HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-03-30 Transcription#1 Page 1
ITEM NO. 1. ANNOUNCEMENTS.
Ernie Lehman/Before we do Item 2, two things or three, first of all there's one hour left
to vote in the sales tax election, so if you haven't voted and you'd like you have
until 8:00 to do that, approximately one hour. All of the folks here tonight are not
here to speak to the council. We've got a group of students from the University
Journalism school, we welcome you, we hope you enjoy yourself. Afterwards
we'll see if you, we'll see what we really did when we see what you write. OK.
And also we had another fire tonight, on Burlington Street, it was a an apartment
house, fortunately no one was hurt, so Andy Rocca the fire chief stopped in just a
minute ago so I think we're all very, very thankful, but it was another big fire,
obviously two big fires in three or four days is not something we're accustomed to
and I hope we never do but the big thing is that no one got hurt so we're thankful
for that.
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ITEM NO. 2. OUTSTANDING STUDENT CITIZENSHIP AWARDS.
Lehman/And if we could have you folks step forward. This is one of the really fun
things we do at council is makes us recognize some of our young folks. And I
think let them know how much we appreciate their citizenship and how important
citizenship really is, and obviously this is something that not just the council
recognizes, this is something their peers and their schools recognize. And believe
me your parents do too, so. Whose gonna read for them tonight, your gonna read,
would you please announce the names as you read them.
Caitlin
Bryant/Thank you for honoring the Roosevelt filth and sixth grade classes with
this award. My name is Caitlin Bryant and I was the team captain of Team Alex
5. Five years ago my family and I battled cancer as my room underwent
chemotherapy with Hodgkin's Disease, when I found out my school had also been
affected by the threat of cancer I saw an opportunity to help. In September of
1998 a kindergarten student at Roosevelt, Alex Gastin, lost her right arm to bone
cancer. Organizing Team Alex for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life
was a way for me and my classmates to join the fight against cancer. The
response we received from our fellow students, parents and friends was
overwhelming. We organized a pancake breakfast which was held February 6 in
Roosevelt's gym, local businesses donated all the food and supplies we needed to
feed 300 hungry Iowa City residents and even some Hawkeye Football players. A
local radio station broadcasted live from our school and lots of people came down
and ate pancakes just to help out. Everyone had a fun time but we did not forget
why we were doing it or who we were doing it for. Team Alex raised $3,350 for
the American Cancer Society and we learned a lot about making a difference. I
leamed that one person with an idea can make a difference when friends join in.
Our classes learned about the value of volunteering and working together. We
were active participants in our community and look forward to our next
opportunity to help. We know that no amount of money can bring back Alex's
arm but we can raise money for a cancer research and hope that someday other
families won't have to deal with cancer. Thank you again we are very grateful
for this award.
Lehman/Well indeed we are very, very proud of you, this is April, Caitlin and Jarod. My
kids went to Roosevelt so this is kind of special for me too. Oh yea, let me read,
sorry. The awards reads, "For outstanding qualifies of leadership within
Roosevelt Elementary as well as the community and for a sense of responsibility
and helpfulness to others we recognize these students as outstanding student
citizens," our community is proud of you, presented by the Iowa City city
council, thank you.
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ITEM NO. 3a. MAYORS PROCLAMATIONS.
Lehman/First is American Red Cross month. Whereas the Grantwood Area Chapter of
the American Red Cross provides vital services to eastern Iowan's regardless of
their race, education, income or political persuasion, whereas the chapter provides
local disaster victims with emotional and physical support to help them recover
from tragedy and whereas the American Red Cross is a communication link
between service members and their loved ones by relaying news of births, deaths,
and serious illnesses. Whereas eastem Iowans learning vital lifesaving skills,
including CPR and first-aid under the guidance of dedicated Red Cross
instructors. And whereas every year thousands of area youth compete water safety
classes taught by the Red Cross trained instructors employed by City pool and
recreation centers and whereas many of our communities youth have learned the
facts about aides including prevention measures through the dedicated efforts of
Red Cross, HIV aides educators, now therefore, Emest W. Lehman, mayor of
Iowa City do hereby proclaim the month of March 1999 as American Red Cross
month in Iowa City, and I urge our citizens to support the American Red Cross.
Madan Karr/Here to accept is Josie Phelps.
Josie Phelps/On behalf of the Grantwood Area Chapter of the American Red Cross I'd
like to thank you in Iowa City for all you do for Red Cross and I do want to
mention that Red Cross is there tonight at the fire that is going on Burlington
Street. Thank you very much.
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ITEM NO. 3c. PUBLIC HEALTH WEEK.
Lehman/Next proclamation is Public Health Week. April 5-11. (Reads proclamation.)
Karr/Here to accept is Graham Dameron.
Graham Dameron/Just wanted to thank the city council for this proclamation on behalf of
the public health workers in Iowa City, the county, Johnson County Department
of Public Health, and the board of health, as you know the board of health is really
more than the county, it is your city health department as well, so, thank you very
much.
Lehman/Thank you Graham.
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ITEM NO. 3b. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT WEEK. March 29-April 4.
Lehman/Third proclamation is Community Development Week. (Reads proclamation).
Karr/Here to accept is Bill Stewart from the city' s Housing and Community
Development Commission.
Bill Stewart/Well on behalf of the commission I want to thank the council for the
proclamation. For those of you who don't know what this is, this is just kind of a
celebration to show others what we've done in the city with these funds. And
soon we will be talking to council about our allocations, we hope you like them
this year.
Lehman/Well you folks really really do an admirable job and we certainly thank you for
it.
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ITEM NO. 4. CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS
PRESENTED OR AMENDED.
Lehman/Item 4 is Consider adoption of the consent calendar as presented or amended.
Thomberry/Move adoption.
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thomberry, seconded by Norton. Included in the consent calendar
is resolution setting a public hearing for construction of a railroad siting that will
accommodate many of those trains that currently block Gilbert Street and
Highway 6, that will be set for two weeks I believe, anyway, that will.
Karr/It will be April 6.
Lehman/April 6, a week. Is there any comment about the items on the consent calendar?
Norton/Well I have one or two Emie. First of all I know that we're setting a hearing for
the CBDG funds, and I just was curious when do we get the action plan, has
anybody have an idea?
Karin Franklin/We'll have a discussion with the council on next Monday night about the
allocation so you'll be getting them in your packets this week.
Norton/This week, OK. Thank you. And the other one, where did that easement out
there on Rochester that we're giving up, where did that, whom does that revert or
whose is that property, that 50 foot easement we're giving up out there?
Elizabeth Lawry/Yes.
Lehman/Would you speak in the microphone please.
Elizabeth Lawry/My name is Elizabeth Lawry, I'm lot 26, and at the end of Bluffwood
Lane, between Bluffwood Lane where Bluffwood Lane ends and Bluffwood
Circle starts.
Lehman/I understand this was a parcel that was reserved for potential use by the city and
the city is not going to use it, we're now letting it revert back to where it
originally was.
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Lawry/Thank you very much.
Lehman/Further discussion.
Thornberry/I've got one on #4.
Lehman/Yes.
Thornberry/On #4, it's a resolution certifying unpaid mowing and cleanup of property
charges. Snow removal charges and sidewalk repair charges property to county
for the collection as same as a property tax. Now if you don't shovel your walk
and somebody complains within 24-48 hours, somebody complains and the walk
still isn't shoveled, the city will come out and shovel it. Do you have any idea
Steve what that costs per hour I see some of these charges and $102.50 for snow
removal and $94.88 something I.
Steve Atkins/I don't, sure I don't lmow the per hour charge but normally if they've
waited several days it becomes packed down, iced covered, it'll just take that
much longer to remove it.
Thornberry/A little harder to remove it. Yea. Snow removal. Now on the exhibit A that
we got in our packet, it's got some mowing and cleanup of property which goes
along with this I guess. But we've got some mowing charges of $45.00 one place,
$45, $62.50.
Karr/May I?
Thornberry/These aren't recent are they?
Karr/May I just interject? You have a revised one in from of you this evening you
should be going off that revised one because some of them have been paid and I
just want to note that for the file.
Kubby/We only do this once or twice a year and so it's from the last six months. I mean
not once or twice, we only do this twice a year maybe more I don't remember so
anything in the fall that there was a complaint about, that was warranted, that
would be from, I mean it wouldn't be from February obviously.
Thomberry/I would hope not. There's somebody from March 19 and it's got 3 mowing
charges here and I thought the grass is growing real fast.
Lehman/Dean, I don't think we mowed anything today.
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Thomberry/I hope not.
Norton/Somebody ought to eat his lawn.
Thomberry/Snow removal and also sidewalk repair if they don't if they don't fix their
sidewalks and then it's all crinkly and somebody complains about it and they
don't fix their sidewalk, the city fixes it for them.
Atkins/We will notify them, their given usually months, in fact, that last year because of
the shortage of the ability of contractors we granted up to a year extension.
Norton/Yea, with plenty of.
Kubby/But once.
Norton/Working in sections through town I think we should note that, it's not going all
over town at once we're looking at sidewalks in different sections of town,
moving around trying to.
Atkins/We have 10 districts, we go do a district at a time, however we will respond to
complaints if someone were to call in and complain.
Kubby/And once were notified of a complaint we take on some responsibility because
we know about the disrepair if someone should have an accident.
Atkins/That's correct.
Champion/I think it's, just important to point out that the city does not go around looking
and see who shovels, who hasn't shoveled their walk.
Council man/No. No.
Champion/Because people have called me and said that we do, we don't it's on a
complaint basis only.
Thornberry/It's on a complaint basis. It would be wise for people to mow and to shovel,
it sticks out because these charges are astronomical. Their pretty high. That's all
I had.
Lehman/I thought they were kind of reasonable.
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Norton/You know I did too.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 5. PUBLIC DISCUSSION (ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA) (UNTIL
8:00 PM).
Lehman/This is a time reserved for the public to address council, we ask that if you wish
to speak, you sign in, give your name, limit your comments to 5 minutes and these
comments are for items that do not otherwise appear on the agenda.
Irene E. Murphy/My name is Irene E. Murphy, I live at 1205 Laurel Drive, more
specifically at 123 Forest View Trailer Court in Iowa City. I don't believe you
have, I couldn't find it on the agenda that about the bus changes that have been.
Lehman/No.
Murphy/And so I've jotted down a few notes and I said in lieu of making the list of
acknowledgment of correspondence or using a phone call I prefer face-to-face
encounters (can't hear) and this was precipitated by your the articles in the Press
Citizen on February 22nd and 23rd, and I didn't realize I should have kept a
joumal or diary of events in the interim. I had attended a SEATS meeting at the
senior center on March 1 and which I thought I should have voiced my opinion
there because of if we're not gonna have city bus service then we're gonna have to
have more SEATS service and so a couple of I'm not really sure of some of these
dates because I didn't as I said, I didn't think I was gonna have to keep a diary.
Either the following rooming I had taken the bus from the Mercy Hospital Market
Street stop uptown and I have a Easy-Rider of Wheels Card that I is my traveling
companion if I don't have the bus driver want to know where it's at. I had, when I
bordered the bus I had asked to make a connection with the Lakeside bus to go
over to visit my daughter at Capitol House where she lives. I got uptown and I
got off the bus, was starting to cross the street with my cart and the bus pulled out
and didn't wait for me. The next moming I was told by a woman who was
waiting at the Mercy stop with me the day before too, she says there was sure a
ripple of conversation when they saw that the bus driver pulled out without
waiting for you. Well it wasn't such a crucial thing I was able to catch the mall
bus over to the Capitol house, not much time for whatever reason I was going
there for. And then I'm not sure of the date of this either but I think it was on a
Thursday, March 18, a transit had a sign posted on the Manville Heights it was
in two sections, and I noticed that the scotch tape was tearing on the and I had
my scotch tape in my cart with me and so I reached up to tack it on so I could,
anybody else see it. Well when I got home I called the transit which was one of
the notes on the thing must have if you have any, want further information to call
the transit and I asked to have a photocopy of that mailed to me, to this date I have
not received it. And that's another reason why I haven't wanted to depend on
correspondence. I, on March 24, I accompanied a 99 year old woman to
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University Hospital and I had my cart with me, I had gone with her on SEATS,
but when our, my appointment, her appointment was finished at five after three
we called SEATS and it was a will call situation, I called at five after three, at
quarter after four one of the employee at the desk near the waiting room there
suggested I called them again, so I called them again and they said it would be
another 10 or 20 minutes so, when they showed up I went and decided I would
take the city bus at the stadium comer there and go to the noah entrance of the
hospital and catch my Manville Heights bus which is one I'm concerned about.
And I had my cart with me as I said and I got on and there was only one other
person on the bus but at that time it was already 20 minutes till five I think and I
knew that there was going to be (can't hear) from the among the away from the
University Hospital. And the bus driver asked me if I would get them as far down
the seat as I could with it. And so I explained to her I was only going to the
other side of the hospital in order to catch another bus, so I got off at the (can't
hear) stop and was able to get over across the street to get my Manville Heights
when he came by. On March.
Lehman/Irene what are you, what are you getting to me, are you talking about the
changes that we're talking about in route?
Murphy/Yes, ah, ah.
Lehman/We're gonna be talking about that I believe next Monday night.
Atkins/And it will be a public hearing.
Murphy/Well I want you to have some of these.
Lehman/OK, but it's time to kind of wind it up OK.
Murphy/Have my five minutes gone already? I went down to pay my taxes on Friday
March 26 and I had my cart with me I it was not the rush hour, I got on and went
to the far end of the sideways seats. I could notice that there was a wheelchair
person going to be getting on and so but I have ridden on the bus when I've with a
cart and others have gotten on and gotten on all right so but the bus driver asked
me to move to the back and I had to sit across from somebody who had a baby in
a stroller and a man with a can of recyclable cans and so there was a crowd back
there well before the bus pulled out. Another woman came on the bus and had a
cart about just like practically like mine, open now with a bundle of stuff in it and
got to sit on where I had been asked to move from so and when I got down to the
stop for the administration building there is no stop there along the back end of
the building where you can that would be convenient to get to the entrance of the
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and he stopped midway across down Benton Street before he got to the
intersection and let me out there, well I went out the back door with my pushed
my cart out the back door and I made it successfully and get to my taxes paid.
The next day when that same afternoon there was a fellow rider asked if I'd heard
anything more about the proposed stages and the elimination of Manville Heights
and the bus driver was driving at the time said that she hadn't heard anything yet
and I had said I hadn't either but I told her about this sign that had been up and I
asked and so she and you used some communication and tried to find out from the
person and I knew the first name of the person that answered the phone he
answered by first name and I but I then she said which one was it, and I said I
didn't know there were more than two of them.
Lehman/Irene, what's your address, cause I'll make sure that you get a copy of this thing
that was posted in the bus and also a copy of what we'll be discussing next
Monday.
Murphy/My address is on the agenda, I put it on here.
Lehman/OK, you've got it down there, can we be sure and get that, OK, we'll see to it
that you get all the information.
Murphy/But this way I ride the bus every morning at 6:30 and I have no trouble, I have
never asked any bus driver to help me on with the bus with this until I got a new
one and I have been using the wheels when I have a load of groceries and that.
And the since SEATS has been criticized for having doing too many chores for
the riders of that who, how are we gonna do anything if we don't have a service
that I can't use this cart and get on the bus.
Kubby/But we resolved that with the SEATS in terms of we still want SEATS drivers to
help rider with packages and getting to the door and getting safely to the van.
Murphy/And the only time I ride SEATS is to get me to church on time on Sundays.
Kubby/You can ride the fixed route, that's great. Just let me make a general reminder to
transit dispatchers that when people call that we need to make, we have to have a
system there so that things get out to people properly.
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/We'll see to it that you get the mailing on this information.
Murphy/There was something else I wanted to say (can't hear).
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Kubby/Thank you Irene.
Arthur Miller/Good evening, I'm Arthur Miller and I live at 1700 Dubuque Road and
I'm also a professor at the University. And I'm here this evening with a group of
students who are going to present some results very brief-like from a survey of the
University students that we did last fall and it's interesting because you know we
often hear about generation (can't hear) being a you know a bunch of people that
are disinterested in their community and in issues etc. but it's amazing with all
these students here this evening, obviously not everyone fits that description.
Although of course I felt all these journalism students are here because of what we
are presenting but the part, the part of the results we are presenting very briefly
this evening have to do with the student' s attitudes towards the police and I think
it's a very important issue and these students are very hard working diligent
responsible students and Peter Mathes is going to do the presentation and thank
you very much for listening to this.
Lehman/Thank you.
Peter Mathes/Well I'd like to thank Professor Miller and like to thank the city council for
allowing us to speak this evening. We are here this evening to share some of the
data that we collected last semester while conducting a poll on binge drinking on
campus. At this point in time all we'd like to do is give the council some facts,
however, we would like to meet with the council later and offer some solutions to
this problem. To begin with we live in a town of approximately 60,000 residents,
and the University has enrollment of approximately 30,000 students. These
students comprise 1/3 of the population of Iowa City for almost an entire year.
The first graph that we have for you this evening is one that shows perceived
attention given by the police to students. Sixty-one percent of the student
population, fight there, perceives police attention as negative. This means that
roughly 18,000 students or about 20 percent of Iowa City perceives police
attention as negative. This report reflects not only on the police but the student
population as well. We as a community need to address this problem on three
different levels. The next graph that we have for you asks the same question as
the previous graph, however, as you can see, responses are now broken down by
gender. The male population of the University of I0wa perceive negative
attention 57 percent of the time, while females perceive negative attention 64
percent of the time. The seven percent difference is statistically significant within
our survey. I know one of the first questions that I asked myself when I saw this
data was "was it only individuals that were underage responding like this?" And
the answer to this question is present in our next graph. And as you can see both
juniors and seniors responded that the attention was negative at a clip of 64.8
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percent and 66.7 percent respectively, this is extremely high compared to the
responses gave by freshmen, which came at 32.9 percent. This isn't only higher
but ridiculously higher considering juniors and especially seniors are of legal age
to drink. Not only is this attention perceived as negative by the students but there
perception of treatment is negative as well. The question that we posed to arrive
at these answers for this one was "Have you or someone you know ever been cited
for an alcohol related offense by the Iowa City police after committing a given
offense, were you treated with respect or disrespect?" And the reason that we
asked people about themselves or a quote friend was so that the individual did not
feel threatened and this would allow for an individual to answer freely without
disclosing that it was them that was arrested. Now as you can see on the graph the
percentage or perception of treatment is of this is extremely similar. As
individuals of this society we understand that some people inevitability come
across what they believe to be disrespectful treatment that these numbers are
much higher than a few isolated cases. In fact we are looking at no statistical
difference between the two categories. As before we also broke this down by
grade level. To illustrate the point that this is not just underage drinkers that are
being treated with disrespect. The last graph that we have for you this evening is
broken down by gender. Once again females are experiencing a much higher rate
of bad encounters with Iowa City police department. In fact it's 13 percent
difference it's too large to ignore and we must look for solutions to this problem.
Now what does all this mean? To start, it means there needs to be changes in both
groups, the Iowa City police department as well as the University of Iowa
community, would like to police chief Winkelhake right now, and this was in
response to the our little group, our survey that we released 'earlier this year, and
the quote goes "that particular age group is one that you do have a great deal of
negative contact with," why is it negative contact is something that needs to be
addressed. Once again we are not here to attack the Iowa City police department,
but there is no doubt that this is a two-way street the community is driving down
and we as a concemed group of students want to have everybody on board. I just,
if you have any questions about the graphs or.
Champion/Well.
Lehman/Go ahead.
Champion/Did you ask the people who with their encounter with the police was alcohol
related, was that a question that you asked at all?
Mathes/Well what it was exact question, are you talking, are you referring to the.
Champion/To.
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Mathes/Yea, it was
Champion/To negative encounter with police, how much of it was alcohol related?
Mathes/Well the question that we specifically asked about the respect and disrespect as
far as being the treatment wise was "Have you or someone you know ever been
cited for an alcohol related offense?" So yea, that one dealt directly with alcohol.
Lehman/Can we get this information so that we can I think (can't hear).
Mathes/Yea, no problem at all.
Lehman/I think the council would appreciate receiving that, so just send it to our
attention I'll see to it that we all get it.
O'Dounell/I have a question about the contact, the perception of the police was it
respectful or disrespectful, is was this before after contact with the police in some
way?
Mathes/Well the perceived, the negative attention was we didn't ask whether there was
contact or not with contact, it was just what they perceived the attention from the
police is or is at this point in time. As far as it goes with the like the treatment of
disrespect or respect that is after contact with police.
Thomberry/Very seldom do the police department have contact with just about anybody
unless it's for some violation of some kind, whether it be you know, a stop for a
speeding or alcohol related, something, anything.
Mathes/Well that' s why we looked at the perceived attention because that what we're
really looking at is this is fundamentally wrong, I mean it's not a good thing to
have you know a large proportion of Iowa City feeling that they can't trust the
police who are there to serve and protect them and we as a group of students just
felt that it was a very bad thing. And.
O'DonnelF But you understand my question?
Mathes/Oh yea, no, yea, I understand.
Thomberry/If your walking down the street and you have no contact you know.
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Mathes/Well one of the solutions that we were gonna offer is that there needs to be more
contact with the police and student groups because you know, fraternity houses,
sorority houses, all the other clubs that are involved at the University cause that
would you know at least show you know, give the students more contact with the
police.
Thornberry/The police department is going to grade schools, and junior highs and even
the high schools, and there is, it would be interesting to get a survey of age groups
from that level from grade school on up to see where it stopped being positive and
start being negative. Because at the younger ages that I think that it is very
positive especially when they've got the dog. Well.
Mathes/Well actually we are doing a survey of I think it's City High, West Branch and
Regina.
Champion/Oh good.
Mathes/And we will find out, we'll find that out for you actually.
Thomberry/Junior high and grade school. (can't hear).
Mathes/Yea, oh yea, I know, I understand that too, yea.
Thomberry/(can't hear).
Champion/That would be really (can't hear).
Mathes/But we will have the high schools at least.
Kubby/So the survey that you completed give any description of what the respectful or
disrespectful behavior was because that kind of feedback is really helpful for us to
say, you know your doing really well in these areas and it's appreciated and these
other areas we need to focus some training or time on.
Mathes/Yea, we didn't have.
Kubby/Do you have that kind of detail?
Mathes/We didn't have any open-ended questions like that, all of them were close-
ended.
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Kubby/OK, cause that would be really helpful and the other thing that comes to mind is
that of the last time we met with student senate wanted we talked about safety and
a whole spectrum of ways and one of them was the relationship between
University of Iowa students and the police and the perception and the reality and
so if we get together to talk about solutions student senate might be another good
group to have involved because we've already kind of opened that door of
conversation so that would be a great thing to have happen.
Mathes/Yea.
Champion/The other question I've got.
Thomberry/Very interesting survey and I know from my prospective having grown up in
Iowa City and gone. I've gone full circle, you know, I started out gee police are
great I wanted to be a policeman growing up you know, and then high school you
know, and college you know and the other side of it and now I've got a lot more
respect knowing what they do and why they do and what their up against so, I've
gone full circle and I it's a very, very interesting study.
Champion/Did you ask the question if they had a negative perception of the police have
they ever had contact with the police? Did you ask that question?
Mathes/I don't think we asked that specific question.
O'DonnelF Art, do you have the survey with you or was it?
Champion/Will we get a copy?
Norton/(can't hear) crowd and send the question.
Miller/What we were asking them about.
Lehman/We would like copies of this also, I assume you'll give us results of the one
your doing with City High, Regina and West Branch.
Mathes/Yea, no problem at all.
Kubby/Great project.
Lehman/Yea, thank you very much.
Champion/Thanks.
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O'Donnell/Thanks Art.
Miller/Thank you.
Jay Shaw/I had no idea that there would be a survey about the police, just took a sure
chance. I'm speaking to the council members not as officials but as citizens of
Iowa. My hope is that I can force a few people, some in the audience and even
some council members to look at a very ugly fact that is become obvious with
every prosecution of a police officer that makes the headlines in this country.
Police who take lives of citizens without cause are being prosecuted by
courageous prosecutors in other states The shame in this for Iowa is that the
circumstances of our son' s killing were far more blatantly criminal than the
circumstances of these killings were a prosecution has or will be taking place.
A quick comparison will prove the point. Our son's killers had no legal
fight, no practical reason to enter our son' s shop with guns dram, and many very
compelling reasons not to - police training manuals make the point very forcefully
that by far the most common cause of an open is a legitimate persons has left it
open and that they are likely to be inside - and a search warrant is required unless
there is evidence of life threatening activity within. The Fourth Amendment is
very clear, absolutely clear on this. For your information, the fact that the justice
department refused to prosecute Gillaspic did not affirm the police fight to enter
without a warrant if they find a door unlocked or open - it just put off the
decision. I'm dealing with them on that subject fight now, I'm appealing that
decision and I know that either my appeal or the next murder that occurs when a
policeman goes through a door without a warrant that kills somebody will be
prosecuted. They can only pile so many murders on top of murders before they
have to do something about it. Even our government, even our justice department
won't be able to say no the next time it happens, and I'm hoping that they won't
say no to this one, at the very least they should come out and say no to every
police department in this country, NO, an open door is not an invitation to go in
with guns drawn. I'm ashamed of our justice department. By the way this has
nothing to do with you, your not justice department people but I want to tell you
I'm speaking to you as citizens.
In contrast, the officers who are being prosecuted in the two recent cases
that have made the national headlines had a legal right to be where they were and
to do what they were doing, right up to the point where they fired the shots. In the
Connecticut case there was a warrant out for the arrest of the victim, after a chase
and after catching the man and throwing the man to the ground, the officer shot
him in the back and claimed that he made a movement that made him "think" that
he was going for his gun (the victim had no gun, and the testimony of several
witnesses flat out contradicts this officer's version). In the New York killing three
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policeman on a rape call tried to question a man as he was unlocking the door to
his apartment, and the man who had limited understanding of English did not
respond to him they fired at him and later said that he made a movement that
made them "think" he was going for a gun. While it is obvious to most people all
except police apologists that these officers should be prosecuted for at least
manslaughter if not murder, the case for conviction is nowhere near as compelling
as it is for the conviction of our son's murderers.
Consider for just a few moments, just consider a few of the damming facts
of our son's killing: Kelsay and Gillaspie spent only 2-4 seconds, 2-4 seconds
investigating before entering with guns drawn without announcing their entry and
without the required search warrant. Our son was sitting talking on the phone
facing the door in well lit room - there was not even a suggestion of danger in
what confronted them, yet it is overwhelming that Gillaspic intended to fire his
gun, intentionally fired his gun. He told investigators the night of the murder that
he had seen the phone and thought it was a gun and fired in "self defense", which
is of course an intentional shooting. Two weeks later, however, and I'm assuming
this under advice of his attorney, he totally reversed his testimony and claimed
that he had not even seen the phone, had not felt threatened, that he had
"flinched"- one of the many horrors that I have to live with is the memory of my
lawyer telling me the night of the murder that "Gillaspie will claim that he
flinched" that was before anybody knew anything, my lawyer told me a few hours
after the murder "Gillaspic will claim that he flinched" because that's the only
defense available to him. This lawyer had been around. This convenient flinch
came after Gillaspic had moved to an upright position, raised his arm and aimed
center mass. That description of Gillaspie's movements, given to investigators
that night by the third officer present, Zacharias, gives total lie to the flinch - a
flinch is an involuntary, uncontrolled tightening of muscles which occurs when
one is surprised. Gillaspic testified that he moved through the door in a crouched
position with his gun down - if he had flinched his shot would have hit the floor
and our son would have been alive.
At his new conference White claimed that he accepting Gillaspie's
"flinch", and he used the uncontrolled nature of a flinch as his reason for not
prosecuting. But even White could not sustain this lie in the face of the evidence
of intentional firing, several occasions, several later occasions he stated that he
had no doubt that Gillaspic intentionally fired his weapon. Even Chief
Winkelhake when he was informed in a Prime Time Live interview that White
was now saying that he would, that the firing was intentional, said "then he should
have charged him". I wished that had been shown to this public, I know it's on
tape, I saw it, it didn't make the program, it got cut. An intentional firing of a
hollow point bullet center mass is an intentional killing, and since there was no
cause is is murder. Kelsay also told several lies - the most obvious were the
scratches in the door that no one can see and his statement that he did not see
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Gillaspie's movements the moment the gun was fired. This statement is too
convenient and to preposterous to be believed. Kelsay was two feet away and
acting as Gillaspie's back-up, and had just seconds earlier motioned impatiently
for Gillaspie to go on in, after Gillaspie hesitated and whispered "but there are
lights on in there".
Lies are very close, lies are very close to the admission of guilt, especially
blatant lies about the critical aspects of a killing, yet all of these lies and others as
well as physical and testimonial evidence were ignored by Patrick White and the
so called "grand" jury. To Iowa's everlasting shame that people of this states
were not even mildly upset that a murder went unpunished because the murderers
are cops.
The Connecticut and New York killings and our son' s killing, and in fact
most unjustified killings by police are a result of putting their own lives ahead of
the citizens' lives they are hired to protect. Today's officers are often not willing
to accept as part of theft duty the risk of holding fire until they are certain that
deadly force is required for their safety, but these same police are willing to risk
killing completely innocent people, or non dangerous suspects by firing before
they have seen a weapon before unmistakable intent to harm them has been
demonstrated, obviously this is a minority of the police. That if it's a bullet that
hits you it doesn't matter, it's just
(End of 99-39, side 1)
Jay Shaw/it's because it's just a few police, that the few should be prosecuted. I don't
understand why everybody acts like this is an attack on the entire police force, we
are asking only only that the very few that do commit these crimes be prosecuted.
These same cops are willing to risk killing completely innocent people or non-
dangerous suspects by firing before they have seen a weapon and before
unmistakable intent to harm them has been demonstrated, with the obvious result
they will kill without cause. There is only one word that describes an officer who
in order to give himself a slight statistical edge is willing to put other people's
lives at risk-that word is coward: there is only one word that describes an officer
who has fired before he could possibly know for certain he was in danger, and has
killed a non-threatening suspect or completely innocent human being - that word
is rnttrder.
Obviously council members are in no position to do anything about any of
this - you made your decisions long ago on matters within your domain that
denied my wife and me some degree of peace in our home town. Consider what it
means to us to know that two of the men responsible for our son's death are still
carrying guns in our son's city (Zacharias is not one of these). My purpose in
speaking to you is very personal, even selfish, is not to influence any action, but
to tell the truth to those of you who are unbelievers injustice for cops who murder
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so that I can rest easy in my mind that I was not afraid to speak out even in hostile
territory, and more important, to speak the truth to a few of you who are believers
in justice, for all, and by so doing give myself the hope that these truths which I
have come by to such an overwhelming price that will die with me.
Holly Berkowitz/We care, Jay, we care. In fact, I come to follow-up on that because I
will not tolerate politics of secrecy or fear or negative force and even though it's
hidden, and even though it's some try to hide it the secrecy, that is unacceptable.
That is totally unacceptable, we are suppose to have an open government of self-
government, self-determination, and whenever we, history is filled with this, is
seething, consider the population of people or wilderness to be seedlings that want
to grow upward OK.
O'Donnell/Holly, I can't hear you.
Norton/Can't hear.
Berkowitz/And it wants to grow upward, OK, it wants to produce, and we need seedlings
to produce to eat, we need seedlings to produce to clean our water, to give us what
we need to eat, to give us shelter, to give us things we need for shelter. But there
are so many negative forces that negative desperate evils I say, pushing down, it's
called pyramid schemes, and schemes, and seams and secrecy of negative force
pushing down and those forces can not afford to reveal themselves. They have to
remain secret, that is unacceptable, that's unacceptable here, that's not acceptable
at Kosovo, that's unacceptable and we need to stand out and speak out and poor
Jay.
Lehman/Holly.
Berkowitz/And so I come with this article that says urban sprawl, March 20, 1999, six
days later a fire destroyed the entire sector of downtown Iowa City, before that, a
couple a day or two later before that, two women were found burned to death,
burned to try to cover up a double murder, one was an environmental scientist,
they were, their political candidates sweeping through the state who would rather
not be associated with these things but I want it out in the open that we will not
tolerate those kind of actions, we know who this is, we cannot afford to continue
the urban sprawl across America, more and more of us are stuck in traffic snaking
along a snarl of urban sprawl and in the dead of honking horns seeking it's reach
this hom says finally we've congress in the White House, this is by Aaron Kelly
and Ellen Fergus of the Gannett News Service, March 20, Iowa's Press Citizen.
Sprawl that traffic jam making, cheap green field gobbling day ofmodem. This
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says it's exploded into a national issue of men at development boom spurred by
seven years of economic times. Vice president A1 Gore.
Thomberry/I read that Holly.
Berkowitz/Yea, Vice President A1 Gore and members of congress have grabbed hold of
the traditionally local issue with initiatives aimed at easing congestion that
threatens to consume communities from New York to Califomia. The new focus
is few in part by voters passing about 170 (can't hear) controlled initiatives last
November, I think we were one of them a couple years ago. From a 1.5 Billion
New Jersey plan to buy and save open space to a mandate by (can't hear) to set
aside 15 percent of water revenue to spend in part on parks. And.
Lehman/Holly, your gonna need to wrap this up.
Berkowitz/OK. OK. We need to take hold of the opportunity here to purchase the land
between Hickory Hill border and the First Avenue proposed.
Lehman/We're gonna be discussing that I think at great length in the next two or three
weeks.
Berkowitz/Two years ago there was an overwhelming majority who said that they
wanted to preserve the integrity of Hickory Hill park and that also means the
sanctity of it. Jay, Jay Shaw goes there on a regular basis to seek a sanctuary from
the forces that killed his son and the urbanizing chaos and I beg you please it's a
place of god, it's a place we need I shouldn't have said that, I'm a religious person
and we need to value more than cash, my question is "does profit justify all"? Are
we willing to sell our kids futures for a few full pocket books now.
Lehman/We hear you Holly and we're going to be talking about that later tonight (can't
hear) a public hearing on the northeast plan. Thank you.
Berkowitz/Thank you.
Matt Celana/Hi my name is Matt Celana, and I'm a just sort of a new resident to Iowa
City so I'm not sure if this is the appropriate time to bring this up, you can tell me
if it's not and I won't take up anymore of your time. I have a question about the
peninsula development thing I saw an article in the newspaper that said your
going to be talking about the development of the peninsula tonight, is that right?
Kubby/No, we're talking about a road that will go to the peninsula tonight but not about
the peninsula itself.
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CelanaJ Oh, why is there a road going to the peninsula?
Lehman/Well if we.
Kubby/Cause there's not one now.
Lehman/We plan to develop that property and we can't develop property unless you
have access to it.
Celana/Yea, who owns that property?
Lehman/The city of Iowa City owns the property.
Celana/Yea, and why is it going to be developed?
Lehman/We would like to get our money out of it. We spent rate payers money, water
payers money to buy that property and we would like to sell it and get our money
out of it.
Kubby/No we would.
Thornberry/Part of the principle project is where the water wells are, the water system.
Lehman/That's where it would (can't hear).
Kubby/It came from the general fund actually, and that' s a very important distinction,
water rate.
Thomberry/The reason we had to buy the peninsula was to get the water wells for the
water for the people in Iowa City as opposed to getting it from the river like we do
now. So the water plant is gonna be, the water wells are down in the peninsula
area we had to buy more than we needed for those water wells so we're selling off
the part we don't need for the water wells. To get some of the money back to
put back in the (can't hear).
Celana/Selling it to developers.
Lehman/This is the portion that is considerably higher, there's a lower portion which is
where the wells are, and it's really more (can't hear) a flood plain. This is the
upper portion which is probably 40-50 feet higher than the flood plain, that will
be sold off for development.
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Celana/OK.
Kubby/Well I guess I would have a slightly different answer as to why we're doing it,
because because we purchased the upper portion with the lower portion, it's an
opportunity for us to show developers locally that there' s a different way to
develop. We consider that infill development because it's closer into town and
that we can help provide some support for having kind of a mixed income, mixed
styles of housing that is environmentally sensitive neighborhood that is very
pedestrian oriented and that' s not what we've been seeing traditionally from most
developers and so my answer is that we see it as an opportunity and we had a
really wonderful process where we want to form a partnership with the
development community to do this so that it's not just us handing it over but that
there are some guidelines about the community values that we want to come from
that development, and they probably won't want to do it unless they make money
but it will be done making sure the community gets something back with that
development. And actually there's a plan that outlines all those values,
community values that were that we came to those set of values from I don't
know how many people were there, a 100 people that were involved in a charret
that we were siring down with pens and papers with the land and drawing how
we think it should happen.
Celana/OK, I was just concerned because I remember when the deer issue was hot there
was talk about starvation of the deer and the tick problem and then when I heard
that now this is the first that that area is going to be developed, it seemed to me
that what should have been talked about then was the fact that that landed was
already slated for development so it seemed to me that the deer issue mixed here
to the development issue so you know, to control the deer because this is an area
where we're going to develop and it's going to be more of a problem when that
land becomes developed and I don't, you know, I didn't hear anything that I read
at that time that city councilors were you know making that issue.
Kubby/Right, I can see how that connection could be made and I think that even myself
who was against the killing of the deer through sharp-shooting I can see the point
but I don't feel like there was any spoken or unspoken connection there. I think
how it came about is that when we looked at the areas that there was a higher
than acceptable deer population that that was an area where there was a high deer
count but it also wasn't developed and so it was the safest place to begin our
sharp-shooting, so I think those circumstances create the connection. That it
wasn't a planned thing.
Celana/OK. Yea it.
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Champion/There's probably still some copies of that, a little book about what we're
going to do up there at the peninsula, (can't hear).
Celana/And I guess there' s been a lot of obviously a lot of work that' s already gone into
talking about what's going to happen to that land. I don't know about it, but I just
want to add that coming, I come from a suburban town in Massachusetts that's
really fallen great to urban sprawl and there's no green space left in the town
where I grew up and I just, you know, I see it, I think Iowa City is heading in this
direction and I I think a lot of you are probably concerned about this issue but I
live out on Dubuque Street and there's up beyond 80 and there's a lot of what I
would consider irresponsible developing going on and I hope your all thinking
about the, you know, the lots of your green space.
Norton/Those are not ours, out there beyond 80 but it's not and we've added a lot of
green space in this city and we have a very elaborate open space plan to assure
that that continues to be the case. There are deer enough to go around let me tell
you that not only the peninsula, 157 per square mile down there, recent count
which is almost double what it was two years ago.
Lehman/Well, I think we hear you though on green space, we have a mandatory
dedication program for new development that green space must be donated to the
city and if there isn't green space money in lieu of that green space so that we
can purchase park land if you stay around this evening your gonna see the
discussion of a comprehensive plan for the northeast area that has a tremendous
amount of green space. This council and I think Iowa City is very cognizant of
the important of green space, so I don't think your gonna see it disappear.
Celana/OK, it but there's a distinction between parks and wildemess (can't hear).
Lehman/That's correct.
Champion/Most definitely.
Celana/And that to me seems to be an area that hasn't really been touched, and it's
another reason that I spoke a little depressed.
Vanderhoef/And our green space is both types and it's also linear, in other words our
trail system is part of the green space and gets you to those areas that you might
want to be in and in our older neighborhoods sometimes we have to use
sidewalks and so forth but we're working real hard to get people to get to the
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green spaces and having a safe way to get there with bicycles or walking in it
doesn't mean more cars and parking lots to put them in to get to those spaces.
Thornberry/Also, within Iowa City we have a sensitive areas ordinance, and if you've
walked Iowa City much you'll see that it's not real flat. You go up and down and
there's a lot of valleys and this is that where we can't build due to our sensitive
areas ordinance and these are wild areas throughout the city. My house is on three
acres of ground that the only spot that was flat I built on my house on, the rest is
all wild and like Dee says the number of deer in there is just astronomical but that
it's all wild and trees fall and they stay down and it's not park area, it's just wild
area, there's all kinds of space like that in Iowa City. I fly over Iowa City in my
plane, I take people up to look at where all the green space is you would be
surprised how much wild land there really is in Iowa City.
Kubby/But you do have a good plan, I mean in terms of like Hickory Hill it's so
wonderful to have 200 acres where there's still some spots you can go and you
can tum in a circle and not see houses or electrical lines and there's enough land
to have an eco system functioning, a functioning eco system and one of our
things on our pending list that we're not moving very quickly on but it is on our
list is a what we actually Jim Walters has done, Hickory Hill west, to have
something on the west side that is also a large track of land that is basically wild
where people can go. So I hope you have time to stick around for the northeast
plan just to see what that kind of new area at least for what the vision is for it.
Celana/Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Kubby/Thanks for coming down.
Lehman/Well it is now five minutes after eight if there are other folks who would like to
address council we will take those comments after we have completed the rest of
the agenda.
Karr/Could we have a motion to accept correspondence?
Vanderhoef/So moved.
Champion/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Champion, all in favor. Motion carries.
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Kubby/Mr. Mayor I'd like to suggest that if there's only maybe one other person so they
don't have, cause the northeast district public hearing might take a long time, I'm
not sure, but ifthere's only one or two other comments I would like to be able to
hear them so people could go on with their evening.
Lehman/I don't have a problem with that.
Kubby/And if there are five or ten maybe we need to wait.
Thornberry/How do you know, you gorma have them raise their hands or.
Kubby/Just ask, ask people that haven't spoken if they have public discussion items.
Lehman/How many folks would like to address council on something that is not on the
agenda that have?
Thomberry/That have not been able to speak?
C'
Lehman/Irene do you want to speak again? Irene, this time your gonna have to keep it
short.
Irene E. Murphy/Yea, I know I just wondered about the there is any record of the lift
system on the buses, I myself have encountered three different instances when I
the bus the lift would not operate.
Kubby/(can't hear)
Lehman/We can check that out.
Champion/Yea, we will check that out.
Lehman/All fight, thank you.
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ITEM NO. 6 PLANNING AND ZONING MATTERS.
6c. Consider a motion setting a public hearing for April 20 on an ordinance
amending City Code subsections 14-5H, Site Plan Review, and 14-65,
Performance Standards, regarding lighting standards.
Norton/Move to set the hearing.
Lehman/Moved by Norton.
Thomberry/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Thornberry. Discussion.
Kubby/I would request that if the information is available that we get it in our next
packet instead of the one right before that meeting. I might need more than the
weekend to understand cause there' s a lot of physics and stuff in that.
Norton/I kind wonder if we ought not have a night meeting so we could see the actual
affect little demonstration we may need to do that.
Champion/That would be a great idea.
Norton/Don't forget you already have some places to stop and look at light.
Council man/Right, yea.
Champion/Yea.
Kubby/Yea.
Champion/We know.
Kubby/A long (can't hear), it's a full moon tonight so it's not, it wouldn't be a good
night to look at lighting problems.
Champion/(can't hear).
Lehman/Further discussion.
Thomberry/What do you want quarter, you want (can't hear).
Lehman/All in favor of setting the public hearing. All ayes, motion carries.
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ITEM 6d. Public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning designation of
approximately 8.08 acres located at the west termini of Langenberg Avenue
and Hemingway Lane from Medium Density Single-Family Residential CRS-
8) to Planned Development Housing Overlay/Medium Density Single-
Family Residential (PDH-8). (REZ98-0018)
Lehman/That item has been withdrawn, that doesn't require any action does it?
Eleanor Dilkes/You should open the public hearing and close it.
Lehman/OK. Public hearing is open. Public heating is closed.
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ITEM NO. 6e. Public hearing on a resolution adopting and incorporating the
Northeast District Plan into the Iowa City Comprehensive Plan.
Lehman/I suspect that this discussion and this public hearing is going to take far more
than we're going to be able to devote to it tonight so I would with the concurrence
with council I think that I would like to see us discuss this for probably an hour or
so and then we will resume that discussion if we, I think we'll probably continue
that public hearing until we receive all the input from the public, this is a very
very impoaant plan, I think as far as council is concerned, I've asked Karin
Franklin to explain to us what the plan is and what it isn't. And after your
presentation Karin we will open this for public discussion. Public hearing is open.
Karin Franklin/Just getting gizmo and going, since there's some people who are just
getting involved in this process, I though it would be good to go through some of
what this plan is and what it isn't. Madan could you tum down the lights a little
bit so we can see this?
Noaon/Can you raise the mie just a little bit, I still find it hard to hear.
Franklin/OK. What this plan is is a guide, it is not something that is absolute. It sets
foah principles to be followed in building the neighborhoods in noaheast Iowa
City, and these principles would be the basis for the decision-making as public
and private projects come before us, when I say us I mean the planning and
zoning commission and the city council. How we use these principles to carry out
the plan is going to evolve as we develop either incentives or regulations to make
this plan a reality. Let me just run through some of the principles but first
pointing out what we're talking about in terms of the northeast planning district.
It's basically an area that is defined by Taft Avenue on the east by Court Street on
the south, First Avenue essentially on the west and Interstate 80 on the noah. W
hat we have done is divide the district up into essentially four neighborhoods.
Bluffwood, Pleasant Hill, Hunters Run and Lindemann Hills. The principles that
are incorporated into this plan that are included in the text of the plan and evolved
out of the neighborhood workshops are to preserve natural areas, provide
pedestrian bicyclists connections, build streets that enhance neighborhood quality,
encourage a reasonable level of housing diversity, create and upgrade
neighborhood parks, plan for commercial areas to function as neighborhood
centers. A number of these principles are not new. They are not new to the
northeast district plan, they are something that is found in the comprehensive plan
that we adopted in 1997 and their are also things that we have been talking about
and working toward in this commtmity for some years. When you looked at the
principle of preserving natural features, right now when we look at subdivision
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layouts, we look at how those subdivisions, how the streets and lots lie on the
land. Our sensitive areas ordinance is there to preserve natural features. Another
example, we build trails and public projects, and we require them often in
subdivisions now to meet the neighborhood open space requirements. In terms of
building streets that enhance neighborhood quality. One of the ideas that is
inherent in this is trying to put arterial street traffic outside of the neighborhoods,
not having it go through the neighborhoods. This is something that we've talked
about as a community, and council and the commission for many years. In this
plan, and the comprehensive plan as well as the northeast district plan one of the
suggestions is that we might look at narrower streets in some of these
neighborhoods. Look at setting the buildings a little bit closer to the street.
Consider some different types of housing, as we try to build diversity into the
neighborhoods. And a lot of these ideas also came out of that vision process that
we did back in 1994, there' s some of these brochures in the back if people want to
get them. I'd invite people to go back and look at some of the statements that are
in here because these are the basis from which the comprehensive plan comes, this
northeast district plan is coming, and I would assume that the other district plans
as we proceed will come. But they are concepts, they are ideas. We have to take
them from those ideas to a reality. This plan deals with how development will be
laid out and suggest two types of land-use design that are a little bit different from
what we have done in this community previously, although again, not entirely
new concepts. One is the traditional neighborhood design, and the other is a
conservation design. The traditional neighborhood design builds on the concepts
of older neighborhoods, it does not say that you are building old neighborhoods,
or that have to look like old neighborhoods, but it incorporates some of the
principles that we found in older neighborhoods. Where you have the (can't hear)
to position of different types of housing, near each other and it succeeds. There is
no reason we cannot do that again. The conversation design principle, or the
design concept is about building in environmentally sensitive areas where you try
not to build on those places that are sensitive. That is also something that we are
doing in principle now. These concepts are about how streets and lots and open
space laid out. Their not about the design of individual houses. We are not
saying in this plan that we are going to require every single house to have a front
porch. We are not saying in this plan that you cannot have a garage that faces the
street. However, what we are trying to do as we incorporate these different
densities into single-family neighborhoods and try to provide a diversity of
housing types for the different kinds of households we have in this community.
As we look at those different housing types (can't b. ear) to position to one another
design becomes very important. But it is the design of those higher density units
that is so critical to make it fit in and that's when we are going to be looking at
design of buildings. More closely than we do now, but it will be as we go through
rezoning processes. Let's take a look for a moment at the two a couple of
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neighborhoods that are within this district. These are land use scenarios that again
are intended to be general guidelines, not every single trail and every single street
and every single building and tan place where it shows residential development is
going to be exactly as it is in this drawing. This is an idea, it is a concept and
that's where you have to go back to the principles as we use this plan. To make it
work and see how it we can work through it to make it real. There are some
features and concepts in these neighborhoods that I'm going to show you that are
important to keep in mind as we look at development projects in the future
because as it went through the neighborhood planning process the folks who were
part of this found these particular characteristics to be very important or they are
issues that evolved out of the discussions and the workshops. Now one which has
been the most debated and I think you'll probably hear some more about it tonight
is First Avenue extension and this is in the Bluffwood neighborhood. What this
plan calls for is a simultaneous extension of First Avenue and Scott Boulevard
extended, down to Rochester Avenue. This is an effort to fill in the arterial street
network on the east side of Iowa City to provide more than one way to go north-
south when your east of the Iowa River. And to serve traffic that needs to get
through this area without going through the neighborhood. Concurrent with this
is the notion of these street pattern within the neighborhood where we've included
small parks or squares within the street system to slow traffic down to create
circuitous routes, indirect routes so that people are not inclined to go through the
neighborhood but if they want to get from this point down to this point they will
take Scott Boulevard as the easiest way to get there and if they are wanting to get
south to a destination along First Avenue or south that they will take First
Avenue. Because we have an existing neighborhood along First Avenue that is
already there there' s obviously been a lot of resistance to that First Avenue
extension. We understand that and empathize with the people who live along
First Avenue and in these neighborhoods. However, in looking at the larger
network for the community both planning staff and the planning commission have
recommended First Avenue be extended. In the neighborhood workshops there
was considerable sentiment against that extension. Another feature in the
northeast plan and Bluffwood neighborhood particularly is the idea of buffering
Hickory Hill park and this proposal which basically you need to look at the whole
area here and the basic proposal is to transfer some of this density that would be
along the boundary of the park away from the park and have a single loaded street
which would define a boundary. This is one way to do this is for the single
loaded street to define the boundary between the open spaces in the development
where houses would look out on it but the back yards would not bleed into the
park. To make up for the economics of putting in a single loaded street where you
don't get anything offof the other side as far as the developers concerned there is
a provision to allow encourage higher density development elsewhere in this
larger area. So your keeping the development out of the revenues, out of the
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buffer and trying to put it in areas where it can handle it and keep those sensitive
areas preserved. That concept of keeping the development out of the sensitive
areas and on the ridge tops in this neighborhood advocating the use of cul de sacs
although we don't in other neighborhoods the plan does not advocate it in other
parts of this neighborhood. The cul de sacs and keeping the development out of
the ravine is called conservation design concept that's where you cluster it on the
high points, the fiat points and try to keep it out of the environmental features.
And again the principle here is not building on the sensitive environmental
features, if there's another way to do it besides the cul de sacs OK fine, but we
have to go back always to the principle. This as it's presented is an idea of how to
do it within the context of the principles. OK let's go onto Lindemann Hills. This
neighborhood is shown with a more traditional neighborhood design that is a
modified grid pattern where you just have squares. This may have to be modified
further for the topography, it may be that when development proceeds here this
radial pattern that we're showing won't be exactly what we see in the end
however, there's a couple of concepts in here that I think are interesting and they
also are necessary to comply with this plan. One is this concept of the square
where it doubles as a focal point for the neighborhood, it also serves for traffic
calming of Lower West Branch Road. This road now exists as a county road,
comes in from Taft Avenue. It's not that we expect that there's going to be an
enormous amount of traffic on this road however because it is straight through
and right through the center of the neighborhood what the square does is it cues in
the motorists visually ahead of time as well as absolutely when they get there they
got to turn. That they are in the middle of something, that it's the middle of a
neighborhood, you need to slow down, you need to slow down just because
you've got to go around this thing, and so that's that concept there. And that's a
very important part of that, it also provides some open space right in the center of
this neighborhood. The other concept in this neighborhood is the development,
I've lost well, my arrow, I've lost my arrow, nope I have one. The development
of a commercial center at Rochester and Scott Boulevard. That commercial center
at Scott and Rochester were suggesting be developed in the main street design,
and when I say that what I mean is something like Town Center in Coralville.
Where the buildings are up to the street and the parking is in back, it looks rather
urban you need, here you need to have a scale that was appropriate for this
neighborhood in terms of the height of the buildings. But that's that's the idea.
Both of these neighborhoods include systems of trails, public open spaces
throughout and sprinklings of different types of housing. Some at major street
intersections and some around commercial centers. So these are the, these are the
ideas that are behind what we are showing here in this plan. As I've said the plan
grew out of the Iowa City 2000 vision process done in 1994 and it developed
more fully in terms of this district plan through the neighborhood planning
workshops last Spring. I'm sure that not everybody who participated likes every
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single piece of this plan, but I think those people who did participate would agree
that there are many things that are included in this plan which are good things
about neighborhoods in east Iowa City. The planning and zoning commission has
recommended this plan, the staff recommends it and now you will hear from
everybody else who wants to say anything. Thanks.
Larry Schnittjer/Good evening I'm Larry Schnittjer from MMS consultants. I've been
out here longer than everybody here except for maybe Emie. I've seen a lot of
transition in the development process in Iowa City and even though I'm
apprehensive about it that traditionally brewed it may be a good solution I'm not
certain. One of the things that concerns me most and it kind of relates back to
some of Karin's comments and thought process that I've been through today
trying to formulate what I wanted to say is that the comprehensive plan was
mentioned two minutes has a lot of concepts in it but there' s not a lot of
definition. There are a lot of good ideas but exactly how do we get there? I have
the same concem about the traditional neighborhood and some of the other issues
involved with this plan, I would like to see those standards established before we
establish this plan. Or at least in some draft form. How are we going to maintain
all the acres of open space that are included in the Bluffwood neighborhood? I
have not tried to measure the amount of area but it looks like it's close to 50
percent of that 900 acres. How, when we do subdivisions we historically work
with property ownership lines, the streets, lots and whatever else are subject to
modification from this plan but there are a lot of issues that don't even relate to
property lines on this plan. One in particular is the suggestion of transfer density,
the focus spaces are shown on the, I've got to stop and think, it's on the property
next to Hickory Hill Park and the density transfer is on property owned by ACT.
How does that work? It may be necessary to do that but we need to think these
things through and how those are going to happen before we put all these things
down. If we proceed with the neo-traditional there are we need to know what the
specific standards will be acceptable. I don't want to have to spend hours doing
design concepts and then go downtown and review it with staff and say that
doesn't meet, I've had that happen too many times. It costs my developers
money, and I like working with staff, don't take me wrong there, but I don't like
to have to redo things a whole lot of times. The short time that I've had to review
neo-traditional I find that it may be as environmentally (can't hear) as we'd like
to see. When we start trying to condense things down and make things more
compact it means we need to do a lot more grading and site preparation to make it
work. I think I'll close with that so I'm not taking up your whole evening.
Thornberry/What do you suggest?
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Schnittj er/I don't know it, I'm very familiar with the types of development we've
worked with the planned developments and situations where we've basically
thrown out lot lines and gone with condominium developments and conventional
subdivisions where we can have curvilinear streets that follow the contour and it
people have concerns about the First and Rochester area because it has a lot of
dead end streets and what have you, but that' s basically the conservation design.
The only difference being there is that the developer elected to sell the ravines to
the property owners rather than giving the public access to that space. Those
folks take care of those areas pretty much on their own to the extent that it needs
to be but if we're going have that turned over to public or semipublic activities we
need to have some sort of standard of how those areas to be maintained and what
can be done and what can't be done in those areas.
Thornberry/What I'm heating you say, and correct me if I'm wrong, you kind of like the
concept but you see a lot of problems.
Schnittjer/Well, I don't want to.
Thomberry/I don't know. And if there are problems, can we work out the solutions with
your help? I mean it.
Schnittjer/We may be if the fight developer is working with this project we may be
working with him on the peninsula, we don't know yet who's going to get the
project and I'm not going to speculate on that.
Thomberry/I think there probably could be many.
Schnittjer/So, I've been studying the plans that he has sent to us to review and there are
issues of utilities and pavement widths that some of the stuff may be information
that he has modified to suit his standard and may not be what the Dover, Kohl
original plans so I don't know where that fine line is but when I start looking at
things I don't know where we're going to put utilities and make it work or sewer
should be maybe go in the alley and so we can run stubs off here and there
without having conflicts and with the utility companies typically like to, in
today' s standards be in the front yards and there' s no front yard left to be that
utility companies want a 10 or 15 feet easement along the right of way so their not
in the public street. Well if your house sits six feet off the fight of way line that's
not enough. So.
Norton/Larry, I'd like to ask just one question. With respect to your comment about
working with living with property lines and so forth. Don't you agree that storm
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water in that area is going to have to be approached somehow collectively?
Otherwise the water is just passed from one owner to the other and so on.
Schnittjer/I totally agree with that. I like the concept of the original Ralston Creek storm
water basin, it's that, that's in (cant hear, coughing) Park and I like the concept of
the new basin that's illustrated in the Smith brother's property. And those storm
water basin's are a lot more efficient when we can build the larger facilities and
make an amenity out of it rather being somebody's personal backyard eyesore.
Champion/The problem with the utilities too is that I think the utility companies might
very much like to be in everybody's front yard right off the street, but most of us
who live with that would actually prefer to have it in our back yard.
Schnittj er/I'm not arguing that point, it's just something that there' s a whole lot of
coordination that has to be worked out and resolved when we start proceeding on
one of these projects and right now the standards that we use in Iowa City are not
available to make those decisions.
Champion/It could be an adventure.
Lehman/Well I think that you've raised some questions that I, one of the reasons that we
have public hearings is to come up with answers, and I think you have raised
some questions obviously if this hearing is going to be more than just this
evening. Hopefully we're going to have some answers to some of the issues
you've raised tonight.
Schnittjer/I think the biggest issue that I'd like to see that as we work through these plan
areas work out some definitive.
Lehman/Standards.
Schmttjer/Standards and also maybe spend some time writing out what we mean when
we say diverse housing. I went to the Southeast Area neighborhood meeting the
other night and their perception of diverse housing was totally different than what
anybody else here in town thought about. They feel, the way my interpretation of
the meeting was, that diverse housing to them means their expecting we're going
to have more high price housing in that neighborhood and not accommodation of
mobile home parks and from there on up. So, we need to explain when we make
these kinds of comments some rather extended verbal description if we can't draw
pictures of it.
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Thornberry/Well your putting the staff between a rock and a hard place. Because we've,
you know I've tried to say to staff, don't get too specific because leave it up to the
developer to see what they want to do and now your saying gee's you need more
guidelines.
Schnittjer/Well, I guess.
Thomberry/Putting staff fight.
Schnittjer/That gives me room for a (can't hear) situation Dean because I'm in two
projects fight now that staff is reviewing these projects in some form of context or
another in relation to this plan that we're talking about tonight saying we want
street connectivity and on project and on the other project the housing types that
your proposing don't meet our idea of what we want here. Plus.
Norton/Let's move on.
Schnittjer/And I don't want to get in argument, long discussion on that.
Thomberry/It's a discussion (can't hear).
Schnittj er/But we can't get a definition of what the idea is.
Norton/Yea, we got it.
Champion/OK.
Thornberry/Yea.
Lehman/OK, thank you Larry.
Thornberry/We're going to learn a lot from you Larry.
Schnittjer/Pardon.
Thornberry/I'm learning a lot from you.
Ralph Stoffer/I'm Ralph Stoffer, I'm a civil engineer, Larry's kind of the big dog in town
and I'm one of the little dogs. I wanted to point out a couple things on the layout.
Highway 1 is now starting to be studied by the DOT in the year 2003-2004 it's
going to be constructed as a super 2, probably maybe a four-lane.
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(End of tape 99-39 side 2)
Ralph Stoffer/Highway that's going to be increasingly, it's going to have an increase in
traffic. There's a proposed bridge over Interstate 80 that is located too close to the
Highway 1 intersection to ever have connection to the interstate you know where
the diamond. I think that needs to be looked at. I looked at the I mean everything
comes down to cost. And this aRemoon I did some quick takeoff' s of these
designs and these are not moderately priced designs they are very expensive, I
saw areas that were 2 V2 times the cost of a traditional you know what we're
building now with the garages on the street and I think that needs to be looked at
awfully hard before you proceed with this plan. These plans are presented at this
time as being well it's just a plan, it's just an outline. But I'm the guy that has to
put a legal description on a line and they say, see that pink line there, that's it.
And so I have to interpret these plans as exact. It is distasteful, anyhow that's all I
have to say.
Lehman/Thank you.
Kubby/Just to clarify our, Scott Boulevard going over the highway was never meant to
connect to 1-80 is my remembrance that it was just meant to go over 80.
Thornberry/If it ever does.
Champion/If it ever does.
Council man/Interchange.
Kubby/Right.
Thornberry/Do you understand Ralph?
Stoffer/I hope (can't hear, away from mic.) 20 years from now we'll still be here and
that intersection may be at capacity and if it's moved another ¼ mile or V2 mile
further east that gives our children a option that I think should be preserved.
Thornberry/Understand. Thanks.
Dennis Spencer/My name is Dennis Spencer, I'm the president of Home builders
Association of Iowa City. Our association recognizes the time and effort that this
staff has put into this plan drafting it, working the neighborhood association,
working with the neighborhoods in general. We feel that there are several
elements of this plan that are very important to modem development. Trails, open
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spaces, plans for increase density, all these things improve subdivisions and
neighborhoods. Our association also recognizes the importance of all the
neighborhood input and you know and appreciates that. We also appreciate the
willingness of city staff and council to include us in the development process and
we would like to ask that the process go one step further and have we would like
to be involved with one on one type discussions with the with city staff in the
planning rather than being part of the neighborhood, to have a separate session
with the city staff to basically let them know our views. The, give them our input
and I guess I'm here tonight to basically ask you for that for that opportunity and.
Thomberry/People. I think if you just ask Karin to set up an appointment.
Kubby/We don't, there's to be no direction from council for any organization in the
community to ask the planning department to meet with them on whatever.
Atkins/I think that goes without question, if you certainly would like a meeting with
Karin and members of her staff that certainly would be made available to you.
Spence~ OK.
Atkins/I think we need to make sure we all understand each other that we work with
neighborhood groups, we work with private developers, we feel compelled to
make sure that we share everybody's thoughts with everybody so that I mean if
we have separate sit down that's OK the information will be shared collectively.
Kubby/Right, and that' s true for an individual citizen who want's to talk to a planner or
any other kind of neighborhood association or other kinds of organizations. Not
that we want to flood planning with separate meetings because that's what the
public input process is for is for everyone to come together to share so that
everyone's thinking evolves I mean I think there would have been some great
value to having Home Builders involved in the neighborhood association or the
neighborhood meeting.
Atkins/If I could.
Kubby/You could have the benefit of the general public' s perception of the concept.
Atkins/As I think of, if I could suggest it might be a I know most of the (can't hear) that
you represent if you could round them up into one meeting, I'm sure Karin would
be pleased to make a formal presentation and then a real clear give and take could
occur and then we get a bigger bank for our buck by you having lots of your
members there. We'd be happy to set that up, that' s not a problem at all.
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Spencer/OK. I think that would be a forum that would be a lot easier for our association
to you know give their input sometimes the neighborhood meetings your input at
the neighborhood meetings is sometimes perceived as adversarial and we don't,
you know, that's not a fun situation to be in and really don't want to put ourselves
generally in that situation so.
Kubby/Although you'll never change that if you never do it. I mean it will perpetually
be that way unless there's direct interaction too.
Spencer/We did have some of our members at attended some of the especially the initial
meetings on this.
Lehman/I have one question Dennis. Chris went through some rather extensive meetings
with planning and zoning. Did you folks talk to planning and zoning commission
before they recommended it to us about the concerns that your bringing up now?
Spencer/I don't believe we did, no, I don't believe.
Lehman/We will, we will address your concerns, there is no doubt about that and we
need a meeting with staff or whatever you know we'll be more than happy to do
that. But the process works a little smoother if by the time it gets to us after
having been discussed by planning and zoning for I don't know how many
meetings, they have an oppommity to see the kinds of changes that you would
like to see, your asking I think for at least clarification and if not following the
clarification maybe some changes, and your asking us to do this which I'm sure
we'd be very, we'll listen to anything you say, if we do make changes and we're
doing we'll be passing a plan that is not the same plan that planning and zoning
approved. It wouldn't have the benefit of their input and that's fine we can do
that, I just think it's better for us and I think it's better for you if we can keep that
involvement all the way along the process instead of coming at the very end and
then going back. We can do that and we will.
Atkins/Ernie, I think it goes it goes without question that tonight is intended to be a
public heating, that is you know the listening component is process and that as
you gather your thoughts for discussion with staff, Dennis has already made his
points, we will take them back and meet with whatever groups you feel are
appropriate, however, I've always understood that you wish your planning and
zoning commission to have some say, I mean they have made a recommendation
that we do amend it, it's either appoint a meeting between the two of you.
(several people talking).
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Arkins/Yea, so we all understand that you expect a recommendation from planning and
zoning commission, as city council.
Spencer/If we are behind on this we, you know, through whatever set of circurnstances,
the next time this come up we would like to do this on a more timely basis
perhaps before you know so much effort has spent to actually draft the document
cause this, we understand this takes a lot of work to do.
Council man/(can't hear) rocks and right away.
Lehman/I was going to say your going to have an opportunity real quick. The southwest
plan.
Thomberry/Is south, north.
Kubby/North.
Vanderhoef/North.
Thomberry/Ha, close.
Lehman/Well, we've got several districts.
Thornberry/One of those directions there (can't hear).
Champion/It's part of town.
Norton/I want to get one quick comment in it's for you to think about, and there may be
others in the audience as well because I hear it some comment about single loaded
streets and I just wanted you to know I just made a little list this evening having
gotten your letter last night and one from chamber I think. I made a little list of
16 parks, doesn't parks (can't hear) and 12 of them have substantially single-
loaded streets adjacent.
Spencer/OK.
Norton/Now that' s been going on over the last 50 years or more so and only four of them
are basically in people' s back yards and they don't work nearly as well, so I just
wanted to I'll send you the list you can drive around and see which ones, like
start with College Green Park.
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Spencer/(can't hear).
Norton/I know you know, start with College Green Park.
Lehman/OK, we will get together and schedule a meeting and I think it's particularly
important that as many of the builders and developers be present and engineers as
can be so that we're all on the same sheet of music when your working with staff
so we can get that set up.
Spencer/OK. Thank you.
Thomberry/Maybe in here, a different room or however big you need it, (can't hear) you
don't think you'll go through Steve and have him set it up with his department.
Lehman/Staff will set that up.
Atkins/Yea, we'll take care of it. OK.
Spencer/Thankyou.
Lehman/Just for those folks who are curious, in the sales tax vote the NO's in the
contiguous area are 72 percent, the yes is 28 percent. So the sales tax has been
defeated rather handily.
Thornberry/And the rural is.
Lehman/Rural was 82/18 percent. OK.
Cam Campbell/Hi, my name is Cam Campbell and I actually live in the northeast
neighborhood. And I've been involved with the neighborhood meetings for quite
some time and I wanted to thank the staff for listening to the neighbors as we got
together at the very early stage and I am one of these people who have been
involved from the get-go in terms of putting together this plan that you see before
you. In terms of the concerns of the neighbors and the area there are a number,
I'm glad to see there are trails, the water retention system that was proposed over
what will not be called Scott Boulevard Extension, was one of the neighborhood
suggestions as well so a number of plans have been incorporated in what you see.
First Avenue extension still remains one of the thoms I must say that my
resistance is weighing somewhat overtime. My wife's resistance I would be
remiss if I would say it was not remaining high. However, I think the big concern
was that if First Avenue did not go through and roads were allowed to go directly
from what was once called Captain Irish Parkway what is now being called North
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Scott Extension. If roads were to go through the neighborhoods and not have
First Avenue we foresee a lot of traffic coming through those minor roads to head
out onto First Avenue. So a big concern is if First Avenue did not go through,
again I'm not voicing this is why it should go through but if it did not go through
and our roads in the neighborhood then we have problems. I have certainly
concur that if First Avenue does go through then it be concurrent with Scott so I
was happy to see that both roads go through at the same time. I realize that was a
huge shift in budgetary monies to move up the development of that road,
however, I think the (can't hear) building of both roads simultaneously is very
important. I would hope that open areas are maintain as the neighbors have
outlined and that the roads that are built in the area conform to environmentally
sensitive areas as outlined. I have great concerns about those people who live
along First Avenue, a number of years ago the city voted not to have alley ways,
we're going back to alleys which I think is fine. Unfortunately you have people
who live noah of Rochester right now along First Avenue. If First Avenue goes
through these people have nowhere to park if they decide to have a 50th wedding
anniversary, a graduation party, if there going to have more than 2 cars you've got
nowhere for these people to park. I think it's obligatory for the city to purchase
property on the west side of First Avenue, noah of Rochester to allow two things.
One, a place for those people to park, number two, perhaps an access into Hickory
Hill park from that area. Currently people who want to use Hickory Hill park
from the east entrance are currently obliged to park along the roadway, which is
fine, none of the neighbors have a problem with that but as traffic volumes
increase along the area your gonna need a place for people to access the park and
I think by purchasing land your going to be able to do things, satisfy the neighbors
so that they have a place to park if they decide to have more than two guests over
and also a place for people who use the park as well. Electrical lines, Karin had
mentioned the eyesore that might occur from electrical lines, given it's proximity
to Hickory Hill Park I'd certainly like to see that any utility systems that are put in
that area buffed as they currently are right now in the neighborhood. Currently
right now on the west side of First Avenue there are telephone poles, I mean
there's one neighbor in the area whose mailbox traditionally goes out every winter
because of ice on First Avenue and so it's very important that I think those utility
lines be buffed, not only from the standpoint of Hickory Hill Park but also from
accident potentials. And I guess finally I'd like to echo the sentiments that Larry
mentioned earlier with regards to the development in the area. I think your going
to have tremendous difficulty with property lines. What is outlined is a huge
subdivision, crosses many property owners at this point, and it's going to take
cooperation, not everybody's want to going to want to develop at the same time.
If you cluster an open area and you happen to be the land area of the open area
what happens to the individual who now has the 20 million homes built on their
piece of property and gets all the income from that development per se. So I
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think that those are huge issues to be addressed so I think what Larry brings out
and that are very important. And I think the other issues about the utilities, the
sewer and the water is gonna cross, cut across property lines as well. That's all I
have I just want to really thank the city once again for allowing us the input that
we had.
Lehman/Thank you Cam.
Thornberry/Thank you Dr. Campbell and I'm glad I agree with you since I have to get an
appointment with you later this week.
(several people laughing)
John Beckord/Good evening, I'm John Beckord, President of the Area Chamber of
Commerce. I won't repeat many of the things that have been said before certainly
reported to the technical details that Larry and others have mentioned. I'm
certainly not an expert in the technical details of development. I'd rather focus
on two concems. I guess first though I should send kudos to Karin and her staff
for good work and in working with us in the past in ways that have helped, have
been very helpful to us, we respect Karin and her staff very much. The two
concerns that we want to throw out you recall a couple years ago I was up here
talking about design review as to ways downtown and while it was carefully
stated that they have no intention of telling a builder or an owner whether or not
they have to put a porch on the front or the like. I think we do have to be careful
in the way the language is crafted in this plan so that future councils who may be
willing to take a much more stringent view of some of that language than you
might well it could come to a different conclusion. One of the statements in the
plan for example is encourage reasonable level of housing diversity, ensuring that
apartment buildings and townhouses are compatible with neighborhood
architecture in terms of design and scale. Again open to interpretation exactly
what ensuring what architectural design computability means. So that's a concem
and a more over arching concem relates to the economic feasibility of some of the
concepts that are presented here. When the draft was released and various real
estate professionals, developers, took a look at it we started to get calls and some
questions were being asked about whether or not anyone had really looked at the
economic feasibility of this. What are we talking about in terms of the deliverable
price of the properties that would be built under this design concept and we can
look to the peninsula as an experiment in this regard and hope that things go well
that the market, that is those who will actually buy these dwellings various sizes
and types, will accept this alternative which is an exciting alternative, it's hard not
to look at this plan and be excited about what is what appears to be good design.
But will there be a market for it? And I have some people in the chamber who are
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in the business of selling real estate who have questions about that and their
caution to me was perhaps maybe we should wait and see what happens with the
peninsula and get some read on that. Now, I challenged some home builders with
that question just before we started this tonight. I said now you understand that if
the peninsula works out really well and there's widespread market acceptance and
demand for this alternative are you prepared then to embrace these altemative
ideas? And there was a uniform and unhesitant yes. But there is some real risk
here to the development community, I mean it's not surprising that the people
who currently live in this area would embrace this. But of course their not the
people who are going to be buying the homes that will be built under this
altemative plan. And I don't know a good way of assessing whether or not the
market is really there.
Champion/I think we have some proven markets for this very thing. I think if you take
out Summit Street to First Avenue and the near noah side, those are very mixed
neighborhoods with compatible apartment buildings, duplexes, small houses, very
large houses. I would say that the economic diversity in that neighborhood is
probably one of the better diversities in town and I've never seen problems selling
houses in that neighborhood.
Beckord/I'm not so much referring.
Champion/(can't hear), you've got apartments, you have everything.
Beckord/I'm not so much commenting about the diversity, I bought a home in such a
neighborhood and embraced that. But the design concepts related to whether or
not there's alley's and just garages in the back and whether there are ceaain
standardized architectural features and the like. There are ceaainly legitimate
questions about whether or not there's going to be widespread market acceptance
for that. And again I'm not a real estate professional but I think it behooves you
to ask those people who are in that business for their opinion about this and
whether or not your judgment then is that their opinion is valid is up to you but
it' s worth your time to ask them.
Thornberry/You know, I have some real concems too and I kind of read into this no
garages in front also, what you just mentioned, but it doesn't really say that.
Three of us had a meeting with Karin and she said show me where it says no
garages in front, well we couldn't.
Champion/It doesn't.
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Thomberry/Well I guess there's some that could, they could be in from you know but.
Diversity I guess is what I, you know I'm trying to read some things in there too
and I see pictures in the booklet and the picture that, I mean I wouldn't buy any
of the houses that show that are in the you know the pictures that are in that
booklet. I just don't care for that style house. But that doesn't mean that
something else couldn't be built.
Beckord/I understand, but with the diversity and the size and the types, with certain
architectural ensuring that there are architectural standards and terms of design
and scale as it's mentioned in here and with what some expect to be some added
costs associated with this. There's a concern that we're going to be bumping up
some prices (can't hear).
Thornberry/The land is going to be so expensive that it's going to be a high dollar area,
is that what your saying?
Beckord/Well you heard what Ralph said just a moment ago.
Lehman/Well I also think that some of these questions, I'm hoping it will be addressed
in this meeting with staff.
Lehman/And I think these are things that really need to be gone over until it's some level
of comfort with this.
Beckord/And I think you have already suggested that this is a good idea to pursue these
further discussions.
Thornberry/I think your right.
Champion/And also this council (can't hear) concession about lot sizes and that kind of
thing that could help make lots more affordable where you could have larger lots
and smaller lots, I mean I think there's lots of things that could be done, and I
think the meeting with the builders and the planning people will solve a lot of
those problems. And maybe it can't be done.
Beckord/Well hopefully those things can be worked out.
Champion/Well some of the concepts will be very successful, but it doesn't mean all of
them could be used.
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Beckord/Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you John.
Thornberry/Connie, I think we're on the same page on that kind of, letting that, letting
the market drive what needs to be there.
Champion/Yea.
Council Man/Yea.
John Moreland/My name is John Moreland and I'm a local developer, life long resident,
served on the sensitive areas committee with Bob Miklo and helped formed that
and I've worked with Karin for probably 15 years and she knows what kind of
respect for the job she does and what they do. Basically I was involved somewhat
in the peninsula process just to give you an overview, a lot of guys were, and
we've been developing projects over several years and we all had a somewhat of
reluctance about the project and we were scared to put the kind of money that it
was going to take on the line. Now the jury's out on how the project is going to
do but some of the feedback we were getting from customers and local people
were the garage thing in which is going to come up in my talk here, but they were
very big on alley's and very big on detached garages. And you know, in talking
to the guys from Florida who had never seen a snowflake in their life I said what
about when you bring your 3 kids home under the age of 6 and you got six bags
of groceries from HyVee and you have to go through 18 inches of snow from your
garage up to the back door? Am I going to be able to market that as well as I am
going to be able to market a house with a garage in front where she can pull right
in and you may see the garage but you still see some nice brick and a door on the
front, and you can get out of that, the kids can run in the house while your getting
the groceries out and I'm not saying that' s for everybody but the idea of getting
everything right up on the street with everything in behind is beautiful on paper
but you know sometimes I think Karin tries so hard and her staff try to hard they
get so idealistic sometimes they don't think of the marketability and they don't
think of the affordability. Connie, you made a good statement, there is a good
market for those different types of housing. But there's a heck of a lot of
difference between stuff that's existing and stuff that has to be built brand new to
meet those architectural demands, it's just a huge, with the market the way it is, I
mean it's the demand out there is just huge and the prices are phenomenal. And
what you find out whether you get into that kind of housing or you get into new
type of housing it's traditionally a lot higher than existing houses. Because
lumber prices go up, everything goes up and it's going to be really amazing the
thing that we work with every day of the week is we live and die by appraisers.
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And they typically go by square footage. And you might have the most beautiful
designed place in the world out on the peninsula but it might be 800 square feet,
and next door you might have something that's very plain and it's 800 square feet.
The very beautiful thing costs you $30,000 more to build but those guys won't
give you another dime in appraisal for it because it's the same square footage well
you can't go to the bank and say well this looks better than that you know, you
got to loan me that much more money. So I mean you know, everybody I think
that has lived here wants this town to look and we all do. But you've got to be
somewhat practical on what you can build for what dollar. What the appraiser
will accept and what they'll give you for that, I mean, you know, Karin you made
the statement we sat around and we made some designs and we all did that and
hey, I'm all for that but let's get down to the nuts and bolts, let's see how much it
costs and let's see if these people can afford it and if it will work for them. I
mean, you know, the reason I started building condominiums 10 years ago is
because the price of single family housing got so astronomical I knew if we didn't
start clustering things and putting more units together that we we're going to
drive people to North Liberty and all over and that' s happened anyway. But
fortunately we've kept a lot of those people. I just in the last 8 years have
developed a project over off Mormon Trek, it's over behind New Life Fitness.
And that is basically condominiums for the most part, zero-lot line duplexes,
there's a 30-unit building in there and we have we have met I think every one of
Karin's 6 principles that she put up on the board. We have 75 year-old people that
are retired that come in and take the elevator, they go up. We've got first time
college kids that just got out of college that are buying $65-70,000 condominiums
that are just thrilled to get into an 800 square foot unit. And we did that
development over there expected it to take 12 or 13 years. It took 8 years. You
know we've been very fortunate, and the appreciation value over there has gone
up anywhere from 5 to 10 percent a years. It's been very very well received.
And Karin supported it, everybody supported it for the most part. Now I'm an
owner of property out at Windsor Ridge Subdivision, which is out in the
Lindemann Hills and last May we rezoned some property to multifamily out there
and basically we signed an agreement under the zoning agreement we would try
to follow the basic rules of the comprehensive plan OK. And a lot of those rules,
like Karin said aren't cut in stone, but she named some of the principles. Well
now so in my thinking in that and I got to back track a little bit, and say I didn't
participate in any of the northeast meetings, I'm not going to lie and say I was in
on it and didn't. I didn't do that because I felt like with the amount of land I had
there that was going to take me through the rest of my contracting days and quite
frankly I thought it was more to the north than that area so I didn't take part in
that so, you know, I'm probably wrong for that, but I basically have the land at
Windsor Ridge figuring that we would develop that under the principles of the
comprehensive plan. And we are in the process of submitting several different
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schemes with the staff at this date and they've bent over backwards with wanting
to meet with us, working with us, and do that, but now all of a sudden we're
under the same comprehensive plans that we were but the things have changed a
little bit. I don't want to see that garage, I don't want to see this, I don't want to
see that, and I'm just thinking to myself now I just developed this 50 acres over
here it sold out very successfully. I haven't heard anyone complain about it, the
resale's over there are probably better than place in the city and there's zero-lot
line duplexes right across the street from 12-plexes, nobody complains that they
have to live right across the street from an apartment building or a condominium
building. But now all of a sudden we have a problem with these garages. We
don't want to see these garages, and it's not just Karin or anybody else, planning
and zoning, there' s several people on that that don't want to do that. And I'm
saying you know, we got to have a little bit of diversity in my opinion, my
diversity, we've got condominium's over there where all you see is the front. You
drive in behind them, you go in the underneath garages, and that works out great.
But what's wrong with having some zero-lot lines across the street with garages
up front for that lady that's got two little kids that doesn't want to walk from her
garage up to her house in two feet of snow. And so I think with this northeast
planning thing, I think we just need some more discussion on it and I think that,
like I say I mean I don't want this to be misconstrued that I have any ill feelings at
all for them I just think that what happens is that they want to try to hard to create
the old Iowa City which hell I delivered papers up on Summit Street, I love the
area you know. But you've got to look at today, you've got to look at what you
can buy for your dollar today and we've got to keep people in Iowa City and keep
in down there, I mean you know, I'm tired to losing everybody to the outlying
cities and so I mean it's nice to have this picture of everything you want but let's
on the other hand let' s also make it affordable. It's fine to narrow the streets and
all that, that helps, everything helps a little bit but I mean what about the garbage
guys, that got to come up the alley. You know, or the fire people that got to come
up the alley. And you know how it is after some of the storms we got this winter
you can barely get down the main arterial streets. And I mean it's beautiful the
way these guys drew it from Orlando Florida but I mean they haven't lived in
Iowa City for very many years. So I just think we need more discussion on it and
Karin's agreed to meet with us anytime I mean heck she calls back the same day
every time I call her, so, I have no problem with that. But what I do have a
problem with is people saying, Oh, we can't look at those garages up front, we
just, that just drives us crazy, we can't see those garages. Well what about all
these people that love them, and they like them, and they buy them, don't they
have something to say about it. I mean I think these people on the northeast side.
Kubby/John, the only, the reason people, there aren't choices out there, if someone
would show me a new development where the garages weren't a major feature,
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please take me there. The market is there for that because it's the only thing
available.
Moreland/Karen, go over to my subdivision, it's about half garages in from, and half
garages in back. Or half underneath and their all hidden.
Champion/That's what (can't hear).
Kubby/The market's there for that then.
Moreland/What I'm saying is it doesn't have to be all the way you want it, there can be
some garages up front, and there can be some in back.
Kubby/The plan says that there can be diversity, it does not say no garages in front.
Moreland/We're not getting that, we're not getting that feedback when we submit our
plans OK.
Kubby/Your saying the words aren't there but that' s.
Moreland/We're not getting that feedback at this point is what I'm saying. I mean
garage is pretty much a dirty word if you've got to look at it OK.
Lehman/You'll go to this meeting that we're talking about having with Karin.
Moreland/Oh yea, absolutely, Oh yea. I'll go to that, and I mean you know, it just
comes down to you know everybody's personal taste, you know, you get, you
know, and obviously has a taste different than me or you or anybody else and they
have a vision and hey I'm glad their taking the time to at least to try to create a
vision that's better than no vision at all, but what I'm saying is we've got to reach
a happy-medium here with what we can put together on this.
Kubby/I guess I want to make it clear to the community that it's not staffs taste, this is
the community that has come together with both the peninsula plan, the vision,
the comprehensive plan and the noaheast district plan. All those things I just
outlined except the noaheast district plan has passed a group of 7 council
members and so it's not just staff saying we want this or that, we have approved
those documents.
Moreland/OK, well I mean the feedback from the people I talk to at most of the meetings
there is nobody that, I mean there's probably a few people around that maybe
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dreamed up some of these concepts, these people came in from Orlando Florida,
Karen, that most of these concepts, you know that we build with.
Kubby/It passed 7-0.
Norton/A lot of the staff was there before that.
(several people talking)
Thornberry/I think what your saying is you can't legislate all.
Champion/We're not.
Thornberry/Well there, some of the builders are thinking that we're trying to legislate
tapes here.
Norton/We're trying to shape it a little bit.
Thornberry/The garages, have, you know this and that, it's gonna be in from, it's not
gonna be, we're legislating tapes, basically we are.
(several people talking)
Norton/We're trying to shape it a little bit.
Lehman/All right I think.
Thornberry/Shaping is fine, I think.
Lehman/I think a lot of.
Moreland/And I don't think what I'm saying Dee is there's got to be a little more of a
mixture. Right now we're getting feedback that nobody wants to see any garages
in the front of any units, that' s the feedback we're getting.
(Several people talking)
Thornberry/Well I don't think that' s.
Moreland/That's the feedback we're getting.
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Norton/That' s obviously too strong but, lot of this grew out and not of the staff dreaming
at all, or out of the Orlando the Florida guys but out of the thinking that was done
in 1994 was 80 or 90 citizens sat around night after night after night all that winter
looking at visioning the future of Iowa City and trying to make it look civilized
and I think that' s all we're interested in doing. That means not a light in the
garage at night?
Thomberry/Well that's a little too strong.
Norton/Well maybe keep it that way.
(several people talking)
Moreland/Although lately it hasn't been too civilized around here has it Ray? You
know.
Lehman/The purpose of the public heating is for us to receive comments from the public
so if we just receive those comments and we can discuss them later.
Thornberry/Well you gotta be you gotta be clarify this stuff you know. I have to clarify
it.
Jim Spratt/Jim Spratt, an Iowa Citian who did take part to some extent, limited extent in
those neighborhood meetings and I commend the staff and everyone that was
mustered to show up for them and I think that' s the place where a lot of this
discussion could have taken place quite frankly. And a lot of this and should have
been shifted out before it ever got here, and it should have gotten even before it
got to the planning and zoning. And I hadn't planned to say anything tonight but
there is one small point I think. First I'd like to thank Mr. Atkins, or his remark,
that particularly at this stage of the game if any group is going to meet with city
staff or anybody else, it's going to be shared with everybody.
Thomberry/Yes.
Kubby/Yes.
Spratt/That's extremely important, particularly in this town, or any town. Well my
remark is not of your doing but you currently are wearing the mantle of current
city council. And from a remark made earlier this evening about those folks down
on First Avenue who back into that street, and I don't know those folks who live
on First Avenue but I am reminded of the if's and play the sons and daughters, I
see three ladies up there who will inherent the sins of their fathers. A prior city
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council sat here and allowed that to happen. Knowing full well the expectation
that First Avenue would become an arterial street. I think it's incumbent on you
to use our tax dollars to buy a piece of land so they can have a party for their
grandchildren or their high school graduate or what ever it is. And when it does
become much more arterial than it is I think the remark was correct, I think there's
an obligation there and I would dare say I suspect you'll have to pay a pretty
penny for it. But it also becomes a parking spot for people getting into the park,
so it could serve twofold purposes and somehow, I'm not saying immediately
adjacent for each individual or something like that, but there should be somehow
a way of working things out and in particular if those same individuals that own
that property are also playing ping pong with Karin and her group, in terms of
getting approval for their development in that nearby area. I think you owe it to
those folks who are strangers to me but really deserve that consideration because
you can say that they should have known better but on the other hand the city and
the city staff approved those houses being put in in that fashion and that
somebody would buy them and have that problem. So I'd appreciate your looking
into that. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Thomberry/You know, I had a house on First Avenue just down from the HyVee there
from Rochester, just south, and I lived there for a number of years and it was kind
of dangerous driving out, you know backing out of the driveway onto First
Avenue, but we knew the traffic was there when we bought the house and that
was a long long long time ago. But Dr. Campbell who expressed that opinion to
buy some land on the west side of First Avenue so that people could get to the
park from that area I think is a good idea.
Spratt/Yea, I do too.
Thornberry/I agree with that.
Lehman/All right guys, we're going to take a break. We've been going at this for an
hour and almost 15 minutes, and we're gonna come back and we're gonna take a
little more, but little more on the public hearing and we'll continue it to next
week. OK.
BREAK
Lehman/Another 15 minutes, I would then like a motion from council to continue it until
next week at which time we will take up where we leave off tonight.
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Gary Watts/I'm Gary Watts of Windsor Ridge, my only comments are I would hope that
we could continue the public heating on the northeast planning district. I
personally believe in most things in the planning process here in the district and
what the staff has proposed. I think when you look at Windsor Ridge with the
amount of trail space we have, open space and the things that we've done I think
that we've incorporated a lot of this planning inside of Windsor Ridge. I think the
key issue is we just need to be real careful as a city on design standards, let the
market dictate the design, I think that's very important and I speak not only as a
developer but as a real estate broker. But just be a little careful on that I believe in
diversity of housing, mixed housing uses, one of the reasons in Windsor Ridge,
when we went to a noah of Court Street, one of our ideas on a rezoning was I
believe south of Court we're probably have 300 to 325 single family lots. Our
pricing range right now of homes is probably tiom $215,000 to $600,000. We felt
we had enough of that housing product so when we went noah of Court Street
which is in this northeast planning district you know, we're trying to get more
into some multiplexes, some condos, some elderly housing. Also some four-
plexes, duplexes and various things so we're not disagreeing with a lot of things
staff says that we're open to new ideas I just think that market has got to dictate
what we build and we've got to be able to build it affordable. And you know it's
got to make sense to us or we're not going to do it, so that was my only
comments. I appreciate your time.
Lehman/Thank you Gary.
Jim Throgmorton/Hi there, my name's Jim Throgrnorton, I live at 715 N. Linn apt. 1 and
as usual my notes are so, have been written in such small print that I can't even
read them so bare with me. I'd like, first of all, to indicate that I think the
principles imbedded in the plan are really quite good. And I would encourage you
to hang with the principles to stay with them. Secondly, I would like to praise the
staff, Karin Franklin, Bob Miklo and others for doing such a good job of putting
together the plan and the process that lies behind the plan. As far as I'm
concemed the plan is not ideal, it does not contain everything I would like to see
in it but it contains a lot and there are lots of other things that other people wanted
in it so. The next thing I'd like to mention is that I'd like to stress the legitimacy
of the process. As an exercise of democratic procedures and as an expression of
the will of the people of Iowa City, as citizens rather than merely as consumers in
the market place, we are all consumers, we all buy and sell things but more than
that we are also citizens who are members of a larger community. So, I'd like to
point out the features that give the process so much legitimacy, they've already
been mentioned but I want to reiterate them. The first is the neighborhood
workshops, involves so many people, I remember seeing several of you at the
workshops that I attended I think I took part in all of them for the noaheast side.
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Secondly, the planning and zoning commission recommending approval of the
plan by a 6-0 vote. Thirdly, the vision 2000 process which involves (can't hear)
65, 95 people, I don't remember what the number was, but it involved so many
people from around the city. John Moreland was on that the part having to do
with planned development I think and so they, all those voices were involved in
the process of sending recommendations to you. I'd also like to point out the
staffs recommendation that you adopt the plan. And Ernie, I know, I've heard
you say probably 150 times that the staff are the experts, we hire them because
their experts. Now that doesn't mean we should always defer to them, as you've
heard me say over and over again you shouldn't always (can't hear) them. But
they are experts giving you good advice and I would urge you to attend to that and
that adds the legitimacy of the overall process. Then I'd like to make a few points
and respond to some of the things that have been said by other people earlier
tonight. Lan'y Schnittjer raised some significant issues and I think you should pay
attention to them. But you can't do everything at once. I would urge you to think
in terms of changing things incrementally, so in this case that means I would urge
you to adopt the plan and then deal with the problems and issues and so on as they
come up, because their going to come up unavoidably so adopt the plan then deal
with the other issues as they arise. And when you do that I would strongly urge
you to seek Larry's advice and to seek Dennis's advice about how to fulfill the
principles in a technically sound way, their smart people, they have a lot of
experience, listen to them, try to connect everything they say to the principles that
your trying to adopt within the plan. And then John Beckord worried about land
owners perhaps being worried that the plan would be telling land owners and
developers what to do with their land, OK. I understand the worry, but I would
encourage you not to weigh that too heavily.
(End of 99-40 side 1)
Jim Throgmorton/First of all existing codes already tell landowners what to do already.
Moreover existing zoning codes already legislate taste. Existing codes already
legislate design. If you look carefully at the design features embedded in RS-5
zoning for example, you will see a design for a house that's there, and it's built
into the setback's, the side yards, minimum fore-area, and so on of the houses. So
you've got design already built in. And similarly I would urge you to not to
weigh John's concern about risk too heavily. Many people, long to have high
quality neighborhoods rather than simply houses that they can afford to live in. I
mean that's really important, to have housing you can afford to live in, but you
want that and really high quality neighborhoods, and you can't do that simply by
responding to consumer preferences as expressed in the marketplace. You have to
think of all of us as being citizens of a community so, that' s it, thanks. If you'd
like me to answer any questions you have.
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Mark Johnson/My name is Mark Johnson, I'm a builder, I'm with the home builders
association, I'm on the legislative committee and I lived in an neo-traditional
neighborhood for approximately seven years. I think that there's a couple of
issues on neo-traditional neighborhoods that maybe shed some light. Some of the
things when we lived in a neo-traditional, and that we had to deal with was #1,
privacy, if you decide to put alley's in your back yard. The other thing that was a
big concern and that was abonden??? was the back alley by the city as far as
maintenance, access, bringing the garbage trucks destroyed the back alleys, they
didn't feel like that they wanted to repair it, they tried to push em onto the private
citizens. Safety was another issue that we had, a lot of concems, we had children
that were riding down these neighborhoods and due to a security feature, most
people had fences, high fences in the back, some of them had the rot??? iron
fences for protection to come people from theft and to keep them out of their
backyards. That also created a lot of blind spots for children riding their bikes and
vehicles, it also created additional access onto roadways and it also created blind
spots for people riding their bikes and vehicles and what not going down the alley
to the sidewalks, kids walking to school and what not. Because it usually is so
close to them and people with privacy wanting the privacy were putting up the
additional landscaping and the additional fences and that. They also once they've
been in the alley then they came up to us and said well we need a common
driveway to go between the houses so we had detached garages with a common
driveway coming down through the alley. This created another route for people to
take a short cut from going from the alley down the middle of the street between
garages where our kids were playing a lot of times and going at a it was a 15 mph
speed limit, a lot of times they were coming at 25-30 mph through there, could be
high school kids or someone in a hurry and what not. And it just proposes a lot of
safety issues on it along with repair issues and everything else. The other thing I
would like to comment is I went to the National Home builders, I've been down
to Dallas the last two years, study extensively, they have a lot of neo-traditional
neighborhoods down there. Those neo-traditional neighborhoods that they do
have very high density ratios and that' s the only way that the only way that they
can make them affordable. The other thing that they do is that they have a
neighborhood composed up between 20 and 60 lots and those 20 and 60 lots
usually back up to a four-lane access roads so they can have quick access to work
and back. And what their doing is traditionally is their putting a fence along the
4-lane, their putting an alley between the fence and then their putting a fence
between their backyard to create what they call a double buffer area but what is
nice about that neighborhood is once you drive off that 4-lane into that
neighborhood it does blend itself to be a very cozy and quiet and nice area.
However, these people did comment because I'm of course being from the north
telling them that we have a lot of snow and that and a lot of these people are
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people that have come from the noah. My mother and father-in-law live down in
Dallas now and their biggest comment is that neo-traditional neighborhood if the
snow is not plowed in those alley ways it would become very hazardous and
dangerous and would create a very could shut down part of the city because of the
heavy snow that we get and the possible lack of maintenance. And on the
maintenance end of alleys and that, in our neighborhood a lot of times they had to
come with end-loaders to clear out our alleys so that we could get our vehicles out
because of the fences put so close to the property lines, there was no way for the
snow to actually go up into what we call the common area or the city area for that
excess melting process and that. So I think there's a lot of good things I'd just
like to you to take a little bit closer look at it and being part of it we loved the
neighborhood, we loved being close to the families and everything but there were
definitely some problems that I think you should consider with the alley situations
on the neo-traditional. Thank you.
Thomberry/Steve, who would be responsible for snow removal in alleys, a paved alley?
Atkins/Right now, it's the property owners.
Thornberry/Property owners.
Atkins/It's not uncommon in newer developing subdivisions that use alleys that there's a
homeowners association or something such as that.
Lehman/I would entertain a motion to continue this (can't hear).
Norton/I so moved.
Thomberry/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, second by Thornberry.
Kubby/To April 6.
Lehman/Pardon.
Kubby/To April 6.
Lehman/To April 6.
Norton/Yea, April 6.
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Lehman/Discussion. All in favor. Public heating will be continued.
Karr/Do you have a motion to accept correspondence?
Kubby/So moved.
Champion/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, second by Champion to receive correspondence all in favor
say aye. All ayes. Motion carries. We will continue this public heating a week
from tonight and however long it takes us to get to work through this, so and I
want to thank those folks who took the time to come tonight.
Thomberry/Very good comments.
Lehman/I think there have been some very good comments.
Norton/Really really good comments.
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ITEM NO. 6g. Public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning designation of
2.78 acres located at the northeast corner of Duck Creek Drive and Rohret
Road from Low Density Single-Family Residential (RS-5) to Sensitive Areas
Overlay/Low Density Residential (OSA-5) to permit a 14-unit residential
development (REZ98-0019)
Lehman/We're going to open the public heating, this has been withdrawn. Public
heating is open. Public heating is closed.
Karr/Excuse me Mr. Mayor, can we accept correspondence on the last one? Sorry.
Norton/So moved.
Lehman/Oh.
(council man)/We did.
Lehman/Oh, moved by Norton, second by O'Donnell, all in favor, all ayes, motion
carries.
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ITEM NO. 6h. CONSIDER A MOTION TO FORWARD A LETTER TO THE
JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS RECOMMENDING
THAT AN APPLICATION TO REZONE 49.4 ACRES FROM SUBURBAN
RESIDENTIAL (RS), RESORT (A2) AND HIGHWAY COMMERCIAL
(CH) TO HIGHWAY COMMERCIAL-FMRGROUNDS (CH-F) FOR
PROPERTY LOCATED IN FRINGE AREA C AT 4265 OAKCREST HILL
ROAD SE BE APPROVED. (CZ9910)
Lehman/This is, the county zoning has created a zone specifically for fairgrounds and
this is just a request that they that property be rezoned to correspond with their
new zoning code.
Thornberry/I move to forward the letter.
Kubby/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thomberry, seconded by Kubby. Discussion.
Norton/Did you notice the best (can't hear) out there.
Lehman/I.
Champion/A rodeo?
Norton/Circus. There's time to have a little pending business in that area.
Thomberry/Yea, we do.
Norton/Yea, we'll be back to it.
Lehman/All in favor. All ayes. Motion cames.
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ITEM
NO. 6j. CONSIDER A MOTION TO FORWARD A LETTER TO THE
JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS RECOMMENDING
THAT AN APPLICATION TO REZONE 22.69 ACRES FROM
SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL (RS-10) TO SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL (RS-
5) FOR PROPERTY LOCATED IN FRINGE AREA C IN THE
NORTHWEST QUADRANT OF THE HIGHWAY 1 WEST AND LANDON
AVENUE SW INTERSECTION BE APPROVED. (CZ9908)
Vanderhoef/Move we forward the letter.
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Thornberry. Discussion.
Norton/We're not creeping into crawl here are we? Are we creeping into crawl? Well
how do you like that?
Champion/Well you might be?
Norton/Well I suppose.
Kubby/You mean creeping into sprawl?
Norton/Into sprawl, yea, that's what I mean, fight, we're creeping into sprawl, fight,
there's no doubt about it.
Thomberry/Been up fight for a while.
Kubby/But all of these things fit within our fringe area that minimizes access roads that
clusters housing and has open space so it's following the agreements that we have
that try to minimize sprawl.
Norton/Still it's converge as well. Maybe we need to take another look at it.
Vanderhoef/It's coming up.
Lehman/All in favor sending the letter. All ayes. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 7. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST AN AFFORDABLE
HOUSING PROGRAM AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE IOWA CITY
HOUSING AUTHORITY, THE FEDERAL HOME LOAN BANK OF DES
MOINES, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA COMMUNITY CREDIT
UNION.
Kubby/Move adoption of resolution.
Champion/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, second by Champion. Discussion. Maggie, you and I visited
just briefly on the phone today, would you tell us what this is, cause I know a lot
of this stuff, you know housing authorities and all of that stuff doesn't mean
anything, but, precisely what is this we're doing.
Maggie Grosvenor/OK. This money, we were contacted by the University of Iowa
Credit Union, Federal Home Loan Bank is a private institution that makes funding
available for rental properties and for home ownership, so this was a grant
application made to that organization and we were awarded that money.
Lehman/But this is instigated by the private sector. OK.
Grosvenor/Exactly, no, I can read a statement right from Federal Home Loan.
Lehman/No, no, it's fine, I don't think t hat.
Grosvenor/No government money. All private.
Lehman/I didn't understand that last night but I wanted the public to know and you
didn't either.
Grosvenor/Right, right.
Thomberry/I didn't either, and I was going to vote no on this (can't hear).
(council man)/Yes, I know you were (can't hear)
Grosvenor/Private, private, private.
Thomberry/Because I did not feel that the city should cosign a loan even though rents
maybe higher, I mean you may be paying rent higher than your house payment
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would be, principle, interest, taxes and insurance, maybe the same if your paying
$500 1 don't know how much a house you get for that anymore but to be 50
percent below medium income to be eligible for this program and the city to
cosign a loan for the purchase of a house for that income level people I did not
think was appropriate if you don't have the money to have the down payment for
a house then as far as I'm concerned you should wait until you do because I think
the upkeep on a house is going to considerably higher than that of an apartment,
etc. etc. etc. my logically thought out process. But if it's all private money why
do we have to be involved? Why does the city have to be involved?
Council man/Administered.
Grosvenor/That's the way, that's the only way this money is allocated, it's allocated to
cities or housing authorities or whatever, that' s just a process. They award it, and
only the financial institutions can apply for the money and then it's a parmership,
this is the way you know, it's public-private partnerships.
Kubby/And individual households will have to qualify financially in order to get this
money.
Grosvenor/Exactly. And that' s the way the grant was written, I mean I can go into more
detail you know that this grant application was, the income limits were based on
the mortgage revenue bond income level so there a little bit higher than what our
HUD low income levels are. For example, a family of three that the income level
is $27,025, so that's like $3,000 higher than what our HUD income levels are.
(several people talking)
Lehman/Well I think, no but I think this is very similar to our tenant ownership
program where we take monies that we have in our housing program, lend that to
folks for a down payment enable them to own their own home and we have
enthusiastically supported that and we will later tonight because there's three
more of them coming up. But this is a $10,000 loan that is.
(several people talking)
Lehman/After five years.
Grosvenor/After five years.
Lehman/If they stay in that property.
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Grosvenor/If they stay in that property.
Lehman/So, I mean this is a tremendous program for someone trying to get into a home.
Vanderhoef/I have one question, there' s a bear of a payment if they don't stay in it for
five years? Where does that money go? Would it come back to the housing
authority?
Grosvenor/No, it goes back to the Federal Home Loan Bank. We regulate it but it's all
their rules, their regulations and the money goes back to them.
Thornberry/The Federal Home Loan bank gets their money from taxpayers.
Grosvenor/Well.
Vanderhoef/But it's (can't hear).
Grosvenor/Our invest you know true, true.
Vanderhoef/But it's there to go back into the next (can't hear).
Grosvenor/That pool right.
Norton/I talked to Maggie a little bit about this today too, she said they have to take a
look each year at the income qualifications to make sure to assure the adjustments
are made of income changes things like that, but they don't otherwise have any
purview over the first of the house particularly looking at qualifications for
income.
Thornberry/Your disqualifying everybody that makes 50 percent of median income for
this program.
(several people talking)
Norton/Most people are on that level yes.
Vanderhoef/But there are some others that are.
Norton/Oh yea.
Thornberry/The other programs they will qualify.
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Vanderhoef/Different levels.
Norton/When you go up to 80 percent of median income you have a different set of
programs, yea.
Grosvenor/This is the Federal Home Loan banks regulations. They word their grant on
different income levels and you get points for you know if your below 50 percent,
and below 60 and below 80 so.
Thornberry/You got the money buy it, if you don't have the money.
Norton/Well we've been a year, didn't you say a year in the tenant ownership program
which this is kind of a version of and we've been only one year in it, I suppose
over a period of five year we'll see how well this if you wish Dean "risk" works.
Thornberry/I do. I really want that tracked (can't hear) track that Maggie.
Norton/It'll take about five.
Grosvenor/We will track it because we have a 15 year resale to make sure their windfall
profits so we have to keep track of it.
Thornberry/I mean, if there property goes to hell in a hand basket and who is then
responsible for?
Grosvenor/Well we have the silent second so we have ultimate responsibility. I mean it
will fall back on us if they would default on the loan, if they would not, if they
would pick up and leave or something like that it would come back to us.
Norton/But this is already to get people into tax paying situations Dean.
Grosvenor/Exactly.
Norton/There is some risk and I think we ought to look at it as it goes along.
Thornberry/Well it, I understand that but you can't tell me that those houses wouldn't be
sold to somebody who had the money, and this is what I'm having trouble with,
somebody who' s got a job and husband and wife's got a job and their scrimping
and saving to buy a house and then the federal govemment or the city or
somebody is taking these houses off the market.
Norton/Well (can't hear).
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Kubby/But the people who are going to qualify for this are going to be working families.
Their not going to be people who don't have jobs.
Lehman/They have to qualify.
Kubby/They have to qualify and the only way you get to that level of income is you
probably are going to have both, if there are two adults in the household both of
them are most likely going to be working and so it's not just a, it's just not a give
away.
Grosvenor/No. And I can give you information you know on the next three homes, I
mean these are people that have worked in their job for 10 years and exactly what
you've said Karen you know, one person that's worked for 10 years, one person
the one person does in home child care, they have a disabled child. I mean these
are not like you said, their no give aways, their working people. Everybody that's
buying a house, or proposed to buy these houses tonight are working full time,
four years, six years, ten years.
Champion/Well I.
Thornberry/I understand that, I'll bet not, you know that.
Champion/Maybe with the salary cap, is it 27.5 or.
Grosvenor/That's with the Federal Home Loan bank.
Champion/Anybody who's making 27.5 can afford a house but will probably never get
together the down payment.
Grosvenor/Correct.
Champion/But they certainly can make a house payment in Iowa City on the houses that
they can afford to live in and certainly maintain it Dean and I guess I have
problems when you talk about their gonna let this house go to trap, well I can tell
you there are people with a lot more money than that letting their house go to
crap.
Thomberry/I understand that.
Champion/So, I don't see how you can possibly judge on whether somebody is
maintaining their house.
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Thornberry/Well it's very easy, you walk by it, or you drive by it and you can see
whether it looks halfway decent or not.
Champion/That's very judgment.
Thornberry/Pardon me.
Champion/That' s very judgment though.
Thomberry/Well it's everybody's judgment though.
Lehman/Well I think we're going to track this as best we can I mean, I don't.
Kubby/To ability to maintain or not, maintain is not based on income.
Thornberry/No, that's true.
Lehman/I don't know what more we can do to track it.
Norton/No, I think it's an experiment and we need to track it, we had a theory that we
ought to try and help people into these situations and I think that' s a fair risk.
Let's see what happens.
O'Donnell/It's an opportunity to allow people that would not be able to, an opportunity
to get into a house that's building equity and I think I think it's important.
Champion/Right.
Vanderhoef/Exactly.
Kubby/(can't hear).
Norton/Yea.
Kubby/Well said.
Lehman/With that said, roll call. All ayes. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 8. CONVEYANCE OF A SINGLE FAMILY HOME LOCATED AT
2709 WAYNE AVENUE, IOWA CITY TO THE TENANT.
Lehman/This is a tenant that's been in the house, we are in the proposing that we assist
them with the down payment. It's a public hearing. Public hearing closed.
Discussion. Let's have a motion.
Kubby/Move conveyance.
Champion/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Champion. Now discussion.
Thomberry/And I agree with these, and I agree with these whole heartily, due to the fact
that these are city owned houses that are not on the tax rules. That are purchased
by the people who are living in them that will start paying taxes.
O'Donnell/Start being a tax payer.
Thomberry/And I agree whole heart idly and I just love this vote.
Kubby/Well and the other part of this program that's so exciting is that the money that
the city gets from the sale of these homes will go back into the program to
purchase or build other public housing units that we can continue the program.
Thomberry/Not necessarily.
Kubby/Yes.
Thomberry/We don't necessarily have to, the city should not be in the housing business
as far as I'm concerned.
Kubby/But.
Thornberry/Bleeking houses offof the tax rules and all of the other things that the city
should not be in the housing business.
Kubby/Maggie is our program such that?
Thomberry/And I think that this program is good because it gets back into the, taking the
money that is realized from the sale of these does not necessarily have to go back
into buying additional houses, taking them off the tax rules and taking them away
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from private individual who would like to purchase them because the city' s
buying them and I just don't agree with that program.
Kubby/That's your philosophy. My question is about the reality of our agreement, with
our, how our tenant to owner program is set up in terms of our city document.
Grosvenor/For example, we have the affordable dream home ownership program which
we're going to be selling a home there. We're never going to own that home, it's
never going to be a public housing. We're just facilitating the building of a it and
then facilitating the ownership of it.
Council Man/That's correct.
Grosvenor/That is the way the money is going to change hands.
Norton/That's where this money recycles to.
Kubby/This is the tenant to owner program.
Grosvenor/And their combined, they really are combined though the pots money are
different and we have different names on them.
Kubby/Right, but our tenant to owner program lays out the money that we receive from
the sale of this house on Wayne Avenue, where does that money go?
Grosvenor/It has to be reinvested into affordable housing in some form.
Kubby/OK. Thank you.
Lehman/And we did that on the west side already.
Norton/Yea, that's right.
Lehman/OK. Roll call.
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ITEM NO. 10. CONVEYANCE OF A SINGLE FAMILY HOME LOCATED AT
2308 LAKESIDE DRIVE, IOWA CITY TO THE TENANT.
Lehman/Public hearing is open. Public hearing is closed.
Thornberry/Moved to convey.
VanderhoefJ Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, seconded by Vanderhoef.
Kubby/Congratulations to three new home owners.
Lehman/Absolutely.
Norton/Yes.
Lehman/Great program. Roll call.
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ITEM NO. 11. PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND
ESTIMATE OF COST FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE IOWA RIVER
DAM RENOVATION, 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 the actually the reconstruction I suppose would be the right term of the
Iowa, the Dam on the Iowa River located by the in Coralville by the Iowa River
Power Company which is necessary as part of our water project. Public hearing is
open.
Karr/Motion to accept correspondence.
Thomberry/So moved.
Vanderhoeff Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, seconded by Vanderhoef, all in favor. Motion carries.
Terry Dahms/Good evening, my name is Terry Dahms, I'm here as a representative of
FIRST that Friends of the Iowa River Scenic Trail. I've been involved with trails
actually longer than the 11 years that FIRST has been in existence and actually the
trail construction that's gone on in Iowa City can really be condensed into the last
few years and I'd like to commend and acknowledge city council for your
visioning courage and moving forward on some of these important trail segments.
These projects as you know have not been without some controversy and some
real concerns over cost. But now we have a backbone that actually will be
complete this summer, really from Burlington all the way to Napoleon Park and
prior to that some of the other significant segments was the segment along
Highway 6 from Iowa to Burlington on University of Iowa campus which the city
cooperated with from the Iowa Memorial Union up to Iowa. We have the Willow
Creek Trail. And Coralville has connected themselves with North Liberty so
there's actually quite a backbone over there. And I think the issue now is
connectivity and we want to connect Iowa City to Coralville and we see this link
across the Iowa River Power Light Dam as a very important connection. We
think this is an obvious time to leverage the construction that has to be done on
that dam to put this walkway across the top so. I'd like to thank you for your past
support and we look forward to your continued support so thank you.
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Champion/Thank you.
Norton/Maybe you can answer one question. Can you tell me is it ready to go
somewhere on the other side, on the Coralville side?
Dahms/Not right now but Coralville is working on that Edgewater park to go up through.
Noaon/On that side.
Dahrns/Yea, through that way and you know you want to still get over to that segment
OK from Coralville up to Noah Liberty so not having this connection you know
would be a serious block to that connectivity.
Champion/I would like to just point out though and I hope I'm right that we're not
reconstructing the dam to as a trail.
Lehman/Oh no.
Champion/The trail becomes a benefit because we have to reconstruct the dam and I
think we get criticized enough with spending money on trails I don't want people
to think we're spending all that money for just the trail. The trail is minor.
Dahms/Well. Right. The dam is being constructed to maintain that water pool.
Champion/Right.
Dahms/Across the top as I understand it there's going to be some soa ofwalkway
anyway to maintain probably debris that may you know wash into that dam so
we're talking about making it wide enough so we can get bicyclists and
pedestrians across to you know to the development we're doing on the peninsula
for to keep that natural but to have a loop through there to (can't hear).
Champion/Well it's just a real plus that we can put a trail across this dam.
Dahrns/I think so.
Champion/Thank you.
Dahms/Thank you.
Lehman/Further discussion.
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Thomberry/We're still in a public hearing.
Lehman/I know.
Thomberry/OK. Cause I've got some discussions.
Lehman/Yea, wait till after.
Rex Preuss/My name's Rex Preuss, I'm a 30 year resident of Iowa City and this is my
first time to address council and I'm not here to complain I'm here to thank you
for your support of the trails and I really do like what's going to happen with the
rebuilding of the dam and the pathway that's going to be across there. I
understand that it's being built for other reasons than that pathway so I think it's
an important transportation link. I think it's an important recreation link. I think
it's an important health link for people to get exercise and I personally have done
all three on the segment that's being completed south of Burlington Street that
goes down towards Benton Street. And as a college student I use to walk that and
was narrow sidewalk, very dangerous, there was trucks and cars and for 29 of the
last 30 years it has remained that way and now with the segment that has been
there it's very nice and it's a good day when I can combine exercise and
transportation and recreation all in one thing so I'm looking forward to this and I
recommend council support. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Atkins/Emie, I'd like to make a couple quick comments particularly on the narrative
portion of Item No. 11. The estimate of the project be funded by water, revenue
bond proceeds, that is incorrect. It may be water, revenue, bond, it may be water
revenues as in cash and we will split out some cost sharing.
Lehman/Trail (can't hear).
Atkins/(can't hear) recreational trail component. So just for clarification. We'll take
care of that.
Lehman/OK. Public heating is closed. Do I have a motion?
Vanderhoef/Move adoption as (can't hear).
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Norton. Discussion.
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Thomberry/I have a question as the engineers estimate for the project as $1,501,400.
What percent or what dollar figure was that is in addition to the dam for the
walkway, for the trial?
Atkins/You mean splitting it out?
Vanderhoef/(can't hear) already in that.
Thomberry/Pardon.
Vanderhoef/It's already in there.
Thornberry/I understand that, what portion of the $1,501,400 is for the trail?
Chuck Schmadeke/The trail is $453,000.
Lehman/Of which Coralville is helping to fund part of that, is that not correct?
Schmadeke/Right, $204,000 1 think is there share.
Lehman/OK.
Atkins/Chuck just so there's no misunderstanding, that $400,000 builds the complete
trail.
Schmadeke/That's right.
Atkins/However, we are obligated to provide a walkway on that dam anyway.
Schmadeke/(can't hear).
Atkins/And this trail is an expansion in effect of I guess which might be a glorified like a
glorified cat walk.
Sehmadeke/That's right.
Atkins/So the $400,000 builds a trail proportionally speaking we would have had to
spend some of that anyway.
Sehmadeke/Yea that' s correct.
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Atkins/OK.
Thomberry/Well $453,000 is for the trail portion of the dam?
Atldns/It is for what we intend to build across this dam, my point to you Dean is that a
portion of it we'd have to build anyway.
Thornberry/Right, right, right, I understand.
Atkins/I don't know the numbers instead of being 3 foot wide we're going to make it 6
feet wide or something like that.
Norton/I've walked across that dam many times, so there was a cat walk there.
Atkins/Oh yea, but.
Norton/A little risky but it was there.
Thornberry/It was probably new when you walked across it wasn't it?
Norton/Yea, well it was a new (can't hear). But usually I walk on the water.
Thornberry/To kill the eagles. I will vote for this because we need the dam not because
of the walBvay for the trail. Because I see potential problems for the trail being
in that particular location and can see the trail crossing the river in another
location as oppose to this bridge. But since the walkway needs to be there
anyway.
Lehman/Have to have it.
Thornberry/And we have to have the dam, but I'm crazy about the trail being in that
particular location and that will come up at a later date so I'll address that when it
comes.
Lehman/Further discussion. Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM
NO. 12. PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, ESTIMATE
OF COST FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE KIWANIS PARK
DEVELOPMENT AND TY'N CAE STORM WATER 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 storm water project for Kiwanis Park on the west side. Public hearing
is open.
Judy Pfohl/Hi, I'm Judy Pfohl, I'm president of Ty'n Cae neighborhood association and
we have been working and been involved with Kiwanis Park, my early notes say
1992 and we are very excited that we're to the point that we can get it out to bids,
we're very excited about the project, we were very interested in trying to have a
lot of it be a natural area, natural play area, we've looked at the diagram, we've
looked at the pictures, the neighbors whose yards back up to it are very excited
about what it's going to be looking like and I just want to thank you for getting it
to this point to have an exciting new neighborhood park that I'm sure that
everybody will totally enjoy. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you. Other public discussion? Hearing is closed.
Thornberry/Move adoption of resolution.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thomberry, seconded by O'Dormell and Vanderhoef. Any
discussion. Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 13. PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND
ESTIMATE OF COST FOR THE IOWA CITY CIVIC CENTER
ADDITIONS AND RENOVATIONS 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/Public heating is open. This is a project to add another floor to the, northem
part of the civic center to finish off the second floor of the police.
Atkins/That's correct.
Lehman/Any public discussion? Heating is closed.
Norton/Move adoption of resolution.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, seconded by O'Donnell. Discussion.
Kubby/I have a few comments, I may be voting no on this, as much as I appreciate the
renewable energy aspects of this and hope that whenever we well, but if there
were not a majority of people to support this program that we would have any
public building look at those kinds of options as a way of using energy in public
building but I I've always had a hesitation about this project in light of all the
community needs that there are out there. And especially in light of the failure of
the sales tax tonight I really think whatever happens with this vote that we really
need to sit down and think about all the capital improvements that we're planning.
The big projects, the small projects, the ones that benefit certain sections of town,
the ones that benefit everyone in town and really do some prioritization and for
me this would be lower priority than some other needs especially in looking at
library expansion needs and I've been saying no to some things that I think the
community needs because I'm kind of saving up those dollars for a library
expansion and now we're really going to need to make sure that we have those
dollars to support the public' s use of the library and this is one of those things I'm
willing to say no to in order to kind of save some funds for that public purpose.
Champion/I'm going to support it. I do agree with partly what Karen say but I think
often when you start to hear about making money tied to the things that are easier
to say well we're not going to make, we're not going to make our central offices
or central building any bigger or any nicer that that's not a good expenditure of
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money, I think it's a excellent expenditure of money that people who work for us
have enough room to work in and some decent offices and are connected with
each other so I totally support this project because I think people who work in
these circumstances need to be given proper places to work.
Lehman/Other discussion. Go ahead.
Vanderhoef/I can see this from both sides how I would have chosen to do this is to
finish off the shell space that we have for the police department and not go
forward with the addition onto the third floor. I too feel that we need good places
for our people to work. And where my energy's and interests have been have
been in getting the public works campus taken care of and we are starting that
project this coming year but obviously we do not have money to do the entire
campus, that is where I would prefer to move forward more quickly in another
year and so I'll be voting no on this project.
Thomberry/There are areas different departments in the city that are renting space, in the
city, outside the civic center now, that will be brought into the civic with the
passage of this resolution and I think instead of the city paying rent to a landlord
to have a city administration area, otherwise housing is not in the civic center.
And to bring them into the civic center where rent is no longer paid I think we'll
in the long mn benefit the citizens of the city, so I will be voting in favor.
Lehman/And in this case HUD is providing $200,000 of the total cost of the project
because the housing offices will be located in the new portion.
Norton/Well I think it's important because the planning department is squeezed as it is
and the public works is squeezed, the space is really needed I think we've deferred
it long enough so we'll have to look at other options. I agree we'll take a look at
the whole picture in the light of the vote tonight we'll have to re-look at a lot of
things but.
Thomberry/We didn't do our budget on the passage of the sales tax?
Norton/No, we did not.
Thomberry/That isn't going to make any difference in anything that we've done to this
point.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries, Vanderhoef and Kubby voting no.
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ITEM NO. 14. PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND
ESTIMATE OF COST FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE IOWA CITY
STREET AND WATER FACILITY IMPROVEMENTS - DIVISION 1:
FOSTER ROAD IMPROVEMENTS AND DIVISION 2: WATER
FACILITY SITE DEVELOPMENT - PHASE II IMPROVEMENTS
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/Public hearing is open. A word of explanation on this is the road that will be
the access road to the peninsula property that the city is seeing developed and it is
a very large project, it includes the roads, the sewer, the water, just a lot of things
included in this.
Thornberry/$6,353,000.
Lehman/And that' s just the estimate.
Norton/Well I think it should be noted it also serves other than the peninsula area. There
are several other areas in that general region.
Lehman/Will be, that's correct.
Norton/And their close to town and are appropriate for in~eld development that they
could not really proceed without this. Yea.
Thornberry/That's correct.
Lehman/Public hearing is closed.
Thornberry/Move adoption of resolution.
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, seconded by Norton. Discussion. Roll call. Motion
carries.
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ITEM NO. 15. PUBLIC HEARING ON THE PROPOSED NORTHGATE
CORPORATE PARK URBAN RENEWAL PLAN FOR A PROPOSED
URBAN RENEWAL AREA IN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Lehman/This is the area just north of the Highlander I believe. Public hearing is open.
Harry Wolfe/Good evening, my name is Harry Wolfe, I'm vice-president with
Southgate Development, the developer of Noahgate Corporate Park and I'd just
like to encourage the council to suppoa our request this evening for the adoption
of the urban renewal plan. And just as a statement of fact that there's not a
specific project in mind at this time for Noahgate, what we're asking for is the
adoption of the urban renewal plan which is a prerequisite under state law to allow
future projects to apply Tax Increment Financing, there's nothing happening this
evening that will guarantee any project will qualify for TIF, but again it is a
prerequisite to facilitate that in the future. We feel we have some opportunities on
the horizon at Noahgate and indeed there may be some opportunities in the near
future to look at projects specific for TIF financing but again nothing specific this
evening, we're just requesting the designation of the area.
Kubby/Are there any plans to request that infrastructure that would be for the overall
park not for a specific business that you would come in as the owner of the park
for a TIF?
Wolfe/Not at this time.
Lehman/Thank you Harry. Any other public comment. Public hearing is closed. Are
we to take an action on this tonight?
Champion/No.
Lehman/Just a hearing OK.
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ITEM NO. 16. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND
AUTHORIZING MAYOR TO SIGN AND CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A
CONTRACT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE RIVER STREET/
WOOLF AVENUE RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT.
Lehman/The engineer's estimate was $2,306,283,65, the low bid was Tschiggfrie
Excavating Co. for $2,888,645 which is a lot more than our estimate that public
works has recommended approval, we had three bids, all were very close and I
think that public works feeling is that this is probably about as good a bid as we're
going to get. I need a motion.
Vanderhoef/I move adoption of resolution.
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, seconded by Norton. Discussion.
Norton/What about Vanderhoef?
Lehman/I mean Vanderhoef. Discussion.
Kubby/I just wanted to say for both of these bid items that I did not make the time to find
out my usual information about union/non-union status as a point of public
information. Not something that we would make decisions on. I apologize for
that and we'll do it retroactively.
O'Donnell/And it really doesn't make any difference because we don't have any control
over that anyway.
Lehman/Is there any discussion relative to the merits of the project?
Champion/Well I think the project is (can't hear).
Lehman/For the amount of bid.
Champion/But I have problems voting for it but I will, I'm just wondering where we're
going to go with all these big bids that are way beyond what our expected costs
were.
Lehman/We are probably going to have to reevaluate our CIP program.
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Champion/Right.
Lehman/At some point during the year, we'll take a look at it.
Norton/Yep.
Vanderhoef/I would like to have Rick come up and tell the public what he told us last
night of what he sees is in the marketplace and why our bids are coming in at a
higher level.
Rick Fosse/What we've been able to learn about the bidding atmosphere right now is the
federal T21 legislation has had a good impact on this, or a good deal of the
impact, they've released a lot of money nationwide for transportation related
projects which is a good thing but the downside is is there's greater competition
from materials and competition to get contractors to bid your work. And we're
seeing a result of that. Just in Iowa alone the DOT's going to be $400 million
dollars of work this year which is by far a record for them. And the labor market
as we all know is tight, and especially some of the skilled labor that's needed for
these construction projects and we're also have been researching how bids are
going in Cedar Rapids as well and they sent us six bid tabulations, and three of
their six projects, they only had one bidder on which tells me the market's tight
up there. We saw a lot of the same contractors bidding Cedar Rapids jobs as we
see Iowa City, so it tells us our market's are tied as well.
Champion/Are we better off putting these projects off for a couple of years?
Norton/No.
Fosse/I don't know, I think that the federal legislation is somewhat long-term it's
probably 3-4 years, there will be an adjustment in the market as material suppliers
begin to catch up on their supply, their will be new contractors coming into the
business, whether that brings prices down.
(End of Side 2 tape 99-40).
Kubby/Our two biggest generational projects are the water and sewer plant
improvements this if this magnitude of increase because of those market forces
happens with those multi-million dollar projects we're really going to need to just
do some soul searching and some prioritization and things might not happen as
quickly as we want.
Vanderhoef/On this.
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Kubby/Because of the reality.
VanderhoefJ On this particular project because we have the water plant portion of it as
well as the road it's behooves us to tie them together because we do get a better
price on the road and we're under the federal government to get our water plant up
and nmning so we need to move forward on this particular project.
Council man/(can't hear)
Kubby/Although, actually this time we don't have any federal mandates for water.
Vanderhoef/But we've run the water along side.
Lehman/This is storm sewer on this one.
Fosse/Right. It's Foster Road that's (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/Did I say water, excuse me.
Lehman/Yea. There's no water involved.
Norton/There's no contribution here from the University I take it even though it's
drainage (can't hear).
Fosse/Yes, there is, there'll be contributing about $704,000 dollars to this project for the
storm sewer component.
Norton/That' s for draining what International Center or what?
Fosse/It's a, we're working jointly with the University to solve the flooding problems
that occurred along Riverside Drive and the arts campus there. And it drains all
the way back to Kinnick Stadium. And if you look at the water shed, about half
of that falls on University property and half in Iowa City properties so we're, it's a
multi-year project to get a handle on this. This is perhaps the biggest years of that
project and we're going to share the cost about 50/50 on it.
Lehman/Other discussion.
Champion/Our contribution, Oh, I've lost it. It's a $2,888,000,00 project and the
university is giving us 705, oh it's just because it's not just OK.
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Lehman/No, the street is involved with that as well.
Champion/Right, right, right.
Fosse/River and Woolf Avenue, River Street and Woolf Avenue are the biggest
components.
Champion/Right. Right.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 17. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING A CONTRACT FOR
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE 1999 CURB RAMP AND SIDEWALK
PROJECT.
Lehman/Estimate was $270,000,00, we received 5 bids, the low bid was Borwig
Building Service from Wate~oo Iowa, $189,355,00 which obviously is less than
our estimate. Public works is recommending that we accept that bid.
Kubby/Move adoption of this resolution.
Vanderhoef/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Vanderhoe~ Discussion.
Norton/I guess we're obliged to take the low bid but it's so much lower it makes me
nervOUS.
Kubby/Well we get reports about action what the engineers estimate was, what the bid
amount was when the project is totally complete with all work change orders, and
all that, to see what the final project cost and we can take a look at that and if
things are real out of whack I mean we keep track of contractors where they have
huge amounts over so.
Vanderhoeff Well this seems.
Kubby/Why are you laughing Dean.
Thomberry/The comment that you just made about being out of whack.
Norton/It is.
Thomberry/We were talking about this a little while ago and it part of the reason that the
English language is so hard to understand, what's being in-whack? (can't hear).
Norton/Out of whack.
Kubby/We're not in-whack yet, that' it. You and I are usually not in-whack, so that's a
good example.
(Several people talking)
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Thornberry/Let me ask, does that mean the rest are in-whack?
Kubby/We will not whack each other.
Lehman/0K. You may think this council is composed of a bunch of whack's.
(Several people talking).
Norton/Has this particular outfit from Waterloo done any work for us Rick before?
Fosse/Yes, they have, they got the last curb ramp project and they did a very nice job for
us, they do not require very much oversight and they whittle away and they get it
done and give us a nice product.
Vanderhoef/Was that two years ago?
Fosse/Yes it was.
Vanderhoef/That's what I thought and remember when we didn't get any bids or very few
bids and they were real high when we were trying to do them annually.
Fosse/Right.
Vanderhoef/And this seems to be a good pattern to do it every other year and make it a
little bigger project and we've got five bidders.
Fosse/We've been working on these projects throughout the decade and straggling to
find the right recipe for a good bid package. At least this year we hit it right on
the (can't hear).
Kubby/Maybe we found it.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 18. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE EXECUTION OF A TAP-ON FEE AGREEMENT
FOR SCOTT-SIX INDUSTRIAL PARK, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Norton/Move adoption of resolution.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, seconded by O'Donnell. Discussion. This is an area that we
have. You want to read the roll call already don't you?
Eleanor Dilkes/I'm just getting ready.
Lehman/This is where the city is participating in the infrastructure in as the property is
sold the city receives their money back for having put in the sewer. So it's I think
it's a good project as far as economic development goes. We get our money back.
Now you can roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 19. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING EXECUTION OF
A 2BE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF CORALVILLE AND
THE CITY OF IOWA CITY PROVIDING FOR SANITARY SEWER
CHARGES FOR 1210 AND 1220 HIGHWAY 6 WEST.
VanderhoelY Move adoption.
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Thornberry. Discussion.
Thomberry/I didn't know those properties were even in Iowa City.
Kubby/They are.
Thornberry/I thought the cities limits ended at that Mike Street.
(can't hear)
Norton/Well I thought it was a very.
Thornberry/The Wig and Pen and the I thought that was Coralville.
Norton/I thought it was a very strange thing that's languishing here since 1960 or
something like that.
Atkins/(can't hear).
Norton/With Coralville paying the handling of the sewer and (can't hear) paying the
charges.
Vanderhoef/Good deal.
Lehman/Could we find some more customers like that?
Thornberry/But we, we owe Coralville a bunch of money now?
Atkins/Yep.
Norton/$20,000.
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Atkins/Payable, yea.
Thomberry/Well.
Norton/Was that the numbers on (can't hear).
Atkins/It's something such as that. I don't exactly what the number was.
Dilkes/It's about $20,000 dollars.
Kubby/Wait a minute, you know how we have
Vanderhoeff $142.13.
Kubby/We have this policy that if we find that someone had in Iowa City that if a
customer hasn't been paying what they should, but we make an agreement to have
them pay 50 percent of it.
Norton/Right.
Thornberry/Yea but they always fight it.
Kubby/Can't we do that with Coralville7
Norton/Oh that's fight I think there should be some (can't hear).
Arkins/This is been kicking around for as long as I can remember. So it's an old old
issue. I think we've proposed every imaginable alternative and.
Lehman/Well but we're only charging them since 1980. And we know it goes back to
1960.
(several people talking)
Atkins/What' s that?
O'Donnell/We should tell them they can have the money out the proceeds of local option
sales tax.
Atkins/Oh, you tell them that.
Lehman/I think in reality we're paying half of the total anyway.
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Kubby, Yea.
Atkins/It's something like that.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion cardes.
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ITEM NO. 20. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION TO ADOPT AMENDED
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES AND GUIDELINES FOR THE
IOWA CITY POLICE CITIZENS REVIEW BOARD.
Kubby/Move adoption of the resolution.
Champion/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Champion. Discussion. No discussion.
Vanderhoef/I'm going to be voting no on this. I have real reservations with identifying
officers for the board in an ongoing fashion. I appreciate the work and the
integrity of the people on that board and they work very very hard at it. However,
I want each case judged on it's merits without interfering previous information
about an officer.
Kubby/You know, I know that there are three council members who in the past had said
that they feel this way. And I guess I want to give an example of where this body
has had kind of a personal feeling, then there were some rules of the game that we
had to follow and that some of the comments were that if we had this, if the
PCRB has previous information about complaints about a certain officer that that
will influence the proceedings unfairly. And the example is when we had to serve
as the appeals board for the historic preservation commission and there were some
members of this body who really thought on a personal level that vinyl siding was
OK. But that's not what the parameters of our decision were about. And that we
were all politically mature enough to understand those distinctions and to act
accordingly and we did I think a I think a good job at doing that and it was a
difficult thing to do but we understood what our job was and we did our job. And
I think the same thing is true for the Police Citizens Review Board that they will
understand what the operating procedures are and that they cannot use that
information unfairly. And in those times where that information will impact their
decision there's got to be some rational for it, some credibility issues at which I
think will be rare. And it's very clear in these operating procedures that they
cannot use that information unfairly and I trust them to be as politically mature as
we were in the historic preservation example.
O'Dounell/It has nothing, once again to do with trust. It's a difference in opinion and the
standard operating procedure (can't hear).
Champion/It is (can't hear) change it.
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O'DonnelF I have a difference, I have a problem with knowing who it is before you can
go into any deliberation.
Champion/Well you don't know who.
O'DonnelF Well you know the number and you put that together.
Champion/There's a difference.
O'Donnell/But I, Karen you said it will make a difference. I'm not saying it, I'm saying
it could and that's why I'm not going to support this. It's very important to me
that this is unbiased when they go into this, I just can't support it.
Norton/I want to respond to that Mike. As you, I'm reiterating the point that's been
made earlier that the Police Citizen Review certainly know all about previous
history of people involved so and we trust they will not use that inappropriately in
any sense and we trust these people would not, and the legal people, and looked at
this very carefully and decided there is a line here that can be dram and that the
committee has some rationale or a decent rationale for one??? of this information,
so I think we should proceed toward that.
Thomberry/There are members of the board that do want that information. And I don't
think they should have that information. I think lady justice, the symbol of justice
is the lady with the law book in one hand and the scales in the other. And the
weighing of the evidence. And that lady is blindfolded.
Norton/Where does that kind of theory?
Thornberry/Let me finish Dee. The reason that she is blindfolded in this symbol is to
eliminate any possibility of injustice of weighing heavily more on one side than
the other. And I think if the PCRB has all of the information on any of the
officers that are accused of something and, you can be accused of anything,
anytime, by anybody. And if your accused several times whether your working at
night, or whether your in a different type of position or whatever. You have more
of an opportunity of being accused. If they have no information other than the
rules of the game of that particular incident meaning this officer and this
complainant, I think personally that they should have as much information about
the complainant as they do the officer and vice versa. I think it should be weighed
fairly and evenly and so I won't be supporting this because the PCRB board will
have a whole lot more information about one of the participants in the complaint
than the other and I think it could, not necessarily would, but could way and sway
their decision on a particular issue.
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Vanderhoef/I would like.
O'Donnell/I want to answer Dee first, because Dee once again this does this has nothing
to do with trust. I trust this group of people.
Norton/No, I understand that.
O'Donnell/I disagree with the operating procedure.
Norton/But the procedure for the police is why is the same limitation on the information
they have about the previous history of the person.
O'Donnell/Well that's what we disagree about, fight.
Norton/Why should the police investigators have that full information but not the
committee.
O'Donnell/Well that's what you and I disagree on.
Norton/It makes no sense.
O'Donnell/But I respect your opinion.
Norton/And you guys talk about consistency that's not consistent at all.
O'Donnell/The consistency some of the statements have been out and I think they've
been unclear and like I said this is not a matter of trust with me Dee, I trust this
group of people, as I trust (can't hear).
Norton/I'm not really to go with the trust thing either I'm just saying there out to be
(can't hear).
O'Donnell/I don't want any chance of bias so I just can't support, but I do trust the
people.
Norton/(can't hear).
Lehman/We've discussed this at length, I'm going to support this, I happen to
philosophically agree with those who are going to vote against it. I do not know
why the board feels they need that information. But we appointed this board, it's
a official function of the Iowa City council to have a police citizen's review
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board, they feel this is important, I think it's important that we support the boards
and commissions that we appoint. I can see that there, I can not see a harm that
will come out of this and so I will support it even though I don't understand why
they want the information.
Vanderhoef/Of the difference that I see here is that the difference between supporting a
board and supporting a policy and I support all the policies in this except this one
piece, but I'm going to have to vote against the whole thing unless they do a
separation.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries 4-3, Norton, Lehman, Kubby and Champion voting
affirmative.
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ITEM NO. 21. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CITY CODE TITLE
8, CHAPTER 8, ENTITLED "POLICE CITIZENS REVIEW BOARD,"
SECTION 3, ENTITLED "DEFINITION OF COMPLAINT; COMPLAINT
PROCESS IN GENERAL," SECTION 6, ENTITLED "POLICE CHIEF'S
REPORT TO THE BOARD; CITY MANAGER'S REPORT TO THE
BOARD,' AND SECTION 7, ENTITLED "DUTIES OF THE BOARD;
COMPLAINT REVIEW AND GENERAL DUTIES," AND ADDING AN
ADDITIONAL SECTION 11, ENTITLED "TIME COMPUTATION,"
REGARDING THE TIME LIMIT ALLOWED FOR FILING OF
COMPLAINTS AND FOR REPORTS TO THE BOARD AND CITY
COUNCIL. (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Kubby/Move first consideration.
Norton Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Norton. This is a change in the ordinance.
Champion/I don't understand.
Lehman/Nothing to do with the, will this change the time requirements that we had
opposed?
Dilkes/Yes, it just changes the time for reports from the police chief to the board from
the board to the council.
Lehman/Right.
Norton/It lengthened the time, right.
Dilkes/And the time for filing of the complainant had lengthen.
Lehman/Right. Moved by Vanderhoef, second by Thornberry.
Karr/I already have that.
Lehman/We already have that.
(Several people talking).
Lehman/Is there anymore discussion before we pass it twice. Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 22. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE BUDGETED
POSITIONS IN THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE.
Norton/Move adoption of resolution.
Kubby/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, seconded by Kubby. Discussion. This I assume is kind of
like a promotion. Is it not.
(Several people talking)
Dilkes/Well, not, there's a review committee that assesses the position to determine how
it should be classified and it was needed to be reelassified.
Lehman/Right. Roll call. Motion carries.
Dilkes/That's not to say I don't think Annie's great.
Lehman/Oh, hey, I would concur and I think the rest of the council would too.
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ITEM NO. 25. CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION.
Kubby/I will start, I had three events that are happening in April and I want to make sure
that people know about so I'll do them in chronological order. The first one is on
April 7, and it's an annual event called the "Day of Silence", and it's a project
that's designed to draw attention to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered
persons who have been silenced because of hatred and prejudiced against them.
An idea is to be quite from 8-5 on April 7 and to hand out cards to people saying
why I'm being silent. And this year it's being sponsored by the University of Iowa
feminists union and there are actually this year organizing some group silences to
be held out, held throughout the day at the student union. And after the hours of
silence, at 5:00 PM people will gather at the ped mall and have a minute public
shout out to kind of release the silence and then there will be speakers. So that's
happening April 7 from 8-5 with the public shout at the ped mall at 5:00. And
then the next day is an event sponsored by the Johnson County Empowerment
board which is a board that is legislated through some state law that is, were
lucky in Johnson county to have received the a pot of money to provide sendoes
for newboms through five year olds, and this forum is called "Focus on Children".
And it's happening on April 8 from 6:30 to 8:00 PM at the Iowa City public
library, and the first part of the meeting will be about a half hour of presentations
about brain development research that shows that it's real important for newborns
to three year olds to have a lot of extra stimulation and it really helps their
development throughout the rest of their life. And talking about kind of the
statistics about children here in Johnson County and some real positive programs
that are already there for children and how this empowerment board and the grant
money is going to be used to work with programs that are already out there to
provide even more services. And then the most fun part of the evening is going to
be breaking down into different groups where people can have more intimate
discussion about child-care needs, health-care needs, transportation and housing
needs of families in Johnson County. If you need child care in order to participate
in this event, 4-C's is providing that, you can call 338-7684 and if you need
transportation you can call me at 338-1321 and we will provide free bus passes or
a ride to this event, so again that's April 8, 6:30 to 8:00 PM. And the last one is
we got a copy of the notice for the Iowa City/Coralville Deer management
committee meeting to be held Wednesday, April 21 at 6:30 PM here in the civic
center council chambers. And I wanted to just make sure that citizens who had
spoken to council at meetings would get that notification as well as the committee
members. Because there was a lot of interest that even though we're not going to
expand the committee there are a lot of people who want to help, especially with
the non-lethal parts which is the majority of the deer management plan and we
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should take that energy and get ideas so, participate in all these community
events, you can't be bored in this town. That's all I have.
Lehman/Conhie.
Champion/Well I just wanted to thank the people who voted in the election today
although the results were not like I would have liked to have had them. I don't I
totally support the sales tax, I thought it was a good way to pay for the projects
that we wanted but that' s not my decision, that' s the public' s decision and they
obviously don't agree with me. And but we will move forward on some of the
projects, they'll be slower than I would have like to have seen them done. I do
regret the fact that people's water rates will probably have to go up now. But it
was a try, it was very unsuccessful, but and I, knowing it really makes me sad I
don't really care, I mean I'm not sad because it didn't pass because I don't think
that's my decision but I'm sad that as usual the voting totals I thought were
ridiculously low with under 20 percent of all the people the county voting. Which
I think again is a pretty sad statement.
O'Donnell/I have nothing this evening.
Lehman/Dean.
Thomberry/Just a couple of things. In reading the housing and community development
meeting minutes under "Successful Living" transitional housing support services
Mr. Elliott, and I'd like to readjust a little bit. It said that, it said a lot but, (can't
hear), that the duplication of services, he is saying that it is considerable, and I've
been talking about this for several years and they are starting to work on that. But
Mr. Elliott said that as far as getting people well I'll just read part of it here. As
far as getting employment is concerned that Elliott said that he would help with
the work force development center, the chamber of commerce, the human
resource committee, and the Southeast Iowa Human Resources Association, there
are so many similarities in these three organizations that he thought it would
benefit the agencies to sit down, consider the similarities and try to avoid service
duplication and zero in for what is unique to the agencies clientele. More than 50
percent of some of the money that places are getting are going for administration
and it's not going to the clientele that their trying to help so I'm glad that their
starting to do that. The second thing is that as far as the animal control advisory
board I thought that one of the members of that board needed to be a veterinarian,
is that not correct?
Atkins/I don't think so Dean.
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Lehman/No.
Thomberry/I thought it was.
Lehman/You can't.
Atkins/I don't know but I don't think so.
Thomberry/And if not, why not? I mean ifthere's something with the animal control
board, I think a veterinarian, there is, there are no veterinarian's on the board or.
(Council Man)/There was.
Karr/There was.
Thornberry/And Nadia Vandergest had to resign because of conflict of interest.
Lehman/Right.
Thornberry/And it would seem to me that somehow or another that the animal control
people should have a veterinarian available to them.
Atkins/Oh they do.
Kubby/They do.
Atkins/What we do in like in a contract service staff but not on the policy board.
Kubby/Right because.
Atkins/If we need a veterinarian we can call on them.
Kubby/Cause their not in there working with the animals, their making policy about how
the shelter should be nm.
Thomberry/Right, and I think that a veterinarian would be advantageous to be on there.
Norton/But Dean that'd be like having a lawyer on certain, on every board or thing like
that.
Thomberry/(can't hear). Veterinarian can be on the animal control (can't hear) a lawyer
on every other board.
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Lehman/Heaven for bid we have a lawyer though.
Norton/They should be available for staff like staff but they shouldn't be a member of
the committee necessarily.
Vanderhoeff They can be a member of the committee, the point is that they can not
business then with the city because of the conflict of interest. So there's a choice
there, if they choose not to do business with the city there isn't any reason why
she cannot continue.
Thomberry/I just think the you need a.
Atkins/I want you to feel comfortable, we have veterinarians on call, we work with that
help us, I mean we fmd injured animals, we have that all under control.
Thornberry/I understand that but on the advisory board there's nobody with a degree in
animal husbandry. But anyway. And the last thing I've got is the deer population
in my area from January 97 to January 99, it's two years, it went from 65 deer per
little area to 127. And my bushes are gone, I've got way way way to many deer,
if anybody want any let me know.
Kubby/Make sure when you replant you get that list of deer resistance species so that
you don't plant something at least you have a chance.
Thornberry/I've got an eight food fence around my backyard and they jump that like it
wasn't even there. I don't think they've got the menu down that they know what
their not suppose to eat. Cause they eat everything. From 65 to 127 in two years.
I don't know what it's going to be like next year but it's got to be more than 127
unless we free up some, well never mind. That's a lot of deer.
Vanderhoef/I just have one thing. I opened up my Sunday Gazette and found a full page
ad about the city that tells the citizens about our Fiscal Year 2000, I thought it was
very well done. I'm real pleased, and if you haven't thrown out your papers and
you didn't see it, please go back and look at it.
Champion/Press Citizen too.
Vanderhoef/I didn't happen to see that one.
Champion/Excellent article.
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Thomberry/Oh by the way, just one little, one last little thing, little itty bitty thing.
Lehman/No.
Champion/No.
Thomberry/I was against the sales tax from the get go.
Lehman/Thank you Dean.
Norton/Well I mentioned a number of items last night I won't reiterate them, most of
them are going to take some kind of follow-back but I do want to urge you all to
take a look at the minutes of the telecommunications commission again because
there are some issues there that I think we're going to have to look at. It has to do
with sharing some rates and the proposal from McLeod that I don't know
anything about but I think we need to look into. And also the River Natural Areas
Commission cause they've got some thoughts about investigating our streams and
our drainage systems, creeks really that I think also would want some action from
the council and before we can do anything to tell the city manager what we'd like
to see happen I think we ought to talk about it. Also I'd like to ask at some point
that we get in front of the day on energy deregulation. I know we're all studying
energy deregulation in various contexts but I think we need to know and
understand the city's made some agreements about this and I think the rest of us
ought to know where this is locally, where are we, so we can answer questions,
are we going to, we've talked about Mid America and whether we're going to
make a deal with them or not. It's an issue that's so heavy-duty that I think we
really ought to understand it better. And one more I'd like to hear a little bit more
talk privately Steve about our water thing. You know your letter about the
pollutance that went to the DNR, our water problems.
Atkins/Oh, on the (can't hear).
Norton/I'd like to have an oppommity to talk those over with you and the staff at some
point, I really feel a need to wonder why we're so it seems so hard to get a handle
on what's happening, it gives me some trouble, but you and I'll talk about it. I'll
bring it back to the rest of you.
Lehman/Tonight we received a well it's not going to be tentative it's going to be the final
schedule for through September for meetings. Go through it, if you have any
problems with those meeting dates, let us know next Monday, if we don't hear
~'om anybody those dates will be firmed up through.
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Champion/Are we going to discuss them at the work session next Monday or?
Lehman/Well only if there are changes. I think that we set them last night and their
supposedly there was no problem.
Kubby/But I hope that we will go through the rest of the fall especially because two of
our schedule, regularly scheduled meetings are city council election nights, and I
really think that far in advance we need to discuss whether there are going to be
meetings or not that night. Which I hope there will not be. Remember there are
four out seven seats up everybody out there so there's some oppommities for the
communities. But I hope we will expand the schedule to the rest of the fall.
Lehman/OK. I'm sure we will.
Kubby/So Monday night, next Monday night, bring your calendars and your schedule.
Lehman/All fight. Glad to have you folks, and normally we don't normally don't take
this long but this is a typical meeting, I mean, this is the grass roots demography.
Steve do you have anything?
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ITEM NO. 26a. REPORT ON ITEMS FROM THE CITY MANAGER AND CITY
ATTORNEY.
Arkins/Was there any interest in the council in scheduling a discussion on goals report,
we wrote a one-year sunm~ary for you? Want that on the? I mean you can bring
it up anytime its.
Norton/I think we ought to look for it.
Lehman/We ought just take a look at it at a work session.
Arkins/Take a look at (can't hear). OK. I'll talk with (can't hear).
Lehman/Eleanor.
Kubby/Move to adjourn.
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Thornberry. All in favor. Meeting adjourned.
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