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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-10-18 TranscriptionOctober 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 1 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session 6:30 PM Council: Lehman, Champion, Kubby, Norton, O'Donnell, Thornberry, Vanderhoef Staff: Atkins, Dilkes, Franklin, Ripley, Helling, Karr, Schmadeke, Davidson, Fowler, Logsden. Tapes: 99-97 side 2 all, 99-100 side 1 all and part 2. A complete transcription is available in the City Clerk's office. Review Zonin~ Items 99-97 side 2 a. Consider an ordinance amending Title 14, Chapter 6, Zoning, to amend the provisions relating to home occupations. (Second Consideration). b. Consider an ordinance amending Title 14, Chapter 6, Zoning, to allow public utilities in commercial and industrial zones. (Second Consideration). Franklin/This will be short also as the last time, but not quite that short. A and B are both second considerations. Consider a resolution approving the preliminary plat of Wild Prairie Estates- Part 3, a 49.21 acre, 30-lot residential subdivision with one outlot located at the north end of Goldenrod Drive and Wild Prairie Drive. (SUB99-0021). Franklin/We have a new item, Item C, which is a preliminary plat for Wild Prairie Estates. This is out on the west side near Weber School. And, this location map- the colored in areas- are just to show the property that was dedicated to the school district and then the two access points to the school. The subdivision that is up for consideration now-, which is part 3-, is fight in this area here. So that little green spot was down here, the school is this way and 380- or 218 is up there. The main issue with this plat had to do with the sewer capacity. There was some concern about that and the issue is one of- we have, as far as we can tell, adequate capacity out there now. There is not surcharging that is occurring and we don't anticipate it to occur with this subdivision. However, it is important to keep that west side trunk project on track. It is currently programmed for 2001. Norton/The sewer improvement? Franklin/Right. And, just to bring it to your attention that we need to keep on track with that and keep it going as you start talking about your capital projects which will be probably January when you're talking about your budget. Vanderhoef/Are you anticipating any other plats to come in this general vicinity that would be used to capacity? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 2 Franklin/The only other one might be Country Club Estates however that has been moving extremely slowly and we can then evaluate the sewer at that point- after some of this is built. We don't anticipate that that is going to be coming in soon by any means. Norton/These folks are paying a sewer tap on fee which is not always the case. So this is already... Franklin/Right. I think this one does have one. Yes. Everybody has water- not everybody has a sewer tap on. Vanderhoef/Would it be prudent to say anything about instead of all 30, 15 and then we'll reevaluate the sewer? Champion/We've already evaluated it. Franklin/Yeah. At this point Public Works doesn't think that this will be a problem with these 30. It is just a matter of- this is the sewer that handles the leachate from the landfill and I guess that we just want to stress to you the importance of that project. So that if you have other projects that seem to be of higher priority when we go through the capital improvements program that we can say- "well wait a minute, remember we told you we need this" and everybody is on notice. Kubby/But is not so much that we are- I guess maybe I want to word it differently- to understand what the consequences of changing the placement in the capital improvements project would mean that development couldn't happen in this area. Franklin/No. We can't say that unequivocally tight now. It is just that we know that there is a, there is not full capacity in this system to serve the entire area. Now, exactly what the point is when you say stop, we are not there at that point yet. There is not that level of concern. Kubby/Right, but I guess what I am heating is that you shouldn't move that off the FY2001 and I guess I want to say we need to look...that's right, but we could move it that is our pleasure- to move it understanding what the potential consequences are. Norton/Slow down other development there... Kubby/Depending what our other projects are that floats to the priority list. Lehman/Don't use float to the top... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 3 Kubby/Sorry- leachate is kind of going down... Norton/What do they pay the tap on for now? What sewer is that... what does that pay for? Franklin/Chuck could you answer that one? This is on the west side by Weber School. I don't know what ... Norton/Tapping on to the sewer that connects to Rohret Road... Vanderhoef/Did we up front that- with dollars- to get it moved out... Norton/In other words, it is implied that there is already service beyond that right? That they are in between... Schmadeke/I believe that this is for that west side trunk sewer that replaced that 10 inch sewer that went to West High School here a few years ago. Kubby/And the only way .... is if we front it. /Right. Norton/Country Club Estates didn't have to pay that tap on fee did they? We didn't... Schmadeke/That was part of that property where we had a pre-existing agreement on the tap on fees. Norton/Right. Franklin/Yeah, we don't go back far... (All talking) Norton/Really pre-existing- pre-historic. Franklin/Okay? Review Agenda Items 99-97 side 2 Lehman/Okay. Thank you. Review agenda items. Kubby/I had one concern about item number 6 on page 4 about the Water Facility Improvements. That, depending on what we hear tomorrow night in the public hearing, this is the biggest capital expenditure that we have made in the history of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 4 Iowa City and that we are having a public heating and voting on it in the same night- I guess I just want to hear if there is any comment. There may not be one comment, but I kind of suspect that there will be a few comments. If there are... Norton/Won't we discuss this later tonight? Kubby/But I just wanted to say that out loud here and now that it worries that it- and it may just be because of the time frame of when we want to vote on the bids that come in. But, I just worry about our process with such a huge project. Even though it has been a long, long process I hate to scrunch it at the end. Lehman/Well that is the next item on our agenda. Is there other agenda items before we do the water plant? Kubby/Well this is really a process question not a content question. Vanderhoef/I was curious just because of our conversation about liquor licensing and so forth- do we have any compilation of the number of violations... Lehman/What item are you talking about? Vanderhoef/Well it just came up because I was thinking about renewing these licenses- okay- and do we have any compilation of what violations have been noted in the past year during this license period? Kubby/The police sheet okays all of these or they wouldn't come to us- so he has looked at that. It is available isn't it- easily? Norton/...we had a strongly worded letter taking the issue of what a violation in fact is. Vanderhoef/I guess what crossed my mind is that maybe if we are going to just put these on the consent calendar it would be nice to know that- just note it when they reapply. Norton/Kind of a little rating with them... Vanderhoef/How many violations they have had during this licensing period before we renew them again. Champion/But it might be 25 and it might be a huge restaurant that has 3000 kids there a night or it might have 15...so how do you determine whether that it even valid to concern yourself with? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 5 Dilkes/Can I make a suggestion? You've got a memo from us that details what you can do with respect to renewals and suspensions, revocations, that kind of thing. That deals with violations and it has to be a showing that the bar knew or had reason to know that there was service being made etc, etc- this is a fairly big issue and I think if you want to start taking action based on past violations or conduct or whatever, then you need to have a discussion about that, I think. Norton/ ... as kind of a packet and then discuss what is going to be effective too. Kubby/It seems that there is a lot of interest and maybe we need some time in a formal meeting to talk about that again. Norton/In a work session. Kubby/Because there is continuing interest in this issue. Norton/We need to put together a packet looking at this issue. Or consider a package... Kubby/Reviewing our options. Norton/Yeah, reviewing our options. When you put that packet together you would have to sit down with- remember we'd have 30 bar owners in here...and hardly anything was flying. Lehman/And I think- if I remember this correctly- this is a memo that we got a long time ago. Dilkes/And I attached it to the one that came out in last week's packet again. O'Donnell/Are you talking work session with that? Norton/Well it just seems to me that if we are going to focus on this problem we ought to do it in the context of a larger approach and a careful one. And then decide how we want to try this before we try it out and talk to the people who would be directly affected, that is the owners if we are going to start publicizing this kind of thing. And take account of the kind of issues Connie has raised about rate of exposure. It might be kind of complicated to get a clear handle on it. I don't know, that would seem to me a separate focus- kind of like we used to on housing remember? Lehman/Well, do we want to talk about that at a work session? / I think so. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 6 Vanderhoef/. .it should be put in that whole conversation. O'Donnell/And then to know clearly what actual authority we do have. Lehman/I think that is the whole point right there. If we can do it or if we can't do it. Kubby/Use your search capacity on the computer and we find the previous memo. Lehman/It is in this one too. O'Donnell/My search capacity is limited to what we have right here. Lehman/Alright, we will put that on a work session when we get a chance. Alright, any other agenda items? (All talking) Water Facilities (item #6) Lehman/Okay, water facilities. Atkins/What we are going to do Ernie is Ed will bring you up to speed. Lehman/That's fine. Atkins/To get some of the history out of the way with his presentation tonight and ...(muffled)...some ideas that you would like to see done tomorrow night. Moreno/Okay I am going to go through fairly quickly here. / Good review time. Moreno/Yeah. This is the mission of Iowa City's water division that does water quality and customer service. In this quick overview, this is what I'I1 discuss quickly- what is driving or what started driving the project, public participation along the way, the finding of new sources of water, what's been accomplished to date, ongoing projects right now that have started going into 1999, and what is necessary to complete the project. The Safe Drinking Water Amendments of 1986 had a great impact on water utilities across the nation. Here in Iowa City, you can recall back in 1990 we had some water quality violations that helped us look at those regulations and what we needed to do. Our primary source, the Iowa River, is of poor quality and that needed to be looked at, and changing that- we have a very old facility. The location we are at is land-locked with the University around us and we found it limiting to be able to expand on that sight. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 7 So, we began studying that. One of the key pieces of our study was finding new water sources. The Iowa River is very dynamic and difficult with any treatment process so we began looking south in Johnson county. We looked up and along the interstates, Sulurian aquifer along the interstate. We explored north and south in the Alluvial, along the Iowa River and eventually we chose two sites: a 230 acre site noah on 1-80 off of Dubuque Street and 90 acres on the Peninsula area just south of that. On those sites what we had was five different sources. The Alluvial aquifer which is a shallow source, the Jordan aquifer which is a deep source, the Sulurian which is about 400 feet deep, the Sand Pit which was on the site of the 230 acres and the Iowa River. Thornberry/Ed, when you are talking relatively shallow- on the Alluvial aquifer- how deep would that be? Moreno/We are talking in the range of 30 to 50 feet deep. Thomberry/And in the sands and gravels? Moreno/Jordan is about 1600 feet deep. Thomberry/And in the Sulurian? Moreno/About 400 feet deep. And they are all distinct bodies of water- distinct sources. Thornberry/Most of the wells that are in that area- I hope that you don't mind us asking questions- Moreno/No problem- that is fine. Thornberry/Most of wells that the people that live in the county in that area noah and east- what area do they get their water from? What source? Moreno/They are primarily in the Devonian and Sulurian which are tied together. The Devonian for some shallower ones about 200 feet deep and then some of the deeper ones about 300 or 400 feet. Thornberry/What kind of an impact would you see us having on those local wells when we start doing this city-wise? Moreno/Based on our testing- based on the quantity and quality of the sources- our primary source would be the Alluvial aquifer. The Alluvial aquifer will not impact on the Sulurian aquifer. We had a meeting yesterday- I am sorry, earlier last week- talking with geologists at a seminar and I posed that question and they This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 8 said there would be no impact in their opinion. And that would be our primary SOurce. Kubby/So, in looking at the recent tests that we were getting more water than expected, if that was also true of the Sulurian, would we take advantage of that extra capacity and cause and effect somewhere else or would we use that as the lower- the extra capacity as a lower priority because of other people tapping into it? Moreno/The tests that we did showed that the Alluvial aquifer was the one that had a much greater capacity than we had first thought. Kubby/Oh, I thought that they all were... Moreno/No, it was the Alluvial. And that was great news for us, great news for the area in particular, the Sulurian aquifer users. Thornberry/When you say that most of the people have their wells down into the Sulufian... Moreno/In the north quarter area most of them do. Yes. Norton/Isn't it worth noting that suppose they do have and you got into the Sulurian fight- it doesn't belong to anyone does it? Moreno/Well, it belongs to the state and the state issues permits that allows us to use it. In fact we have several permits- many permits- to use the Sulurian and we have drilled four wells- two on the site and two on the Peninsula- and we have two wells that we are using down by our water treatment plant right now. Norton/But those are old ones? Moreno/The four that we have drilled are not old ones. Norton/The four new ones but you have five and six that are the old ones7 Moreno/Those are the old ones yes. Norton/But one of the things that strikes you is you look at this memo we got regarding the usage from these different sources- if you were taking 25 million gallons a day or something like that- and 16 of those were coming out of the Alluvial- and only one out of the Sulufian you would have to look at cost benefit as the water around there so great that it is worth the substantially greater cost to use it? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 9 Moreno/The Sulurian aquifer is a very high quality water and what we would utilize it for would be blending. If by chance the Alluvial water had some nitrate problems or that sort of thing. Norton/That would vary by season. Moreno/Yeah- exactly. We have been studying the Sulurian aquifer for five years. We have been doing level sensing throughout the noah quarter so we have a pretty good feel for what the status is and we would continue to look at it and utilize that information to determine how we would use it. Kubby/And that was really great and it is really a credit to your manner that people were really upset about this agreement to be monitored and be part of that monitoring program. Moreno/I was very proud of that so that was great, yes. Thank you. Thornberry/Which percentage of this water that we are going to be getting from this new plant is from the river, the sand pit, and from the aquifers? Moreno/The design of the plan .... the design capacity of the plan is 16.7 million gallons per day. In your memo what you saw was that we could obtain 16.4 million gallons a day from the Alluvium. Currently our demand is about 6 million gallons a day so I would say that initially the vast majority perhaps 100% could come from the Alluvium and from there we would blend accordingly depending on mechanical quality issues. Norton/6 is what you are doing and 25 is the capacity? Moreno/16.7 is the designed capacity of the water plant. We have sources beyond that and that is very beneficial for us because we have the ability to blend, we have redundancy, we do not have that right now. If something happens to the Iowa River we are done so it is very good news for us. Norton/I saw a number in this memo from Steve on October 11 that the city could draw for a total raw water of 25.1 million gallons a day if they had to, I guess. Lehman/That is including all sources. Norton/All sources.. Lehman/But you can't- we can't run it through the plant. The plant... Norton/What is the plant capacity? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 10 /16.7 Norton/But you are actually using about 67 So you currently have excess capacity? Moreno/We have some capacity yes, which is great. Norton/Yeah, because we might be in the business of selling water at some point. Moreno/That is correct. Thornberry/You mean we have the capacity of 10 million gallons water a day more than what we have a demand for? Moreno/We have- this is our average demand. We peak and valley so in the summertime, you know, it is much higher than that. Much higher than that. Lehman/Don't we peak at close to 10 million a day? Moreno/About 10.5 mgd is what we... (All talking) Moreno/All fight- I will keep going here. Norton/It is not easy is it Ed? Moreno/No, it is fine. What has been accomplished to date, we have this broken into three areas: water distribution system, site development or source development, and the water treatment plant. We have done a lot of distribution work- the water main has been completed from the old plant to Foster Road- that is the raw water main. The water main has been put in the Peninsula by the Elks Club in preparation for the plant and we have done extension renovation of the three ground storage reservoirs located strategically throughout the city- in preparation for this project. In addition we have drilled four wells in the Sulurian aquifer and one well in the Jordan aquifer. Two Sulurians are around the plant site and that is where the Jordan is also and two Sulurians are in the Peninsula. On going and new projects for 1999 and going into 1999: one is the water main at the Captain Irish parkway, one is the water main that is going from the Emerald Street ground storage reservoir to the Peninsula area, and the other one is a water main going from the Peninsula to Dubuque Street along Foster Road. Kubby/When you say 'new projects'- they are not... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page Moreno/They are on going- I'm sorry. Norton/All of these were part of the original notion about raw unfinished water lines? Moreno/That is correct. These are all part of the entire plan, the water system... Norton/But there is nothing new in the distribution- in these lines. We anticipated all of these main lines, I think, didn't we? Moreno/That is correct. These are large feeder mains that will allow us to connect the new water treatment plant on to our existing distribution system. Kubby/It just might be good to use the word 'current' or something so that it doesn't create a mixed message to the community. Moreno/Got it, okay. On going and new projects- I can change these- source water projects include the water facility site development which is going on right now, the Peninsula site development which has occurred, four collector wells- the lower terminus meaning the bottom part, the case line going down to bedrock and through the sands and gravels, the river intake and the sand pit pumping station- lower terminus also. In order to complete the project what we have is the treatment facility, the water treatment facility, water plant construction, finishing of the limestone structures for the collector wells in the sand pit station, putting in the back-up electric generation, and the water works portion- the water works portion of the project. Kubby/Can you talk a little bit about the why the back-up electrical generation- it scares me that it costs so much- but I think that it is a really important aspect to add even though it is an addition. Can you talk about why it costs so much? In the whole scheme of things the million dollars is .... it is a lot of money. Moreno/It is a very large generator. It will allow us to run the entire water plant and the entire site, so the sources on that site. So, we are talking a very large generator. It is enclosed in a building that is on the site and it is connected on to the switch gear that is there. Kubby/What does it run on? Moreno/It is a diesel fired generator. Norton/There is a big diesel tank down there then? Moreno/Yes. So I guess for myself, I will sleep a lot better at night. I think the community will also especially considering the storm that blew in the 29th Of June This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page last year. I think that we found how important that this can be to our water system. There is nothing more stressful than waiting for the electricity to come on and watching your ground source reservoirs go down, not only for us but for the community. Norton/We put in a big generator for the waster system- we anticipated it there, I would have thought that we would have incorporated it into the original plans here. How big is this one compared to the one down...? Moreno/It is comparable- no, it is actually larger than that I believe, yes. And actually this was in the project that we looked at through Value Engineering- took it out and following that storm thought it would be wise to put it back in. Lehman/That one on waster water treatment plant we have to have a lift station functioning, I mean if we have no power.. Norton/...you have to have your water pumping... Lehman/Well except you have water reservoirs that will be there for a short time without power- that one has to run all of the time. We don't have any choice on that one. /I understand. Thornberry/It is tough to put out a fire if there is no water... Lehman/Oh no- I know that. We all agree about that. Moreno/Continuing with what it is going to take to complete the project: the water distribution system- we will be running a water main from Dubuque Street to Captain Irish to the Rochester GSR- excuse me- the renovation of the Iowa River power dam, and the plant demolition, and the booster station construction at the existing plant. Thornberry/Are we required to demolish the water plant before the University buys it? Moreno/I am not exactly sure on that. Atkins/No we are not- that is to be negotiated. Thomberry/Okay. Moreno/Kind of expanding a little bit on the project that you will be discussing tomorrow- discussing now I guess- and voting on tomorrow is the public hearing. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 13 The collector well upper terminus will include the limestone structures. With the greater capacity of the Alluvium we also up-sized the pumps, put in variable speed drives and enlarged the piping, electrical and the controls on that system. Thornberry/And there is a reason for those structures being limestone as opposed to brick? Is that correct? Moreno/Actually it will match the existing structures that are out there and I have a picture of those if you'd like to see. Thomberry/I have seen them. Moreno/Okay- yeah. Thomberry/What is the difference in price between the limestone and the brick? Moreno/I don't know exactly but we could find out. Norton/I saw $250,000 in the present but overall I don't know. But the add-ons are the emergency power, the larger pumps, the limestone- are those the new add-ons? Some plant site .... that hadn't been included before. Some plant site work that hadn't been included before- $332,000 worth. Moreno/For us, we will be just looking at that area that is around our site. But there is a master plan for the water works park also. Norton/And there is a peninsula site work also... Moreno/I don't believe that is included in this one.. Norton/Not in this one. Moreno/That is correct. I don't believe that it is. Vanderhoef/We are doing add-on to the bounding for this whole thing but the water works park is not being paid by user fees, is that correct? Moreno/I believe that is correct yes. Kubby/You see that memo that outlined the cost for the park for the plant. It would be nice to have that for tomorrow, but also having a category for where that money is coming from so that... Atkins/That one that we just did? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 14 Kubby/Yeah that memo that was just in this last packet that just had the treatment plant and the dollar amount, and the water works and the dollar amount. Norton/We had one in March 28 but that didn't... Kubby/No, it was just a one-pager. Does anybody else remember that .... it was just a one-pager. But just so that it is really clear so that people know that we recognize that we are bidding all of this stuff together for efficiency and good pricing but it is being paid for from various places. Will you be presenting this tomorrow night? Moreno/I could. Kubby/I think that it is a good overview for such a big project for us to take the time. Norton/Can you comment on the dam? How is that looking? I know the price went up quite a bit. Moreno/I think that I will defer to Chuck on that. Norton/I have been tracking these things as best I can and looking at where the changes are and one of them of course is the river dam from about 685 to about 1.5 for such a matter... Schmadeke/We are taking another look at the dam structure and in fact in early November we are going to go out and actually punch a hole in the lower face of the dam and check the inside of the dam and see what condition that is in and we will make a decision at that point as to how to proceed. Norton/What are the options- a new dam? Schmadeke/A new dam is an option. Norton/Right near by, in other words. Schmadeke/Right- it would be just down stream from the existing dam. If you recall the coffer dam cost was about $600,000 on that project. We may be able to use the existing dam as the coffer dam, build a new dam down stream, and then take out the old dam and do it at a cheaper cost. Norton/Down stream you will get into private property worse than going up a little bit. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 15 Schmadeke/We will be fairly close to the existing dam- probably within 30 to 50 feet of the existing dam. Thornberry/Why not go upstream? Norton/My thought too- get away from the traffic. Lehman/Then you couldn't use old dam for a coffer then. Vanderhoef/It would be cheaper to build down .... Schmadeke/We are looking at a separate walkway across the river there too... Norton/The 1.5 that is in there might be only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Schmadeke/Well, we are hoping to reduce... Kubby/That is the whole purpose of looking at a second dam is to reduce the cost. Thornberry/It might be cheaper to build a new dam than refurbish the old one. Norton/I understand that it might be because the thing has turned out to be a bigger mess than we had thought. (All talking) Schmadeke/Right. We are looking at building a separate walk bridge...probably south of the restaurant. You know with the walk way on top of the dam we have to negotiate a right a way with the restaurant. Vanderhoef/If you go through the parking lot and all of that stuff. Schmadeke/If we go south of the restaurant we may be able to avoid all of that. Vanderhoef/But that would not... if we build a dam and a walk way- Thornberry/The walk-way would not go... Vanderhoef/He is talking about taking it offof the dam... Lehman/That wouldn't be part of the water project. Vanderhoef/No. I know it wouldn't. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 16 Schmadeke/That would be a separate project. Vanderhoef/If it is not on top- you won't bid it together necessarily either? Schmadeke/And we requested grant money for the bridge and we are working with the Corps. on getting some money for the dam construction as well. Norton/Can you or Ed comment on the GSR renovations? I had understood them and when we looked at the otiginal bids and then when we looked at the revisions about a year after we had entered the project and I thought there was considerable more work to be done on them than we had anticipated yet the numbers have stayed pretty fairly constant. Is that true? Schmadeke/The work is completed on the GSR. Norton/And it didn't go up much over the estimates? The actuals? Schmadeke/I think that they are pretty close. Norton/You got everything done you needed to? Atkins/So what would you like for tomorrow night? Do you want this whole thing? Lehman/I think that we have got to go through- I don't know that you have to go through with the council all of the transparencies- but I do think that like any other public heating it is really nice to bring people up to speed as to where we are, how we got there, and where we are going. Norton/People certainly say "What are all of those bulldozers doing out there?". So they need a pretty clear picture. They may not a hell of a lot of history but they certainly need to know what are the elements are of this project. Lehman/I think that they need to know that this is part of a much much larger project that has been started 3 or 4 years ago which included the wells, the Peninsula property, the ground site preparation, whatever- and I do think that they need to know- I think that we need to tell them the changes that we have made- for example the generator which is something that we all believe is really necessary. That there were some minor changes made because of the increased capacity of the wells which required larger pumps which would be a minor sort of change. Norton/They need to know that the dam is giving us some problems. You know, we need that stable level I take it back there- it is critical to get a decent dam in there. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 17 Lehman/I understand that that dam will function the way that it is- there is no emergency getting that dam in there. But this particular contract will be for the building itself and I think that we have got to- and I think certainly is the biggest step in the process but I think it important that the public knows that this isn't the last step and the dam renovation is still there. I think our public hearings work very well where we have a brief history, bring folks up to where we are now and say look this is where we are going. Vanderhoef/It has been four years really since the public has seen a whole lot of this- you know they have seen us tear up things and lay down pipes and cover it back up but I am not sure that they shouldn't just go ahead with the review. It was helpful for all of us and brought up questions. Norton/Particularly because a lot of this has taken place a long way from the water plant and somebody might not know where the ground storage reservoirs are. Champion/There are actually people who think we have a new water plant already. Norton/They wonder why the water isn't better? /They think it is better. Moreno/It is better. (All talking) Lehman/All right- how do we want to do this tomorrow night? Kubby/The whole thing. O'Donnell/I would like to have the changes highlighted. We have an initial figure and then we have added to that and we haven't- well we have explained the changes. But that is what has presented questions. Champion/Right. Norton/And the major components of what is going on. O'Donnell/Yeah- just highlight the changes. Lehman/I think that we do need to be brought up along though but you can pick and choose as you see fit- but I believe that the public understand where we are. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 18 Kubby/I think that because the water rates are- Steve's original proposal were these two really hard years and then stabilizing afterwards which was maybe easier politically but that was not the way we decided to go and because we are doing these year after year after year water rate increases- it is really hard politically and hard on people and I think highlighting what that money is paying for. The stuff that has already happened and what some of the effects where like better pressure and that kind of thing. It is important to remind people that we have already gotten some of the benefits of those higher rates and culminating in this on-going project. Lehman/Well, but the biggest thing is that those water rate were cumulating twice the cash... Kubby/For this whole thing... Lehman/That was the big reason that we had the increases is to accumulate cash for this. Kubby/But just to remind people that they bought and paid for some stuff that is already part of the system and that we are receiving benefits now as well as accumulating money. Norton/It won't all be future. Lehman/Have you got that Ed? Have you got exactly what you are going to say? (All talking) Thornberry/...it is going to be informative to remind people what the rates are going to do next year and the year after- and then how they stabilize and start going down. Lehman/Steve, I think that would be- if you would like to do that tomorrow night. Atkins/What is that again? Lehman/...I think that it is important that the public sees that much of the increases that we've seen over the last four or five years, which will accumulate that 20%, in addition to accumulating the 20% we have started major projects including the wells that will be servicing the community in the very near future. And that the rate structure is scheduled for, what, one more increase or two. Atkins/I think two. Lehman/Two- okay. Just highlight that if you would. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 19 Thomberry/And then what happens... Lehman/We don't know for sure. Atkins/They stabilize at the very least and .... Lehman/We don't know... Thornberry/That was the schedule that we had before. Norton/But I would like to know what other- for example this one that we are talking about tomorrow night, the $32 million. And in April we did a 9.2 as I remember for water project, so we must have done one before that, in other words, what I would like to know is this the third in a series? This is presumably the last? Lehman/Very near. Well, the dam is left over yet. Vanderhoef/Now this one is not totally water. Norton/No, this is...well most of it. The one in April was all water I think. So this is one in a series. This isn't the whole story this is just one part of that story. It seems that we should have the whole story. Atkins/The bond sales- well I can give you the story but I can't guarantee you the numbers. The bond sales are staggered in the sense that..the market, when do we pay off, use of cash, I mean there is...I can put you to sleep with the whole analysis, but I didn't think you did. Norton/No, not all of it I just wanted to know this is $32, we have done some...I mean this has been close to a $50 million dollar project since day 1 right? Atkins/Oh yeah. Norton/Well, day 2 fight? Day 1 was $43. (several talking) Lehman/...well Ed I think that you can bfing us up to speed. Moreno/Definitely. Lehman/I'd like to take one out of order here because someone who would like to hear the discussion relative to Ridgewood Traffic calming- if we could do that quickly. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 2o Kubby/What if we have other people who saw this agenda and come late? Lehman/Well, anybody who goes by our agenda hasn't been to very many of our meetings. Kubby/It is only five minutes off though. O'Donnell/That is a good point. Ridgewood Traffic Calming Ripley/Very quickly then. Over the last few months we've been working with the Ridgewood Drive addition neighborhood concerning traffic concerns they had on Ridgewood Drive. Ridgewood Drive, and I included a map on the memo, is an alley that runs between Court and 7th Street parallel with Muscatine Avenue. They are having concems and just observations confirmed that they were getting cut through traffic going through there at what they considered a high rate of speed. In an alley the speed limit is 10 mph, it is currently posted for 15, I assume that was posted prior to the change to 10 mph. It is pretty obvious from sitting out there that people are exceeding that speed limit. Went through the neighborhood traffic combing process this summer and came up with a project that the neighbors felt was something they could live with and would address their concerns. The speed humps that are proposed will not bring speeds down to 10 mph, they are not designed to do that, but they are designed within standards to bring it within 15 and 20- which in most cases, I think, would be an improvement but it may not bring them directly down to 10 mph. That would basically be a speed bump like you would see in a parking lot which we would rather avoid if we could. We sent out a survey with the proposal for the 4 speed humps along Ridgewood Drive. We sent 33 surveys to the neighborhood, 21 were returned and 19 of the 21 voted in favor of the proposal. Based on that we have completed the first seven steps of the traffic combing process- the neighborhood if you approve would like to see something taken care of right away. We don't know if we could get it in before the weather turns bad or not- it will depend a lot on the design and the weather if you want us to move forward with that. Similar to other traffic combing projects if you wish to proceed it would go into as a temporary basis for approximately one year, we'd do some additional work including surveys of the neighborhood to determine if they have been effective and the neighborhood likes them. With that I will answer any questions you have. Vanderhoef/Why did you not think about a true speed bump? Ripley/The Public Works would like to avoid those due to concems in design with cars hitting them, damage to vehicles. Speed bumps would to drive over them comfortably you would have to almost come to a complete stop like you would in This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 21 a parking lot and the speed limit is 10 mph so we'd want to design around that minimum. Besides that the standards for traffic humps- there is documented standards that go down to the 15 to 20 mph range. There are none that go lower than that- so they weren't comfortable and I wasn't comfortable with that. Vanderhoef/I am concerned that the speed hump isn't going to do the job for them. And that they are going to be back asking for.. my understanding is that they are getting ready to get their own private contractor to do their snow removal. Ripley/That was another reason to avoid the bumps is they are very difficult to remove snow around. Vanderhoef/But the city does not do that. Ripley/No, we do not. Vanderhoef/So, a truck- a small truck with a blade would not have the same... Ripley/A smaller truck would probably have at least as great of a problem. It also probably costs the neighborhood more because those would be obstructions that they would have to plow around. They couldn't plow over them like they can on the humps. The ones that are proposed here they can drive over- they are elongated bumps so they can drive over them and the blades will just go over the top of them. The bump- I'll use the example of K-Mart parking lot- is only 12 or 18 inches wide, the blade will hit that, it is an obstruction. The wouldn't be able to plow over them, they'd have to plow around them so I assume that would be an additional cost to whoever contracted that snow removal. Lehman/The humps on the west side- they have been pretty effective I think. Ripley/They have been effective. Lehman/And this is why we are using humps instead of bumps. At the time we did that I think it was rather clear why you did not prefer the bumps. Are you recommending- traffic is recommending that we move forward with the humps? Ripley/With the humps. These would be very similar to the Teg Drive in design. They would be a little higher. This is the main difference. Lehman/And they work great. Ripley/They seem to be working very well. Kubby/Is this a public or a private alley? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 22 Ripley/It is a public alley. Norton/This seems the perfect case...it is not a through street and you are not supposed to be going down it very fast and some people have lived ..... the county manages ..... somebody must clean them. This seems to me the perfect case because it is not a through street and it is not even a local street, it is an alley. Ripley/A quick summary of the service providers comments. Obviously transit does not have a difference one way or the other. Streets does not currently plow they alley so they don't have a difference. Fire dept did raise some objections that it is something that would hinder their response however they don't use it a primary response route nor is it their main way of getting to the homes there. They would use access through the main streets so although they don't like them in principle these would not obstruct their service to a large degree. Police didn't... Lehman/What action do you need from us? Just an okay? Ripley/Just an okay and we will go ahead and proceed... Kubby/Okay Thornberry/I don't like them in principle either but this is an alley and it is not a main street. Champion/It is a different case then... Lehman/Do we have an ok guys? Norton/I think this has been a problem for years. (several talking) Ripley/Thank you very much Lehman/Thank you. O'Donnell/I have watched cars go down that alley and they do fly. Vanderhoef/That is why I am concerned that the hump is not going be enough. O'Donnell/Well I am not really concerned with over the hump or bump but what .... Lehman/The humps have worked very well... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 23 (All talking) Arts Iowa City 99-100 side 1 Lehman/Steve are you going to talk to us about Arts Iowa City? Kubby/Before you start I am going to leave as I do business with Arts Iowa City as an artist and do receive a commission from sales on that property so don't forget to come get me... Lehman/We will get you... Atkins/Dale is handing out to you a document prepared by the Arts Iowa City folks and then a cover sheet I prepared- I did not get time to prepare a formal memo of recommendations whatever- so I put together this quick summary so if you could give me about two or three minutes I could take you through that. On looking at the heading it is Arts Iowa City. We met with Nancy, Karin and I did. Nancy prepares the handout on the suggestions summary sheet and I did a quick analysis. The circumstances are that Arts Iowa City have moved from the basement of the Jefferson Hotel into the light and the question I asked myself in doing my analysis was: "is this a good use of the Godfather's property"? It is... an attractive feature for downtown .... provides support for arts and cultural activities: Jazz Fest, Art Fest, Riverside, in varying degrees, county museum. We also have city services that have certain cultural activities in the downtown area- the library and the recreation center. The timing is a serious question for the Arts Iowa City folks because they need to have some assistance now in that the building space they are currently in is up for rent. I have not seen the lease agreement so I couldn't tell you the specifics of that. I believe that your policy issues are- some questions I would raise for you. There are other- I call them art places- in town: Iowa Artisans, Summit Street, Studiolo. These are somewhat- and I am going to use the term somewhat- similarly situated and there could be requests for money from these groups. However, the three that I have listed are generally thought more of as commercial establishments. They do take consignment art but so does Arts Iowa City. Arts Iowa City does stress education as sort of being their primary motivation for being- as well as affording an opportunity for artists to display their work. From a financing perspective they have asked for funding in the proposal you have in front of you- they are asking for $30,000. They have not approached other county governments as of Friday. (coughs) -I am sorry folks I am still beating it back- They do need apparently- if you consider their funding now- some questions for you would be: do we wait the budget process which would be July of next year- that is the budget you will be working on shortly. Funding sources- we have a contingency account that would be a legitimate expenditure- to authorize from the contingency account. $30,000 is a pretty good This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 24 hit on that account. We have a $300,000 contingency, we are only 3 months into our fiscal year so that is something to keep in mind. Another idea is that we do have a public art budget of $100,000 a year. I would suggest that if you do think about that you might want to send that back to the public arts advisory committee to see if they would be willing to use some of those monies to support projects such as this. And then there is loans, matching grants, you really can go any way you want. And the other question that Nancy and the other Arts Iowa City folks are interested in or at least discussing with you is some long-term commitment. They would like to remain in the spot where they are now. That is sort of the quick analysis we did today. Questions? Norton/Could the $30,000- we are talking rent here but there are other things: utilities, insurance, taxes. Lehman/There are no taxes there- that is included in the rent. Norton/Oh, they tack it in. Atkins/They have a $60,000 budget give or take. How they spend their money- I have not looked at their budget or what their expenses are. They do have some pan- time staff folks and I am sure that they have some expenses outside of rent. I am just simply going with the request... Norton/How does this affect something like the quasi-commercial enterprises like the Artisans' Gallery or Studiolo? Isn't there some direct competition? Atkins/Well, I think that you could make an argument that way. Arts Iowa City historically as I understand it is more of an educational arts activities as opposed to... Norton/...things are for sale... Vanderhoef/...some are and some aren't. Norton/I understand but that may be true of Studiolo too. Vanderhoef/Absolutely. And yet there could be another story made for the fact that if you get several places of business/education of arts you may attract more folks instead of less folks. Norton/Well, I am trying to play the devil's advocate. In New York there are lots of private galleries and a lot of public galleries too .....so I suppose that kind of competition isn't .... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 25 O'Donnell/This place does stress education though and I think that is very important. Lehman/I discussed this with Steve and I mentioned it to a couple of you- I think that they are in a situation where they could very well be out in the cold by the end of this month. Thornberry/...move back to that underground place where it is warmer. I didn't know that it was there. I did not know that it was in the bottom of Hotel into they moved up to the old Godfather's place and it stopped me and I looked and thought "this is kind of neat". But, again, if we fund them do we fund everybody else? And since we already give $100,000 in the public art budget from the county shouldn't this be part of that- I think you mentioned this... Lehman/That is kind of what I .... Norton/I hate to see that on top of the $100,000 ....for display art. I think that is mixing...I don't know. Thornberry/But that is $100,000 more than they had before we... Norton/I understand that but it seems to me cutting things up in a way that had not been contemplated with the public art thing- thing covers a bigger range of art too. Thornberry/Well how much do we give to the rest of them? Norton/Well I know that we have the science center lurking. Vanderhoef/Yes and we have a new request from the Jaycees for another public activity that we have been funding... Thornberry/I think that they are really neat but.. Vanderhoef/I like all of them and where...we've run out of money guys. (several talking) Norton/Do we have to do the park tides? Atkins/I'm not sure park tides... Norton/No, not quite. I was stretching cultures... Vanderhoef/That is a culture all it's own. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 26 Lehman/I would, and I know what you are saying Dee, but at least for the time being, having not budgeted anything for it, I would really- I think I would give it to the Arts Committee. Let them decide if they are able to help them this year and then let us take a look at it when we start the budget process for the following year if indeed we decide we want to do this. But I believe if we do this, even if we fund it out of contingency, that it is going to become an annual budget item and if it does where do we draw the line as to what we fund and what we don't? Champion/I am willing to give them some money to help bail them out fight now. I am not really looking down the line...(muffled)... Lehman/I agree with you but I think once you give it to them that you- not to them but anybody that we fund- they will be back asking for funds again. Thornberry/What happens if they are unable to attain funds elsewhere though? Dilkes/It is my understanding that this is a non-profit organization- is that right Nancy? So, I think that you need to make that distinction. Norton/But there may be state grants and other things that they can get. But I would like to see the public arts committee have a role in helping us decide how to deal with this issue- whether that means slicing that $100,000 in this particular way I don't know. We should hear what they have to say about that. That isn't, I think, the original intent. And where another $30,000 is going to come from is hard to see- wow. O'Donnell/Well it is the 18th and Marian said they could be out on the street by the end of the month. So, we don't have a lot of time. Vanderhoef/So, do we have any budget to say how long if we gave them even $10,000 what their budget would them- how long would they be able to sell support? Is that only putting us off a month or two months or would that get them over the hump to go for the year? Thornberry/Maybe we ought to ask them. Norton/Well $30,000 would certainly do that huh? Vanderhoef/I don't know either, I haven't seen... Norton/$30,000 would get them over the hump for how long? Lehman/$30,000 is apparently what they are asking for for the year. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Cotmcil Work Session Page 27 Norton/Would that be long enough to try to explore other sources whether it is gifts or grants or whatever? Thornberry/It is matching funds... Norton/There are so many grants. Did you read the thing in their packet from Cedar Rapids where there are 20 different capital projects seeking money from the natives? We've got a bundle too where people have got their hand out. You know you are afraid to step out of the house. Vanderhoef/Cedar Rapids does a whole lot of....money and we don't have that option with the hotel/motel money. Norton/But they are struggling to support a variety of projects there as well. Thornberry/Maybe we could fund them long enough for them to find other sources. Norton/That is what I would like to try. Thornberry/If you know how long that is going to be. She is here let's ask her- is that okay? /Sure Lehman/Yeah, just step up to the mic. Purington/Thank you. Thornberry/We don't want $30,000 to get you through to the middle of January and then have you be out in the cold. Purington/What I'd like to do is, if I have the $30,000, I think that there are matching grants for operations so $30,000 is half of $60,000 and that is a match. That is one way to go about it, it is an avenue that I could explore. And another one is, I think that if there is support from the city I can more easily go to some corporate people and ask for some segment of that to support it. So it would really be a vote of confidence in our ability to fund-raise because we have stake. So that would be the plan at this point to use it as "okay here is an investment and I need to match it by this period of time". Charles Reed and I have established a fund- raising committee and we have done some ground work in the community and I realize I didn't have enough time to actually make those connections work which is why I came here. So, this would be a real healthy stake in our ability to go to those people and say we need a partner. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 28 Thornberry/If we could tell you- and I am not committing anything, I am just one vote here- if we committed like say $15,000 and you went to the public art budget people committee and got the other $15,000 that would be $30,000, and then you get matching funds for that $30,000. Could that work? Pufington/That could work. Thornberry/And we don't give you the $15,000 if you don't get it from the art budget so it gives you a little bit .... Purington/However, you know you can- it is true- I know that they don't meet until November something or 4. Lehman/Call a special meeting. You have the ability to do that. Purington/Well, this will be news to them let me tell you. Thornberry/It was news to us last night too. Purington/It's true. It would be an interesting relationship. I don't think there is any language in our goals that etc.- that cover this...education? Alfight, hey. Well I think $30,000 out of that $100,000 would be stressful but $15,000 would be a reasonable request in my humble opinion, but I am only one person on each of those committees. Atkins/Is there general consensus that you willing to provide some funding before I go to the next one? Lehman/Well my personal feeling is that I am willing to try to help them out but not on an on-going basis. Atkins/Okay, but is there a consensus that you are willing to provide them some money? Norton/But they are looking for a 3 year commitment. We are talking about a one year fight? (All talking) Thornberry/To get the building you probably have to sign a 3 year contract. Is that correct? Purington/I think that would be the least amount of time they would consider but I think we are the kind of entity they would like to have in there so there may be some negotiation on that. There are some- that might be just fine. I did say a 3 year This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 29 commitment just in trying to strategize a long range fund raising goal. A 3 year strategy would be feasible or workable or something you could design and set some timelines to accomplish certain goals. But, just as quickly as our rate of visitors and other interests have increased I think this is going to increase more rapidly than 3 years- but that is why I used the 3 years. To give us time to develop a strategic plan. Atkins/What about providing immediately $15,000- fight up from- allow them 3 months to put together a plan, come back to us in 3 months with at least reasonable understanding that you will provide an additional $15,000 assuming that they have some kind of a program in place. That gets them immediate cash, allows them to go to the pubic art advisory group, and any other groups, and buys them some time. Champion/Good idea. Norton/I like that except that I have trouble because Nancy is in both places here- she is in Arts Iowa council and also on the arts advisory fight? So she is going to herself. Thornberry/Well they have a budget and maybe they could do without one to do another. (several talking) Dilkes/I assume it would be fairly clear bm if this issue goes Public Art Nancy is not going to be deliberating on that. Norton/I like Steve's $15,000 and $15,000 without- we will hear from the public art committee how that affects their general... (several talking) Dilkes/I am assuming that she is going to have to wear her Arts Iowa City hat and back off... Thornberry/Present and leave or whatever. Lehman/I don't have a problem with the immediate $15,000. I really personally feel that the other $15,000 should come from the Public Arts Committee. I wouldn't want to say that I would go along with another $15,000 from the city if the arts committee does not .... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 30 Champion/I would like to see the money come not from the Art Advisory Committee. I would like to see more public art. Norton/Me too. Thornberry/Well, I think that it is up to them to get the rest of the money where they can. Atkins/You are sort of blocking up where the money is going to come from- you keep saying no, no, no. Thornberry/I am saying that is part of the public art- Arts Iowa City is public art. Lehman/Do we have agreement that we would be willing to come up with $15,000 immediately to help them. Is that something we all have agreement on? Alfight then we have agreement on that. And I suppose if.... Atkins/That makes the assumption that I can look at their budgets and lease agreements and all of the things you normally want me to do... Lehman/That is fine. That is fight. And if they would make efforts to raise the balance of what they need and they could come back to us- we are making no promises that we would do anymore than the $15,000. Norton/Boy... Lehman/That is not saying that we won't. Norton/What I am looking for is that arts and cultures commission or something that deals broadly with this whole set of things- we are being nickel and dimed all over the place. It is very hard- we struggle to give $5,000 to the Jazz festival or something and suddenly you have $15,000 here. As much as I am sympathetic to all of them we just don't have a rational policy about it. Vanderhoef/...talking about arts and community events because we have these others that are coming before us and we know that we don't have anything about non-profits. Thomberry/And we don't have unlimited funds. Vanderhoef/And we don't have the funds. That is exactly fight so the $15,000 might be as far as we can go just because of that. Norton/Why doesn't somebody lay some money on us? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 3 1 Vanderhoef/That would give them some planning time to see what they could do, so three months... O'Donnell/This buys time... Lehman/I think you have an answer from us. You have the $15,000- you know you have that. Steve needs to go over your leases or whatever. Then I guess you are going to have to come back to us. Thornberry/Or not. Lehman/It keeps you in the building for awhile. Purington/It really is a wonderful vote of confidence and we will do everything we can to pursue that so thank you all very much for you consideration. Lehman/I am sure you will. Atkins/I will write a letter to Nancy explaining the terms. And tell her the money is available... Lehman/Fine. Norton/If we had enough nights this is another one of those topics that we could sit and invent this rationale we are looking for. But there goes another night like dealing with the downtown problem. Larger than the both of us. O'Donnell/While we are doing this we should talk about the Jaycees. Lehman/We are going to take a break first. Near Southside Transportation Center 99-100 Fowler/We just wanted to give you a quick update on the Near Southside Transportation Center tonight. Norton/This is the first that I have ever heard of it. /No, nO. (All talking) Fowler/Iowa City has received approval for $9.6 million or 80% funding of a $12 million multi-modal facility. Getting to this point has been a joint effort starting This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 32 with planning and community development when they developed a plan for the south side. The city council did approve that plan and we began implementing it. Transit and JCCOG prepared a project that they submitted for funding and this project has been in your projects that you've approved through JCCOG for the last three years. It was finally approved this year. The facility will serve as a transit center for the south side and in addition it will include an inner-city bus depot, taxi stand, covered bicycle parking, daycare center, commercial space, and up to 350 parking spaces. The facility would be located block 102- that is down by Burlington, Clinton, Court and Dubuque streets. And it will be located on either the east half of the block or the north half of the block. Excuse me- the south half. /East half or the south half. Norton/That makes quite a difference. Lehman/It is a half either way you cut it. Vanderhoef/Joe, does it take the whole half?. Champion/If I've got this block, will it be a lengthwise division or .... (All talking) Davidson/Can you all see this? Just to orient you Burlington street is at the top here. This is the old Chamber of Commerce building which is no longer there. This is the old...store which is no longer there. The Mod Pod building is here, we are looking at either this half of the block or this half. Norton/So they are east or south? Davidson/East or south. Norton/In any case the bank is in it. Davidson/The bank is in it and when Joe is finished here Karin and I have got some- we have already been meeting with some property owners and I can talk about that a little bit if you are interested. Fowler/The initial grant that Iowa City received is for $1.5 million. Iowa City would have to match that with $300,000. That is to begin the design phase and to begin property acquisition. The rest of the funding would be in the next 2 years. Prior to starting construction since it is a federal project, there is a lot more involved with it. There would need to be some assessments done and Jeff through JCCOG This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 33 has indicated that they would go ahead and do that. Sioux City when they did theirs recently hired an outside consultation- Jeff's reviewed that work and feels comfortable that JCCOG could go ahead and do that for Iowa City. Thornberry/On the 80% funding, does that include acquisition? Fowler/Yes. Norton/You said the design phase was $300,000- would be our share- and theirs would be 80% more. Fowler/That is of the initial...the match on the first. Norton/The match on the first..the match for design... Davidson/Both design and acquisition. Champion/Jeff I am not doubting your capabilities but do you have time...(muffled)... Davidson/Time is really the more critical thing. I think Conhie, we can do it and do as good a job as a consultant would. And we will just have to find the time. We may push a couple of things back but I think that they are things that can be pushed back. Champion/How much would a consultant charge to do that? Davidson/Oh probably $50,000 or $60,000. I think quite frankly reviewing the Sioux City we can make a lot better case for something like this in Iowa City. Sioux City has very little growth happening and very- not nearly the potential that we have with respect to having a downtown neighborhood which this is a catalyst for. Champion/I hate to see people get bogged down with that. Davidson/Like I say, those of you who participate in JCCOG have seen our work program repeatedly. We may just have to push a couple of things out but I think that we can do that without any- too big a concern. Fowler/The last thing that I will say before I turn it over to Jeff is that we have been collecting impact fees from developers in this area for a number of years where we have allowed them to pay the city in lieu of providing parking and we have made the commitment that we will provide parking in the area. So we do have some monies in reserve for that. Norton/Haven't we also invested in some parking further south? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 34 Fowler/We have started acquiring some property for... Norton/That is one question that I had- how this one fits into that plan for that one that was down along the courthouse property, beyond the courthouse. Davidson/The way that we've kind of seen that Dee, is phase 1 and phase 2. Both of these projects are in the Near Southside design plan. This document that which you also got in addition to the original plan. And, originally you might recall, originally we were trying to work something out with St. Patrick' s church and that did not work out. This is the same project basically. The phase 2 project is considered the one- federal one- which includes the civic plaza as well with that project. And that is one we still intend to do. I think that most of you will recall that we didn't intend to this one this quickly. We were probably 2 or 3- this probably accelerates it by 2 or 3 years. But it allows us to lead development and provide a catalyst for some of the other things that we want to see happening in the Near Southside rather than waiting for it to happen. Norton/Weren't those plans there before the one across the street? The Tower Place. Davidson/Yeah, originally we had looked at this site and then when the Iowa Avenue Streetscape Project came up we kind of presented it as two options for you and you decided at that time to reprioritize it and do the Iowa Avenue one first. We hadn't planned on doing this one quite this quickly but this simply enables us to do that. Kubby/How will our parking fund be able to afford that match? For the parking parts of it- not just the design but the construction and operations. Do we know that yet? Atkins/We do not know it specifically but I want to point out a couple of things about this project that are somewhat unique. We will be able to rely on more than just parking monies- thank you- I want Joe to point out any profit, anything above and beyond for example lease payments, whatever we might- must go into transit not into parking. So, it is a little different funding source. This project while it may be a parking component as a parking garage, the overwhelming direction of any kind of financing is transit. We have to sort that out, we do have some cash in reserve, we will have to do some additional projections, it is happening sooner than we had anticipated so we have a lot of work ahead of us. Kubby/So in the past we were looking at not being able to do anything for up to 5 years- so that is what that question comes from. So we are just getting updated, we are not being asked in the near future with that kind of information to make any kind of formal decisions. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 35 Atkins/We have a lot financial work that we have to do, and I am reasonably comfortable that we can satisfy it but an important element- Joe you could explain it better- on how, this is really a transportation and transit project. Davidson/The feasibility study that we were alluding to Karen is a financial component but we will have to project revenues and project expenses of the facility. We would anticipate it being a revenue generating facility. It would lease payments from the inner-city bus company, selling of the commercial space, the parking element of it- so we do think it will generate revenue for the transit system. Lehman/Does the federal funding- the federal grant for this project pay for parking? Davidson/It pays for the whole facility. Lehman/Okay, so instead of having to sell revenue bonds to build the parking portion of this, this would be funded 80% or whatever... Davidson/We are paying 20 cents on the dollar... Vanderhoef/And we can use some of our impact money for the parking component of this thing. Could that be our match money? Davidson/...our commitment is 2.4 million dollars and I don't believe that we have quite that much in the fund. Atkins/There will be likely a parking revenue bond component to this- the extent to which I don't know. But it is substantially an 80/20. Our share is 2.4. How we carve up that $2.4 1 don't have and answer for you just yet on that. Norton/Can you explain to me what the first phase is? You are talking about design and property acquisition and then I hear you talking about feasibility. Doesn't feasibility come first? Davidson/Yeah. The feasibility study is a term that the feds use. They want to have- fight now this has been kind of a wish list type project for them. They want to see some hard data that this is a project that makes sense for Iowa City, that we can afford to do and that fits into our community. And having the redevelopment plan already in place does a lot of that work for us. Norton/But the feasibility study will be forth coming, that is the first thing? Davidson/That is the very first thing. Norton/That is the one that you guys are going to do in-house? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 36 Davidson/The 1.5 million that Joe alluded to for the first year's activities is principally design, and when I say design it is more the concept level type design which is part of the feasibility study showing them a schematic layout of where this thing would be and what it might look like. And then to begin the property acquisition phase. And that was one thing I was going to mention, Karin and I have, ever since this hit the media, have been meeting with the property owners, I think we have met with all of them except one, and had a fairly positive reaction. And of course these are the people that would most directly impacted by the project. We are not making any assumptions yet about the east half or the south half- we are meeting with everyone. As well as determining the impacts on those people, one of the things of course we are very interested in is how many arrangements we can work out like the Cottage Bakery where people can relocate and be part of our facility when we get done. And we want to try and do as much of that as we possibly can. The other thing is for the remaining property owners consider this a catalyst for the eventual redevelopment of their property so we are working with a couple of them on that angle as well. And that will also be part of the feasibility study. That is something that the feds are very much interested in is having their money go for things that do provide a catalyst for development. Norton/Does this include Frieda? Davidson/Mrs. Hieronymous we have met with, and she falls under both categories as someone who will be impacted- we are going to need to purchase some of her property for the acquisition and of course she has her development project as well. Norton/So again, it might be a facilitator for her. Davidson/We believe it will be. Lehman/How does that ground transportation component dovetail into the proposed building that we are starting to do or are talking about doing with the Old Capitol center? Does that in any way a duplication? Fowler/No. What we are trying to build downtown is an information center- a place that is convenient for passengers to get information to buy bus passes. And a major component is a breakroorn/restrooms for drivers. Lehman/Then what would we have- what would be the Iowa City Transit's function in the this ground transportation center? What would be there? Fowler/It would be a major stop for the buses and come in to there, pick people up and take them from there on downtown, so you park and... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 37 Lehman/Yeah- but that is a bus stop so what is it besides a bus stop? Fowler/That is basically going to be that and .... Kubby/It serves as the commuter shuttle. Fowler/Right, it is going commute and pick people up from there and take them downtown. The inner-city will have a bus depot, Greyhound Trailways. Lehman/No, I understand that but as far as picking up people there with city buses it wouldn't function much differently than picking them up in front of the Capitol street ramp or the Dubuque street ramp. There is not going to be an office there in other words? Fowler/No, not at this time. Davidson/One of the functional elements that we talked about throughout the discussion of this project is the day care center. And one thing that we are trying to facilitate that is really not available in Iowa City right now is for somebody who rides the bus to be able to take their child to day care. We are basically focusing on people who work downtown and giving them that option- essentially whether you drive or you take transit- you would be able to take your child to day care and then be directly- that is another thing about transit riders is that typically where the day care centers are located it makes for very inconvenient trip making and they are quite far away from the day care center- for people who work downtown they would be right there and if the child got sick or something like that they could be able to get right there and then have the bus right there to get home or the doctors. Lehman/Who operates the day care center? Davidson/That would be a private entity. We would set it up through a private entity and... Norton/There is no chance then that the facility that you are talking about incorporating Old Capitol center? I forget the number of dollars there- that couldn't be in this other location? Lehman/I don't think you want it there. Davidson/You need that centrally located so they the Cambus, Coralville and Iowa City can all interchange at a central point. Norton/Coralville will still come up to Old Capitol Center rather than down there? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 38 Lehman/The bus routes really aren't going to change that much. There would just be a bus stop there. Vanderhoef/One more stop... and it will hopefully spur things then to the south of Burlington. Lehman/So were are just kind of in preliminary... So there are certain requirements I am sure that come with this federal money. Obviously it has to be transportation oriented. What kind of requirements are we looking at? Davidson/That is one thing that I wanted to mention to you is that this project is not so far removed from what we are building on Iowa Avenue. It is a similar type of mixed use type of project with parking as a very substantial component of it. We have made certain commitments to the federal government with respect to the functional uses that are going to be in there- the daycare center, both parking and transit, covered bicycle parking, those sorts of things. We are committing ourselves to those elements of the project. Those are elements that the feds are going to want to see in there if they help with the funding of this. We've used that to sell the project. So, you as a city council wouldn't have the option, at least without us working it out ahead of time with the feds, of removing those if you felt it was important to remove those. Kubby/So what is our argument that this is a transit facility in terms of our city transit? Davidson/We are calling it a multi-modal transportation facility Karen that serves all modes of transportation... Kubby/Because you've got covered bike area and... Norton/A heliport on top. Vanderhoef/So the old taxi stand area could disappear or be redeveloped or whatever. The present taxi stand...that property is such a lovely thing to look at. Davidson/I think that it is also important Karen, there are some initiatives in the federal transit administration related to creating neighborhoods and having transit be an element of that. And this is very much related to that and related to our attempts to build a neighborhood down there. Kubby/So when we talked about the inner-city folks- I remember them having a hard time paying rent and fixing the roof and how are they going to afford a spanking new square footage? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 39 Fowler/The actually brought this idea up to us before we ever put it into our plan. The last time we negotiated their lease they said it Iowa City did anything they would like to be involved and be sure that relocated downtown into a new facility and Ron has actually talked to Trailways and they are in favor of going ahead with this and relocating. One of the cab companies has already contacted me, they wanted to be sure that there was a possibility that they could relocate in there. Kubby/And they understand that the cost per square foot is going to be a little higher than in their current location? It is kind of like an upgrade. Major. (all talking) Vanderhoef/Do we need one? Yes we do need an upgrade. Thornberry/Along with this day care center would that also incorporate Head Start? Davidson/It could. Like the Iowa Avenue facility the commercial space comes with a price tag. We are only paying 20 cents on the dollar but there still is a price tag... Thornberry/If we've got day care and a transition into Head Start right away... Vanderhoef/And that combination is- if I am following along with Dean' s thought- that combination because families don't just come with pre-school children to go into day care, they grow up and we need to accommodate family needs in the building. Lehman/To me, that whole block has sort of been a goal or a vision for a long time. I really hope that there is a way of involving the property owners on the half block that we are not using. I mean, if we could do something in conjunction with those people and do it almost simultaneously I think that we are a tremendous catalyst for getting something going there and whatever we can do to facilitate that we really need to do. That could be an absolute super block. And I know that you have talked to those people and there has been interest for the last couple of years... I would really encourage you to- and if there is anything we can do. I would love to see that... Davidson/I would anticipate that you might start heating from a few folks based on some of the conversations that Katin and I have had. There are various feelings about the project and I am sure you will have some of those expressed to you. Kubby/I am trying to imagine the play area for the day care. Is there certain state regs? I don't need to hear details but I will be anxious to see that as part of feasibility. Davidson/The person we are working with right now is the woman who organizes the University preschools and she is very interested in this project and sees it as an This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 40 unmet need for them as well. And that kind of expertise is what we need- I know you think Joe and I are geniuses but .... (All talking) Davidson/What we will do Karen is get a handle on what these requirements are, the kinds of things you are alluding to, give those to our designer and make sure they are designed into the facility in a way that works well. Norton/You are not that far flom their new structure- their new office building down there on Capitol. Just so they are not sucking fumes from those buses you mean Karen. Kubby/Well and how does it fit in to all of those green-way goals that are in the south side plan. To eventually be able to go to a river that looks a little different than it currently does. Davidson/That I think is a block or two to the south. But certainly making sure there is a good atmosphere for children, to be in some flesh air, some exterior space, making sure that is incorporated into this. Incidentally the city of Des Moines received one of these grants and is doing a very similar thing- we think that we can improve on the looks of our structure compared to what they are building. If you are just north of downtown Des Moines that is where theirs is going. They have found the pre-registrations or whatever you want to call it flom the day care space... Kubby/There is such demand here. Norton/..facilitating activity downtown is very critical... Lehman/So what- you are going to be pursuing the feasibility of the project. Is that ... Davidson/We feel that is feasible already, we are going to be outlining it for the feds and summarizing it for the feds. Lehman/So where are we in the process? Davidson/At the same time we are doing that we will continue with the property acquisition activities. I would imagine that at some point we would come to you with a recommendation on east half or the south half of the site. And then we will proceed with Eleanor's assistance in acquisition similar to what we did with Iowa Avenue. Similar to Iowa Avenue we will go into this hoping that we can work things out voluntarily with all of the property owners. We will put a lot of effort into that up-flont and in the discussions Karin and I have had there are a number This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 41 of existing tenants and property owners that want to get back into the structure, they like that location and so we will try to work on the details and get the property acquisition in full swing. Lehman/Are you going to try to come up with some kind of concept plans for it? Davidson/Oh sure, that is why we will have to hire a design tirm- to get a handle on all of these functional areas and square footages and that kind of thing. We will hand those over to a designer to lay the facility out. Franklin/The next two things that you will see will be a resolution authorizing and agreement with a design firm to do the site plan and a concept design. And also we will be needing to do the resolution of intent to acquire and all of that stuff you need to do when you are going to acquire property. And I would hope that we'd be able to do those two things within the next couple of months or so. Lehman/So what do you need from us? Davidson/Just FYI for the project. Kubby/I guess I guess I must say that when I look at a map of the downtown area and the half mile around the Pentacrest, and look at all of the parking structure for both the city and the University- there are a lot of parking structures in this small area. I guess I just don't want us to become the land of 10,000 parking ramps and it is a concem of mine and even though this is multi-modal- like I said no to all of them this may be the one that I would have without all of those other ones- actually said yes to a parking ramp because of it's function. But because we are doing all of these other things I still have those concerns because the major amount of square footage in this is the private vehicle parking storage aspect of it so I am concerned the whole picture looks like and how we are using our land in this very dense area. I know that we are just a town of 60,000 but during the day in this area especially we are a town that is much bigger than that as people come in to go to work. But I continue to have those concems for our public policy for transportation- this is a shift in that direction and I am glad for it but looking at the whole thing I still have those concerns about another parking structure plus. Champion/But a parking structure will speed up the development of the high density housings down there. If there is parking around so it is beneficial. Whether we like it or not almost- even students have cars now- and if we have 2 or 3 kids per apartment then 2 or 3 cars. Norton/We don't want to stimulate in that particular block- it is commercial. Offices, and the daycare and the connection to the transit system and all at. It could just as This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 42 well facilitate all of that. Better than residential I think it could be a great ....that is what we want on that first block isn't it? Lehman/Would this be one level of commercial or two? Or is that something that we haven't gotten that far? Davidson/It could be one or two. Similar to Iowa Avenue we have one end that is two and the other end that is one. Part of that will flush out Ernie when we have a better idea what uses we want to get back into the facility and then see how much- you know, as you know one of the things that we'll try to do like we have at the Iowa Avenue facility is make sure that the ground level as you walk along the sidewalk- that there are commercial offices and retail type uses to give you more of a downtown type feel. But I wouldn't be surprised- Karin and I were asked the question this morning- what the square footage of commercial would be and I wouldn't doubt that it would be in the same order of magnitude of 20,000 to 30,000 as we are in Iowa Avenue. Vanderhoef/And did I hear you say it was up to 350 parking spaces? Fowler/We haven't set a number- that is the number we have used internally. We haven't set a number and put that on paper and submitted it to the feds for approval. Vanderhoef/There isn't a number of spaces required. Fowler/This is the number that we have been working with intemally. Davidson/We have some options. The only thing for example that we wouldn't be able to say is add 50 parking spaces and take the daycare center out. This is kind of... Thornberry/I am not quite sure if the city really does need to build more commercial space. If it was for transportation offices and daycare type of thing- but my god we have a lot of commercial space that is being built right now down in that area with the new parking ramp on the north side. With the private development...just a block or two away from that that is going to be a lot of commercial spaces and now this one with commercial spaces. I don't know how many more commercial spaces the city needs to build. Vanderhoef/I understand your concern and maybe after the conversations we will know how many people who are there presently want to go back in ..... get more density on that property and still allow those folks to have their commercial space there. So I am not sure... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 43 Davidson/Karin and I heard from a lot of people this morning that the access to the post office was important to them, the access to the courthouse was important to them, the access to the county administration building was important to them- so that is a site they really like for commercial space. (All talking) Thornberry/What was that? Vanderhoef/I said the school offices are just a block away also and they are always needing spaces. Thornberry/I just don't know how much more retail...the replacement I can see... Norton/I was assuming we wouldn't add a lot of brand new commercial but simply fill it with what was there. Thornberry/But two floors- you may be looking at more... Lehman/If you look at that space now...the old Electronics Cave is commercial, the bank is commercial, Mod Pod is commercial, so literally the only thing that were built on the south side- you would have to replace 100% to keep just what you have fight now commercial. If it is built on the east side the only part that isn't commercial is two parking lots. Norton/That is what I mean. I don't think you'll add a lot Dean... Lehman/Are we ready to move forward? Vanderhoef/Move forward. I like this to investigate this it and see...you have to look at it to see what we can do. (All talking) Appointments 99-100 side 2 Lehman/Public Art Advisory Committee appointment. We have one application is that correct? Thornberry/Actually we have two. Kubby/One that is not eligible under our code. Thornberry/One is not in town. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 44 Lehman/One is not eligible yeah. Norton/But he is a property owner in town...raising the issue isn't he? Lehman/...require... Board Commissions... (All talking) Kubby/I don't think we can change it in the middle... Lehman/We require city residency for our boards and commissions. Norton/Is that true? Lehman/Well, yeah and even if we chose to make a change I think that we would have to take that up another time. (All talking) Champion/...makes a valid point that he is a property owner downtown and pays city taxes. Lehman/That is true of an awful lot of people in Iowa City. Norton/Everybody has property downtown. I said to him that would affect everybody practically fight? Champion/What is wrong with it though? What is wrong with thinking about it? Lehman/It is the same reason he can't vote in Iowa City-just like half of the people who own property downtown that live in River Heights or out in the corridor can vote in Iowa City even though they own property. Champion/Well that it true. Lehman/They don't like it either. Norton/Almost everybody works in Iowa City. Thornberry/Like Mike lives in Iowa City and has a store in Coralville he can't vote for Coralville city council. Kubby/Or be on a commission. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 45 Lehman/He can influence them. Mike/I wouldn't do that... Kubby/I would like to nominate Sandra Hudson. Lehman/Do we have four that will support that? Champion/I'll support it. O'Donnell/I do think that we have to, I think, sometime loosen up on this with Ginsberg, I think that he'd be very very good on the committee. Lehman/You can't do it for one, you have to have a policy that fits... O'Donnell/Maybe we can look at that down the road because I think it is a good idea. (Several talking) Lehman/We had the same thing that came up in PCRB. Good people from out of town. Kubby/But it doesn't mean that they can't be a volunteer for the commission...people who can go to meetings, help out, create conversations and have input without having a vote on that commission. But I think that it would be a big policy change to open things up to non-residents except in those certain areas where the county gets to have a seat- like on the Riverfront and Natural Areas Commission. O'Donnell/(muffled)... every aspect of city life from elections to business... Norton/What is the gender balance on that committee right now? Kubby/I think that it is 3 and 3, isn't that what... Karr/3 and 3. Thomberry/Makes a difference hugh? Norton/I just was thinking. Kubby/And I called Marcia Wegman because she was someone that we all were kind of interested in as a previous applicant saying the next time we hope that she will reapply and she said that her life is- she has filled it with other things and that she also encouraged Sandra to apply. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 46 Norton/I know Sandra and I think that she will be fine. It would be nice if she had a little bit more familiarity with the community, she is fai~y new but that is the way it goes- we don't have another applicant. Council Time 99-100 side 2 O'Donnell/I have been watching letters banter back in forth in the paper about Hickory Hill park and the Oakland Cemetery. You get pros and cons on both sides. I am wondering, have we ever in the past- or should we- look at maybe a cemetery commission? It is part of Parks and Rec Ernie- but should it be? That is my question. Kubby/We can't get a transportation commission- or committee or transit committee. O'Donnell/I am not talking about that, I am talking about a cemetery commission- I am talking about a park commission- I am talking about should the cemetery be part of Parks and Rec? Norton/I don't think that there is enough action- it comes up once periodically but the presumable we pretty well settled that. It won't come up too much... O'Donnell/The last three or four years- Norton/But it won't come up again- I don't think very often. O'Donnell/I don't know. Norton/What do we do- four acres now- don't we have three phases- it has to be reconsidered at some point I hope. O'Donnell/We are going to need it and we are going to need it in 50 years. Lehman/My understanding...ifI am not mistaken-and my understanding is that- and I should maybe clear this with Rick or with Terry- we talked about this master plan for the cemetery that included nine or ten acres to add max- which was 350 years. But my understanding was that there were two stones- two markers that would be placed on that property to delineate the farthest that the cemetery would ever expand. And I think that- I thought we answered that question once and for all when we did it. Vanderhoef/Yeah. Norton/I would hope that evolution will change things so that... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 47 Lehman/...we never need to do anything... Norton/...that now will be quite sufficient because it is after all stretching...and that was a account of why many of us found it hard to make and I'd hate to see us have to go to a full one. Lehman/We may never ever have to go any farther but I should not come up for 50 years or more. Vanderhoef/And if folks see what would happen then they may choose to go to a different location for opening a new cemetery or they may choose- things may have changed so much by 50 years from now that there won't be a need for the spaces. Norton/Right, and we won't have to do phase 2 and 3. Champion/Well I would hope that we would continue to use Hickory Hill Park land which I know is cemetery land- but I would hope that... Lehman/We have made provisions for up to about 300 years. I don't know that we can probably go any further than that. Norton/And that was after careful look at that land and its use and the alternatives are not easy with respect to the heirs and the wishes- even though not legally binding- I thought we kind of compelling. We had to made a kind of a trade-off and I thought we did a good job. Kubby/That is not Mike's issue. O'Donnell/That is not my question. My question is "should Oakland cemetery be part of Parks and Rec?". I don't think it should be. Vanderhoef/I think so. I do. O'Donnell/How are the two associated? Vanderhoef/I don't see that there is enough action going to happen after this phase 1 is done to .... Kubby/You've got grounds-keeping, you've got the same kind of equipment... (All talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 48 Champion/That is where people originally went to picnic. They went to have picnics with their ancestors. (All talking) Norton/I just don't think there is enough to keep them busy. O'Donnell/I brought up the question because this coming around now, we've allowed for expansion, it's going to handle up to 50 years. Lehman/We've really allowed for up to 300 years. O'Donnell/Because we have reserved 10 acres but that is my question because now there is a group that is coming out saying that need to not allow for that future expansion beyond this present expansion. I want to preserve the integrity of the cemetery. Thornberry/We did say that we wanted to plant some comer stones. Vanderhoef/We did. I suggested that. Lehman/We've done that. Atkins/I don't know that we've done it but that it what I understood- that you wanted that 10 acres fenced off. Thornberry/Not necessarily fenced off but delineate acreage for the cemetery that we are not going to go beyond. O'Donnell/So there are 10 acres reserved specifically..and the rest is designated not dedicated. Thornberry/There were 40 acres there, and we took 10 of it. And the other 30 the park may use. Norton/I don't know that we have formally designed that. I think we need perhaps to formally dedicate that other 30 but I'd like to think that we might be able to dedicate more than that after we wait for 50 years and see what happens. I'd like to make sure that we don't go any further- you know they're gone as far- you think that the guy was upset now- what until you see when 10 acres are gone. I mean wow. Lehman/Would it be appropriate for us Eleanor- and we did do this two years ago- we said that the master plan incorporates up to about 10 acres. Would it be This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 49 appropriate for us to designate the remainder of that property that had been over the years- the public opinion was or that we felt we'd been told- that that property was bought for cemetery property but to dedicate to that to the park and officially make it park grounds? So there is would no longer be a question of...(aside) .... no it is not watershed. (All talking) O'Donnell/The land was intended for the cemetery. That is one of the provisions it was sold under- I would be in favor of designating, not dedicating... Thornberry/We did that. (several talking) O'Donnell/You what Dee, Central Park in New York is 864 acres and there is 8 million people there. This is 190 something acres and we have 60,000 here with the students. I think there is plenty of room in that park. Lehman/Let's let Eleanor- would you respond? Dilkes/I think the decision about whether to dedicate that as park land is a policy one not a legal one. There was some stuff in the paper recently- I did double check the file- what I think happened when you last were talking about this issue- the issue of dedication came up and I think you asked Terry to contact the heirs and see what the heirs thought about dedication and the response from the heirs was- and I am just reporting this to you because it is not a legal issue I'm just reporting- the heirs said they'd be happy to see it used as a park but didn't want to see it dedicated as a park. I response that you would expect. Norton/It is still true that the council could dedicate if they wanted to? Dilkes/The council could dedicate if they chose to, now a dedication can be changed down the road too so, with some restriction but it can be changed. Thornberry/Didn't they also say that they would be satisfied with the 10 acres? Norton/Yeah- but they weren't all in agreement. Vanderhoef/But they still didn't want it dedicated. Dilkes/They still didn't want it dedicated as park land. Norton/That was 1917 and I think we don't have to do anything fight now .... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 50 (All talking) Thornberry/ ....spent the weekend in my house and went through every document there was. O'Donnell/I think we owe it to them to preserves the integrity of Hickory Hill Park- or Hickory Hill and Oakland Cemetery. And this ground is designated for park use and will be for the next 50 years and if we expand beyond the four acres we are doing presently- like you said Ernie we are going to go to 300 years. Kubby/I don't think that the question of forming a commission because there is community conversation about something- or people are organizing around something- in this case I don't think that is the right way to go. I mean you could write a letter, an opinion about what your policy thinking is about what you want to do with the cemetery and the park being close together as a way of responding- the mayor could do that or something. But I don't think having a commission about just that is- I don't know what that would bring in response. O'Donnell/What it brings Karen is that we have group that speaks for Parks and Rec and we have to have a group that speaks for that cemetery. It is an individual thing and we all become involved in it and I am questioning that... Kubby/I just don't think that is true I think that Parks and Rec- cemetery is under Parks and Rec and that the Parks and Rec commission has made recommendations to us about Oakland cemetery and this expansion and they can speak to this. The citizens and council can direct them to look at certain things and the community can go to Parks and Rec commission meetings to talk to about the cemetery. That is where it is currently and I think that is where it should be. O'Donnell/That is where we disagree. You think the cemetery should be under Parks and Rec and I disagree. Lehman/Okay. Vanderhoef/I have nothing. Thornberry/You know three of use gave out flowers at that road race on Sunday and Dee was there fleezing because he forgot his gloves and Ernie was there at like 7:30 in the morning and lasted as long as he could and I was there for a while. There were a lot of runners and they were sweating- I mean we were freezing- and they were sweating... Kubby/People need to throw up after they run a race like that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 51 (All talking) Thomberry/And the little kids that were running- it was just really great to see and they were all- you know you very seldom see runners smile but they were smiling when they finished. I thought that was kind of neat. I'll mention that tomorrow. Norton/I just wanted to mention that there was a memo in the packet from Steve summarizing some discussions by the airport subcommittee and I wanted to report for us Ernie that we expressed pretty strongly what we thought to be the council's opinion about 17/35 closing and not lurking around and being to affect the road location on the south side of the airport- perhaps in fact what could be done in the north commercial area. It keeps wanting to rear its head and I said I think we better be planning for that to be gone- it wasn't in the master plan and the council agonized quite a long time and thought we ought to just concentrate on 2 runways and get that out of there sooner rather than later. I hope that is fight. Lehman/If I remember correctly when the fellow from Ankeny indicated that the north/south runway was not- I hate to use the word that it was not necessary- but that it would be closed under the master plan- that alleviated some of the concerns about Colonial Lanes which was in the flight pattern. A number of concerns about the planes landing coming over Rienow Hall north- and I know the city staff and planning department have been operating under the assumption that that runway would be closed as we were told in the master plan. We kind of communicated that. Vanderhoef/And the FAA was very clear when we moved out of Kansas City and met with them that they are not going to fund but 2 runways so the dollars for the airport commission to commit to to keep that open is astronomical. Lehman/They felt they could raise it from the... Norton/We are going to see the south central plan pretty soon I take it? Lehman/Pretty quick yeah. Norton/So it will come up again there because that road location- I recommend you take a good look at some of those minutes of P&Z because John Dane had some very interesting comments- Vanderhoef/George Dane. Norton/... George- about the location of the road on that side and the difficulties once you get across Riverside Drive going across the sump, the flats there to get to the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 52 river. It is an interesting- and I don't want the plans for the airport to influence doing the right with that road and trail or whatever is there. Thornberry/Are you through with that particular subject? Norton/Yeah- go ahead. Thornberry/I have said that 30 and 35 is 50 degrees difference not 5 degrees- it is 50 degrees difference and that is not that difficult really to land on 30 from 35 but 35 is instrument approach into Iowa City- not that another one couldn't be made- but to get past Protein Blenders or whatever it is out there- it makes it difficult to make 30 an instrument approach arriving from the south. Norton/Technically that is liable to change anyhow isn't it Dean? Thornberry/What was that? Norton/Isn't that liable to change with global positioning and so on? Thornberry/It is and there is a GPS approach. Norton/I just think that was the council's feeling when they looked at those- and we wanted to reiterate that because every time it is down 17/35 jumps up... Thornberry/In the master plan it doesn't say that it will be closed. What it says is that it won't be funded like Dee said. And it doesn't really cost that much to maintain the existing. Now also, these runways are 150 feet wide and FAA will only maintain a runway that is 100 feet wide so what are they going to do about the other 50 feet of existing runways? They don't know yet. They don't know- the FAA doesn't know if they are going to continue 150 foot wide but if it is already there .... Norton/Well they aren't going to do anything with it but they were thinking long-range plan and this comes up in the south central plan and it will be interesting to see how it works out. I am going to ask about the fountain installation. I still can't see- the water is running everywhere but up. Champion/Right. Norton/I am kind of- let me tell you on behalf of the city- embarrassed a bit that we couldn't get that ground out so there was a puddle of water for the water to- instead of splashing like it does. And it running down toward the library as if we didn't know what drainage was. We don't look great. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 53 Vanderhoef/The engineering on it... Lehman/Oh, we don't look that bad. We have a little problem but it is like making a door that doesn't close right- adjust it. Norton/Yeah- but that is the kind of thing I raise hell with my contractor when he does that. Atkins/Raising hell is a little..we have met with the contractor and we have asked for a solution and they have given us an idea and it is turned off now because of the fleezing weather that is expected. I am fully aware of what the problem is. When you are engineering a piece of art and so there is all kinds of sensitivities that we are trying to deal with. It is going to get fixed. Norton/...art and engineering- we knew it was a delicate one. (All talking) Lehman/...next spring? Atkins/I have encouraged them and if they can get a plan through this fall I'd just as soon get it done. Norton/I also wanted to mention if you haven't taken a look at the Park and Rec minutes- it is kind of interesting the depiction of skateboarding. The possibility of some the recommendations they have given are more than one- rather than make everybody go clear across the city- and I tell you the one out their I've visited and it is really wonderful. Isn't it? They are just having a ball out there. Vanderhoef/Absolutely and there are a whole lot of young people that are leaming to skate out there in a very safe area and I am not sure that putting a central location will serve that same group of.... Norton/I don't know but we are going to hear recommendations of the Scanlon Gym- isn't that meeting on the 271h? At Scanlon Gym? Atkins/The meeting on the 27th is that public meeting by the commission to invite comments. Norton/Public meeting to hear what people say about it. I think that will some of the criticism coming they have responded and built a really nice project, got it in there, and it seems to me a really good move. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 54 Atkins/I think I mentioned to you Terry's folks built that park. They did a really good job. Champion/Really? I didn't know that. Vanderhoef/One of the comments I heard from one of the older skaters out there was that this was just great, we had everything that Cedar Rapids had, expect for one piece of equipment and that it cost this little bit of money and Cedar Rapids paid all of this for big skate park. They thought we had really done a great job of providing this for them at very little cost. Thornberry/If that is going to work I agree that Dee- and I read those minutes also- and I think the big people are taking care of the little ones. "How did you do that?" "Well, let me show you..." They are going to be proud of what they can do. They will take the little ones under their wing- but I think that too, instead of one central- might be... Norton/I was kind of intrigued and we'll hear what they have to say and the prices and so forth. But it might take the pressure off. Kubby/You might have people going across town... Thornberry/Maybe one designated more toward bicycles or whatever they were doing and..I don't know but it was interesting... (All talking) Norton/Is the rec building done down there? Are they in business- the new Park and Rec building? Atkins/I think we have a grand opening planned for November 10 or 11 something like that. Lehman/We are using it. Atkins/Yeah but we want something nicer and we will get an invitation out to you for a ribbon cutting or something. Norton/...drive the first truck out there. Norton/(muffled) Kubby/I have a couple of things: two of them are about time flames. One of them we got a note flom Eleanor that you are not ready to talk about the camping quote This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 55 unquote stuff. But do you have any kind of time frame because I know that I have been trying to follow up with constituents just to say here is when we are going to talk about it and then it didn't happen. And I just want to be able to get back to them about a potential time frame. Dilkes/When is our next- November 8 I think. I think we can shoot for that- we will do that. Thornberry/I am sorry I didn't understand... Kubby/The time frame for when we would talk... Norton/What we can do vis-a-vis camping. Kubby/I appreciate you outlining the complexity of the issue and the individual civil rights and there a whole lot of competing values going on with that issue. Dilkes/There should not be great expectations. It is a very difficult area to regulate. We are regulating non-harmful activity- sleeping- in a private vehicle that is legally parked. That is a very difficult thing to do so. Thornberry/There is a difference between sleeping and living. Lehman/Okay. Kubby/No, I have three other issues. My other time frame one is a domestic partnership issues that we talked about and knowing the time frame for heating back about that. Atkins/We have not heard back from AFSCME and we've contacted them on a couple of occasions. Kubby/Does that mean we are waiting for them to respond before we...? Atkins/We prefer to have all of the stronger ones...it makes it easier... Kubby/We got that one letter from Jane McCune stating that there was some trouble accessing the Lepic Kroeger website. I forgot... Norton/That was Marian- it wasn't Jane... Vanderhoef/No, it was in letter too. Lehman/Oh I didn't get that... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 56 (All talking) Kubby/Anyway, the person isn't important but the suggestion was important so I forgot when I had my computer on this weekend to check out the website but if we can check that out and if there is a problem to contact them and if there is not just disregard it. Norton/ Kubby/My concem was we wanted a variety of ways communicating about this property and this would be a good one. And lastly we have that stuff in our packet from Bob Bums with the request that was a real short time frame- what is happening there? Atkins/Right now I have not heard. I wrote a letter as you saw back to Bob and he spoke with I think Steve Nasby on Friday or may have even been today and nothing has really changed. What he was intending to do was to take to property tax evaded money, put it into a private escrow and create- we just have many many questions about that. It is a point total thing. He can certainly secure points in other ways and that is where I left it this aftemoon. Kubby/I was kind of frustrated with the short time frame- that he was putting us in a position but then learned that that short time frame in some ways came down from the state- that they are rewriting roles and they interrupted the regular process because there was some strangeness with the process. It was very complicated and I won't go into the details. So it was caused from external factors but that is a big issue- I am not prepared and so I am glad it has not come to us in this short time frame to make a decision on. In reviewing I really liked having the 6 month review of some of our housing projects and funding mechanisms from Steve Nasby that we got. That is a good reminder of what we are doing too. Are any of those potentials for the Burn's project? Atkins/To my knowledge no- but I will check that tomorrow and I don't think so but I will check... Kubby/So until we hear from him it is kind of... Atkins/It is his move. Kubby/The deadline he kept saying was like 4:30 on Monday. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 57 Lehman/He came to see me on Friday in a special meeting we would have had to...on Friday and met this afternoon. And because there was no information on that, no staff report, no nothing- it would be impossible to make a rational decision. O'Donnell/We have done that before. Lehman/But we have had time before. (All talking) Lehman/I have one thing that Tom Slockett approached me- he talked to Marian first- but there is a request from Culver who is I think the secretary of state about on- line voting in- Marian keep me straight on this- two communities in the state? Karr/No. It is a request for a number of communities in the state. Lehman/Anyway- he wants to know whether or not- and we can do this 2 or 3 way- whether or not we would like to have a precinct in Iowa City have on-line voting. Kubby/Parallel to regular voting. Lehman/That is correct. We can have no response in which case he will choose to do it. We can give him a response that we think it is a good idea which will be fine, or we can tell him no that we really don't want it. Now what it really amounts to is you go in and you register as you normally do, vote as you normally, and then be asked if you would like to vote on-line. This is something that some company is apparently coming up with some software that will enable voters to vote on-line and I suppose conceivable down the trail you could vote from home on your computer. O'Donnell/How many times? Lehman/This is a million questions about this that are not answered... Kubby/That is what the experiment is for... (All talking) O'Donnell/I think hackers can figure out how to... Lehman/I don't have any idea and this is one of the reasons they want to try it. Champion/This will not count as your vote this time. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 58 Lehman/Will not count- it is absolutely nothing more than an exercise... O'Donnell/This is an accuracy test? Lehman/Nothing more than if you want to vote on the computer you could go type in your name and I don't even know how it works... O'Donnell/Do we have anything to compare it to? Norton/I don't see how you would know because if people .... in other words they vote one place and then only a subset vote on-line.. Lehman/I think the only thing they are interested in is finding out how many people would be willing to do it. Thomberry/Or how many people can get it to go. Champion/With our voting turnout I would give them every opportunity possible. (All talking) Lehman/They would use for example City High precinct. You would go vote and only the vote that you voted on paper would count. After you voted they would say "would you like to vote on-line"? You could say "No I am leaving" and whatever you do online doesn't count anyway. It has nothing to do- other than if you want to go do it you can do it. Norton/But you stop at a terminal there at the voting place? Lehman/At the voting place there would be a table devoted to 3 or 4 computers... Vanderhoef/...point out some bugs that they.. Norton/We might as well do it... Champion/I think we should do it. Thornberry/Do it. As long as they don't think they can do it from the computer without actually going down to the polls. Lehman/Down the road that may occur-maybe 10 years from now everybody could vote on their computer. Champion/We could do it fight here tonight. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 59 Lehman/Yeah but it won't count here either. O'Donnell/I think 3 out of 7 could do it Connie... Champion/Oh I guess you weren't including me in that... Lehman/So you want us to go ahead and tell them to try it. Okay can you communicate that to Tom? He may can me back tomorrow morning. (All talking) Thornberry/Like Mike said, how long is it going to take hackers to figure out- if they can get into the national security computers they can vote. Lehman/That is the whole thing that they need to find out. And that is one of the reasons... O'Donnell/How will we check the accuracy? Lehman/We don't have to worry about it. That is not our job. O'Donnell/These are questions that should come up. Lehman/They certainly will and that is one of the reasons they want to do it is to see what happens. Kubby/We could ask him to come so we could ask him questions. Lehman/Yes. Thomberry/I think that building (item #10) is just awesome. Champion/Isn't that great? Lehman/Good looking too. Alright Dee Vanderhoef. Vanderhoef/I would like to know what happened with our recycle of mixed paper? I hear something about trucks but I know my garage is getting overfilled with mixed paper because I thought I would get rid of it... Lehman/ This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899 October 18, 1999 Council Work Session Page 60 Atkins/We are going to likely begin the program knowing full well that we are going to have to contract City Carton to sort at the site. The truck chassis that came in were the wrong color and we had to send them back to be painted, then another truck came in and we couldn't get it out of idle .... Norton/This is the guy that did the fountain. Atkins/It is like- I mean we normally do very well with our vendors and I can't imagine what else could go wrong with the effort so we are probably going to begin the program with one truck that has the sufficient bins and we are going to just have to put it all together and sort it at City Carton and have to pay that expense until we get enough trucks on the street to do it. Lehman/Could we get a truck that bums paper? Atkins/No- don't ask me to do that. Norton/Separating your paper. Vanderhoef/I keep my newspapers separated and I keep my cardboards separated but we were going to start taking mixed paper. And so I had mixed my white business paper with all of mY junk mail and all of that paper. Atkins/I would hope to know something in the next couple of days. We want to do something yet this fall .... (All talking) Lehman/Alright does anybody else have any paper problems? O'Donnell/I like the fountain. I think it has it's brand new glitches but I have had more positive responses on that thing. Thornberry/And a lot of negative. I have been speaking to specific organizations and they are just saying "we are tired of walking through the water down there". O'Donnell/Fine then tell them that my old idea was a garden hose and... (All talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of October 18, 1999. WS101899