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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-09-20 Transcription#3 Page 1 ITEM 3 COMMUNITY COMMENT (ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA). Lehman: This is the time reserved on the agenda for folks to address the Council on items that do not otherwise appear on tonight's agenda. If you wish to speak with the Council, give your name, address, and limit your comments to five minutes or less. Ruff: Keith Ruff, 601 S. Gilbert Street, Iowa City, Iowa. I'm here tonight to thank the Council for the money that they gave to the (can't understand). I know there are other agencies that were involved, doubly thank you for your involvement in helping us keep Iowans with disabilities abreast of their rights and their freedoms. Thank you very much. Lehman: Okay, thank you. That was a really, really neat celebration. I enjoyed being there, and I think, Regenia, you were there. Bailey: It was a great day! Lehman: It really was! It really was, and thank you for coming tonight. Ruff: Thank you. Brisben: My name is Joseph Brisben. I live at 726 Clark Street in Iowa City, and I work at BDF Investments in Coralville. I'm here to urge my fellow citizens to vote for public power. I used to work with a man who started a brokerage firm in 1939 during the depths of the Depression. He was in the habit of saying that every night at 5:00, one of the company's most important assets walked out the door. Of course, he was referring to his employees. Well, every night at bedtime, one of MidAmerican's most important assets turns out the lights and goes to bed. Of course, I'm referring to its customers. Only MidAmerican Energy considers us as "profit centers." Now that I've laid out the conflict, let me set the stage. MidAmerican Energy once was a garden-variety electrical utility that had shareholders and offered dividends. Then through a series of financial maneuvers, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. The leading light and majority shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway is Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the world. He made his fortune primarily in insurance, soft drinks, and fast'food restaurants. He's known in the investment world as the "oracle of Omaha." Berkshire Hathaway does not offer a dividend. Instead, the company prefers to retain earnings, so that it can, as they say in the business world, grow its assets. For the (can't understand) the stocks not easy to purchase. As of the close of business this afternoon, the price of the company's "A" shares was $81,600. Its "B" shares, which were created to allow smaller investors to buy them, closed this afternoon at $2,713. By contrast, most American stocks trade between $1 and $100 a share. Last May, Berkshire Hathaway, through MidAmerican Energy, purchased PacifiCorp for $9.4 This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. #3 Page 2 billion. Now, PacifiCorp serves 1.6 million household in the Pacific Northwest, which is about the same number of customers MidAmerican Energy serves in the Midwest. At the time of the sale, James Armstrong, President of Henry R. Armstrong, which owns $80 million of Berkshire Hathaway stock, said the funds MidAmerican Energy invested in PacifiCorp would rise from a 2% return to a 10% return. The fact is that in Berkshire Hathaway's Annual and Quarterly reports, and in Warren Buffett's public statement, there is no mention of service to the public good or taking care of customers. There is just talk of return on investment. The question remains, is such an attitude fair to the citizens of Iowa City. Instead of going farther into the business of Berkshire Hathaway and MidAmerican Energy, let me tell you what those businesses are doing to us, those important assets in Iowa City. Citizens for Public Power has pointed out that Iowa City residents and businesses currently pay 40 and 60% more, respectively, for electricity than the average rate paid in Iowa's 136 cities that have municipal electrical utilities. Is that fair? Is there anyone in this room who does not want to get the best possible service for the best possible price? Please don't misunderstand me. There's nothing wrong with making a profit. I wish all businesses could do it. However, the greed of Berkshire Hathaway and MidAmerican Energy has put the balance between the public, between profit and service, off kilter. Wouldn't you like to restore it? If your answers are as I expect, then there's no reason why voters should not vote "yes" for public power on November 8th. If the "yes" votes carry the election, that will enable you, our City Council, to decide whether to establish a municipal electrical system. More over, you will go through a reasonable process that's laid out by law, that would include appointing a knowledgeable board of trustees, developing a sound business plan, and working with City officials to prepare a case and submit it to the Iowa Utilities Board. The IUB will determine if the change is in the public's interest and a reasonable price for acquiring Iowa City's electrical system from MidAmerican Energy. I know you're familiar with the estimates of $2.46, the $3.34 million a year in annual savings that Latham and Associates estimates our citizens will save with a municipal public power. That amounts to $61.5 to $83.6 million over 25 years, with all costs of acquisition and operation taken into account. Berkshire Hathaway is also well aware of these figures and would like to retain them as earnings, to line the pockets of Warren Buffett and the company's shareholders. Wouldn't you rather keep this money in Iowa City? Lehman: You need to wrap it up, Joe. Brisben: Our community already operates a successful water utility system, one of the best anywhere, and I'm certain we could do the same for the electrical service. Thank you. Lehman: Thank you. Any other public comment? Okay, moving on. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. #4 Page 3 ITEM 4 PLANNING AND ZONING MATTERS. a. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR OCTOBER 5, ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 14 ENTITLED "UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT CODE," BY: REPEALING CHAPTERS 4, 6, AND 9, AND REPLACING THEM WITH THE NEW TITLE 14 ZONING CODE, AMENDING PORTIONS OF CHAPTERS 1 AND 5, RENUMBERING CHAPTERS 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, AND 11, AND REPEALING CHAPTER 12. Bailey: Move to set the public hearing. Vanderhoef: Second. Lehman: Moved by Bailey; seconded by Vanderhoef. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. #5 Page 4 ITEM 5 CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 3, ENTITLED "CITY FINANCES, TAXATION AND FEES" CHAPTER 4, ENTITLED "SCHEDULE OF FEES, RATES, CHARGES, BONDS, FINE AND PENALTIES," SECTION 9, ENTITLED "VIOLATION OF VARIOUS CODE SECTIONS," TO MAKE THE FINE FOR LITTERING THE SAME AS THE FINE UNDER THE STATE CODE. (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Vanderhoef: Move to consider the ordinance. Bailey: Second. Lehman: Moved by Vanderhoef; seconded by Bailey. Discussion? Champion: Are we voting to make all the fines $35? Okay, that wasn't clear to me. Bailey: How often do we actually enforce the littering ordinance? Lehman: (laughing) You go downtown on Friday morning, and you'd think we didn't at all. Atkins: I'm sorry. I can't answer that. Dilkes: Well, you have to see .... Bailey: ...you have to see somebody drop something. Dilkes: Can't just see the trash in front. Lehman: Other discussion? Roll call. Motion carries. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. #6 Page 5 ITEM 6 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE CALL TO ARTISTS FOR TWO PUBLIC ART PROJECTS; ONE EACH IN THE KICKER'S SOCCER PARK AND THE SYCAMORE GREENWAY TRAIL. Champion: Move the resolution. Bailey: Second. Lehman: Moved by Champion; seconded by Bailey. Discussion? Elliott: As I said last night, I'll be voting against this. I value public art, and all it means to the community. The Public Arts Committee has done an awfully good job, and Iowa City is better for it, but we, meaning me and some other people, feel the need very much to have our public safety as the number one priority, and to me, public safety is much, much higher priority than public art. I will be voting against it. Champion: Well, I will... Elliott: By the way, this is $35,000 each, $70,000, which within the last year, debating on which budget it comes from, this is something like $100,000 in public art. Champion: Well, I will support it. It's not the same money we'd be using for firefighters. Lehman: I think that's an important distinction, Connie. The funding for this particular item is from, general obligation debt, does not come out of the General Fund and if we did not fund these items, we would not have a nickel more to spend for public safety. I agree with Bob, public safety is a high priority, but these two do not conflict in my opinion. Other discussion? Roll call. Motion carries 6 to 1; Elliott voting in the negative. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. #7 Page 6 ITEM 7 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION REJECTING BIDS RECEIVED ON SEPTEMBER 8,K 2005 FOR THE JC DOGPAC DOG PARK PROJECT. Vanderhoef: Move the resolution. Bailey: Move the resolution; second. Lehman: Moved by Vanderhoef; seconded by Bailey. Discussion? We are, for the public's information, we are rejecting the bids because they were insignificantly higher, actually 32% higher, than the engineer's estimate. Vanderhoef: And we only had one bid. So, perhaps a bidding season later will be more advantageous. Lehman: Yeah, although if the one bid had been a good bid, we'd have taken it. Vanderhoefi Sure. Lehman: Roll call. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. #13 Page 7 ITEM 13 CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION. Elliott: Boy, this is quick! I hope my colleagues will have patience with me because I'm in mourning, my computer died, and it's going to be several days before resurrection. (laughter) I'm having problems. Secondly, I don't know if this shows on the TV camera. ! usually forget the TV cameras are here, but the Press-Citizen has a cartoonist named Bob Patton, I think his name is, and he writes, he does a cartoon, and several times now, he's had the City Council on there, and you look, the guy is good and he's funny! ! never, as a kid growing up, thought I'd be important enough to have somebody put caricature of me, but these are funny cartoons, and Bob Patton needs to be congratulated because he does a terrific job. Aren't we funny looking? (laughter) Champion: That is really good. Lehman: Connie? Champion: I think I had mine last night. Lehman: You did? Mike? O'Donnell: I mentioned last night, I talked to Cedar Valley Area Development about getting approximately 40 to 50 bicycles to our Mayor's Youth Program. I spoke to them today, and I'll be calling you tomorrow to give you that number. We'll have to probably make arrangements to get that. The Mayor's Youth Program repairs bicycles and sells them. This is such a great thing, but I'll call you tomorrow. Lehman: Dee? Vanderhoef: Well, I will just report that it was a very good meeting in Des Moines of Iowa League of Cities this past week. There was something there for everyone. I came home with three new ideas. You heard a couple of them last night, things to investigate that may be useful for our city, and just to remind all of you that next year, Iowa League of Cities will be in Coralville at the new hotel. So, I'm hoping we'll have a big contingent of councilors who attend that convention. That's it. Wilburn: This past week I've been wondering and giving some thought to lessons that we might take away and explore from the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and the experiences that we might be able to apply here in our community. You know, I'm real confident in our local EMS personnel and their ability to respond to whatever natural disaster or other disaster that might occur here, be it tornado or straight line winds or whatever, but more what I'm thinking about are what are some ways that we might be able to explore, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. //13 Page 8 increasing our citizens' awareness, preparedness to really ready themselves, sustain themselves, for whatever period of time it would take for our local EMS people to start getting, you know, things rolling in the city here, and I, you know, it's more questions that come to mind than anything else, and I'm wondering if Council might be in exploring this with me, and City staff, and I'm just wondering are there things that 'we can do to help, just make it regular education information, systematic. You know, I think...I look at the schools, and as a parent, and every parent every year, you get a form that comes home and you have to fill out what to do in the event of inclement weather, you know, who's okay for your child to go with, but...can we partner with the schools to, whether it's a checklist on things to prepare yourself, to have ready, or is there a marketing campaign that we could put forth. In recent years, it's become real familiar when daylight savings time comes to check your smoke detector. Those type of things that we can try and help people to prepare themselves, rather than, you know, tornado season comes around and the papers put out "do this in a tornado" and have a supplement. Is there something we can do to make it systematic, and again, during those, you know, four days, 72 hours after, you know, something were to happen here in our community, that people can... I think it would help reduce some anxiety, and give people a direction during those times, so that while they're waiting and get educated on what is going to be happening, this is what I can do and hold on to, so I'm just wondering if there's any interest in exploring that, or... ? Vanderhoef: I'd like to hear the EMS people come, those who have been doing planning for disasters, and see where they are, and then your educational pieces, maybe we can help forward some of those, and if they don't have complete ones, why we can help... Wilburn: And, it's yeah, on educating the public about that is a good thing, but again it's more, you know, I'm confident that they haYe the pieces to react and respond, but what can this family do, you know, like last week, my kids are watching some special on TV about disasters, and they were asking me what things we had, and I pointed out some things that we did have in the basement, and I was thinking about some things we didn't have, but you know, questions about what would happen, and there are some things, you know, I just don't know what the response would be, or what people know, or don't know. O'Donnell: Russ, I'm on the Emergency Management Commission, and we do have periodic drills, and that's a very good point that I can, at the next meeting I'll gather some literature and bring it to one of our work sessions. That's a good point. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. //13 Page 9 Elliott: I agree, Ross. I've been thinking, because we are on the Council, that it made so abundantly clear how responsible the authorities are, because people died because local, state, and national authorities were not prepared as well as many of us thought they should be. Lehman: They also died because they didn't leave when the local folks told them to leave, and offered to give them a ride. Elliott: But, the things weren't handled the way they should have been, and I think it's an awesome responsibility. I think we really need to be assured that we're on top of things. Wilburn: Well, it's not a blame-game thing. It's more, how can we empower the public to be ready to prepare themselves, and we'll make sure that the other piece, the emergency responses, are put in place. Lehman: You'll get us that stuff, Mike? O'Donnell: What's that? Lehman: You'll get the information? Bailey: I just want to point out, I like your comment about 'I think it will reduce stress,' for a lot of people, particularly children. I mean, I think that they look and say 'okay, what will happen?' and we can say 'this will happen and this is our plan.' And I think that that creates a sense of security, especially for kids. Wilburn: Well, in addition to my bringing that material, I'm wondering if we could direct the City Manager to do some exploration with staff, just kind of jot some thoughts together and, I mean, I'm not looking at this as something that's going to happen in a month, but can we start gearing up towards...? Atkins: That's fine. O'Donnell: Maybe we could see what other cities are doing, if they .... Wilburn: Great! Lehman: Okay. Bailey: I just wanted to mention, on October 11th (can't understand) primary day; just a reminder for that. That Richard Florida will be' at Hancher, and this is a ticketed event - tickets are free. The public is welcome, and I would say, the public is encouraged to come, and you can get tickets at the Convention and Visitors Bureau by calling and asking for Jennifer, and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. #13 Page 10 she can arrange for you to get tickets, and I also have tickets that I will bring Monday night for those of you who are interested in attending, on October 11th. The even starts at 5:30; I think Richard Florida's talk begins at 7:00. So, I just wanted to make a plug for that. Vote first, and then come to the Richard Florida. (laughter) Lehman: Okay. Dee, don't you have something going on this weekend? Why don't you tell us just a little bit about it? Vanderhoef: Okay. Lehman: It's kind of a big deal! Vanderhoef: It is a big deal. Lehman: Of course it is! Vanderhoef: I had mentioned it before, so I thought well maybe I won't mention it again, but... Lehman: Time is at hand! Vanderhoef: We have time tonight, I guess. The National League of Cities Policy and Advocacy Committee, Steering Committee, for Transportation infrastructure and services will be here in Iowa City. The maximum of this, size of this community, is 40 people from all over the nation. We've got them Florida to Alaska to California, and every place in between on this committee. It appears we're going to have about 27, 28 of those people here. We'll be meeting all day Friday in the Public Library. It's done in round-table discussion with experts brought in for our study issues. Our study issues this year are freight, transportation of freight, throughout the United States, and that would include whether it be air freight, truck freight, train, ships, how they come in and out of the ports, responsibilities for getting that freight moved. We're also looking at the innovative ways to replace the federal gas tax. Federal gas tax goes into our federal transportation trust fund, and that's the money that comes back to our communities that helps us build our roads, our trails, our special infrastructure kinds of needs like that. Since the 80's, the gas tax revenue has gone down, primarily because of better efficiency of vehicles, and at the same time, our infrastructure costs to build streets and roads is going up. So, we're looking at innovative ways to change the structure for funding for these necessary infrastructures that you and I always look at, and then, certainly, we will take a stand at some point in time, and I don't really know how to gauge the committee this time on whether we will push for the federal legislatures to increase the federal gas tax. Certainly, right now at the price of gas, I don't think there's a single legislator that is This represe:~ts only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. #13 Page 11 going to look at that, and they certainly haven't looked at it for a number of years. So, finding alternatives is better, and the third thing we'll be looking at is how to do innovative funding for very large projects, whether it be tolls on roads, or what it might be, but there's a series of them out there. So, it's interesting. You may not speak, but it's an open meeting, so if you would choose to come and sit along the edges of the circle, anyone can come in and listen anytime they want to come. Lehman: Thank you, Dee. On the 28th of September, which is a week from tomorrow morning, at 7:00 is the Annual Human Rights Breakfast, which will be, again, at the IMU, 7:00 in the morning. Certainly, would like to ~ encourage as many Council people as possible to be there. As all of us are aware, Heather Shank has retired from the head position for that, and I think this would be a wonderful opportunity for us, who haven't had an opportunity, to thank Heather and say 'so long' to her, so certainly would encourage everyone to be there who possibly can be. Dale? Helling: The time is 7:30. Lehman: 7:30? Helling: Yeah. Lehman: Well, my friends all are late anyway, so ifI tell them...(laughter)...no! 7:30, okay. Helling: Also, just put out a news release today, announcing Stephanie Bowers is the new Human Rights Coordinator, and hopefully she will be able to be there Wednesday morning, as well, so people would have a chance to meet her. Lehman: Okay, anyway, that's a really neat event, and I certainly encourage folks to attend. Steve? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005. #14 Page 12 ITEM 14 REPORT ON ITEMS FROM CITY STAFF. Atkins: Nothing, sir. Lehman: Eleanor? Marian? Is there a motion to adjourn? Atkins: Ernie? Lehman: Yes? Oh, why certainly you may. Schreiber: I just wanted to remind everybody about tomorrow night, and remind the public as well that we are having a UISG and an AARP co-sponsored "Meet the Police Chief" at the Library at 7:00, and it would be fantastic to see a lot of community members there because I know there's going to be plenty of students who are interested in what Police Chief Hargadine has to say, so come on out at 7:00 at the Library tomorrow. Lehman: All right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of September 20, 2005.