HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-02-23 Transcription#2 Page 1
ITEM NO. 2. STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS.
Lehman/(Reads State of the City Address). I personally have been very gratified and
feel a great honor and privilege to have served as mayor of this community for the
last year. And I would personally like to thank Steve, and Eleanor and Marian,
who are the three employees of the city council and of course Steve your staff I
think has been particularly helpful to me and I'm sure the rest of the council and I
would also like to complement the council, I've been on the council for five years,
and it seems to me that this council as much as we disagree and as many times as
you see the 3 -4 votes and the 5-2's, and the 6-1 's, we do have I think a sense of
purpose that things need to move forward and decisions made to be made. So I
complement the council on their willingness to disagree agreeably if you will and
move forward. So now I would represent, how would I represent the state of the
city? I believe we're doing really pretty well. If you lend any grievance at all to
the polls and the surveys, we really are doing about as good as anybody in the
country. So thanks again council.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council
meeting of February 23, 1999.
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NO. 3. OUTSTANDING STUDENT CITIZENSHIP AWARD (Regina Elementary)
Lehman/Now if each of you would give your name before you recite so we all know who
we're talking about. OK.
Sean Jezewski/Hi my name is Sean Jezewski.
Lehman/And you something to report. OK.
Jezewski/Yes I do. Hi my name is Sean Jezewski and I'm a 6th grade student at Regina.
My teacher selected me to represent my class because of my leadership skills and
hardworking. He also chose me because of my involvement in extra curricular
activities. I enjoy helping people to work together and (can't hear). I help people
if they need it whether or not I'm going to get recognized for it and I like doing it.
I get along well with other people so I usually help organize groups. If there's a
conflict I can usually settle it with both people still happy. All the time I've been
at Regina, 2 years, I've never had a late assignment because I turn them in on
time. I study for tests so I can understand and learn the material. I work hard so I
can do my best. I'm involved in many interesting activities, I'm involved in two
types of piano, jazz and classical, boy scouts, band, after school clubs, a play,
basketball and catechism. I've heard a lot of quotes and sayings but I think only
one works for me, is do your best, just those three simple words, that's what helps
me do well and all my other activities. Thank you.
Ilse Bendorf/My name is Ilse Bendorf, I believe that I have the qualities expected in an
outstanding student citizen. Leadership, responsibility, friendliness and
organization are a few of the qualities often expected in an outstanding student. I
believe I fulfill these expectations. When I say I'm a leader this means that I
realize the fact that other students respect me and look to me for direction. I am
willing to then use this in a positive way by trying my best to be a good role
model to my peers and to students in younger grades. My role as vice president of
the student council is a way for me to show this quality. I am also very
responsible and goal oriented. I'm willing to accept challenges knowing that I
will finish them. This ties into my organizational skills. I complete my
assignments on time, do well in school, and I'm always on top of things. I think
my classmates and teachers would agree that you can always find me with a smile
on my face. I'm friendly not just to my friends but to everyone. I'm also, I'm
always to lend a helping hand to someone. Leadership, responsibility,
organization and friendliness are just a few of my attributes. Everyday at school
and outside of school I express these qualities through my actions and words.
Because of these and my several strengths, I feel that I'm very deserving of the
outstanding student citizen award.
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meeting of February 23, 1999.
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Ben Kuenster/My name is Ben Kuenster. I feel very honored to have been chosen an
outstanding citizen of the year. I'm very active in boy scouts. We participate in
many community service projects, such as scouting for food. I also help with
Eagle scout projects. I volunteer for various activities at my church. I also
volunteer at the Wesley house. I work hard at school and help other students
when needed. I'd like to thank you for getting this award.
Lehman/You know we've said that the people in this community are the biggest asset,
you know this really proves it, you guys someday may be sitting up here, you
don't think so but we hope so. And you know you are the folks that really make
our job the toughest because this community really belongs to the young people.
We'll be here and go and then they'll grow up, and our job really is to keep this
place the greatest place, you know we think were the best place to live, we got to
keep it that way so you make us do our job better. I'll read one of the awards,
they all say the same thing (reads proclamation). Congratulations.
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meeting of February 23, 1999.
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ITEM NO. 6. PUBLIC DISCUSSION (ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA) (UNTIL
8:00 PM)
Lehman/That's the shortest public discussion in a year. I'm sorry
Amanda Morgan/That's OK. I'm Amanda Morgan and I live at 517 Iowa Avenue. As
your all aware that the USDA is going to court over the sharp shooting. This
leaves you without anyone to finish the killing for this year. After talking to
many area residents I've found that safety is a big concern with them. A lot of
citizens agreed to the sharp shooting because the USDA would be doing it. They
felt that their the only ones capable of pulling it off safely. But no one has the
reputation that the USDA does and they weren't even able to do it legally. Safety
is very important and I would like to remind you that if anything happens the city
would be responsible. I encourage you to pursue the non-lethal methods for the
safety of the community. As you can see from the letters you received at this
meeting people from all over the country are asking you to stop killing the deer. I
would also like to remind you that the University of Iowa animal fights coalition
still offers their support in educating the public on how to handle the deer. We
also encourage you to meet with Lisa Jones of the Animal Protection Institute. We
feel that she can offer you much insight and to the matter of non-lethal deer
management. If you shutter out, you show the public your unwillingness to
evaluate the choices and make the fight decision for the people. Thanks.
Lehman/Thank you Amanda. We discussed this last night and I think for your
information as well the public. This, the harvesting of the deer for this year will
not continue. And it's not going to continue for many of the reasons that you are
concerned about, we share the same concerns. But this will be referred to the deer
committee that worked so hard on this for the last almost 2 years. Anyone who
wishes to have input into this is certainly welcome to work with that committee. I
don't know how soon there gonna meet but I would think probably within the
next month or so. Steve.
Steve Atkins/Within a month.
Lehman/Yea, within a month. Their, I'm sure their going to evaluate what was
recommended for this fall, look at what other alternatives are available and make
recommendations for next fall. But that will go back to the committee.
Thornberry/I would like to mention Emie that the all of the people, all of the people from
fight, left and in the middle on this deer thing have requested that they remain on
the committee and the committee remains intact for the next, foreseeable future.
So but anybody that has questions of the committee is sure welcome to attend
those meetings of the deer committee. And ask questions and give their input.
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meeting of February 23, 1999.
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Lehman/Any further public discussion?
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meeting of February 23, 1999.
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1TEM NO. 7.b CONDITIONALLY CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION
OF APPROXIMATELY 61.8 ACRES LOCATED SOUTH OF
WHISPERING MEADOWS DR/VE FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-
FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-8) TO FACTORY BUILT HOUSING
RESIDENTIAL (RFBH - 59.25 ACRES) AND LOW DENSITY MULTI-
FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RM-12 - 2.55 ACRES). (REZ98-0011)
Lehman/Item B is the one that has been removed. Do we need to open the public
hearing, close it and proceed?
Eleanor Dilkes/I think if this was not a continuation we wouldn't have to. But because
it's been open and continued I think we need to open and close it.
Lehman/We'll open it and then close it. OK. Well Item B is (reads 7b.) Public hearing
is open.
Marian Karr/Could we have a motion to accept correspondence?
Norton/So moved.
Kubby/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, second by Kubby, all in favor. All ayes. Public hearing is
closed.
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meeting of February 23, 1999.
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ITEM NO. 7c. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING
DESIGNATION OF 21.26 ACRES LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF
NAPLES AVENUE FROM INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL (CI-1) TO
SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY ZONE-INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL
(OSA-CI-1) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Thornberry/Move adoption.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, second by O'Donnell. Discussion.
Norton/I'm still kind of nervous about that area B, their gonna, that their not gonna mess
with area C but they've already, I don't know, I think we've done pretty well on
cornpromising.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries.
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meeting of February 23, 1999.
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ITEM NO. 8. PUBLIC HEARING TO DISCUSS THE PROPOSED OPERATING
BUDGET FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 1999, THROUGH JUNE 30,
2000. THE PROPOSED THREE-YEAR FINANCIAL PLAN, AND ALSO
THE MULTI-YEAR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM
THROUGH FISCAL YEAR 2003.
Steve Atkins/Would you like our presentation at first?
Lehman/Yes, probably, yea, before we.
Atkins/OK, we'll need one minute to get set up.
Lehman/Before we start the public heating we have asked that Mr. Atkins and the
finance director of the city present a thumbnail sketch of the budget so we get a
basic overview, both I think for the information of the audience and for those
folks who will be seeing it tonight, they've all taped it so they'll watch it after the
game. And those who've watched it when it's replayed so, I'm looking forward
to this presentation, I think it will make it a lot simpler for all of us. Don.
Don Yucuis/Just so you know a little while ago it was 24-4 with 9 minutes to go in the
first half.
Thornberry/Iowa's leading.
Lehman/That was Iowa winning?
Yucuis/Iowa was winning.
Lehman/Thank you.
Yucuis/Just also wanted to point out that this is going to be, the slides that are shown on
the screen are directly on TV tonight so I think we'll be pleased with the quality
on the TV tonight. Each year the city enters into a lengthy process of formulating
a budget. The new FY 2000 begins July 1 and ends June 30, 2000. As you know
the state requires that cities adopt a budget and file it with them by March 15 of
each year. It's truly a group effort from the beginning to the end, the process of
initial proposals, review and analyses of by staff and final approval by city council
takes over 6 months from start to finish. The primary focus of the budget is one
year, fiscal year 2000. But our budget process entails financial planning for a
three-year period. Capital construction projects are also planned for five years.
The total budget for state reporting purposes is $164 million dollars, it includes
$106 million in expenditures and $58 million of transfers. The proposed
operating budget is $54 million and maintains basic services citizens have come
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meeting of February 23, 1999.
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to expect from Iowa City, such as police and fire protection, library, parks and
recreation, water, sewer, refuse, land fill and transit. While it also invests in
maintaining and improving the facilities in our community. Expenditures in the
general fund reflect a balancing act to provide some expanded services, such as
the opening of the Scanlon gym, as well as maintain expenditures at a level that
can be sustained within the 10-year financial projections. That service is the
portion of the budget that pays for the portion of past and current capital
improvement projects funded by long-term debt. This includes water, sewer,
parking and general obligation debt. The total repayment in fiscal year 2000 is
estimated at $16.7 million, the property tax portion of that is just over $4 million.
If our 2000 project proposed for capital improvements total $35.5 million
transfers out is a large expenditure line on $58 million. And that portion of the
budget pays for, I'm sorry, that portion of the budget funds are funds that are
receded into one city fund and transferred to another city fund as a revenue. So
it's an expense in one and a revenue in another. So it's kind of double counting
our expense level and it's, I list it after total expenses because it truly inflates your
expenses the way we do governmental accounting. The transit levy is a good
example of a transfer out, the city is required to receipt the transit levy in the
general fund and then we show that as an expense transfer out to the transit fund
which then shows up as a revenue in the transit fund so in essence we're showing
it twice. The city manager will discuss highlights of the operating budget and
projects that make up the capital improvements program for the coming year. The
next several graphs are gonna show you where with all of our funds where the
moneys come from and where they go and then we'll get into the general fund a
little bit more. From the chart property taxes are very important, 14% of the
overall budget but their just one of several important sources of revenue for the
city. The major revenue sources are again interfund transfers. And the largest
portion of those transfers on the revenue side are from bond proceeds, we get
proceeds put into a fund and then we have to transfer to another fund to fund the
actual capital projects. Again government accounting you gotta fund, you gotta
show it that way. Bond, actual bond proceeds are 15 percent of the overall
budget. Fines, permit and fees 25 percent, property tax number of 14 percent,
federal and state aid nine percent, and all other income is three percent. Where
does all that money go? Capital projects again 35 percent, the largest, the largest
chunk. Enterprise fund, which is parking, water, sewer, landfill, refuse, cable TV,
airport and transit is 27 percent. General fund is 18 percent, special revenue
funds, which includes assisted housing, home, CDDG, emergency shelter grant,
road use tax, and employee benefits comprise of 10 percent of the budget and all
other is 10 percent. That's debt service and internal service funds such as
equipment maintenance and central services. In the general fund, where does the
money come from there? We talk a lot about property taxes being the largest
revenue source and direct property taxes, the 8-10 that we talk about, the 95 cent
transit levy, and the 27 cent library levy comprise 48 percent of the general fired
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revenue. Employee benefits transfer is actually a property tax receded into the
employee benefits fund and then dollars are transferred from there into the general
fund to pay for employee share of benefits. Road use tax transfer nine percent,
intergovernmental revenue, it's a state aid, grants, machine and equipment credit,
bank franchise tax is five percent. Fines, fees, and licenses, 11 percent and all
other revenue 15 percent. Within that all other revenue line item is 1.3 million
dollar revenue estimate for sale of the peninsula. Where does that money go in
the general fund? Thirty-three percent of that money goes to police and fire
services, 16 percent is parks and rec., and that includes parks, parks recreation, the
administration, cemetery, forestry and government buildings. Public works is 12
percent, that's street, traffic, engineering, public works administration, energy
conservation. It does not include landfill, water, sewer, refuse, utility accounts.
Administrative support 14 percent, city council, city clerk, city attomey, finance,
human resources, 10 percent towards the library. The subsidy transfers which is
our transfers out to airport, transit and JCGOG is seven percent and then planning,
housing inspection services and senior center is eight percent. Total expenses
transfers out at $31.6 million for fiscal year 2000. Another way to show general
fund expenses is on our state report that we're required to fill out for our public
hearing notice and they have actually four expense categories in the transfer out
category. And just showing it a little differently than what we did on the previous
screen, community protection becomes 37 percent because on that form we
include housing inspection services, traffic control and street lighting as well as
police and fire, so it's a little bit higher than our previous slide of 33 percent.
Human development which includes library, parks and rec., and senior center is
24 percent. Home and community environment, streets, engineering, forestry,
economic development, the business district downtown is 13 percent and policy
and administration is at 18 percent, transfers are at 8 percent. It's a little different
format but it follows our public hearing notice a little bit better, it shows you a
little bit different format and how we have to report it to the state. What does this
budget mean as far as property taxes go? The tax levy rate in the public heating
notice was shown at 14.05 for fiscal year 2000. Based on some city council
decisions regarding the capital improvements program we were able to reduce the
upcoming bond issue next week from 10 million to 9 million. And what this did
is this will reduce the property tax rate for the debt survey levy by about 20 cents,
and reduce it to 13.85. This is 5.5 percent increase. The change will be made at
next weeks public heating and will propose the 13.85 rate as a final rate for the
city. The debt service levy is the biggest area of increase for this coming year.
Increases from $1.87 per thousand to $2.30 per thousand and will include this
nine million dollar issue coming up next week. So how does that tax rate affect a
homeowner? We're showing a $150,000 house and there's a, just on a city tax
bill, or on a residents tax bill, wanted to point out that 47 percent of your property
tax bill is city, 40 percent is the school district, and 20 percent is the county and
others. Those are approximate percentages, those aren't exact, sometimes their
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higher, sometimes their a little lower. A $150,000 house is a taxable value this
coming year, for fiscal year 2000 of $84,700, this compares to $82,300 in the
current year and reflects the state rollback factor increasing from 55 percent to
56.5 percent. In addition, the city is increasing their tax rate so with the rollback
going up and the city tax rate going up, the taxes based on a $150,000 house
increased from $1,082 to $1,174 or an 8.5 percent increase. With the city tax rate
comprising 5.5 percent of that so, state rollback comprises the other balance of
that. In addition, within the budget we propose some rate changes in water and
sewer. The city continues to undertake the construction of projects related to the
new water plant and improvements to the waste water plant to comply with
federal regulations. To help pay for those large cost of improvements water and
sewer rates, are proposed to increase this coming year. The proposed date is July
1 of 1999. The water rate increase is contingent whether or not the sales tax is
voted in as a portion of the sales tax, revenue is earmarked for the water fund. If
the sales tax is voted in then the water rates would not increase for the next eight
years. The sewer rates are projected to increase independent of the sales tax vote
and part of the reason in deferring the rate increase of July 1, we the last several
years it's been March 1 as we wanted to see what happened on the vote. Water is
proposed to increase 15 percent on July 1, of 1999 and 10 percent on July 1 of
2000. And 0 percent the following year. Sewer has three rate increases proposed.
Ten, five and five, this budget does not lock city council into those rates fiscal
year, starting July 1, 2000 and July 1, 2001 so coming up in July 1 of 1999 we'll
only act on a one year rate increase. Other fees that are proposed to be change in
the coming budget are refuse recycling fees being decreased from $11.55 a month
to $11.00 per month. The landfill tipping fee has already decreased $10.00 per
ton effective January 1, 1999. Parking fees may need to be increased in the future
but no fee increases are projected in the three-year plan. The utility rates
increasing for bills on or after July 1, 1999 are 15 percent for water and 10 percent
for sewer will impact a residential user as shown on the chart. 700 cubic feet is
the average residential user, and this customer's bill will increase by $4.45 per
month or approximately nine percent. A customer using 1000 cubic feet of water
per month would increase approximately $7.66 a month or 10 percent per month.
One of the programs that the city offers is a discount program for city utility bills
for qualifying low-income users. The qualifications for are, that the account
holder be a resident of the household and participate in one of the following
programs: the family investment, Title 20, food stamp, supplementary social
security, Iowa Disabled and senior citizen property tax, rent and rent disbursement
claim program. For residents who need more information on that they can contact
the city at 356-5066 and the proposed discount based on the rate increases as
proposed for July 1, 1999 would be $16.24 versus currently $15.93. We have set
March 2 tentatively as the vote on the budget, the budget does have to be filed by
March 15, so the next council meeting a week from tonight will plan on voting on
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that. If residents have any questions on the budget, if there's anything we talked
about we can, they can contact us at 356-5050.
Karen Kubby/Thanks Don.
Lehman/Thank you Don.
Norton/Thanks Don, that was nice.
Thornberry/Good presentation.
Lehman/Yes.
Woman/Push the fight button Steve.
Steve Atkins/That's what he's here for. This is my first power-point so.
Lehman/OK.
Atkins/OK. As in the preparation of recommendation of any budgets there's always a
number of highlight issues that I would like to bring to the council's attention.
Don presents a very factual account oriented presentation all of which under Iowa
law is required. Within the budget I think there are a number of critical issues and
quite frankly some fun projects that I think the public needs to be aware of, things
that you've approved, or we would hope you will approve with your vote coming
up on March 2. These are new initiatives, most of them will carry over into future
budgets. Many of them are one-time, I think I'll be easy to recognize. I've
chosen to start off with our parks and recreation programs and there are four
issues that I'd like to bring to your attention. First of all, is that we have
appropriated within this budget $40,000 dollars for the development of a parks
and recreation master plan, now this is not intended to replace our neighborhood
open space plan, this is intended to provide a working document that identified
the community needs and interests, I've made the assumption that you'll assign
that task to your parks and recreation commission and that we could have
prepared for you some sort of master plan to guide our program of expenditures in
respect our parks and recreation activities in the future. The second item is the
addition of a new parks maintenance worker, as you are aware and often the
community is not aware that over the last 10 years the acreage, that is the amount
of land that has been dedicated for parks purposes has increased by 80 percent.
That's a substantial amount of land approaching about 500 acres. Additionally
over the last five years we have constructed 7.6 miles of new trails, and clearly if
were going to make that type of commitment to our parks and recreation program
we're going to have to maintain them. Now this is a step as recommended and
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backed by the city council toward how we're going to maintain that commitment
well into the future. A third recreation activity is that hopefully in the next couple
months we're going to have a grand opening of the new ScanIon gymnasium at
Mercer Park. There are two elements to that. One is the additional support staff
necessary to maintain the two new gymnasiums which is badly needed recreation
activities, and secondly we are proposing that we have some additional clerical
support assigned to the Scanlon gymnasium. We have proposed in the budget and
recommending that we have a new computer system capability out of the ScanIon
Gymnasium Mercer Park Aquatic Center. This will allow the public to under
most circumstances do what they would normally do downtown other than we
believe picnic shelter rental that is you can register for programs there as opposed
to coming downtown, we think it's a nice service and will afford public an
opportunity to participate in more recreation programs without having to come
downtown. And the fourth point is a relief program, that is simply we're gonna
buy more trees. We have traditionally provided in our budget $2,000 a year for
street tree replacement. That was until June 29. And with June 29 coming along
we lost so many street trees that we have recommended that we increase that
from $2,000 to $7,500 for the purchase of trees and in that we have a three-year
operating budget, we are proposing that in year, the two following years that that
number be at $5,000 so a rather significant increase in our proposed tree planting
program. That does not affect the traditional tree-planting in the parks and the
other activities we do, this is clearly an increase in the purposes of addressing
issues that were the result of a June 29 storm. I think I can handle this now.
Yucuis/OK.
Vanderhoef/I was wondering about that.
Atkins/He's trying to be helpful.
O'Donnell/I lost 50 cents.
Atkins/The second is our fire department and that there are two initiatives while it does
not directly affect the fiscal year 2000 budget I believe it's important for our
community to know that this budget initiates the planning process for the
construction of a new fire station. It would be our fourth. We are proposing that
that fire station be constructed in the northeast portion of our community, it's
location and many of the technical design details are yet to be decided, it is
identified in our capital plan. One of the unique characteristics is that the fire
chief has recommended and I believe you are very accepting of his interest in that.
This fire station become just a little bit more than just a fire station, that we're
proposing, that we could have possibly book drop-offs, where you could pay your
utility bills, possibly a police report writing office assigned to it. In other words,
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let's try to generate a number of activities from this new facility. As we propose
this, we recognize it will have to be staffed and that we will be required to hire 9
additional fire fighters staged over our budget. I show that primarily for the
public, is that that' s a major commitment to payroll over $400,000 a years. Thank
you very much. The library, there were not any major changes in the library
operationally but there was one of some significance and that is we had
traditionally cleaning contract and we were not satisfied with the general quality
of the services that we were being provided, and therefore we have recommended
that we change from a contract service to hiring city personnel. It is substantially
a wash that is the cost of the contract and the cost of the new employees. A
second element for the library is that with the popularity of meeting Room A and
the variety of activities that are going on there we think we can probably eve
generate more use, more interest, and that we're going to purchase risers where
there could actually be some staging provided in Room A. In the police
department we are proposing the addition of six new police officers, we have been
notified that we are eligible for a federal grant and that the federal grant provides
$450,000 over three years or $150,000 a year for new police personnel. That
$275,000 is to show what the actual cost is for six new officers, that is the number
that we would have in our budget and the offsetting revenue would be $150,000 a
year we would receive from the federal government. We are also proposing the
addition of a training sergeant within our police department. Training has
become a major component of our police officers time, it is critical to their
productivity and the quality of services they can provide in the field. It's not
nnlike our commitment they have in our fire department, we have full-time
training attention, we believe the same should occur in the police department.
Within that six new officers is a commitment to maintaining not only the street
crimes action team which was created earlier this year, but a commitment to an
increased presence in downtown. Addition, in addition to that we have discussed
that our crime prevention officer will also be assigned in the summer months to
the downtown, and although it's a little less, our DARE officer will also receive
that assignment. So, we're proposing with this police budget increase in
personnel as well as a commitment to our downtown policing.
Kubby/Steve, would you repeat what you just said about the DARE officer?
Atkins/The DARE officer would be assigned to downtown substantially because DARE
activities are not conducted in the summer months. The other side is that the
DARE officer is a senior officer and has a substantial amount of, we require that
officer to take his vacation time in the summer time so there's a big block out of
but that available time will be assigned to downtown. The senior center we have
proposed the addition of a half-time maintenance worker. The many activities
that occur in our senior center setup, takedown, the general maintenance of the
building, you all know that it's a building approaching 100 years, and when you
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meeting of February 23, 1999.
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get to be 100 years old you need a lot more attention. And therefore we are
proposing, we can identify with that I know.
Lehman/I've got something to look forward to.
Atkins/Yes. So, it is an older building, we have invested significantly over the last few
years, sprinkler systems, HVAC, and therefore, if we're going to give it the proper
attention and particular we're gonna remain at that location the additional
maintenance assistance is necessary. We have added one new street maintenance
worker, that is generally associated with the increase in street mileage. One of the
particular advantages that we would hope to gain is that we currently have 10
snow routes in our community, we would begin the process of making it 11.
Thereby hopefully.
(99-31)
Atkins/The airport, somewhat similar to the senior center is that we have made a
commitment that we are going to invest in our airport, we have a number of
projects pending, with those capital facilities, additional staff attention and
maintenance activities is going to be required. In planning and community
development, there are four particular issues we'd like to bring to your attention.
First of all is the commitment to do a historic preservation survey for downtown.
Out of the discussions associated with the Harmon building, the council has
directed and we have proposed that $20,000 be set aside for such a survey in
downtown. Secondly, a further survey by our housing staff, and our, I take that
back, by our CDBG, community development block grant staff, in addressing the
policy issues associated with housing affordability that we would engage some
consult assistance for our code review to determine what codes, how they affect
housing affordability. A third point is our district planning process, this is a
commitment to continue that process we have a couple of district plans being
prepared in that we will begin initiating that process and this provides us with
professional assistance, consulting assistance, as we put together those plans.
And then finally for planning and community development with some recent
changes in organization our neighborhood news mailings will increase, we're
providing additional funding in order that our mailers can also increase. In
transit, as you know, I just recently presented a mute study is underway. We als0
have a number of federal grants that are going to be made available to us. We can
expect our transit system to be undergoing some changes over the next year or so.
These are generally related to the capital assets of our transit facilities, what's
known as our bus barn, a roof replacement, the methane abatement and new bus
shelters that we've been able to secure about $400,000 which will go a long way
to funding those projects. In Information Services, I've been told that the web
master is a lousy title we've been trying to figure one out, somewhere I promise
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yOU the word master will disappear. It will be web analyst or something such as
that. But the basic issue here is that we wish to expand accessibility of the
information available from this government to the public. We'd like to do it in a
timely fashion, we're clearly attempting to design a web presence, the Internet is
clearly going to be a business tool that we're going to be using as extensively as
any other corporation, we just happen to be a municipal corporation. And finally I
wanted to call your attention, and the communities attention to the fact that we
have a significant commitment on the part of this city to community
contributions, those are a lot of the downtown activities, jazz fest, things of that
nature. And also our aid to our human service agencies which amounts to
$450,000 a year. There are very few communities, city governments that make
that type of commitment and we have done it traditionally for years. Capital
projects, I'll move through these fairly quickly, and these are projects that are
intended for fiscal year 2000. All of you know that come breaks in the weather
you have them on the agenda tonight, there are going to be a number of projects
that are going to be underway very shortly but are not shown on this list and I just
wanted to give sort of a quick review. River Street - WooIf Avenue
reconstruction, Summit Street bridge, renovation and additions to the civic
center, the airport terminal, a new parks maintenance building. These are
activities that are underway with this current budget and folks will begin seeing
activities very shortly. These projects will begin this summer as well as into the
next fiscal, as well into the next construction season. We have a biannual main
street maintenance effort, which is overlay, concrete repairs, brick replacements,
curb ramps, that amounts to almost a million dollars a year that we commit and
we do it on a biannual basis trying to incorporate as many as those projects into
the large as packets as possible. It just simply gets us better bids. The cemetery
expansion program is schedule to begin, originally designed, it was $650,000
program recognizing it's such a huge commitment, we have scaled that back to
$350,000 and I would still point out to you that is a huge long-term commitment
and should go along way to settling any issues associated with the need for
additional cemetery lots. The city park stage and Riverside, I bring this one to
your attention because it's a shared project, where a local theater group in
cooperation with the city we would intend to build a staging area at city park, for
outdoor theatrical performances. Your downtown streetscape, again you will be
having a bid shortly and an additional phase of that I believe it's at your next
meeting we also have another phase plan for after that. The continuing
commitment to the downtown. Foster Road from Dubuque Street up to near the
Elks golf course is a part of a commitment for road improvements to allow the
peninsula project to proceed. The tennis court renovation is a surface repair for
tennis courts in our community. Fire apparatus, I bring this one to your attention,
folks often wandered how much one of those big yellow trucks cost, we're
replacing a 23 year old one next year, it's $300,000. Highway 6 drainage and
sidewalk while it does not sound like a particular exciting, anytime you talk about
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drainage, however, this is a major undertaking on the part of the city. It is
approximately from the Iowa River to Sycamore, Highway 6, the total
commitment of close to three million dollars and that we have staged it over a
number of years in order to improve the storm water runoff and sort of the bottom
line, let' s make highway 6 an attractive thoroughfare within our community. We
have been notified that if all goes well, we may receive up to $900,000 in federal
aid for that project. The skateboard park is on our proposed capital project list,
the desire is that such a park would be built likely at city park. Water and sewer
projects, we have written so many reports lately about that. I will simply point
out to you that the biggest thing that we expect to occur is that the water treatment
plant and the major waste water improvements will be bid sometime around
December 99 - February 2000 and we will see, not this summer but the following
summer, which is again part of this fiscal year sort of the fruition of all of those
years of planning. The airport master plan continues. A current project you'll be
dealing with shortly is the airport terminal renovation, south Sycamore regional
storm water, this shows that a $700,000 commitment which is actually a multi-
million dollar commitment to a very unique means by which to treat our storm
water runoff in the Sycamore part of our community, the east side. Water works
park, Water works park is a name we've assigned to the site where our water
treatment plant is located. We have a master plan, that site has many many
unique features, which we would like to make available not only as a source of
water and water treatment to the community but also parks and recreational
enjoyment. The park plan calls for new plantings, the introduction of animals,
we've talked about possibly bringing in swans to put in the lake that we're going
to have there.
Man/No deer.
Atkins/No deer, I don't think we'll have trouble with them finding it. It is a wonderful
site with extensive river frontage which we'd like to make available to the public.
The Longfellow area pine pedestrian trail, now that's a little bit misleading
because the Pine street, if your familiar there's a tunnel under the railroad we're
trying to situate now where that tunnel is going to be, but the nice thing about it is
it will connect to neighborhoods somewhere in that general area, connecting the
Kirkwood area and Longfellow. And then finally as an initial budget for our
peninsula park and that is as we begin the development of the peninsula site for
housing, we also have available to us almost 90 acres of parks and recreation
space available to us and we have proposed a budget that will allow some early
development in the sense of likely to be plantings and things of that nature. And
that's it. Thank you.
Lehman/Steve, I think we should point out that those capital improvement projects
associated with the new water plant site are capitol improvement projects that are
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not associated with enterprise funds and their not associated with sewer or water
rate that will be paid for by general obligation debt and not user fees.
Atkins/The water plant so that. I understand sir, it's important to note that that water
plant site is the site for a substantial amount of our water production, that is wells.
It's also the sight of our water treatment plant. It is purchased with and has been
purchased with water revenues, the development of that site, however, is not a
water revenue expense, it's a park and recreation, thereby, general fund expense.
Lehman/Right. Thank you.
Atkins/Any questions for Don or I before we we'll head up there for the hearing?
Thornberry/Well these numbers are maximum numbers that may or may not be used, is
that not right, I mean we don't?
Atkins/You have to help me out Dean, what do you mean by may not be used?
Thomberry/Well we can't go any higher than what we've said, it could come in lower.
Atkins/You could increase increase something, but you'd have to decrease something
else.
Thornberry/Total cannot be higher.
Atkins/Total cannot go higher, that's correct, right.
Norton/And I just want to be clear, Steve, while your there, if there are comments or
suggestions from the public, they could be incorporated in the revised budget that
would be presented for action on next week.
Atkins/You have the ability to amend the budget down, you have the ability to make
changes within certain categories but in almost every incidence you have got to
trade something for something. And folks so it's understood, that's the state law.
I mean we didn't make that up, that' s the way it has to be.
Thornberry/That's after it's passed.
Atkins/Right.
Thornberry/Before it's passed we could.
Norton/No.
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Kubby/No. On publishing.
Lehman/It's published now.
Atkins/A number that has been, for example, we published a number cause at the time as
we were working of a tax rate of 14.05. Don revised after you made all your
changes and capital, we went back through, recalculated everything, and in Don' s
calculations the tax levy for the purposes of debt can now be reduced because of
instead of a 10 million dollar issue it's a nine million dollar issue, thereby
reducing that piece of the overall levy thereby reducing the total levy. OK.
Lehman/OK, we would certainly welcome any public comment.
Steve Kanner/I don't have my power-point presentation. I do have.
Lehman/Steve, sign in and state your name if you would.
Kanner/OK. I will. I do have some old fashioned paper. (can't hear, away from
microphone). Hello, my name is Steven Kanner and I live at 1111 E. Burlington.
And I appreciate the opportunity to address the city council on the issue of the
fiscal year 2000 budget. First though I wish to comment on the public heating
process, I don't quite understand on why the public hearing is set during the end
of the council deliberation period. This has been going on as you mentioned a
number of months, and although there is the opportunity for written presentation
at any time, it seems though that you've set this public hearing as the main
apparatus for oral presentation and it seems to me that there should be a number
of other opportunities for that to take place earlier in the process. My
understanding is you just stated is that state law requires that once notice of a
public hearing is publicized the council can not raise the amount in any budgeted
categories. But can slash the budget amount. Actually we just found out that you
can raise the amount but you'd have to slash somewhere else. It seems to me that
you've reached most decisions on the budget package and this heating will have
very little if any affect on the decision, be that as it may I will mention a few
items in the budget that have struck my eye and that I wish to comment on as a
citizen of Iowa City. First I'll tell a quick story to illustrate a point. A few weeks
ago on Stmday moming, I was walking south on Boyrum towards Highway 6 and
HyVee, I witnessed an accident at the intersection of Highway 6 and Boyrum, and
luckily it was not a serious accident, I went into the Burger King and called the
police as a non-emergency and reported the accident. And as an aside since it
wasn't an 911 emergency I called the non-emergency number and I had change
for it but it was pretty difficult finding the number and so forth and it seems to me
that perhaps something can be worked out with the telephone companies that that
could be a free call, we've had problems with 911 people using that when they
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shouldn't. This was a case where I tried not to use it and it was a little bit
difficult, it shouldn't be that difficult to call a non-emergency number, I think it
should be a flee call. In any case, I noted to the dispatcher that the accident
victim had said that she hit her head on the window. The dispatcher said she
would send an ambulance to the scene and a firebrick soon arrived. And soon
they were followed by the police and the ambulance. And my point is was it
really necessary for Iowa City to send a fire truck to the accident scene?
Especially when it was called in as a non-emergency. A correspondent from
national public radio came to speak at UI a couple years ago and one of the points
he made is that the US government made a deliberate policy decision a number of
years ago to make US ambulatory care the best in the world. And it was pretty
much evident that that was the case, when three emergency vehicles came for this
accident which in my opinion was not an emergency and there's other questions,
how do we, we don't medically care for patients after their taken to the hospital or
before hand that well. That' s another issue. My point is that council has
proposed a budget, to budget nine new fire fighter position for the fiscal year
2001, 2, and 3 years. This amounts to a lot of money and the idea is to hire the
needed staff when opening a new fire station, I would propose that Iowa City
consider not funding all of the above positions. In addition, I would recommend
that Iowa City not take the 75 percent federal funding for six additional police
officers over the next three years. It's my belief that the city does not become
stronger by hiring more police with guns and fire hoses, I believe we're
adequately covered at the present time and if we really want to feel totally safe,
we could hire a fire fighter for every home, of course, that's outlandish, the cost
would be too much and that' s what we're always balancing the cost. I've heard
no complaints or I haven't heard of catastrophes happening because of not enough
fire fighters coverage. It seems we're being driven by future northeast
development. True strength lies in funding initiatives in the neighborhoods that
helped deliver develop community in a sense of well-being, I think that's what we
really have to look at. We have to work as a city to help people get to know each
other and feel safe that way. Having additional guns on the street or those
additional fire hoses I don't think is gonna do the trick. Often it's mentioned,
community policing, I don't think we have community policing by what we have
now and what the federal government is supporting. Having true community
police could mean giving neighborhood groups money to develop and train
neighborhood mediators to nonviolently help resolve conflicts. We could train
people in the neighborhoods for those positions. There's a lot of resources out
there, especially with the university that could help us with that. Or it could mean
having city staff help organize neighbors to walk or drive the neighborhoods at
night if the neighbors feel a need for this type of security. I lived in Columbus
Ohio previous to moving here and in the neighborhood that I was at we had
voluntary patrols at night, people going around in cars and so if you come off the
bus at night you have a feel, a better feeling when you see that neighborhood car
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going by with a couple people in it or neighbors walking the streets. I think that' s
true community policing at it's best. Let us fund neighborhood training for CPR
instructors and community fire prevention programs, perhaps a free smoke alarms.
I think that will help us more in the long-run than paying all this money for a fire
station in the northeast side. We should be putting more money into projects that
develop neighborhood connections. Admittedly it's a hard thing to do in a highly
transient university town like Iowa City, but that's why we should try that much
hard to accomplish it. We should work on establishing such things as tool sharing
programs in the neighborhoods, the point being again if you get to know your
neighbors your gonna feel a lot safer, and we should put some real money into
this effort. I realize we have things like neighborhood watches, I don't think those
are too successful, we don't put much money into it. I think we need to be
creative in what we think of as fire safety and crime prevention. I don't think we
need the new officers, the six new officers that are proposed, let' s save the
$150,000 over the next 3 years, that's our end of the expenses and put into use
something similar to the above suggestions. I've heard some suggestions from
city council members that we should form a citizen's auxiliary to the police or
something to that affect. I'm not in favor of arming non-police, but I would be in
favor of paying some folks a stipend or a small salary to help out in certain areas
such as traffic patrol, or administrative work. One of my current jobs is working
with senior citizens, and even though downtown is very safe, a many of the
seniors have a fear of going downtown. Maybe if we hired some auxiliary police
"goodwill ambassadors" who are senior citizens to patrol downtown, their fellow
seniors would feel more comfortable in joining them there. I think that would be
a better use of our money and a lot less expensive than the six new guns that we
put on the street I don't think that's necessary. $58,000 is budgeted for the Iowa
City Area Development group, ICAD, they are budgeted under Economic
Development, other professional services, the financial director does not know
when they were first funded but knows that they have been funded at least since
1991. In fiscal year 96, they were only funded at $37,000 and I'm curious as to
why they were funded at this lower level for that year, I believe that was lower
than was requested. Last year I brought concerns about this line item and bring
the same concerns. My concems were not ever addressed in a public forum to my
knowledge. Are we getting a good bank for a buck as far as development is
concerned with this expense. And I'd like to know where is the council debate on
the organizations effectiveness? I'm talking about ICAD. After reading a
quarterly reporter to from ICAD it appears that the director is meeting with a lot
of folks. That was the extent I think of the report. Met here with this person, met
there with that person. And, that could be good, I mean that's, networking is part
of the game I guess and can result in some good things for the city. But I'd like
to see what the results of these meetings are, I think we need more discussion in
city council on what appears to be almost an automatic budget funding for this
group, I'd like city council to have a presentation by ICAD and to see what their
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effect is, and have city staff evaluate how effective they are in helping with area
development and have that part of a public meeting and so we can all hear, I think
that's necessary. $48,000 is budgeted for electronics technician at the water
treatment plant. Perhaps it would be money well spent to add a quarter or half
time person in addition to the above to work with the public in exploring different
cleaner options for treating our drinking water. A staff member with the Iowa
City water division said the new treatment plant is planning on coming along in
2001 and that a decision has not been made on what type of disinfectant should be
used. I would recommend that we cut back on the use of the deadly chemicals
such as chlorine. Many scientists agree that Dioxin a By-product of chlorine
production is a toxic substance and therefore have called for a ban on chlorine
production and its use. I have a flyer here from Ann Arbor which initiated ozone
facilities to help clean their water. It's a public flyer to help explain to their
citizens what' s going on with the ozone treatment plant. Ann Arbor' s a city
probably 1 - 1/2 to 2 times as large as Iowa City so it's not that much larger I
think than Iowa City, and they've installed the relatively safe process of using
ozone for treatment at their water plant. I think we need to spend some money to
make sure we study these healthy alternatives and bring the public into the debate.
We have a lot of good, again a lot of good resources here in Iowa City. We have
the greens which are interested in this issue, I'm sure environmental advocates
people at the university I'm sure would be willing to help us on this and I think
we ought to make sure we get it fight and spend a little money up front to make
sure we get the cleanest approach we can to treat our water, especially with the
increasingly strict federal guidelines. In addition, I call on city council to
eliminate the encouragement of water consumption by making the cubic foot costs
of water equal for all users. I would recommend that you do not allow large users
to continue to buy large amounts of water at less expensive rates than those of us
who use small amounts. And that was illustrated on the charts we saw before how
the large users get a break on the price. And I think that' s the opposite way that
we should be going, I assume we set the rates the way we do because we want to
encourage development of certain companies to come in here and give them a
break on water. I assume there aren't too many cost benefits to providing more
water to users.
Lehman/Let me interrupt just a second, we're gonna need to move along. But the fact of
the matter is, the more water you make by far the less it costs you per gallon.
Kanner/Well that's, I question that and.
Lehman/Well that' s a fact and we can go into that later.
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Kanner/Yea, and I'd like to know if that does indeed equal the discounted rate that
people get for using more water I would question that. And would like to see that.
If it is case that we're using it as an inducement for.
Lehman/That's another discussion. We're talking about budget now.
Kanner/Well I think that is part of the budget because we're talking about rates up there
and that' s part of the revenue source.
Lehman/Well it's pretty much a policy decision I think council would be more than
happy to look at it and I think you know you made your point.
Kanner/OK. Yea, I hope you will take that up at a future time. $77,000 is budgeted for
the Iowa City library maintenance work and this would replace the $60,000
currently used to pay for independent contract cleaning and I say hip hip hooray to
the council for this progressive move, contracting work out to firms who often
offer lower pay and fewer benefits to their workers has been a bang to our
societies work force for quite some time. And although this is only 2 to 3 workers
I feel it's a move in the fight direction and I hope you continue that so I applaud
that. $9,000 is budgeted to expand the airports maintenance to one full-time
worker up from half time was my understanding of the reading of the budget.
And this is to help with the upkeep in the plan for the expanded airport facility.
Generally I'm for spending as few dollars as possible for the Iowa City airport,
the airport's benefit to the general population I feel is minimal. Dean at one time
I read either a newspaper or heard statements here, saying you compared the
airport in its usage and focal point in greeting people to Iowa City to Dubuque
Street and leading to downtown.
Thornberry/That is incorrect.
Kanner/OK. What did you say?
Thornberry/What I said was the airport is an entrance to Iowa City as are as are all of the
other entrances to Iowa City.
Kanner/OK. Well and I would say.
Thornberry/Is that not correct?
Kanner/I would say it's a minimal if it affects very few people and we should put
minimal amounts of money for that point of view, that would be my position that
place like Dubuque or the city hall is a place where thousands of people, hundreds
more than would come through the airport ever would be used and we should be
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spending more money there, I think that is a good place to use it but not at the
airport in general. But if the city council does follow through on renovating and
remodeling existing buildings at the airport in order to make it comfortable and
accessible meeting space one that is open to any individual group for a minimal
charge, then the money might make for a good investment. If it truly is a good
meeting place, I can see that it would be used by a lot of groups throughout the
city and something that might be worthwhile, especially in that setting it would be
a nice place perhaps for retreats for groups to get away a little bit, it's kind of, it
would be kind of nice out there so if that's what's planned I think it might be
worth while and then I would support it. Finally, I would ask that you give
yourselves and your successors a raise, your budgeted for $43,000 in fiscal year
2,000, and it looks to me only minimal costs of living raises for the following two
years. Let's acknowledge the significant amount of hours that are required of the
well-prepared city council to do her/his job as our representative, higher pay
would encourage more people to consider serving because of the higher financial
reward. And Emie you mentioned earlier today that the city belongs to young
people, well if it does I think the effort it was mentioned about child care before
an Iowa Citian had written a letter about child care at council meetings and the
result was to put some chairs out there. I don't think that's enough I think that we
should be offering child care for any city councilor that has young children and
any citizen that might want to participate in the meetings, and it could be done to
start with on a ad hoc basis of people, having to call in for reservations, so you
wouldn't have to hire someone full-time, I think it might work that way and you
could start for just Monday and Tuesday meetings and see how that goes and I
think the expenses would be minimal and I think it's a worthwhile thing to put in
the budget to encourage people with young children to my knowledge none of the
city council at the current time has any young children that might require child
care and it might be good to try to encourage that by having some child care
available and spending a little bit of money for that. I want to thank you and
appreciate your deliberations.
Lehman/Thank you.
Kubby/Thanks for your thoughts on this stuff.
Lehman/Other public discussion.
Karr/Can we have a motion to accept correspondence?
Kubby/So Moved.
O'Donnell/Second.
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Lehman/Moved by Karen, second by O'Donnell. All in favor. Motion carried. I suspect
it would be appropriate for us to continue this public hearing until the next week.
Open it, close it and then vote on the budget. Is that the consensus of the council?
Norton/What could it hurt?
Lehman/Well I think it would be appropriate.
Norton/In case somebody would want to speak next time and yea.
Lehman/And there was a presentation by Steve and by Don, there may be questions from
the public.
Norton/Yea, I think we should definitely leave it open then. I'll move to continue it, I'll
move to continue the heating.
Lehman/To March 2.
Kubby/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, second by Kubby. Discussion. Hearing will be continued
and we will take a break.
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ITEM NO. 10. b. PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND
ESTIMATE OF COST FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE RIVER
STREET/WOOLF AVENUE RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT,
ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY
EACH BID, DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH
ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS, AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR
RECEIPT OF BIDS.
Lehman/This is a project estimated cost is 2, almost 2.2 million of which $600,000 will
be funded by the University of Iowa. This is a public hearing. Hearing is closed.
Norton/Move adoption of the resolution.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, second by O'Donnell. Discussion.
Thornberry/What percentage, it says the Iowa City share of the cost would be funded
with road use tax revenue and general obligation bonds? Do you know what
percentage of that is, no?
Atkins/No.
Thornberry/OK.
Norton/I'll bet I can find out.
Atkins/If Don's still here we can go find out? Do you want to know?
Norton/I'll figure out for you.
Arkins/(can't hear) go check on Don.
Thornberry/Sorry. Gotta be mostly GO. Let me tell you.
Arkins/17 people will go find that out for you real fast.
Kubby/Do you want to vote until you get that info Dean?
Thornberry/Pardon me.
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Lehman/Do you want to vote.
Kubby/Do you need that to vote to make a decision?
Thomberry/No I don't, I it was just for information.
Lehman/Information. Well why don't we vote and then we'll get the information later.
Kubby/Thanks Dean.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 11. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CITY CODE TITLE
9, CHAPTER 4, ENTITLED "PARKING REGULATION," ARTICLE 4,
ENTITLED "GENERAL PARKING RESTRICTIONS," SECTION B,
ENTITLED "IN EXCESS OF FORT-EIGHT HOURS" REGARDING THE
STORAGE OF VEHICLES ON STREETS, ALLEYS AND PUBLIC
PROPERTY. (PASS AND ADOPT)
Lehman/This is an ordinance that we have an ordinance that prohibits the storage of cars
on streets and in order to comply with this section the car would have to be moved
a minimum of 20 feet in order to comply with the ordinance.
Thornberry/Move adoption of the ordinance.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, second by O'Donnell. Discussion.
Champion/I again will vote against it but I think it's govemment bureaucracy, 20 foot is
movement and one foot is.
Thornberry/Do you want to store your vehicle7 Look for a storage facility.
Champion/I'm not talking about storage.
Norton/We already have the bureaucracy you have to move it. There' s already a, we just
didn't define that.
Lehman/We're gonna move the bureaucracy along. Roll call.
Champion/I'm not going to.
Lehman/Motion carries. Kubby and Champion voting no.
Norton/I don't think the volume of your vote has any weight.
Kubby/We just say it louder hoping it will have some effect.
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ITEM NO. 14. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE CALLS TO
ARTISTS FOR TWO SCULPTURES IN THE DOWNTOWN
PEDESTRIAN MALL.
Lehman/There are two areas in the new, newly reconstructed ped mall for permanent
installation for works of art, this is a call to artists to propose art work for those
two locations. Do we have a motion?
Kubby/So moved.
Champion/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, second by Champion. Discussion.
Kubby/I'm really excited that we're moving ahead with the help of the advisory
committee on this public art program and with these sculptures I just wanted to
read the four objectives from the call to artists about the attributes of the sculpture
that should be presented to us for choices. One of them is that the sculpture is
visually and mentally stimulating, that is inspires wonder and delight, that it's
timeless and has broad appeal. And one of the things I don't know, I haven't seen
it in the minutes that the committee has talked about is when we have big pieces
of sculpture if the right ones aren't chosen to complement each other it can feel
like a gallery which at which is fine ifit's an interactive gallery, I mean I don't
want it to seem like a place that you want to get closed in, you don't want to get
near it, but I don't know how you translate that into a into the call, and I'm not
suggesting we change anything but when the committee looks at the different
sculptures that are present to make sure people feel comfortable around the
complement of the sculptures that we choose instead of feeling like their trying to
get away from them. And I'm.
Norton/Well, Karen in that regard.
Kubby/A sterile gallery, I guess.
Norton/What will they submit that, will they submit sketches, or wooden models or
something like that?
Kubby/Their asking for photos or slides of their work. And the ones that are chosen and
they'll present their work can show slides, pictures, models, of (can't hear).
Norton/So the people can have a chance to look at it and comment. OK.
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Kubby/Right, cause their is a public comment portion to each of the calls we've had so
far. I think is good.
0'Donnell/How many people have to be moved before approve?
Lehman/Well the parameter obviously would allow almost anything so it's certainly very
restrictive.
Norton/Well it'll be a basis for throwing something out, yea.
Lehman/Or, including everything. All fight. Further Discussion. Roll Call. Motion
carries.
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ITEM NO. 15. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND
AUTHORIZING MAYOR TO SIGN AND CITY CLERK TO ATTEST
CONTRACT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF SAND PIT PUMP STATION -
LOWER TERMINUS PROJECT.
Lehman/This project had an estimate of $590,000, we have a bid of $799,325 which is
considerably above the engineers estimate. However, it's being recommended to
to award this contract by public works and as of our discussion last night I think
we understand why that's been recommended. Do we have a motion to approve
this?
O'Donnell/Move to approve.
Kubby/Second.
Lehman/Moved by O'Donnell, second by Kubby. Discussion.
Thornberry/I've just got one point that $200,000 over estimate by an independent firm, it
wasn't it wasn't estimated by the city, it was estimated to us by an independent
contract, independent engineering firm, that's 35 percent for this one this one little
ole pump station. And I will, I guess I'll call for now where we are on this on the
water plant as opposed to where we should be or as proposed. The total amount
of the water plant project is in excess of $200, 20 million dollars.
Atkins/The water plant is estimate is 27.7, that's the most current number, that's in that
recent report that we've prepared for you.
Thomberry/And what percentage are, where, what percentage are we in completion and
what percentage are we as far as budget is concemed.
Atkins/I can't tell you off the top of my head.
Thornberry/I know some of the items that were budgeted were lower, lower, it came in
under budget and some have come in over, very few have come in over, this being
a major portion.
Atkins/We'd be happy to summarize it for you.
Thornberry/But I don't know where we are as to where we should be at this point in
construction and.
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Atkins/Well, remember the three components in there, you had a preliminary, the
engineer, the bid and the final construction. And what I prefer doing is giving you
each of those because they do change. For example, one of the projects, the final
construction may have been substantially higher than the engineer's estimate but
its the same as the preliminary. I mean it depends, that's what happens, folks will
seize on a certain number but we'll do a little summary report for you, sure, that's
easy enough to do, we've got that information.
Thornberry/And actual as completed would make more sense but I know that's, that's
later on.
Arkins/Yea, a number of them are under construction, the big collector well is under
construction, that's about 1.8 million dollars for that project alone. I mean to the
best of our knowledge it's moving along satisfactorily and we haven't seen any.
Norton/But this is what we're talking about Dean. If I understand it, it's trying to set up
some scheme where we can tell at any given point where we are with respect to
original bids and how we're progressing on each of the various components and I
think that's the point of Steve's recent memo was to try to do that, now we
haven't had a chance to maybe finish swallowing that but I think after we do we
might want to take a look at where we stand phase wise because the total water
business was not just 27 but all the water related projects were more in the 40's
and we want to know how we stand with the (can't hear) of that whole package,
and I think that's what.
Thornberry/But those three aspects is what makes a lot of sense to me. What was
proposed, what was bid, and what the actual.
Norton/Steve has those in the new materials and of course it's an ongoing business, but
that's what we're trying to organize in way that we can see it.
Atkins/What Chuck is going to do is to take that memo and reshape it so you can read it
this way down, straight across, by project and we'll prepare that in that format,
and then as a number comes in you just fill in the blank.
Norton/I'm gonna finish this a little bit. I made the point that the reason we're doing this
is not because we're concemed with money disappearing it's just a matter of
having a handle on it and knowing how we're doing at any given point and I said
particularly because when people come on the council here's a huge project that's
been going on for five years and it'll go on for another five and understanding
where it stands and what bite it has on our budget.
Thomberry/Well it as going on when we got on.
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Norton/Yea it was, so it's hard for somebody to get up to date on one of the big issues in
front of us.
Atkins/If that' s your desire I would also encourage you then to direct your airport
commission to do something very similar.
Norton/Exactly.
Atkins/I really think there's a lot of money going in, I mean.
Norton/It goes out in bits and pieces you mean.
Atkins/Absolutely, and it's a big project I think.
Norton/I think there ought be kind of a, I said to somebody it used to be called the navy,
well in the navy, but I knew there was a navy, well I did work in the government.
Thomberry/I didn't know you were old.
Norton/I worked for quite a while and many big project like an aircraft carrier or
something where there's a big chart it shows where all these pieces are going and
then, and how they fit together where your slipping.
Atkins/That's OK, and I have no trouble doing that but remember.
(Side 2)
Atkins/Federal government is their own boss. Remember we're building a project with
the DNR, with the federal government giving us input along the way and things
change. When the federal government's building a battleship the only people they
have to satisfy is the government.
Norton/No, let me tell you, they have to satisfy an awful lot of people there, there are
lookers from every angle.
Atkins/But bottom line still remains is that their their own boss and their own supervisor.
In this case we have it a lot different.
Champion/Well the question I was going to ask is is this over-budget or overestimate,
but I guess it's much more complex question than I'm asking.
Atkins/Well, Chuck has gone through this and as you know last evening and he's not
thrilled about saying we recommend to go ahead with this. This is a reputable
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firm that has been spoken to and they say this is a good number. The only way
your gonna find out if this number is any good, don't award it and bid it again,
that's the risk you take.
Lehman/Well, and I think what you said Steve is really important because you know
Chuck's been here for about a year now or two.
Atkins/Six weeks.
Lehman/Chuck has been here for a long long time and certainly knows his business. He
isn't any happier with this bid than we are and I think it's pretty rare that we
accept bids that are this far over the estimate but with his experience he's
recommending that we accept this bid to according to my understanding what we
discussed last night there are only three contractors in the country that do this kind
of work. One of those contractors is currently in the city, and to re-bid it we take
a substantial chance in having a higher cost.
Atkins/Yep.
Kubby/As well as this company is currently working on a city project, in this area and
their end point of their current project, our current project that their currently
working on will be 200 yards away from this particular site and that that's an
advantage to us in that they have they figured out their bid and then they reduced
it by $48,000 because they didn't have to have the setup and transportation of the
large equipment, so I can't imagine that waiting two months, six months or a year
with the other contractors who specialized in this area being available and having
the price bidding lower and that's part of the reason that I will vote for this bid.
Lehman/OK.
Thornberry/Your arguments last night Karen I gave a lot of weight to since you did the
homework on it and talked to the people involved and you convinced me to
actually vote for this thing even though it was 35 percent over budget over
$200,000 over estimate, you convinced me that this was the right way, fight way
to go, and the money spent will be well worth it. Thank you.
Lehman/Roll call.
Kubby/Well, I had a.
Lehman/I'm sorry.
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Kubby/I had other things one just because I've made a pledge to do this about six months
ago, that when we have a big project to get some information and I've already
done it for this company but just for the public information that this is indeed a
company that uses union machine operators, labors, and carpenters and will be
going to the local pump.
Thomberry/What (cant hear) be?
Kubby/No difference to you apparently but to me and to other people in the community
it's just.
Thomberry/Not necessarily everybody else you can't talk for everybody else in the
community.
Kubby/I'm not saying.
Thornberry/Just because their union doesn't mean that we should accept that bid just
because their union. I disagree with that point.
Kubby/I did not say every other person, I said other people in the community, not all
others, but there are other people in the community who find this an important
piece of information. It's not relevant to you and that's fine, but not everything
we all say is relevant to all of us up here so.
Thornberry/I just that your comment the fact that they were union or nonunion is
immaterial, if they do a good job, fine. If they don't do a good job I don't care
whether their union or non union,
Kubby/And by law.
Thornberry/They shouldn't be around.
Kubby/And that' s your thought process and in terms of legally making my decision it
can't enter in but if the piece of information some members of the community are
interested in and I have made a pledge to provide that and I'm fulfilling that
pledge.
O'Donnell/But by law we can't even ask that question.
Lehman/Well, no. The bottom line.
Kubby/I certainly can and I'm taking the effort to call people and I'm leaming a lot
about the topics and.
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O'Donnell/We can't ask that.
Kubby/Well that's, in the way that it was asked can you put it on the form, the question,
the answer was no, yea.
Norton/I.
Lehman/Well the bottom line is that the city by law accepts the lowest responsible bid,
nothing to do with the employees or the employers or what kind of trucks they
drive.
Norton/But I'm, what I wish I understood better in this particular case, I guess I'll have
to go down and look cause I won't hold it up tonight. Is exactly what involved
here, we're not building an aircraft carrier as far as I know,
Man/in the water.
Norton/And we're putting an intake pipe into the river and into the sand pit and it
boggles my mind that it's so hugely complicated that it's got to cost $800,000.
Lehman/Big baby.
Charles Schmadeke/It is large and it's located along side the sand pit and it's 45 feet
deep so there's a lot of dewatering and pre work before the construction actually
starts.
Norton/Do you have to put (can't hear) in there or something like that?
Thornberry/Divers.
Lehman/No, you pump the water actually out don't you? Yea.
Champion/Well I'm not.
Lehman/Similar to the work they had to do.
Norton/OK. I'll go down there and look at it, I'll go down and look at the drawings OK.
Chuck, can I see the drawings.
Schmadeke/Yes you may.
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Norton/I'm just trying to understand the scale because I understand looking at the lift
station and Napoleon lift station was pretty impressive enterprise too and I expect
if you don't look at it you don't realize what's involved.
Lehman/You have to do the same thing out there.
Norton/Right, I will.
Lehman/OK. Connie your gonna go out and get your feet wet too.
Champion/Yes, I'm right here now. I am not going to support this because I've really
been thinking about it and I just have real problems with something that's so far
over and I thought what if I were building a house and I got the contractor's bid
back and and it was 35 percent over what I was willing to spend, I would want to
re-look at what I was doing to see if there was a cheaper way to do it or I might
want to wait to for a better climate and put it out for bid again so I'm not gonna
support it cause I know sometimes bidding situations do change and not always
do they increase, sometimes they do decrease.
Lehman/Your fight Conhie, but if your building a house you have more than three
contractors to choose from.
O'Donnell/Not for her size of house. I'm sorry.
Lehman/All fight.
Norton/No, it's a good point Connie, it's a.
Lehman/I think that was the big point last night for me that there are very very few
namely only three that can do the work anyway so.
Kubby/Before we vote I had one other suggestion on how maybe we can have in front of
us all the timely projects, cause they are, their probably the biggest projects that
any of us will deal with as a city council member in our careers here. And that is
to have some kind of map or graphics (can't hear) and have it here, I mean there's
plenty of wall space up here. Naomi and I always said we were gonna get some
artwork in here.
(can't hear).
Kubby/Well there's mayors pictures but that's, and that's fine but maybe we should have
some nicely done maps of what the project is showing which projects have been
completed and how much they cost and so that when we vote on this one piece of
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it we can see, I can look over there and see it's part of this whole bigger project,
and I understand better than, constantly reminded and reeducated about how it sits
into the big picture.
Atkins/I think we probably already got something like that, I know Chuck.
Norton/Well it's a lot of work but it's worth it for the.
Kubby/I mean in terms of public education the camera can then go to the map too to say
here is where this fits in and this function of this project in the bigger picture and I
think that's important for us to keep doing.
Norton/I really, that's, you know it's like our work with the budget, we're getting better
at the visuals and the presentation and it makes you a good deal more comfortable
when you understand it better.
Atkins/And we drew a crowd tonight.
Norton/Well you did presume fight in the middle of the ball game.
Lehman/Their all watching, their all watching on TV.
Norton/Their might have, good rehearsal.
Lehman/All right. Roll call. Motion carried, Champion voting no.
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ITEM NO. 16. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND
AUTHORIZING MAYOR TO SIGN AND CITY CLERK TO ATTEST
CONTRACT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE COLLEGE STREET
PEDESTRIAN MALL WATER MAIN REPLACEMENT PROJECT.
Kubby/Move to
Lehman/We've been asked, I'm sorry go ahead.
Kubby/Move to defer to March 2.
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Thornberry to defer to the second of March. All
in favor.
Norton/What are we?
Lehman/Well I, we should explain this.
Norton/What are we deferring for yea?
Lehman/We are deferring the replacing of a water main project in the ped mall to
coordinate that with the overall bid for the reconstruction of that mall with the
possibility that we may be able to get that work done for less expensively if the
two are done together, but we'll still have the option of accepting this bid on the
second of March if the other bid's not less expensive.
Norton/Oh, I see, this bid is $40,000 or something over.
Lehman/Right, but this could be part of a larger project, and we'll see how that works
out from a cost factor.
Atkins/I do think that we owe you at least a couple of minutes on why the bid was high.
And Chuck I'll do my best cause I did talk to Rob about it. This work is in a
confined space and remember and one of the difficulties that you have is that your
sort of always working around someone whereas the company such as this can go
out into a subdivision and lay pipes and concrete without any interference. It's a
more difficult. What's that?
Lehman/Not for the deer.
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Norton/Yea, it has to be neat and clean all the time on it.
Atkins/Yea, and this is forever at the end of the work day buttoned up, closed up, and I
feel confident that it's found it's way into this bid and if we do coordinate it with
something else we might be able to save ourself quite a bit.
Norton/The principal that should find his way into the engineer's estimate.
Atkins/Absolutely. Absolutely.
Thornberry/It did.
Lehman/Well it may very well have but if it's part of the other project where they have
to do the same sort of precaution anyway it's conceivably cheaper.
Atkins/So if we did postpone it to the second we'll get it to you.
Lehman/OK.
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ITEM NO. 17. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND
AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND CITY CLERK TO
ATTEST CONTRACT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PARK
MAINTENANCE BUILDING IN NAPOLEON PARK.
Lehman/Architects estimate was $980,000 it was recommended the contract be awarded
to McCommas-Lacina construction for $871,105 including four alternatives
which are certainly something that could be discussed.
Thornberry/Moved adoption of the resolution.
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thomberry, seconded by Norton. Discussion.
Kubby/I'm not sure I understand what the four alternatives on the chart really mean
except for maybe interior painting I understand.
Norton/And the driveway.
Kubby/And the, yea and the parking. Maybe it's really the other (can't hear).
Norton/And there was brick on the exterior. How do you like that?
Thomberry/Terry knows.
Atkins/Tell em Terry.
Terry Trueblood/Can I help you?
Kubby/Please, would you please explain altemative one and two, alternatives one and
two.
Trueblood/One and.
Kubby/Two.
Trueblood/Two. Alternative one is a brick facing one three sides of the building, the
three sides that would be exposed mostly to the public, and it's there, it's not a
structural thing it's there to make the building there more attractive.
Kubby/What would the faucad??? be if we did not put the brick on it?
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Trueblood/Metal siding.
Thornberry/Ooh.
Norton/Yuck.
Kubby/I hope Dean will vote for brick.
Man/Maybe he will.
Norton/Absolutely.
Lehman/Terry can you do a call to artists and paint a mural on that metal siding?
Trueblood/We could certainly do that yea.
Kubby/Oh that' s a very interesting (can't hear).
Norton/Is that the one that faces the river you mean?
Thornberry/Those artists are high dollar painters though.
Lehman/The largest alternative on this bid is.
Thornberry/Can you paint the brick?
Lehman/Paving the roads and the parking lot that add to the additional $80,000 to the
low bid. I imagine the alternative to that is crushed stuff.
Trueblood/Gravel, right.
Lehman/Would it be possible if one of our paving projects that have, perhaps not this
year but in future year to have that lot paved or asphalt as part of the total projects
for the city when we do asphalt work?
Trueblood/At a future time?
Lehman/Yea.
Trueblood/Yea, yea that's possible.
Kubby/I would have a problem having a road be gravel that goes out onto a road because
we don't allow the private sector to do that, like you can't have a gravel driveway
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in town that goes out onto a road, it can go out into an alley but not to a road. So I
would have a problem with us doing that. I may agree about the parking but not
the road.
Lehman/Well at least the driveway, yea.
Kubby/Yea, cause having that on the road it puts it spews all that gravel onto the road
and causes problems?
Norton/Well does this come fight up the hill from the building fight up the hill to Gilbert
Street?
Trueblood/That' s correct, yes.
Norton/And it's kind of a slope there isn't it, a reasonable slope?
Trueblood/That's correct also.
Norton/So gravel would not be very successful on that slope I wouldn't think.
Trueblood/You know we can live with gravel, but obviously the asphalt would be much
better.
Champion/Aren't you going to be driving a lot of heavy equipment over this?
Kubby/Yea.
Trueblood/Well not heavy compared to public works but heavy compared to your car
and my car yes.
Champion/So, does asphalt really hold up to that kind of traffic, or would you want
pavement? I don't.
Trueblood/Oh yea.
Thornberry/I agree with Karen that it's gonna be putting debris out on the highway and
or out on that road and there's some people that jog down in that area and I think
that (can't hear)
Norton/What are we gonna do put in heavy duty pavement?
Thornberry/(can't hear)
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O'Donnell/But I think it is a good point we'll have some debris out on the road, I'd like
to see that not happen.
Norton/Yea, I'd like to see a decent entrance.
O'Donnell/I'm gonna get you Norton.
Norton/That sight distance is gonna be OK there Terry, it still makes me mildly nervous,
that sight distance where you come out of that place?
Trueblood/Yea, it should be fine, that's what we're told.
Lehman/Well we wouldn't be building it if it weren't.
Norton/No, I guess.
Trueblood/No, well, we'd have to take a serious look at it and we did look at that right
up front that was one of our concerns and were told it should be fine. So Karen
response to alternative number two, there were several things we were looking at
just to in case we could save a lot of money, cause we were worded about how the
bids might come in, as it turned out we got good bids. But the liner, the interior
liners are in the big garage part of the building, if you will, where the trucks and
so forth go in, and these liners we had taken out thinking well we could put those
up ourselves if it would save a lot of money. They need to go up regardless, and
their just covering the interior installation from floor to ceiling so that we don't
have exposed insulation in there, so that.
Kubby/That's a real good idea.
Trueblood/The reason we wanted to included it is because it was it wasn't a very costly
item so we figured it'd just be better to contract it.
Kubby/So we, could we not do it cheaper than what's in here. This is a good price,
cheaper than what we could do it.
Lehman/Oh, it's pretty cheap.
Trueblood/We could do it but you know we'd probably have to go out and spend $1,000
to $1,500 just on materials and then of course so, we'd still have to buy the
materials then we'd have to use our time to do it.
Kubby/Right, but I'm asking is keeping it in the bid cheaper than having our folks do it?
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Trueblood/Well, it depends on whether or not you count our folks time.
Lehman/We pay you don't we?
Kubby/Well I guess the other thing to think about is that that would take you away from
the other activities your scheduled to do and we're already kind of shy on parks
maintenance time.
Trueblood/Right. We think it would be a much more effective way to do it as to just
have it part of the contract.
Lehman/OK. Is there any interest in eliminating, including, whatever any of the
alternatives? Accepting it as it is, anymore discussion.
Norton/I don't want to include the alternative.
Lehman/Pardon.
Norton/I assume, where do we stand with the alternatives? (can't hear)
Lehman/The bid includes all.
Norton/Yea, that's where I'm at yea, cause I think a lot of it has some affect on energy as
well wouldn't it.
Trueblood/Pardon me.
Norton/Wouldn't the liner have some effect on energy usage?
Trueblood/Oh yea, the liner will be put in, regardless, it's just a question of whether the
contractor will do it or whether we will.
Kubby/I'm a little hesitant on the brick actually. But because it's where this building is,
even though it's lower than the road it's becoming a more major entrance into the
city.
Norton/Absolutely.
Kubby/I'm OK with the brick.
Champion/I don't want it to look like a garage.
Thornberry/Down the road it's less maintenance I believe.
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Treeblood/Certainly should yea.
Kubby/And again it's for, for information McCommas-Lacina is a nonunion shop.
Lehman/They are local I believe too.
Kubby/Yep, an Iowa City company.
Thornberry/They are local.
Lehman/Other discussion.
Norton/Now this begins this spring right away.
Treeblood/Yes, it does.
Lehman/About 10 after nine if we roll call this early.
Champion/Right so.
Treeblood/The project won't be done quite that soon.
Lehman/(can't hear). Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 18. PUBLIC DISCUSSION 0FNECESSAR~ (ITEMSNOT ON THE
AGENDA).
Lehman/Item 18 is Public Discussion ifthere's any persons who didn't have an
opportunity to speak earlier.
Thornberry/I'm gonna have a question for Rick in a minute.
Atkins/Rick. Hang on. Excuse me Steve.
Steven Kanner/Steven Kanner, I just want to say I do appreciate Karen's remarks I find
this educational about the status, the union status of the companies that are getting
bids. I think it's an important component and I think we can learn a lot from that
and I hope you continue to inform us on those issues.
Thornberry/What is it that we can learn from that?
Kanner/Well I think there's a lot of history, there's a lot of pride.
Thornberry/I'm sorry I didn't want to get into history so. I'll talk to you after the
meeting.
Champion/The only thing that I would say about it is I don't care ifKaren wants to find
out whether it's a union employee or not, that doesn't make any difference to me.
I support your (can't understand). But I'm I'm not what bothers me is because
they are members of the union doesn't mean that their being paid more or being
treated more than by an employer who hires nonunion workers. People assume
that that's true but that's not always true.
O'Donnell/And it certainly does not mean your gonna get a better quality of work simply
because they've gone union. I support union and nonunion workers. Anybody
who chooses to work but chooses not to join a union I'll support them.
Thornberry/I believe Iowa is an open open work (can't hear) and so you can or not it's
your option so it's a freedom to work act so it doesn't make any difference
whether it's union or nonunion and we never say anything when it's nonunion. I
just don't think it's necessary to bring it up everytime it's a union job or we could
bring it up everytime it's not a union job, it doesn't make any difference. I just
think it's a waste of time and effort.
Kubby/I just did bring up that it was a nonunion. And again I it's not something.
Thornberry/I think I remember you saying that yea.
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Kubby/It's gonna be relevant to some people and not to others and so people who it's not
relevant to can not listen or not do anything with that information and for the
people that it is relevant to have the information.
Kanner/Thank you.
Lehman/Congratulations. Thank you Steve. You have a question for Rick?
Thomberry/I do. I'm sorry, this is on council time I.
Lehman/Well whatever.
Thornberry/Or you can, actually a council time question but on Captain Irish Parkway
going from Highway 1 proceeding to ACT at this time. I walked that the other
day and saw I don't know if there are many streets where if there are driveways
that are paved from Captain Irish Parkway all the way to the houses on the left
side going up Captain Irish. Was that originally in the bid? Why did we pave
people's driveways or is that a, the first one is kind of a private road that goes
back to two houses I believe. And then curves around and goes back down onto
Highway 1, is that a mini street or is that a private drive or is it a driveway or
what is that?
Rick Fosse/This is something that Chuck knows more about. I'll answer it as best I can.
Do you know the answer?
Eleanor Dilkes/I think. Do you know the answer? I do if you don't. I think I do if you
don't.
Fosse/I think what's happening there is we're relocating driveways from Highway 1 onto
Captain Irish.
Lehman/We took a driveway out.
Fosse/Yea.
Dilkes/I think the DOT required that we shut off those two, those accesses to those two
houses that come straight onto the highway and so we had to make arrangements
to provide another access.
Thornberry/I noticed that it doesn't go all the way to the street, it goes 90 percent of the
way and then there's a short period of drive that goes from Highway 1 that
doesn't connect to the cement. Is that going to be connected or is that just going
to remain dirt and gravel?
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Fosse/I'll find out for you. Chances are it's something that wasn't completed before
winter came.
Thornberry/OK. So, is that a drive?
Dilkes/I know that the my understanding from Chuck is that they were not able to
complete the work for, I think those, their still accessing ~'om the highway so the
work to reroute those accesses has not been completed.
Thornberry/OK. They can access it from Captain Irish now too though and it's kind of a
circle that goes from Captain Irish to Highway 1 around, it goes all the way
around.
Kubby/But not for long.
Thornberry/Yea, it will. It will continue won't it, or will they block off that driveway?
Atkins/Here comes Chuck. Chuck.
Thornberry/Will they block off that driveway on Highway 1 ?
Lehman/You were out watching TV weren't you? I think he has jammies on, I think
he's ready for bed.
Chuck Schmadeke/The two driveways on highways 1.
Thornberry/Yes. No. The two driveways offof Captain Irish, well actually 3, there's one
that goes to the right to Gaten's house and there's two to the left. One goes from
Captain Irish and bends around and then their driveway is off of that to the two
houses that are there, and it continues all the way back to Highway 1, not all
paved, 90 percent of it is paved, there's only a short portion between the end of
that concrete and Highway 1.
Schmadeke/And just the house closest to town has access off of Captain Irish at the
present time. That new driveway that was put in will not go on around to
Highway 1, it'll end at that (can't hear) house.
Thornberry/Even into where the cement stops now?
Schmadeke/Well a little further so they can go down their driveway into the garage. But
it will not go back to Highway 1.
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Thornberry/OK. OK. And the other one is a cement nice nice cemem drive all the way to
the house on the left hand side up there.
Schmadeke/Right.
Thornberry/That was because.
Schmadeke/We had to close off their access to Highway 1.
Thornberry/No, they didn't have an access to Highway 1, it's up there by ACT.
Norton/You talking about Clancy's house?
Lehman/By Clancy's house?
Champion/Well you have to access to Highway 1.
Norton/Well yea that's just a.
Champion/Definitely.
Norton/The driveway did.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/(can't hear)
Champion/It certainly did.
Lehman/Must be a differera house then.
Thornberry/I'm not, I do not if it's Clancy or not, I (can't hear).
Norton/The one near the park.
Thomberry/The one clear up on the left hand side about 3,/4 's of the way up the hill up to
ACT, way up past Gaten's.
Lehman/Your question though is whether or not we paid for putting in the driveway.
Thornberry/Yea.
Schmadeke/That was in before, we didn't, we didn't pave that.
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Thornberry/That was not, it's brand new cement.
Lehman/We're talking about.
Thornberry/It was the same time Captain Irish was there.
Lehman/Well I guess the question though Chuck and I guess you can certainly answer it,
those, the driveways that have been replaced in the work associated with Captain
Irish and Highway 1 that have been the new driveways installed, were they
installed at city expense to replace the driveway that we took away and were we
required to replace those driveways?
Schmadeke/That's right, because we eliminated the driveways onto Highway 1.
Atkins/Chuck, could someone have contracted independently with paving contractor to
put do some contracting, I mean fight off the side?
?????/And we wouldn't know about it.
Schmadeke/They could have done that in addition to our work, yea.
Atkins/I mean it really had nothing to do with our work just approach, I've seen that
happen where someone will say your putting in a new street, while your here what
will you charge me for a driveway? And that's independent of our work.
Schmadeke/That's right. It could have been done.
Thornberry/Another driveway that's not off of Highway 1 and I know it's not off of
Highway 1 and that's Gaten's. And that was put in, obviously, we disrupted his
driveway and put in another one for him.
Atkins/And there's one still in question?
Thomberry/I think there is, I didn't know that he.
Norton/Beyond Gaten's.
Atkins/Beyond Gaten's, we'll check that tomorrow (can't hear).
Norton/Check it out yea.
Thomberry/OK. Thank you.
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Lehman/Thanks Chuck.
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ITEM NO. 20. COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS.
Lehman/Historic Preservation Commission, there are four appointments, including one
from Brown Street, one from Moffitt and two at large, so last night we decided to
recommend we will be appointing Doris Malkmus from the Moffitt Street district,
Mark Mills from the Brown Street, Anderson and Licht at large. Do I have a
motion to that effect?
Norton/So moved.
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, second by Thomberry. All in favor.
Lehman/Telecommunications Commission we had two appointments, we had two people
who have applied do we have a motion for those folks one or the other.
Kubby/Move Jim Pusack.
Champion/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Champion, that Jim Pusack be re-appointed to
the commission. All in favor.
Norton/Now there's a motion, there's a second candidate for Terry Smith.
Lehman/Yea, do you make the move (can't hear)?
Norton/I'll move, I move that we appoint Terry Smith to the other position.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, Seconded by Thornberry to appoint Terry Smith to
Telecommunications commission. All in favor.
Kubby/I'm sorry where where are we at, I.
Norton/I just moved that Terry be appointed.
Kubby/I'm sorry.
Thornberry/I seconded it and.
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Norton/We did the Pusack.
Kubby/Well I just wanted to briefly explain, I was gonna vote no for Terry because he's
manager at Mid-American and I just feel there's such a relationship especially
with how energy merging with Mid-America with telecommunications and
utilities or right of way issues and one of the big advantages of having Terry on
this commission is is his knowledge of about right of way issues and the big
advantage of him being on there may be lost if he needs to recuse himself
depending on the form of the ordinance that comes to that commission because of
the conflict and so I'd rather not place ourself in a position where one of the major
reasons we're putting someone on they will most likely have to recuse himself for
conflict and I just feel uncomfortable about the close relationship I'll be voting
no.
Norton/Well I think it's important to respond in some sense to that position but the way
things stand the conflict of interest is up to the person to identify and not to us to
prejudge and I think as a (can't hear) perhaps not a very good precedent to set that
even though in this case you may have a legitimate concem, I'm sure you do, but I
think in principle we have to count on the people abiding by what they sign on the
document and if he gets into situations where a lot of recussing is required then
clearly that will lead to problems and we can have to reconsider but I think it
would be bad to try to do it ahead of time that's my view.
Kubby/Half of these are political appointments. (can't hear) make those kinds of
judgments.
Norton/OK. I just wanted to be sure that both sides of that story were heard.
Kubby/Yep, that's fine.
Lehman/All in favor. Terry Smith is appointed.
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ITEM NO. 21. CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION.
Lehman/Who would like to go first?
Norton/I'I1 go. And I hope I'm not stealing somebody's thunder but I think we ought to
acknowledge United Way having gone over $125 million, I think what 13 percent
over budget is that what were.
Lehman/How much Marian?
Marian Karr/I don't budget over goals.
Norton/Oh, over the goal I mean which is really, not over, I'm so used to be, I'm so used
to be over budget.
Thornberry/Oh no, you can't say that. We're not going.
Lehman/Now, wait a minute. How much were you successful at raising?
Karr/1.5.
Lehman/1.5 million dollars, and what was your goal?
Karr/Our goal was 1.5, we raised 13 percent.
Norton/And they were 13 percent over last years, is what they.
Karr/We raised 1.57, our goal was 1.5, last year was 1.3.
Lehman/Who was chair of this?
Karr/Joyce Left was chair this year.
Lehman/Did Joyce have a co-chair?
Karr/Yes Joyce did.
Lehman/Who was the co-chair?
Karr/The co-chair was myself.
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Norton/There you go, all fight.
Lehman/We're very proud of you. Congratulations.
Norton/Congratulations.
Kubby/And to the community for (can't hear).
Norton/Absolutely, wonderful job, yea. minutes.
Atkins/I did it all by myself.
Norton/That's true.
Thornberry/You didn't have a co-chair.
Norton/You just wrote a big check.
Atkins/I'm sorry.
I wanted to mention something that was in the
Norton/I want to mention this is our last chance to mention that Bowl for Kids or Big
Brothers/Big Sisters is this Saturday.
O'Donnell/Is that one game?
Lehman/We bowl one game.
Norton/Yes, we bowl one game, there are so many of us you'd want get one ball. But we
bowl at 3:45, that is the council team, and spouses and partners bowl at 3:45 at
Colonial lanes. Karen what time is your team bowling?
Kubby/We bowl at noon at Colonial Lanes.
Norton/OK so we hope the people will be pledging and coming out to cheer us on or
cheer others on.
Atkins/Sunday or Saturday.
Norton/Saturday the 271h, is that fight?
Lehman/Right.
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Norton/One thing I just wanted to note, in one of the minutes I just wanted to get this is
the hopper. I noticed there's some possibility lurking around for new some new
park possibilities in the Miller Orchard Area I think we will be heating from the
commission.
Kubby/Finally.
Norton/I think that's very important, we've been looking for that for a long time and I
hope we move vigorously to do what we can to acquire that it would be a real
virtue. I think perhaps I'll leave it at that, there are a few other items but I'll take
them up privately.
Thornberry/I got in the mail yesterday or today a notice of a meeting or several meetings
of the neighborhood associations and it's one group of all neighborhood
associations together that this new neighborhood.
Atkins/Neighborhood Council.
Thornberry/Neighborhood Council.
Norton/No it's been there.
Thornberry/Right and it's meeting in the meeting room off the lobby I guess, on the 1 lth
and it said that the chief of police is gonna be there and what he's gonna be
talking about. It said the date and the place but it didn't say what time, and I
have, I don't you know, if somebody has the time for that if they were to come.
Atkins/They convene probably at 7:00 for something such as that yea.
Karr/It's usually at 7:00.
Atkins/7:00, I've gone to it a couple times and (can't hear).
Norton/But the neighborhood council has been around for a long time though, the leaders
of different neighborhoods get together and it's a real good.
Thornberry/Right, but it didn't, I was gonna go but I thought gee what time do I go, and I
couldn't find any place on there where it said a time.
Atkins/What's the date again? The 1 lth. What was the date again?
Thornberry/I believe it was the 11 th.
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Atkins/We'll find out.
Thornberry/Is that correct Madan?
Karr/I don't know I didn't get the notice, that's what you said though.
Thornberry/You didn't get, you don't live in a neighborhood? Or are you not?
Karr/No, I just did not read my mail. I was at the council meeting.
Norton/The neighborhood meetings are different.
Thornberry/And if it would so please the council I would like to request a change in
council meetings in the month of March. We're not going to have one on the 8th
or 9th due to the League of Cities and there are a couple council members going
to the League of Cities. And I mentioned October of last year, maybe I, Madan
lead us to believe that earlier the better that we tell us when we wouldn't be able
to come to a meeting so last October I indicated that I wouldn't be able to come to
the March 22 o 23 meeting but it was too far ahead of time so I guess it was kind
of put on a back burner and never brought up again.
Lehman/Your suggesting we move.
Thornberry/I would like to suggest we move that a one week back to the 291h - 30th.
Kubby/But you know that's an election night and we've been trying to avoid election
nights.
Norton/Wait a minute.
Lehman/Well it's a sales tax election night.
Norton/What would be the possibility going the other direction Dean?
Thornberry/Dee Vanderhoef's gonna be out of town.
Norton/On the 15th.
Lehman/Spring break.
Norton/Oh spring break I see now.
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Thomberry/As far as I know she's the only one that's gonna be out of town but I
wouldn't want to change it so that I would be there but she couldn't be. So that's
why I went the other way to get the 291h - 30th.
Norton/Oh boy.
Karr/Could I make another suggestion? And that is if your gonna be changing it it's a
special night anyway, so you have flexibility to choose another night or another
time of day because the designation becomes a special meeting.
Thomberry/Oh you mean like.
Norton/Later in the week, that would be very good.
Thornberry/You mean like Sunday - Monday.
Norton/I hate to see such a long time between meetings, if we meet March 1 and then
don't meet again until the 291h that's quite a big gap, why not late in the week,
well we have a spring break week, is there somebody gone all that time you
mean?
Thomberry/No, Dee Vanderhoef comes back the 17th I believe.
Karr/That's correct.
Norton/What day of the week is that?
Thomberry/Wednesday.
Karr/Wednesday.
Lehman/It's a Wednesday. I think there's a certain value in having council meetings on
Monday's and Tuesday's. The public I think has learned to expect that. I
personally don't have a problem with having it on the night of the sales tax vote.
Norton/Well the sales tax is the next day is it not?
Lehman/The sales tax vote is the night of the 30th which if we change it it would be the
night of that vote, that doesn't bother me. Karen, obviously it concerns you.
Kubby/Well I just think that council members who are active in electoral concerns of the
city which we are, I hope we are.
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Norton/It'll be over by that time won't it?
Lehman/Yea, basically over with when the meeting starts.
Kubby/Well maybe the way you campaign it's over by the time we (can't hear).
Lehman/Well yea I think that (can't hear).
Norton/You can even do your walking (can't hear) by then Karen.
Lehman/You figure by that time it (can't hear). I don't care what' s the pleasure of the
crowd?
Norton/We'll, let's accommodate Dean if we can, the 291h o 30th then.
Thornberry/Well I mean I asked not today or yesterday I asked six months ago.
Norton/I understand, I'm not at all.
O'Donnell/Let's do it then.
Champion/That's fine.
O'Donnell/OK.
Lehman/All fight.
Karr/The 291h - 30th and then also just to note that ifthere's a need for some award of
contract or something we can always have a special meeting.
Norton/Now the 291h and 30th and then there's another one fight immediately following
the week fight after Easter fight?
Karr/Yes.
Thomberry/Well the two before that also were together.
Norton/OK. Well.
Kubby/Right but it does bunch them which does create some.
Thornberry/If it's a big problem, if it's a big problem, leave it the way it is but we've
already we're already doing it in February.
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Champion/We've done it for other people.
O'Donnell/We just have to learn to be more efficient.
Lehman/Well, I agree I think it's important whenever we possibly can to have all of our
members at meeting. And I guess I don't like bunching them either but I think it's
more important to have all of our folks here than it is to bunch them once in a
while.
Norton/Can staff handle that? You have two times with just a weeks notice, is that
gonna?
Atkins/I just checked a notice, we have a public hearing on the 23rd.
Karr/I know, we can take care of that.
Thornberry/Well we're doing it February 23rd and we also have it March 1 and March 2.
Karr/We also have award of bids.
Lehman/All right.
Norton/Yep, we're doubling them on both, that's fight.
Lehman/Do you have anything else Dee?
Atkins/Excuse me, what dates did we settle on?
Norton/291h - 30th.
Karr/We just decided to move it 291h - 30th. May I also say at the next meeting, we also
have a summer schedule, and you did get a memo on that, we may want to talk
about that.
Norton/We should.
Lehman/All fight.
O'Donnell/I just want to announce that Bob Simpson the chairman of the SEATS
Advisory Committee has been in the hospital, he's just been released recently and
I want to wish him a speedy recovery. Dee Norton and I are also going to have a
SEATS advisory committee meeting March 4, 1:00 in meeting room C at the
library. And my final thing Dee has mentioned bowling for Big Brothers/Big
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Sisters and I want to mention I through the gantlet of challenge at your feet and it
remains unanswered, I've (can't hear) him at 50 pins and I can't get any comment
out o f him.
Norton/I have to check out my arm and see if it's working. I have to go down and
practice a little bit Mike, and practicing. OK.
O'Donnell/I accept your excuse.
Lehman/OK. Connie.
Champion/I don't have anything except I hope that people will take the time and
initiative to inform themselves of the upcoming sales tax vote. The forms that the
library in Iowa City and Coralville and coffee's at people's houses. I think it's
important that people understand what their supporting or what their not
supporting.
Kubby/Well we got a memo in our last information packet from a Julie Tallman and I
really appreciate how in a couple of issues she has given us a head's up on some
challenges we may face as we try to have more sustainable natural areas while we
allow development to occur and one of the things she reminded us about although
it's happening at we can't go city council members because there's gonna be a
city council meeting, is the Prairie Preview, which is always a good event and this
year the Prairie Preview will be on Tuesday March 2 at 7:00 PM and it will focus
on natural landscaping and using native plants. And some of the things that she
reminds us about is that as people want to do more native landscaping in the right
of way or on their property that their maybe some challenges for the city in terms
of how those plantings conflict with our ban on burning ordinance it may conflict
with our weed ordinance and how will we deal with because it's things that we
kind of want to encourage people to do but their against some (can't hear)
ordinances and I know other communities have either certain kind of permits or
mechanism for people to be able to do this kind of planting so I hope that we will
get those other examples and be able to find a flexible process so that that's an
option for folks cause I think that is a trend nationally and that people in this
community will support that and are already doing that but I think it'll happen
more so. I look forward to those discussions and appreciate her initiative and
informing us and kind of giving us that forewarning about some of the challenges
we'll face. Besides the bowl thing, bowling for Big Brothers/Big Sisters this
weekend, there are two other exciting things you can do and there either
educational or fundraising. One is on a Friday night Riverside Theater is having
their annual Diamonds and Denim Art and Service auction that is always a fun
event that's gonna be happening at the Highlander now called
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Lehman/Radisson.
Atkins/Radisson.
Kubby/Radisson, thank you, on Friday night, you can get tickets by calling Riverside
theater and then in the moming you can go to CPR Saturday and you can get
trained in adult CPR in a very short period of time. Classes start at 8:00, 10:30 in
the morning and 1:00 PM, you can pre-register by calling the Grantwood area
chapter office at 337-2119, although walk-ins are accepted and the goal of the
Grantwood area chapter this year is to get at least one person in every household
trained in first aid or CPR and last year Grantwood trained over 8,000 people
(can't hear) state. And it takes a lot of instructors and I am a volunteer instructor
trainer for the county so anyone interested I've got a class coming up in March,
every Wednesday in March except that spring break week to become an instructor
in CPR and first aid, if your interested call the red cross office.
Lehman/How often should you re educate yourself or whatever?
Kubby/CPR we recommend every year, especially if your certified your certification
only lasts for a year so it's a refresher course.
Lehman/Right.
Kubby/Every year and then first aid is every three years. This Saturday it's just adult
CPR. That's all I have thank you.
Lehman/Two things, business fair at Carver Hawkeye, actually three things, Saturday
and Sunday. That's the event that is very very well attended by the local
community, your council folks will be there at various times on Saturday and
Sunday. Lot of fun for a lot of folks. We experience a suppose a historic event
tonight, Tom Davis' last home basketball game and I think we all would wish
Tom the very very best in less something horrible happened in the last few
minutes Iowa won the game handily and Tom' s had a very extinguished career at
Iowa and I sure I'm truly wishing him the very best. And in regard the to sales
tax Connie, the first of the two leagues league forum, the league of women voters
forum will be tomorrow night at the Coralville council chambers at from 7:00 to
9:00 so people interested with questions or whatever on sales tax if they'd like to
attend they can be there, if not it will be televised. Anything Steve.
Atkins/Nothing sir.
Lehman/Eleanor. Do we have a motion to adjourn?
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Thornberry/So moved.
O'DonnelU Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thomberry, seconded by O'Donnell. All in favor. Meeting is
adjourned.
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