HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-01-06 TranscriptionJanuary 6, 1999 Council Work Session Page 1
Council: Lehman, Champion, Kubby, Norton, O'Donnell, Thomberry ,Vanderhoef.
Staff.' Atkins, Karr, Cohn, Rocca, Yucuis, Jensen, Mansfield, O'Malley, Winklehake.
Tapes: 99-2, Side 2; 99-3, all; 99-4, side 1.
Norton/David Daws, neighborhood coordinator over in Pepperwood. There is a service,
9:00 AM Saturday moming .... A little program. Marcia is going to say a few
words. She is drafting a letter to him ....He really did a lot for that neighborhood
and for the neighborhood council.
Atkins/What I would like to proceed with today is that we have three brief
presentations .... On what I thought were three of the major issues in the operating
budget as they relate to Fire, Information Services, Police .... We would have Don
do a review of our Utility Funds .... I would like to have some discussion on
that our t 14th we will also have Boards and
Commissions .....
Kubby/When is the p.h.?
Atkins/23rd of February we are thinking about .... Okay, what I would like to do is begin
with the project on Fire Station #4, our proposal. I would like Andy and Roger...
take you through what our thinking was in making this recommendation .... We
had Moody's all day today .... Don is still scurrying around.
Fire Station 99-2 S2
Rocca/Good afternoon. I promise to be brief.... Giving you a little bit of the
background... need for the 4th fire station .... Important for you to understand
some of the thought process .... Standard of Cover (See overhead) is one issue
that I think you need to understand .... Standard of cover... agency statement ....
Service goals and objectives... to service delivery. The how, why, when and the
what. For example .... Goals and objectives, the Fire Department .... We have
established a goal to respond to fire emergencies as efficiently and effectively as
possible. One of those objectives... to achieve an arrival time of the first due fire
company .... Within six minutes at least 90% of the time .... It is measurable ....
We are matching our agency service delivery objectives with our resources .... We
also want to benchmark those response times .... If we say we have an average
response time of 4.3 minutes .... Doesn't tell you very much .... We want to be
able to use the benchmark standard .... We need to intervene with interior
structural fire fighting attack prior to ten minutes for when flashover might
occur .... Conversely... EMS .... That benchmark of response time for a medical
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emergency... heaa attack, we need to intervene with some type of CPR .... Within
that 4- 6 minute range before brain death occurs .... So those are the standard of
time that we are looking at to benchmark those response times.
Talking about the arrival of fire apparatus .... OSHA has a little bit of an impact
on what we can and can't do on arrival as well .... First due fire company...
probably a three person engine company and they have some limited capabilities
when you talk about fire but they can certainly do all of their duties as related to
EMS ....
Fixed base response. It is quite common. It is currently how we do our service
delivery here in Iowa City .... I have got some examples of other career
departments .... Probably the main point is that it is really determined at that local
level. There is no real national standard .... Topography, arterial street system ....
Service delivery that you are trying to provide the community. It really is a local
issue ....
Geography (See overhead) .... Population... in Iowa City... has grown about
33%... area of coverage is about 22.5 square miles .... Call volume since 1972 we
have 513... requests for services in 1972. Our call volume has expanded by 7
times to over 3700 for calendar year ending 1998. Our menu of services has also
grown dramatically as well .... EMS .... Public education...code enforcement...
hazardous materials... confined space rescue .... There are a number of services
that we are currently providing ....
Neighborhoods and street development. The number one bullet there, the lack of
arterial street network .... This is one of the determining factors of the distribution
of your resources and how you provide consistent service throughout the
community ..... Crux of that is how impoaant First Avenue and Captain Irish
Parkway is to the noaheast area of this city .... There is no real good through route
up there right now .... Overheads... graphically display the response areas that are
currently designed with three stations and what it would do with the fourth
station ....To show how it would improve service delivery in that noaheast
area ....
Thornberry/How do you get to that area? .... Noaheast area .... Out by the Highlander ....
Rocca/Governor-Dodge .... It is the long way around .... Response time modeling studies
show us we are in excess often minutes .... Closer to 12 minutes to a facility like
the Highlander ....Significantly past those benchmarks in time that I
mentioned ....
Norton/
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Vanderhoef/Do you want to show that northeast area now or after?
Rocca/
I will leave it to you .... You would like to see it? Why don't we go ahead and
show the existing response area with three stations. (See overhead maps). We
have Station #1 here, Station #2 at Emerald and Melrose and then Station #3
...Lower Muscatine Road .... Response area for Station #1 ..... Station #2 and
Station #3 .... Take southeast but noah as well .... Response areas as we know
them. Go ahead and look at the fourth station configuration .... Also have them
broke down by times .... We have the existing location as well as the added
location of Station #4 somewhere up in this area ..... You can see it lends itself
very well to the extreme north portion as well as providing some good first due
response area as well as support area as a second due company .... As well as
good arterial street network to get into the central business district or district 1.
Any questions? ....
Thornberry/That area (refers to map) .... That area has grown in the last ten years... by
one third. It is growing like crazy up there and I hear those fire trucks and
ambulances going up Noah Dodge out to the interstate .... Sometimes it is very
very difficult to get through ....
RoccaJ The importance of that good arterial street network and that is really the point I
am trying to make... Also important for you to see geographically how these
stations lay out and the area of coverage .... Response time ....
Norton/Andy, I am looking ahead at the additional nine fire fighters .... Article about fire
being much less tiequent than they were .... Fire departments are trying to find
jobs for themselves ....To stay in business. I am trying to square that with adding
nine fire fighters ....Didn't have any growth, according to the census since
1990 .... I am having a little trouble seeing nine new fire fighters on top of a
reduced demand ....
Rocca/If you looked at the increased demand or the increased menu of services and the
staffing levels that we had in '72 are virtually unchanged .... Call volume as gone
up... in-fill network .... Lack of good arterial street network. It all complicates our
ability to deliver services that you have said you want us to provide the
community .... I don't see I have a hard time finding chores... for the fire fighters
to perform given the call volume as well as our routine training activities ....
O'Donnell/How many firemen did we have in '72? ....
Rocca/51 uniform.
O'Donnell/How many do we have in '98?
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RoccaJ 51 uniformed.
O'Donnell/
Rocca/Over 3700 calls a year.
Norton/Fire protection and quality of materials have improved .... 65% of the calls are
emergency.
Rocca/You have to look at the function of those agencies at the call. We have a tiered
emergency medical system .... Roles around back to that standard of cover for an
emergency. There is an expectation that we are going to provide emergency
medical service .... and cooperation with city and county agencies as well .... We
feel it is important that we provide it consistently throughout the community ....
Lehman/That fire station that we are looking at ....Is that predicated on Captain Irish or
First Avenue being completed?
Rocca/They are very critical. We still have a service delivery problem without that
component .... If we want to maximize the location and the distribution of our
resources, those arterial streets are very important to support this.
Kubby/... still a lot of empty space in the noaheast area .... If we make a decision about
that fire station being there, that probably means we have to do arterial streets in
that area which facilitates the scheduling of developing in that area and that we
will be driving all of that with this kind of decision ....Is there another place? ....
As Coralville continues to grow very aggressively .... Really kind of a policy
decision. I think the numbers show that we need a forth station from the
perspective of development/I am not sure the northeast side is the best place to do
it ....
Lehman/What is the pressure on the west side fire station?
Rocca/
We have recon~gured that district in the last couple of years .... We have looked
at Coralville as an option .... Imminent development given Captain Irish
Parkway .... Investment we have already made in that area, station #2 currently is
staffed, it is doing the service delivery to the best of its ability .... I see it as a
lesser need to this northeast area which development is really imminent up
there .... Windsor Ridge... all the annexation... Captain Irish Parkway and the
water infrastructure .... It is going to develop. It is a very good move to place this
station ahead of development .... It is a smart move at this point.
Norton/
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Vanderhoef/Water and sewer is the infrastructure that is opening up that whole northeast
area .... Also added a growth area then north of the interstate ....
Lehman/How much area north of interstate do we service?
Rocca/ACT, Westinghouse, Highlander, Noahgate Development, basically.
Norton/In principle there is 700 acres up in there that we have talked about ....
Vanderhoef/That has been added to our growth area ....
Lehman/
Rocca/That whole area north of Court Street .... That is a big area .... Even with that
Windsor Ridge development we are on the fringe of what station #3 is able to
do .... It makes good sense from a support link ....
Thornberry/It is not just the number of structures .... Northeast area there is a lot of
woodland .... There are people up there that still burn .... Forest fire ....
Norton/Will this change at all if Coralville decides to go non-volunteer?
RoccaJ Again, I see that more of an impact on the west side .... Slightly lower priority
than what I am talking about with the northeast .....Once they do...receive a letter
from me ....
Kubby/Nine full-time fire fighters doesn't really- that translates into what? ....
Rocca/They work a California string schedule .... MWF .... Work a three day swing and
then they are off three days .... Three assigned ....
Norton/What is the minimum number you have to have? ....
RoccaJ
If you want me to move through this, I will address some of those issues for you.
The driving point I want to make ..... need to look at this northeast area and
provide three good routes ....First Avenue/Scott Blvd./Dodge Street... very
important as this develops.
Two In/Two Out regulation (see overhead) is something that we have had some
discussion on... the driving force in a structural fire situation. Fire departments
have to have two persons inside ready to go .... initiate the interior attack as well
as have two people outside to provide backup .... Command staff functions...
OSHA, need to have two people inside and two people outside to provide
backup .... Time is that critical element ....
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Emergency call back and emergency aid requests are on the rise .... Fire fighter
safety and survival are very important .... Cover the emergency that we have
working but also other additional requests for EMS or hazardous materials or
rescue .... As well as requesting mutual aid from the volunteer fire departments ....
Standing 28E agreement .... Other 11 agencies ....Good working agreement...
Those requests are up ....
Kubby/
Rocca/They are working quite a bit... geographic areas .... They are going to call some
of the closer agencies ....
Menu of Services (see overhead). I think you know we have expanded that
dramatically .... We have gone off into public education, fire prevention, safe kid
coalition, safety programs, hazardous materials .... These are all good
initiatives .... Expectation our there that these service delivery options continue.
Public education would be better served at the new facility, Station #4 ....Have
some very critical storage needs ....Investment in good quality equipment .... We
want to satisfy some of our storage needs that are driven by out public education
program ..... Facility can be much more than a fire station .... Community
training/educational facility .... Currently our aerial ladder fits in one fire station,
station #1 .... This facility should be designed so that it can afford storage space,
response area for large pieces of equipment. It should also be expandable to look
to the future ..... We feel multi-agency use if a very important component of the
new facility as well ....Police report writing room... ambulances .... Link up with
the sheriff....
Lehman/I find that very appealing, multi-agency .... The more we can incorporate
cooperation with the police and the sheriff....
Rocca/We are all better served .... Better use of the facility to have multi-agency use.
Kubby/I know the county has been interested in getting another ambulance ....
Lehman/
Thornberry/Andy, do you have a boat?
Rocca/Yes, we do .... Provided to us by the county .....here at station #1...
I would like to summarize quickly then (see Summary overhead) .... The standard
of cover is how we look at our agency service delivery objectives and match those
with our resources .... How, when, where, why, what ..... Growth and access
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issues .... Response times, its the most critical component... We need to have
good access .... Arterial streets ..... proponents of a grid street pattern .... The
structural fire fighting mandates through OSHA .... Operate in a safe and efficient
manner .... Menu of services, it has expanded dramatically. We feel that this new
facility would better serve our station #4 in public education program ....
Kubby/That minimum number of new personnel you need is 9 if we do the new station?
Rocca/Correct ..... That will operate the station ....
Thomberry/...They could move somebody from #1 to #4.
Rocca/And that occurs now.
Lehman/What we are looking at in the CIP, this is scheduled for 2003 .... You are
looking for some indication from us whether or not we would look favorably
upon keeping that in the CIP. Is that correct?
Rocca/Certainly I think Steve wants to address that.
Lehman/Without the station, you don't need the firemen.
Norton/
Atkins/We have proposed in the budget for the year 03 to build the station .... 03 was
somewhat arbitrary .... If you choose to move it up we could certainly go to our
reserves .... Our general thinking is a year to plan and a year to build ....
Kubby/We have to look at the schedule for Captain Irish ....
Atkins/It does fit in with the Captain Irish ....
Thomberry/...03?
Atkins/...that is construction .... That is a door open day ..... I am assuming... some form
of debt... We have to find the site... In the northeast plan there is a spot they have
shown for a public building...fire station/community center. And how we fit that
in... level of interest we find here.
Thornberry/When would we need to start the planning process for that station?
Atkins/I believe .... You should have this planned immediately .... Andy has convinced
me that the northeast area is the area where this should be located .... Let's do it
before the neighborhood develops. Let it grow up around this .... We need to
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make this decision sooner .... We have to purchase the site .... Street design, street
construction .... All can occur simultaneously.
Thornberry/I don't want to build my house and then have sirens go off after I build my
house .... Then I know where to build my house.
Atkins/We went through a work session .... We faced that issue ....Certainly a desire for
public safety services ....
Norton/I still see $400,000 in personnel services in '01. Are we adding personnel?
Atkins/Yes, I staged the personnel three, three and three.
Kubby/Why not start in 2003?
Atkins/Then you would not have enough personnel to open the station 24 hours a day ....
I wanted to reach the point where Northeast Plan, streets, staff, fire station would
all come together at the same time ....
RoccaJ As staff was brought on, we would be able to train them .... Deliver service.
Thornberry/How long does it take to train a fireman?
Rocca/We have an orientation program that is several weeks long...probation for a
year... fairly intensive training... They are required to attend Fire fighter I
certification... EMT emergency medical technician .... Several weeks, months of
training .... They received roughly 12 hours of training a month thereafter ....
Lehman/
RoccaJ 12 months...
Lehman/So a year .... Fully trained ....
Rocca/They will be full fledged fire fighters when they have that 12 months in.
Thornberry/Your training is never over ....
Champion/...real asset ....
Thomberry/3,187 more calls in 1998 ....
Norton/ ....I kind of wonder where rationality lies ....I am just trying to be careful ....
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(All talking).
Atkins/We did not expect a yes or no answer. However, when you do adopt the budget, I
am assuming at that time it will be yes or no to proceed ....Once of the first things
is looking for the site ....
Lehman/...not quite as simple as just yes or no to a fire station .... Unless we are willing
to do the arterial street work and whatever to make it a really functional fire
station ....
RoccaJ We still have service delivery to look at in that area ....Arterial streets need to
come into that discussion.
Lehman/It would be foolish to invest a lot of money into a first class facility ....If we
don't make it as accessible as we possibly can to the total area.
Kubby/...We can only tentatively make decisions about other arterials.
Norton/Captain Irish is certainly coming along ....
Vanderhoef/'02 would be the year when First Avenue could go through.
Rocca/...I appreciate the opportunity to present this information.
Kubby/I have another question about the fire marshal. I guess I don't understand what
specifically that person would do ....
Rocca/Specifically they would be in charge of a permit based inspection program
targeting high hazard occupancies .... Code enforcement program that would
ultimately fund the position ....
Kubby/ .... I think I need more information about what is the need for that in our
community. Does it wan'ant a full time person? .... I need to understand the
need ....
Rocca/...We have determined the need because currently there is really nobody who has
the time to devote to the detail necessary to perform those types of inspections ....
Kubby/ ....sounds like something OSHA should be doing ....
RoccaJ They are truly regulated locally here.
Kubby/
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Rocca/Through our code enforcement program they are regulated locally. We adopt the
Uniform Fire Code. It mandates .... sets out all the requirements .... Another
important area... residential occupancies. We currently don't have anybody ....
To go out and look at sprinkler systems in apartment houses... multi-family
dwelling units... to make sure they have been tested... inspected on an annual
basis ....
Vanderhoef] If you are talking about doing annual inspections .... Then what would your
anticipation be of an inspection fee that would help fund that fire marshal?
Rocca/ .... would allow by permit a fire alarm system... a sprinkler system... Those funds
would support this position. Initially .... Looking at things the Fire Department
currently looks at .... Flammable liquids... areas that we traditionally work in. We
have some discussion with HIS and they are very supportive of our impact on
residential occupancies ....
Norton/How do we do that now... proper inspections? ....
Rocca/We are experiencing a lot of difficulties with keeping up ....
Lehman/...don't we inspect these things when they are installed?
RoccaJ Yes we do... However .... They are looking at a sheet from the installer ....
Looking at the critical components .... It is kind of complicated.
Lehman/All fight, HIS supervises the construction of the property, we give them an
occupancy permit and whatever. Supposedly they have met all of the code
requirements ....
Rocca/
In most cases they have... There have been instances where something got missed
on a plan review or we didn't have staff available to specifically look at a fire
alarm component .... And so we are working together with HIS to try to correct
some of these deficiencies .... They are very supportive fthis position ....
Lehman/There are ways that these inspections can be coordinated with HIS .... Huge
inspection group fight now .... I would hate to think we are duplicating HIS
between fire inspectors and HIS.
Rocca/You are talking about devises that are very specialized...advanced technology ....
That is a little bit out of the purview of a housing inspector.
Kubby/It definitely should be coordinated.
Rocca/
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Lehman/If we choose to make fire inspections with fire department inspectors .... Does
that mean that HIS will not inspect fire alarms when they do their inspections?
RoccaJ They still are going to look for some certification ....
Lehman/
Rocca/They are going to look for some kind of a certification saying the alarm of
sprinkler system .... Has been inspected by a qualified person. We will be looking
at the details of the system, the components .... Details of the specialized fire and
life safety equipment will be our responsibility at that point.
Lehman/...Is he going to have two inspections?
Rocca/The potential is there ....We are talking about one fire inspector with this level of
training that is required ....
Lehman/As a property owner ..... I wouldn't be particularly excited about having two
inspections covering the same thing. I believe that one inspection should be able
to cover both .... We should have the ability .... Just so we don't have two
inspections going on at two different times.
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 99-3 SIDE 1
Rocca/Until we get systems out there that are going to be right the first time.. tested
adequately.
Lehman/We could coordinate that with HIS so we make one inspection and do the job
for both.
Thornberry/There is more than one inspection involved .... To get your occupancy, you
have to get signed off from everybody and one of them is the fire department ....
The HIS comes out periodically...
Lehman/I am talking about after we have an occupancy .... It is an inconvenience to have
to make appointments to have 2 or 3 different inspections... coordinate .... It
would certainly be a lot more convenient ....
RoccaJ It is something that can be scheduled and accomplished.
Kubby/Because it is mostly an inspection function .... Would it be cheaper to have an
inspector who has specialty in these issues of hazardous materials and fire
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systems instead of having a fully trained fire fighter? ....Who would not
necessarily be a fire fighter ....
Thornberry/At least it is a duel use person.
Kubby/
Rocca/Roger's duties are largely investigation, education, fire cause determination ....
We see this position being used in a similar fashion to that .... Experience they
gain from being a fire fighter... gives them some insight into what they are
looking for when they are in the field looking at this equipment ....I don't see that
a waste of experience or a fire fighter position at all.
Norton/
Rocca/...It is a physically demanding job in itself.... I think ....it is much more
economical to prevent fires than it is to put them out ....
Kubby/How many times has there been fires or calls to put out fires because of these
hazardous materials?...
Rocca/You are talking in a fixed facility as opposed to a transportation emergency as far
as Hazmat goes?
Kubby/Yeah ....
Roeca/We can pull together some preliminary numbers and occupancy types of hazards
that are in those buildings. Okay, we will put together some numbers for you.
Kubby/
Norton/
Rocca/Thank you.
[Council Break[
Informational Services 99-3 S1
Atkins/The next item up for you is Information Services. You all know Kevin O'Malley
and Gary Cohn ....
O'Malley/ .... I am going to do a little bit of definition of what we do and then get into
our budget request. Most of this is done on Power Point .... Also using some
internet connection. I will start out with Information Services. (See Meet
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Information Services overhead). I am the division head, Gary is our coordinator.
We have two senior programmers and two program analysts and operations
specialty. We also have a few contract employees who work at different times on
different projects .... Change the name from Data Processing to Information
Services...redefine what we do... (See Information Services Missions
Statement overhead) partnership with our clients to increase the organizational
efficiency and productivity through the effective use of information technology ....
We saw a need to provide people in the city with information at their tingenips ....
Thomberry/I am getting disorientated with your arrow ....
O'Malley/(See What Information Services Does overhead). Application
Development .... Payroll, parking system, utilities and accounts payable
system...developed in-house .... Advent of personal computers .... Desktop
support .... Network with other people .... survey of our clients... training...
planning for information technology needs ....
(See Data Processing vs. Information Services overhead). 1990 4.5 full time
equivalents and they supported five PCs. In 1998 they are supporting 299 PCs
with 6 full time equivalents .... (See Supported PCs overhead) .... 5 PCs and 294
PCs representation of quantities .... Keeping these machines running .... Being
able to talk back and forth with other departments... complexifies... each
machine is a little different. It requires a lot of human interaction.
Kubby/Is our hardware pretty consistent in terms of the machine itself?.
O'Malley/We did standardize... on one vendor .... Each time... new components .... This
graphs shows the number of PCs on the desktop .... R.J .... information planning...
every officer, he want sot have them have a badge, a uniform, a holster and a
laptop .... Now every officer is going to be getting that... communication
availability ....
This is a technical term (see Networking overhead) .... With advent ofintemet...
share printers... put in different cables .... This building has be rewired... based
on the bandwidth capability. The word "cat".... 24 bits .... Sending images .....
GIS. Desktop publishing, mapping .... Needed a larger pipe to get that... putting
in networks ....
(See Desktop Support overhead). These are some of the types of services,
questions... software ....PC replacement programs... Sot~tware licensing .... Make
sure that no one is pirating software that is in the city ....We have users ....If they
want to share documents .... Now we are standardized more on Office 97.
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(See Desktop Diagram overhead) .... diagram of what we do when we go to a
desktop .... Different pieces of software .... Several different operating systems ....
They have to have a network operating system .... Then we have different mini-
computers within the city... Police Department, Financial... groupware...
communication throughout .... Actual tools, word processing, spreadsheets, data
bases, Power Point ....Web browset .... SoRware sites... hardware issues .... A lot
of cabling issues ....Internet and the intranet ....People in this budget request to
manage these two products. They sit on a web server .... Idea of some of the work
that is done down there.
(See Systems Management overhead). Systems management refers to the mini-
computers and the file servers. We have them talk to each other to share
information .... You have to understand the different languages. This is the
AS400, the police computer aided dispatch and the records management .... Talks
to the Mobile Data Switch in the police cars... state computer... interfaces ....The
Alph is our financial system (see file servers/mini computers graph overhead).
Growth that we have had in the past. In 1990 we had one mini computer and two
file servers .... Today we have 15 and 2 .... We have all these talking to each
other .... Eight local networks .... Each building that we have it connected or
planning to be connected to a wide area network.
(See Current Projects overhead). Expansion of the Imaging Systems .... Pilot
project for Marjan a year ago... expand it on into Engineering, Legal and
Planning ....CAD image and the maps... fiber optics .... Using wires that send
wire through and data... allows images, sounds, video .... You have to have a
backbone in place to do that. The internet...outside network of networks... We
want to provide as many employees .... They need to know what is going on in the
city .... Kiosk in each different division so they can check personnel policies, get
mail... communications... This is Doug's system .... Building Inspections .... Also
the beginnings of a GIS system .... Police system... Year 2000 compliance ....
Financial Information System .... GIS...customer service kiosk .... Expansion ....
Kubby/
O'Malley/Make it open to everyone. (See Year 2000 Compliance overhead). We are
coordinating with all the divisions and the departments on the awareness and
inventory aspects of the system. Our current financial system... I believe all but
maybe 10-15 PCs, the hardware has been fixed out of the 295 PCs.
Kubby/
working of the city departments of the intemet .... This is a diagram of how
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communication flow just within this building here (see Network Diagram
overhead). This is a simplified diagram .... Devises that control all of the
information... Quite a cable plant invested in this building. We also have
routers... send information out of the building ....Past four years... hiring people
to come in at night... wire these buildings for this ....reliable, immediate ....
Networking is more on the electronic ....
Kubby/
O'Malley/They need to be maintained .... Connections fail.. electronic devices .... Traffic
on these .... Traffic flow... These are routers. They are the size of a small... not
much bigger than a laptop .... In closets ....Fiber backbone ....We steal closets ....
We have to be involved .... The firewall is a device to stop hackers out here from
coming in and destroying our data and this costs us quite a bit of money.
Kubby/
O'Malley/It happens now .... Making sure that it is reliable ....If this fails because of
cable connections ....Electronic devices are very sensitive to power
fluctuations .... Looking in two years from now having some one on site to
manage the local area network... all of our connections...
Norton/
O'Malley/The software changes .... Because of the people out here trying to get inside,
you have to come up .... Certain known viruses and hackers .... These other
routers also have firmware that need to be replaced just for growth ....
Norton/
O'Malley/The cables, they are adequate...As applications get more multi-media, these
cables .... have to be replaced .... Putting in a specification of category 5 which
can handle those .... Growth and management requirements.
Norton/ .... These things... efficiencies .... In some ways you ought not have to man a
particular station... Are there efficiencies that grow out of this?
O'Malley/There is nobody to man those now. I have been hiring it on the outside .... In
order to keep that more reliable, I want somebody onsite because we have enough
workload now for that person to go...
Kubby/Do we have a sense of how much it is costing us per year for that outside trouble
shooter? ....
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O'Malley/We have been putting in new to the tune of about $20,000 - $25,000 per
building and they go in and they run the cable in, put the electronics in and then
they walk away ....
Kubby/
O'Malley/...we are charging $44 an hour.
Norton/Are we doing more and more things or are we doing the same things more
efficiently?
We are not even doing it, somebody is doing it ..... Are we saving money overall?
O'Malley/We are just doing more things we never did before. We are at a place where it
is an evolution .... Boom in technology .... How are we going to manage it? We
have been managing it with outside people and now .... If you want a reliable
network, you need somebody in house so that you have that ....
Norton/...What I am worded about is that we are doing things we didn't use to do ....
O'Malley/We are doing things that we didn't do before ....
Lehman/...How are we doing things better today because of all of this?
O'Malley/Five years ago you didn't have multi-media soilware available to provide
presentations .... Very effective .... We are behind the scenes outfit .... I am getting
to the point where we have too much investment in electronics with nobody
around that can understand it.
Norton/We want to be sure ....
O'Malley/On this firewall box here .... That we have web send. This proxy server acts as
a guardian for inappropriate material to go in and out .... Have the ability to
present to the outside world information that shouldn't go out there ....
Gatekeeper .... A product that we never had before .... When we went to an
outside connection, we developed a whole line of service that we didn't have
before ....
Champion/You are looking for somebody to maintain what we already have?
O'Malley/What we have built .... We have built quite an infrastructure in cabling and
electronics ....
Kubby/What is the title of this person?
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O'Malley/Data communications analyst.
Kubby/...it is not under Information Services in here.
O'Malley/It is in the year 2 ....
Mansfield/It is the year 2001 ....
Kubby/How much is it?
O'Malley/I assume it is about $65,000 .... Very technical position ....
Norton/This area is tough ....
Thornberry/It won't tum up a bottom line ....
Norton/I understand that... You don't have the bottom line issue ....
Lehman/No .... example with David Schoon... better presentation... better job ....
Norton/Might lead to economic development opportunities ....
(All talking).
Norton/I am trying to get a handle on cost benefit.
O'Malley/This iS an industry term... systems analyst ....
Thomberry/...You have been paying this guy to come in and do all of these things.
O'Malley/Different firms.
Thornberry/Will this one position eliminate having to call these other people?
O'Malley/Yes .... At least $35,000 a building over the past few years.
Kubby/...this new person,-will they be able .... Replace cable ....?
O'Malley/Right .... Like an electronics engineer ....Electrical engineer .....Other thing...
part of this diagram... wireless communication... radio frequencies .... Electrical
engineering ..... fibers .... light ..... Last year I was reading that our overall
telephone system in the United States... more date went over it than voice .... We
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do have a person in our purchasing division who does a lot of work in
telecommunications and some of that could be relieved y this person ....
Kubby/...information kiosks at Sycamore Mall or the library?
O'Malley/Right .... That is when we get into the next one. One you have got the physical
infrastructure in place, you have to present it...new tools now a days to do that ....
Kubby/Do we really need a full time? ....
O'Malley/Long term we need a full time person. Short term we will need a full time
person. I have got plenty of things for that person to .do besides developing web
pages .... Web development .... training users .... Two tasks that person is going to
be responsible for: Working with the Manager and Oversight Committee on
content presentation .... What does the City of Iowa City want to look like .... We
have been contracting that work out .... It is in different flavors .... We want to get
back to centralizing this ....Web technology is a new tool and a lot of people here
have to learn how to use it ....Part of what we do is training ....Thirdly we are
looking at replacing our financial information system .... It is also web enabled...
creating the data bases to hook up to the kiosks. We have a lot of things for that
person to do ....
Thornberry/
Kubby/Is there anyway for us to track how our investment and infrastructure and the
maintenance of the information... helps provide services to people? ....
O'Malley/Aren't every good matrixes for this in the whole industry .... How do you do a
return on investment on this? ....
Kubby/Convenience by people needing services ....
Lehman/Real value... intercommunication among folks who work at the city ....
Information to the public ....
Kubby/
Norton/
(All talking).
Norton/Scanlon Gym... restoration for downtown .... Ought to be reducing a person at
the other place ....Never seems to work that way .... I want to see it up the
efficiency ....
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Mansfield/An example .... I have got my PC at my desk .... Don and I use spreadsheets
all of the time... Excel .... The ability to get the information .... Print it out .... The
ability to capture that one piece of information ....
Kubby/
Lehman/
Norton/We ought to keep struggling to try to find places where this has an effect .... How
the public feels about the city .... Track the virtues of this kind of stuff....
Champion/
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 99-3 SIDE 2
Thornberry/Increases the number of people .... Keeping up with the changes .... It adds
new people but a different type of person ....
Kubby/
Thornberry/Still you are going to have more people because you have new
communications ....
Lehman/
O'Malley/The point is how do you justify?
Lehman/Even in that trip we made down to the sewer plant .... Far more efficient
operation because of what they can do with computers ....
Kubby/Important for us to articulate the value of this investment.
Norton/That is what I am trying to get at ....Let's try to find ways ....
Kubby/... you can go to the kiosk to get information... People can get direct access...
Create a sense of ownership to local govemment ....
Norton/Street guys when they are doing the snow... know where they are ....
O'Malley/To just touch on these quickly then .... (See Seattle and The Structure of a
Web Site overheads). Web server .... Presentation similar to the City of Seattle,
this is an example .... This is what the person will be creating .... This is how
people outside the city will know what Iowa City is all about. We will get
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statistics as to how many people hit this page ....One measure ....To see how
many people are looking at Iowa City... It tracks each category .... Bus
schedules .... Current area .... Road construction... parking information... We
have all of that in different forms... writing it in this language and presenting it
out on the net ....
Thomberry/Would there be a possibility of private enterprise paying to put their
information on the Iowa City public access network? ....
O'Malley/There have been some cities that have tried that .... real estate people ....
Thornberry/How would you know where to stay? ....
O'Malley/This would have links to those pages .... make it convenient ....Different
categories ....
Lehman/The real problem with selling space... category .... People expect this
information to be somewhat complete ....
Thomberry/
Lehman/
O'Malley/This is the other piece of work that the web master does. They will be
managing this hardware... web server and actually writing the pages ....
Norton/The person who organizes the web pages... technical... savvy of salesman ....
Help somebody to conceptualize ....
O'Malley/Not only the technical application skills but some system analysis skills .... It
is not somebody I would just have as a programmer .... Last person is a clerk half-
time ....Somebody has got to manage that .... This is an issue for intemal
control ....
Lehman/When are you going to hire this person?
O'Malley/Whenever you authorize .... (See Information Services An Internal Service
Function overhead). I am financial in nature .... When this was a data processing
function, it was completely supported by the General Fund .... In the municipal
government area we have General Fund and Internal Service Fund and Utility
Funds... accounted for like a business .... Fee structure... charge back to replace
the assets .... Maintenance .... These people will be funded by chargeback .... We
are operating as a proprietary fund .... We spend a lot... water and waste water
spend a lot of our resources .... Utility bills, payroll aspects... They have an
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operational network .... We have the information network... We connect to that...
manage all of their hardware and all of their interaction .....I am over my ten
minutes ....
Kubby/Go back to that last one ....
O'Malley/Mission statement... these are our goals (see What Can We Do For You and
Our Goals overheads) .... Keep the quality of service high ....Now I am looking
to you for fulfillment.
Lehman/Kevin... we fell the city should be as user friendly .... Treat... citizens of Iowa
City the best we possibly can... make us provide better service to the people in
this community.
O'Malley/ .... we don't have the matrix to try and prove that .... intangible... professional
organization .... Some sort of data on number of hits ....
(All talking).
Karr/One example... customer service .... 8:00 to 5:00...ability to search... after 5:00
and on weekends .... Customer service that is not available now.
Kubby/How does it help internally to create more teamwork amongst a department or
between departments... interdisciplinary stuff....
(All talking).
[Council Break]
Police 99-3 S2
Atkins/Next item is Police ....
Winklehake/ ..... Use of technology .... One of the things that we have tried to do with the
Police Department is to use technology to make the job faster .... Been able to
bring in technology to be able to help the officer to be able to do the job better ....
Where they can run the information on license plates and driver's records and
criminal history. They can do it right from the car .... Use technology as a way of
expediting work that has to be done and reducing the need to have additional
people all of the time .... We have been able to do that fairly effectively ....
Take ten minutes... six officers on the Police Department. History ....
background .... We applied for this particular grant... It came into being after the
shooting was done on the south side of town. We had weapons discharged three
times within 12 hours and one young man was hit down there. We had cars shot at
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down at the airport and then automatic weapon discharge about midnight ....
Between those two instances. At that point... create our SCAT team, Street
Crimes Action Team .... Find grant money .... To replace those six... This grant...
Steve has all the financial part of it .... This one does have a match. This is one is
good for $450,000 over three years. It comes out to $75,000 per officer for a three
year period .... $25,000 is not salary and benefits for a new police officer .... Idea
was the replace the six officers... were able to do that... allow us to keep a SCAT
team... put them in place to deal with some issues that we have and those issues
are not going to go away .... I don't have any long term expectations .... And bring
them back into patrol unit very quickly ....People we dealt with early on are back.
They are not going to be going away .... Same issues.
Norton/When you set up that special unit, that absorbed all of the previous grant?
Winklehake/Oh, no .... we took them out of our patrol .... Previous funding was for a
total of eight. We had hired six, we since hired the last two on that funding.
Norton/The new six will get you what?
Winklehake/They will get us back to where we were in the beginning of '98.
Kubby/I thought we were going to use these to expand community policing ....
Winklehake/This will just get us back to where we were .... Impact on community
policing as well .... The six re are looking to would be to replace the six officers
we took out of the general patrol and put into this specialized unit. By doing that
we get our staffing back to where it was before the shooting situation. What that
will do is put more people on the day watch, evenings and late nights. In the
beginning of 1998 before we had this particular incident, we were able to provide
police officers in the downtown area. We had people designated to be down there.
By pulling six people and putting them in this other area .... We diminished our
ability to put the people into the downtown area which is one of the major
concerns that we have. By having this it gets us back to where we were in the
beginning and that was allowing us to put people in the downtown area and do
more with community policing .... Going to have to have the time for the officers
to meet with the people in the neighborhood .... They are going to be investigating
a whole series of crimes that patrols officers were doing before. They are going to
be dealing with those issues on an ongoing basis .... Additional time to really do
community policing. Right now we do community policing to some degree in
name only because we don't have the time to go to the neighborhood watches, the
neighborhood associations because of calls for service.
1989 we dealt with ....35,000 calls. Ending in 1998 1 think we are going to be
hitting about 70,000 ....When you talk about neighborhood policing efforts... use
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of technology ....Doing more things with computers... officers can do things a
little quicker ....Frees up time for them ....Impact on our ability to do more in the
area of neighborhood policing .... SCAT team was good example of neighborhood
policing because they dealt directly with people in the neighborhood .... We
brought additional resources .... Had the power company come in and put lights
up ....Lights put up in Wetherby Park ....Public Works did some clean up in the
area ....Landlords... Parks and Rec folks ....Programming down there for kids...
I would like to be able to do that throughout our community .... Give the officers
the time.
Kubby/If these six folks... will be placed patrols... more coverage downtown. How will
that help community policing in other areas of the community?
Winklehake/There would be additional officers throughout our community .... (See Field
Operations handout).
Lehman/R. J., this grant amounts to $150,000 a year with a match .... City's ....
$111,000. That is for personnel costs and benefits. Is that correct?
Winklehake/Yes.
Lehman/What are we looking at in the cost of the equipment, whatever to equip these
officers and operate?
Winklehake/We have to uniforms .... Training .... My understand that a number of people
that are applying are certified police officers .... Uniform costs ....
Lehman/Are you talking about cars, computers?
Winklehake/We have, we believe, sufficient cars, at the present time .... Visit a site in
Chicago... grant for $367,500 to replace equipment .... Two other grants .... All to
do that kind of work .... Be able to supply that kind of equipment through those
grants .... We did put a provision in .... if these people are hired, this is what it
would cost us .... Cars, because of the way we distribute our personnel... cars
should not be a problem at this point.
Norton/I guess I don't understand what the total cost is ....Per year... salary cost...
equipment, training...
Winklehake/The dollars that you will get out of the grant is $150,000 a year .... Another
$110,000 or $111,000 General Fund .... Rest of the salary, rest of the benefits.
Lehman/But no equipment.
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Norton/Then there is an equipment and training category that adds to that.
Atkins/Commodities and services charges.
Norton/
Atkins/
Winklehake/The Academy runs about $2500 ....
Atkins/They receive a uniform allowance in the neighborhood of about $600 ....
Winklehake/Our initial cost is about $1200 to uniform an officer ....
Lehman/Probably talking $5000 per person to equip them and train them in addition to
their salary.
Winklehake/In addition to that is the training time they spend when they are here ....
When we hire we put them through a field training program here between 14 and
16 weeks ....
Norton/We still don't have officers identified with particular neighborhoods .... Not
with .... Downtown.
Winklehake/We do have officers assigned to the same beat permanently .... For a year at
the time. What you don't have is their ability to be able to go to your
neighborhood association... when they have a meeting because of the calls for
service when they have to service .... Hoping to be able to do .... The bottom will
show you where those six officers would go and you also have a training sergeant
that would come into play ..... bring your staffing from 17 to 19 on the day watch.
You go from 18 to 21 and from 15 to 17 on the late nights ..... In order to have a
one beat, one officer 24 hours a day, it takes almost a little bit over 5 people to
provide that one officer ..... Right now between the vacation, holidays .... It takes
about 1.7 people to provide you with one person .... One beat for eight hours a
day, that is 2,912 hours that you want to cover a beat .... Training comes into
play... Last year we trained...doing more in-house training than we ever did
before. Last year 21 of 66 training opportunities .... 66 different areas that we train
people in .... 21 of those have been in house .... Instruction and instructor to be
able to do it in house .... Each officer .... We have 66 hours of mandatory training
that we did for everybody... In addition, each officer received about 73 hours of
additional training .... Talking about vacation, holiday, sick time, suspension
time...training time, funeral leave, military leave ....
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Kubby/Do we have any idea of the dollar amount that we will save from the outside
training doing it in house? .... Will there be a decrease in other training costs?
Winklehake/Most of the training that we are able to do inside .... Expedite doing it
faster .... Other ones that we try to do in house ... otherwise we are going to send
somebody away .... Other things... supervision of police personnel .... Kind of
things that we can't get in house .... Concentrate on those classes that we can do
inside .... Find opportunity to bring other people in for that training and maybe
charge them for that.
Lehman/Is there an advantage to having our own training person in as far as maintaining
our own standards of training? .... Train our folks to our standards .... Higher than
the standards .... Advantage of having an in house training person.
Kubby/Community standards ....
Winklehake/One of the requests that you have is for a training sergeant in there .... We
want to be able to really tighten up our training .... Right now a captain has been
dealing with that .... Take those duties away from him and give it to a sergeant for
a couple of reasons... We do move people through the various positions we
have .... Career development opportunity. They leam more about their entire
department, why things have to be done .... From the simple work they do... free
up time the administrative captain has ....They are very time consuming ....
Lehman/Can we train our officers better with our own training sergeant? ....
Winklehake/I think we certainly can .... For instance... use of force ....They came back
today and we are going to develop in-house training just for that ....We have time
everyday, 15 minute roll call period .... That means we have more time out of that
15 minutes that we can do other things such as training .... General orders .... We
can utilize that time better .... Some of the policies we have are a lot more
restrictive than a lot of other departments have ....
Lehman/I am more interested in the quality of officers we have and how well we train
them ....More local control ....Trained to our own standards, I think that is a great
idea ....
Kubby/Could you talk about having a new separate employee to do this is a better
strategy? .... People... can get trained to be a trainer in a specific area... spread
that leadership ....
Winklehake/We are doing that. What this position would do is coordinate that and make
sure .... Registration, travel, hotel... certifications that have to be kept up to
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date .... Because the person would be doing some training in house as well as well
as administering the training function in there.
Kubby/I wouldn't want to pay for someone that was just coordinating the travel plans ....
Winklehake/...we have people who are certified to teach firearms training, self defense
tactics, PR-24 .... Number of these people are requested to go back to the academy
to do the training there ....We have trained a number of people in different
things ....
Thomberry/These are the ones that would do the training to the local officers. Good
point .... Someone to coordinate all of these trainers ....
Winklehake/Yes, as well as to do additional training.
Thomberry/And also be a trainer ....
Winklehake/Yes ....
Lehman/Would this person have any influence as to maintaining .... Authority... see to it
that the standards of training were at a certain level? ....
Winklehake/Yes .... Also have to make sure the certifications are kept up to date for all
the other trainers as well.
Thornberry/How would that person who is not the specialist in that area know more than
the person who was trained in that specialty? ....How would he know if that
person needed additional training or not?
Winklehake/Whenever we send someone to training and they come back, they have the
manual that they are trained out of.... The person would be responsible to know a
little bit about the manual ....
Kubby/...update ....
Norton/If he is in the position to evaluate the effectiveness of that training ....This
person is a record keeper... whistle blower ....
Vanderhoef/...trainer who has the expertise ....
Norton/
O'Donnell/This guy coordinates all of the training.
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Champion/You can evaluate effectiveness without being an expert ....
Lehman/R. J. is not asking us for a record keeper for $65,000 .....
Thornberry/Regardless of the title, what does he do?
Atkins/We fashion this position substantially after the fire training officer and that
Andy's operation does... in house training .... Training officer that is responsible
for the coordination of insuring proper certification and training for all of our
folks. Andy also sends people out .... This position .... This person is not going to
be an expert in every aspect of training ....
Kubby/I think it is important to have more than one expert voice ....
Atkins/ ....The police and fire departments both have budgets in the $70,000 range for
training and I felt that it is time that we devote the same kind of attention to
training and police ....
Norton/...and checking on whether or not it is suitable ....
Atkins/Record keeping is an important component of it ..... keeps you out of trouble ....
Thornberry/Does this person necessarily need to be a police officer?
Atkins/I would say probably not. However, asking Andy the same question .... probably
not. But with respect to the company and personnel that you are dealing with,
there is a peer element ....
RoccaJ Our training officer serves in the emergency field as well and he serves as a safety
officer for us .... Steve coordinates all facets of training .....
Thornberry/Can that person who is a lieutenant fire fighter, when you have a 20 alarm
fire, can he go out and help fight that fire?
Atkins/Absolutely.
Thomberry/Can that police officer go out and help quell a disturbance? ....
Atkins/The answer is yes.
Winklehake/Every police officer including myself would do that.
Lehman/I would really not favor this if this person was not a sworn police officer ....
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Thomberry/... this person should be able to go out and help out.
Winklehake/And they will .... They have to coordinate the outside training .... By
contract...certain procedure we have to go through... select the officers... set up
the travel... Career development ....Evaluation that they do ....What kind of
training do we need to find to make better police officers ....Decide what are the
shortcomings .... To fix things .... To be able to just simply coordinate the requests
from people coming in for training ....
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 99-4 SIDE 1
Winklehake/So we can do better coordination on that .... We are talking about
developing plans here to do training at the rollcall ....Doing more there ....You
are going to have to give them something... develop that kind of training ....
Kubby/Rollcall training is really great and a good opportunity ....
Winklehake/...It also has to be short ....15 minutes ....Get that point across ....
Norton/...about these six additional police officers. Am I going to see any marshals
downtown?
Winklehake/After I have them on the department and they have gone through field
training, yes.
Norton/What worries me... they were diffuse into the expansion of the regular pattern...
still see an occasional... through town and not kind of a consistent presence down
there ....
Atkins/I want to talk about this. You have so many people and you have so many calls, I
want it understood that we are not deliberately ignoring downtown .... If you want
ten people assigned downtown, we will do that .... But I can assure you the
response to calls .... Is going to be substantially longer and we have assumed ....
first priority ....It is just difficult ....Folks out there in the field are taking those
calls ....
Kubby/With the SCAT Team... they are not concentrated... Why can't those functions
be incorporated into the day watch, the evening watch and the late night
watch? .... Why it has to be a separate thing outside the normal watches? ....
Winklehake/They are not working 24 hours a day. They are not split on all three
watches. They are working primarily in the evening time and they also flex their
hours depending on what else is going on .... The kind of activities they are
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involved in are mainly evening activities because of the nature of the people they
are dealing with... gang related incidents ....
Kubby/ ....six people to do that function?
Winklehake/I don't think you are going to do it with less than that.
Kubby/
Winklehake/They work generally in a team, two people .... Three different locations in
our community .... Some of the people were in town... are back in town .... Now
they are back again... We displaced a number of people .... But they come back
into the community and that is not going to change.
Champion/
Winklehake/What we are trying to do is be proactive to the problem... before it becomes
a response team .... Get ahead of the game .... Better to prevent it .... Prevent some
of the situations from escalating .... Able to work with the neighborhood ....
Kubby/...Why six?
Winklehake/With those six, that would get me back to where I was before .... They are
working throughout our community ..... they are not all on duty at any given
time ....
Kubby/
O'Donnell/I want to go back to downtown because I share Dee's concern. Can we not
utilize more of these community service officers? ....
Winklehake/What we have right now .... I don't have the number of calls .... Year prior I
think they handled something like 11,000 calls for service ..... I need to go ahead
and bring them back and retrain them to help in the dispatch center. I have a
problem there as far as giving people breaks .... I am going to have to retrain my
community service officers .... The technology that we have in that radio room is
such that you can't go in there one day a month and be able to be of any help ....
We have to train them.
O'Donnell/With six more officers we are going to have more police presence downtown.
Winklehake/...able to put people with cell phones downtown ....
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Lehman/...We have heard during the last 3-4 years... about the lack of police presence
downtown .... All I can say .... Support your proposal .... From a public
perspective, if we hire six more officers and there isn't a police presence
downtown, we are going to catch a lot of ~ack .... Public has the fight to expect a
police presence whenever possible.
Kubby/Additional officers... downtown... we have gotten a lot of positive feedback .... I
think people will feel positive about it ....
Lehman/The reason we got complaints is that people like seeing police officers
downtown .... Public, business community .... I think they appreciated that ....
Vanderhoef/ .... Expectation and use of those officers .... Citizens .... No idea of what the
concerns are of the Police Department and what they are trying to cover ....
Lehman/
Vanderhoef/Is this effective use? ....
Lehman/
Norton/
(All talking).
Norton/If there are problems on Broadway, you have got to be there or it will eventually
go all over down. On the SCAT Team, are they uniformed officers?...Marked or
unmarked cars?
Winklehake/... sometimes they are not ..... both.
(All talking).
Winklehake/There is one that generally works in plain clothes .... Supervisor... uniform
or plain clothes ....Other officers are generally in uniform ....Somewhere around
August they went back into uniform ....
Thomberry/...people they deal with pretty well know who they are .... Looking for
having a police presence ....
Winklehake/
Norton/I am not at all satisfied with this arrangement .... You are talking about different
people that will down there at different times .... I am talking about certain
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hours... certain days of the week .... Absolute people are going to be there .....
They are seriously committed to downtown at certain hours ....
Lehman/
Norton/I never have seen a plan that had them really regularly there.
Thornberry/Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights... also the nights that we are going to
have problem elsewhere.
Norton/If that is the case, I would rather see them have a new budget item in here ....
Thornberry/I support these six... and having more officers with the SCAT Teams... and
having more presence downtown plus a new line item for downtown .... I think
they could be CSOs.
Lehman/R.J .... last year you announced there were going to be two officers .... There
was a period of time .... There were two officer downtown most of the time?
Winklehake/There were two officers assigned to downtown areas on days and
evenings .... On four days there are only going to be one down there... That was
taking place until we pulled people and put them into the SCAT Team .... Cell
phones ....
Norton/I don't know if this is going to get it back ....
Thornberry/Don't tell me... you want two officers down there on a Thursday night and
then get a call and one of those officers can't go to a call outside his beat.
Norton/There are still problems downtown.
Thornberry/
(All talking).
O 'Donnell/Everybody is asking for more of a police presence downtown .... Just need to
have the presence there ....
Winklehake/In the beginning of '98, officers Singleman and Bowan were assigned to the
day watch to the downtown area and they were downtown .... Assigned to the
downtown area .... Now there were times when they were in a car...walking ....
And on bikes... had a cell phone. What these six people do is get me back to the
point where we are able to do that .... On the evening time there were two officers
assigned to the downtown and they would rotate ....
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Champion/
Lehman/You have heard what the concems of the councilmen are as far as downtown
goes.
Winklehake/
Lehman/I think there needs to be an extraordinary effort ....
Thornberry/I have seen that officer in his car ....Walking officer makes a hell of a lot
more difference ....
Kubby/Last time we had this grant money .... In three years from now, how many
officers .... can we afford?... How can we afford to sustain this level? ....
Champion/ .... police are much much more important now.
Norton/
Kubby/
(All talking).
Atkins/The six new officers cost $260,000 .... We received $150,000 grant. That means
$110,000 in General Fund commitment for a period of three years .... I went back
and looked at our overall revenue picture ..... We were $300,000 better than we
originally had anticipated. We also have the ability to expand the tort liability
which we have done and it bumps up the insurance one that we are starting. So
what I did was I took my overall position and sort of backed into it. The new
police officers over the next three years would cost the General Fund $100,000 a
year in round numbers. The training sergeant would cost the General Fund
$65,000 a year. The new library positions is a tradeoff. We are reducing a
contract, adding new people. The assistant Fire Marshall is $62,000 a year, a
General Fund commitment of $40- offset by the income. And the Airport was
$9,000, the Senior Center was $8,000 and the Scanlon Gym costs... was about
$50-. Bottom line, that totals up to $280,000 .... I felt we had a enough room in
the budget given the improved tax base position and the other changes we made,
that we can afford to make these changes. As the base moves up .... projections ....
Kubby/
Atkins/The out year projections, our cash position in this budget is far superior than we
have ever had. It is about a 30% position .... I wanted a fall back in case
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commodity, service charges...fell apart. And... that gave us projections ....
Generally speaking we can still satisfy your current policy position. Beyond that,
it begins to get risky.
Lehman/What you are saying is after the grant runs out, that General Fund will be able to
absorb $150,000 ....
Atkins/I believe that you can do that ....out years ....
Vanderhoef/This is coming out of your projected growth from your tax base ....
Atkins/I can't imagine us getting much further in any new hires .... Fall back position is
that I reviewed all of our police positions and we have eight officers who would
be eligible for retirement in year 02. By attrition we can offset a big hunk of them
if we had to.
Norton/I had that question... operating expenses ....
Atkins/We will have to take .... If we had a big spurt of inflation or some big labor
settlement or a dramatic change in the rollback, I am going to come back to
you .... Is this budget riskier? Yes. Should it be approached with caution? Yes ....
Kubby/Is this the kind of grant that we don't have to take the whole thing or is it all or
nothing?
Winklehake/I don't know for sure .... Last one... hired six... hired the last two to take
advantage of the money that was available to us.
Atkins/Remember we had eight proposed. You authorized six and we hired those. Then
the next budget year we proposed two more .... Use that money up ....
Thornberry/ .... things are changing .... Be proactive. I am willing to maybe delay
building or widening a street or building a trail for the public safety of the people
that are here ....Public safety is more important than widening a street or building
a new trail ....
Kubby/
Thornberry/
Norton/
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Vanderhoef/I have some concern that in the out years... We have other personnel
needs ..... If we have already spent our tax base on our six officers and we don't
have that expansion there that we can hire these other people ....
Thornberry/Attrition that is available. We won't need to fire anybody, we just do it
through attrition.
Lehman/R. J., you have made your case. I think we have discussed it .... Dee, you
brought something up that I would like to address very briefly .... We talked last
night .... Amount of-percent of property taxes needed to retire debt in the
proposed budget is more than we were willing to accept. I know we are going to
have to look at the CIP .... A couple of things... I would like to have .... In the
budget proposal we see projects listed through the years... Then the last page of
the budget shows the income from those years from Road Use taxes, all those
sorts of things. But none of the income is attached to the item .... I would like to
know what the net cost is in bonding. If the project is $5 million and it is going to
be $4 million out of GO bond ....
I would also like to know .... how our indebtedness as a percent of the limit
compares to other cities in the state .... Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Waterloo,
whatever. I would also like to know what percent of the tax bill of those cities is
used to pay off debt. We have said our policy is 25% .... I would like us to look at
what these other communities do .... I believe we need to look at a target number
as a percent to retire debt .... I personally feel we cannot go beyond a certain
point .... We need to have a target .... To maintain that percentage ....
Atkins/You asked two questions. One of them is what other towns do .... Let me
traderstand what you want for information for capital projects. I think this is what
you told me. We are going to rebuild A Street and to rebuild A Street the project
cost $1.6 million. To decide on that project, you want to know that we propose $1
million worth of debt, $500,000 from Road Use, $100,000 ~-om Special
Assessment. That is what you want to know by project?
Lehman/Exactly. Net number out of General Obligation bonds.
Atkins/Okay .... B Street will have something different ....
Lehman/Also I don't know, sewer and water projects that are financed through revenue
bonds, they are not relevant for me .... For example, the Iowa Avenue ramp which
will be partly revenue bonds and partly GO, we need to know what portion is
what.
Atkins/Okay.
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(All talking).
Lehman/The next meeting we have on budget is going to involve Boards and
Commissions.
Karr/I think Steve is going to talk to you about the process from now on.
Atkins/We didn't get Utility Funds done... 15th .... Capital projects, you want some sort
of a summary .... We know projects are going to have to get eliminated .... We
have done it as a staff.... You want this to total up to all the debt that is proposed.
Lehman/For each year.
Atkins/I assume we can start .... At the Senior Center on the 14th .....
Vanderhoef/
Karr/Right now you have got about 1½ hour Boards, Commissions, Organization out of
your three hour period ....
(All talking).
Lehman/I think 3:00 to 6:00 is all fight.
Atkins/Encourage you .... Difficult ....Make sure you are willing to devote some time.
Karr/Asking... ten minute presentation, five minute questions and answer ....
(All talking).
Adjourned: 6:15 PM
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January
6, 1999
WS010699