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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-01-25 TranscriptionJanuary 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 1 January 25, 2000 Council Work Session 7:00 PM Council: Lehman, Vanderhoef, O'Donnell, Kanner, Wilburn, Pfab, Champion. Staff: Atkins, O'Malley, Karr, Craig, Kopping, Helling, O'Neil, Trueblood, Franklin. Airport Commission Lehman: We are going to be hearing a number of different reports tonight and it is going to be very time consuming. Each of these are scheduled for approximately 15 minutes and I would like very much to try to keep that on schedule as much as we can due to the fact that it is going to go till 10:00 even if we do. So, those folks- I may repeat this a couple of times because everybody is not here- you have 15 minutes and I would appreciate it if you expect comments or comments or questions from council that you reserve part of those 15 minutes for those comments and questions. Mascari: You bet. Absolutely. For those new members of the Council my name is Rick Mascari. I am the chair of the Airport Commission and I assume you had an oppoaunity to review the capital improvement projects that we proposed and I am here to answer any questions that you might have. Lehman: Now that is the quickest report I have ever heard. Mascari: How is that? Lehman: Could you briefly fill in Council? Mascari: Sure. Lehman: The older Council people know- the ones who have been here longer know what the Noah Commercial is. Champion: Older and (can't hear). Lehman: ...sketch what it is and what we would like to do there? Mascari: Sure. There is approximately 55 acres of property on the north pan of the airport that will- that is not needed for aviation purposes. And we can develop this area and lease out the propeay and using these lease payments we can actually make the airpoa self sufficient. And so, in order to do this what we are doing is asking for the funds to construct the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 2 infrastructure and then the lease payments then will enable us to pay these funds back to the city council. And we figure it will be probably fight around a 20 year payback. Champion: Steve, is that the same thing you were talking about last night? Mascari: Yes. Lehman: We also on the capital improvement project there is a item for replacing the fuel tanks. Mascari: That is correct. The fuel tanks that are in the ground at Iowa City Airport are over 50 years old. Although they are meeting all codes and they have been tested annually, we feel that's a good time for us to go ahead and replace those with new tanks. Again, these fees will then- will be increased and we will be able to pay this back to the City Council over a period of time. Letunan: That would be the same as when we build a hanger? Mascari: That is exactly correct. Lehman: That would be paid back. Mascari: Paid back as well. Lehman: Will the fuel flowage fee (can't hear)? Mascari: That is correct. Right now part of the lease that we are getting from the fixed base operator who is- uses the fuel farm- pay the flowage fee and when we own the new fuel farm then the flowage fee will then increase and then we will use the increased amount to pay back the City Council for the loan for the fuel farm. Atkins: Council Members, I want you to note under that project however that we are proposing general obligation bond financing. That doesn't affect our support for the project and our recommendations to you. But we can only stretch the use of reserves for those projects so much. And the principles remain basically the same. We borrow, we pay it back. Lehman: Right, but I think it is important that the Airport Commission and the Council understand each other that certain expenses down there are to be paid back to the city. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 3 Atkins: Yes. Mascafi: That is correct. The third item is a beacon tower painting that hasn't been painted in years. Years and years. And since with the upcoming 2001 Fly Iowa we think it would be great thing to do to dress up the airport to have that painted. And the state of Iowa is going to fund 80% of that so we are looking for a 20% spot which would be about $6000. And then the fourth item of course I think you are all familiar with is the master plan. And again, that is a 90/10 split where the FAA will reimburse 90%. Kanner: Rick? Steven Kanner. Mascafi: Hi Steve. Kanner: Nice to meet you. Mascafi: You too. Kanner: We are from our general levy we are kicking in about $81,000. Mascari: For the master plan? Kanner: No, to the operating budget. Mascari: That is correct. Karmer: Okay. And did I hear you correctly that you hope that will be down to 0 with revenue from development on the north side road? Mascari: That is correct. Right now we are- right now we are running fight around 75% of the total costs of operating the airport is being recovered by our leases and such that we have fight now currently. With the noah commercial area we expect to do better than the 25% short coming that we are having right now. Kanner: What would your goal be for getting 0 subsidy from the city council? Mascari: My goal for..? Rephrase that. Kanner: Well, you said that eventually you'd get that down to 0. What year would be the goal to get that to 07 Mascari: Well, right now we are getting quite a few responses from the community as to when the areas from the north commercial area will available to be This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 4 leased. At this time. We haven't done any advertising, just strictly by word of mouth. So we think that once the infrastructure is in place we think that we would be able to get the lots leased here pretty quickly, in which time we can start recouping the funds to make ourselves self sufficient. Am I making sense? Vanderhoef: But you did say 20 years probably to pay all off that infrastructure that we put in up front just for that? Mascari: Well, of course- that is correct. I like thinking like as if we are going to a bank and we are going to go ahead and borrow the money to go ahead and build a project and then pay the bank back over a 20-year payoff. And so using these numbers we think that we will need something like 35 or 40% of the land developed- I am sorry, the developed land- to be leased so that we will have enough funds to not only become self sufficient to become solvent but also to pay back- make our payments back to the bank. Am I making sense? Lehman: Well I think also (can't hear) the north commercial area, items such as the painting of the tower or whatever would not again appear in the capital improvements. Mascari: That is exactly correct. Lehman: It strictly would be you take in the cash, you've got a cash flow and you operate the- Mascari: To go ahead and do that. That is exactly right. Plus, don't forget too that anything that comes in there is going to be jobs, there is going to be a tax base, there is property tax and things like that will all be collected to the city so it is a win-win situation. Champion: Sounds good. Mascari: Yep. Yes, sir. Pfab: I have a question. Mascari: Sure. Pfab: Pardon me. Is there hope to raise enough money to keep that one runway? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 5 Mascari: I think the runway issue has been settled. Well, we have gotten direction from the City Council as to what to do with the runway and I think that is what we are going to do. P fab: Okay. Wilburn: I have a question about the underground tank replacement? The- I know that has to be done. Where- Steve mentioned that he didn't think that you all had done any soil study or anything like that. Mascari: Oh no. That is done annually. Yes absolutely. Currently, we don't own the tanks. They are owned by the fixed base operator that is leasing the property from us. And as part of their lease they are required to have those tanks inspected annually. And plus they have insurance on them too and their insurance company wants to make sure they are inspected as well. Wilburn: And are they leaking? Mascari: No, not at all. Wilburn: I know they are old, they have been down there for awhile. Will city staff be removing those? Will someone with special training? Mascari: This is something that we are trying to work out as part of- the current lease with the FBO expires in 2 years and this is the one avenue or one option that we are looking at. Atkins: I can't imagine city staff being involved in- there is a body of expertise, I think, that is going to have to be used. Lehman: I suspect if they are not leaking it doesn't take a great deal of expertise to take those tanks out? Mascari: I agree. Lehman: I think that is pretty simple. Wilbum: Well, to remove them in a fashion that won't cause them to leak if they are so old. Lehman: I think they will empty them first. Mascari: Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 6 O'Dormell: You can never empty them all of the way though. Kanner: Rick? Mascari: Yes? Kanner: You said the tanks could continue to last if they weren't removed. How much longer could they last in your estimation? Mascari: It is anybody's guess Steven. We don't know. You know, they have been lined with fiber glass and what we are concerned with is that the steel shell might start to rust or rot and then what happens is naturally the fiber glass will start to protrude out the hole and then at that moment that fiber glass area would become weak and then it might spring a leak. We don't know. So, you know, we think that after 50 years it is time. O'Donnell: It is time. Lehman: You really can't take a chance anymore. Mascari: I am sorry? Lehman: You can't afford to wait much longer. Kanner: Why can't this company be responsible for putting in the new tanks? The ones that own the current ones? Mascari: We feel that it would be in the best interest of the city if we own the tanks and then lease them to the FBO, to the fixed base operator. We think that would be the best way to go because that way we have control over the fuel. And, if in case for some reason the current fixed base operator does not renew his lease we can go ahead and go to somebody else and still have the tanks. That is pan of the- that is part of what we can lease to them. Kanner: Have they been approached if they want to contribute to that? Mascari: Oh sure. We have been negotiating with them a lot. Absolutely. And they have agreed in part to do- to help us out in some ways in regard to the fuel farm but we think that if they remove the tanks that are in the ground that would probably be enough that we would like to get from them. I mean, it is their tanks but it is our ground. So we want to make sure that they are out. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 7 Kanner: One other thing. Mascari: Sure. Kanner: There is a nice meeting room that is being set up there. What are the rules about who can use that meeting room and what community groups can use it? It seems that it is a good asset for- it is a retreat type place. Mascari: I am glad that you brought that up. I wasn't going to mention it being in the budget thing and we are in a time constraint but I am glad that you brought it up. Right now that room is currently being leased as part of the FBO's current lease which expires in 2 years. But they have been working with us very closely and I think we shouldn't have any problems using that room for a meeting if anybody- any body of the city would like to use it. I don't think there would be a problem there at all. But it is not completely done yet. We have furniture and such ordered and we have a platform on top of the roof there that has to be installed yet and once it is all done we would like to invite all of you down to come see it. Kanner: I didn't follow you. I thought this was under the control of the Airport Commission- that room? You are saying it is not under the control, it is under the control of some private entity and that we have to go to them if we want to use it. Didn't the city just put in a lot of money into refurbishing this with the idea that it would be available to different community groups? Mascari: We realize that their lease will be expiring in 2 years. Currently their lease includes that upper building- that building. However, we feel that when their lease expires we will negotiate that upper room and I think we will be able to have it more available to us at our discretion. Kanner: How much money did we put into that from the city? Mascari: I believe the total cost was $700,000. Kanner: For refurbishing the whole part? Mascari: That is correct. Kanner: Okay. Mascari: Are there any other questions? 15 minutes? Did that do it? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 8 Champions: Thanks. Lehman: Thank you sir. Mascari: You bet. Have a great day. Champion: You too. Lehman: The Library Board if they get an early start can get 2 extra minutes. Library Board Martin: That is the best offer I have had all day Emie. Slow day. Martin: That is for sure. My name is Mark Martin. I am current president of the Board of Trustees of the Iowa City Public Library. And I want to thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight regarding our budget needs in the Fiscal year 2001. Before we talk about that budget I would just like to reflect a bit upon what we have been doing, to keep you up to date. Recently through our capital improvements budget we have replaced the computer system in 1999 and that enables us to offer many more on-line customer service features including remote access to the library catalog over the World Wide Web and the ability to renew and to hold items on- line, which has been very well received. And as pan of this year's budget we hired staff to perform work previously done under contract- that is general cleaning and maintenance of the building. And this has resulted in a cleaner and safer facility and more staff available to help with emergency needs. Also at the beginning of the year we were able to improve our wage scale for temporary workers and are better able now to recruit and retain staff and we want to thank you for approving those funds for those items last year. I think you will be interested to know that the library continues to post very high use numbers. Our 6 month statistics show- have just been prepared and it appears that we will see another year with in excess of 600,000 visitors and 1.1 million check outs. Since July 1 st we have sponsored or co-sponsored 20 adult programs and 140 children's programs at the library with attendance of almost 10,000. And also over 500 meetings of non profit groups have taken place in our meeting rooms. We have tried to respond in positive ways to citizen concerns about access to the library. The two remote book drops which you may recall have been installed on the west side and the east side about 15 months ago now account for about 10% of all return material and we are also experimenting with a park and read program three days a week This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 9 which has been very well received. And we are hopeful that we have the opportunity to expand that in the future. Looking at the fiscal year 2001 budget the City Manager has recommended the budget request that was developed by the staff and the board at several of our meetings. It reflects the priorities of our new strategic plan entitled Blueprint for the New Millennium, which was developed by a citizen's committee and adopted by the board last summer. If you would approve our fiscal year 2001 budget we will be able to improve children's programming next year, which is one of the major goal of the new strategic plan. And to implement some customer service initiatives such as acceptable of credit cards to pay library fines. Our library materials budget will increase over 5%, with the increase being split between adult, children's and on-line electronic resource material. This allows us to maintain an up-to-date collection of new materials as well as standard titles in a variety of formats. Those who predict that folks will soon be getting everything that they need off of a computer have not visited the library recently. Last Sunday we checked out over 2500 items from the collection in 4 hours and 2 weeks before that on January 9th we checked out over 3000 items on Sunday. As we look at the information that has been provided to us we are very pleased to see that the City Manager has set aside $100,000 in the Fiscal year 2003 budget to accommodate the personnel of an expanded central library. As you know, we have been actively preparing a presentation for you with an architect developing plans and cost estimates for the westward expansion of the downtown facility. And we have requested a direct meeting with you on February 14th for presentation of those plans. I want to tell you that I have seen some of the working documents and I do believe you will be very excited about what the architects have done and find it a worthy addition to the downtown of Iowa City. I do appreciate the opportunity to share with you and those are the primary things that I wish to present but I am certainly willing to tackle any questions that you may have with the library at this point. Kanner: I think it is amazing what the library does in that small amount of space and I salute you for that. You have a number of, I don't know what you call them, outreach places where you place books and you service. First, can you tell me how many there are of those? I know for instance that in the county prison there is a library and at the senior center- how many total and do you foresee any expansion in that in the number of books and also in personnel outreach perhaps? Martin: You may see that my worthy director has jumped up to assist me with some of the answers. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 10 Craig: I knew he wouldn't have those numbers off the top of his head and I hope I do. We have a total of between 17 and 20. It varies over time and a low of 17 a high of 20. I think fight now we have 18 or 19 out reach collections. The biggest one is at the county jail because they set aside a considerable amount of space for that and also give us special funding each year to buy materials for those collections. Our other collections are much smaller. They are stocked primarily with gift material things we get as gifts and then we select to put in these out reach collections because there is no control over them. So, if items walk away they just walk away. We do spend materials money to purchase items for the two collections at the neighborhood centers particularly so they have up-to-date reference and homework type matefials and some new children's materials. Karmer: Are there any plans to expand personnel into those programs at all in any way? I think that might be something that would be a boost. Craig: There is no- there are no current plans to do that. It is an area that we expanded staff back when we passes the library levy the last time we added a significant number of staff to the library. We did add staff in that area both for children's and adult what we call outreach. Martin: The board is going to begin addressing some additional outreach strategies this week at its meeting. We are going to be talking about the cost factors involved in the book mobile operation. We have also asked the staff to prepare information regarding satellite locations for providing library services. We are hopeful of beginning a serious discussion with members of the community who have an interest in branch libraries looking toward a strategy that might move us into the future with some significant way of planning to- planning for branch libraries after we have achieved the space expansion we need in the downtown area. We are certainly wanting to move in these directions and be sensitive to the needs that are expressed to HS. Lehman: Any other comments or questions? Thank you very much. Martin: Thank you. Champion: A credit card to handle book fines. What is the biggest fine? What is the average fine? Craig: I don't know what the average fine is. I would say most of them run, you know, between $2.50 and $10.00. I work the search desk on Sunday and just at one of the checkout stations and I had three different people say to me "do you accept credit cards?". It is just a modern thing that that is the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page way that some- they don't carry money. And they don't carry checks. You know, I am sort of old fashioned- well we take checks. No, all I have is a credit card. I guess you could just carry it around and you don't need a wallet, I don't know. O'Donnell: I have never heard that. That is incredible. Craig: I am old fashioned. But they had their library card. Vanderhoef: What percent do you expect to have to pay then to the credit card company for that service? Craig: I can't remember exactly but we hope to negotiate. Right now we have a pretty good deal with the bank that works with the foundation because we do accept credit cards for donations. And we are hoping to be able to replicate that fee which I am not- I can't remember what it is. But it is lower than usual. And we may establish a policy that we won't accept credit cards for amounts under a certain amount. Vanderhoef: Either that or like some businesses do, if you use a credit card there is an automatic charge for using it. Craig: We haven't set up those procedures yet. Lehman: Is that legal now? Champion: Gosh, I can't even imagine. Lehman: When we first started credit cards we signed an agreement... Atkins: Parks & Recreation, we do it. Lehman: You add a fee on? Atkins: Terry does it at Parks and Rec. He could tell you more about it. Lehman: Okay, thank you. Wilburn: As you develop materials related and information related to book mobile it would be helpful as soon as you or the board approves some of that to have some of that still- I am always referring people to library trustees or to staff to contact with questions that come in. It would help me in formulating my own answers when people are having philosophical This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 12 disagreements about whether or not the library should be doing CDs and videos and so forth- it would be helpful. Martin: I would be very happy to get that to you. Our hope is, actually to form a work group in looking at the outreach area that will include board members and citizens and will probably have some- well not probably, it will have- some public meetings to invite folks to come and express their concerns and that will be another good source of information. Parks and Recreation Commission Pruess: Hello, my name is Rex Pruess and I am vice chair of the Parks and Recreation commission, and our chair Matt Pacha had a prior engagement so he could not be here this evening so he asked that I represent him in the commission. Also here tonight are Craig Gustaveson and Bruce Maurer I think is going to join us here later. I promised him we would not be ahead of schedule. I am sure he will hold me accountable for that. First I would like to start by thanking City Council for the opportunity and I'd also like to thank you and City Manager for your past support. We really appreciate it. As you can probably guess the primary issue of concern deals with the great strides we have made in recent years with regard to parkland acquisition and trail construction. That requires additional personnel and equipment to keep up with the development and maintenance of these areas. In a memo from the Parks and Recreation director to the City Manager dated December 13, 1999, which perhaps you have seen, you will note the following: over the past ten to twelve years we have increased our parkland inventory by nearly 700 acres. That is a 112% increase. Nearly 400 of these acres have been acquired in just the past 5 to 6 years. Over the past 5 to 6 years we have been lucky to add 10.8 miles of trails, 7.6 of which require snow removal. Another 20 miles of trail are planned in the next few years. In the past 10 years 2 additional full-time maintenance workers, a 22% increase, have been approved. We thank you for that. Also over the past 10 years we have added significantly to our seasonal temporary work force. But, the total still represents a 42% increase compared to the 112% increase in parkland- and that does not include our trails. We have added and or redeveloped several high maintenance areas including the new Kickers Soccer Park, the reconstructed Napoleon Park Girls Softball Complex, and major improvements to both the City Park Boys Baseball Complex and the Mercer Park Babe Ruth Baseball Softball Complex. We now have approximately 600 acres of natural areas awaiting development and/or needing better care. Our budget request for next Fiscal year include one new full time position and four permanent part time positions. Only one of these requests, a (can't hear) custodian for the newly expanded Civic This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 13 Center appears in the City Manager's recommended budget. We realize this position is needed. We also realize that many, if not all, other City departments are in need of additional personnel. It is certainly not an easy task that you face to balance the budget in view of all of these requests and needs. However, we do want you to know the nature of our requests. Natural areas Manager, a full time position- in view of the fact that we now have about 600 acres of natural areas to develop and manage, we feel this is a very vital position. The term 'manager' may be a misnomer as we envision this person being an expert in the field of natural areas who would not only be coordinating plans and supervising development, but also planting seeds, conducting prairie bums, and operating maintenance equipment to properly care for these areas. This is a hands-on position, not a person behind a desk. Examples of these areas include Whispering Meadows Wetland Park, 17 acres. Ryerson Woods, 49 acres. Hickory Hill Park, 186 acres. Peninsula Area, over 100 acres. In the Waterworks Park area over 200 acres, as well as a number of smaller areas within our existing parks. To properly develop and care for these areas a natural areas specialist is needed and we currently do not have this expertise within our department or within the entire city organization. Another request that we have is a Recreation Program Supervisor, a half-time request. In Fiscal year '98 we added a permanent half-time program supervisor primarily to work with teenagers, youth at risk, after school programs and the new Scanlon Gymnasium. It is now evident that a full- time program supervisor is needed to coordinate these efforts. This request will result in the current half-time supervisor being elevated to full-time. Another request that we have is for a Recreation Division Custodians, half-time. This actually represents two quarter time employees which will result in making two existing 3/4 time custodians into full-time. With the popularity of ScanIon Gymnasium it has become apparent that an increase in custodial staff is needed to properly care for this facility as well as the Aquatic Center. When custodian staff hours were increased to care for the new Scanlon Gymnasium it was felt that a 25% increase in personnel from 2 to 2.5 full time would be sufficient, even though the building was growing by 45%. While we can maintain it at this level, we cannot maintain it to our expected standards without an increase. Another request we have is a Parks Division custodian, quarter time appointment. This position is needed and requested for cleaning purposes at the new park maintenance facility. Without it our parks, forestry and CPD maintenance staff will be required to perform the custodial functions. (changed tapes) ...maintenance efforts. You are probably not aware that our Director Terry Trueblood has submitted an unsolicited prioritization of personal request to the City Manager. In this he listed the additional Civic Center custodial help as his number one priority. From a manager's prospective, he is probably correct in doing so This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 14 simply because of added space and so many offices to care for. However, from us (the Parks and Recreation Commission's) perspective, our top two priorities are the Recreation Program Supervisor in order to serve the youth of our community and the Natural Areas Manager in order to properly develop and maintain our ever increasing inventory of natural parkland. Before closing, I would like to point out that there have been some inferences that are a rather large increase in parkland inventory has resulted from the Neighborhood Open Space Plan ordinance, passed several years ago. This in fact is not the case as most of our parkland additions have come from other sources. Examples of this include the Soccer Complex, the Peninsula Parkland, the Waterworks Park and others. We want to emphasize that we feel that the Neighborhood Open Space Plan ordinance is reasonable and a vital tool for the betterment of this fine community. It is a plan that I also worked on personally and greatly admire and would like to see continue as is. We would also like to remind you as other Councils in the past have been reminded, that the task force which developed this plan requested that the Council not pass that ordinance unless they were committed to providing additional resources in the future as the parkland inventory increased. We would also like to emphasize that we do not wish to become regressive. That is, we do not want to discontinue any parkland where needed or refrain from constructing the nice trails that we have. We feel we have made great progress and to not continue in this direction would be a serious mistake and a detriment to our community. Once again, I would like to thank Council and would like to thank City Manager for this time and greatly thank you for your past support. And I would also like to just take the time to ask the other commissioners if they have any brief comments or things that I may have omitted. Craig? He defers so I guess I am stuck out here by myself. That is all I have. Do you have any questions? Yes, Steven? Kanner: Thanks for coming here, appreciate your remarks. For the Natural Areas Manager is it anticipated that there would be an educational component to this person's position? Pruess: I am sure that is part of what we would intend to have done there it to have education. We haven't worked out all of the details as to exactly what the role would be but it is definitely to take care of the additional land that we are getting- that we already have and we are acquiring. And education would be part of that I am sure. Kanner: I bring that up because recently in the last month or so some of us went with Friends of Hickory Hill on a tour of Hickory Hill and we had a guide with us and it brought so much more to the area to have that guide talk This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 15 about the lay of the land and the history that was there. And I am sure other people would appreciate that of all ages. People of all ages. Pruess: I agree with that and I think that is something that is lacking in our city staff at this point in time is someone who understands the natural areas and the preservation and development of areas such as Hickory Hill and Peninsula Park is certainly another one. And Waterworks will be an example of that too. Kanner: And then for the half-time Rec Program Supervisor, is there any money- the midnight basketball money that Clinton put out there I guess with the 100,000 police officers- is there any money available for that for this kind of position? Do you know what I am talking about? Pruess: No, I do not. I would have to refer to Terry on that one. Kanner: There was national money that was put out for these kinds of programs to say that it is better to put money into this- this will be crime prevention in the long run to have kids involved recreationally. And it seems that is what you are doing that fits the bill and I was wondering if there is any federal money still available for that? Trueblood: There is no federal money that I am aware of unless maybe it is through the police athletic league or something like that. I am not aware of any- I might just let you know that about 4 or 5 years ago we tried midnight basketball at the Recreation Center. It started out just okay, no great numbers, and just dwindled away. It did not work out. But, now that we have a new gymnasium in the southeast part of town, it might be a good possibility to try it again. Kanner: Did you have federal money at that time? Trueblood: No we did not. Kanner: Can anyone check into that to see if there is anything available for any of this? Trueblood: Certainly can. Wilbum: My recollection about that money- some of it got held up with appropriation related to the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Act. So there was a battle in Congress related to a lot of other projects and some of that may not have come to provision. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 16 Pruess: I believe that is correct now that you mention it. Kanner: It is worth checking out. I think it is a worthwhile idea that you have there to expand that and think of it in terms of crime prevention perhaps. Pruess: While you are on that topic also I did neglect to mention that we hope to have the skateboard park a reality in the next year or so and we would envision this person certainly working with the youth that are involved there too. Kanner: And Terry said he might be out there on a skateboard. Trueblood: Maybe we won't build that park after all. I think you misunderstood. Kanner: Maybe I did. Lehman: You know I think this is something we looked at last year and I think last year we did add one person, did we not Steve? Atkins: We added one maintenance worker last year. Yeah. Lehman: But I think- and this is something this Council and future Councils are going to have to wrestle with because we are looking at more and more and more requests for trails. And I certainly sympathize with you when it comes to the increase in parkland. A lot of that certainly was not as result of the dedication of parkland through subdivisions, I mean, just our water plant and the Peninsula alone added what, 300 and some maybe 400 acres to that. But obviously we have to wrestle with where does the money come from. And there is no question in my mind that you folks are not asking for anything that you couldn't use. But you probably are asking for something that we probably don't have. And this is, you know, this is something that we really have to- this isn't going to get any easier for us. Atkins: Well, if you will recall in the budget message I would prefer that you have a sit-down with the commission. They are about to do, and I have a formal presentation for you later on about this, if they are going to do a comprehensive master plan for Parks and Recreation which we have been askin~ Terry to do, we cannot fight now finance the expansion that Terry is experiencing. And I am- I mean, I am pleased that he is able to do what he can do. But we are not talking about adding a neighborhood park here and there, you know, we are adding hundreds of acres and miles of trails- all of which are very, very beneficial community projects. A couple of Council members will recall that last year we talked about the Natural Areas Manager. 1 mean, a good bit of our- one of the things that I think This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 17 you will find, and if you do agree to have a sit-down with these folks, is that in the Parks and Recreation operation we really have a really very nice balance now. There used to be some friction, you know, between Parks and Recreation and I think to Terry's credit and the commission's credit there is really a very nice balance we have. We are building gymnasiums and we are also acquiring open space. You know, we are providing trails and at the same time are worded about the recreational needs ofteenagers and things such as that. And I think we don't want to lose that balance. The bottom line is we simply don't have the money. Wilburn: IfI am remembering right from one of my last meetings we were talking about that envisioning (can't hear) process was as well as do we dream big or do we (can't hear) with reality. So I think that would be helpful for us to do. Atkins: I really believe the Council needs to give them policy direction. It is unfair to them to, as you say, dream big and then not be able to finance it. Vanderhoef: I fully agree. We need to have a sit-down and I would be happy to do that. Champion: They really do need a Natural Areas Manager. I don't think there is any question about it. Vanderhoef: There is no doubt that we need another hands-on person to manage that. Atkins: It's- and I don't want to overdo this- it is even more important because of the balance of activities. There are citizens that are just going to find the natural areas component of our Parks and Recreation program most exciting, most interesting and will never play softball or play soccer. On the other hand, you are going to find other folks, you know, that is their genuine interest. And I think it is that balance we want to make sure we can- right now the balance is beginning- it is a little out of balance because we do not have the resources to support some of the land acquisitions- a good many of the land acquisitions that we have. Vanderhoef: And we have to balance this with all of the other requests for people who want new staff. And need it. Lehman: Well you painted a very good picture. Pruess: Thank you. Vanderhoef: Thank Rex. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 18 Lehman: Thank you. Well, we could start public art. Public Art Committee Franklin: I just want to take a second before Nancy comes up. Last night Dee, you raised the point of the resolution adopting and instituting this program called for a minimum of $100,000 and you were correct. That is what the resolution says is a minimum. I just wanted to get the record straight. Nancy Pulington, the chair of the committee. Kanner: Katin, and then the rest was correct that if we wanted to lower that I guess we had to have a public heating? Franklin: There was- there is a resolution that adopts the program and sets the amount and it says this resolution shall be in effect until amended or rescinded by an action of the City Council after public heating on the amendment or rescission. Kanner: Thanks. Purington: Hi, I am Nancy Purington to those of you who I haven't addressed before and I am the current chairwoman of the Public Art Advisory Committee. Later on this evening I will be somebody else but tight now. We were a little surprised that as a two year old committee it was recommended that we would- it would be considered 25% be reduced from the $100,000- $25,000. It seems a little premature. We are just out of the shoot and we are focusing all of our attention at this moment on the downtown development, working with the construction on the City Plaza and also the upcoming construction on Iowa Avenue. We did try to plan ahead so that we could invest this money wisely so when they were tearing up City Plaza we had five sculpture pads installed during the construction so that we wouldn't incur construction costs later. So, I feel we are being very- we are being frugal and careful about the money that you have given us to spend on this, on these projects. Also three- actually just two of you were Councilors when the proposal from the Chamber of Commerce was presented to you by John Beckord and for a public art program and a year and a half of research went into that through the Chamber of Commerce Public Arts Business Partnership Committee. The history of public art expenditures is really very simple. There is a formula which normally the first, the first figure that comes up is one-half of 1% of construction costs are set aside for art. And that is what the state of Iowa adopted 25 years ago. And it has not received any increase- it hasn't received any decrease- but there has been no cost of living for artists for what it takes to prepare art and present art added to that figure. In our research we looked at the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 19 country, the whole country, and looked at municipal art programs for cities about the size of Iowa City. And there are several ways they go about it. Actually, some of the smaller cities use 1% of construction costs. So, the Council looked at these figures and some years Iowa City does not build any buildings for art and architecture so looking at a 5 year span they looked at what would be spent over a normal 5 year span of time for architectural projects and then made an average. And I believe came to $100,000 would be about an average of what would be spent by this city. So, with that, if there are any questions I think that I would just want to say give us a couple of years if you can so we can finish the projects that we have identified so far and that is the five sculptures in City Plaza and the Iowa Avenue Streetscape Plan. At least, I think those would be the most important investments in public art in those areas that you could make at this time. Are there any questions? Kanner: Nancy, what is the price range of the five sculptures? The total cost of the project? Purington: Well, we designed the project to be managed over 2 years and we asked artists to present works or to be prepared for commissioned works that would range between $5000 and $50,000. And we felt that was a reasonable- looking at some sculpture in other cities nearby and, you know, sculpture- if the artist comes out making minimum wage for the time it takes including the materials that is about what it is. But, what we did was we felt for that space a range of $5000 to $50,000. Now, in a $100,000- let' s say we are just going to do it out of one year' s budget- we could still manage to do all five if we decided on which space, which artist, which piece and how we wanted- how we wanted to arrange that. Or, we could give ourselves a little bit of extra money from either the previous or the year after's budget to elaborate on that a little bit depending on what priorities we felt were important at that time. So we- we keep the call flexible. Wilburn: Can you refresh my memory? Didn't you all have some conversation at least with the five sculptors that a certain number be local artists or something like that? Purington: Yes, we- I think we indicated that at least one artist be an Iowa artist. Kanner: So, have you purchased any art? Purington: No, not at this point. The- what the Public Art Advisory Committee does is identify citizens within the proximity of the site where the art would go and also try to appoint a range of people- art related, non-art related- who This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 2o will be the selection panel. So, we identified a selection panel and they have just narrowed down the range. I think we had about a hundred artists and they have narrowed it down to 21 and now it will be the Public Art Advisory Committee's job to really fine- you know, go through those artists' backgrounds and futures with a fine tooth comb and decide, you know, a reasonable way to spend the money given these artists. But then we have to narrow it down and figure out a few more things and then still go through another review with the City Council. Well no, then we will go through- we will call for proposals. So no, nothing has been happening. We just received the 21 selections narrowed down from the selection panel. So we are in the middle of it fight now. Kanner: And these are all for the downtown area? Purington: At this point this project focused on the City Plaza because one of the most expensive aspects to installing artwork is the installation itself. And we focused on City Plaza at a time when it was undergoing a renovation so that the- some of the installation or the foundations for those projects could be shared in the work and the labor focus at that time- during that time when it was all being tom up. So, the five sculpture pads are there that we have targeted for the next 2 years. Wilburn: I appreciate the efforts that you have gone through to, you know, compare other (can't hear) sometimes that is difficult to quantify with other- (can't hear). Purington: It is harder to quantify because the market is fickle, artists usually are broke, you know, and it is not the same as performance where you can charge tickets and there is sort of a standard. So, it is difficult for most people to understand that so thank you. I did try to give it a context. Are there any other questions? Pfab: I have a question. Are you looking at other areas of the city in a longer range? Purington: Yes. Pfab: And if so can you speak anything on them? Purington: Well, as I have indicated, the next area we have targeted is Iowa Avenue simply because once again it is going to be all tom up and we won't have to pay for that. So that is a big savings if we can get a project that already is under construction. After that we have looked at the rest of the city and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 21 I don't think that we have labeled a priority. The water plant- is that because we were asked to? Okay. The water plant. Franklin: The Water Works Park out by the new water plant there is a sculpture component that is designed into that Water Works Park which includes a sculpture garden and then there are 2 pieces that would be near the plant itself. That will be a project that the group is working on in conjunction with the literary walk on Iowa Avenue. Or it will happen at the same time. Kanner: And that is to come out of the proposed $75,000? Franklin: The sculpture garden would come out of the Public Art allocation. My understanding at this point is that the other features near the plant would not come out of the public art budget. I am looking at the boss. Lehman: No you are not. Purington: So we have been asked to advise of those projects since that is our charge for the city and then we will be looking at the sculpture garden in the Water Works Park. But beyond that, yes, we are looking at- we have been scanning the whole community but we try- we are trying to target areas that are undergoing construction so that we can save the foundation building expenses. But there is a lot of areas in town, definitely. Lehman: Nancy, I think that what you are doing saves significant amounts of money- Purington: Probably 50%. At least. Lehman: Yes. And that would be money spent for foundations instead of for art. Vanderhoef: And in other cities like we alluded to with different kinds of plans, when it is a new construction kind of thing and it is a percentage, then that piece of public art usually has to go with where the construction took place. Purington: Right, so we have it a little harder. Vanderho ef: So here again it would be like out at the water plant. Purington: That is true Dee, yes, absolutely. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 22 Kanner: Nancy? Have you folks talked to the University about any kind of joint projects with their art department or art museum? I think there is a lot of possibility there. Purington: I think that that would be a really interesting proposal. We, the city, community, citizens- somehow we had some representatives involved in the, some aspect, of the process for the (can't hear) Bridge. I don't think it was really a selection process like we are inviting our members to really be involved. I am familiar with their structure. It is very different from ours. And yes, I think it would be an interesting exercise and I have thought about that myself. At this time, since we meet for an hour and a half a month and there is 7 of us we are at the point where we are not getting through our own agenda to take care of the business we have started- just this little bit of business. I think it is an interesting proposal Steven and it is one that is community building and that is very important and I think that as we develop our structures and procedures and have a little experience in how we want to work with our community then we would have an opportunity to invite them in. We will have to figure out when, you know, when and how that can happen. But we will keep it on the- I will mention it to the committee as a suggestion to consider. Pfab: How is time holding out? Purington: Three minutes. Pfab: Okay. What do you- what do you see as what the Council can do to help you accomplish your mission? Other than money. Purington: Other than money. Well, I mean, you have given us the tools to accomplish the mission. And that includes the budget. And you will be asked to review the finalists and to make the final decision so you will be involved in our projects every time. I think in our- in the structure of our business what do we call it? We have by-laws. Yes. You may want to look at the by-laws of our committee and that may help you become a little bit more familiar with how we proceed. Kanner: Not that I don't like Ernie's face up there but it would be nice to see something else up on the wall up there with the mayors. Lehman: What about the rest of them Steven? You just mentioned mine. Kanner: Well they are all- they are not as good looking as yours. Purington: Well maybe some caricatures- some artist's interpretations. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 23 Vanderhoef: Have you addressed yet within the committee how you are going to take care of the art projects that you have? I know it has been high on my list for the entire time that there be a certain percent of the budget always reserved for maintenance of the public art optics. And I haven't seen that come through and I just wondered where that was at this point. Purington: We do ask each artist, and especially if they are selected into a finalist situation, to create a page of guidelines and practices and procedures for maintenance and that will be one the things we consider when we invest is how often does it need maintenance. Just because when we are listening Parks and Rec. and we understand, you know, the problems- but as far as identifying a percentage of our budget Karin have we? How far have we gotten on that? Franklin: Right now the group is in the process of putting together a kind of master plan of procedures one of which is how to address the issue of maintenance. I think that there is going to be an opportunity for us all to have that discussion because the discussions so far has not included it as a percentage of the public art budget which you might suspect. And with the diminishrnent of the budget that becomes even a larger issue because then this budget is not only for acquisition, it is for maintenance and no longer for operations but it has been for operations the last year. Atkins: I want to comment also. It had been my intent that the budget for public art was for the acquisition period. And that you would develop operations and maintenance- that needs to be painted, clean that off. But we would turn it over to the operating department, however is particularly responsible, Terry would have the Plaza, Chuck would have the water plant- so. I intended it to go find its way into the organization. That we were not going to set aside. And the other reason is that we are using capital monies for this art acquisition, not operational. (can't hear) routine maintenance. Champion: Oh, so that is good. That is good that you can' t use it for maintenance. The other thing I think is really good that I would like all of the Council to pay attention to is that the Art Advisory Committee is not asking for an increase, it is just asking not to be decreased. Purington: Yes, thank you. Lehman: Thank you. Wilburn: I have a better feeling for how the Civic Center (can't hear). This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 24 Purington: Somebody may need to... Vanderhoef: Well, where it comes up for me sometimes is having toured in some other cities when I have been at League of Cities meetings and they have acquired older pieces or they have been given older pieces that need regular maintenance more than the normal scrubbing of an outdoor sculpture that kind of a thing. And those were the things that they pointed out immediately about their public art was that they had acquisition monies all along but for deteriorating kinds of art objects that they had and paintings they had no dollars. And basically, Philadelphia for instance, said they got down on their knees pretty near and were begging for money to restore some of them. Lehman: They have a crack in the bell. Atkins: Keep in mind that- my thinking and the principle established I think- was not unlike the old fountain in downtown. Terry's organization dismantled it, sanded it, had it repainted, by contract and it was just sort of extended that same principle throughout the organization. There are certain- if you place a piece of public art in front of a fire station and I am not so sure we want the firefighters in there maintaining it- we will probably have to think of something else. Generally Parks and Rec and Public Works which have the most properties would likely have locations or I would assume I'd assign it to them. Lehman: Senior Center. Senior Center Honohan: Jay Honohan, Senior Center. With me this evening is Joann Hora the vice chair and of course Linda Kopping the coordinator. First of all I would like to thank the Council for allowing us some time and we recognize it is a difficult budget problem you face every year and from what I have seen of the budgets why this year is no different. Obviously we believe the Senior Center is an important center and a service provider for the community and seniors in Johnson County. And is also a mainstay of the downtown business district. Over all, I have to say that we are a little disappointed but satisfied with the administration's proposal. For one point, we are .007 below last year. Actually that is capital improvements that we- are not in the budget this year. We are disappointed of course as I said that the additional staff member that we proposed is not included. We hoped through the addition of that individual that we might be able to expand some of the services at the center. We understand however the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 25 problems of the budget and if we can't get the additional person this year we would like to voice our support and ask that you might consider this additional staff person next year or some other time as you feel the funds might be there. We think it is very important and we understand everybody wants more staff. That is probably almost automatic every year but the Senior Center has been getting along for awhile on the same staff and we were hoping in the future that we can expand that. Past Councils have shown their support and this Council has been no different. We can see by the proposal by the administration. In fact what you have invested in us since 1994 is $843,268 in capital improvements and we have got about $54,000 in this year's budget in capital improvements. And so we recognize the Council- or we would believe that the Council will buy these contributions to the center or recognize the importance of the center in the downtown area and for the seniors. And we urge you to continue that support and obviously I can't miss bringing up the skywalk. We have to date raised $49,338 with no professional help and mostly the hard work and expertise of Joann Hora and the past chair Terrie Miller. And we are very pleased at this point and we are going to continue our fund drive in that area. I think you really have heard from us on an on-going basis as to what we do at the Senior Center so I don' t think that I need to tell you. I will just answer any- respond to any questions that anybody has about the Senior Center and our budget. Champion: I do appreciate the regular update that the Senior Center commission does bring to Council. Honohan: Thank you. Champion: I appreciate it a lot. It keeps us really current. Honohan: We try. O'Donnell: I think that is an incredible amount, Jay, that $50,000 raised for the skywalk already. Honohan: We are real pleased because we didn't have a professional fundraiser. We have just done it on our own and we have been very pleased with the response from the public. We have got an awful lot of little contributions. But we have encouraged any size and we will continue to do so. In fact, I wished I had brought the fund letters with me. I could pass them out tonight. Champion: I would like to see one. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 26 Honohan: You will get one. Lehman: You guys do a good job. Kanner: Jay? I know you get some, I think it is federal money, for work study students. Do you solicit other types of grants for funding for possible personnel. I noticed in the Involvement magazine which is from Heritage Aging that they had a notice about applying for grants for staff funding. Have you explored federal state grants, other agency grants, for this extra staff person? Honohan: No we have not. But we will look into that certainly. Kanner: This issue of the Involvement magazine there was a notice about some money available. Honohan: We will get a copy of that magazine and take a look at it. We have, of course, made the application to the CDBG that I think I have reported that to you already for the skywalk funding. And we will be appearing whenever they summon us to make our presentation to them. Kanner: You also applied to JCCOG didn't you? Did you not? Honohan: To who? Kanner: Johnson County Council of Governments. I saw that there was an application for the skywalk in there. Honohan: I think you are thinking of the CDBG. Lehman: Yeah. Kanner: No, Jeff was telling me about an application there that- they, uh, under pedestrian funds of some sort or another. Champion: That would be good. Kanner: It was rated the lowest rating of all the applications that- of all the applications. Atkins: The only application that I know of is the one that Jay is talking about, the CDBG for $120,000 1 think as I recall. Honohan: That is correct. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 27 Atkins: I am sorry Steven, I just don't recall that. Kanner: Maybe it is something else. Atkins: Yes. Kanner: I will check in the JCCOG- I will try to find the... Atkins: We could be missing something too. If you just let me know we will check that. Honohan: I'm- the only application they prepared is that one- is the CDBG. To date, we have had a discussion with Heritage but we as yet have not made any applications to Heritage either. Just the CDBG. Karmer: And, um, has there been talk about, at all, of the programming or volunteer staff [and] some of them moving their schedule to possibly pans of the evening so that the building could remain open for some programming in the evening? Honohan: We have had discussions about evening programming and that was one of the reasons we wanted the additional staff person was we felt with the additional staff person we could provide some evening programming. But with the current staff, in my opinion, they are at the limit right now and they just cannot provide evening programming. There would be no way we could work that out as far as I can see. And I think that is the feeling of the entire commission. Champion: Thank you. Lehman: Any other comments? Thank you Jay. Honohan: Well, I will tell you I am surprised because I told my wife I wouldn't be home until about 9:00. I figured this would go a lot longer. Champion: Now you have got time to go (can't hear). Lehman: We anticipated it would probably be a lot longer. Honohan: Thank you. Lehman: You bet. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 28 Jazz Festival Lehman: Jazz Fest. Grismore: Can I just give you guys something to look at? Lehman: Sure. Kanner: How about something to listen to? A little music or something. Lehman: Some jazz. Grismore: The festival is for that. What is going around is just some current information about what is coming up for this year. My name is Steve Grismore and I am the director of the Iowa City Jazz Festival. And much like the Senior Center we do not have a professional fund raiser either. They've got me. But I do thank the city for all the years of support. I think I will just give you a brief history for those who don't know. Believe it or not the Jazz Festival is going into its 10th year. And of course, like the millennium problem, we debated whether it was going to be an anniversary or not and I was told no it is 9 years, 10 festivals. So next year in 2001 would be the official 10th anniversary. So that is a debatable point. We are a 50163 non-profit. We have had that status for quite a few years now. We survive totally on fund raising. I do write grants and I do approach local businesses and we have a lot of great relationships. I also work hard at a lot of(can't hear) relationships. The overall budget, I have tried to maintain a line on the budget for the festival and it is very similar to last year this year although we are spending more money in another area I reduced the cost. Roughly a cash budget from $65,000- $68,000 dollars and then with (can't hear) it pushes it over $100,000. And exact figures I don't have in front of me but it is roughly that. We have a board of 7 members and I am a paid director. I get the tremendous fee of $6000 a year before taxes for my work. Lehman: I know the feeling. Grismore: Yeah, you do don't you? Anyway, that is not a complaint- just so you understand what we are about and where our monies do go. Vanderhoef: And we appreciate your volunteering to do this. Grismore: You are welcome. And I enjoy it a lot. It is work of passion for me. I mean, obviously, you know. And I have been director for 2 years officially. I have always been involved with the Festival and Mark This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 29 Ginsberg and I got together, most of you know or some of you know, 10 years ago. And it has grown into a really nice event. I think from a numbers standpoint, you know, you always have to deal with variations on things but I think the average attendance is around 20,000 plus- it depends. And so if you add that all up after this year we should be over 200,000 and I have talked to Wendy Ford several times- how do you figure up, you know, how much money that brings to the city and it is hard to tell. If you take- there is different formulas for that but even at $15 a person, minimum because the festival is free, it is $3 million. I mean, there is some revenue generated so maybe a quarter of a million a year or something like that. It could be a low estimate too but I am not trying to overdo it here, I am just trying to lay out some basic facts. This is something that happened recently, we had a press conference last weekend and of course there is a lot of new news about the festival this year. One of the things I am really trying to do is develop more and more relationships with people that can help us in many ways. One of the exciting things about this year is that we have a new title sponsor. We are not changing the name of the festival but we call it the Iowa City Gazette presents the Iowa City Jazz Festival. But when someone calls you up and says they would like to give you a large amount of cash and in kind support you say thank you very much and you work that way. Not that we don't get a lot of support from other places and it is always an interesting game of dealing with media people and keeping things- everyone happy. But we need everyone's support because we are a non profit and we have really other than selling t-shirts no way to generate income. One of the things as you are all aware of, I went to a meeting last fall and sat down with Terry Trueblood and David (can't hear) and some people and we talked, and Dan Brown and some persons from the Jaycees, and they approached me about moving the dates of the festival. At first, I was a little taken aback by the fact that they were trying to schedule this on the same date but they did ask me if I would move the festival and after discussing it with the board and talking about it we decided to move the dates of the festival to July 1 and 2. The idea being that we will probably try to keep the festival on the first weekend in July. It may end up being, like next year if you look at the calendar that could be June 30 [and] July 1- it is a little interesting but, anyway, that is something for you all to understand and know that I did on request. Although I will say and after thinking about it that the 3rd and 4th of July tend to move through the middle of the week over the years and most people do not get the 3rd Off SO in many ways by keeping it on the weekend I think we are eliminating some conflicts with people that tend to come to this festival from out of town. I think more people will be able to drive in and I think from- and obviously the Jazz Festival is, as we are working on this, is trying to become a more important tourist destination. And so for those reasons I This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 3o think maybe the weekend will work out nicely. Plus the businesses, you know, will be open. Naturally they won't have to hire people time-and-a- half to be open on a holiday. And people don't want to work the holiday. And there is less conflicts with the picnic with the grand-folks and things like that so all in all it may end up being a very good move and I am hoping it will. And I hope this weekend coming up this summer will be a huge weekend. We have the Friday night concert series, the Jazz Fest, and the new event in City Park on the 3rd and then of course there is events in Coralville and where-have-you and everywhere else. So, that is a good thing. Some of the things that you can see here that I am trying to do just to understand where some of the expenses is coming from for the festival- I recently, Jazz Times magazine which- and I know a lot of you don't know maybe unless you are a real jazz fan don't know these things but Jazz Times magazine is one of what I call the 'big three'. You have heard of Downbeat maybe, Jazz Is and Jazz Times. These periodicals are distributed internationally. They are all over the world. But they are quite wonderful and what we have negotiated- we had signed a 2-year commitment but we have- I split the cost of- a full page color ad in Jazz Times magazine costs almost $4000. And our cost split is about $1800 a year, but we had agreed to a 2 year commitment to do that. But then they come on as a co-sponsor of the festival. But that gets the Iowa City Jazz Festival, the City of Iowa City logo [and] all of our sponsors- I mean, it is in a, just, you know, all over the world. And particularly this country and Europe. So that is an exciting thing and that also ties in what, as I mentioned- mentioned Wendy Ford several times- but we are trying to develop this tourist attraction here as well. We also received a grant from the Economic Development Division of Tourism to help pay for that very thing. And that is exciting and I have applied for several different kinds of grants. One of the other exciting things about the festival, and these people seem to like us because they have been here before, but National Public Radio is planning on coming back this summer. And National Public Radio is a show hosted by Branford Marsalis, developed by NPR WBGO out of Newark, New Jersey and (changed tapes) the producer. The cost of bringing them in is about $5000. It is $2500 upfront just to get them here and then they have to pay the musicians a certain amount of fee per leader and side man and roughly with the size of the bands I have and the estimates- another $2500. So we have about a $5000 commitment to that. But, that show is rebroadcast the following year on over 200 stations nationally. And they do it more than once and if they record over 2 hours- if they get like 2 hours worth of music then they will rebroadcast it at least 4 hours worth of time. That is how that would work. And you can still hear on occasion former, you know, years that they have been here broadcast. And it really gets the name out. You people would not believe the calls I get from all over the world, people wanting to play. E-mails This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 31 from Germany, from Norway, from wherever. People that want to come to our festival. It is pretty amazing. So, the word is out there. And we have a great lineup. You can look through that. The Meters, somebody you might know- the pre-Neville Brothers, although I don't think it will be as big as the evening of the Neville Brothers. And we also have John Scolfield, Christian McBride, a lot of great talent. The other thing, I think, that I should stress that is exciting about the festival is over the last couple years we have really worked hard to develop the local connection. What I can boast is we say we have 21 bands over 2 days. Well, 12 of the bands are of at least, if not directly local, at least of Iowa concern- not counting we have 2 bands from Iowa on the main stage. So, we try to share this with- and make it an exciting thing and incorporate local musicians as well. But we have bands from- for high school, junior high. We even have a grade school jazz band coming down from Dubuque this year, Caboose. We have local- other local talent come in. We have a high school jazz band coming in from Sioux City. But we try to incorporate- I get a lot of calls from the local people as well wanting to play and I try to rotate them through. We are trying to make an effort to make that work. And we also have an educational component and we always have a workshop of some kind that goes along with this. So it is just a great event and it is growing and it is developing and getting better and I think with the addition of the Gazette this year and KCRG and all of that it will, from a regional standpoint, we should be able to get the word out about the date change and everything. So I would just appreciate your support as always. I was asking for the $7500 figure. That would be great. We would really appreciate it. Any questions? Wilburn: Steve, doesn't- not that everyone that is a jazz fan is a blues fan, but doesn't that move it away- by moving it doesn't it move it away from the Quad Cities Blues Fest too? Grismore: No, it doesn't move it away. It actually moves it right on it. Wilburn: Right on it? Grismore: But we are fight on it anyway- Wilburn: That is true. Grismore: -5 out of 10 years. So there is always that problem. So I think what we will have to do is develop our own fans. And people have to make a choice. They can go pay to go to that festival- it is a great festival too. I have nothing against it. I mean, it is just one of those situational things. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 32 But our festival is flee. And we are trying to develop that jazz base for people. Wilburn: And also- it also- to move it away flom the fourth of July then you have two things to choose flom instead of three things. The other thing that I liked is by having it on the weekend when some businesses might be open naturally, you know- Grismore: That is what we are hoping. Wilburn: -that might be a good boost for downtown. Grismore: Absolutely. And I have had a lot of positive response flom the local business people I have talked to. They've thought that is a great idea. That makes it easier on a lot of people to be there for that. Even vendors and just people that want to be part of the festival and volunteers- the whole thing gets easier that way. Champion: Thank you. Kanner: Steve? Grismore: Yes? Kanner: Where is the workshop? (can't hear rest) Grismore: Last year it was held in the City Plaza. Downstairs. We set up a- opened up some of the rooms down there. I don't know if it is going to be held there this year or not. I usually work together with University of Iowa Lecture Committee on that. This year we are looking at two different possibilities. We are looking at having a workshop for musicians, for students, to come in, and we are also with Becca Pullium coming in from WBGO we are looking at maybe developing more of a panel discussion discussing the state of radio and jazz broadcasting and stuff and bringing in local KCCK people from KRUI, WSUI and all of those people and create an interesting panel on radio discussion. Kanner: Are those flee? Grismore: Those are all free, absolutely. Yes. Everything is flee except the t-shirts and the hats. Champion: I think it is going to grow even more since it is always going to be on a weekend. I think that is a good idea. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 33 Grismore: I am hoping. We will see what happens you know. But we are trying our best. Lehman: Thank you. Vanderhoef: Thank you. Grismore: You are welcome. Lehman: We are going to take about seven- Champion: Eight. Lehman: Eight. O'Donnell: Nine. Lehman: Overruled. Break Downtown Association Weingiest: Well, I have got two proposals tonight and I want to keep them separate because they really are separate things. But the thing they have in common is that both of them, both the Friday Night Concert Series and having lights in the trees downtown, make downtown a more welcoming place. It gives people a feeling of safety when they are down there. And give the people of Iowa City a feeling of pride in their city. Just briefly about the lights- we put the lights up in mid November, we just took them down last week. They are up for 2 months which covers the shortest day of the year, the longest night. We feel that they are- we put them up at a time when things are getting a little gloomy, it gets dark earlier and earlier and it just makes you feel better. It just gives you a good feeling, it makes you feel good about the city. It just looks pretty. And I think it does more than just things for the downtown. I think it is a feeling of ownership for everybody in Iowa City who comes down there. We you come in on Dubuque Street to see all of those lights on the trees- I think it is just a great face to put on for visitors and for the people of Iowa City themselves. And I just want to say we spent about $400 this year on getting some new lights- just a few, we didn't need too many. And we had to by a lot of new extension cords because we have great new electrical outlets that we didn't have in the past so we had lots more trees This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 34 we could light and we needed new extension cords for them. We don't have any labor costs thanks to our relationship with the crew from Oakdale which is a wonderful relationship for us and for them. I want to point that out because I spend a lot of time with the men, both this year and last year, and I think they gain a tremendous amount from being downtown too. Being with regular citizens and feeling like they are doing something for the community and they are downright grateful to be here. I really feel they are. We give them great lunches every noon. They look forward to them. And I think they really have a great time down there. People say hello to them, you know they are not treated like outsiders. They are- I think it gives them a chance to see what it is like to be part of a community. So I think the project is bigger than just even making the downtown look pretty. I think it is a good public relations thing for us too. Now I want to switch to the Friday Night Concert Series which I think all of you are familiar with. The ones who weren't on the Council in the past I have seen at the concerts so I know that you are familiar with them. Just like the Jazz Festival we are free. We are 100% local though, we have just local bands. We had 16 concerts last year and they cost approximately $1000 a piece. Some are less, like when we had the high schools. The salsa band is almost $1500. So- but they average about $1000 a piece. We raised $9000 towards that and the rest came from City Council. I am hoping that we can raise that much again. We got into September, a little bit, just for a couple of weeks into September. We started in the middle of May. I really like to do the September concerts because the students are back- one of the concerts was during the Nebraska game. We had great crowds. I want to give you a little anecdote to go along with that. I had a couple stop me on the street and say they were alumni who were coming back for the Nebraska game- they gave me $20. They wanted to contribute to this fantastic concert and wanted all the information so they could bring it home to their town. Another little anecdote that might show you some of what this concert series is worth to the city- I had a phone call last week from a woman in Cedar Rapids who belongs to a national organization that she has been trying to have them come to Iowa City for a long time but they are from California and New York and all of these cosmopolitan places and they don't want to come to Iowa City because they have an image of, you know, corn fields and pigs and things like that. And, she said she is absolutely convinced that they are going to be knocked out because she has taken over the City Plaza hotel and b00ked the balcony above the stage and they are going to be there for the Friday night concert. And she thinks that is going to show them what Iowa City is really all about. And I was really pleased to hear that. So, I think again it is a face that we put on for our citizens and it is a face that we put on for the rest of the world. I think that is what Iowa City is about. It is about localism. It is about families- if you have been down there you see there is This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 35 all ages. There is senior citizens up in the front in their chairs- bring, you know, tote those chairs down there every week. There is little kids dancing up in front of the stage. This year they will be in the fountain I suspect. There is families, there is single people- it is a place to gather, it is a place to meet at night [and] maybe go out for dinner afterwards or before. I think it is just a place that really, really creates community. And it is the entire summer from May to September and I really like to be able to make the most of that to continue it into September as much as I can. Wilburn: Cathy, do will you continue the Saturday night thingys for something different? Weingiest: Well, actually- hopefully we are going to do Saturdays. That is up to you too because that money comes- that is David Schoon's budget and he contracts with us to put it on. If you want to know about that we are actually, when David finds out how much money he has, we are doing a partnership with the Gazette similar to what we have with the Press Citizen for promoting the series and we are also partnering with KCCK and we are going to call it the "Just Jazz" series. And, shift a lot of the jazz acts to Saturday because this is a jazz city. People in Iowa City just can't seem to get enough of it. And it gives a little bit more of an identity then the Saturday specials had last year. But, again, you will be taking that up at a different time. Lehman: I really agree with you on the lights. I think that the folks from Oakdale- [it] is a tremendous benefit for them as well as for us. I know we have written to them and thanks them, the city, and I trust the Downtown Association has too. And I visited with the warden there and it is a tremendous program for those folks as well as for us. Weingiest: Well, and some of them, the guys that were here in November, were released shortly before Christmas so they weren't- not all of them were back in January and I thought, you know, what a- we gave them their last little send off before they were out on their own and hopefully they enjoyed being part of something productive and positive and being appreciated by the community. Kanner: Cathy? I am Steven Kanner and I appreciate a lot the Friday night concerts and I like the lights too. I had a few questions about the concerts. What is the process for picking the bands? How can someone, perhaps who isn't as well known, get involved in that? Weingiest: We- I get solicited. Well, it started before Christmas and I get tapes and CDs. They send them to us and we listen to them. If we can- a couple of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 36 times I have gone to concerts. One of the nice things about the concert though is that you can- it is outside in the air, in the flesh air so you don't have to worry about smokers or non smokers. There is no alcohol. Whole families can come. So- but I have gone to clubs that acts are at. Reputation- we have Dan Brown from the Press Citizen is on the committee and he is part of the music community in Iowa City and knows just about everybody. Joe Murphy, who does our sound, is also on the committee. He knows a lot of the bands personally. He does sound for them. He goes to a lot of clubs, so. But, I just got a tape flom a woman the other day that I went home and I played the CD- well it was a CD- and I was knocked out by it and I really hope that I will be able to find a place for her on the schedule. So, you know, we don't so much go out and you know, put out ads that we want new bands. They seem to find us. Kanner: One of the things that I am committed to is trying to get people that aren't traditionally involved in getting some of the benefits perhaps of the city, things such as this, to get some of those benefits and be in a place where they can help to make the decisions. And, perhaps it is something that downtown businesses should be at the forefront. But I was wondering- do you go to places like the neighborhood centers on Broadway and say "do you want to be part of the selection team?" to get a different point of view then maybe the usual suspects that are involved in this process? Or out to Pheasant Ridge on the West Side? Weingiest: Well I go out there and, you know, make sure that they know what is coming up and I have talked- I talk to them every year about what is going on and have the posters up out there and make sure they know about it. Yes, some of the money comes from the city but, you know, like I said, $9000 of it came from downtown merchants and I- I mean I can bring it up at the board meeting. But I don't know how much- there is a great pride in this series and, you know, a professionalism that we want to have too. I mean, we really want this to be something that where- a lot of these are acts that the only time a lot of people can see them is at the Friday Night Concert Series because they tend to play in clubs where there is alcohol. And it cuts up families. So, when we have groups that don't really meet our standard of professionalism and don't have a wide appeal- now, we did have some young, I mean, bands that were appealing to a younger crowd and it was really too focused on one small segment and it didn't go over very well. But, we facilitated groups to have their own concert, you know, we just don't pay them. But, like the senior center band wants to play. As far as I am concerned they can play every Saturday afternoon the whole summer. I think it would be fantastic and I would be the first one to help them get the permits and you know facilitate in any way I could- but they are not quite the caliber that we expect for the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 37 Friday night concert series. I don't know if that is really answering your questions. Kanner: Well, I think there are people in these neighborhoods that know professional caliber and they might have a different view point then just the downtown point of view that might be attractive to other people [and] that might be good to be included. I would like- I mean, if we are going to give money I like to see that kind of involvement from the community besides just the same folks. O'Donnell: I think the point is, Cathy, I think you have done a wonderful job. Anybody who wants to be involved in this if you ever go down there you can certainly be involved in it. Weingiest: Oh, people call me at home and say, you know, why did you only have the salsa band once. Or, you know, people- I have been stopped in the grocery store with comments from people. So it is- but in a formal way like, I suppose then we, you know, I guess we would have to have the service clubs too. Some of them give us money. You know, I just- Lehman: Well, Cathy I think it is important to point out that the downtown merchants may support the series but they do not select the bands. Weingiest: No, well- Lehman: They have nothing to do with it. You and Brown and whatever- Weingiest: And Joe Murphy. Well we, you know, they- we ask for, you know, if people want to volunteer [and] actually nobody ever does. It is just basically the three of us. But it is open to any- I have never had anybody ask, I have to say. I have never had anybody ask and I wouldn't want to pick the neighborhoods as a place to go- why not some other groups and-. If they come and ask me, you know, or if they want to give suggestions, absolutely. I mean, that would be great. O'Donnell: Well, and I just wanted to comment that I agree with Ernie. I don't do that very often but I agree with Ernie on the lights downtown. I thought the town looked incredible this year and I support who put them up. I believe that that is part of the community also and I just think that the Downtown Association is doing a great job. Weingiest: Well, and I suspect that we are going to need more lights. The reason that I asked too is because of the Iowa Avenue, I suspect- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 38 Champion: We are taking out some trees though. Weingiest: Well we may want more in front of- that is right we are taking out trees. I won't talk about that one. O'Donnell: I agree with you on the lights. Wilburn: Cathy, when you all first started this there was a couple of years didn't you work with some representatives from the United Action for Youth that gives some input on how this is all... Weingiest: That might have been before I started. Wilburn: Okay, I think that was... Weingiest: That, I mean, if they want to that would be great. I mean, suggestions- like I said the people are sending their own tapes too. And I- but we do want to- it is, you know, the hardest part of the job really is kind of narrowing it down. There is so much talent in this town and what is really great is being able to showcase it for people. And, you know, one of my favorites is having the high school kids, the high school jazz bands because they are- if you don't know- they are phenomenal. And actually, I would like to have one other concert, if I can raise enough money to have- the City High orchestra is going to Europe this summer and they have got the tremendous honor of being able to play in Chicago at a convention in December. And I was there in this huge hotel room and they got a standing ovation. They were spectacular, so, and there is a lot of talent in this town that I think people don't get to hear enough of and this is a wonderful venue that anyone can participate in. There isn't anyone that is excluded from being at these concerts. Lehman: You do a good job. Kanner: Emie, I want- um, again, I appreciate the lights. I think they really made a difference [but] the thing I do oppose is the prison labor. I take an opposite stance of what you stated Ernie and Mike. I think that in a prison system that there is no such thing as volunteering and that I think that the way our work force is moving there is a direction towards using more and more prison labor at below minimum wage costs- at the expense of good paying jobs. We have more and more industry and I don't think we should be a part of that and I would vote against this unless we are able to pay someone- I would be willing to find money in the budget to pay someone minimum wage but I don't feel that we should be a part of that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 39 O'Donnell: There is a waiting list for people- if you have ever talked to the officials out there- there is a waiting list to come down and do this. Kanner: Oh, I am sure there is. Yeah, people love to do this. And there is a waiting list to take phone calls for the airline to do those jobs at $2.00 an hour. But we shouldn't be a part of that. Champion: (can't hear)...$2 an hour. Kanner: There is a whole prison industry Connie that has sprung up now that pays people $2 an hour. For instance, when you call for your airline reservation, often times you will get a prison. There is prisoners that are doing that. Lehman: This is a discussion that we can take up when we come to the budget but we have got keep on... Champion: I don't object to it either. I think it is wonderful. O'Donnell: It is. Weingiest: I wish you would come and talk to them Steven because I would personally feel- I mean, I kind of got close to these guys- I didn't give them my address but I really liked working with them and if, I think, if you came and talked to them- I would feel personally very sad if they weren't allowed to. They really, really enjoy this. You know? They really do. I think they would pay us to do it. They are- this is, I don't think of this as prison labor at all. I just don't. Lehman: Well, this is a discussion for another (can't hear). Weingiest: Sorry. Lehman: Thank you very much. O'Donnell: Great job. JC Historical Society Lehman: Historical Society. Wieting: You will be getting a handout. I am Margaret Weiting. I am the new executive director of the Johnson County Historical Society and after 12 years of commuting some 200,000 miles to Cedar Rapids and back I am This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 4o delighted to once again reconnect with the community in which I live. The handout is for your file. The first page is simply a visualization for those who may not be familiar with our work. It captures our mission statement: the ways we live it out and a couple of examples. The second sheet is just a copy of our November 22 letter that gives our budget request and acknowledges your support for those who were not on the Council at that time. And then tonight I just want to direct your attention to a few thoughts that are captured on the last page. First of all I want to thank you for allowing us to come. As the new director your support is obviously very, very important to our organization as we seek to serve the entire Johnson County. And with your increased support that helps put us into a position to reach out and respond to future challenges and opportunities. We truly see that our work, yours and ours, intertwines. Together we embrace the past, the present, and the future. In his book A Place to Remember using history to build community Robert Archibald writes that history is not disembodied. The past is implicit in the present, in each of us, and in the places that we inhabit. For all of us that place is Iowa City. Johnson County Historical Society lives out its mission through education, preservation and interpretation. How do we do this and what is that value to you? Our purpose is not revisionist history, but to preserve the stories and the artifacts behind those stories and to share them in meaningful ways. And tonight I just want to share with you two of the ways that are current that I really see our and your work intertwining. First of all a topic of special interest in Iowa City has to do with the future of the Englert Theater- something with which you have become involved. As stewards of many artifacts about the history of the Englert we felt a responsibility to share that story because we see our role as to connect with the community, to be relevant, involved and participatory. A part of that is to be expository and not just repository. This means trying to engage ideas through exhibits. The exhibit that we put together we put on display at the Iowa City Public Library during the month of December. It included, if you didn't see it, a wonderful 1933 doorman's jacket and hat worn by a 15 year old Iowa Citian, pictures of when the Englert burnt and was rebuilt in 1926, photos of Iowa City High School commencement exercises and programs from live theatre events, for example, when Sarah Bernhardt was here. We feel that through this exhibit, engagement was held and it allowed a forum for discussion. Past, present, future, all intertwined. Secondly, you may have read a recent Chamber of Commerce article which reviewed the Governor' s summit on livability in Iowa with a report about a blueprint for Iowa's future. One thread weaving itself into these discussions was a seemingly growing rift between rural and urban areas of the state. The recommendation was that we need to engage in ongoing discussions in the spirit of cooperation to find common ground and to build a consensus around proposals that serve This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 41 to advance the prosperity and livability of Iowa. We only need to have read the local newspaper to see that urban sprawl is an issue not just for Iowa City but for all of Johnson County. It was a coincidence that we had already scheduled on February 13 a new exhibit entitled "From Farm to Subdivision: An Iowa Story". It will open at the Heritage museum and through photographs the story is told of the transformation of one piece of Johnson County farmland to residential development. The land featured was purchased in 1856 and farmed until 1995. Again, our role is not just to be a repository of the artifacts of the family and their oral history but to serve an expository role where persons can engage in sharing ideas through the exhibit. Past, present, future- our work intertwined. These are just two ways that we seek to build community. Our biggest challenge is how to fulfill the need for a special place apart amidst financial pressures and the demands of today's crowds. This includes quality space for exhibits, programming, storage of artifacts, and the opportunity for people to access our library resources. The reality is that we need your support and hope that you will consider our request as we have embraced together past, present and future. Thank you for your consideration. Are there any questions? Kanner: Margaret? Do you do exhibits about history before the European settlement here or other types of ethnic groups besides European Americans? Do you work in that area at all? Wieting: I started in October, but having gone through the files and as we are looking, now that we have a program development person on board, there was one on the Mesqwaki Indians. There is a wonderful Gilbert exhibit- yes. And we are exploring more of that now. Kanner: And looking into other current- other etlmic groups besides European American? Wieting: Right. Right. Kanner: I heard there is, um, for instance, some neat Indian trails, David Goodwin was telling me about south of town. And I was wondering if you had any plans to do anything with that or look into that? Wieting: Not that specifically, no. But thank you. Kanner: Thank you. Historic Preservation This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 42 Lehman: Historic Preservation. Anderson: Thank you. My name is Lars Anderson and I am the current chair of the Historic Preservation Commission. We are here to ask you basically just for one item. Last year we, at this same meeting, we approached the Council and requested money for a survey of the downtown area which was approved and that is on going. We also requested a increase in our staff allotment from a quarter time staff position to a half time staff position and that is the same request we are making this year. Right now our current staff allotment is a quarter time and we really think we need a- more staff time allocated to our commission. As some of you may know, right now we review approximately- or there are 278 properties within Iowa City that are either in historic districts or are designated Iowa City Historic Landmarks and we would review any project that required a building permit on any one of those properties. There are two- well, there is a survey that has been completed in the Longfellow neighborhood that has recommend a historic district in the Longfellow neighborhood and if that- if and when that takes place that would approximately double the number of properties under our review. The commission- I have been on the commission since 1996, late '96, and it seems like our time has been spent now dealing with the review process more and more to the exclusion of other items and frankly we haven't had time to push forward with the Longfellow district. We have had many of the neighborhood members from Longfellow who have asked us "when are we going to get our neighborhood designated as a historic district?". Two things are holding that up. One [is] our concern over the staff time in dealing with that and the second would be we are in the process right now of revising our guidelines and I think when there was the major project on Summit Street, which some of you may remember, the Council had some concern about our guidelines and we are in the process of revising those right now. We have been meeting twice a month, having an extra special meeting every month to try to get that done to make those more specific, more detailed to provide guidance to the property owners and to Coun- or, and to the commission itself about exactly when a building permit would be- or when a certificate of appropriateness would be granted and when it wouldn't be granted. That has been taking staff time. A staff person has been helping us with that attending these special meetings. If we go to reviewing twice as many properties as we have now, you know, without staff recommendation and staff input on all of those it is going to be, you know, extremely difficult for us to do that. Another thing that has been happening is we have been approached by residents from the Governor Street Lucas Street area about establishing a conservation district there. Not a historic district. But, what that would mean is that we would similarly review the projects in that area that required a building permit- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 43 not using the same standards that we would review property in the historic district- but one of the things that we would possibly get into then is new construction in conservation districts and in the Governor Street Lucas Street area there is certainly the potential for large scale apartment buildings. And that would be a tremendous chore for our commission to review without input from staff. Planning and Zoning, you know, other commissions that review large-scale projects like that have a thorough staff review and recommendations to assist them and that is something that we would sorely need as well. And right now, probably would not have time for. And so, I guess for those reasons we would request that the commission make allocation in the budget for an increase in our staff allotment. Any questions? Vanderhoef: Lars, are you saying then that you don't have guidelines yet at this point for a conservation district? Anderson: No. the way it is set up right now is historic districts are reviewed using the Secretary of Interior standards. Our ordinance provides that the conservation district would be reviewed using guidelines developed for that conservation district. So, we have been working with some of the property owners in the Governor Street Lucas area to come up with guidelines for their district. And one of the things that is happening right now I think in Planning and Zoning is they have been working on apartment in fill guidelines for the central business district and we have been, you know, utilizing those [and] looking at how those might impact development but in utilizing portions of those for the cons- for the proposed conservation district. But no, we are writing those right now and that is something that would be presented to Council if and when, you know, we propose the conservation district. Lehman: What you are really saying is you have, with the work load you have it would be almost impossible to try to work the conservation district as well? Anderson: Well, without more staff time. But, I mean, all of these things are part of the historic- the plan that was adopted in '92 calls for surveys and designation of districts in Longfellow. There is Manville Heights which we haven't even gotten to yet, there is- well there is still the north side, the goose town north side area that there is a survey on going right now which with potential for at least one or two more historic districts there. There is the downtown survey- [it] may identify landmark properties. I doubt there is going to be a historic district there but landmark properties would come under our review. We have talked about doing a survey of the sororities and fraternities in town. Who knows what is going to happen with them This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 44 as circumstances with the fraternities and sororities change in town. So, I mean, I guess every time we have a new district there is a new commission member added by ordinance- who ever that is needs training, you know, needs to become up to speed and that is something staff has always assisted with. So, fight now, I think, you know, Scott Kugler is our staff person and he has been doing a yeoman's work, you know, attending all our extra meetings and stuff. And I just think it is too much for a quarter time staff person. Vanderhoef: Do you have presently a plan that says this is what we are working on and we are going to put these on pending and not keep doing more surveys before you finish up the other areas? Anderson: Actually we did do that. We had our annual planning meeting in November and I think at our last meeting we just approved our annual planning session report and I don't know if that has been forwarded to Council yet- I am not sure when you receive our plan but you should. And we have decided one of the other reasons we decided to hold off on Longfellow, or proposing a historic district in Longfellow, is because we wanted to get our ducks in a row and get these new guidelines in place. And so, yeah, we have decided we are not going to initiate any more surveys until we have caught up with our guidelines and dealt with the districts recommended in the surveys we already have in place. I don't think we are planning on doing that. I mean, one of the things obviously, is the surveys are all funded by grant money and it kind of pains us not to apply for grant money when it is available but, you know, I think realistically it is just biting off more than we could chew till we get some other things done. But I think those guidelines are going to be done within the next couple of months and that will greatly assist us. And I think that in conjunction with perhaps more staff time would enable us to go forward. Vanderhoef: I can understand why you are having problems and yes there are all of these projects out there and you get requests from folks who want to go forward and I commend you for recognizing them and appreciating them but I understand also that you are not going to and I don't expect you to complete all of these. Anderson: You've got to say no sometimes. Another thing I'd just point out, I guess, is this commission, the staff member, does deal a lot with the public as opposed to Planning and Zoning, obviously, the staff person would deal a lot with the public but, you know, I don't know if the perhaps Riverside Commission- I don't know other commissions the staff person wouldn't have as much interaction with the public. Scott here has to field all of the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 45 requests from people who want to build or want to construct in a historic district, need a building permit, he has to field all of their questions and that is just, you know, the Council just amended the building code or- I don't know if it was building code, but now we have purview over siting and so that has increased the number of applications we review, so. Just more and more things and more staff time would help. Thanks. Lehman: Thank you. Kanner: So if we were to grant this request, obviously Scott is working full-time, do we have other part time people or I mean, that we could switch some of Scott' s responsibilities to someone else that are working in the department? Atkins: You can do that but not I wouldn't do it without consulting the director. Karin had put forth a proposal for a half time planner in the budget, a quarter time to be assigned to Historic Preservation and another quarter time for one of the other commissions. I have honestly forgotten which one it is. And if you do chose, and we normally don't hire quarter time employees, we take a full time employee and distribute the work in that fashion. I wouldn't want to answer your question specifically without consulting Karin. One point that Lars does make is the Historic Preservation commission is a little unusual because Scott's day to day work has people coming in seeking permits and doing whatever. Often the staff person assigned to a commission works directly with the commission. (can't hear) the agenda, satisfying their review. But he, in effect, administers that ordinance. So it is a little different there. Champion: And it has grown so unbelievable in the past 15 years. Lehman: And it is going to grow more. Champion: Is the Longfellow neigh- is that going to be a conservation district or a historic district? Anderson: The survey area, and I don't have the exact boundaries of the survey in my memory, but the survey did propose a district and then also as part of that along the edge and actually part of the area that was surveyed in part of that Longfellow survey was this Governor Street Lucas Street area and that is part of the conservation district that we are working with now. So, the survey did propose the historic district and a conservation district in essence. Arts Iowa City This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 46 Purington: Well, hello again. And this time I am representing Arts Iowa City. I am the current president of the board of directors. And as I, I think all of you know, we made a quantum leap this year after 24 years in an invisible location for most of the community. We were able to inhabit an empty storefront for a couple months and our whole world changed. And there has been a lot of community support verbally for us- people come to that comer of the City Plaza and they explain "this is perfect for this spot in our downtown!". And so, in response to that our board was inspired to try to figure out how to keep ourselves in that location. Our annual budget has been around $45,000 a year and we keep our doors open every day of the year for free. And it has really been the labor of all volunteers for 25 years. We now have the most staff we have ever had at 30 hours a week for office management and another 10 hours for a business person. But we have outgrown that structure, we are really coming apart at the seams. And that was happening last year when I came before the Council in an emergency mode with really no idea what to do for the people who were interested. And now I find myself here again in a formal situation which we should have been addressing the Council this way for several years but, I don't know why we never did in the past. So, I have created a budget plan which you have several pages and condensed collapsed versions. I have my business manager with me tonight because she really worked very hard in developing this and I don't- I can't think that quickly in that language at this point. But, I know we aren't really looking at those details tonight because you just got that this evening. I also submitted a 2 page narrative to kind of fill out some of the information on the budget sheet and going beyond our budget and our request I have added some projects that are developing because of our new space. And I will just- well, I think I will let you read this and get back to me if you have any questions but obviously with an expanded location we have expanded opportunities for our education long range plan. And not only just the long range plan but ideas from community members who are calling and asking "well, what about this idea?" and one such recent one was (can't hear) Maggie Conroy called and said "I am thinking about activating my theatre group again and we used to work with Arts Iowa City in a fund raising effort and I just wondered if you would be interested. And of course we were very interested so in conjunction with the high school arts show she produced a West High improv Sunday afternoon at Arts Iowa City and the high school students came and performed for 45 minutes and the audience was so engaged and intrigued that the idea for a Sunday afternoon improv center for all ages sprung out of that. At the- that just happened 2 days ago. We are still in this big swirl of brainstorming. When we had the opening for the high school art show, most of the high school instructors from the various high schools in This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 47 this area who participated- what we tried to do is we invited Solon and they weren't able to participate, Clear Creek, Amana, West Branch, West High, City High, Regina, and the altemative high school and we really, if we had had a little more time, we would have included Kalona, maybe one other, to get people to come downtown. At the opening we had a tremendous turnout- there were 250 people. And we talked to the- and the high school (changed tapes) So we talked to the high school instructors and also to Jenny Naso from United Action for Youth and started a conversation about what kind of classes can we create for after school and weekend summer programs. So, I don't have results but we- all of the wheels are turning. Everybody sees the potential and the possibilities. From our research we have also learned that education classes aren't real big money makers so we are back in our mode of service to the community. However, we have been identifying some healthy grants which the deadlines don't start until July 1 and we are also seeking short term proposals for seeking financial assistance from community sources which can help us in our interim financial burden of program general expenses while we design these structures to help support us in a new way. There may be some questions from you. Champion: Well, I think you have done a terrific job with getting organized in such short order. I think everybody must be exhausted. Purington: It is. Thank you. Champion: And I hope it can just work out that you can stay there because it is a tremendous asset for not only Iowa City but your organization which I think has just come alive in that spot. Purington: Thank you. It has and we get to enjoy the beautiful lights that the DTA installed and we also are thinking about asking them if they would be interested in expanding their Friday night concerts through-out the year in our venue which is just fight on the other side of the wall of where they normally do. It just takes time to get together with all the other non profits but we have spoken with the Jazz Festival and the Iowa Arts Festival. Last year and this year we worked with the Iowa Arts Festival in sharing our Arts Fair which we have annually. And we are interested in forming some strong relationships with the other non profits since we are at such a central location for festivals and fairs. So, that is why I am back here again asking for the same amount. And if you have any questions I am more easily reached at home and I'll put my phone number here and then I can confer with my business manager Sharon (can't hear) if there is anything specific that you would like addressed. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 48 Kanner: Steve, are the Friday night concerts going back to the Holiday or the Sheraton? Atkins: As I understand the plan it is to take it back up in from of the hotel. Purington: Oh, it is. Atkins: They built that staging area for them. Yeah. Pufington: Well, sound is awfully nice down in that (can't hear). Atkins: That doesn't mean that there isn't some plans for some Saturday locations. It was just a matter of that stage was deliberately built to accommodate that sort of performance and what you are suggesting Nancy is not out of the question. Kanner: I like how you are starting to bring other groups and get a synergy going there. I appreciate that. Pufington: Well, its nice because actually they are coming to us now that they know that we exist. It is a critical difference in our reality. Most of our- we have so many more new members this year, members who didn't know we existed and we haven't even caught up with getting our members to rejoin from last year so I think by next year we will have our membership doubled in at least the budget item for that. But fight now we are, as Daryl Woodson says, we are treading water in the center of a tornado. Actually there are tornadoes sort of moving off the side but our heart is palpitating. Anything else? Lehman: Thank you Nancy. Pufington: Thank you. Iowa Arts Festival Sulg: We are a team. I am Diane Sulg, I am the executive director of the Iowa Arts Festival. Parrott: I am Steve Parrott, I am the president of the Board of Directors this year. Sulg: I want to thank all of you for allowing us to take our quantum leap last year and we really did. Those of you who are familiar with the Iowa Arts Festival, we have been around I think about 15 years, and for a long time spent our existence in a parking lot which was hot and black and really This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 49 uncomfortable. And last year, lo and behold, we couldn't use the lot because of construction on the Ped Mall- it was the best thing that ever happened to us. It got our main stage on the University Pentacrest fight in front of the Old Capitol. I think Mary Sue Coleman was deluged with thank you letters- people saying that they remember when soldiers went off to the Korean War from that place and things like that so it was a real nice setting. We enlarged from our traditional one stage to three performance places. We put a second stage in front of MacBride which we ran on Saturday and Sunday was lots of family kids entertainment- puppets, magic, jugglers all that kind of thing. And then we had a third performance place in the intersection of Iowa Avenue and Dubuque Street. And the city didn't want to put a stage there because if a fire truck had to come through- we just kind of used it as an ambiance space because we enlarged the Art Fair to a huge degree. Last year we brought in about 80 artists which was doubled in size from all over the country literally from about 15 states and for 2 days instead of 1 day- again that doubled. Our kids activities doubled to 2 days. We brought food back into the event which hadn't been there for several years. So all of the sudden we just had a really huge event on our hands. It meant that obviously we spent a lot more money last year. Last year' s budget was $137,000 to put on the festival. Whoo! We are very aggressive in looking for money. We do all kinds of things, as many of you know, I wrote a coloring book All Around Iowa [and] it sold in many places in Iowa City but all across the state- I had an order today for books from Clarinda. And of course the page on Iowa City shows the Arts Festival- it is a maze showing all the businesses downtown. This coming year we are changing our pops- our orchestra pops concert. It used to be on Thursday night. It is a great event and we think it did not get the audience that it really deserved so we are making it a family pops concert. You will see ads in the newspapers this week for a concerto competition open to all instruments and all high school students anywhere in the area- Iowa City, Coralville. West Music is stepping up to sponsor that with us and the competition is on March 4th. Dr. Jones from the University is judging and that- the winner of that competition will be our soloist this year. And that pops concert will be Sunday aRemoon to close the festival. So, we are rearranging things so that becomes a big family event which I think it really deserves being. The Iowa Arts Festival is becoming a tourist destination. Last year I forgot one group- I didn't get them a hotel room. Do you know how much trouble I had getting a hotel room? I had to beg one out of Shiela Boyd- please you must have one left to put these artists that I had forgot to get a room. So that was a good sign. This is something we did last year- we called it Festival in a Box, a good idea of some of our marketing. We sent this year to about 50 newspapers in 7 states in our area- Iowa, Illinois and by Iowa I don't mean the Press Citizen, I meant like the Des Moines Register okay This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 50 so we got some out of town Quad Cities kind- in Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. In the box when you opened it there was a couple of slides that newspapers could use which the Des Moines Register gets a full page- I don't know if you all remember that- using these slides. There was a little description of our event which begins by "Long regarded as the cultural capital of Iowa, Iowa City is" and invited people to come to Iowa City specifically because we think this is a destination. That people think of us that way. So we played up coming to Iowa City. Our schedule was on the back and then inside to celebrate the fact that we were on grass instead of asphalt we put in grass. I am sure they didn't get it but we did. And then we put in all kinds of fun things- a pinwheel, there was candy, there was a little Arts Festival paint box- things like that. And as I said this went to- we had a wonderful response. We got little squibs in some newspapers put we got whole articles in others. Part of that was just to get name recognition- we could never afford to take ads out in major papers in St Louis and Kansas City or Madison Wisconsin. This year we are doing festival in a can. And we purchased empty paint cans from Gilpin Paint and it is "Come Paint Our Town". We are only putting in water colors again, I know, I know- I saw that. We are not going to let the University (can't hear) get painted red. But you know, the idea being it is a fun place to come and there is a lot to do. I just thought maybe this was a good example of some of the things that we are doing for our promotion. Benson and (can't hear) a local firm (can't hear) gives us about $15,000 a year in (can't hear) services. I mean, this is one of them. We have been aggressive- we had an article last year in Chicago Magazine. We actually invited one of the reporters, (can't hear) stayed at the Holiday Inn and he wrote about touting Iowa and coming to Iowa City for the Iowa Arts Festival. So that was nice last year as well. We have a lot of partners in doing (can't hear), speaking of synergy. The Arts Fair we have done with Arts Iowa City I think for many, many years in a nice collaboration. We work with the Public Library who does our children's activities Sunday, the Children's museum does them on Saturday, the Parks and Rec department put on a few activities hands on for the kids, so we really have a lot of partners and of course the University was wonderful to us in the past year as well as the city. We are aggressive grant writers. We just won a $12,500 grant from the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs and so that is a big step up for us. We had the largest grant the last two years for mid-sized cultural organizations in the state from the Iowa Arts Council. We have a small grant from the Eastern Iowa Tourism Association. We have some money from the CDBG. We beg a lot. We have fund raisers a lot. And we try to weave this all together. But some substantial support from the city is obviously part of this key. More than 35,000 people came- it is the largest 4 day event. We want to keep it that size. We (can't hear) sponsors and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 5 1 city support is something that knowing it ahead really helps us a great deal in marshalling that other support that we need for the event. I do want to congratulate the city. I have run festivals in the Quad Cities, I ran the Bix Fest and the Freedom Festival in Cedar Rapids and this city is the easiest to work with. Don't let anybody tell you that it is not. For things like traffic barricades and parking meters and I- many many other cities sent us bills for those things and here it is a matter of getting to the fight person. And the trash barrels get done for you. It has really been wonderful. Lehman: Other cities send bills? Sulg: Send bills. Champion: Don't tell us that. Lehman: What is your mailing address? Vanderhoef: And they don't even- Lehman: Are you going to have this on the Pentacrest again? Sulg: We have asked the University, yes. Parrott: We hope so. Lehman: It really did work famously well didn't it? Parrott: I want to add my thanks to the Council for the support last year and ask you to really consider our request again this year and if there is anything else- perhaps the only other thing we could ask of you is if you could arrange so that it doesn't rain. That would be a big help. Sulg: But you know last year the rain was very good I think for most of the businesses. We never cancelled an event, we got everything off. But the people ran into restaurants and ran into the shops when it rained and they were grateful to that business and (can't hear). We got it all in anyway. Parrott: Particularly Friday night I thought it was amazing the one group got done, it started raining, everybody left, the other group started back up and we had more people at the end of that then we had at the first one, so. I think it is a really great festival for Iowa City because there is a lot of people that come from Iowa City- it is what makes Iowa City, along with the Jazz Fest and the Friday night concerts- a great place to live. But we are drawing people from outside of Iowa City now too and so we want to keep This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 52 that hometown feeling about it too but we want to make it a destination for other Iowans. Sulg: And it is the one festival that has lots of kids activities and lots of family activities which I think brings in a wide spectrum of people. And the art fair being two days it kind of unites all of that and keeps people downtown. I think they used to come just because they liked a certain act on at 7:00. But now I think we are changing that mindset to it is the festival- come anytime and there is a lot of fun going on the whole time. So making it more: come spend the day. Wilburn: Would you welcome a letter from the Mayor to the University requesting (can't hear) Sulg: It would not hurt. Last year Steve Atkins was actually very instrumental. He wrote the first letter to Mary Sue Coleman so by the time we walked in to Ann Rhodes it was kind of like: it's okay, (can't hear) I will recommend it. So we had (can't hear) in a matter of minutes. Steve would you like to write another one? We would love the support yes! I think the University realizes it is a (can't hear) match too. Obviously it was something without alcohol or any- nothing was out of place on the Pentacrest when we left and that is kind of a miracle. They had real tough grass for all the crowds and all of that rain. Parrott: And we appreciated your approval giving us Iowa Avenue because it gave a real great (can't hear) of the Old Capital (can't hear). I talked to a lot of people who came from out of town and just were really impressed with this whole (can't hear). Sulg: Yeah, it made us a real festival. Kanner: Do you ever consider signing for American Sign Language from the stage? Sulg: No, but we could. We would like to find a volunteer for something like that or somebody who would do it- Kanner: I don't know if you would find volunteers. Sulg: Or low cost. Our budget is (can't hear). Do you sign to music? Kanner: Do I? No. Sulg: No, is music- I am being ignorant in this question. Do you sign music? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 53 Vanderhoef: For vocal music. Sulg: For vocal, okay. Because a lot of our music is just music you know. Kanner: But I know last year you had some vocal acts and a number of music festivals have signers so that- Sulg: That is a good suggestion. Kanner: And there might be some grant money. Sulg: We could trade one of our board members. Actually, we have a lot of talent on our board. Who knows? Somebody might be able to. Parrott: I just wanted to point out- our board is, I mean, we do have a board of directors but we have a number of committees that you don't have to be a board member to on including our events committee. We also welcome people who want to be involved in making suggestions. That is how we get acts and we send out calls and we get tapes and listen to them and we welcome people to come and be a part of that. Kanner: Do you know who your headliner is? Sulg: No we don't. That committee is still under. There are three people under consideration. Within about a month I think they'll know. We do have a new major sponsor that is going to announced although the (can't hear). But I am not at liberty to say yet. Give it another day or two. Things are moving along well for us and we thank you very much for your support. Champion: Thank you. Vanderhoef: Thank you. Champion: That little box is so cool. Iowa City/Coralville Jaycees Lehman: Jaycees. Carberry: Good evening. My name is Michael Carberry with the Iowa City Coralville Jaycees today. As you may know, the Jaycees have provided the City of Iowa City with its independent fireworks display for the last 40 years. Weather permitting it is usually held at City Park, an underutilized This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 54 and under-appreciated jewel of Iowa City. And you as a Council have spent a great deal of time and money in the recent past to upgrade and revitalize City Park with projects such as the Riverside Festival stage and the purchase of the Drollinger rides. In years past Iowa City used to hold the parade in celebration on Independence Day in City Park. The Jaycees would like to bring that Independence Day celebration back to the City Park by creating a festival that would bring the families in this community together. A festival that would incorporate the entire park is planned. Swimming, tennis, horseshoes, baseball, food, beverages, music, comedy, clowns, juggling, magic, games, rides and fireworks would all be included and most of all everything would be, but the refreshments, would be free. We have already worked with the Jazz Festival and the Downtown Concert Series to schedule an appropriate date that would create a big celebration in Iowa City over the Independence Day holiday. We have scheduled this for Monday, July 3. Our budget has doubled to $30,000 to support this community and family oriented event. The planned event is, uh, the planned event is anticipating attendance between 6,000 and 10,000 people depending on the weather. We have actually outgrown our original plans that we have become so big that we won't be able to use the festival stage for music and we have to rent appropriate staging- we will probably use the stage that is set up for the Jazz Festival and move that down to City Park Sunday night and set it up on Monday moming or over the night. The food vendors and what not that will be setting up at the Jazz Festival will probably also be moving down to City Park. So we have increased our fund raising and our marketing efforts to try and match this increase but we just can't do it without the help of Council- we can't do it all without the Council's help. We have asked for $9,000 and any other help that the city can provide such as free swimming, free rides and shuttle buses possibly to bring festival attendees from the parking ramps in downtown Iowa City. In summary, an Independence Day in the park festival that is free to the public and takes advantage of the entire City Park is our goal. This would be a wonderful gift to the citizens of Iowa City. Furthermore we would like to celebrate the new millennium' s first Independence Day with a bang and in a style that makes all Iowa Citians proud. We won't have this opportunity again for another 1000 years. Let' s take advantage of it. Thanks in advance for your support. Any questions? Lehman: What did your fireworks- I go back to when I used to take contributions in the park years and years ago. Carberry: We still do that. Lehman: Now will you- is that part of the plan? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 55 Carberry: Yeah. We took in approximately- Lehman: I heard you say that everything was going to be flee but you are going to ask for money? Carberry: Well, we had passed the- we had about 20 or 30 people passing buckets last year and we took in approximately $2000. Lehman: Are you going to do that again? Carberry: We will. Lehman: And last year this event was financed by those contributions? Carberry: Partially. We raised, uh,- we have a letter writing campaign we sent mostly to, since we are the junior Chamber of Commerce, we sent out to the Chamber of Commerce a list, uh, a couple of letters. We raised approximately $6000 or $7000 from those corporate donations. We are looking to increase that. We are looking- because this is a bigger festival we would like to get, of course, the Press Citizen has come on as the presenting sponsor but we would like to get some corporations to come in at the $500 and $1000 level to be major sponsors of this as well. And those efforts are just starting out as we speak. Kanner: So you spent $8000 on fireworks last year, a total budget of $15,000 which included $5000 advertising from the Press Citizen? What is the budget for this year? Carberry: $30,000. Kanner: $30,000. Carberry: $10,000 for fireworks, approximately $10,000 for talent since what we planned to do on the main stage is have music from 12 or 1:00 up until dusk. Most of those bands will play for an hour and then we will have a half hour to change over and it is during that half hour that we plan to incorporate the Riverside Festival stage and have smaller acoustic acts. Possibly some of the theater groups in Iowa City to present some short one act plays or have comedy there or juggling or other such acts that people- the main stage will actually be set up. There is three diamonds and you drive into lower City Park and with a big wide area and we are setting up the stage there. The fireworks will be shot from Terrill Mill Park up over the river. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 56 Champion: That is a great idea. O'Donnell: I think it is a tremendous idea. Champion: It is a great idea. Carberry: Yes Irvin? Pfab: I spoke- your first name is Mike? Carberry: That is correct. Pfab: -Mike in the last day or two and I was wondering is there a possibility of attacking this from a regional approach? Iowa City has one fireworks and so does Coralville. Is this something that could be incorporated by using shuttle buses? And maybe in one place one time and one time another. O'Donnell: (can't hear) Pfab: I know. I agree, but I mean, is there- has anybody ever approached it from that point of view? I mean it is, you know, the fireworks- one firework goes up and if more people see it it don't cost any more. Champion: It is wrong. It needs to be fight where I am at. Carberry: I think it is a matter of community pride that every city wants to have their fireworks and I think that, I mean, you go to Wellman and they have their fireworks. You go to Lone Tree- every town, every city, every municipality has their fireworks and the people want to go to their own hometown fireworks display. O'Donnell: I think it is really nice, Mike, that you- Wilburn: (can't hear)...the communities you invite the more it congests traffic and- Pfab: Well, by keeping the traffic away and maybe more shuttle buses. Carberry: Since we are going to be expanding into City Park and using the entire park, I mean, everybody as this Council knows wants to park fight next to where they want to go. And so they won't be able to park much at City Park so we are, you know, probably going to try to use Hancher lots. But we are going to have to shuttle people from downtown. There is just not going to be any other way if we get the kind of attendance that we are This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 57 anticipating. So, you know, it is walking distance. People probably won't want to walk so I think that we should probably provide some of the shuttle buses that you are talking about Irvin from downtown to the festival site. Pfab: But if they go downtown and they make a loop- I mean, is there any reason why some people from Coralville might not be willing to come? Champion: Well they can come. Carberry: We would love to have people from Coralville and North Liberty and from Cedar Rapids. Pfab: But is there any reason why if you keep the cars out of there and you go in there with shuttle buses- I don't know the logistics of it but it doesn't seem like it should be impossible to make work. Wilbum: (can't hear) Pfab: Were there cars there last year? Wilburn: (can't hear) the area is really packed with people. All I am saying is that more (can't hear). O'Donnell: We are talking last year in Coralville with Chubby Checker. Carberry: That is big time talent. O'Donnell: You've got cooperation here between Coralville and Iowa City that you are doing it different days. I think this is a great thing to do. Carberry: One of the reasons that we put it on the 3rd was to minimize the impact on the Coralville and then we, you know, had a sit down with the Jazz Festival and the Downtown Association people to make sure that this was a complimentary festival that made it- that made the Iowa City area a destination for this entire weekend. And not only to bring people from maybe the outlying areas which would benefit the hotels, the restaurants, and the business community at large but also to keep people in Iowa City instead of going down to say, the Blues Festival in the Quad Cities. People have a reason to stay in Iowa City for the 4th Of July Independence Day Holiday. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 58 Pfab: We were talking about destination locations and also keeping people off the highway over the 4th of July. I don't- I think it has some merit to at least be looked farther. I don't know where it goes. Kanner: Irvin, were you talking about asking the communities to combine 2 fireworks displays into one display? As a possibility? Pfab: A possibility. Champion: Too many people. I would get claustrophobic. Pfab: That is what the Indians said when the Europeans came over. Champion: They were fight. Kanner: Michael, are you asking for City buses at all? Carberry: That is probably- I mean, that is a suggestion. You know, I don't know how that would be worked out. You know, the logistics of this is not been- Atkins: The logistics will be difficult. Remember, it is a Monday night. We run until 10:00. Our fleet is committed. Kanner: We don't run on a Saturday schedule? Monday, July 3rd. Champion: It is not a holiday. Pfab: It is a holiday? Champion: No, it is not a holiday. Atkins: It is not a holiday. Carberry: A lot of people will have the day off probably or take the day off but I don't think it would be considered a holiday. Lehman: Not a legal holiday. Atkins: The point still remains is that we need to figure out how extensive is the fleet committed to running its routine services? Pfab: But I am just saying- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 59 Atkins: As far as shuttle, regardless of whether you combine or not, I think there is merit to shuttle buses. O'Donnell: Yes. Vanderhoef: I do too. Atkins: There is a lot of merit to the shuttle buses. Vanderhoef: And certainly to put it in all of your promotion material so that our outlying towns around us like the Kalonas and the West Branches and so forth know that there will be a shuttle bus from say parking ramp A, B or C. Atkins: If you choose to be a sponsor I would think that if we are going to have it at City Park we need to go to work on some sort of shuttle system. It just makes all of the sense in the world. Pfab: Is it even possible that the University has some buses sitting around? Atkins: Don't know. That is possible. Yeah sure. Pfab: Does it hurt them to- Atkins: It doesn't hurt to ask. O'Donnell: There is many different things to be considered and I know Parks and Rec looks on the Fourth of July, especially swimming proceeds,- I don't know how important that is. Atkins: Swimming? O'Donnell: That is a lot of money. Vanderhoef: The income on that those days are important to recreation- Carberry: Yeah. What we- one day is what we will be asking for on the festival. I mean, just to make it- Champion: That is one of the busiest days. Carberry: Yes, exactly, well. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 60 Lelunan: On the other hand, this could enhance the income the City would get from the swimming pool. Carberry: In other days. I mean, to show off the City Park as the jewel of Iowa City to promote the rides and- Kanner: You are asking for the pool? Champion: You would have to charge for the pool just like you charge for food. Carberry: Well, I don't know. It is a suggestion. Nothing is in concrete. Lehman: (can't hear) .... we chose to be a part of it. Then I think details like shuttle buses, pool, all of those things, will be discussed. Atkins: We can make it work. You decision ultimately is you have to decide to be a sponsor. O'Donnell: I think it is an incredible idea and I know surrounding communities see this, they are involved, and this is a very special occasion. I support it now. I think it is a great idea. Champion: I think we need two general budgets. (several talking) Pfab: I have a question. Ifa person is going to try to make it a regional event or a destination place, how many different groups would we want to get involved? How far out would you want to go? Lehman: Irvin, I suspect that if you've got the kind of attendance that we would like to get, that the people from Iowa City themselves would crowd that park to the point that you wouldn't worry about regional. O'Donnell: Absolutely. Lehman: There is enough people in this town that there probably isn't room for them all if you got them to go. Pfab: I just say if you are going to plan it as a community effort, who all would you have get involved? I don't know the answer. Kanner: I like the way you are thinking Irvin that this could be a form of economic development and this is a destination point and we have to think in bigger This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 61 terms perhaps. This is one thing to explore. I like the idea of exploring how we can reach out. Atkins: Please keep in mind that we had a very deliberate decision a couple of years ago to take it from the Airport and put it back in City Park. We knew full well managing a crowd in City Park is far more difficult then managing a crowd out there. If you went back to the airport I think the regional concept is pretty much boundless. You have the huge open (can't hear) land. But you found that the City Park was the sort of preferred traditionally historically- it is where we want to have the thing. Pfab: Is it possible to split it up? Feature festivities up until evening and then shuttle bus- I don't know. Atkins: I don't know either. It is their program to run and I think they just want us to be a sponsor. Carberry: Well we wanted- I think one site would be the preferable plan. O'Donnell: And there is a lot of tradition that goes along with City Park. I mean, that is- Champion: Nobody wants to go to the Airport for fireworks. Carberry: No ambiance there. Kanner: Michael? I just want to clarify. You are asking for $9000 cash plus and (can't hear) services that we might contribute? Or would that $9000 include in kind? Carberry: Plus. $9000 plus the (can't hear) contributions. And if you would like to write a check tonight Steven that would be fine. Atkins: The Jaycees and the Police Department and our Public Works department get together long before the event. We have to hold officers over, (can't hear) and that is something that we simply provide as part of our public service responsibilities. Pfab: Do we ever get our service clubs involved? Atkins: Oh, sure. I think that is really more (can't hear). Pfab: I am sorry, Veteran's groups. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 62 Carberry: Any more questions? O'Donnell: Thank you. Nice job. Lehman: Thank you Mike. Vanderhoef: Thank you. Lehman: One other thing that we should do before we go. The work session for February 7 we talked about last night briefly, it was scheduled for 8:30 in the morning. I cannot make that meeting. Champion: I can make the 2:30 (can't hear). Pfab: What day of week is that? Lehman: The 7th of February. Champion: I was the one holding that up Emie. Lehman: The other- well, there is nothing magic about this. Champion: Well it is magic when you can find a time all of us can get together. O'Donnell: That is right. Kanner: 2:30? Is that-? Lehman: Does 2:30 work for everybody? Kanner: For me it does. Vanderhoef: Yes. Lehman: 2:30 on Monday the 7th. O'Donnell: We will have that in our packet Friday? Karr: Yes. Atkins: And then Tuesday the 8th is at 6:30. Lehman: Tuesday the 8th at 6:30. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500 January 25, 2000. Council Work Session Page 63 Atkins: So, for your information, I am positive I should finish up on the 7th. That should give you a good bit of the 7th and all of the 8th for you to put proposals, ideas, [and] issues on the table. Just kind of think about- be prepared to bring those- Lehman: And you guys while you are thinking, we have heard a lot of stuff tonight. Figure out where we can come up with all of the money. Atkins: I will summarize this proposal for you. Pfab: I have one question. When are the packets going to be out to us? Is it still Friday? Lehman: Friday. Atkins: We are really trying to have it for you Thursday. Pfab: Great. Atkins: Now- Lehman: If you don't make it- Atkins: If it all falls apart Ernie yell. Karr: We will call you if it falls apart that no earlier than 3:00, 4:00. Champion: On Thursday? Kanner: Oh, so you are trying already? Wow, that is great. Atkins: Yeah, we are trying already. Lehman: That is to be commended. Kanner: Well, thanks for trying. Vanderhoef: We will see. Lehman: We are out of here. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of January 25, 2000. WS012500