting --
Boothroy/They're not up for consideration tonight, but yeah.
Thornberry/Then you're getting both then. You're getting it from the plumber and the
electrician and you're getting it from the general contractor.
Boothroy/Right.
Thornberry/Which before, you were only getting it from the plumber and the electrician.
So you're collecting the same thing twice.
Boothroy/I'm not sure I can answer your question.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 59
Thornberry/Both from the plumber and the contractor and the electrician. And I don't
know if that's fair.
Lehman/Well I think what he's saying is that if you have a $150,000 house, and there's
$15,000 worth of plumbing and wiring in it '-
Boothroy/ I know what he's saying, yeah.
Lehman/If you charge on the basis of $150,000 permit, and then you charge again on the
basis of another $15,000, so you're charging permits on the basis of $165,000, on
a $150,000 house.
Boothroy/That's fight. Yeah. These are not necessarily Code (can't understand), but I
would defer to Tim or Bemie to give you more detail, because I'm just not, I just
don't know the answers to your questions very well.
Lehman/But these amendments do say, according to these amendments, we then would
be charging the building permit on the full value, including the mechanics and
whatever.
Boothroy/Right, that's correct.
Lehman/That is a change in these amendments.
Boothroy/That is correct.
Lehman/But you do not address the fact that you're already charging for those in
another.
Boothroy/That's correct.
Thornberry/That's fight.
Boothroy/Those don't have to be changed because they're already in the Code.
Lehman/Okay.
Boothroy/Tim, can you, I really don't feel like I'm doing a good job answering these
questions, because I'm not really clear.
Lehman/Yeah, go ahead.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 60
Tim Hermes/And I guess I don't know that I can really point out a clear answer on it
either. But you summed it up very well. Yes, we increase to more accurately
report the value of construction. But the other adjustments were not made to the
plumbing, mechanical, or electrical as of yet. However, the permit people, the
building permit is based on the value of the work, the plumbing, electrical, and
mechanical for the building is based on fixtures and such, not on the value of the
work.
Lehman/Isn't that all included in the total building permit to start with, though?
Thornberry/You know how many bathrooms are going to be in the house, you know --
Hermes/ Yeah, that's based on the value of the construction in the building permit. And
your statement is correct, it does appear that there is double dipping. It has not
been addressed as far as the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, as far as
adjusting those rates yet.
Lehman/But you will do that, won't you?
Norton/Maybe it should be.
Thornberry/You will do that. I mean, you can't --
Lehman/ You can't --
Thornberry/ I mean you can't collect for the same thing twice. That's not fair.
Hennes/I think we need to review it.
Champion/But I like the idea that the permit is based on the whole cost of the house.
Hennes/Right, and it's more accurately reporting to the different agencies.
Vanderhoef/That I agree with.
Thornberry/Thank you.
Hermes/We're just straightening it out.
Thornberry/Before they, before we vote on it.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 61
Lehman/We're not voting tonight.
Thornberry/No, but I mean before the 1st of December or what, I mean are you going to
look at this?
Hennes/I don't know how soon we could so something like that.
Thornberry/Well when you pass, when we're passing this, we're passing the charges to
the general contractor. And I don't want to do that if you're going to be getting the
same amount of money twice from two different people, from the general
contractor and from the plumbers.
Hennes/Yeah, I understand.
Thornberry/You see what I mean? It's not fair.
Henries/Yeah.
Thornberry/It's just, it's not fair to the home buyer, because the contractor's going to pass
it on to the home buyer, and it's going to make the cost of living in Iowa City
more expensive for any house that's built.
Lehman/Would it be, it would be nice before the next meeting, or at our next meeting
when we talk about this for you to address how you feel you can best address this
problem so that we don't charge, I'm sure remodeling or whatever makes all kinds
of difference, but it would be nice to know that new construction we don't charge
twice for the same thing.
Thornberry/Yeah.
O'Donnell/For the same thing.
Hennes/Yeah. And we'll have to, I guess, re-evaluate the structure of the fees. Because,
you know, there's times too that the plumbing permit or an electrical permit is
obtained without a building permit.
Lehman/Right.
Hennes/So we'll just have to look at the fee structure.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 62
Thomberry/I was thinking that would be more on new construction, but if a general, if a
permit to a general contractor in any case, if they're going to be working on
kitchens and bathrooms, for example, or redoing the electrical, you're, it's double
dipping.
Kubby/Right. That could be in every model as well as new construction.
Thornberry/Right.
Lehman/You understand.
Hennes/I understand. I do understand the problem.
Thornberry/Thank you.
Lehman/Eleanor?
Dilkes/Backing up to your last discussion about getting information at the second or
third reading of an ordinance, after you've done the first one. Just remember that
if you get that information and you make a change, you make a substantive
change to the ordinance, you're going to back all the way up and start at first
again.
Lehman/Right.
Thomberry/Would this be a substantive change?
Lehman/Well we aren't voting tonight, Eleanor.
Dilkes/I understand that. But some of the changes you've been talking about, I think
clearly would be substantive, so you're not going to get, if you don't have the
information at first reading, and you get it and you make a change at second, you
haven't gotten anywhere.
Thomberry/Well we could pass it and then we could make an amendment to it, right?
Lehman/If it's not substantive, you can make an amendment.
Dilkes/These sound like substantive things to me.
Thornberry/I mean, can't you make an amendment to a, to an ordinance once it's, once
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#8 page 63
it's passed?
Dilkes/Absolutely, but you have to then give that amended ordinance three readings.
Thornberry/Right. I understand.
Lehman/Okay. Thank you. Other discussion on item 87
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#9 page 64
ITEM NO. 9 PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 7,
CHAPTER 1, FIRE PREVENTION AND PROTECTION, BY ADOPTING THE
1997 EDITION OF THE UNIFORM FIRE CODE AND PROVIDING FOR
CERTAIN AMENDMENTS THEREOF; TO PROVIDE FOR THE HEALTH,
WELFARE, AND SAFETY OF THE CITIZENS OF IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Lehman/My understanding is that we're going to discuss items 8, 9, 10, 11 --
Thomberry/You're not supposed to be looking at hardcopy.
Lehman/I am though. 12 --
Kubby/I will make a motion that items 9 through 12 be --
Lehman/13.
Kubby/Through 13 be collapsed for one open public discussion.
Lehman/Public discussion. All right. Anyone wishing to discuss --
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/All right. Moved and seconded to discuss items 9 through 13 as one item. All
in favor- (ayes), opposed- (none). Motion carried. Any discussion on any of
these items tonight?
Kubby/So that includes fire, plumbing, abatement of dangerous buildings, building
conservation code and the mechanical code.
John Shaw/My name is John Shaw and I'd like to speak tonight in support of the
adoption of the Uniform Code for Building Conservation. I think I can be fairly
brief. The purpose of this code is to encourage the continued use or reuse of
existing buildings and structures. The Code establishes and identifies a minimum
level of safety or performance for existing buildings. It offers alternative or
equivalent levels of, or methods of achieving these levels of safety and
performance. And it incorporates five United States Department of Housing and
Urban Development Rehabilitation Guidelines which helps assess equivalency,
equivalent safety and exit systems. It helps assess fire ratings of archaic
materials, allowable stresses for archaic materials, sets up electrical guidelines,
and sets up guidelines for plumbing, drainage, waste, and vent piping. The results
of this adoption would be this may help mitigate the speed with which we tear
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#9 page 65
down our own culture about our ears. Economically, it allows for the extended
use of buildings which spreads the initial cost of a building through a longer
period, and affords lower-cost, more-affordable commercial, institutional, and
residential structures in the community. Ecologically, of course, this is a primary
means of recycling. It allows invested energy to remain in place. It reduces the
need to invest additional energy. It reduces the need to consumer additional
resources, and it keeps building demolition materials out of our landfills. Thank
you.
Kubby/Thanks.
Thornberry/Thank you.
Vanderhoef/Thank you.
Lehman/Further discussion from Council on these items? Okay. We will be bringing
those up again at the next meeting for first consideration.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#10 page 66
ITEM NO. 10 PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 14,
CHAPTER 5, ARTICLE B OF THE CITY CODE, BY ADOPTING THE 1997
EDITION OF THE UNIFORM PLUMBING CODE, WITH CERTAIN
AMENDMENTS, TO REGULATE THE PRACTICE, MATERIALS AND
FIXTURES USED IN THE INSTALLATION, MAINTENANCE, EXTENSION,
AND ALTERATION OF ALL PIPING, FIXTURES, APPLIANCES AND
APPURTENANCES IN CONNECTION WITH VARIOUS PLUMBING
SYSTEMS, TO PROVIDE FOR THE ISSUANCE OF PERMITS AND
INSPECTION OF PLUMBING INSTALLATIONS AND THE COLLECTION
OF FEES, AND TO PROVIDE PENALTIES FOR VIOLATIONS.
See item #9
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#11 page 67
ITEM NO. 11 PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF AN ORDINANCE AMENDING SECTION
14, CHAPTER 5, ARTICLE F, ABATEMENT OF DANGEROUS BUILDINGS
CODE, BY ADOPTING THE 1997 EDITION OF THE UNIFORM CODE FOR
THE ABATEMENT OF DANGEROUS BUILDING CODE PUBLISHED BY
THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BUILDING OFFICIALS, AND
PROVIDING FOR CERTAIN AMENDMENTS THEREOF; TO PROVIDE FOR
THE PROTECTION OF THE HEALTH, WELFARE AND SAFETY OF THE
CITIZENS OF IOWA CITY, IOWA.
See item #9.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#12 page 68
ITEM NO. 12 PUBLIC DISCUSSION ON AN ORDINANCE CREATING SECTION
14, CHAPTER 5, ARTICLE J, BUILDING CONSERVATION CODE, BY
ADOPTING THE 1997 EDITION OF THE UNIFORM CODE FOR BUILDING
CONSERVATION AS PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE OF BUILDING OFFICIALS, TO PROVIDE FOR THE
PROTECTION OF THE HEALTH, WELFARE, AND SAFETY OF THE
CITIZENS OF IOWA CITY, IOWA.
See item #9.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#13 page 69
ITEM NO. 13 PUBLIC DISCUSSION ON AN ORDINANCE AiMENDING SECTION
14, CHAPTER 5, ARTICLE D, MECHANICAL CODE, BY ADOPTING THE
1997 EDITION OF THE UNIFORM MECHANICAL CODE PUBLISHED BY
THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BUILDING OFFICIALS, AND
PROVIDING FOR CERTAIN AMENDMENTS THEREOF; TO PROVIDE FOR
THE PROTECTION OF THE HEALTH, WELFARE, AND SAFETY OF THE
CITIZENS OF IOWA CITY, IOWA.
See item #9.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#14 page 70
ITEM NO. 14 PROCEEDINGS TO TAKE ADDITIONAL ACTION FOR THE
ISSUANCE OF $8,400,000 GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS.
a. PUBLIC HEARING
Lehman/The next several items are public hearings relative to General Obligation
Bonds. First is item #14. (Reads agenda item #14 and comment). This is a
general, I guess a general category. It covers a lot of different things. Is there -
p.h. is open. Discussion? P.h. is closed.
b. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION INSTITUTING
Thornberry/Move to consider the resolution.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry.
Vanderhoef/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Vanderhoef. Council discussion?
Kubby/I'll be voting yes, although there are some specifics in there that each one of us
may disagree with, and we have an opportunity when they come before us as
specific items to vote no on them. But most of them I agree with. There are a few
I don't, so I'll say no at that time.
Lehman/And I think Karen's comments apply to the next several items. These are
nothing more than enabling legislation that Council, when these projects come up,
may approve or disapprove. And this is just authorizing the sale of bonds should
we approve the projects. Roll call- (yes). Motion carded.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#18 page 71
ITEM NO. 18 PROCEEDINGS TO TAKE ADDITIONAL ACTION FOR THE
AUTHORIZATION AND ISSUANCE OF NOT TO EXCEED $700,000
GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS.
a. PUBLIC HEARING
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #18). This is for improvement and equipping the of the
public works facility and building. P.h. is open.
Thomberry/(Can't understand) gynmasium.
Lehman/P.h. is closed.
b. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION INSTITUTING.
Thornberry/Move adoption of the resolution.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry.
Vanderhoef/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Vanderhoef. Council discussion?
Norton/I have a question. Where does this take us, just a small step in this process?
Lehman/You mean as far as the public works building is concerned?
Norton/Yes.
Steve Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/Very small step.
Atkins/Very small.
Norton/It's an initial --
Atkins/Substantially site improvements.
Norton/Site improvements, fight. Because it's surely going to be substantially more than
this.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#18 page 72
Atkins/Yes.
Kubby/Will we then, will we be using this strategy of $700,000 at a time for GO bonds
to complete the project?
Atkins/On the public works facility, the chances are greater, simply because the fact that
the project is going to have to be staged over a number of years. We just can't
move, ship everything out there at the same time.
Kubby/Because my concem is that we don't circumvent the purpose of that $700,000
rule that anything above that we need to have a referendum of the public on.
Atkins/I understand that.
Kubby/I want to be cautious about that.
Champion/I had the same question down. We seem to have a lot of things that cost
$700,000. But are those things always paid with General Obligation bonds?
Atkins/Not always, Connie. I mean, some of the public works improvements, for
example, that portion of the project that will house the water/utility warehouse
component would be paid for by water revenue. A good portion of it will be paid
for by road-use tax monies. Things such as that. That's how it's done.
Champion/And like in this building, or like things like the Police Department paid for
with different money than say the place where people collect money, or say your
offices or is that all under one?
Atkins/This building is substantially cash or General Obligation debt, except two, there's
two opportunities. One is that our cable-access folks have a, have cash that they
can pay for their portion and secondly, we have a $200,000 grant for the HIS
assisted housing component. Those two are still pending.
Champion/Right. Thanks for clarifying that for me.
Norton/But this public works one is going to be what, two or three, what's the number,
roughly?
Atkins/For the whole project?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#18 page 73
Norton/For the whole project.
Atkins/I suspect it'll be $5,000,000 to $7,000,000 by the time it's all done.
Norton/But you're not going to do that all in $700,000 bites?
Atkins/No, no. In fact, you can't, because some of the building you can't go that low.
Norton/That means at some point that'll have to be on a referendum or what?
Atkins/Either that, or we will likely accumulate cash and just build it in pieces.
Kubby/And road-use tax.
Atkins/Road-use tax, water, sewer. Our equipment reserve fund, all of those things will
be used for it. But again, this is not something that's going to happen overnight.
This is the long haul.
Lehman/Further discussion? Roll call--
Atkins/Excuse me, and also possibly the sale of the property at the comer itself.
Kubby/It could be earmarked.
Norton/But what I mean, this vote here sets some things rolling that are going to entail
this larger number.
Atkins/Yes. This, the initial project is the public works street/offices that you know
now are the sheds of sorts. This project will bring in the dirt to raise the elevation
of the site as well as beginning a small portion of the construction of the facility.
Lehman/Steve, that's tree, but this does not set that project in motion, this just authorizes
the funding for it.
Atkins/Oh, yeah.
Lehman/When we decide to do it. We're not setting anything in motion.
Norton/But I mean, you're investing in improving that site for this purpose.
Lehman/We will be.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#18 page 74
Norton/Yeah.
Thornberry/When you vote on it. This is just the authorization to sell the bonds.
Atkins/We will be bringing back to you.
Norton/I understand.
Atkins/We will be brining back to you this in some additional detail because it also
involves the Airport.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/That's the connection of Mormon Trek extended coming from it.
Norton/But that doesn't mean, pardon me, Dee.
Vanderhoef/And the improvements that we were talking about in this particular case is
for raising the level into a buildable area --
Norton/ Right.
Atkins/Substantially site improvements.
Vanderhoef/Above the water table.
Thornberry/The flood plain.
Vanderhoef/And so whether public works --
Norton/ Or something else.
Vanderhoef/Or something else goes there, this is not a wasted piece.
Atkins/The Airport. For example, if, for example, you did not reach agreement with the
Airport Commission on the use of that site for public works, that site still has to
be raised, I think it's three or four feet, to create a buildable lot, which one of the
policies was of the economic development component.
Kubby/Right. And if someone else bought that for another purpose then we would just
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#18 page 75
recoup money --
Atkins/You'd put it in the price of the land and --
Vanderhoef/You'd put it back under the price of the land.
Norton/And the method of financing of the whole project, let's assume it goes on this
site, the method of financing that is not even set in stone, is it?
Atkins/No, it is not.
Norton/And we can change that and decide some other method. Okay.
Lehman/Well there's nothing in this resolution that even identifies that site.
Atkins/This is an --
Norton/ No, I understand that.
Lehman/Yeah.
Norton/But we know what site we're talking about.
Kubby/But it doesn't obligate us, but it does, as I've said a hundred times, it does create
momentum for the project.
Atkins/It certainly does.
Norton/Yeah.
Atkins/We will do more work, now that we know that this thing is on its way, until you
tell us to stop.
Lehman/Roll call- (yes). Motion carries.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#19 page 76
ITEM NO. 19 PROCEEDINGS TO TAKE ADDITIONAL ACTION FOR THE
AUTHORIZATION AND ISSUANCE OF NOT TO EXCEED $700,000
GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS.
a. PUBLIC HEARING
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #19 and comment). P.h. is open.
Atkins/This one was certainly a commitment on our part a long time ago.
Lehman/P.h. is closed.
b. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION INSTITUTING
Lehman/Council discussion?
Vanderhoef/Move adoption of the resolution.
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Norton. Roll call-
Kubby/Oh, I wanted to say one quick thing.
Lehman/I'm sorry.
Kubby/That I had not voted for this project originally because I thought even though it's
a community need, it was one of those things we just couldn't afford because we
have all these other projects. And I felt like I needed to say no to something. It
would be silly to have a shell of a gym without equipment in it. But I will support
this as it will make sure it's a very usable space, and it'll be much-used, I'm sure.
Thornberry/It was a true public-private parmership. Really. They, they raised an awful
lot of money and they got a lot of donations.
Kubby/They sure did.
Norton/What was our total contribution to the project?
Atkins/If you don't go into the real details, it was $700,000 in General Obligation debt,
approximately $200,000 in a loan from the Parkland Acquisition Fund to be
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#19 page 77
repaid, I think --
Kubby/Through the General Fund.
Atkins/Yes, be repaid from the General Fund. As well as the staff will be from the
General Fund. The folks raised about $400,000, and I believe there was a cash
commitment of about $100,000. Is that about $1,400,0007
Lehman/That's exactly $1,400,000.
Atkins/That was the project.
Norton/Very good. Very good memory.
Kubby/Good remembering, yeah.
Atkins/Well thank you.
Lehman/Roll call- (yes). Motion carries.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#23 page 78
ITEM NO. 23 PROCEEDINGS TO TAKE ADDITIONAL ACTION FOR THE
ISSUANCE OF NOT TO EXCEED $10,000,000 PARKING SYSTEM
REVENUE BONDS.
a. PUBLIC HEARING
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #23). P.h. is open. P.h. is closed. Whoops, sorry, go right
ahead. I wasn't watching.
Merle Trummel/I was just counting up the millions as they went by. Primarily I had
some questions in respect to item #23, and that is the fact that, at least I have
heard, that there would be private businesses, possibly, in that building.
Lehman/I think that's correct, part of the building would be commercial.
Trummel/And this is for Parking System Revenue Bonds. I suppose that the City, I
assume, will pay the cost of those to construct them, and then the question is --
Lehman/As the discussion has been to this point, the City would probably build the
buildings, but they could be sold as condominiums, or they could be rented. The
City would not necessarily have to retain the ownership of the commercial part of
that building.
Trummel/But you're, you would get a, this is a, rm not quite, I'm not real familiar with
these revenue bonds, but I assume that has to be paid for out of the Parking
System Revenues when it's built.
Lehman/The commercial portion cannot be paid for with parking revenue.
Atkins/Would you like me to help out?
Lehman/That has to be different bonds.
Atkins/Merle, basically this is an authorization to incur the debt. That begins the
process. The $10,000,000 in Parking System Revenue Bonds would be paid for
by revenue from the parking system. People coming in, going, they have to pay.
The component of the project that might be commercial, there's a couple ways we
might choose to do that. One is that we could choose to use some debt. On the
other hand, we could do it if it's a condominium, possible a short-term note. That
is, we would not incur long-term debt, somewhat like a construction loan, we
would build it and then turn around and re-sell it. So those options have not been
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#23 page 79
concluded yet because we have to get bond opinions on these as well as the
conmaercial component. But this builds the ramp portion. We have to figure out
how to pay for the commercial component.
Trummel/Okay. Thank you.
Atkins/Okay.
Lehman/Thank you.
Champion/Good question.
Thomberry/Good question, yeah.
Lehman/Other public discussion? Heating is closed.
b. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION INSTITUTING
Thomberry/Move adoption of the resolution.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by O'Donnell. Council discussion?
Kubby/I'm against this parking structure so I won't vote yes to authorize the money.
And actually I had a question about, since the Historic Preservation Commission
was going to deem the Harmon Building a Historic Landmark, I assume we would
need a Certificate of Appropriateness to demolish?
Dilkes/No.
Lehman/My understanding, Karen, is that they will present that to the State. The State
will really rubber-stamp it. It then goes through the P/Z Commission who then
makes a recommendation to Council, and Council could choose to accept or reject
that recommendation.
Kubby/Okay. Thanks.
Lehman/Roll call.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#23 page 80
Kubby/That was pretty good.
Thornberry/He was ready for that question.
Lehman/I had the same question, Karen. (Roll call)- (yes; Kubby, no).
Motion carries.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#24 page 81
ITEM NO. 24 CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 9 OF THE CITY
CODE OF IOWA CITY ENTITLED "MOTOR VEHICLES AND TRAFFIC,"
BY AMENDING CHAPTER 3, SECTION 6B HEREIN TO CHANGE THE
SPEED LIMIT ON US HIGHWAY 6 FROM THE EAST CITY LIMIT TO A
POINT 500 FEET WEST OF HEINZ ROAD. (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #24).
Norton/Move adoption of the resolution.
Lehman/Moved by Norton.
Norton/Move first consideration.
Vanderhoef/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Vanderhoef. Discussion?
Norton/I just hope it does some good.
Lehman/Well my understanding is this is, this is a recommendation, but this also has
been approved of by the DOT.
Vanderhoef/Right.
Norton/Oh yes, I understand.
Lehman/This is not --
Norton/ It's certainly become pretty urban, and we just did some action tonight to further
increase the traffic.
Vanderhoef/Well, it meets all the cfitefia of the State DOT, so they would approve it.
Lehman/Right. Or they wouldn't approve.
Vanderhoef/Or they wouldn't approve it, that's fight.
Lehman/Any further discussion? Roll call- (yes). Motion carries.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#25 page 82
ITEM NO. 25 CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE CITY CODE OF THE
CITY OF IOWA CITY, IOWA, BY AMENDING SECTION 8-5-5, ENTITLED
"KEEPING DISORDERLY HOUSE," TO PROVIDE FOR POLICE INITIATED
COMPLAINTS AND TO PROVIDE FOR POLICE AUTHORITY TO
RESTORE ORDER AND DISPERSE PERSONS FROM VIOLATING
PREMISES. (SECOND CONSIDERATION)
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #25).
Thomberry/Move adoption of the ordinance.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, seconded by O'Donnell. Discussion?
Kubby/I have, I had a couple questions that came to mind this week that I hadn't really
asked before. So they're for Eleanor, and they came kind of from the debate.
When officers say that this ordinance wouldn't be used much, and just in those
extreme cases when things are really out of hand, we have currently noise
ordinance, public intox, vandalism, public urination, minors drinking, and other
kinds of ordinances. How will this tool be different for those kinds of behaviors
than what we currently have? I mean they already know all those ordinances so
it's not hard for them to pull them together on site.
Dilkes/Well, it's different in a number of respects. I mean I'd have to take each one of
those separately.
Kubby/Oh.
Dilkes/And address it. But in general, the disorderly house ordinance that we already
have imposes an obligation on the host of a party for a party that gets out of hand
and causes disagreeable, loud noises to the disturbance of the neighborhood. And
this ordinance, the ordinance before you will add some things to the ordinance
that we already have. I mean, that ordinance is very different than a public
urination ordinance, for instance, which requires urination in public, not on
private property.
Kubby/Okay.
Dilkes/And I'd have to take each one of your examples like that separately and respond
to them.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#25 page 83
Kubby/Okay. Well, your answer works for the question that I had.
Norton/Following up on that question, and pardon me, Karen --
Kubby/No, go ahead.
Norton/Does the second part also, very new, my reaction after looking at this and
listening to the students at the open meeting we had with them recently, does the
second part add a lot? Did we not have that authority to, if you wish, order
dispersal of a party that was getting out of hand? We did not have that before?
Dilkes/Not clearly. I think the way, in my discussions with the Police Department, I
think the way they often handled it or sometimes handled it was to try and
negotiate that with the host and say, you know, if you can shut down this party or
quiet it down or whatever, make it so it's no longer a disorderly house or a
disorderly party, then I won't have to cite you. But in situations where that doesn't
happen, and there are some, this would clearly provide the authority to order
dispersal. And not only does it provide the authority to order dispersal, but it
places some obligation on the attendees of the party to disperse or face citation
themselves.
Kubby/Right. So the order to disperse cannot be given until it's deemed disorderly?
Dilkes/We require, the ordinance requires that there be actually an issuance of a citation.
Kubby/Before that order is given.
Dilkes/Right.
Kubby/So you couldn't be cited for non-dispersal if the host hadn't been cited for
disorderly house.
Dilkes/That was an actual decision that we made that we wanted to require the issuance
of a citation.
Kubby/I think that's a good protection.
Norton/Well to finish that point, the view that I got from that meeting, or that discussion
with students, and some discussion with students subsequent to that time, is kind
of a general misreading of what this ordinance really does add. It doesn't in my
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#25 page 84
judgment, really add very much. It clarifies two existing situations, and
presumably makes it somewhat easier to proceed. But it really doesn't do a lot of
different things than we've already done. And I'm, I think we need to figure out
some way to explain that, certainly to our students constituents who, in my
judgment have mis-, over-read it as being a brand new, heavy duty option.
Dilkes/There's been a lot of focus in the press on the officer being able to be the
complainant without a neighbor. And I think both from my perspective, and from
the perspective of the Police Department, that's the lesser element to this
ordinance. I mean, the more important one I think is the clear ability, or the clear
authorization to order dispersal. I think the Police Department has said they are
very rarely going to use that, you know, the opportunity to be the complainant.
They just don't have those kind of resources.
Norton/Well, given their experience, anymore you'd think it would always be to the
advantage to have a, someone, a co-complainant. I mean, not just yourself, but to
have somebody if you could possible, you know, things would stand up
considerably better in court if that were the case.
Dilkes/I think one of the things that people have to keep being reminded of is that it's
going to be the judges who make the final decisions on these charges, just like
they've been interpreting this ordinance for years.
Thomberry/Sure.
Dilkes/And that clearly, you'd prefer to have a member, or a person in the neighborhood
to testify that it was disturbing them, regardless of this amendment.
Kubby/One of my biggest concerns about this ordinance was the authority to disperse
the crowd. I'm glad that it is written in a way that there has to be a disorderly
house citation given before that order can be given. But if neighbors are looking
forward to this ordinance to prevent parties from getting out of hand, and keeping
the neighborhood quiet, this isn't the ordinance. Because we can't, we have to
wait till it meets the definition of disorderly house in order to enforce this
ordinance. So I hope that this does not create, I hope we can be clear about what
people should expect from this ordinance, and what they should not expect. And
hope that we can work with Neighborhood Associations and put the call out to say
don't stop calling. If you want to call about noise, or about a party that's getting
out of hand, or any other definition of disorderly house, because again, it's not just
about parties, but any kind of raucous behavior or whatever other words are in
that definition.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#25 page 85
Vanderhoef/The noise one is one that I think comes up frequently that has nothing to do
with a disorderly in some of the contexts that the students are talking about.
Kubby/You could have a quiet, disorderly house.
Vanderhoef/What I'm thinking of is --
O'Donnell/Never been to one of those.
Vanderhoef/A person who chooses to practice his music at 3:00 a.m. at a very loud --
Thomberry/You could have a very noisy nun disorderly house.
Vanderhoef/Or the boombox.
Thomberry/Noisy, disorderly.
Vanderhoef/Situation that has nothing to do with a party.
Kubby/Right. And that's our noise ordinance. It can be very difficult. I mean we've
heard about that for years that that's --
Dilkes/Right. I think that was another misconception at that meeting with students, that
there was a statement made that now we use a decibel meter to do the noise, and
you know, and that we're not going to under this one and that's really it.
Lehman/The police on both occasions I've heard talk, have said that they really expect to
respond to complaints as they always have. I mean, they won't have to, but
basically they're busy enough that their response to a disorderly house is probably
going to be pretty much on a complaint basis. I had a question today and I think
just for the record, this ordinance would not allow the Police to disperse a
demonstration or political gathering protest group of some sort. I've had a
question about that. That is freedom of speech. This ordinance would not give
the Police power to act in those situations at all. Is that correct?
Dilkes/Not unless the political gathering was very loud and disagreeable and causing
disturbance to the neighborhood.
Lehman/From a practical standpoint, it would have really no effect.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#25 page 86
Dilkes/No.
Lehman/Okay. I had a couple people ask me today, and I told them I would bring it up
and ask you. So we've now heard it.
Dilkes/And it's not just, it's not interfering with a peaceable assembly, no.
Vanderhoef/And is that true whether that group has or does not have a permit for --
Lehman/ There's no permit to have a disorderly house.
Vanderhoef/No, I'm talking about --
Kubby/Political gathering.
Vanderhoef/Political gathering.
Kubby/It's on the public, well, I guess --
Dilkes/Well, if you're talking about using the public fight-of-ways, yes, the answer
would be yes.
Vanderhoef/That's what I thought, but I wanted that on the record, too.
O'Donnell/Eleanor, when they gather, when the gathering, when was it, in '93 when they
marched on the Post Office? I mean, that was --
Kubby/'91.
O'Donnell/Was it '91 ? That was a peaceful demonstration. So there was no need to, this
wouldn't have applied at this point in time, either.
Dilkes/There are State statutes governing rioting and unlawful assembly, or unlawful
assembly that would be looked at. I mean, they obviously don't apply to what
you're talking about, but they would probably be the applicable statutes in terms
of a parade or a, you know, that kind of thing that got out of hand.
Lehman/Okay. Further discussion?
Kubby/Just to say that because I have such concems about the dispersal issues, I'm
going to continue to vote against it. But I want to be honest and acknowledge that
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F 01117/98
#25 page 87
my voting against this, I don't really have any, usually if I vote against something,
it's because I have some constructive suggestions on how to make things better,
and I really don't in terms of the fear of retaliation by some neighbors at some
point in time. And I just need to acknowledge that weakness in my argument.
Lehman/Roll call- (yes; Kubby, no). Second consideration has passed.
Karr/Could we have a motion to accept correspondence?
Lehman/Oh, yes.
Vanderhoeff So moved.
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Thomberry. All in favor- (ayes), opposed-
(none). Motion carries.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#26 page 88
ITEM NO. 26 CONSDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 8, CHAPTER 6,
SECTION 1 ENTITLED "SALE OF CIGARETTES TO PERSONS UNDER
EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE" OF THE CITY CODE TO PROHIBIT THE USE
OR POSSESSION OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS OR CIGARETTES BY
PERSONS UNDER EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE. (PASS AND ADOPT)
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #26). This is pass and adopt.
Thornberry/Move adoption.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry.
Vanderhoef/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Vanderhoef. Discussion?
Vanderhoef/Could I just say a couple of things? There've been a lot of people in our
community who have been working towards decreasing tobacco and tobacco use
in the community. And they've spent a lot of time in meetings. And I understand
that this is not all that they are asking for within that group. And I'd just like to
say that this is a start in that we have the ability now to collect the dollars within
our own commtmity for the citations that may come about. And thank you to
these people and that we can certainly continue to work towards bringing our
stores into compliance for sale of cigarettes under age 18.
Thomberry/Cigarettes and tobacco products.
Vanderhoeff Thank you.
Thomberry/So that's very important, too.
Vanderhoef/(Yes).
Lehman/Roll call- (yes). Item passed.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#28 page 89
ITEM NO. 28 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING AND AUTHORIZING
EXECUTION OF AN AGREEMENT WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA,
FOR TEMPORARY USE OF PUBLIC RIGHTS-OF-WAY FOR PORTIONS OF
PRENTISS, MADISON AND CAPITOL STREETS IN IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #28).
Thornberry/Move adoption of the resolution.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry.
Vanderhoef/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Vanderhoef. Discussion? Roll call. Oh, a resolution, this is all in
favor.
Dilkes/No, it's a roll call.
Lehman/Yeah. (Roll call)- (yes).
Dilkes/Just a FYI on this item. I did later today get a signed agreement from the
University that made some changes to the indemnification language, and if that's
not agreeable to us, then you will see this.
Lehman/If it's not agreeable to you.
Thornberry/A what kind of a thing?
Dilkes/They want some changes in the language that I didn't have time to say were okay
and put those in front of you, so if I do say they're okay, then '-
Thornberry/ Indemnification - I didn't hear the word.
Dilkes/Actually I think I said that wrong. If I do say, if I think they're okay, this'll have
to come back.
Thomberry/Gotcha.
Lehman/Did we do the roll call? We did it.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 90
ITEM NO. 30 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION REQUESTING SUBMISSION OF THE
IMPOSITION OF A LOCAL SALES AND SERVICES TAX TO THE
QUALIFIED ELECTORS OF THE INCORPORATED AND
UNINCORPORATED AREAS OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
Lehman/(Reads agenda item #30).
Thomberry/Move adoption of the resolution.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry.
VanderhoeffSecond.
Lehman/Seconded by Vanderhoef. Discussion?
Thornberry/There will probably be some.
Tom Gelman/Tom Gelman, Iowa City. Let me hand out yet another.
Vanderhoef/For our reading pleasure.
Kubby/Are these all the same?
Gelman/We're really here to try and be as helpful as we can. And we really appreciate
your discussion last night and the difficulty of the issues and the genuineness with
which you've been addressing the issues. What I've just handed out is, like I say,
an attempt to try to be helpful. It is an expression of the ballot. And where those
items that we have no comment on, there's a single expression which you agreed
to last night. Okay, so for the 0%, the 25% and the 40%, that's the language that
you agreed to last night. And that's fine. There's no problem with that language
in the least bit. In the next item, there are minor grammatical suggestions,
perhaps for Eleanor to review. I'm a product of the Iowa City Commtmity School
District, and I'm compelled to make some grammatical suggestions. And that's
what the second, and what you see there is the language as it's now on your ballot
and then the suggested minor grammatical changes. That had to do with the
community activity language. The next one I want to come back to where the
bold print is. There's a substantive issue I'd like to visit with you about. The next
item, about the Police officers, again, some minor grammatical suggestions. And
then the last item, with regard to Human Services, there are some substantive
issues. And maybe let me start with the Human Services. We think that it's an
important component, what we're looking for is trying to enhance the passability
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 91
of this ballot, and do whatever we reasonably can to do that. We know that it's a
challenge to begin with. I think you all know that. We have a lot of public
educating to do, but we think that the language of the ballot is very important to
help increase its passability. There's a lot of public benefit that can be done here
with this additional revenue to the community. It can be done with dollars that
are discounted dollars because of the contribution from outside, people outside
this community, and there's a lot of good merit to this ballot. And we need to do
what we can to insure its passage. On the Human Services, we feel that it does
make a stronger ballot to identify that it's for increased support, rather than simply
some increased support rather than some increased and some existing expenses. I
understood that concem that Eleanor expressed last night about the language, the
"increased" on the ballot. I don't know how to resolve it. We're not suggesting a
way to resolve that. We are relatively comfortable with the language that you
have chose, because at least in the policy, you have made it pretty clear that some
of this money will be going towards increased expenditures for Human Services.
And we believe that that's a very salable point, and a point that will be helpful in
passing this ballot. It would be nice if we could allocate all of it, but I understand
again the question that Eleanor may have raised about the use of the word
"increased". Where I really want to address the attention is with regard to the
transit issues. We weren't, we're concerned about the outcome of last night's
discussion, and we really want to have you maybe discuss that a little further if
you'd be willing to do that. Public transit benefits the entire community, not just
the users. Enhancing the transit system benefits the entire community, not just the
users. And incentives to increase the use of the transit system benefits the entire
community, not just the users. So we really feel that transit is an important issue.
The political reality is that it is a very important issue, let alone its inherent
benefits to the community. Them is a, it's an important political issues because
we think that it's an important element to get the support needed to pass the ballot.
There's a large voting segment of this community that feels that this I s a very
important issue. We think that this ballot needs to contain benefit, tangible
benefit to a broad cross-section of the community, and the biggest problem we see
is the transit area. It is very non-specific, the language that you presently have.
The tangible benefit to the community and to the area of transportation is not
clear, and we feel that it needs to be made more clear for this to be as strong a
ballot as we can have. The cost of the transit, of being more clear, and of
allocating that portion of the sales tax revenue towards fare reduction or fare relief
and enhance services is a relatively small cost to raise $5,000,000 to $6,000,000.
And we feel it is that important to get the whole benefit of this $5,000,000 to
$6,000,000 initially that we may raise. It is really a relatively small cost to make
a commitment to public transit. And we think that it could make the difference
between whether this ballot passes or not. So we would strongly encourage you
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 92
in a way that you can to make your commitment to transit perhaps a little
stronger. The language is difficult here, and I know we've struggled with words a
lot. And our group has struggled a lot the way you have struggled. One
suggestion that we would offer to you --
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 98-130, SIDE A
Gelman/Very clear in terms of how those dollars will be spending. Our language we
think is a little clear, that it would in fact go to fare relief and enhance services.
The fare relief is a little bit different than fare reduction. And you had a lot of
trouble with the word reduction and I think we understood why. So we're trying
to offer this to you as an alternative language. It's not, it's very similar to the rate
relief language that you use in connection with the water rate stabilization, and I
think it has the same merits, and maybe some of the same drawbacks that the
relief has, but I think you finally ended up incorporating the word "relief' in
connection with water rates. And we think a similar application could be used in
connection with the water rates. So rather than guaranteeing a reduction, what
you really would be doing would be guaranteeing relief over time, which would
be in the form of a subsidy or a reduction. But maybe not quite as specific and
not with the same baggage that the reduction language had.
Norton/It could be targeted relief.
Gelman/That's correct, that's right. It could be targeted relief as well. And then
enhancing services is another important element. The issue that we have, I think,
is that this is a voter-imposed tax. And I know that there've been discussions on
the extent to which the voters ought to control where the dollars are spent, as
opposed to where the Council should control where the dollars are spent. And I
have no trouble with this Council controlling the dollars in the General Fund. I
think that's what your job is. I think that's why you're elected. But this is a little
different. This is a voter-imposed tax. And I think the legislature intended that
the voters have a lot of control where those dollars are being spent. And what
we're trying to communicate to you is on this particular issue, we think that it's
very important that the voters control where those dollars are spent for public
transit. And since this is a voter-imposed tax, I think the prerogative is with the
voters. Now, I don't purport to represent the voters, but it's our feeling, from the
input that we've received and the discussions we've had that this is in fact
important to a large segment of the community whose vote we need to assure
passage of the tax. So, with that input to you, the only other thing I guess I would
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F 01117/98
#30 page 93
like to indicate to you is that we'd be very anxious to have as much support from
the Council as we possibly can have in terms of passage of the ballot and the way
that we proposed it, or something very close to that. We know that it's going to be
a challenge. And we'd like to start off on as positive a footing as we can with as
much support as we, as you can. We also want to remind you that this is not
necessarily your endorsement of each and every element of the ballot. More so,
it's your endorsement of putting this ballot which has been put together with a lot
of hard work and a lot of energy and a lot of thought, before the public, so that the
public can decide whether to endorse it or not. So, with that in mind, I would like
you do to the best you can to give us as much support as you can to this final
ballot resolution. And to get it on the ballot, and then our hard work will begin.
Thornberry/I have a question.
Gelman/Sure, you bet.
Thomberry/If you took just the words "fare relief' and "enhanced service", regardless of
what it had to do with, and someone were to say to you, I'm going to give you fare
relief and enhanced service, what would you think you were going to be getting?
Gelman/I would be thinking that there would be some reduction in the fares and that
service would be improved.
Norton/Yeah, that's right.
Thornberry/That's true. What if we can't reduce the fare for one reason or another, or we
can reduce them for a year and we go to war in the Mideast and the price of
gasoline and fuel oil goes out of sight and other regulations from the Federal
Government come down and put the crimps on us as far as what we can and
cannot do with our transit service, we have to raise the fares a year or two or three
or five down the road. Have we given fare relief?.
Gelman/I would think absolutely, to the extent that you raised them less than you
would've had to had this dollar, had this revenue not been there. Absolutely.
Norton/That's why the word "relief' there.
Gelman/There's no question that it's relief. Same thing with the water rates. That's what
you're giving is relief.
Lehman/That's right.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 94
Gelman/But you're raising them less than you have to. That's what stabilization is, it's a
form of relief.
Thomberry/No, what we're going to do is stabilize the rates and we're not going to raise
them anymore. If this passes, we will not raise the rates.
Gelman/Right.
Thornberry/We will stabilize the rates where they are now.
Gelman/For eight years.
Kubby/But it doesn't say that on the ballot language. That entire policy statement, if for
some reason some new regulation came down or something hon'ific happened to
our water plant and we had to rebuild, for example, something exploded, I mean
just whatever extreme weird situation happened, where we had so much growth,
and then big industry comes in and we need to increase the size of our water plant,
those rates may not be stable.
Thomberry/So what we're saying, then, is that we are going to lower the cost of public
transportation and enhance the service. Both.
Vanderhoef/Well, there's --
Champion/Why not?
Vanderhoef) Well, for me there's a --
Thornberry/That's what he said he thought it meant, Ernie, and that's what I think.
Lehman/One at a time.
Vanderhoef/There's a couple of things that are happening here for me. Because I'm a
strong proponent of transit. But I'm real concerned about this wording and this
language. And I spoke it last night, and I don't know whether I was terribly clear
about it. But there's a couple of things that are happening here. Number one, we
have a huge support from our General Fund, and each year, the State Legislature
adjusts the rollback, which affects our General Fund. We already do fare relief
within our programming all the time so that when you see a 75-cent fare, there are
many people who are not paying 75-cents because of the fare relief, whether it be
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 95
in a student pass or a monthly pass or a weekly pass, there's lots of places that
there are fare reliefs. And people don't necessarily understand. But if you see the
figures, you understand that we do not, for every rider, if you multiplied that out,
we are not getting 75-cents for every person that steps onto our bus. So, --
Gelman/No, I understand that issue. But I think that the thing that, we may not be able
to get communicating. If the sales tax doesn't pass, you have all those same
burdens. And will have.
Vanderhoef/Right.
Lehman/And know it.
Gelman/And to the extent that the Federal dollars disappear, the General Fund will have
those burdens. You will always have those subsidies that you'll have to do. And so
if the sales tax passed, there is nothing wrong with committing that a certain
portion of those will always be used for rate relief, or for fare relief.
Vanderhoef/Well, in the fare relief, if people understand that fare relief may come in
programming, not in the 75-cents that goes into the fare box, but that falls into
enhancement projects. And that's where I come down with I would choose to talk
about enhanced service and do programming that does the fare relief, but not be
lying to the public or putting out a misrepresentation that I'm going to lower the
75-cent fare if that's the way they read fare relief. You know, that terminology
really, really bothers me.
Lehman/Let me suggest something, just for a minute. Our neighbor to the west is
considering, or has talked at least about raising bus fares to a dollar.
Vanderhoef/That's right.
Lehman/Whether or not the sales tax passes, and if that occurs in Coralville, there's
going to be a certain amount of at least discussion on this Council about raising
our fares to a dollar as well. If we had revenues from the sales tax and we were
able to maintain the 75-cents, that is fare relief. Any way you want to cut it.
Vanderhoef/And that's, that could be a program, and that could be a program, the
enhancement.
Lehman/No, but we are splitting hairs. The idea here is trying to get something that
does in fact improve our bus system. Whether it does it with fare relief by not
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 96
raising rates, maybe lowering rates, I don't know. But we are trying to get
something that is salable to the public where the public has an opportunity to tell
us how they want us to spend the money that they're voting for us to spend. Now,
I think that I have no problem with fare relief. I don't have a problem with that
whatsoever. Because I think the very fact that if rates were to go up without this
money, you have in fact given fare relief. You're doing exactly the same thing
with water rates. Water rates are going to go up without the sales tax. We know
that.
Vanderhoef/As long as people understand that there's not a decrease in rates.
Champion/Well, there might be a decrease in rates.
Vanderhoef/There might be. But there might be a decrease in rates in a program, not
within general fares.
Lehman/You can't cover every --
O'Donnell/It's relief.
Lehman/You're not going to cover every possible situation.
Champion/That's impossible.
Norton/Turns, Ernie, let's get some more, yeah, get some more options in here.
Lehman/Go ahead.
Norton/I think we can't overchop this logic or we're going to, we've got to take some
ambiguity in it. There's just no way, and I've struggled with it as much as
anybody, all of us have. And I came with a draft tonight to maintain and if
possible enhance public transit by such steps, but you see that begins to get
complicated already, because we have an obligation to maintain what we have,
and it may take all of our resources to do that, so I said "if possible, enhance."
But I think I will go with the suggestion you've made here and take our chances. I
just, I don't see how you can get it said completely to cover every little corner that
you want.
Lehman/Right, you can't.
Norton/I would almost prefer to get "increased" into the Human Services, if you would
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 97
permit us, because I think that's really the place where it hits this issue of
regressivity. Even more so than in transit, if you could do more in the area of
Human Services. But if nobody will let us, I'll go with just "support funding".
But I'd rather do "enhanced funding", but that's a funny word.
Champion/I liked your statement, I like your wording here. "To enhance the support for
Human Services agencies and activities."
Norton/Well, I don't know, they say to support, I want the wording, enhancing services
is kind of funny. "Enhancing support", you'd say "increased support", so you're
back to "increase".
Champion/Enhancing is increasing, or making it better in some way, and yet you're not
obligated to a black line that you see go up or down.
Norton/I'm trying to support what they've presented to us in their second round, second
only to whether we can improve the wording in the (can't understand) in this
bottom section of Human Services. It used to be "Housing and Human Services",
but I guess nobody wanted to put that back in.
Kubby/So to move this forward, I would move to amend the resolution so that the 10%
would read "to support the operating and capital improvement expenses of public
transit and paratransit to include fare relief and enhanced service."
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Norton. Now that we're, let's continue the
discussion.
Karr/You want to vote on that one first?
Kubby/Well, if there's continued discussion on this item, I don't --
Lehman/Well, I don't know if there's going to be.
Kubby/It's the focus of discussion, so we open and close this.
Vanderhoef/I guess I have a problem tmtil we have policy statements to go with this.
Thornberry/My question early on was what does "fare relief and enhanced service"
mean? "Fare relief" means a reduction in fares.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 98
Norton/Maybe not as big an increase.
Thomberry/And "enhanced service" means increased services.
Norton/That's fight.
Thornberry/If we're not going to do those two things, we shouldn't be saying it. If we
are going to be doing those things, then we should say it.
Norton/That's what we're going to.
Kubby/We're going to do it.
Thornberry/If we pass it, we are going to reduce the rates and increase the service?
Norton/We're going to figure out some way for fare relief. It might be a break --
Thornberry/No, this is my question. Are we going to reduce the fares and are we going
to--
Lehman/We don't know.
Thornberry/This is what I'm asking. If we're not going to do it, I don't see how we can
say it, Ernie.
Lehman/I don't think we say we're going to do it.
Champion/Oh, Dean, you're way too picky about this.
Vanderhoef/What I could offer as --
Thornberry/Well, I'm just saying I would like to do what I say I'm going to do.
Kubby/I agree. And I support this, and that's what rm going to work toward.
Vanderhoef/And can go along with enhanced services. It's, the one that I have a problem
with is the statement of fare relief and how it's interpreted by the public, not
because I choose to say it should be higher or lower at this point. But enhanced
services and however that comes out, which may be keeping I the same or
lowering, but it's a package of transit services that provides the very most for the
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 99
citizens for the dollars we have available.
Norton/You'd just like to leave out the "fare relief".
Vanderhoef/I can handle this if you leave "enhanced services" in there and drop out the
"fare relief" because I think that's going to be misinterpreted on a regular basis.
O'Donnell/I think that's a huge part of the language though.
Lehman/The biggest part of it.
O'Donnell/I think you do that, you, we've got water rate relief up here, and that simply
means we're not going to increase it. We're going to stabilize it.
Thornberry/I thought it was water rate stabilization money.
Norton/And/or water relief.
Thomberry/Well under the current ballot proposal, and what we were talking about last
night was water rate stabilization. It was not water rate relief.
Norton/Well, Steve brought us a new one that we agreed on last night.
O'Donnell/But it's both of them. "And/or relief".
Thornberry/Okay, yeah.
O'Donnell/But like we're talking buses are soon to go up to a dollar. If we don't take 'em
up to a dollar, that is relief, and I can back this.
Thornberry/Okay. I'm saying this. That, Karen says that if, that she is --
Kubby/I'm ready to do this, Dean.
Thornberry/That this language is appropriate because she wants to see the rates reduced
from 75-cents to something lower, and she wants to see enhanced services. She
wants to see more buses out there in different parts of town, etc.
Norton/Right.
Thomberry/Now, I'm just saying this. That ifthat's what we're saying by those words,
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 100
fine. Then we will do it. Then we will have to do it because we've said it and
they will be voting on that understanding that that's what it meant. If you don't
agree, or you don't think that the fares will decrease from 75-cents to something
less, then the wording is not correct. All I want to do is be correct in the wording
with what we are intending to do.
Norton/We all do that, Dean.
Thomberry/And that's what Karen is saying.
Champion/That's what I'm saying.
Thomberry/And that's what she's for is reduced fares, something less than 75-cents per
ride, and more routes in town.
Champion/Not necessarily more routes.
Kubby/Right. Enhanced services can mean a lot of things.
Champion/It could be a lot of things.
Thomberry/Enhanced services. Right.
Kubby/There's more people (can't understand).
Thornberry/Right. But if you, if you --
Norton/To respond to your thing, my suggestion had one, but I read this and see how
clumsy it begins to get. Because partly we want to maintain what we have. And
it's possible that things will happen that mean all the money that comes in from
this would have to go to just maintain what we have because we don't have
anything in General Expense.
Thomberry/Yes, sir.
Norton/So then I said "to maintain, and if possible, enhance public transit and
paratransit services, including such steps as fare reductions, the possibility of such
steps as fare reductions, ronte expansions, changes in hours of service". But it
gets complicated so fast that I fear that people will get more confused than they
would by this language. So that's why I'm seconding.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 101
Lehman/I read, and Dean, I don't read what you read. I know that perhaps Karen reads
"fare relief" to mean lower rates. You read it that way. I read fare relief as the
ability and commitment to a transit system, if instead of raising the rates to a
dollar, we're able to keep them at 75-cents, there's no question about that being
fare relief. I don't have a problem with that. And I also think that if we pass this,
it's going to be incumbent on this Council to be a little more friendly to transit
issues.
Thornberry/Well I understand that. I'm not saying that, Emie. I'm saying that if we can't
lower the fares, we shouldn't say "relief".
Lehman/I don't think, I don't see --
Vanderhoeff Okay. What I'd like to say then is when you are explaining this, Emie,
you're saying that Karen may thing that it's lowering from 75-cents. You think it
may be at the same. So what I'm saying is that same confusion is going to be out
there in the public unless we put it in the policy.
Thornberry/That's fight.
Vanderhoef/And if we can state it in the policy that --
Lehman/That's fine. Nobody's going to read the policy.
Vanderhoef/That it may not be lower than 75 cents --
Lehman/Nobody's going to read the policy. They're going to read the ballot.
Vanderhoef/They're going to have to.
Champion/No, they're not going to.
Lehman/Nobody's going to read the policy.
Champion/You know, this is gravy money, folks. This is, this is, this is gravy. It should
be spent to benefit and aid people. It doesn't have to cover roads and things that
are important to the ten top essentials.
Thornberry/Connie, I have no problem with that.
Norton/Let me ask you this --
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 102
Thornberry/I have no problem with that. But if you're going to say it, you're going to do
it.
Champion/I would do it.
O'Donnell/I think we have to remember that 100% of zero is zero, and that's where we're
headed unless this is a favorable ballot.
Norton/Dean--
Thomberry/I know, you've said that before and I've heard that before. All I'm saying is
if we're going to say we're going to reduce the rates, then let's say reduce the rates
and let's reduce the rates.
Champion/Then let's do it.
Lehman/(Can't understand).
Thornberry/Well, it says, it says relief from the fares that we have currently.
Lehman/Relief from increases.
Thomberry/Well if you're going to say relief for increases, that's like saying you got a
raise, Ernie.
Norton/Let me ask you this, see if you would do this.
Thornberry/Yeah, I was going to lower it, but since I didn't lower it, you got a raise.
Norton/See if we can sweep Dean and Dee into it. Suppose you put these words,
inserted these words in the draft that's in front of us, the one that Tom submitted
here, Tom and his cohorts. Under, after, suppose, "to support the operating and
capital improvement expenses of public transit and paratransit to include such
possibilities as fare relief."
Lehman/No.
Kubby/That's weakening it.
O'Donnell/No, I don't stick in "possibilities".
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 103
Norton/See, Dean, you're trying to leave us an out and not commit us to it.
Thornberry/No, no. All I'm saying is it, I could be for 25-cent bus fares. But if you're
going to say that, I mean if you're going to do that, say it. If you're going to say it,
do it. But don't say I'm going to give you relief from your bus fares, but not lower
it from 75-cents. All I'm saying, Mr. Customer is, geez, I was going to raise it to
a dollar, but since I didn't, see how great I am? I don't think that's the way it
should be done.
Kubby/And I think we're working really hard to get language that we can, all seven agree
to.
Norton/Yes.
Kubby/And frankly, the job is to make sure that we can find some language that four of
us agree on.
Norton/I'm trying.
Kubby/I mean, we tend to get real uncomfortable when we're not all in agreement and
that's not always possible.
Thornberry/That's tree.
Norton/It's what I'm trying to do.
O'Donnell/I hope you don't have another plan.
Gelman/No.
Vanderhoef/Although the "such as" --
Gelman/All I wanted to say, and I appreciate Dean's consistency on this, but I mean, I
would ask Eleanor whether she believes that there would be any legal issue with
the use of the word "relief' and whether that implies that there has to be a
reduction or whether that implies that there could be stabilization or a subsidy of
fares. And if she's comfortable that there's not a legal entanglement --
Thornberry/Well I'm not sure whether legal makes any difference, it's whether people
understand what they're getting.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 104
Gelman/But I think --
Dilkes/I've been letting some, I haven't interjected because I think it is '-
Thornberry/ You've been wanting to, though.
Dilkes/It's not, I mean I understand your issue is not so much a legal one but a
perception one.
Thornberry/That's correct.
Dilkes/But legally, "relief' does not mean reduction. Just like with property tax relief,
that does not necessarily mean reduction. And we use "relief' in a number of
places here. The State Legislature has chosen to use the word "relief' when it
says you have to specify how much will go for property tax relief. And I don't,
and so --
Thornberry/ Oh, well since other governmental bodies have not lied to their constituents,
I think we should go ahead and use the same language.
Norton/Oh, Dean.
Lehman/Oh, does that mean you approve of this now?
Thornberry/I'm just saying that there are probably four votes to do this thing, but I don't
think it's being fair to the constituents not to do what you say you're going to do.
And I want to do. And if we pass this language and it passes, I'll be the second
one to say we ought to lower our bus fares.
Kubby/All right, Dean! I like that.
VanderhoefJ Dean, I like that.
Thomberry/Because that's, that's what we've said we were going to do.
Norton/What language would you prefer is my question. (Can't hear)
Kubby/Such as?
Thornberry/I'm just saying, we've got to do what we say we're going to do.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 105
Norton/(Can't understand) here for this paragraph. That's what we need is an option
then. Give us a proposal.
O'Donnell/I think we're ready to take a poll on it.
Vanderhoef/"To include", just drop out the words "to include", and insert "'such as' fare
relief and enhanced service".
Champion/No.
Vanderhoef/Because that's what we've done in other places for the "such as".
Norton/"Such as fare relief..."
Kubby/I think that's even more nebulous.
Champion/That's nebulous.
Norton/It's not too bad, is it?
Champion/It's terrible.
Vanderhoef/It gives you a list of things --
Thomberry/That you could do.
Vanderhoef/That you can do.
Norton/Yeah.
Kubby/And I think the issue here is trying to make the additional language be concrete,
tangible I think is the word that's being used. That "such as" is not very tangible.
"To include" is definite.
Thornberry/So is "fare relief and enhanced service." Which is fine, if that's what we're
going to do.
Champion/Let's do it. Come on, Dean, go with it.
Thornberry/I'm just saying, if you're going to say it, you've got to do it.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 106
Champion/We'll do it.
O'Donnell/We will do the fare relief.
Champion/We'll do it.
O'Donnell/You know, if we okay this tonight.
Thornberry/Not a problem.
O'Donnell/Then we're committing to it. And I think everybody is (can't understand) to
that.
Thomberry/That's correct. Then we will have to reduce, we will have to give relief from
the current fares, in other words, lower from 75-cents, and we're going to have to
increase the service, one way or another. Either more routes, more frequency,
something, we're going to enhance the service, what, put curtains on the
windows? I don't know. Enhance the service and give fare relief.
Champion/Thank you.
Thornberry/And we'll have to do that. That's fine, but if we've got it, we've got to do
what we say we're going to do.
Norton/Okay, now we've heard this lecture now about eighteen times in a row, Dean.
You don't need to hammer us over the head with it.
Thornberry/Then let's vote on it.
Norton/We'll vote. We'd like to get you along with us, but we'll have to go ahead
without you if--
Thornberry/No, absolutely not. I will vote for this thing. But we're going to reduce the
fares and enhance the services.
Kubby/Right. And for people who agree with Dee Vanderhoefs argument, you should
vote "no" and propose another amendment.
Champion/Can we reread the motion? I've forgotten it.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 107
Lehman/Well, the motion that Karen has is to accept the proposal as Tom has given us
on the 10% to support transit. The way it's worded.
Kubby/"To include fare relief and enhanced service."
Lehman/The way it's worded.
Champion/Right, fight.
Kubby/Well just so the public can be reminded where we're at.
Lehman/Right.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/All right. All those in favor- (ayes), opposed- (none). We have '-
Champion/ I love this.
Thornberry/You expected '-
Lehman/ Whatever it means, it's (can't hear). The other question that we had.
Norton/How about Human Services?
Lehman/Well, there are two other questions.
Norton/Okay.
Lehman/The first deals with the operating expenses for the Library and Community
Center. They are suggesting that instead of adding "and other community
activities", we say "and to support community activities and events".
Champion/I like that.
Norton/I like it.
Lehman/You have a problem with that?
Norton/I like it.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 108
Lehman/He likes it. All right. How about Human Services?
Karr/Wait. Do you want a motion? You'll have to amend that.
Vanderhoef/Wait a minute.
Lehman/Can we do two at once?
Thornberry/No, no, we can't do two at once.
Norton/No, no.
Kubby/No, let's not. Let's go one by one.
Vanderhoef/One by one, yeah.
Lehman/Okay.
Vanderhoef/Okay, so which one are you going to do7
Lehman/Do the "to support the operating expenses of the public library and the
community events center and to support community activities and events" as
opposed to what we did last night. Which do we prefer?
O'Donnell/That's fine.
Norton/This one.
Champion/I move that we accept the new proposal.
Vanderhoef/Wait a minute.
Lehman/Moved by Conhie.
O'Donnell/Seconded by Mike. I've even forgotten last names, now. Further discussion?
Thornberry/Um--
Vanderhoef/Give me two seconds to read the difference.
Lehman/Well look at the underlined portions. The rest, that hasn't changed.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 109
Vanderhoef/But I hadn't read what the City had put out before that.
Lehman/We put that out last night.
Thornberry/"And other community", yeah.
Norton/What you have here is what we ended up with last night in the first section. So
this is just clarifying that.
Vanderhoef/"To support community activities."
Lehman/That's somatics. I think that's fine. I have no problem with the proposal. All in
favor of Connie's motion say aye- (ayes), opposed- (none). That has been
approved. Now let's go to Human Services. I guess the question here is --
Norton/ It's the word "increased".
Lehman/It's the word "increased". Are we going to use that word?
Thomberry/Let me ask this at this point. What is the, what is the funding for the Human
Service agencies at this time? How much in money?
Kubby/About $400,000.
Atkins/In round numbers, it's approximately $300,000 from the General Fund --
Thomberry/I thought it was $100,000.
Atkins/And $100,000 from the CDBG fund.
Kubby/$105,000 actually.
Norton/Yeah, that's fight.
Kubby/$405,000.
Norton/$405,000.
Lehman/5%--
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 110
Atkins/would be $250,000.
Lehman/Would be $250,000. We're now putting in $300,000.
Thornberry/Well, we're putting in $400,000.
Lehman/Well, we're putting in $300,000. The CDBG money's coming from somebody
else.
Thornberry/The Human Services agencies are getting $405,000.
Lehman/Well, $300,000 from the General Fund.
Thornberry/Er, are getting $250,000. $405,000. I mean, I'm just saying, the Human
Service agencies are getting $405,000 now. With a 5% increase, that would come
to what?
Lehman/Well, it says "support increased funding". It does not say a 5% increase in
funding. It just says "increased funding."
Norton/How about --?
Thornberry/Well where it says 5% over here?
Vanderhoef/Increased funding from what?
Lehman/Obviously, from the sales tax.
Vanderhoef/I can't --
Dilkes/Let me --
Thomberry/"Support increased" --
Norton/ Why not "additional", Dee?
Dilkes/rve thought some about this increased/additional issue, and I think the, if you
choose to use "additional" or "increased", I think you'll probably be okay. I think
the way that would likely be interpreted is that you would look at the status quo at
the time the sales tax --
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 111
Lehman/The base year, yeah.
Dilkes/Passes. And it would have to be an increase from that status quo.
Thornberry/From the $405,0007
Vanderhoef/No, from the $300,000 which is the General Fund money.
Thornberry/From the $300,000.
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/Yeah.
Norton/I think "additional".
Dilkes/But I mean, it's, you know, and I think because you're only talk about using half
of it, I think you'd have to say "maintain". I mean, something like "maintain and
increase" or "maintain and enhance" like Dee has used in his language, something
like that.
Norton/But--
Dilkes/But I don't know any other way to judge it other than, when you're talking about
an increase, an increase from what. If you don't say that, then I think the default
position would sort of have to be the status quo at the time you passed it.
Kubby/And so doesn't that automatically infer maintenance of that dollar amount?
Vanderhoef/No.
Norton/No.
Dilkes/No. Well, yeah, you'd have that amount, the status quo amount plus your
increase.
Lehman/Plus the increase.
Kubby/So we wouldn't need "maintain".
Dilkes/But I thought you'd been talking about using some of it to maintain that level and
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 112
some of it to increase it.
Vanderhoef/Right. Because this was one of the places where we were talking about
having some General Fund relief, and that's why the 2 1/2 %.
Norton/Well, we were talking about --
Vanderhoef/That was to increase, and the other 2 1/2% could be --
Kubby/But we can do what our current policy statement is with the current language.
So, I would --
Dilkes/Which current language?
Kubby/With the language that we have agreed to thus far --
Vanderhoef/For funding of johnson County.
Kubby/For funding of Johnson County area Human Services.
Vanderhoef/Right.
Dilkes/Right.
Vanderhoef/With this new language, I don't, I see it's real cloudy.
Norton/Which one is cloudy?
Vanderhoef/The new language.
Norton/With or without "increased".
Vanderhoef/But if you leave "increased" in there maybe it's cloudy, but I don't
understand our consistency here, folks. Because if we are trying to deal in part, in
this category, with real needs for people at the lower end of the pole, this is a
place to really give some help in that direction. And I would, that's why I'm
interested in "additional" funding there.
Kubby/Right. Having increased guarantees there will be some increase, and not just
using the full $250,000, if that's the number, to relieve the CDBG fund and the
General Fund.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
FO1117/98
#30 page 113
Norton/Or "increase", whichever word. Right.
Kubby/Which could happen with the current wording.
Norton/I think that is more, that's what we want to do. That is where it really helps in
the regressivity issue.
Thomberry/I think that the CDBG money funding is a very nebulous number, and it's
not going to increase. I think it will decrease.
Norton/Suppose it does?
Thornberry/Over time from the Federal and State governments. I just think that money
is going to be --
Norton/But suppose it did, Dean, and that extra $100,000 disappeared, and we had
$250,000 coming in from the income tax, we would have to, to keep up where we
were, we would have to put $100,000 of that in there. But there'd still be
something left over for additional.
Lehman/It seems to me that the way that it's worded or proposed to be worded, it says
"support increased funding", it does not say one percent or two, or three, or four,
or five.
Norton/Right.
Lehman/But it does indicate an intention to spend more money on Human Services and
the policy section, although it isn't going to be governing, totally, I mean it will
say that our plans at this point are 2 1/2% which could change in future Councils,
but the, this would require that there be increased funding from whatever base
year, if this were to pass next March, I'm sure the base year would then become
FY99, and we know what that number is.
Vanderhoef/So you're saying, so you're saying then if we use a base year, that we will be
using the $300,000 as the base fight now, plus 2 1/2% of the $250,000 --
Lehman/If that's what we choose to use.
Vanderhoeff So another $125,000.
Thisrepresents only areasonably accur~e transcfiption oftheIowa City councilmeeting
of Novemberl7,1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 114
Norton/That's right.
Vanderhoef/And that that policy can change each year on how much, but we will never
go below the $300,000.
Norton/Exactly.
Lehman/But it says could not go below if you pass it.
Vanderhoef/Am I correct? That's my interpretation. Now, --
Dilkes/I think if I told you last night that there's some ambiguity in the use of the word
"increase" but I think --
Lehman/It can be defended.
Dilkes/It can be defended on the grounds that you look at the status quo at the time that
you pass it, and if that was funding at the level of $300,000, and then this would
have to be an increase over that level of funding.
Norton/I keep asking, is the word "additional" any less onerous, less ambiguous than
"increased"? I kind of like "additional."
Thornberry/If it's going to be "additional", it's going to be additional and it's got 5%
over here. Does that mean that you're going to increase support for Human
Service agencies by $250,0007
Norton/No.
Thomberry/So you're going to be doing $655,000 if this passes? That's $105,000 from
CDBG and the $300,000 from City --
Norton/It doesn't say you have to put all of it into the increase, does it?
Thomberry/Well, it says 5% over here. Now what are you telling the people?
Lehman/No. It says 5% to support increased funding.
Thornberry/Increased is in parentheses.
Lehman/No, no, take the parentheses off. To support increased funding, use the 5%.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 115
You could give them a dollar, you could give them $250,000, which is the 5%.
Or anything in between.
Norton/It doesn't say you give all of the 5%.
Lehman/It just says you're going to increase funding.
Norton/The same way with the 10% for transit. We probably can't use all of that. We
may have to cover some present things. We can't use all of that --
Lehman/Could I hear somebody make a motion --
Thornberry/To be fair to these folks, I just don't think --
Champion/Well we are being fair, Dean.
Thornberry/Misunderstood. I don't think it's -- no, Connie, rm just saying I think we're
misinforming some people when we're saying "to support the increased funding of
Johnson County area Human Services." Now, they're going to say what's that?
Kubby/They're going to get more money.
Lehman/They're going to get more money.
Champion/They're going to get more money.
Thornberry/And how much? 5%.. It says 5% over here.
Norton/You have to go to the policy statement.
Thornberry/I'm just saying, it says 5% over on the left. Does it or does it not?
Champion/Were you treated badly as a child or something? I mean, --
Lehman/Connie, now wait a minute.
Thornberry/I'm just saying, is there 5% there, Connie?
Norton/Let me turn to one that's close to your heart.
Lehman/Hold it. Tom?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F0 1117/9 8
#30 page 116
Gelman/I don't want to mislead. I think probably what you said and probably one other
Council member may be in fact a problem. And Eleanor, you please help. I think
there's some uncertainty as to whether "increased" means all of the 5% or some
portion of it. And my thinking would say that if it says "increased", there
certainly could be an interpretation that that would mean all of it. And so, Emie,
rm not sure you were thinking that was the case.
Lehman/I wasn't thinking that.
Gelman/No. And my, and I'm concemed, Eleanor's concerned that if you say
"increased", it means the whole 5% for additional new funding.
Vanderhoef/Yeah, and that's not --
Dilkes/I think, yes, if you wanted --
Council/(All talking).
Dilkes/If you wanted it to some of it be increased and some of it be maintaining like
your 2.5% you've talked about, or half, you'd have to say "maintain and increase"
or "maintain and enhance".
Lehman/"And enhance". We love it.
Dilkes/Now, I don't know, is there enough money anticipated from this to do that? I
mean, what's 5% of the --
Lehman/$250,000.
Vanderhoef/$250,000. So, what we have in the policy now is half of that, so it's
$125,000 for the enhancement or the (can't hear) or whatever.
Dilkes/So $125,000 of it would reduce your General Fund Obligation and $125,000
would be additional.
Kubby/Well, it might be the CDBG amount that is decreased, so that's freed up for other
CDBG programming.
O'Donnell/Dee had some very, he wrote up a "5% to maintain and enhance support for
human services agencies and activities."
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 117
Lehman/Do I have a second for that?
Kubby/I'm sorry, would you repeat it?
O'Donnell/I think it's very good.
Kubby/Would you repeat your motion? I'm sorry.
O'Donnell/"5% to maintain and enhance support for human services agencies and
activities."
Thomberry/How much money are we giving them?
Kubby/I don't know, why do we need the term "and activities", Dee?
Norton/I don't know. I didn't, I thought it might be, I was thinking of maybe a housing
investment fund.
Lehman/Yeah.
Thomberry/A what?
Norton/A housing trust fund.
Vanderhoef/A trust fund.
Kubby/Ifthat's our intent, I'd be more like 50% of this whole tax used for housing.
Vanderhoef/Well, this is the whole point. When we get real specific, then we can't work
outside of the box.
Norton/But activities that covers everything that's not an agency.
Kubby/No, you answered my question.
O'Donnell/I think Karen had a good point. Just "5% to maintain and enhance support
for human services agencies."
Norton/But "and activities" because they're not all agencies, see?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 118
O'Donnell/Now you want "activities".
Lehman/I think you do.
Norton/Leave it on there because it's not all agency support.
Vanderhoef/It allows that --
O'Donnell/Well, I think "activities" opens up a can of worms, doesn't it?
Lehman/Tenant-to-ownership Program, that's not an agency.
O'Donnell/Okay.
Norton/That's fight.
Champion/Right.
O'Donnell/That's a good point.
Lehman/I mean, there are things that we might want to put that money in that o-
Norton/That loan fund.
Vanderhoef/That's the same kind of thing that I've been trying to say about transit.
Lehman/(Can't understand). What?
Vanderhoef/We're putting ourselves into boxes, and this is what I was trying to say
about the transit, that you are making a box here and you're not allowing yourself
to jump out there and see all the other possibilities that we maybe haven't even
thought about at this point. And we tie ourselves in too tight.
Norton/I thought this was a pretty flexible box, myself.
Lehman/Right. The public has a fight to know if they're going to impose a tax on
themselves, they certainly have a fight to know where some of that money's going
to be spent.
Vanderhoef/And it's going to go, yeah.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 119
Lehman/And to do that, we have to put ourselves in somewhat of a box. And I think we
try to make the box as flexible as we can, but we're still in a box.
Kubby/So Mike, is your motion with or without "activities"?
O'Donnell/Well, I, I like Ernie's point. I think we should have "and activities" because
that does open it up.
Lehman/Was there a second?
Kubby/Second.
Champion/I seconded it.
Lehman/Right. And Karen seconded it.
Kubby/Actually Connie did.
Lehman/Is there any further discussion on Connie and Karen's second to Dee's --
Thornberry/ Question about it. Does Eleanor appreciate the language?
Lehman/She likes it. She likes it, yeah.
Dilkes/It's okay with me.
Thornberry/It's not, it's going to be up to the electorate, but I'll put it before them.
Dilkes/I think that's what your intent is, and I think that's okay.
Norton/I thought I gave you one, Steve.
Atkins/I gave it back to you.
Lehman/All in favor of Mr. Norton's proposal, say aye- (ayes), opposed- (none). It is
carded. Is there any further discussion on the ballot proposal?
Karr/You still have the additional 10% with those minor changes for fire, police, the
comma and the addition of the word "for".
Norton/I like it.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 120
Thomberry/I'll do the comma.
O'Donnell/I'll do the "for".
Vanderhoef/Move to approve.
Thomberry/Second.
Lehman/We have a motion to add the comma and the "and"?
Champion/Go.
Norton/No, not the "and", it's the "for", isn't it?
Lehman/Oh, "for", comma.
Gelman/There's a capital there, too, in "capital improvements".
Champion/That's a grammatical correction.
Lehman/Motion by who?
Thomberry/Me and --
Vanderhoef/Just a second. Are we talking about the --
Lehman/ Motion by Vanderhoef, seconded by Thomberry.
Vanderhoef/For the main one.
Kubby/rm sorry, which one?
Lehman/This public safety section, the 10%.
Norton/Read it, will you, Emie?
Lehman/"To support the hiring and equipping of police officers, firefighters and/or other
public safety personnel and for construction of related public safety capital
improvements."
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
/430 page 121
Norton/Amen.
Thornberry/"Public safety capital improvements"?
Kubby/Although I will say that that, there's a --
Vanderhoef/The "capital" doesn't fing right for me.
Kubby/Yeah. Because saying "related public safety improvements" as it was before, or
as it is, lets it be capital or not capital, because there may be other things that we --
Thomberry/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/It's the box again.
Thomberry/I'll amend my --
Kubby/I think that's why you put the "capital" in there.
Gelman/That's fight.
Thornberry/I'll amend my amendment to disregard the word "capital".
Vanderhoef/Take the "capital" out.
Lehman/The word "capital" is removed.
Thornberry/Can't do that?
Karr/No. If you're not going to change "capital", then the revision before you in your
resolution has the comma and the "for" in it. It is not a change. The only change
is "capital".
Dilkes/It does not have the "and/or" though.
Karr/It does not have the "and/or" where?
Dilkes/Between "fire fighters" and "other". Because Steve and I debated the "and/or"
today.
Lehman/What's wrong with the way we had it?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 122
Thornberry/Do we need the "and/or"?
Dilkes/Okay. Hold on. The one before you does not include "and/or" before "other
public safety personnel". rm looking at this one. Okay. It does include the
comma and "for construction of related public safety improvements".
Thornberry/Okay.
Dilkes/So if you're not going to go with "capital" then the only thing to add is the
"and/Or".
Thornberry/Do we need the "and/or"?
Norton/Is that a good construction? I hear that that's bad form in general. That an "or"
would be sufficient.
Atkins/I said that.
Dilkes/Steve, yes, we debated this today.
Atkins/Yeah, we debated that.
Thornberry/Call Naomi.
Norton/Pardon me. I didn't mean to accuse you of bad form. Perish the thought.
Karr/It's a little late.
Dilkes/I don't care, it's 11:00, accuse me of anything.
Thomberry/We don't need Naomi, we've got Norton. We got "or". How about just
"or"?
Norton/"Or" is fine.
Thornberry/That gives us both. Does it mean we can't do both?
Lehman/Oh, no.
Champion/Ask Norton.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 123
Thomberry/Hey, Dee?
Norton/What?
Thornberry/If you just have "or" there '-
Norton/ Yes, I think '-
Thornberry/ Does it mean you can do the police officer and firefighters or the public
safety personnel?
Norton/Any of the three or all of them.
Thornberry/It doesn't say that. You can do one or the other.
Norton/Well, I think --
Atkins/Without the "or" you can do any of them.
Kubby/So leave it the way it is.
Thornberry/That's correct. If you did "or" --
Atkins/To support the hiring of police firefighters --
Lehman/ Would you withdraw your motion and you withdraw your second? We'll leave
it the way it was.
Thornberry/Thank you.
Karr/So there's no change.
Thornberry/No change.
Lehman/Is there any other discussion on this proposal?
Norton/I don't understand, it isn't, it's fire or "police officers, firefighters", is there a
comma, "other public safety personnel". I don't understand what's happening
here.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 124
Thomberry/Yes. That's another one. "Police officers, fire fighters, public safety
personnel".
Lehman/Could we just let the punctuation be taken care of by the secretary?
Dilkes/You all? You have to look, you have to look at what the resolution, not the
language in Tom's, because it's a little different.
Council/(All talking).
Kubby/Oh, what our original is.
Lehman/Oh, geez.
Norton/Where'd it go? Oh, here. Okay.
Champion/Public safety.
Thornberry/We don't need an "or".
Norton/Oh, hey.
Kubby/Leave it the way it is.
O'Donnell/Let's just leave it.
Dilkes/I like the "and/or", but --
Thornberry/ You don't get to vote, either.
Vanderhoef/Eleanor, why do you like it? What specifically?
Lehman/Eleanor, you're the one who said it was 11:00 and things were going well. Why
do you bring this up?
Thornberry/We're going to go 45 minutes on an "or".
Dilkes/Because the "and/or" says you may do some, one, two, or all three of those
thigns: Police officers, firefitghters, or other safety personnel. Without the
"and/or", you can inrepret that to mean you will hire and equp all those things, "to
support the hirign and equipping of police officers, firefighters and other safety
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 125
personnel", all of them. That's why I like the "and/or".
Vanderhoef/Which gives us more choice.
Norton/Pardon me. It looks to me then like you would have to have another "and/or". It's
"police officers, and/or fire fighters, and/or other public safety".
Dilkes/I think I'd win that one. All I can tell you is do what you want. I would say, I'd
add the "and/or". I would say this is deteriourating.
Vanderhoef/I like it becdause it does give a little bit more choice. Okay. I will move it
"to support the hirign and equipping of police officers, firefighters, and/or other
public safety personnel and for related public safety improvements."
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef.
Karr/"Of related".
Kubby/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Kubby. Discussion? All in favor- (ayes), opposed- (none).
Passed.
Kubby/I have a question about dates. This resolution doesn't say, it tells us the last date
we can go to the Auditor, right? Isn't that what this is?
Vanderhoef/(Yes).
Kubby/And it doesn't say what the date of the election, or no, okay --
Karr/March 30.
Kubby/I'm sorry, it's there. And that is a full week after spring break?
Karr/Yes.
Kubby/Okay.
Lehman/Well, the question is that enough --
Karr/Well, it's two weeks.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 126
Atkins/Two weeks.
Kubby/Two.
Lehman/Two weeks?
Karr/Not the Tuesday. It's not the Tuesday after, it's --
Kubby/A week and a half.
Lehman/Oh boy.
Vanderhoef/The 23rd woud ljust be two days.
Karr/That's correct.
Thornberry/So we'll --
Norton/ Sudeenly you'll wake up and realize there's a fatal flaw in the language.
Lehman/No, no. We're not going to --
Vanderhoef/I'm going to sleep fine tonight.
Lehman/Are we satisfied with the date?
Kubby/Yeah.
Lehman/We are satisfied with the date.
Champion/Are we?
Thomberry/Well I think there's a fatal flaw in a lot of the language, but that's all fight.
Lehman/All right. Are we sastisfied with the language. I'm sorry, Mr. Gelman?
Gelman/I'm sorry to do this, but this is the first time I've ever seen what we were
supposed to be the actula ballot proposition --
Dilkes/That came out of last night's meeting.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 127
Gelman/Okay. But is there any prefacory language at all? For a complete statement
would be that 25% of the sales tax revenue will be used for water rate
stabilization, and/or--
Dilkes/Well, I think the rest of the resolution does --
Gelman/It covers that?
Karr/Are you talking, Tom, about content and form of the actual ballot?
Gelman/The actual ballot, yeah.
Dilkes/That's done by, there's a form that they have to use.
Gellman/Okay.
Dilkes/That's put out by the Secretary of State that we'll insert that in.
Gelman/Because that prefatory language about local --
Dilkes/The rest of the ballot proposition is up, "Request the Johnson County
Commissioner submit the question of the imposition of a 1% local sales and
services tax at a special election to be held March 30th, proposed July 1 st, and
that the ballot proposition state that the proceeds will be used and expended as
follows."
Gelman/Okay.
Kubby/The ballot language will be more, slightly more narrative so there are ocmplete
sentences. But that's the bottom line that your'e asking about.
Gelman/Well, I'm just --
Dilkes/You see, it will --
GelmaW For clarification of issues that have arisen all through this discussion, people,
it's very helpful for people to undersatnd that this is 25% of the sales tax dollars
will be used for, or 10% of the sales tax revenue will be used for. And I just want
to make sure that the ballot will make that clear that these precentages refer to
percentages of the actula sales tax revenue.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 128
Dilkes/Yes, I think it will. And, but see, look at the paragraph above it. The ballot
proposition will state that "the proceeds of the local sales and services tax will bbe
used and expended, 0% for property tax relief...." There an actual form that the
Secretary of State has done bedcause this will, depending on what other cities will
do.
Gleman/Okay. So that doesn't matter of course. This will be modified by the Auditor.
Dilkes/Yeah. He'll put it into his form.
Gelman/Okay. That's fine. Thank you
Kubby/Before we vote on this whole thing, because we've made all these amendments, I
really need to say a few words. Because as improved as I think that this ballot
language is, I've very consistently been against the sales tax. And I'm glad that
we've made these improvement to this --
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 98-130, SIDE B
Kubby/Deal with my set of greatest concems which are still part of this ballot language.
And so I will be continuing to be consistently against this, even to put it before
the voters, because I feel so strongly about some of these issues. And H1 try to be
as brief as I can, but I feel this is my only chance that I'm going to use to explain
myself, and so rm going to do it now, and not, probably make further statements
during the campaign about not supporting this. And it comes down, you know,
we've all thrown out this word "regressivity", and we kidn of pass it off as
something that is just some kind of concept. But it has real effects on people's
lives. And these issues of fairness, whn I look at the whole atmosphere of State
tax policy that it ccreates in our State. That it just magnifies the unfairness that
we kind of buy into that this is an option for meeting our community needs. Evne
though I understand that it's an option, I just don't think it's a fair option. And I
hope that no matter what the outcome of the ballot is, that with the new Govemor,
we have a, an opportunity. Because we all thing that the State Tax Code in Iowa
is very strange and needs improvement. But I hope we use this much concerted
genuine effort that we've used to crack this language to make some changes at the
State level that will create more fairness in our tax system. So that's my first and
foremost reason for voting "no". The second one is that we're, we will continue to
be having operating costs with this pot of money that I don't think is, personally
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 129
don't think it's good pulbic policy, because it gets us hooked on the tax. It gets us
addicted to this tax, and that means it's a forever tax. Otherwise, the, we will
have, for example, the water rates, without any new service, if this tax were
repealed, we would have to raise rates tremendously to be able to operate our
water plant and have high-quality waqter in the right quanititiese for our citizens.
So that's my second reason. The third one is that Tom isn't so, was talking about
how it's our purview and our job to decide how to spend Genearl Fund monies.
But with some of this maintenance of systems, we were pyaing for thsese things
with property tax. Now we're shifting them to sales tax that relieves that property
tax monies as a blank check. And I don't mean the amount is blank, the pay-to is
balnk. And that it could be given as retired to citizens as property tax relief, or it
could be used for stated commujnity needs. And I think that it will not be tax
relief that will be the balnk check filled in. I think that there are so many
community needs out there that we're going to spend that money. This is probably
the most politically conservative Council I've worked with in ten years, and even
we, as a group, have not said no to any big ticket item that's been asked of us.
And so I think that the blank check is not going to be a reftmd check. And lastly,
and this is the oen that some Council members are, why some Council members
have been very supportive of this tax, is that I don't think we should use any of
this tax for water rate relief. And it's not a very popular thing to say. But I truly
believe that with natural resources that we need to pay as directly as possible for
the cost of using those natural resources. And by having this water rate relief,
we're taking that out of the picture. And that in my mind, our current water rate
structure, which is a declining rate structure where the more you use, the less you
pay per unit of water, that that's a regressive, or an unfair rate structure. And that
we're going to relieve a regressive rate structure with a regressive tax. And that
that, it's not just hurting the lowest-income people, this unfairness, it's actually
hurting the majority of us, because it is both middle- and lower-income
households that get afected by the regressivity here. And so to me, it's just
another magnification of the unfaimess. And I guess lastly, this other thing about
fairness with the water rates is that I don't believe that folks that don't live in Iowa
City should be paying my water bill. They're not using it, and the places wehre
they are using quantities of water, it's reflected in their costs at the hotel or
restaurant where they're using it. And I'm not going to begrudge people a drink of
water from our fountian downtown, or the joy of the fountain to play in. So, I
don't think using it for water rate relief is very fair. So, those are foru things that
as happy as I am that the language has been changed so that if this does pass, there
are tangible bene~rts to a wide variety of people in the community. It does not
offset for me, or mitigate enough these issues of faimess. So I will be voting "no",
and will not be making further statements, publicly or pfivaetly about this.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 130
Norotn/The--
Champion/Karen, when you say that people should pay for what they use, wlel, you
know, we subsidize a lot of things. We subsidize human services. We subsidize
transit systems. If people had to pya what it costs to ride the bus, we wouldn't
have hardly anybody tiding it. It would be cheaper to park downtown all day.
Kubby/I'm saying for natural resources. And that we should make it as direct as
possible. And water is different than human servicfes. That's not a natural
resource in terms of a biological resource.
Norton/We had a clear choice to do that in property taxes, and I would've preferred to do
that in property tax relief, but that wasn't the way the votes went. So, that's where
we are.
O'Donnell/I think the ballot's fine as it is. Each time we build a trail we're using some
form ofregressive tax. We always support those. I think this ballot is fine like it
is.
Lehman/Well, I, I guess I support the tax for one of the basic reasons that Karen says she
does not. I really bleieve that the, the stablilzation of water rates alone will do
more to help low-income folks than the sales tax will ever cost them. In other
words, they will save more on their water rates than it will cost them in the sales
tax. And I guess I have a certain concern for the large number of folks in this
community who are reasonably low- or moderate-income folks who spend almost
all of their income for rent and utilities and groceries and whatever. And the
reduction in water rates, or the stabilization of water rates being less than the
amount of the tax, they will be money ahead with the sales tax. And for that
reason, if for no other reason, and there are a number of other erasons I feel this is
a tremendous opportunity for the City, but for that reason alone I would suport it.
Vanderhoef/And I think there were several of us who were terribly concerned when we
first started out with all of this conversation, about putting operating expenses into
the sales tax. I, for one, was not happy with that. And, when it came down to
push and shove with the promise to put before the voters the opportunity to vote
for the library and cultural center, I was not willing to gamble that we could
support the operatoin of those two new items out of our General Fund as it
presently is. And not knowing when we would have increase or whether we
would have more rollbacks that would take us even further down. So, for me, I
compromised at that point, because I think our General Fund is far to oimprortant
to compromise on additions for specific projects like the library and cultural
This represents only a reasonably accurate transctiption of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 131
center. So, yes, I'm not totally happy with all the thigns that are happening on this
ballot, but yet I feel that it's a very fair, and is recognizing many needs in our
community. And it serves a lot of our people. And I'm willing to go forward with
it.
Thomberry/Karen, I'm going to be supporting sending this to the electorate, but I am not
in favor of the tax. But I think it should be up to the people that we present it to to
make up their own minds whether they think that they can, whether they want it
or don't want it. 50% of the tax money collected will be going to the cultrual
center and the library expansion. And the operations of the two. So, basically,
what I think this tax is, is for that structure, 25% for water rate stabilization. And
I agree with Ernie, that it will help low- and middle-income folks very much. I
really do. Their rates won't be going up like they will be going up without the tax.
The rest of it, I feel is things, are things put in to try to find people something that
they like so that they'll vote for it. I think it's just, it's not frivolous, but what it is
is something for a lot ofdifferen tpeople so that they can find something so that
they will vote for it. But they can read. They will read. And I'm sure that the
months coming up, they'll find out what they're going to be getting if they pass the
tax. And they could make up their own minds.
Norton/Well, I want to take some issue with the implication of that last statement. For
example, Dean, amogn the items here, everubody seemed to me to agree that
we've got a serious need in the public safety area.
Thornberry/Oh, Dee, I'm sorry. I'm not saying that these things are frivolous, but --
Norton/It's in there for a very serious reason.
Thomberry/And I said that they were not frivolous.
Norotn/I think, we need, we've already got pressures for an expanded transit system.
Those pressures are manifest. We've got a study going on right now to look.
Thornberry/Sure.
Norton/We've got to be able, we have not the resources out of the General Fund to do
these things. And I think people do want them. I think we have serious needs in
the human services areas that we're not meeting. So those are not in there as
eyecatchers. They're in there because there are serious needs in this community.
Thornberry/Dee, I don't think that we need this tax in order to, in order to have a well-
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 132
run, nice community. I think that we can do more things with the tax, but I think
the government should be, should be, should live within its budget.
Norton/No doubt.
Thornberry/And if we don't, if the voters don't pass this tax, we will live within our
budget. We won't have some of the niceties that we would like to have fight away.
Not that we can't move things around and get thigns that are very important to us.
But I think that we need, that every government needs to live within its means.
Lehman/We're not debating the pros and cons of the tax. We're debating whether or not
we're going to put the tax on the ballot next March.
Thornberry/That's why I agree.
Kubby/Ernie, it seems that we're going to have to back and review our policy, especially
the transit one needs to be rewritten.
Norton/Yes.
Lehman/Oh, yes.
Kubby/And I don't know if there are other ones now that will need to have that or not.
But we should make sure that we schedule that soon enough that it can be used in
whatever campaign ensues from this. So, but Dee and I are going to be gone on
the informal on the 1 st, so maybe aRer, whatever --
Vanderhoef/H1 be here on Monday, but not --
Norton/The informal's on the 30th, isn't it?
Kubby/Oh. I won't be here either day.
Vanderhoef/H1 be here for informal, but not for formal.
Kubby/But Dean will promote my reduced fare and increased service stance.
Thornberry/I will. I'1 second it.
Kubby/Okay.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#30 page 133
Lehman/Do we have any further discussion, or do we want roll call?
Champion/Let's go for it.
Lehman/Roll call- (yes; Kubby, no).
Karr/Motion to accept correspondence?
Thomberry/So moved.
Kubby/Second.
Lehman/Moved and seconded. All in favor- (ayes), opposed- (none).
Kubby/We had some electronic communication on at least three issues today. That was
very amazing.
Norton/What was that?
Kubby/We had e-mail today from three different, on three different topics from a varieyt
of people.
Lehman/Yeah, we did. And you know, I think that this probably is not the appropriate
time, but I think anytime where you see that volume of e-mail prior to a Council
meeting, that that e-mail probably soudl be carried over to the next meeting.
Norotn/Yep.
Lehman/I don't know how many pages we got tonight, but --
Kubby/Lots and lots.
Thomberry/I haven't had a chance to read it.
Lehman/It's ridiculous for Council to get that kind of mail and expect to even look at it
prior to the meeting. Anyway.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#36 page 134
ITEM NO. 36 CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION.
Lehman/City Council information.
Kubby/I have two really quick things.
Lehman/Okay.
Kubby/One is, just so people know, I will not be at my office hours on November 19th,
nor at Thanksgiving. I will take Thanksgiving off. And secondly, I just wanted to
ask if we, I've had a lot of people, and there's been a lot of stuff in the news about
Y2K issues, and not, even if your organization is doing fine, all your vendors and
people you get supplies from and so I know that we have a City committee
working on that. But if we could get some kind of a written report, that would be
real helpful in answering citizen questions. Because there's a lot of fear out there
about will we have water and sewer and electricity and the one big issue people,
I've heard a couple people be interested in heating about is we don't control the
utility company in terms of gas and electric, but it is huge community public
health issue if for some reason we are not getting supplied with those things, we
could add that to it.
Atkins/We'll prepare a report for you.
Kubby/Thank you. That's all.
Lehman/Connie?
Champion/Well, I had the pleasure of being asked to hang a few lights downtown when
we were hanging up the winter lights, and I wanted to really commend the
inmates in the Oakdale Medical Classification Center, because I thought they did
a terrific job in, it was great to have them volunteer to do that. I also thought, I
found out tonight that Steve said we did feed them, so they had something more
than a bologna sandwich. And I'd like to thank the Warden, Rusty Rogerson for
letting us use those prisoners, and remind people that they also did a lot of work in
City Park after the big wind storm, after THE big wind storm.
Lehman/Yeah, downtown really is beautiful. And I think that we certainly owe a real
debt of thanks to those folks. Mike?
O'Donnell/Well, I'd like to second what Connie said, and also the lights are up. They
look tremendous. Oakdale is part of our community. This is community service,
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City cotmcil meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#36 page 135
and I think we owe them a large debt of thanks. I also Sunday morning I stopped
by a park, there were a group of young guys out raking. I believe it was Phi
Kappa Alpha Fraternity, the pledges were out and they were also doing
community service in raking the yard. I just wanted to thank them. That's all I
have.
Lehman/Okay.
Thornberry/Nothing.
Lehman/Nothing for Mr. Thomberry. Dee?
Vanderhoef/Okay. Just a couple announcement kind of things. For anyone that would
like to get up in the morning for a 7:00 meeting at the Holiday Inn, since we had
so much conversation tonight about transit, I think it's real appropriate to
announce that the Economic Growth Committee from the Chamber is doing a
forum tomorrow morning, actually coffee and rolls at 7:00 and the forum starts at
7:30, and goes till 9:00 on transportation, all sorts of transportation. So we'll have
people from airport and people representing trains, and automobiles and DOT and
local trails people, and our own Jeff Davidson from JCCOG, and I'm planning to
make it.
Kubby/Holiday Inn?
Norton/Holiday Inn, yeah.
Vanderhoef/Holiday Inn.
Norton/7:00?
Vanderhoef/If you want your coffee, yes.
Norton/I'm going to be there, yeah.
Vanderhoef/Okay. And I was remiss last meeting in acknowledging the report that City
Manager and the Finance Manager gave to us in the last packet on the Federal and
State Grant Revenue. And I just thought it would be real interesting for the public
to know that in FY98, we received $9,723,543 in grants for this City. So that
they're broken down into different categories, from the human rights, the planning
and community development, the police department, the fire department, the
library, the transit, capital projects, JCCOG, assisted public housing, emergency
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#36 page 136
shelter grants, home program, community development block grants. I mean, we
are out there looking and promoting all sorts of things in our community and we
should be real proud of what we have accomplished with those dollars. One more
announcement. The downtown shuttle is overwhelmingly successful. And we've
completed one year, and we had thought we would be doing well to have 60,000
riders in our first year. And our actual ridership was 168,834. This is very, very
exciting, and there'll be more figures coming out later. And I understand that
Transit is doing a change in the route, and that most of the riders are on the south
loop versus the noah loop. And I'm not going to try and explain it. If somebody
else knows exactly what it is, I think I know, but I'm not going to quote it off the
top of my head. So, that, those things I'm pleased to have the repoas and show
progress in our City, thanks to our Staff.
Noaon/A couple of items. One, you may be hearing a little bit more about this Smart
Growth Program. The American Planning Association had a representative in
town who gave a briefing at the library last week. This has to do with some of the
issues we're talking about in our growth area, and visible edge to the City and
appropriate land use, particularly on the borders between jurisdictions. And they
have a, Karin was there, Karin Franklin, and some of that information will be
coming to you, I think. I don't know whether it's going to take action, but it'll be
more more reading for you. Mike and I went today this noon to the first meeting
of the SEATS Advisory Committee. And nothing to report, I think, except it's a
very vigorous, good committee, and we met Lisa Dewey, the new Director of
SEATS, and she seemed to have a real good grasp ofwhat's going on there. We'll
be meeting again after, well we meet once a quarter, we've agreed, but maybe
more often while we're getting started. We'll keep you up to date. Now, I wanted
to mention a couple of calls. And I don't know whether any of you had some,
about the Interstate Railroad blocking the walking path the students have used for
years between Greenwood and Melrose. Students who live in the apartments
across the tracks routinely cut across the tracks to their classes. And the Railroad
of course is very concerned about liability issues, so they put a bunch of brush and
ties and one thing and another up there, and blocked that possibility so they would
have to go either all the way down to Greenwood or all the way over to Melrose.
So I said, well, you know, I called the Railroad, because I said it's obviously a
problem. And is there such a thing as a grade crossing for pedestrians? Only for
pedestrians? Well they were quite willing to talk. I talked with Christie, and their
lawyer is going to call me back and is willing to meet to see ifthere's anything --
Kubby/You are the man to call the Railroad.
Atkins/Yeah.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98
#36 page 137
Kubby/We're going to send you there whenever we have a problem.
Norton/They were quite nice, but I tell you, the people were very upset, but the railroad
told me horror stories about people cutting across those tracks. They said people
take their bicycles right through a train.
Champion/Oh sure, I can see them doing that.
Norton/Yeah. He said you should go ride with them sometime. I said uh-oh, there's
another ride I should take. But at any rate, you may hear more about it. I said it
was not our problem, but indirectly --
Lehman/ Okay. I only, I have several things, only one of which I'm going to toot. We
all should try to be at the luncheon on Thursday, 11:30. Great opportunity,
employee luncheon.
Norton/Friday?
Kubby/Thursday.
Norton/Oh, the 19th, yeah, yeah.
Lehman/Great opportunity, a lot of fun. I'm sure that anybody who's been there before
wouldn't want to miss it. And Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting
of November 17, 1998.
F01117/98