Loading...
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