HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-09-14 Transcription#1 Page 1
ITEM NO. 1. VOTE ANNOUNCEMENT.
Ernie Lehman/Before we do Item 2 there is still 58 minutes remaining for people to have
an opportunity to vote in the school board election. This is a very very important
election. My understanding is that around the state anyway turnout's been very
very light so I'd certainly encourage anyone who hasn't voted and has an
opportunity to vote before 8:00 tonight.
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meeting of September 14, 1999.
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ITEM NO. 2. MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS.
a. SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS DAY- SEPTEMBER 23 (Lehman
reads proclamation) Now therefore, I Ernest W. Lehman, Mayor of the City of
Iowa City, Iowa do hereby proclaim September 23 to be Sexual Assault
Awareness Day in Iowa City and encourage all citizens to promote a community
free from sexual abuse.
Madan Karr/Here to accept the proclamation is Michael Shaw.
Michael Shaw/I want to let you know what activities are going to be going on Sexual
Assault Awareness Day. The Rape Victim Advocacy Program is sponsoring a
series of activities and the theme of the day will be that we're asking for a 24 hour
truce during which there is no rape. The activities that we will be having
throughout the day include community action booths that will be all over the
downtown area where people can come to put together art and bring their and sign
petitions and just participate in the community action. And talking about ending
sexual violence or the day to end sexual violence. We'll also have start have a
rally at 12:30 at the Pentacrest that will be a rally and a march starting at the
Pentacrest at 12:30. And then in the evening we'll be having an event called
"Singing out loud" at the pedestrian mall that's going to include local musicians
and artists such as youth from the United Action for Youth graffiti theater and
other artists, individuals. And other community members that are interested in
coming and participating can come out as well. So from 7-10 PM at the
pedestrian mall there will be singing out loud if people would like to come and
also join our voices and talking about and talking about ending sexual violence in
a day without sexual violence.
Kubby/Thank you for your work.
Lehman/Thank you.
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ITEM NO. 2b. CONSTITUTION WEEK- SEPTEMBER 17-23 (Lehman reads
proclamation) Now therefore I, Ernest W. Lehman, Mayor of the City of Iowa
City, Iowa do hereby proclaim the week of September 17-23 to be Constitution
Week in Iowa City and urge all citizens to reflect during that week on the many
benefits of our federal constitution and the privileges and responsibilities of
American citizenship.
Madan Karr/Here to accept is Sabrina Alberhasky.
Sabrina Alberhasky/Pilgrim Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution is very
appreciative of this proclamation of September 17 - 23 as Constitution Week.
Thank you Mr. Mayor. The National Society Daughters of the American
Revolution was founded in 1890 by four women, two southem and two northern.
When the sons of the American Revolution rejected their application for
membership. Their goal was to heal the terrible wounds still bleeding from the
Civil War. The founders believed that a call to the common bond, the ancestors
who fought together in the Revolutionary War to liberate us and found our
country would be a unifying and healing process. The DAR objectives are
historic preservation, promotion of education, and patriotic endeavor. Pilgrim
chapter was chartered in 1898 in Iowa City and has celebrated over 100 years of
service to the community. Membership is open to interested individuals who
want to trace their renege to a revolutionary war ancestor. We welcome any
interested individuals to our meetings. Thank you.
Champion/Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
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ITEM NO. 2c. YEAR OF OLDER PERSONS WEEK- SEPTEMBER 26 -
OCTOBER 2
Lehman/This one I think is for the council isn't it? (Lehman reads proclamation). Now
therefore, I, Ernest W. Lehman, Mayor of the City of Iowa City, Iowa do hereby
proclaim the week of September 26 - October 2, 1999 to be Year of the Older
Persons Week in Iowa City and encourage all citizens to celebrate our older
residents and their contributions to our lives.
Madan Karr/Here to accept is Joanhie Werle and Janet Spracht.
Lehman/It also seems self-serving you know.
Thornberry/Congratulations.
Norton/I want you guys completely right.
Joni Werle/On behalf of the Eastern Iowa International Year of the Older Persons
Committee we would like to thank the Mayor and the Council for this
proclamation. And we'll share with you some of the activities that are going to go
on October 1 st and 2nd.
Janet Specht/The night of Friday October 1st is activities start at 6:00 PM at the Clapp
Recital Hall University of Iowa Campus. There will be a reception with older
artists displayed and then Voices of Soul will perform and then Dr. Joyce
Brothers will talk about older and better. And then Saturday starting at 12:00
noon there will be a Inter generational Festival at the community recreation
center. And you want to talk a little bit about.
Joni Werle/This special guest for a luncheon that day, $5.00 is what it costs to
attend the luncheon will be Otto Graham and Rob Feller and Rob Leyshon and
Judith White from the state will also be there to host that luncheon. From there
there will be active events for the whole family. We hope that all will attend,
there will be educational programs, there will be a special walk, an inter
generational walk, there will be events happening in the swimming area, there will
be face painting, there will be a stage that will feature many of our local seniors
who whose talents are unlimited.
Sprecht/So we really see this as a time for young and old to celebrate together. Older
people and their many contributions to our community and world.
Lehman/Thank you.
Thornberry/Sounds like quite a group, sounds like a great weekend.
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Lehman/Geemany Christmas, yea.
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ITEM NO. 3. CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS
PRESENTED OR AMENDED.
Dean Thornberry/So moved.
Dee Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, seconded by Norton. A couple things we probably
should note, one of the items is setting a public heating for September 28 on an
amended near south side commercial revitalization plan which is designed to
make it compatible with the present one for the downtown. There's another one
for a public hearing for October 12 to proceed with public improvement project to
acquire property fights for the Iowa Avenue Streetscape improvements project.
That' s a really big project that will be coming up in another year and a half so
that's one we should take note of. The other is setting a public heating for
September 28 for public improvements for the Highway 6 fight of way. Part of
this, these are very early but to comply with new state condemnation laws I
believe, is that not correct? Discussion.
Norton/Yea I just assumed there's not much condemnation at all to the Iowa Avenue
Project is there?
Lehman/Formality is it not?
Norton/Oh you have to advertise for the year (can't hear).
Eleanor Dilkes/Well we haven't even got to that point yet. This is a very preliminary
stage that's required by the new law that we give property owners from whom we
may acquire property the opportunity to give you (can't hear).
Norton/Without knowing how the situation now stands you still have to do it. OK.
Thornberry/And even along Highway 6 too.
Norton/Highway 6 might not be much either.
Thornberry/No I think it's all city property between the street and the.
Steve Atkins/The state.
Dilkes/Certainly there's no implication that we wouldn't try as we always do to get an
agreement.
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Norton/Yea but I didn't want to scare somebody on this thoroughly.
Lehman/But this is just to comply so when we get ready to start the project we don't
have a tremendous delay in complying.
Dilkes/Right.
Lehman/Further discussion. Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 4. PUBLIC DISCUSSION (ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA). [UNTIL
8 PM]
Lehman/Public discussion. This is a time reserved in our meetings for people who would
like to address council on items that do not otherwise appear on the agenda. If
you wish to address council please step to the podium, sign your name and limit
your comments to five minutes or less.
Jerry Hansen/My name is Jerry Hansen and I live at 1237 Bums Avenue. And I don't
know if your aware of it or not but about 10 days ago down in the Wetherby area
a home was brought in on Dickinson Street that does not meet the requirements of
the deeds in that area. And I was wondering how it is that a house can get a permit
to be built or erected on a spot where it doesn't meet the covenants of the deeds.
Lehman/We will find out for you.
Hansen/OK. In particular what I'm talking about is 1551 Dickinson, it's lot 100 and the
covenants say that no structure should be brought in on wheels and this is a
manufactured home and it was brought in on wheels and I guess there's a conflict
between the developer and the people in the subdivision already on this as far
symmetrics goes as to what a structure is. And so I think we could short stop
these problems if somehow or another before a building was permitted that these
things would be looked into.
Lehman/I think this is something we'll have to look into and I think this maybe
something for Eleanor.
Dilkes/I, I, Andy from my office I think has been involved in discussions about this
particular situation but in issuing a permit we are not saying that the project is in
compliance with private restrictive covenants that have been put on the property.
So you know there, that's not you know, it's not something that we guarantee.
Those are private covenants that have been put on typically by the developer and
people that are in those subdivisions would have the fight of enforcement.
Kubby/Oh we certainly could if we find out that there's no role for the city at least there's
communication any time a permit is issued to just say ensure that the structure
your going to work on complies with any private covenants. Even just that
statement helps them know. Some people may not know there are private
covenants.
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Hansen/Yea, this particular developer owns two more pieces of property in this
subdivision and I think that the people that live there area threatening lawsuits if
another one is brought in.
Lehman/That may be the recourse because I as Eleanor says I don't believe the city
enforces private covenants. And if this is a private covenant then they the
recourse would be between the neighbors who part of that covenant and the
developer who issued the covenant.
Hansen/OK maybe it could be discussion in the council that you k now how to short stop
these things rather than go out to get to that point.
Lehman/I don't know that that's a function of city government to get involved in private
covenants. Eleanor you you speak to that.
Dilkes/We don't have the authority to enforce private covenants for one thing. I mean I
don't have, I won't speak to the communication issues that Karen has brought up
but in terms of authority it is not our authority nor our obligation to enforce the
private covenant.
Lehman/I'd check with your developer to see what the situation is.
Hansen/OK thank you.
Lehman/You bet.
Champion/It would not affect the city ordinance?
Lehman/No.
Vanderhoef/No.
Jerry Feick/Jerry Feick from Coralville. I'll refer tonight to some documents I got from
JCCOG, Johnson County Council of Government. It is the current budget for
elderly services agency. I'm referring in particular to Item E page 8 that says out
of synopsis for in particular elderly services (can't hear) program. Before I talk
about the particular numbers I want to give you some back drop briefly. In 1964
Federal Congress passed what is called the Older Americans Act. By 1965
Federal Congress allotted to the State of Iowa to the health department directly
100,000 dollars, today it is several million. The health department si required
under state law to take it to the general fund and thus the legislature speaks
thereafter and creates what we all know as appropriations bills. Those
appropriations bills have existed since 1965. Elderly Services Agency of Johnson
County Inc. although it is a private corporation supposedly nonprofit they have
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existed since 1980. Throughout the state of Iowa in almost all of the 99 counties
various services as we all know exist for the elderly. Not in all 99 counties at one
given time do Chore Services exist but Johnson county in particular they exist in
fact they are one of the largest users of Chore Services in the state and yet the
income demographics for Johnson County and Iowa City in particular is the
highest in the state. I think as you know you use that as a method to taunt your
city as a place to come to, do business, retire, live, to educate yourself etc. And
also the stats show that the property tax valuation which all the listeners know are
the second highest in the state only exceeded by West Des Moines. In that
appropriations bill that the legislature has consistently passed from 1965 to
current date it states and I'm reading to you from the 72nd General Assembly
1987 session but it's the same wording every year. And we're talking about the
requirement to pay taxes. "The subcontract shall require that each homemaker,
home health aide subcontracting agency for Johnson County, that's elderly
services, shall pay the employer' s contribution of social security provide worker's
compensation coverage for persons providing direct homemaker home health aide
service and meet any other legal requirements of an employer-employee
relationship. There are subsidized portions of those chore services meaning that
and even under the federal law you have to be 60 years of age to basically qualify.
Your suppose to be in need yet in this county we have people who are not in need,
people financially or otherwise driving Mercedes and Cadillac's owning hundreds
of $100,000' s of thousands dollars of valuations in home and on subsidy in
violation of the law. For fact to quote the current budget for elderly services in
the fiscal year of 1997 there were 1,636 Iowa City Citians that received these
services. In 1998 there were 1,736. The legislature spoke they stated that they
shall pay the taxes, they mandate that. Elderly Services Agency Inc. the
subcontracted agency is required. Where are the records? Well they're on the
computer system of Jean Mann and Gary Smith, the director and chore service
coordinator at Elderly Services. But they won't release them the public records
law. Yet they're required by state law because of their contractual agreement with
the Board of Supervisors that all their records are public record. They have
refused to release these records to me since 1993. At the auditor's office those
that are on subsidy those clients of Chore Service program that are on subsidy will
say the hourly fee is $5.50 an hour, $6.00 you pick the number it's in that ballpark
currently. We'll say that the citizen has $2.00 of the $6.00 an hour subsidy, the
citizen rights to check for the non-subsidized portion to the worker.
Lehman/Jerry your going to have to wrap this up.
Feick/I will. The subsidized portion, the Elderly Services right to check to the worker
the next 30 day billing cycle Elderly Services submits a bill to Johnson County
Health Department and the next following 30 days they get a warrant of payment
in other words a check back reimbursement. Why has Elderly Services got by
without paying any taxes of any kind since 1980 on hundreds of thousands of
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dollars worth of employment? And if you want the numbers go get the budgets
for them they state all the numbers every year and divide it by the hourly wage,
they even have the unit of hours worked.
Lehman/Excuse me a second Jerry. What's the relationship of the City of Iowa City for
Johnson County Elderly Services.
Feick/I can answer that.
Lehman/I'm asking that.
Feick/They fund them 20 percent, .2.
Lehman/Jerry, Jerry I'm asking Steve, what does our relationship mean?
Steve Atkins/We provide funding through our CDBG program and our general fund on
the annual basis. We contribute as well as a variety of other agencies.
Lehman/Do we have any?
Atkins/I have no supervisor authority over the program.
Lehman/And the city has none?
Atkins/Through me no you don't.
Lehman/In other words it's a county, it's a county activity responsible for the county.
Atkins/It's substantially a county agency but it has their own independent board of
directors also.
Feick/But the point is you keep funding these people that continue to commit tax fraud.
The city funds them 20.20 percent, Johnson County funds them 7.37 percent, the
City of Coralville 1.68 percent and other agencies 12.74 percent.
Lehman/OK I think we get the message, I don't know what we can do but we can (can't
hear).
Feick/Social Security in addition in closing has ruled that the taxes are due.
Lehman/OK we got the message let us see what we can find out for you.
Feick/Now in closing.
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Lehman/Yes.
Feick/Two sentences.
Lehman/Two sentences.
Feick/
Therefore I want to know why your police chief and I have the letter right here
threatens me with criminal arrest when I go to the health department to get
records, what are the records there that I want? The records of the warrants of
payment. I call conspiracy to cover up tax fraud, and his detective Tommy
Widmer in 1993 told me and this will be my closing statement, listen closely.
"You've opened up the biggest can of worms on tax fraud in Johnson County
history and we're going to do nothing about it."
Lehman/Thank you.
Feick/I think Mr. Atkins if you'll be honest you know something about this mess too.
O'Dormell/I think that's enough Jerry.
Lehman/All right.
Mark Martin/Mr. Mayor, councilors, I'm Mark Martin the current president of the Board
of Trustees of the Iowa City Public Library and I come this evening just to give
you a brief report on our progress on the current efforts to address the expansion
of the needs of the library and also to share some good news with you about the
library status in the larger community of Iowa and the United States. First in
reference to the expansion plans as you know the city library and Endberg
Anderson designed partnership in Milwaukee Wisconsin signed a contract that
authorized Endberg Anderson to begin work on developing various alternatives
for expansion of the library. We had a meeting with the architects, two board
members were present, the city manager, the mayor was present for a portion of
the meeting. And in that meeting we determined a number of critical evaluation
criteria for evaluating any expansion plan. They were basic criteria that we
believe are essential to our planning and we identified five potential expansion
plans that Endberg Anderson will begin to look at with preliminary drawings and
preliminary cost estimates. Four of those five expansion plans involve utilizing
the current building so we are aware of the eouncil's concern for the use of the
current building and we are trying to respond in a way that will give you
alternatives to look at that deal with these for the current building. It is our hope
that the response back from Endberg Anderson will be timely so that we may
meet with you at a time of your choosing. We had hoped that will happen within
the next two months so that we can present this with this information and you will
be able to make some intelligent decisions as we will on which alternatives seem
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to be the most useful. In addition to that I would like to submit for the public
record if I may a copy of an article that appeared in the September 9 issue of the
Cedar Rapids Gazette, I have copies for everyone. The article described the
release of information from Hennins American Public Library ratings, a rating
system that was named for his creator Thomas Hennin a Wisconsin librarian.
These rating system looks at public libraries across the nation and rates them in a
variety of areas including circulation, staffing, materials, reference service, and
funding levels. And these ratings, the library will be rated on a low of one point
to a possible high of 1,000 points and I'm please to report to you that the Iowa
City Public Library ranks 6th in the nation out of 508 libraries in it's size
community that is between 50,000 and 999,000 population and is first in the state
of Iowa and in addition the library ranks 9th in all public libraries in cities over
50,000 in this nation. When you think about that it's an incredible standing. And
the thanks go to everyone involved frankly. The thanks go to you as city
government for providing the necessary funding for the library, the thanks go to
the patrons who make heavy and good use of the library, the thanks go to the staff
of the library who make it a wonderful place to be and do very creative and
excellent work as librarians. But I believe that all of Iowa City ought to be duly
proud of the fact that we rank in the upper stratosphere of libraries across this
country and with your help and with hard work we will continue to do that into
the years to come. And that's what I came to share. I appreciate your time.
Kubby/Thank you.
Champion/Great news.
Lehman/Thank you Mark, Mark and I visited and I really feel and I think as Mark does
that it's important that we keep up with the activities of library board and we may
see someone from the library board appearing before somewhat regularly at
council meetings, I think this is very important and thank you very much Mark. Is
there further discussion, I'm sorry.
Feick/On the library?
Norton/On anything.
Feick/For public discussion?
Lehman/No.
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ITEM
NO. 5. PLANNING AND ZONING MATTERS.
d. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CONDITIONALLY CHANGING THE
ZONING DESIGNATION FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY
RESIDENTIAL (RS-8) TO PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING
OVERLAY (OPDH-8), AND APPROVING A PRELIMINARY PLANNED
DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY PLAN FOR 24 TOWNHOUSE-
STYLE DWELLING UNITS FOR APPROXIMATELY 7.72 ACRES
LOCATED AT THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF BARRINGTON ROAD
AND HUNTINGTON DRIVE. (REZ99-0007) (FIRST CONSIDERATION
Vanderhoef/Move adoption.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by O'Donnell. Discussion.
Kubby/I think, I know that there was a lot of discussion between the neighborhood and
the developers and city staff and planning and zoning commission and a lot of
different revisions happened for this particular plan and I think that what we're
voting on tonight is a really good thing for that neighborhood. It is something that
lives out our comprehensive plan and I think it's a strategy that will help there be
transition between commercial neighborhood commercial development and
single-family homes. So I'm very much in support of this.
Lehman/Other discussion. This is and the next one will be 10-2 involved significant
amount of conversation between the developer, the neighborhood, and the city
staff. I'm not so sure there were a lot of revisions made but there is certainly a
much better understanding than there was to start with. And I agree with Karen it
was a good discussion. Roll. I'm sorry.
Kubby/Just one last thing because there was so much discussion with the neighborhood
and that there was mixed feelings in the neighborhood I think it's really important
to talk about some reasons why we're going with this strategy versus another
strategy.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 5f. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE VACATING AN APPROXIMATE
7,720 SQUARE FOOT UNIMPROVED PORTION OF VIRGINIA DRIVE
LOCATED BETWEEN LOTS 2 AND 14 OF NORTH HILLS
SUBDIVISION IMMEDIATELY NORTHEAST OF THE INTERSECTION
OF VIRGINIA DRIVE AND RIDGEWOOD LANE. (VAC87-0001)
(SECOND CONSIDERATION)
Vanderhoef/Move second consideration.
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Thornberry. Discussion.
Vanderhoef/Just that this is one of those cases where the city sees no future use for this
land and now that everyone has access to their properties it can be done.
Lehman/Roll call.
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ITEM NO. 5h. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE MENDING TITLE 14, CHAPTER
6, ZONING, TO ALLOW OFF-STREET PARKING ON A SEPARATE
LOT IN A DIFFERENT ZONE UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS. (PASS
AND ADOPT)
Lehman/Item H I have a conflict on I'm on the board of Oaknoll. Dean if you will.
Thornberry/OK.
Lehman/Take care of this.
Thornberry/(reads item)
O'Donnell/Move adoption.
Norton/Second.
Thornberry/Moved by O'Donnell, seconded by Norton. Discussion.
Vanderhoef/Just to reiterate that this is by special exception and so each case will be
looked at individually by council in the future.
Thornberry/Good point. Any further discussion.
Dilkes/By the Board of Adjustments.
Thornberry/Roll call.
Norton/Yea this is another one of those compromise deals where they, it's trying to
satisfy a variety of inputs and desires but I think it will work but we certainly
have to keep an eye on it.
Thornberry/There was definitely some discussion. Roll call.
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ITEM NO. 5i. CONSIDER A RECOMMENDATION TO THE JOHNSON
COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON A REQUEST SUBMITTED BY
ALLAN AND JENNIFER BERGER FOR A CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT
TO ALLOW A VETERINARY CLINIC AS A HOME BUSINESS AT 3005
HIGHWAY 1 NE IN JOHNSON COUNTY.
Norton/Move to make the recommendation.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Discussion.
Kubby/If we pass this as is then there might be someone that wants to speak and that
means that the five conditions is outlined in the memo would be part of the letter
and that is (can't hear).
Thomberry/You know I thought, I thought.
Lehman/Go ahead.
Thornberry/I thought perhaps that more than one person could be employed in this
startup business and we discussed this at length last night but since your here
proceed.
Allan Berger/Oh I don't have anything directly all (can't hear). My name is Allan
Berger, this is Jennifer, the other Dr. Berger. Right now we're operating a house
call veterinary practice and we're slowly expanding in terms of the size what
we're doing now and we'd like to start seeing some clients at our house. We're
going to stay small. I'm perfectly comfortable with the intent of what planning
and zoning set up in terms of us staying small and I'm just here to answer any
questions that you might have. As far as issues of number of employees, I don't
know what was discussed last night. There was a fairly lengthy discussion at
planning and zoning about what an employee was and frankly I'm not sure. I still
completely understand what an employee is. As far as they, because I don't think
they actually defined it. But as I said I'm comfortable with the intent of keeping
the business small and can live with the wordings that I've seen in the past.
Thornberry/You can live with one full time equivalent then in house as oppose to, and
it's in-house, I understand there's a relative doing some bookkeeping out of state
or something but that's not in-house so your still your comfortable with one full
time equivalent employee in-house.
Berger/Well I don't know what in-house is.
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(All talking)
Vanderhoef/On site.
Norton/On site.
Berger/No I'm not comfortable with that.
Thornberry/I thought maybe two would be appropriate because I wouldn't want to stifle
a startup business by overly making to many rules and regulations and limiting
you to the number of employees if you both went on vacation and I obviously
thought you would go on vacation together that would only leave one person to do
the whole the whole veterinary practice while you were gone. And your
obviously open what five days a week, 6 days, I don't know what your.
Jennifer Berger/Seven.
Thornberry/Seven days a week.
O'Donnell/(can't hear).
Thornberry/Makes it pretty difficult for one full time employee and I was opting for two
full time employees but didn't have four votes on the council to get that.
Lehman/Well we never got that far Dean.
Thomberry/Oh, okay.
Vanderhoef/Tell us a little bit about what you see as your need and how these employees
would be used.
Berger/What I actually proposed to Planning and Zoning which they chose not to adopt
was that it be kept to a wording of fewer than two full time equivalent employees
stating that we could have one person and a part time in addition. What my, what
I would envision in the short term, Jennifer can chime in, is we'd like somebody
full time to largely to you know answer phones, do chores, clean up after hours
but the reason why I wanted a part time person in addition and discussed it with
planning and zoning was it's fairly traditional for veterinary clinics to hire I guess
a stereotype a high school student or some sort of student whose interested in
exploring a career in veterinary medicine. And a part-time position allows them
to come in and get a flavor of what a veterinary clinic is like. If we were kept to
one, to one employee, that would preclude that because I guess I'd prioritize a full
time person over what a limited high school student could do.
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Kubby/And one of the problems with doing a full time equivalents is that that could be
eight people working you know different amounts of hours and that isn't helpful
in the spirit of what we're trying to do and that is to keep the traffic down because
it's not just the traffic from your customers but also traffic from employees so I
wouldn't be interested in doing that full-time equivalent part. And I'm not quite
sure where Dean got that in terms of.
Norton/I don't either.
Kubby/Of the wording resolution because the way it's worded now it says there shall be
no more than one non resident on-site employee associated with the home
business.
Thornberry/Where I got that was listening to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors
discuss it and going through the meeting, the minutes of Planning and Zoning.
Kubby/Right but that' s not what's on the table.
Norton/No we are not.
Thornberry/No it says one employee.
Kubby/Yes.
Thornberry/And I think two employees would, I don't want to limit a startup business, an
incubated business, an incubated business due to lack of help to limit them in their
help I think is. And what they're using these people for maybe we could say one
full time and two part time or something like that but I just don't want to limit
their business because of employees.
Norton/But that makes out the rest of us are interested in limiting startup businesses.
Thomberry/No.
Norton/We're certainly not interested in that and we were certainly saying that many of
these businesses all of them ought to be located (can't hear) trying to keep traffic
down to a roar in this particular location so I think that's where we need to focus
and if they're happy with one on-site resident employee is now.
Thornberry/But they'r.e not. But they said they're not.
Norton/If they can live with that.
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Vanderhoef/No they said.
O'Donnell/Keeping traffic down to a roar in subdivisions all the way out to Solon now
coming on and off that road so that's really not a concern. I had a question. Are
you comfortable, one of your conditions is you cannot keep an animal over night
unless it's absolutely necessary.
Thornberry/Well it's under care, patients under care.
O'Donnell/Patients under care when it's necessary.
Berger/I'm largely comfortable, again it comes down to an interpretation issue.
O'Donnell/Well that's your decision.
Berger/Yea, I'm comfortable as it exists now.
Champion/Well there are other veterinary clinics in the city limits that are not allowed
boarding. I mean they can't keep animals that are sick. They're not allowed
boarding so I don't think that's an unusual condition at all.
O'Donnell/Well and that's not but it that's not the way it was worded. It was worded you
cannot keep an animal over night unless it's necessary so I assume that would be a
patient.
Norton/Not a boarding.
O'Donnell/I thought that was real interesting because if I bought the ground I could own
150 or 160 horses and keep them there overnight.
Jennifer Berger/Well not horses, pigs.
O'DounelF Pigs (can't hear).
Jennifer Berger/You can't have that many horses.
Lehman/You could have, that doesn't apply because it applies to horses so yea.
Norton/Yea each pig doesn't have a car.
Kubby/I don't know, I did know we talk about this last night.
Thornberry/Goodness.
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Kubby/I'm not taking my pig there each individual pig or every equivalence of, like I
don't have 5 pigs that I'm taking you know and using that pig so that you can
have 150 pigs is not the same thing as people bringing their pigs to be boarded
everyday. So I don't understand how that fits into this conversation very well.
A. Berger/Well it's zoned to have a kennel there now.
O'Donnell/We're doing this, is correcting an illness so if the pig gets sick they can keep
it all night, that's what they're doing.
Lehman/Okay you asked for no more than two employees. Is that correct?
A. Berger/I would prefer that.
Lehman/That's what you asked for.
J. Berger/That would be fine.
Lehman/I mean is there a sentiment on the council to allow up to two employees.
Champion/I have a question first.
Lehman/I'm sorry Connie.
Champion/In our home business ordinance that we have for people in Iowa City who
have home businesses are they allowed employees?
Kubby/One.
Thornberry/They have neighbors real close.
Champion/And that's in town.
Thornberry/Yea, these folks don't have it.
Lehman/Karin Franklin (can't hear). If you were shorter you could use that one.
Karin Franklin/I almost can. In our current ordinance there are no employees allowed in
home occupations. In the proposal that's coming before you it's one.
A. Berger/And this is not a home occupation we're apply for.
Franklin/Right.
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A. Berger/It's within the county as well.
Franklin/It's totally different from what your considering now which is a conditional use
permit in the county.
Lehman/OK. Other questions.
Norton/Ernie I don't.
Lehman/I'm sorry.
Norton/I don't see the, no the planning and zoning went over this pretty carefully with
you all. I looked at their minutes. They went over this pretty carefully and
explicitly considered going to two nonresident employees and decided to restrict it
to one and it seems to me I'm not prepared to go against that.
J. Berger/Can I just say one word?
Lehman/Sure.
J. Berger/Realistically we may have one full time employee but what Allan said about
the high school student is really quite true. It's a really great opportunity both of
us worked for vets when we were in high school and that really let us know that
we could do that and that person most likely would actually be going on house
calls and may not even come to the house you know very rarely because mainly
our business is house calls and we'd like to stay mainly house calls. We have a
little notch that we've built up doing that. All we really want to do is be able to
have people physically enter at times but we would like to stay mainly house calls
so. As far as the high school student it would be really nice, a really nice
educational opportunity that a lot of other veterinarians locally do not offer so I
think if you look at it in that sense it maybe something worth considering. Or
even maybe putting a stipulation on a part-time high school student you know that
would be, I think that would be fine with me, I don't know. How about you?
Vanderhoef/Job shadowing kind of activities in the present day is the way a lot of our
young folks are learning and I fully agree with you that having this opportunity is
a real offer to the community and that I don't see that it's something that your
trying to take advantage of. And perhaps if there were some wording to say
something about a job shadowing student employee for a part-time position I
could go with that.
Norton/Well I would certainly consider that possibility but that's not before us either is
it?
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Vanderhoef/No it would have taken an amendment if we were to do something like that
and I don't know whether there's anyone else that's interested in something like.
Norton/Yea.
Champion/I like that idea. I have problems with the two employees but if it was a, what
did you call that?
Vanderhoef/Job shadowing.
Champion/Job shadowing. I like that wording, you know I think that's acceptable.
Thornberry/But you have to pay these people.
J. Berger/Yea.
Norton/Well the question is whether they're an employee or not I don't know.
Thornberry/If you pay them they're an employee.
Vanderhoef/That's right they are.
Lehman/One of the things that we haven't discussed I believe is if this this conditional
whatever requires review every three years. Is that not correct?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
A. Berger/That's one proposal that's come up and I believe that's what (can't hear).
Lehman/No I mean have part of the proposal that we're considering.
A. Berger/There's a motion in the county says five years but that will have to be
reconciled so I don't know in what form it's.
Lehman/Oh.
A. Berger/And wind up being.
Vanderhoef/Ours said.
Lehman/Ours says three years. I have a question for Karin. I personally have no
problem whatsoever with allowing two employees. This review that would take
place after three years would that extend to any part of their operation, number of
employees, for example?
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Franklin/I would believe that what would be looked at would be the conditions of.
Lehman/A lot of traffic generated.
Franklin/Yea whatever the conditions the board of supervisors finally imposes on this
conditional use permit would be what they would use to make a judgment in three
years as to whether to renew the conditional use permit or not.
Lehman/Or could they, at that time change the conditions?
Franklin/Certainly.
Lehman/So in three years time this could be change to meet whatever needs were
apparent at that time.
Franklin/Yes.
Lehman/Is there an opportunity to do that sooner that three years? I suppose by mutual
agreement that could be done.
Franklin/Yes, I mean the Berger's could come back to the board in that period of time
and request that their conditional use permit be amended.
Lehman/OK.
Franklin/And then we could all do this again.
Lehman/Thank you
Thornberry/Will we have to put an amendment on to this to change that from one to two?
Lehman/Is there interest on the council to change that from one or two?
Champion/I'd be willing to change it in the wording that Dee Vanderhoef said.
Kubby/I agree with that.
Thornberry/You want to reiterate that?
Norton/How do you formulate that then?
Vanderhoef/I can leave that to legal I think you understand what I'm trying to say is that.
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(End of 99-90 Side 1)
Vanderhoef/For a high school student to job shadow and be working with the
veterinarian on a part time basis.
Norton/Well you called a trainee or something.
Dilkes/So are your talking about two employees though and your talking about a one
full time and a part-time intern type but that's so that's?
Norton/Yes.
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/Or are we talking two? I think it would be probably best just to leave it at one full
time and one part time.
Lehman/On in other words change it from one full time to one full time and one part
time period so you don't have to worry about a trainee student.
Dilkes/Yea, I think so. I mean I think your getting into a lot of enforcement issues when
your talking about.
Lehman/Intem.
Thornberry/(can't hear) high school student.
Dilkes/Classifying who this person is and.
Vanderhoef/The intent is there?
Lehman/All fight.
Dilkes/Yea and I mean I think yea.
Norton/You don't think we should put the trainee thing in there then?
Lehman/Well that becomes kind of a hassic defining trainee.
Norton/You have one on-site on resident employee and one part time (can't hear)
employee.
Kubby/That' s because of the specificity that's why I'm willing to do it, if it's not
specified I'm not interested.
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Norton/Yea me too that I don't think we're not trainee and that's what were talking that's
what he's talking about.
Dilkes/Well how about just use intern, is that, what word do you use in your business?
A. Berger/Intern, trainee.
Dilkes/Intem, trainee.
A. Berger/Trainee, trainee.
J. Berger/Yea trainee, intern more applies to a veterinary (can't hear).
A. Berger/Intem applies clinician.
Norton/Trainee would give the idea.
Dilkes/So trainee you think would describe what your talking about? I think that's fine
then.
O'Donnell/All we can really do is make the suggestions.
A. Berger/Yea.
Thornberry/That's fight (can't hear).
(All talking).
O'Donnell/And then let's just do it.
Lehman/Is there in amending this to adding a half time trainee, or a part time trainee.
Norton/Part time trainee in addition to the one.
Lehman/Do we have four people?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Lehman/Would someone like to make that motion to amend.
Vanderhoef/I'll make it.
Norton/I'll second.
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Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Norton to amend the motion to include a
part time trainee in addition to a full time worker. All those in favor of the
amendment. All ayes. Discussion on the motion. Roll call. Oh it's a
recommendation, all in favor. All ayes.
Thornberry/Let me ask you something, I hadn't heard of this before watching it on the
Johnson County Board of Supervisors and reading these minutes. Someone calls
you and you go out to their house and fix their pet. Is that the idea?
J. Berger/Yea. Yea. We can do quite a few things at your house basically in the car we
carry a full clinic certainly surgeries I can't do, x-ray's I can't do. And those are
two things we do have available at our home.
Thornberry/You would take the animals into your house.
J. Berger/My house. Yea. Right now I've been kind of doing some pickup and delivery
so people are not coming in so.
Thornberry/What is the name of your company?
J. Berger/Bright Eyes and Bushy Tails.
Thornberry/Bright Eyes and Bushy Tails.
J. Berger/Yea you see it's actually very good for most, we see a fair number of elderly
mother, you know, home mothers with lots of kids that it would be hard to get in.
Scared animals and a lot of the exotics, reptiles and chinchillas and things like that
it's very stressful for them to travel. So it actually is pretty good.
Thornberry/Interesting. Thank you very much.
Lehman/Thank you.
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ITEM NO. 7. PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT AND
ESTIMATE OF COST FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE WETHERBY
PARK REDEVELOPMENT 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. Oh baby you just made it, all the way from Wetherby
Park.
Ross Wilburn/Your not going to drop the hammer on me?
Lehman/No wouldn't think of it.
Ross Wilburn/OK. My name's Ross Wilburn and I live down in the Wetherby Park area
on Taylor Avenue. I just wanted to come down and let you all know that I think
this project as you all are aware represents kind of the culmination of a bunch of
positive things happening down in Wetherby Park area since the shooting,
unfortunate incident that we had a year or year and a half ago I think it was. But
this represents I think when city government and law enforcement and neighbors
come in together when it works and from your point of view sometimes maybe
that doesn't happen enough. But other than you know the nice things that are
going to happen down at the park I think residents are real excited about to see
this finalized. The other nice thing that happened as you remember several
neighborhood watches formed. We've had some more good feelings about safety
down in the Wetherby Park area and so I know that Dee and Mike, Karen you all
came down to several of the community meetings that happened so this represents
more than just redeveloping a park and I think it's going to be a nice vision for a
neighborhood. The other thing is I think you know everyone's waiting to see this
happen. There's been talk about some time of gathering or celebration when this
is done and if that happens I'll let our neighborhood president make sure that you
all know about it and come on down. Thank you.
Champion/Thanks Ross.
Lehman/Ross I think we obviously feel the same way which is you know why we're
considering this tonight.
Wilburn/Yea.
Lehman/Other public discussion.
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O'Donnell/I wanted to say there's a lot of positive things that have happened in that
neighborhood. There's a new neighborhood association and there's really a lot of
positive things going on and I get a lot of calls from that neighborhood and people
are very very content now. But there's still work to be done.
Lehman/Public hearing is closed.
Thornberry/Move adoption of the resolution.
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thomberry, seconded by Norton. Other council discussion. Roll
call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 9. INTENT TO CONTINUE WITH A PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT
PROJECT AND TO ACQUIRE PROPERTY RIGHTS FOR THE SOUTH
SYCAMORE REGIONAL STORMWATER AND GREENSPACE
PROJECT.
Thornberry/Move adoption of the resolution.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, seconded by O'Donnell. Discussion. This is a huge
project, this is just part of it but this a.
Atkins/Would you like us to take a moment?
Norton/I'd like that.
Lehman/I think we should take a moment.
Atkins/Well I'm more concerned about explaining the. This project has been underway
for years.
Lehman/I know.
Atkins/And the important thing I thi~ that we have to recognize tonight and I will be
candid with you we were a little. We didn't know how to prepare for this because
it's a new condemnation law where we have to make notice. Virtually if you have
an idea about a project you have to put forth the idea to the property owners that
we may do this. We may never acquire any property. We may acquire from some
and not from others, but this declaration of intent is something that we have to do
under the condemnation law. Other than that Eleanor have I explained it?
Dilkes/That's pretty good.
Atkins/Thanks.
Lehman/I can't tell was that an A- or a B+?
Atkins/Well honestly the difficult.
Dilkes/I think, yea, I think the rub is that the new law clearly contemplates that the notice
of intent to proceed with a project be given before there is substantial investment
in the project by the by you all. The problem is at that stage of the game we often
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have not specifically identified what our property needs, we've only generally
identified those so it poses a little bit of dilemma.
Champion/It frightens people unnecessarily in other words.
Kubby/It could.
Dilkes/I think that' s one of the problems with it.
Kubby/And actually it would be interesting because one of the things I think we have an
obligation to do and we have a new law that is imposed upon us from another
level of government that we help monitor the affects of that law so that maybe we
can do some kind of just some brief interviews with people who we notified after
the project is complete, everything is done and just ask how they felt about it. If
that procedure was helpful to them, if it caused unnecessary fear with them, if it
caused some change in their behavior with their land because of it. And then to
keep track of what it's costing the tax payers here locally to implement that law.
There may be some benefits to that in notifying people, I think that' s the intent so
that people know in advance that their property may be involved in negotiations
or condemnation with the city. But if it if it also has some down sides and it costs
us time and money what is that equivalent do? Because all this cost to us is in our
operating budget versus our capital budget. Although some of it might be capital
I suppose.
Norton/Yes.
Kubby/And how is that equivalent that if we didn't, if this is not working as it was
envisioned with it's original intent then it made it so that we had fewer rec. center
slots for summer camp or you know what is equivalent to to somehow evaluate
that.
Atkins/I'm not real sure how we'll ultimately measure it. I think we can assure you that
the time there will be a longer period of time of completion of capital projects by
tacking this on the front end of it.
Vanderhoef/But how about legal time? This for the additional notice time.
Atkins/Oh sure.
Vanderhoef/And the letters that have to go out and the number of communications.
Dilkes/Oh that will be, that' s very significant.
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Vanderhoef/Is there anyway we can follow a project or two through the course and keep
track of just informally how much time you spend on one and compare it?
Dilkes/We keep track of our time on all improvement projects.
Vanderhoef/And compare these to some of our previous projects.
Dilkes/I think that comparison would be difficult because you wouldn't be controlling
for other complications of a particular project so it would be tough I think, we
can.
Atkins/And it could very much skew a project cost for example as Dean had mentioned
earlier the Highway 6 project is substantially the city and/or the state. We do have
to make certain declarations to letting property owners. Unlikely we'll never do it
but then a very small proj., and that's a 4-5 million dollar project. We could have
a very small project that could have 15 or 20 property owners involved where
your taking.
Kubby/Like the bike trail.
Norton/Yea right.
Atkins/Well yea a little piece of everybody's backyard or something such as that and that
could be, that's the paperwork that Eleanor gets overwhelmed with.
Vanderhoef/Yea and the cost does.
Atkins/That's where it gets costly.
Lehman/I think that the consensus on this from the city's admin., it's probably going to
be very very costly, the city's. Both in time and money.
Dilkes/It will be time consuming.
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/I mean as I think most of you are aware we typically don't condemn until the very
last minute because we exhaust all possibilities to try and get an agreement which
puts us right up to the deadline when we're getting the property. This doesn't
allow us to do that anymore. I mean we have to prepare for condemnation at the
very beginning.
Kubby/It almost sets up this adversarial atmosphere, unless I don't know ifthere's a way
that we can mitigate that. I don't know if that really sets that up or not but it just
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seems like it might and I don't know if there are things that we can have local
policies if allowed by state law to help mitigate if we find that that atmosphere,
that adversarial atmosphere is created.
Norton/Why does it necessarily imply that you have to consider condemnation early.
For example, on the South Sycamore Regional Storm water we knew that this was
going to cover a large area and we had to talk at early stages fight with many of
those property owners whether we thought the drainage way might go and whose
property would be affected by the availability of that drainage.
Atkins/And that's very much our process as you know Rick and his engineering staff do
the family room route with a lot of folks and sit down and explain to them and do
those sorts of things are fairly common practice.
Norton/But that, how would that be not a lot different than notifying them that we are
coming with a project that may impinge on your property in some way?
Kubby/To get a letter that is from the legal department I assume that is a written that it
used (can't hear).
Dilkes/We have the clerk sign the letter, it doesn't come from the legal department.
Kubby/Well your just as intimidating as they are.
Lehman/Well I think that's, this is just required by Iowa law. I mean we're not doing
anything.
Dilkes/It currently is, I think there will be some tweaking of this law you know in the
next few sessions.
Vanderhoef/It's certainly one that is on the League of Cities agenda this year to take a
look at it and work with the legislature to see if it can't be a more friendly user
activity.
Norton/Yea.
Kubby/Don't you have after working with it for a while.
Thornberry/Yea I think it.
Kubby/If you have specific suggestions to us propose to the League delegation that
would be helpful.
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Dilkes/I serve on the Implementation Committee of Lawyers that's getting the forms
developed and stuff so.
Champion/Well I think the intent though was to prepare people for the city possibly
using their properties so they don't like you know building a garage that year or
whatever but I think the actual results are going to be a lot of panic buttons being
pushed that aren't necessary.
Atkins/I'm not convinced it's, for us it might be but there were cities that were growing
their boundaries by the use of the law.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/And that now you much declare very early that that's intended. We have not
done that traditionally.
Lehman/I want to close the public hearing and then we can have a motion then we can
continue the discussion.
Karr/We have a motion.
Thornberry/I'll second.
Lehman/We've got the motion.
Karr/We have a motion Thomberry-O'Donnell.
Lehman/Oh further discussion. Oh I stopped that.
Thornberry/Done that.
Lehman/Roll call.
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#10 Page 35
ITEM NO. 10. AMENDING THE FY2000 OPERATING BUDGET.
Lehman/(reads comment). Public hearing is open. Public hearing is closed.
Thornberry/Move adoption.
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry, seconded by Norton. Discussion.
Kubby/I think even though I'm really glad you read that I think it's really hard for people
to figure out what that said.
Lehman/No no it's.
Kubby/And if I could try to translate in a one sentence thing. Projects we didn't get done
last year or things that we're going to postpone for the next year, we're revising
our budget to reflect reality.
Champion/Right, that's good.
Atkins/Got it.
Lehman/OK.
Thornberry/Every year (can't hear), you don't need the card every year.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries.
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#12 Page 36
ITEM NO. 12. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE DESIGNATING AN AREA OF THE
CITY OF IOWA CITY, IOWA, AS AN URBAN REVITALIZATION AREA
WHICH SHALL BE KNOWN AS THE CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT
URBAN REVITALIZATION AREA. (SECOND CONSIDERATION)
Thornberry/Move second consideration.
Lehman/Moved by Thornberry.
Champion/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Champion. Discussion.
Kubby/I will continue to vote no on this because as much as I believe that we need to
have incentives for redevelopment of downtown property and continued energy in
this area I think that the public has invested millions of dollars in the downtown
and that I think we've done more than our fair share and that we've seen that there
are properties in downtown that have been redeveloped without these incentives.
And I think therefore that we are allowing the foregoing of property tax money
that goes into our general operating fund which helps operate the city which is the
tightest one, we're foregoing that money unnecessarily. And so I will continue to
do oppose.
Michaelanne Widness/Hi.
Lehman/Hi.
Michaelanne Widness/I'm not sure that this is the place for me to speak but I'm here
from the Historic Preservation Commission.
Kubby/It is.
Widness/We could not come to the last meeting where you had the public forum for this
item so is this?
Lehman/OK. We amended it I believe to comply with your wishes.
Widness/Yes you did but this is on this is on an unrelated matter that was discussed.
Lehman/This is not relative to the revitalization (can't hear).
Widness/Well it is, yea, it is.
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Lehman/We'll try, if it's not going to work we'll just do it later.
Widness/You can just tell me to sit down. My name is Michaelanne Widness I live at
629 Melrose Avenue. As I said I'm a member of the Historic Preservation
Commission and as such I am here to urge city council to support the commission
in making the restoration of historic properties a key feature of the downtown
revitalization. There's a great deal happening in downtown Iowa City right now
as you know. Among other things we have the capital improvements work on the
Ped Mall on Dubuque Street. The proposed new Iowa Avenue Streetscape which
includes construction of an Iowa Avenue parking ramp. We have the purchase of
Old Capitol Mall by new owners leading to changes in both the building and the
retail mix inside. There's planning for a new transit facility interchange near the
mall. We have construction of the much discussed sky walk connecting the two
UI science buildings. Of that I have nothing more to say. We have the newly
created central business district urban revitalization area, an idea resulting from
the fire that of course destroyed the Whiteway building. And we have ongoing
discussions about downtown these would be the business development taking
place in Coralville. Much attention is being focused on downtown Iowa City
right now. We on the Historic Preservation Commission have been discussing
what role if any the commission should play in all this. We became participants
in the process in the aftermath of the Harmon building controversy when we
formally requested that city council underwrite the survey to identify historic
properties downtown. Marlys Svendsen as you probably know was doing that
survey. This is a critical step in ensuring that architectural treasures in the
downtown area will be protected from further inadvertent or even intentional
destruction. But we believe there is more that can be done. In addressing the
types of construction eligible for tax exemptions in the urban revitalization area
the plan refers to historic or architecturally significant structures. That is those
properties listed or eligible to be listed on the national register of historic places.
This is fine as far as it goes but there are only eight currently identified national
registered properties in the area and it is not likely that large additional numbers
will be discovered by this survey. This means that the great majority of the
properties in this area will not come under the preview of the Historic
Preservation Commission. They will not have Secretary of the Interior Standards
to guide their rehabilitation and yet although not national register eligible many if
not most of these buildings are worth restoring. We on the Commission believe
that a concerted effort needs to be made to encourage the restoration of downtown
properties whenever possible. We believe this not because we want to add to the
charm or the quaintness of downtown Iowa City but because we believe it will
lead to real economic gains for the community. I use the word restore here to
mean rehabilitate with the idea of returning the structure to it's original or
something closely resembling it's original design. I do not mean to modernize or
to recreate in a way that is at odds with the structures architectural integrity. And
I'd like to give you an example of what I mean here. I am currently working on a
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new addition of a city publication, A Guide to Historic Iowa City, which is a big
fold out map that has the central downtown and some of the surroundings of Iowa
City with historic resources located on them and lists certain bits of information
about the resources. And these the structures include national registered
properties, local landmarks and actually the bulk of the properties on this map are
simply buildings that are architecturally interesting or buildings which have
played some perhaps small role in the history of Iowa City but they're not really
worthy of any special designation. The map was first done about 10 years ago
and so in the course of the 10 years much has changed. There have been new
properties that have been identified as being architecturally significant of course
those are being added. And in addition we have lost some of them and those are
being removed. There are two properties in downtown Iowa City both 19th
Century structures that are being left off the map this time because of the changes
that have been made to them. In one case the facade of this building has been
completely covered with gray barn board, obliterating whatever was there
originally. It's next door neighbor has had the fauced apparently removed at some
point and replaced with large plate glass windows that have been set in modern
looking stone. Both these treatments are very very contemporary. I think
technically these changes would fall under the heading of improvements but I
think we would be hard pressed to articulate what our community has gained by
these kinds of improvements. Instead of this kind of change we on the
Commission believe property owners should be encouraged to restore their
structures because we believe it's good for business. This notion is supported by
a couple of things that the Commission has been discussing recently. The first is
something called the Main Street Program which you may be familiar with. The
Main Street Program is a program that's run by the National Trust for Historic
Preservation. And the goal of this program is to encourage economic
development in deteriorating downtown's by working on historic preservation.
This program came to Iowa in 1986 and has been around continuing to date but
what I wanted to do rather than go into the details of the program any further I just
wanted to acquaint you with some of the statistics coming out of the results of
Main Street Iowa from the years 1986 to 1995. During that time 39 Iowa
communities participated in this program, 122 million dollars was invested by
private entities to rehab. and purchase downtown buildings. There was a net gain
of 1,303 business starts relocation's and expansions. 3,560 new jobs were created
in these downtown's and in addition over a quarter of a million volunteer hours
were contributed for the betterment of these 39 communities. I do not bring this
program up because we think Iowa City should consider becoming a member
because this was looked at several years ago and passed by in favor of the
downtown strategy and action plan which is was designed by local residents and
is ongoing today. Rather I mention this because of the conclusion that you reach
when you read the statistics coming out of the program and the conclusion is that
restoration of historic resources in downtown is very good for business. The other
thing we discussed at the last Historic Preservation meeting was the results of a 2-
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day symposium that was given last March hosted by the College of Urban and
Public Affairs at the University of New Orleans. The title of the symposium was
"Dynamic Partnerships, Economic Development and Historic Preservation". And
I apologize for not, I meant to copy this article and bring it tonight and left it at
home, I will see that you get it. During the course of the symposium there were a
number of studies that had been done by states looking at how much historic
preservation in their states had boosted economic development. And they in the
studies they talked about what kinds of measures they used and that sort of thing
and I won't go into that, you'll be able to read this on your own if your interested.
But I do want to let you know about the conclusions of two of these studies that
we found very interesting. One was the conclusion from the study done by the
state of Kentucky, and their assessment was that historic preservation is economic
development, creates jobs, provides housing, attracts tourism, revitalizes
downtown's and improves the quality of life. New Jersey did a similar study and
their conclusion was almost identical. Preservation is "a powerful tool in creating
jobs, generating income, stimulating tax revenue, nurturing tourism, and
enhancing older cities. As an economic force, it surpasses investment in new
housing or commercial construction." Let me quickly say here that no one on the
Historic Preservation Cormnission proports to be an expert on economic
development but we found the suggestions in the literature I've just shared with
you not only believable but also persuasive. There does seem to be an important
connection between historic preservation and economic development. We on the
commission would like to see this connection pursued. So the commission will be
making a pitch emphasizing the importance of restoring historic properties as the
downtown revitalization moves forward. One of the ways we will do this is by
having Marlys Svendsen bring up this subject when she meets with downtown
property owners during her downtown survey discussions and I will also be
attending these sessions as a representative of the Historic Preservation
Commission. Clearly, however, it will take more than a push from our
commission to get things moving in this direction. It is my understanding the
construction undertaken on buildings that do not come under the purview of the
Historic Preservation Commission will be reviewed by the Design Review
Committee and by City Council as well. Vetoing inappropriate designs would of
course be one way to control the urban revitalization area activity. However, I
think it would be far more effective to educate and encourage restoration and
rehabilitation up front to bring the rest of the community on board and as early in
the process as possible. If there's one thing we've learned in Iowa City I think it's
that consensus building is always a good idea. In closing let me say that we on
the Historic Preservation Commission believe there is an opportunity here perhaps
a unique opportunity given the confluence of events evolving downtown Iowa
City. To rediscover our past in ways that make good economic sense to the extent
that city council can not only support this idea but also expand on it and promote
it. We believe that the revitalization of downtown will be that much more
successful. Thank you.
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Lehman/Michael are you speaking in favor of this revitalization tax abatement (can't
hear)?
Widness/Well we weren't, we do support the revitalization plan but one of the points I
tried to make is that it doesn't go far enough because it really addresses the
subject of properties that are either already listed on the national register or that
are eligible which or eligible but not already listed. But the vast majority of the
properties that will be included in this area are not those kinds of properties.
They're buildings that are interesting and perhaps are significant in some part of
the development of Iowa City's history but we won't ever see those properties.
They won't ever have to adhere to the Secretary of Interior standards and so
property owners will be free to do whatever they want to do. And in some cases it
appears that what they want to do is go the chrome and glass route as we call it.
We think this is not a good idea that we cannot compete with our competition as
effectively unless we look to that which is what we really are which is a charming
community with a great sense of history and traditions that are embodied in our
buildings. And so we really would like to try to encourage owners who are
thinking about sinking money into properties to go back to the way to try to return
to the way the buildings looked originally rather than covering them up and doing
something that' s not.
Lehman/OK, I thank you.
Champion/I just have a question too. I agree with you too I think historic preservation is
like economic development I've certainly seen it happen in neighborhoods in
Iowa City and I think it would be very important for downtown. I think there are
a lot of buildings that are being restored or have been restored downtown. Is there
any chance that the downtown will qualify to be historic district?
Widness/I don't think there is actually, I don't think so. The problem is we just don't
have a big enough of chunk of buildings that came from the same period of time.
But that doesn't mean we don't have something downtown that's worth saving I
mean just because we have collected properties does not mean we've got
something that we should not be very proud to show off and we think we should.
I mean we can we can track our development through our buildings from the last
century all the way up to the 50's. Certainly that's worth protecting and
preserving. And in fact I could mention that the Main Street program which I
personally am very fond of talks about or tries to emphasize four traditional
values that have made downtown's what they are as successful as they have been.
And they are local ownership, personal service, unique architecture and a sense of
community. Iowa City has all of those things, some of them are in shorter supply
than others. But clearly we can capitalize on our strengths and I think our
strengths are those things that I've just mentioned. And the Historic Preservation
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Commission is charged with looking at architecture and so of those four we will
emphasize trying to protect and preserve the architecture that we have (can't
hear).
Champion/Are criteria different for a business district than they are for like a
neighborhood?
Widness/For listing on the national register?
Champion/For a historic district?
Widness/You know you'd really have to talk to Marlys about that I think there certainly
are principles that are the same and I think the most important one is the integrity
of the area your looking at which is where I think Iowa City has a problem.
Champion/Thanks.
Lehman/Thank you.
Norton/And if what you say is true, the educational effort with downtown property
owners would be the way to get this done as distinct from setting up another set of
regulations (can't hear).
Widness/Right.
Norton/Now maybe there are places where the city is looking at adopting somebody for a
revitalization into the program and you could ask them have they looked at this
but it would be pretty hard to hold the feet to the fire.
Widness/No.
Norton/The educational thing is the way your going to have to do it.
Widness/Absolutely but I think it would be very helpful if city council could make it
clear that this also one ofit's priorities.
Norton/OK, thank you.
Widness/Thank you.
Lehman/Other discussion. Roll call. Motion carries, Kubby voting no.
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ITEM NO. 14. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 8, ENTITLED
"POLICE REGULATIONS," CHAPTER 4, ENTITLED "ANIMAL
CONTROL." (SECOND CONSIDERATION)
Vanderhoef/Move adoption.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef.
Norton/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Norton. Discussion.
Thomberry/Yes I have one thing. This ordinance would provide for the micro chipping
of impounded dogs and cats. Last night we asked if a cat or a dog were brought
from were picked up in Coralville for example, and brought to Iowa City would it
be automatically micro chipped.
Atkins/Yes.
Thornberry/Without.
Lehman/Same as if it was Iowa City?
Atkins/Same as.
Norton/No identification.
Atkins/Yes. Just same rules would apply. I spoke with Misha and evidently there is a
member of, there' s the Coralville representative of the Animal Advisory
Committee was well aware of this and that the animal is affect our custody and we
apply our policies and procedures at that point.
Thornberry/You know I have a problem with that, if it's, if an animal is picked up in the
county and brought into Iowa City or picked up in Coralville and brought to Iowa
City or picked up here and brought to the animal shelter a non-certified individual
would perform a chip insertion into a pet without the owner's permission. And I
believe that the owner should have the option.
Norton/Don't even know who it is.
Thornberry/I think the owner should have the option, when they came to pick up the pet,
they do now, when they came to pick up the pet they should have the option to
say no, I would rather have a veterinarian, a doctor do the chip insertion or not to
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have this operation done to my pet. And I think that the owner should have that
option especially especially if it's brought into Iowa City into our community
from somewhere else. And they don't have that option at all and I just would
rather have that option and have it done by a registered veterinarian as opposed to
just somebody working at the animal shelter so I'll be voting no on this.
Norton/Well as long as they get the chip I don't mind.
Champion/The reason I have a little problem with it is not because I think it's a good
thing to have an animal micro chipped that doesn't have identification. I wouldn't
mind having my animal chipped I guess but the only reason I thought about this
last night is I have a problem passing this ordinance right now because I don't
know if the Coralville public is aware of this. If they haven't been made aware of
it then I think if we're passing an ordinance that's going to directly effect
Coralville residents, or University Heights residents, or wherever animals,
whatever animals come to our animal shelter. But I would like to table this until
there's at least been notification by the Coralville City Council, and maybe that's
been done but I would like some way for Coralville residents to have some input
into this and maybe we haven't had a lot of input into it and maybe there
wouldn't be anymore from there but I have a problem passing an ordinance that
directly affects another neighboring community without their input.
Lehman/Connie this is second consideration, I mean we would have plenty of time to
notify.
Kubby/We have two weeks.
Lehman/We have two weeks before a third consideration.
Champion/Oh.
Lehman/So we certainly could notify Coralville and University Heights and I don't
disagree with you they should know. However, at the same time I doubt very
much if very many folks in Iowa City are terribly aware of this either even though
we've discussed it before.
Champion/And it's been in the newspaper.
Lehman/That's right.
Norton/It also affects a great variety of communities, I mean you say North Liberty, so
on and on.
Champion/Right.
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Norton/I don't know how many of them end up there but it must be a fair number.
Champion/I mean I don't really think Coralville residents watch our city council
meetings.
Kubby/Oh you'd be surprised.
Lehman/Oh, of course they do.
Kubby/But.
Champion/I just want to make sure that people are notified that we are thinking of doing,
passing this ordinance.
O'Donnell/I agree with Connie I was.
Lehman/We can certainly notify them Steve.
Atkins/I was just going to say I don't think you can guarantee the public hearing, the
public process, in Coralville coming up terribly wrong ....
Champion/Of course I can't.
Atkins/...In Coralville that we might have here but I can certainly send a letter.
Lehman/Fine.
Champion/That would be fine.
Lehman/Good.
Atkins/Simply notifying that government that here is what will happen if this is
ultimately approved.
Champion/That' s all we can really do.
Norton/And let their council tell us what they want to do there, the council can decide
whether we should hold up while they do more or.
Champion/Yea, I would appreciate that if anyone else agrees don't do just because I
want it done but.
Lehman/I don't think that's a problem, that's a good idea.
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O'Donnell/It is a good idea.
Vanderhoef/Let's go ahead with the second one if we need to we can defer the third one.
Champion/OK.
Thornberry/Why don't you, why don't we?
Vanderhoef/If we've gotten response back from all of them.
Thornberry/Why don't we give the animal owners the option of having it done by a
certified doctor as opposed to just an individual at the pound? I just don't
understand that.
Norton/I think only the mechanics, I don't think Misha would disagree with that, just the
mechanics of that person has to take the animal without any identification, it's
been picked up remember without identification. Well assume the owner shows
up and they're going to take the dog to the vet and bring it back and have two
contacts. I just think the mechanics.
Champion/It could be like a ticket you get when your headlight is out.
Thornberry/That's fight.
Champion/Or you get a traffic warning or you.
Norton/Yea you just have to produce it.
Champion/Don't have your license plate on correctly.
Thomberry/That's fight.
Champion/They just send send this little card back.
Kubby/Well and if you don't then our staff has to take the time to make sure (can't hear).
Norton/Let's ask Misha.
Thomberry/There's one other thing which I really really just flat forget fight now. But
oh, identification.
Norton/It's a senior moment.
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Thomberry/There are other, we just had, there are other types of identification such as
that different organizations adhere to also and that's having numbers put on an
inside thigh of the leg and that' s been for years and years and years. If they've
got another identifier on the dog it doesn't have to be a chip, does it?
Champion/I thought we just said that.
Lehman/Probably the simplest thing.
Kubby/It doesn't help us, it doesn't us communicate with the owner that we have their
animal. That number a lot of times.
Thomberry/This registry is a national registry when you get, when you get your dog
tattooed which has been approved for many years by AKC.
Kubby/So that would be just some software (can't hear) on a list.
Thornberry/It would be a national registry on a tattoo number.
Lehman/That probably is more traumatic for the dog than a chip.
Thomberry/There are other forms of identification, it doesn't have to be a chip, and I just
really have a problem with someone that's not a veterinarian inserting a foreign
object into a pet without the pet owners permission.
Kubby/Except when you say this surgery, and it's not like the animal skin is opened or
any kind of (can't hear).
Thornberry/Well it is opened to get the chip in there.
Kubby/It is inserted with a tube.
Thomberry/I understand that.
Kubby/It's not, I mean, I don't know what the, because I don't do it but the protocols for
doing it do not require licenser or certification. Misha's a very very experienced
person doing this, she said for 15 years she's been inserting chips in domestic
animals.
Norton/And we're talking about loose dogs without, loose animals without
identification.
O'Donnell/I don't think anybody' s questioning Misha's credentials it's simply a matter
of the pet owner's fight.
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Norton/Well you can give them an option.
O'Donnell/The reason I've supported this all the way along is we have been told it will
reduce the number of animals have to be euthanized and that' s bottom line with.
Lehman/All fight other discussion. Roll call. Motion carries 6-1 Thornberry voting no.
Karr/Can we have a motion accepting correspondence?
Vanderhoef/So moved.
Kubby/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Kubby. All in favor. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 15. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION OF INTENT TO CONVEY 2814
IRVING AVENUE AND SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR
SEPTEMBER 28, 1999.
Lehman/This is really I think part of our tenant to ownership program.
Thornberry/It is.
Norton/So moved.
Thornberry/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Norton, seconded by Thornberry. Discussion.
Vanderhoef] This is the third house I.
Thornberry/Fourth.
Lehman/Roll call.
Thornberry/The affordable dream home program.
Lehman/Roll call. Motion carries.
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ITEM NO. 16. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND
AUTHORIZING MAYOR TO SIGN AND CITY CLERK TO ATTEST
CONTRACT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCCER FIELD
SANITARY SEWER PROJECT.
Lehman/Engineer's estimate on this is $87,6635.
Karr/Mr. Mayor you have a revised thing in front of you.
Lehman/Yea I don't have it in front of me.
Karr/Would you like mine?
Lehman/Sure.
O'Donnell/There you go.
Lehman/Contract we received from four firms. The lowest bid being from Langrnan
Construction Company, excuse me, from Rock Island Illinois $79,962.00 and it's
recommended by Public Works to accept that bid.
Thornberry/You bet.
Lehman/Moved by Thomberry.
Champion/Second.
Lehman/Seconded by Champion. Discussion. Roll call.
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ITEM NO. 17. PUBLIC DISCUSSION (IF NECESSARY) (ITEMS NOT ON THE
AGENDA)
Lehman/Item 17 is public discussion for anyone who didn't have an opportunity to speak
earlier in the meeting.
Jerry Feick/Just a moment, your allowed to speak twice right?
Lehman/Go ahead.
Feick/
In regard to the deer slaughter, of course people calling it killing. Make sure you
pay the DNR fees as required by state law. I'll follow that one. In regard to the
downtown, the previous conversation, it is a matter of statistical fact that branch
libraries don't work. A good example would be the City of Des Moines, several
years ago when I lived there I was in business there for 21 years. They built a
branch library out on University, they had special features, tools, you name it.
Well after a few years all the tools were stolen, the books didn't get brought back
so the city council closed it. I don't know that you have to think too deeply on a
public library it's kind of a permanent institution in our society. I don't think it
takes a lot of consultants to whiz money away. And I'I1 support that point. Take
a look at downtown, the previous Andrew Carnegie Library, that no doubt, I don't
know the history of Iowa City totally, it was built with the some money from the
Andy Carnegie trust or foundation or whatever. Then we go to building, and it
was probably a library before that I don't know where it's at, where it was at.
Then we go to the library north of there, then we build the building where the.
(END OF 99-90 Side 2)
Thornberry/I can't remember here. Is it do you live in Iowa City?
Feick/Coralville.
Thornberry/Oh you live in Coralville OK.
Feick/
Then we got this current building there, there' s available space there, there is no
and I don't say this as an insult it's a matter of business facts from sitting there
and observing the businesses. There is no business in the what's called the former
True Value Hardware store building that is making much money. And I know on
one hand we might say well we we're not in the business as a city government to
put businesses out of business, but sometimes it might be an opportunity for them
to get out of their lease if they're not making profit. I know this for fact about
those businesses there.
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O'Donnell/(can't hear) Jerry.
Feick/Why not consider something like this, and I discussed this earlier with the mayor
earlier the summer. I don't think he thought it was a total bad idea, I think he
thought it was worth thinking about. My idea was give them 300 gallon paint, or
whatever it takes to paint the inside of the True Value Hardware store. Now I'm
not talking about hiring a bunch of consultants like Ross Perot wouldn't have.
Give them 300 gallon of paint, 30,000 or whatever the number costs for some
fixtures, call in the volunteers, cut a whole through the wall and expand the
library. In regard to the rest of downtown, some night before it gets real cold I
want all of you to go down in the ped mall and lay down with your eyes up to the
stars and wonder why you can't see any. And the reason why you can't see
anything but the moon or 2 or 3 stars is because of the goof ball that ordered the
lights that you put in downtown and it's called light pollution. Even the
observatory at the University north of the downtown area, their telescopes do not
work correctly anymore, consult with them, you'll find out it's true. You might
want to consult the national public radio web page at www.mpr.org. About two
weeks ago they had a story of several cities within this country and their light
pollution, you might take a look at what Scottsdale Arizona did years ago. Your
going to have to put covers on the lights. Now I don't know maybe you don't
want to see the stars. As far as the rest of the downtown why not clean up the dirt,
weeds, now I guess in a few weeks Jack Frost will get them. Connie Champion
and I earlier this summer took a walk of much of the downtown, you've got a 12
core block area there. It is dirt, filth, weeds, trash, crap, all those black spots on
the sidewalk is bubble gum. ABC, already been chewed. I mean we invite
customers to spend our money this way. where's the clue? You've got enough
city ordinance to make these people clean up their buildings, enforce them. Take
Iowa Avenue from the Old Capitol, now I'm about ready to destroy the view of
the Old Capitol.
Lehman/You've got one minute to do it.
Feick/Dig a whole in the ground, three stories deep, three blocks long, east of the Old
Capitol, put in about 20 stories of parking, whatever you need for ratio to cash
flow it, the public is sick and tired of being nickeled and dimed for parking
downtown. And that's why you haven't had customers all summer long. Put
enough housing on the top of the cash flow it and let the parking be free.
Basically take the 12 core block area of town, the main business district, surround
it with high parking, housing on top, you'll expand your city to the outside of
there. Take what's, the last idea, take what's referred to as the Hieronimus block,
I'm about through with it Ernie, we're only going to spend $650 million here.
Lehman/OK. And when your through (can't hear).
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Feick/And build four structures, pardon.
Lehman/I say you don't have to stop soon but you are (can't hear).
Feick/Build four structures 20, 30, 40, and 50 stories high on the Hieronimus block for
housing and build sky walks across Burlington. That will make your downtown
grow south and you'll have customers and you'll make money. You got another
plan that's better?
Lehman/Thank you Jerry.
O'Donnell/I (can't hear) reality.
Lehman/No that's fine.
Feick/Well just ask around how many people want (can't hear).
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ITEM NO. 20. CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION
O'Donnell/I'll start.
Lehman/Mike.
O'Donnell/We had our first test for heading to Y2K, 9-9-99 is come and gone and not
too many glitches. I am on the Emergency Management Commission and we
have been saying all along the sky is not going to fall but this certainly was a good
test and we're waiting for the year 2000 to see if we can get through that one with
no problems, that's all I have.
Lehman/All right.
Thornberry/You pulled us through.
Champion/Thanks Mike, thanks for being on that emergency team.
O'Donnell/No problem whatsoever.
Champion/I just had a question, I got a call from somebody today and this more of a
question for Steve and I don't want to dwell on it a lot. But I got a call about a
house at 426 Baynard that's deserted.
Atkins/Say it again.
Champion/426 Baynard.
Atkins/Baynard, Bayard.
Lehman/Bayard.
Atkins/B a y a r d.
Champion/Well I can't pronounce it, I'm from Chicago. B.
Atkins/B a y a r d?
Champion/Yep, right. About the lack of maintenance on the house, it hasn't been
mowed all summer long, that there are raccoons and possums living there, and
people are afraid their kids are going to wonder into this decaying building.
Kubby/City housing inspection there.
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Champion/And I didn't, you know. And I didn't know what to tell her what to do, but
they haven't been getting any satisfaction.
O'Donnell/I got the same call and I did call Iowa City Inspection and I talked to Terry
and he is.
Champion/Goerdt.
O'Donnell/Goerdt.
Atkins/Terry Goerdt.
O'Donnell/And he is issuing the condemnation order.
Atkins/Oh is that.
O'Donnell/It's going to go for 30 days. I drove by it today and it is terrible, it's
overgrown and there's raccoons and deer living in there.
Lehman/Not deer.
O'Donnell/Deer.
Champion/Deer.
Lehman/No.
Norton/Well I want to, well Ernie while we're on that point I want to second that because
the point your making is true in a variety of neighborhoods and it is many of them
are neighborhoods where there is some affordable housing but there won't be any
if the plight proceeds and I've given the list to Steve of 5 or 6 properties and
probably have another half a dozen on the list now of one' s that need to be looked
at. Now whether there.
Thomberry/Am I on there?
Norton/Whether they're ones that are rental properties and that can be handled by
housing inspection, some of them are properties where a person might be offered
some assistance for rehab. I think our housing (can't hear) I think it's one of the
most important things we have to do.
Champion/It is.
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Norton/Housing to preserve those places that are starting to deteriorate and do everything
we can.
O'Donnell/This is a tremendous neighborhood, everybody takes good care of their
houses, it's very immaculate the whole block and then you have this one eyesore.
We also have arrangements, we're going to send notice that they have to cut the
overgrowth down and if that's not done that's going to be done in 10 days to
(can't hear).
Norton/We've got some problems with the court, we have one of these that I location I
won't mention it's right across the street from a judge and if you keep going to
court to get a court order to clean it up and it bogs down in the court process so I
don't know what we're going to do about that but part of this gets down to the
enforcement mechanisms which beyond the cities ability to control. Remember
we had a house bum down that was under suspension and had many notices, it
burned down before anybody got to it because the court couldn't handle it. I don't
know where we're going to get that done but we might want to start talking with
people beyond the city level to help.
Kubby/Yea but it's also, it's not just about that it doesn't look like the rest of the houses
around it per se because different people have different aesthetics about how they
do things.
Norton/I'm talking about.
Kubby/It's when it becomes a public health issue that's when in terms of ownership of a
house that the city has a right to intervene, which they should rightly do so.
Norton/I'm talking about really serious case of deterioration.
O'Donnell/One thing about a house to make it seriously considered a house it could have
a roof on it and this one's lacking it to some degree.
Norton/Yea and not tractors in the front yard and things.
Champion/Well I think it's you know I think it's something we have to be aware and
there are houses in town that are deteriorating and neighbors do get frustrated.
And I don't think we should be interfering individual rights, there are certain
standards that have to be met. And I know if I let my front yard grow my
neighbors are calling and the city would probably mow it but these neighbors
have called and this has still not been mowed.
O'Donnell/This is beyond mowing, there's, this is several years growth.
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Lehman/Chain sawing.
O'Donnell/This is chain sawing (can't hear) natural.
Kubby/Yes I had a couple things the city has a program called City Steps which is our
plan for housing jobs and services for low income residents. And our city has
really taken a lot of effort to put together a whole series of community meetings to
get input from the community about this plan. And two of them have already
happened but I wanted to promote the last two meetings that people can
participate in. One is September 16, that means it's this Thursday at the Senior
Center from 6:30 to 8:00, come in the Washington Street entrance doors. And
then again on September 23 which is going to focus on economic development
issues in the Mercantile Bank Atrium from noon to 1:30 although in a certain
sense I think that time is a little ironic for people who are not used to being major
players in economic development sometimes have a hard time getting off at noon
to come to talk, especially low income residents to come and talk about directly
what their needs are. But I'm glad we're doing this series of meetings. It's one of
those comprehensive kinds of public input series of meetings that we've had so I
hope people will participate.
Vanderhoef/There was good participation in the first meeting. I attended it out at
Pheasant Ridge and our two staff people Steve Nasby and Steve Long did a great
job and lots of input from the neighbors.
Kubby/Good. And that's going to make our plan stronger having that input. Over the
years I've had kind of a consistent gain from constituents finding it challenging to
find city information. Our city clerk's office is really great at spending time with
people wanting information and since we had to add (can't hear) to city council on
our computers and all our current information is CD-ROM it can, for me it's been
hard to know how to tell people whose had easy access to our information besides
going to the city clerk's office. And a lot of people would like to have more
independent time to search for public records. And one of the ways we could do
that is by putting our LaserFiche it's a software that the city council has on our
computers to read the CD-ROM's that we get that have all the information we get
from staff from the public from our boards and commissions on the web so that
once our packets are finalized people can go to the web to get the public record at
their leisure. They don't have to use time of the city clerk's office if it's past a
certain amount of time and they start getting charged, it's a way for people having
more affordable access. But it would take some money from the city clerk's
office to be able to put LaserFiche on the web and there's probably a lot of
security things we have to ensure so that people can't go into that and change the
public records so it becomes the reality they'd like it to be and then here on the
web.
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Champion/I might like to be able to do that.
Kubby/I'd like to do that too actually. So I'm encouraging council to think about either
giving the city clerk some money now to explore this or to ask her to spend some
time in exploring what would it take, what are the issues involved about security,
how much money would it take to put this software on the web so all citizens
have access to the public records through the web. If they don't have their own
equipment at home they can use the public library' s equipment through search on
their own for the public records.
Norton/Will they have to download that software themselves?
Kubby/I don't know how it would work, what I'm asking for is to have Marian to.
Champion/Did we talk about a web master, would that be the kind of?.
Kubby/Well they might work in conjunction but Marian understands the laws and what
needs to be done, to me she's the (can't hear) but.
Thornberry/Yea.
Vanderhoef/And would it even have to go on the web on LaserFiche?
Karr/It's a two step process. The first step certainly is the hiring of a web master on the
city' s web page. The second step is the ability to interact with the LaserFiche
program.
Vanderhoef/And would it have to be done with the LaserFiche?
Lehman/Will you do a memo for us Madan?
Karr/I' 11 do a memo.
Lehman/Madan will do a memo for us.
Thornberry/Yea really.
Kubby/What are the issues, what are the costs, what's the time frame?
Lehman/OK.
Kubby/Because it's not in her current budget and I'm encouraging her if we don't do
anything now to put it in her next budget because I think this is a real important
issue.
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Lehman/OK.
Kubby/Just a couple more things. Women's Research and Action Center has a
continuing set of workshops on leaming to be more effective at changing things in
our community. And this next one is for young people ages 14-19, it's called
Learning to Rock the Boat, it's a workshop for young activists. And it's not only
for young people but it's by young activists in the community and so I really want
to highlight this particular workshop because I think it's really important that
young people gain these skills and are seen as people who have skills to share.
And the workshop is happening on Saturday September 25 at the Women's
Resource and Action Center, it costs $5.00 to come, you get free pizza for lunch
and we have a whole slew of workshop leaders and I know at the beginning of a
lot of meetings we have citizenship awards for elementary schools age people in
our community and so I want to highlight some of the high school and young
college age people in our community who are leaders. One of them is Susan Junis
who's a sophomore at the U of I whose majoring in social work and she' s been
working the last three years at UAY. She's lobbied in Washington for the rights
of run away and homeless youth. Adam Free is 17 years old and a high school
student is currently residing in Iowa City. He volunteers for Youth Guardian
Services, and spends a lot of time online being an editor of a online editor for
queer youth called ELIGHT. Michelle Lohman is a senior psychology major at
the UI and was a graduate of City High and she also has worked at UAY quite a
bit. She also has experience lobbying in Washington DC. And JoAnne Larpenter
whose a great artist, I recently bought a painting from her and I was very happy to
purchase that. But is also talented as a thesbian in the Dating Cellos drama troupe
at UAY and works on the teen line. And lastly Kit Murray who is a founder of
the UI Feminist Union, and she's a member of Iowa Women Initiating change,
and is a volunteer at WRAC. So I hope people who are interested in learning how
to affect change in the community learn into Rock that Boat a little bit in a
positive way who are 14-19 will come and participate. And I think that's all I
have.
Thornberry/I've got basically two things. One I'd like to bring up if there's any
discussion about the free shuttle bus we've got going around near downtown. It's
a free shuttle bus, it gets a lot ofridership. I get 90 percent of the riders are college
students going downtown. It was originally set up to eliminate parking problems
downtown that we thought maybe the people would be taking the shuttle instead
of driving downtown and taking up parking spaces. But all of the ramps are down
in parking right now and I'm not sure ifit's needed and if you would like to
continue it perhaps I don't know if it's serving the purpose that it was initially
intended and that's to keep people from driving and parking downtown, like I said
the parking, there are more parking spaces available in the ramps now than before.
And if we're going to run a free shuttle to the downtown area why can't we run a
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free shuttle to some of the other places in town, such as Sycamore Mall or over to
Spenler Tire or some place like that that people want to go to? Why does it have
to be just downtown? And if it is going to be flee why can't we put in a donation
box that people can donate either money or maybe cans of food or something like
that that we could use for human services something like this. I just think that
maybe it's out lived it's usefulness at this time.
Kubby/For me I'm smiling over here because I hear this irony that we have this flee
shuttle and that parking use is down so maybe that's an indication and actually
our survey's have shown that it has done it'sjob that we've flee up about at least
the last time we surveyed that we freed up 90 spaces per day downtown from
people who used to drive but now take the shuttle. So now we have less, we have
more parking availability downtown and I don't think that's a problem, I think
that' s an opportunity.
Norton/Yea.
Kubby/And if we're worded about filling I mean we have availability that you are
wanting to fill up by taking the free shuttle away. Why are we building a new
ramp? So.
Thornberry/We're using the ramp, I don't think it's for the same purpose. I think we're
building that ramp to take the parking spaces that we're going to be taking off of
Iowa Avenue to put some place and you can't just take 120 parking spaces out of
Iowa Avenue whatever they are.
Norton/300 aren't they?
Kubby/It's much, it's more than that.
Thomberry/And then not have a place to put them. So I don't think that's apples to
apples.
Kubby/So the scale of the, I would seriously disagree because the scale of the ramp is
big enough that it not only replaces that parking. We increased the scale of that
project because the majority of council wanted to replace the parking would be
taken off of Iowa Avenue to do that rehab. and so we're doing the ramp before we
were talking about replacing the parking on Iowa Avenue.
Thornberry/I didn't mean this to be a discussion about whether we should build or not
build the ramp. I'm talking about the free shuttle necessarily.
Kubby/But your making connection with the.
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Thomberry/And should we continue a flee shuttle. Should we or shouldn't we? I'm of
the opinion that if we're going to flee shuttle people downtown that we ought to
free shuttle somewhere else. I know that you'd like to see public transit to be a
free shuttle.
Kubby/I'd love it, (can't hear).
Thornberry/But if we're going to bring them downtown why don't we take them
elsewhere?
Norton/Let's do that for another.
Lehman/Well are there four of us who would like to discuss the shuttle at a work
session?
Thomberry/Well I would, I think we need to discuss the free shuttle.
Lehman/Well I mean I don't have a problem talking about it.
O'Donnell/I'd certainly talk about it.
Vanderhoef/I'll talk about it.
Lehman/We'll put it on a work session.
O'Donnell/The parking' s down, you brought up a point, the parking is down.
JCPenney's is gone from downtown Iowa City, it was a major hitter. And many
people aren't coming to downtown to (can't hear) but their rejuvenation of the
mall with the new owners it's going to change that.
Kubby/OK so then there will be more parking in the Old Capitol Mall ramp and
Dubuque Street ramps so then we'll have a need for the shuttle.
Thornberry/This is why I'd like to talk about it.
Lehman/I don't think that anybody's suggesting other than Dean that we discontinue the
shuttle, I think it's a matter of evaluating it.
Thornberry/Reevaluating the free shuttle bus.
Lehman/I have no problem talking about it.
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Thornberry/Because if you just put something in place and forget about it I don't think
we should do that. I think, you know it was an experiment and we ought to take a
look at see how our experiment is going.
Lehman/OK.
Vanderhoef/How soon are we due for another report from the (cant' hear)?
Atkins/The shuttle's November, I think that's, yea the second (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/OK I would wait until we have had that opportunity to check the next series
of.
Atkins/I think that's right.
Thornberry/The only other.
Kubby/Can I make one more comment please Dean? The one thing I value about your
comments a lot is the understanding that there's a clear relationship between
transit availability convenience and parking. And I think that's an important thing
that didn't use to be up here, that understanding that relationship that when you
have more transit and more convenience and it's lower cost that people don't
drive as much so I'm glad that, I'm deducing this.
Thornberry/Maybe well that may or may not be adequate. It may be because the mall. It
may be because like Mike said the Penney's isn't there, it might be a whole lot of
things and that's why I'd like to discuss it.
Lehman/OK.
Thornberry/The other thing.
Kubby/(can't hear) from our survey that shows that people said they stopped driving to
use the shuttle so I think we have a (can't hear) shows that.
Thornberry/Well we'll wait until (can't hear). The only other thing I've got is that on
September 25 which is this Saturday there's going to be a downtown plaza
playground dedication and that's from 1-2 and from 5-6 in the aftemoon the
weather dance fountain dedication ceremony, I hope it's done.
Norton/They going to make it?
Lehman/It's going to be done.
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Kubby/It looks (can't hear).
Lehman/The contractor expects to be out of there by this coming Saturday.
Norton/Awesome.
Lehman/It's beautiful.
Thomberry/Is Saturday September 25 a home game?
Lehman/I don't know.
Vanderhoef/No.
Thornberry/Marian says nope it's not, where are we?
Karr/It's an open date, we're not playing.
Thornberry/Open date, the weather dance fountain dedication on Saturday September 25.
Lehman/Right.
Vanderhoef/Followed by a dance at the ped mall for everybody.
Lehman/Dee.
Vanderhoef/OK. Special thank you from me to the Housing Community Development
Commission for their tour that they sponsored three or four weeks ago and we had
the opportunity to visit the Emergency Housing project, Successful Living
Mental Health Center, the ICARE which is now located in the old Crisis Center
location, we have the Salvation Army in their new location down just off South
Burlington. And we also looked at some of the sites for the new Habitat for
Humanity housing and for the (can't hear) low cost housing that we had approved
through our CDBG. Maurice, Ed, Steve, Nancy, Steve Long thank you for this
opportunity and thank you to the folk who lead us around and told us about this
specific program and to the residents who greeted us. They were very very nice.
Had a special opportunity with the Special Olympics recently and Dean greeted
the group and we had some of the local athletes that had the opportunity to attend
the National Special Olympics in Atlanta this past year and we have already given
them a citation here but it was nice that they were honored again and had lunch
compliments of the (can't hear). I was glad to see Mark Martin here tonight I also
had brought the article about the library and another thank you to them for their
hard work and congratulations on their good service and activities in our library.
Then just have one more thing. This is the cities of Coralville and Noah Liberty
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are inviting us to attend a Ribbon Tying rather than a ribbon cutting, and in a way
it is another connection for Iowa City but they are dedicating their recreation trail
that connect the two cities now which means Iowa City is now also connected to
North Liberty through their connection. That would be Sunday, this coming
Sunday at 2:00 and it will be at the Oakdale Research Park and University
Parkway and everyone in the community is invited to attend. That' s it, thanks.
Norton/Just a couple of items. This is for some people who have called me or spoken to
me about the difficulty of knowing where parking spaces downtown begin and
end and I'm assured by the city that stripping of those is going to be take place
promptly starting next week. And so you'll be able to tell now where they've
been getting four cars on three meters or three cars on four meters and nobody
knows who's on first. Maybe that will improve.
Champion/I think the meter maids know.
Norton/Well they may know yea but the customers don't. I wanted to mention the public
hearing on another part of our comprehensive plan, the south district plan, down
by the airport area generally speaking is scheduled for September 16, that is this
Thursday in this room at 7:30. Where it's primarily of interest to people in that
area but also to anybody interested in the development of that section of the city.
And finally I want to mention the Emma Goldman Clinic having an open house
this Friday September 17 from 4:30 to 6:30. They'll have the opportunity to meet
the new Executive Director Karen Kubby.
Kubby/Thank you.
Norton/That's at 227 North Dubuque.
Lehman/OK, I've got a couple things. This week is Transit Appreciation Week and I
think that Joe Fowler and Logsden have put together I think flee cookies
tomorrow downtown. On Saturday ride the bus with a can of food for the.
Norton/Did you say tomorrow or tomorrow?
Lehman/Well, cookies are Wednesday, Saturday is a free ride with a can of food for the
Crisis Center. But obviously they're we're promoting our transit system all week.
Norton/Do we have a schedule, do we have a schedule for tomorrow or are we just
suppose to help at anytime?
Lehman/I don't know that we were asked to pass out.
Norton/Yea we were asked.
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Thomberry/We did it last year.
Lehman/We did previous years but I don't recall being.
Vanderhoef/Yes we got a notice.
Karr/Yes you did.
Norton/We got a notice.
Lehman/I'll go downtown tomorrow moming and eat 8:30.
Atkins/Either that or give Joe a call first thing in the rooming.
Vanderhoef/8:30 or 7:30?
Norton/Oh no about 7:30, we did the school foundation this morning at 6:30.
Vanderhoef/I know we did so.
Lehman/The elders of the council may come later.
Norton/I'm coming whenever the cookies are available.
Lehman/All right anyway that's the thing. And we also had and I saw this in the paper
and I think it's certainly worth mentioning at our council meeting. Terry
Vargason of Iowa City Motor Sports has given to the Iowa City Fire Department a
Kawasaki Jet Ski and this is, or loaned them for them to use and I think this is a
tremendous benefit to the fire department and obviously a very generous gesture
on his part so thank you very much Terry and I think obviously the fire
department will put it to good use. Thursday is going to be an interesting day for
Jim Fawcett and Emie Lehman. We're both riding wheel chairs and it's to bring
attention to a project known as Wheels for the World and the idea is to collect old
wheel chairs that are either just not being in use or need of repair. And Jim and I
will spend part or most of our Thursday in a wheel chair, different wheel chairs in
an effort to raise, have folks be aware of this and donate those wheel chairs. The
drop off sites are Mercy Plaza in Iowa City and they can be dropped off any time
between 8 and 5 at Mercy Plaza and also Progressive Rehabilitation Associate
offices which are located in Iowa city, Coralville, Cedar Rapids and so on so I
have a feeling it's going to be a very very interesting day and I'm looking forward
to that with a great deal of intrepidation.
Norton/Where will you be? Where will you be doing this?
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Lehman/Well I'm going to be in the store, I'm going to be at the chamber office, I'm
going to be in this building and I don't know how I'm going to be able to
negotiate in a wheel chair. And yet we have many many people in this
community that do that every single day of the week. So even though we are
probably the most accessible community in the state we're certainly not anymore
accessible than we should be. And I think it's going to be a challenge. So
anybody who has a or knows of a used wheel chair, a damaged wheel chair or
whatever, get in touch with Mercy Plaza because certainly these wheel chairs will
be reconditioned and sent to third world countries to be who really need them.
Thornberry/Very good.
Lehman/Steve.
Atkins/Nothing sir.
Lehman/Eleanor.
Dilkes/Can't hear.
Lehman/Do we have a motion to adjourn?
Thornberry/So moved.
O'Donnell/Second.
Lehman/Moved by Thomberry, seconded by O'Donnell. All in favor. All ayes.
Meeting's adjourned, thank you. 9:07
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