HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-01-24 Work Session January 24, 2000 Council Work Session Page 1
January 24, 2000 Council Work Session 2:30 PM
Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Kanner, Pfab, Wilburn
Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Mansfield, Davidson, Schmadeke, Herting, Fosse,
Trueblood, Franklin, O'Malley
Tapes: 00o10 Both Sides, 00-11, Side 1
Flip Chart
Finish CIP Review
Board Commission Review
Enterprise Funds
Policy Issues - Econ. Development
Parks Master Plan
Council Discussion
Capital Project Priorities
Operating Budget
Policy Programs, New Initiations
Whatever
Steve Atkins/OK we're on page 128 and I just want to give you kind of a quick heads of
where we are, the review of the CIP projects, and answer questions about them.
Tomorrow night you have boards, commission, agencies, they'll come to you
discuss their issues. I have to finish the Enterprise funds, there are a couple of
policy issues, Economic Development and Parks Master Plan and then we need to
schedule your council discussion. I would encourage you to try to split it into two
pieces, one Capital and one Operating, and then Policy Programs and then sort of
Whatever however you want to conduct yourself, something like that. So kind of
through here is still staff show, the way I've got it scheduled we should have at
least one full meeting if not two meetings available for you all to do. Propose,
debate and decide. OK.
With that we left off with Peninsula site development which is on page 3 CIP's,
we did not do that one, sewer project, OK.
Schmadeke/That project's under construction fight now, it's part of the Foster Road
project.
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(All talking)
Champion/What project are we talking about?
Lehman/Page 128.
Atkins/I'm sorry.
Lehman/Third, second one down.
Champion/Right.
Atkins/OK Chuck have to correct this next one.
Schmadeke/The yea, Dubuque Road, that should be Dubuque Street to the Rochester
tank. It includes all the water main problems, I'll find it here on the map. Except
that piece on First Avenue that was included in the First Avenue project on page
(can't hear).
Atkins/Yea as I recall this was one, this budget is overstated too.
Schmadeke/Right.
Atkins/By about a million dollars because of some other work. So you'll take this
$4,390,000 draw a line through that and it's $3,390,000 we picked up some other
work on that, and that reduces the scope on that project.
Kanner/Where is this from again?
Schmadeke/From Dubuque Street to the Rochester Storage tank.
Atkins/Do you have the pointer Terry? Oh OK.
Schmadeke/It's right here Dubuque and Foster Road and follows to Prairie Du Chien and
parallel to the interstate to this north/south line is a telephone easement. It's the
driveway back to that telephone tower out there on Interstate 80, and then it
follows along Dubuque Road to Dodge, this portion is part of the Captain Irish
Project, this section here is included in First Avenue reconstruction or paving and
then it includes (can't hear).
Atkins/Go ahead Chuck.
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Schmadeke/The next project is just annual replacement of water mains, some of our
water mains are about 100 years old and where we have areas of town where we
have multiple breaks, (can't hear).
???man/That's just (can't hear).
Sctunadeke/(can't hear) The next project is part of that Foster Road project it extends up
to the (can't hear).
Atkins/Chuck, those of you who might be using this book, that' s the silvery version, the
Citizen Summary, that would be on, we're on page 48 in that book, for anyone
using that Citizen Summary, OK.
Schmadeke/The next project is the water treatment plant, those numbers have to in best
reflect our bids that we got (can't hear). I think there have been about 2 million in
actual bids on those.
Kanner/So this will be about 11 million?
Schmadeke/It's 26,011 now, it'll be 28,211.
Atkins/Well we added the well house, we added projects to that.
Lehman/Well that was also, does that include generator?
Atkins/Yea, generator, it's got other costs to that.
Lehman/Yea.
Kanner/This is in 2001 then these additions?
Atkins/We will completely correct that for you Steven, we will recorrect the project list
so those numbers, this was prepared about the time we were bidding the projects
so we'll have to correct all that for you. But we will do that.
Schmadeke/And we really need to get the work schedule from the contractor on how.
???man/What year to put it in.
Schmadeke/(can't hear) The cash flow to proceed.
Fosse/Do you want me to go on with Storm water?
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Atkins/Sure, ifit's your project and you see it on the list just pick it fight up.
Fosse/OK. Beer Creek storm sewer is that's the one that picks up that old lime stone
storm sewer from right down at the Civic Center here and it will extend it about a
block north of where we are. The state will be making a small financial
contribution to this but they want to get that extended past their building fight
across the street over here the Centennial Building, it's under design, construction
this summer. Creek drainage maintenance.
Atkins/Want to give them the history of how it got the name?
Fosse/Oh it goes up to Old Brewery Square and that was a combined sewer that carried
both sanitary and storm flows and it had a lot of discharge from the beer, from the
brewery so that's how it got it's name.
Wilburn/The 3/4 block this project extends it up to there to cover the (can't hear)?
Fosse/Yep it's just past that and the church fight now just next to the Civic Center' s got a
couple sanitary services that still drop into this and we'll get those wrapped into
that time as well. Drainage maintenance that's an annual expenditure where
mostly it's working the neighborhoods to the cleanup portions in the creek and get
obstructions out of the creek. EPA Storm water Management that's one where
the Fed's just passed new regulations in October this year and we should learn
more about this in February. The EPA's putting on a conference in Chicago that
we'll try to get in and learn more about what this means to us at that. Highway 6
Sidewalk.
Atkins/Can we go on Rick?
Fosse/Sure.
Atkins/On that item we also have proposed in the budget a storm water management fee
since you've yet to decide that you may be able to substitute GO financing for the
storm water management fee which would substantially substitute that, so and I
will raise that issue with you when time comes.
Fosse/OK. Highway 6 Sidewalk/Drainage that is a project where we have both some
federal money as well as some state money teaming with our local money. That
project will happen in three parts, first we'll run a storm sewer along that south
ditch line along Highway 6 all the way from Hills Bank and past K-Mart and that
will occur this year if all goes well and then next year we'll put the sidewalk and
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trail on top of that perhaps turn lane improvements with that and then we' 11 do
some landscaping. We're also working with the DOT the possibility of
overlaying that portion of Highway 6 through that whole corridor there which
would quite it down a little bit and give it a smoother riding surface.
Lehman/That's only from K-Mart to Hills Bank? Keokuk Street are you talking?
Fosse/It works. For the storm sewer.
Lehman/Yea.
Fosse/Yea, and the trail will go all the way to Sycamore and the overlay could extend
beyond that.
Champion/And what is overlay?
Fosse/Oh asphalt resurfacing, fight now that's concrete out there and it's getting in kind
of tough shape.
Kanner/Is the landscaping included in this?
Fosse/Yes the landscaping.
Kanner/2002.
Fosse/Right, let's see, the trail will go down next season and if we can work it out we'll
do the landscaping at the end of the summer of 2001 if not then probably the
beginning of 2002.
Pfab/I just have a simple question. How do people cross the street, do you obviously take
a light, (can't hear) a trail?
Fosse/Yes.
Vanderhoef/The trail funding on that project where is that coming from?
Fosse/The trail is 100 percent locally funded now, what we, we got some federal money
through the STP program and that was to cover the storm sewer and trail
component separate or entirely and we moved all of the money into the storm
sewer components so we only have to let one contract that plays by the federal
rules is lead in Ames rather than locally. So we're putting all of our federal
money into the storm sewer and it will build the sidewalk (can't hear).
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Davidson/And don't you remember Dee to get JCCOG to go along with that the city said
still intend to build the trail.
Vanderhoef/Yea, what I'm thinking about is out of locally funding and that is this
coming out of the $30,000 annual trails money or?
Fosse/No, just GO.
Vanderhoef/Just GO.
Fosse/Our total local contribution stays the same it's just how we divide up where (can't
hear).
Lehman/Well we have a bit of an obligation, we're taking the federal government money
up front but we have an obligation to do that.
Fosse/Yea we need to follow through on the storm sewer, or excuse me on this sidewalk.
Lehman/Right.
Fosse/Yes.
Wilburn/A couple questions before we move on related to the maintenance things, the
creek and Chuck about the water mains, borrowing any major catastrophe's is that
about what your spending is that maybe an average?
Schmadeke/What we've spent in the past?
Wilburn/Yea.
Schmadeke/I'll have to check on that and see the.
Wilburn/I'm just curious is that something that normally you would come back with a
budget revision if there was a some major or is this about what your spending?
Fosse/You say the budget on the creek?
Wilburn/Yea.
Fosse/We have not spent the total amount yet on that program, I think we spent about
$12,000 the first year and if this year were about in that ballpark again and.
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Wilburn/$12,000.
Fosse/Yea.
Atkins/I think maybe you can give them just a tad bit of history that's a fai~y new
budget item, it's not a big budget item, but we have creeks obviously all
throughout town where property owners actually own to the middle of the creek.
In other instances they own to the edge, someone's tree will fall and then
everyone looks around and who's responsible for getting it picked up and cleaned
up. And we designed this it was intended to allow us a chance to really pick a
neighborhood, go into the neighborhood, folks we can do some cleanup on these
creeks for you, and we the city will pay for it but we do have to get certain rights
of permission but the Ross Creek particular I think has boundaries that are goofy
standards, we can be told no that you can not come onto this property.
Pfab/When those trees fall down or damage or what not, is there any insurance recovery
from the property owner?
Atkins/Not that I know of Irvin I suspect it's their responsibility to pursue that if there
was damage caused but I'm not that experienced.
Pfab/But your saying the city goes in and just does it.
Atkins/We go in and do it because, quite frankly you can do it, own the middle of the
creek and I'm your next door neighbor and your tree is blocking it and we go in
and try to work with you and we'll get it out of there. We also have another piece
of this is that we will tell neighborhoods that you want to go in and clean your
creeks out you get it cut up and cleaned and to the curb and we'll get rid of it for
you, so there's just a variety of things that we do.
Pfab/But a lot of times there's wind damage to those trees I believe it.
Atkins/Oh an (can't hear) big number.
Pfab/I mean I was going to say if we do the work and we recoup that ifthat's available.
Atkins/Generally speaking we probably wouldn't do that kind of work. I mean we would
not go on so much. Like the wind storm of 98.
Pfab/No, no, no, that's not, no. The trees in the creek, the wind blew it, somebody has to
take it out, now there may be coverage on a homeowner's policy there that says if
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the tree blows down there's some damage. Does the city ever have a chance to
recoup, what is possible payment to the landlord?
Atkins/I assume we have the possibility, I don't think we've ever pursued that.
Pfab/Is there any reason why we shouldn't?
Atkins/One is the amount of money and the time and effort, that would be the thing that
comes to mind immediately and usually the goal is get the tree out of there.
Pfab/Right but I mean then at that point afterwards to keep our.
Fosse/It's a thought.
Lehman/Although though Irvin if I'm not mistaken most homeowner' s policy pay only if
there's actual property damage from a tree that falls, it doesn't create any.
Pfab/It's been too long as you know.
Lehman/If it doesn't create any property damage to your property or for somebody
else's, there are no damages, you've got to pay for pick up of that tree.
Champion/That's right.
Pfab/I believe that' s fight but I didn't want to leave it off the table (can't hear) response.
Lehman/OK.
Champion/Important that we, I'm glad to hear we have such a program because what
happens in those creeks affect upstream and downstream, and you can't just
depend on the local property owner to get the.
Atkins/It only takes one awnry soul to mess it up for the whole neighborhoods.
Fosse/Our best one this year was along Glendale where Ralston Creek crosses it and to
their downstream, that neighborhood got together, they organized their own
cleanup and got it done and we funded it and it really really improved that stretch
of creek there.
Pfab/I just wanted to make my comment, I wasn't trying to say don't do it.
Atkins/Oh I hear you.
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Champion/We know.
Atkins/Oh I hear you. It's one of those things that mostly they can tell us for the worst
would be no so we would have.
Schmadeke/Back on this water main, (can't hear) up and this is relatively a new project
because you know up until a few years we used to put in water main, all water
mains in the city, subdivisions and any new water that came into the city did the
work for a variety of reasons but one being that we weren't able to keep up with
that work plus do maintenance on our own water mains, we backed off and we
don't do any subdivisions work anymore and so going back I'm not just sure
when we stopped doing that.
Davidson//It's been 4 or 5 years ago.
Schmadeke/Yea, so I'm not sure how much history we can provide on whatever
maintenance.
Atkins/If it is not expended Ross because it's the water funded independent that's
automatically carded over as part of that reserve, it doesn't just go back.
Wilburn/OK.
Atkins/Mormon Trek.
Fosse/That's one where we did some erosion control at the outlet at the basin just down
the street from Mormon Trek and as part of the Mormon Trek improvements that
we're going to do this year from Abbey Lane to Highway 1 will be a (can't hear)
that culvert underneath it and hopefully reduce the frequency at which the creek
goes over the road there. North Branch Basin Excavation, that's something
where we need to go in.
Pfab/Where you get to a pause going in I want to ask another question that would relate
to this.
Fosse/OK, we have both the noah branch and the south branch you'll find in here as
well. Over the years those two major detention basins have sentiments that are
building up in them and they've not built up to the point where it jeopardizes the
performance of the basins yet but it will eventually so we need to begin the plan
to remove those sentiments from there and I know on south branch the one we
want to dovetail that with some improvements to the park land.
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Atkins/Do you want to describe where the north branch is so they understand that?
Fosse/Oh that's the one it's in Hickory Hill Park, that's going to have issues in itself
when we go into get those sentiments out of there. South branch is the old soccer
facility there along Scott Boulevard.
Pfab/OK one question I have we're talking about Highway 6, it won't be very long and
there's no children will be able to cross it so it will be a no man's land. What can
be done as that keeps getting more and more and more, what can be done there,
what are we going to do?
Davidson/We have been contacted by, can't remember which neighborhood association
he represents but he's trying to put, Jerry Hansen is trying to build a coalition of
the neighborhood groups in that area to then petition Council for at least one, if
not two or three overpasses in the area. The only time we've considered an
overpass Irvin has been where First Avenue meets Highway 6 in the Grant Wood
neighborhood at one time that was a priority. We were able to do some things
with the, add (can't hear) crossings through there, that basically placated them in
addition to running a special bus route down through there. Haven't heard of a
thing since then about that.
Pfab/So in other words as far as school's concerned because of busing facilities that's not
a hot priority.
Davidson/It hasn't been a high priority.
Pfab/OK, OK. That was before what I wanted to mention that until you got by with it.
Thank you for letting me interrupt.
Fosse/Sure, sure. Riverside Arts campus storm sewer that is what you see in the budget
now is Phase III of that, Phase 1 is complete, Phase 2 is 95 percent complete and
the University has kicked in about $600,000 so far and their share of Phase 3 will
be in that neighborhood as well around $600,000. We're trying to split this
project 50/50.
Pfab/Are they talking about building a building across Riverside Drive from the park,
from the present Arts Building?
Fosse/Yes they are they're looking at a new Arts Building.
Kanner/Can you point that out where they are?
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Fosse/Sure.
O'Donnell/What's that street that comes down?
Atkins/It's the comer of Riverside (can't hear).
Fosse/Right in this area here, we've got it built from the river to Riverside Drive and
from River (can't hear) south to the low point and the lift station has been
constructed and the final phase will take it on up what use to be Elm Street goes
up that parking lot behind the old Law building there and will tie in where the
storm water comes underneath Highway 6 there. The drainage area goes all the
way back to Kinnick.
Lehman/Oh really.
Fosse/Kinnick.
Pfab/What was the problem?
Fosse/The problem was flooding out of Riverside Drive down at the low point there
somewhat frequently. We've got the South Sycamore Regional Facility, that is
kind of a combination of storm water quantity and quality project as well as
getting some linear park space in there and that is one that we're in the property
acquisition phase on that and we hope to be working on that this summer
construction wise. Snyder Creek water shed, this, it's one that Jerry Palmer is
working with, I don't know a lot about this one.
Wilburn/Wasn't there, if we jump back wasn't there type of species or a native species or
something, did that ever get resolved?
Fosse/(can't hear) OK I'm not familiar with that one (can't hear).
(All talking)
Fosse/Turtles are (can't hear) construction.
(All talking)
Fosse/They're kind of more, I think fight in here where the turtles hang out, this project's
over here.
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Wilbum/OK, all fight, never mind.
Fosse/OK.
Davidson/Unless they move, if they move (can't hear). If they move slowly we may be
done before they get there.
Atkins/The Snyder Creek water shed is something that just occurred at the time of
preparing this budget where could you show Snyder Creek.
Fosse/Sure, Snyder Creek comes up.
Atkins/Julie Tallman the person who administers our Sensitive Areas Ordinance learned
of by for this grant. That' s an area of respective development well into the future,
the EPA expressed a willingness to fund this study, termites, there are all sorts of
soil condition and things that are going to be considered under, this is really brand
new and I really don't know a whole lot more than just that. Her time and local
matches it's not a cash match it's time.
Champion/Oh OK.
Atkins/Yea.
Champion/But we're paying the people that are doing the contracting?
Atkins/Julie continues to administer our Sensitive Areas Ordinance, that's her routine
responsibility but she also took the lead on the preparation of this study, again
you does provide you an opportunity to get yourself a body of knowledge that you
might normally have available.
Fosse/Sump Pump discharge tiles, that is an annual expense where we go in and install
basically drainage tiles behind the curbs that allow people to tie their sump pumps
into it and that gets us a number of benefits, number one is if it currently
discharges the sewer sanitary service in their house it gets it out of there so that
improves our sanitary sewer capacity. Secondly, if they're already discharging to
their yard or to their street and it's causing problems it gets rid of that, and if they
have problems with algae in the summer time and glaciers building in the winter
time and the tiles also provide some drainage to the sub base for the street so get a
little better (can't hear).
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Pfab/Talk to me, I was under the impression that that wasn't possible, is that something
relatively new? I mean legally you weren't suppose to dump the water some
place?
Champion/Oh we do it, people do it all the time.
Fosse/Yea there are a lot of those around town, and what we do, what usually sparks a
project like this is if somebody, if there are water wars between neighbors that do
dump on each other's property and we'll come in and make sure we have enough
interest in the neighborhood that it'll pay for us to do that and then we begin,
usually if somebody's got a sump pump that means their neighbors have one too.
Pfab/Right.
Fosse/And if they aren't discharging outside that means their probably going into the
center sewer. That's when we write letters and say we're doing this project,
you've got a sump pump, let's bring it out.
Pfab/So what is the method of doing that?
Fosse/What we do, we open cut the pipe end behind the curb and sometimes we boar
driveways and sometimes we take the driveways out, it varies and usually we'll
boar under large trees that are there.
Pfab/OK so in other words your talking about the street drain?
Fosse/Right, the pipe along the street.
Pfab/Which is the storm water drain.
Fosse/Yea.
Pfab/So how do you go about this, is it tile or pipe?
Fosse/It's a tile, usually a plastic double wall (can't hear) pipe.
Pfab/OK so it's a plastic pipe, so do then you cap it?
Fosse/Yea, we put service "Y's" on at every house so they can come out and tie into it.
Pfab/OK, A "Y" or just a little.
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Fosse/It's like a "T" a "Y."
Pfab/But a "Y" as it runs along.
Fosse/Yea.
Pfab/What happens, what keeps it from backing up?
Fosse/It's a gravity flow and it discharges into a sanitary sewer, or excuse me a storm
sewer.
Pfab/So if that if, but if there was a tremendous amount of water what would happen
then?
Fosse/It could possibly back up.
Pfab/And it work where would it back into to?
???man/The house.
Schmadeke/That's under pressure, it wouldn't back up.
Lehman/No it can't back up, it just wouldn't drain.
Fosse/Right, yea. And the sump pump I know that I had in my house had a back flow
preventer on it, to keeps that water, and I think most installations do. I can't
imagine that surcharging to the point that it could (can't hear).
Pfab/Right, OK, and so then, so what you use, what comes out of the house with the
sump pump how do you get it to the "Y," what is the method of transporting that
fluid?
Fosse/That's usually in a two-inch pipe and that's the property owner' s responsibility to
get it from the house.
Pfab/A flexible or?
Fosse/Usually flexible yea.
Pfab/So how long has this been going on?
Fosse/Probably five years now.
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Pfab/OK, that's great I was wondering when it was going to happen but I wasn't aware
now, that's one thing that got by me.
Fosse/The tough ones are where we don't have a place to discharge the tile, you know
we've got to have a storm sewer to tie into or we can't put the tile in the ground
and some (can't hear).
Pfab/That's great.
Kanner/How do people find out about this?
Fosse/Usually we get called when there are problems with sump pumps dumping out
into the street or if the neighbors dumping it on their yard they call us.
Atkins/I've seen it in the neighborhood newsletters in the past.
Fosse/Well that's true we did do that earlier.
Atkins/Marcia knows of these and when she's in meetings she'll hear of these things and
often it's give her a call.
Pfab/I often wondered why it comes so long to figure that out.
Fosse/It's just a.
Pfab/I mean years and years and years ago.
Fosse/It's cheaper to put that tile in that it used to be.
Pfab/Oh I know, I just thought it was insane the way it used to be done. Go ahead,
anyway.
Fosse/And answer your question.
Kanner/I had a, are we going to move on the storm water? I had a question on storm
water.
Fosse/OK. Go ahead.
Kanner/Domestic Violence Intervention Program their shelter I don't know if they talked
to you at all.
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Fosse/Yea.
Atkins/It's in the unfunded list.
Kanner/Unfunded list.
Davidson/Yea.
Kanner/Could you just talk about it briefly and.
Fosse/Sure, what they've got is a.
Kanner/What page is that on the unfimded list?
Fosse/Back, it starts on page 150.
Atkins/But the unfunded is what do they call it Olympic Court, is that?
Karr/43.
Lehman/Olympic Court.
Atkins/What project number is it?
Lehman/43.
Kanner/151 at the bottom (can't hear).
Atkins/Yea that's it.
Fosse/That's kind of a wild guess at this point. They've got a building, do you want
details of the situation out here?
Kanner/I would appreciate yes.
Fosse/They've got a building that it (can't hear) a drainage way that falls along the back
lot lines of the subdivision out there and when the flow gets so deep it floods in to
the building. Now what they've done in the past year to try and improve the
situation for themselves is they've cleaned up that area along side the building and
they've essentially put a sidewalk in there to allow that water to flow through
there more frequently. And there's also a storm sewer, a private storm sewer back
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in there now that they've tried to improve how the water gets into that but it's
rather small so it's not going to carry the big falls when they come along. That's
one that' s seems pretty much like a private issue to us but it, we've been involved
in situations like that before, the problem gets brought up and there's big enough
public meet we've been in and retrofitted some storm sewers.
Kanner/And they have problems, is it almost yearly flooding their basement?
Fosse/Sue Horowitz can give you better information on how frequently it is but I if I
remember talking to her it's you know some years are worst than others but it's
most annually yea.
Pfab/Is there or was there a design flaw there?
Fosse/If there was it apparently there's something that isn't working out. It's not in the
public infrastructure, it's in the private drainage back behind the buildings.
Pfab/Right. OK.
Terry Trueblood/The first part of the project at the top of the page is mislabeled and has
the wrong amount of money, other than it's just perfect. The, actually it said
Benton Street, Ned Ashton Park, that pan of it is the funding you see in FY2000
that's currently there, you'll see that under construction this spring and that's the
part that's down right directly behind Professional Muffler, Benton Street and
there will be a little mini park trail and type of facility, a little sculpture I guess
you would call it as part of commemorating that.
Fosse/Art (can't hear).
Trueblood/Bridge that Ned Ashton had designed. The 2002 funding that should be
$150,000 is for what for the time being we're calling Miller Orchard
Neighborhood Park and that would be that 2 acre parcel of land that we purchased
with assistance from community development block grant funds. The south side
of that across from Roosevelt School.
Pfab/Where is that again?
Trueblood/South Side of Benton Street, near the Miller Avenue Intersection that's fight
across from the school as you go up that hill. This was one the areas, this was the
area that was determined to be the area in highest need of a neighborhood park in
our neighborhoods based on task force developed it by the Commission. The next
project Cemetery building renovation and repair, it's just it's just what it says, the
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biggest part of that is a new roof for the cemetery building and it also would be
(can't ear) and doors, that sort of thing. We've actually already started with that
project even though it's not until the next fiscal year because of the situation with
the roof. City Park Building and parking improvements kind of comes about
because of the relocation of the Park Maintenance headquarters. What we're
going to do is take the old shop and demolish part of it and utilize part of it for
City Park maintenance and some off season storage, and then the front part was
the offices and the break room and the rest rooms we want to remodel that and
make it available as a closed shelter for people to rent and reserve. There also will
be some parking improvements, well there's the old old shop over near the
baseball diamonds, that's going to be demolished and that will be used for some
parking improvements over there, primarily to accommodate the baseball
program.
Kanned Terry.
Trueblood/Yea.
Kanner/Will that shelter then be heated?
Trueblood/Yes.
Kanner/So it will be used year round.
Trueblood/It will be heated and it'll have rest rooms.
Kanner/We have to get a key?
Trueblood/It will be just like Shelter #13 right now in the sense that if somebody
reserves it, pay for it and then it will be open for them the party that reserves it. I
might just mention that City Park Building Improvement project too is that
$100,000 may not buy all what we had planned for that but Steve guarantees me
we'll be able to do whatever we want.
Atkins/This is where Steve, that we do a budget balancing, that by occasion we have to
make, this is where I was nickel and diming, taking $25,000, $50,000 out of the
budget, Terry had asked for $150,000 if I recall in that budget and I reduced it.
Trueblood/I don't know why you didn't take $25,000 out of the $26 million dollar
projects instead of (can't hear).
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Trueblood/He took 2 million out of that one. City Park Ride development, as you recall
we acquired part of the tides from the Drollingers and this budget we don't have a
detailed plan yet but what this will allow is some significant improvements to the
area.
Lehman/What's the time frame for that?
Trueblood/On this?
Lehman/Yea.
Trueblood/Well this, this is budgeted for 2001 which doesn't become available until July
but I'm hopeful that we can start some of the improvements prior to that.
Lehman/The public would really like not, like to see those tides uninterrupted as
possible.
Trueblood/Well we can still operate the rides but not have improvements.
Lehman/OK that's fine OK.
Trueblood/Improvements have nothing to do with the ride operation just aesthetic, well
they do in the sense of making it more effective.
Champion/Did we talk about once about having a fund raiser for this?
Trueblood/Yes.
Lehman/Some people in the community did.
Trueblood/Well not for this specifically but to help with the acquisition.
Champion/Did we ever do anything about that?
Trueblood/The foundation hasn't embarked upon anything as yet where it's still panning
out.
Atkins/We also Connie, one of the options we talked about operationally Terry hasn't
decided you know how to to do this just yet, but one of the options we thought
was actually having our social service agencies buy a contract with the City, run
the tides and make it a fund raiser for them, as long as we cover our cost, you
know on Monday's it's UAY, Tuesday's it's some other group and that,
something such as that, just to kind of encourage them all, part of these groups.
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As you remember when we proposed to a couple of the human service agencies
got all excited, never intended to impose on them but to offer it to them. So we
just need to work that out.
Trueblood/I'll be meeting with a couple of the groups over the course of the next month
or so to talk about those things.
O'Donnell/Mayor's Youth Program has got a popcorn wagon that use to be downtown. I
understand the City has a lien on that.
Atkins/Yes.
O'Donnell/I'd like to erase that lien and maybe put that wagon out at City Park that
Shakespearean Theater out there and the tides and it'd be a good.
Champion/It would be a good idea.
Atkins/I, actually that's a good idea because I sent a note to him today asking that very
question.
???man/It's a wonderful idea.
(All laughing)
Trueblood/I asked my secretary to intercepting (can't hear).
Atkins/Well the popcorn wagon note is on it's way, if you happen to think about how
could we incorporate that into the City Park Events, (can't hear) can not pay for it
until they pay us some money and they're just not going to be able to cover that
cost so.
O'Donnell/You accomplish two things, you get them out of debt and I think we can use
that wagon out at the park. There are a lot of people out there with tides, and
Shakespearean Theater and (can't hear).
Champion/It will be a great park.
O'Donnell/(can't hear) Cotton Candy slip away from us.
Champion/OK.
Kanner/Well I did kind of like it downtown, I kind of miss it downtown.
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Atkins/Yea. They couldn't operate it anymore.
Kanner/Did they make, so they weren't making any money on that?
Atkins/What happened was that, I'll do my best to recollect the history of it is they
owned it, wasn't doing well, they needed some financial help, we came up, (can't
hear) said OK we' 11 help you out. We bought it from someone else and then sort
of gave it back to them to run, they made a couple payments and they were unable
to continue to sell enough popcorn, do the kind of things, pay the mortgage (can't
hear) on it.
Lehman/Did you (can't hear)?
Atkins/And they had, yea, and part of the deal was they had to be open and they were
never open and so, we have no desire to embarrass the (can't hear) work out for
them. Well we could take it back as an expense to us and put the popcorn wagon
to use (can't hear).
O'Donnell/Well and part of it is just it.
Atkins/City Park is an idea.
O'Donnell/They replace the (can't hear).
Atkins/Oh it's, yea, when you think of that popcorn wagon, it's probably $10,000.
Champion/You have to sell a lot of popcorn.
Atkins/But I think you could put it to good use I think that's a, we have not spoken to
(can't hear) yet about.
O'Donnell/I have.
Atkins/You have OK.
Kanner/Terry, I was wondering if you could tell me a few of the details with the City
Park Ride development, what are the improvements that are not going.
???man/Train rides.
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Trueblood/Well what we had in mind was construction of a small building to act as a
ticket stand and perhaps a small concession stand, we had in mind to construct a
rather large and attractive playground in that immediate vicinity so that the
people, it would be another attraction to come to the area and it would be
something that would be utilized free of charge. And some general landscaping
improving of the area, improvements to the parking lot. Also we've discussed
although we wouldn't do it for this amount of money is extending the railroad
tracks themselves so that to the extent possible could meander through a larger
section of Lower City Park instead of just a small.
Lehman/Doesn't there have to be a fence built too?
Trueblood/Not around the railroad but there has to be a fence, that's a good point, we'll
have to do that.
Lehman/Yea.
Trueblood/Before we can even operate, a fence around the carousel and the small
airplane ride.
Kanner/And that was number 4 1 see on the list of your top ten commission priorities.
Trueblood/Those are Commission's priorities.
Kanner/Commission priorities, and those are on more of a preference from one.
Vanderhoef/Anything left off of that list that we're considering voting?
Trueblood/Well this is just the top 10 (can't hear) there's another 12 items that the
Commission decided since they have 22 items to prioritize they just wanted to
concentrate on trying to get the top 10 in order. You know I've got the other's,
other items if you'd like to have that some time.
Vanderhoef/OK.
Trueblood/OK, City Park Stage is already under construction as you know, should be
completed in May. City Park Trail improvements, this is just improving,
rebuilding and widening the existing trail system through City Park. They're
somewhat of a state of deterioration, the in-line skaters find them bumpy, as a
matter of fact if you go down there sometimes you'll find skaters in the road
instead of on the trails, and we prefer to keep them on the trails. We're going to
need another nickel or dime to do all the trails.
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Pfab/And I don't believe this is on the.
Atkins/Did he look at me when he said that?
Pfab/I don't believe this is on the agenda so we probably can't discuss it about the
skateboard park right now.
Atkins/It's on here.
Lehman/It'll be coming up.
Pfab/But the City Park area.
Lehman/We'll discuss that (can't hear).
Ka~mer/About the stage.
Trueblood/Yes.
Kanner/I need just a little history on that. From what I read in the paper the theater
came in with a certain estimate and then all of a sudden it practically doubled the
cost.
Trueblood/Actually it more than doubled.
Kanner/And so the Council approved the doubling.
Trueblood/Yes you got it.
Kanner/What was the process that they came in with such a low estimate?
Trueblood/That' s a process that we won't use again.
Pfab/Which one is it that you won't use again?
Kanner/What is it that you won't use again? How did that happen?
Trueblood/When they first met with the sight I had asked the theater group if they could
come back with an estimate of cost on what they would be and they were working
with this particular individual theater consultant type of person from Mt. Vernon,
or from Cornell College in Mt. Vernon so they had put together what they had
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considered the quite preliminary estimate to the arrangements actually (can't hear)
and so that happened, the timing of it was such that it needed to be plugged into
the capital improvement budget we were pursuing, it was about how quick the
turnaround was so I submitted that figure but from there it grew obviously but
design changed considerably as well. The building costs came in much more
expensive than anticipated, the footings for the poles (can't hear) more expensive.
Lehman/Didn't we also choose a more expensive option, the Council said we want this
in glass for a long time?
Trueblood/We did come back to Council with a number of deducts that were possible
also you know, it would not be as nice a facility too. Council decided correct me
if I'm wrong that they wanted to make sure it was done fight.
Lehman/That's right.
Atkins/The deducts were dressing rooms, I think, that was a big one something like that.
Trueblood/Yea.
O'Donnell/Larger dressing rooms.
Champion/Pretty much some material too.
Trueblood/Exterior, the exterior coverings of the doors, you know I can't remember,
plumbing (can't hear), some electrical come back.
Kanner/Are we in a sense marketing into other community groups to make use of it?
Trueblood/Not yet.
Kanner/What?
Trueblood/Not yet.
Kanner/But are we planning to?
(can't hear)
Kanner/Can you give me a sense of how other groups might use it?
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Trueblood/Well, I can give you a better sense of how they won't be using it for the first
three years it won't be for any Shakespeare kind of things, because that's in our
agreement with Riverside Theater, early adult theater, Shakespeare, festival kinds
of things it can't be used for that. But it can be used for school groups for
virtually anything whether that be theatrical performances or concerts or you
know anything that might be enhanced by a stage. So I would imagine it's mostly
theatrical and concert types of things although lectures are a possibility. Maybe a
even a Movies in the Park kind of thing.
Pfab/And your going to program it to (can't hear).
Kanner/It's pretty exciting.
Trueblood/What we use for a statement here.
Pfab/OK now you say that the contractors bid a lot different from than the preliminary
guestimates?
Trueblood/Well the project was a lot different too as we got into it.
Pfab/OK all right, now after the project was bid are there many changes in those
contracts?
Trueblood/After it was bid?
Pfab/Yea, is there, does that happen very ol°ten in city bidding?
Atkins/No.
Pfab/In other words what you see is what your going to get?
Atkins/Usually when we bid a project, usually, I say 95-99 percent of the time the project
is nailed, I mean when we took it back to the Council the project estimate is now
this it's going to cost us more, are you willing and we went through the extensive
discussion amongst the Council and there was a go, we'll go with this bigger.
Pfab/I'm not, no comment on that I think it sounded good, but I'm just wondering but
it's a chance to bring up a point how many contracts does the city bid have to
revised at considerable costs?
Atkins/Very few, very few.
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Pfab/So generally they're pretty tight and that's the way it is?
Atkins/Yea. I think I put on a list sometime ago to you (can't hear).
Lehman/(can't hear).
Atkins/But remember you bid what you bid if you make a substantial change.
Pfab/You can get nailed.
Atkins/Well we reject the bid and go back out. Yea we won't, if you make a substantial
change to the project our recommendation to Council would be reject it, rebid the
thing and that' s been our tradition.
Pfab/That's go till completion.
Atkins/I beg your pardon.
Pfab/That's go till completion.
Atkins/Once it's been bid and the contract is signed yea.
Trueblood/OK I think we're over to top of page 132 Footbridge replacement you can see
there that that's $10,000 per year budgeted, these are for pedestrian bridges in and
near various parks. That' s an annual allocation to go along with a number of
other items that we'll run across here such as the park shelter improvements
which is the second item on page 133 and several others after that. They total, we
refer to them as annual projects and they are identified specifically like this but I
think they total about $65,000 a year and we tend to use them with some degree
flexibility. For example, any given year maybe we need $50,000 worth of
accessibility projects but our park shelters are in pretty good shape so we use
flexibility to work within that particular within those particular areas. Hunters
Run Park Development it's one that' s been waiting for a number of years, if you
can see there it's about 26 acres of land, 16 acres of that has been farmed ever
since the city acquired it about well it's been more than 14 years ago I think it's
been about 16-17 years ago.
Pfab/Do you know where you, where the income for that land went?
Trueblood/To the general public.
Pfab/OK.
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Trueblood/Can you turn the light on until I figure out where I'm at? OK where we at?
Atkins/Try 218.
Trueblood/218.
Atkins/Rohret Road.
Trueblood/Right there where it says Hunter's Run Park that's where it.
(END OF 00-010 SIDE 1)
Trueblood/There's Duck.
Atkins/Your picking up there.
Trueblood/Deerfield.
Atkins/And I think you can go to the next one.
Trueblood/Sorry, now I can't see it from here.
Lehman/There you go.
Trueblood/That's the area that's farmed fight there that's 16 acres but there's another 6
acres that we acquired from the developer right in through there and so that's the
22 acres and there's another 4 acre parcel right over in this area that may or may
not be developed as part of this project. No what we'll be doing is going through
a planning process with the neighborhood, they don't have an association but with
the neighborhood over there to figure out like we do with other neighborhood
groups to see what they would like for the development of that particular park.
Mercer Park Ball Field Lighting, this is a project that we're going to do a switch
with your approval. There's another project later on it's called Mercer Park
building renovation and that has become a much higher priority than relighting
the ball fields so both coincidentally at $200,000 so we just want to delay this
project and move the other one forward. We're working with the Babe Ruth
Baseball organization on that, they're willing to put some money and time and
effort, we'll do it, essentially what it would be doing is building better rest rooms,
better concession stands, a press box out there so that they, partly so that they can
attract more and better tournaments. And their goal is to even attract a Babe Ruth
World Series to Iowa City some day. Now with that and with their help what we
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think we can do is the building and re-light the one ball diamond that' s in most
needing being relit for the $200,000. And then delay the relighting on the other
three fields for 3 or 4 years.
Vanderhoef/What year are you doing these to?
Trueblood/The, moving this back to? It would be I think probably (can't hear).
Atkins/Yes (can't hear).
Kanner/So your saying the whole $200,000 is going to unfunded?
Trueblood/Yep.
(All talking)
Atkins/The project Mercer Park Ball field lighting you see would go to tinfunded it
would be replaced by Mercer Park Concession stand and rest rooms, same amount
of money.
Kanner/And this is same fiscal year?
Atkins/Yes that's generally the plan to do the Fiscal year 01. It is the concession stand
and rest rooms that we're talking about as well as the press box correct?
Trueblood/Right.
Kanner/And what's the expectation on the fundraising?
Trueblood/For Babe Ruth?
Kanner/Yea, they're part of the of the $200,000 or in addition to the $200,0007
Trueblood/The reason that we think we can do it for this amount in addition to lighting
one field would be because of their involvement in it. Now they have financial
involvement right now is not a great deal, they've talked about that they have
$10,000 they could put towards it. But where they can help is going to suppliers
and contractors and maybe getting supplies at cost and getting a good rate from
contractors. We'll likely, we'll have to put the bid out there, the project out to
bid, but in doing so they might be able to talk to a, indicate a willingness to talk to
a contractor and have them submit very good bids you know and with a donation
so to speak to the Babe Ruth organization.
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Atkins/For new Council members I think Ross and Dee can speak to this also Terry's
been quite successful at fund raising very quietly going about Babe Ruth, girls
softball, Kickers, and that often has a success of these projects and these
organizations are willing to put substantial amounts of their own money toward
these projects that's why we get (can't hear).
Kanner/Terry, how many people play softball versus the baseball Babe Ruth?
Trueblood/Are you talking adult softball?
Kanner/Well whoever would make use of the softball in this area.
Trueblood/At Mercer?
Kanner/Yea.
Trueblood/OK then that would be adult softball, but their not using it very much
anymore, their, most of their games are played out at the Hawkeye Softball
complex where we've reached an agreement a couple of years ago with the
University. But Babe Ruth is the smallest of our youth sports organizations.
They have maybe 225-250 kids that play in that program, maybe a little more. As
compared to girls softball and boys baseball where they have between probably
900-1000 kids in those. And then Kickers is very big, they'll have 2 ',/2 to 3,000
kids participate in soccer. Adult softball those numbers have been going down a
little bit and I can't tell you off the top of my head but it's adult softball is much
more much larger numbers than Babe Ruth it's probably in the, I think we've got
120 teams maybe 110 maybe 120 teams something like that in softball at 12-15
per team.
Atkins/But aging process has something to do with adult softball.
Trueblood/Now some people are playing who probably shouldn't be.
O'Donnell/I quit.
Kanner/(can't hear)
Atkins/That' s the reputation.
Trueblood/That's the reason we have to rebuild that building to get a (can't hear).
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O'Donnell/Unnaturally cause.
(All talking)
Pfab/I'd be willing to change the subject to ask a question. OK. I believe you
mentioned that some of these organizations have been able to contribute a fair
amount of money.
Atkins/Yea.
Pfab/But I believe if I'm listening correctly and if I'm hearing you correctly that they're
also funding in kind.
Trueblood/Oh sure.
Pfab/Besides which maybe even a bigger amount. OK.
Trueblood/Correct, a good example of that would be when we lit four of the girls softball
diamonds down at Napoleon Park, the girls softball association was willing to do
the installation, the lighting system if we purchased the lights, it worked out fine.
Fosse/I forgot was there a, was that open forevermore, was there an implant on that
agreement with the lights? I can't remember with the University?
Trueblood/It's a, yea, it's a long term, longer than you or I will be around.
Wilburn/OK.
Trueblood/And there are escape clauses in there but only for default on agreement. I
think it's a 99 year lease on it or something like that, very long term. I probably
won't write the next one.
Wilbum/OK.
Trueblood/Let's see here, where are we at? The open space land acquisition, it's annual
account, park land acquisition fund, just what it says to acquire to help acquire
land that comes along, that's what was used for the Miller Orchard acquisition
about 50/50 between that and community development funds.
Atkins/How about a couple of Wetherby, did we buy some there?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
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Trueblood/Yes, Wetherby we purchased 10 acres several ago that came from park land
acquisition fund as well.
Vanderhoef/That was (can't hear) University, acquisition from (can't hear).
Trueblood/The park accessibility program is one of those annual programs that I
mentioned before. Park rest room improvements was something that was
initiated, an annual program for the first time this year. But it, won't go on you
know indefinitely like some of the smaller ones will, it will be just until we get
our rest rooms situations cleared up. Shelter improvements another one of those
annual ones. Park land development, similar to park land acquisition I believe
that's what your proposing for the Miller Orchard development.
Atkins/Yes that's correct.
Trueblood/And also it's been used on occasion like it's intended for future park land
development as we acquire and have some seed money there to start developing
areas that we can. It's also been used a couple of times like if we have
specifically budgeted park development projects that we needed a little more
money than what was allocated there and it can go to this fund, you know like
Kiwanis Park and Wetherby Park, we mostly so. Playground equipment
replacement, $100,000 a year over a period of years. I know that's sounds like an
awful lot of money and it is but it's you start buying playground equipment these
days that really doesn't go very far. I might just let you know we're having an
audit done right now by a certified playground inspector, to let us know what all
of our playgrounds are in compliance and which ones aren't. Some partially are, I
suspect that virtually all of them will be at least out of compliance, and that's
going to be, we're going to have to take action both in terms of safety and in
accessibility. Yes sir.
Pfab/When you get down to playground equipment and other equipment like that some
of those prices look to me like their obscene.
Trueblood/They are.
Pfab/And is it possible to develop another source or should we be going together with
other entities and say hey this looks a little ridiculous and maybe we can come up
with some either develop new suppliers or expand or we go for those equipment?
Trueblood/There are numerous suppliers throughout the country it's a very competitive
business, we have people calling on us all the time, you know I mean our
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playground equipment catalog file is probably about that wide. And one of the
difficulties with playground equipment per say is that it's almost impossible to bid
apples to apples because they all have different specifications and things and so
what we do is typically we negotiate with the suppliers and see where we can get
the best price. We have maybe a dozen that we work mostly because like so
many other things some are not the same quality as others you know and some do
not offer the same warranties. Some do not offer the same maintenance, they are
not as responsive. Like certain companies we know if we have a problem and we
can call them and they'll be here. Other companies you know I mean if your
going to deal with a representative from Florida they're not going to be in the
state if you have problems that kind of thing. But it is high priced.
Pfab/Is that? Because when you look at the nuts and bolts you get and the means it
doesn't look like you get very much bang for the buck. So what are the, are there
hidden or services that are not apparent when you look at the item on the page?
Trueblood/I think so, there's a lot of, for a public park you're not going to be able to go
out to (can't hear) out in Ames, not going to be able to go out and buy a backyard
swing set and have it comply with any kind of safety or accessibility standards. It
won't last a season you know so you do have to buy the very heavy duty
commercial grade equipment and there' s a lot of things that make that higher
quality that aren't apparent, you know I mean much heavier duty pipes and
structures and so forth and much more tamper proof nuts and bolts and that kind
of thing so yea it's expensive but we try to look at the best deal we can get while
maintaining the quality.
Pfab/Does. Sorry.
Vanderhoef/Terry, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't one of the huge "hidden costs" that
you do not see?
Pfab/Right that's what I'm looking for.
Vanderhoef/Is insurance because of law suits that come back onto?
Trueblood/The more reputable companies carry product liability of the (can't hear, name
of company) make at least a million dollars in some (can't hear).
Pfab/So in other words their design is does protect the city from potential liability?
Vanderhoef/No.
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Trueblood/No if somebody's, if somebody's and it's a result of the design then that's
what the product liability is for.
Champion/But not if were negligent and put (can't hear).
Pfab/No I understand but you have a backup source, you have a backup source because
the cost is built in. I guess the question I'm asking and this is just information
because I don't know have we ever gone back and gotten anything from any of
those suppliers because of a suit that the city had and go back to them and say
look this is what you told us, have they ever reimbursed us or the insurance
company or?
Trueblood/Not that (can't hear) recall.
Vanderhoef/What I was saying to you Irvin was...
Pfab/OK go ahead.
Vanderhoef/...was that the insurance was built into the up front cost of the equipment so
when you say this equipment is real expensive it's because they're standing
behind their product along with some insurance, it has nothing to do with
covering us.
Pfab/No, no, that wasn't what I meant. I meant if they say it covers liability design and
what not and have anybody ever been injured because of a bad design and if so
has this insurance component that's built into the price ever been performed?
Atkins/I do not know of anyone in the time I've been here Irvin that was injured from
bad design. I do recall two lawsuits where children fell from something, hit the
ground and were injured and we had a liability responsibility there, that's what I
remember. Terry and I have been here the same length of time, that's I think there
were two cases that I recall.
Pfab/So what I'm saying to you Dee is this is an overrated benefit but you know besides
what you see is what you get. I don't know I'm just, that was just a question, I
don't have an answer, I'm not pointing any (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/I don't know either it's just we recognize that this is built in.
Trueblood/The other thing just to make you aware too is that we're looking more and
more at is paying for professional installation especially of the larger units as
liability becomes more of a concern and as our time constraints on our own in-
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house staff become more and more heavy duty so to speak so and just to give you
an idea like downtown the downtown playground which is larger admittedly than
most and more complex. For that installation it was $13,500 for the installation.
Pfab/And that's built into the cost?
Trueblood/No, no.
Pfab/It's over and above.
Trueblood/That's right.
Pfab/OK.
Trueblood/And then safety surfacing and it also needs to be accessible making in more
and more expensive as well.
Pfab/I don't disagree with you that that was probably money well spent to get it properly
installed OK.
Kanner/So would that installation cost go into the capital costs or is that a special?
Trueblood/Yes, sure, (can't hear) capital cost.
Champion/So what was the total cost of that little park playgrotmd downtown?
(can't hear).
Lehman/Why don't you tell us about parks sidewalks that are coming up next?
Trueblood/I think it ended up being $235,000 all things considered.
Champion/It's really nice.
Trueblood/Tear out, the concrete under.
Pfab/Maybe the unit cost per participant isn't too high.
Champion/I don't think, I mean that's a lot of money but when you look at what' s there
and all the preparation it's.
Trueblood/Well the playground itself is like $40-45,000.
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O'Donnell/And it really beats a rump of a Goodyear tire.
Champion/Well I'm not sure about that.
Pfab/Or Firestone tire.
Lehman/Name dropper.
Kanner/Hopefully we're not going to have to remove that to work on the library.
Lehman/If we do the library we will remove it.
Trueblood/Parks Sidewalk Replacement and Parking Lot Improvements. Again those
annual programs that I mentioned before. Peninsula the $100,000 that you see
there was improved, for this year we approved last year Council as seed money,
with no pun intended but that's basically what it's for.
O'Donnell/Terry, these park sidewalk replacement are those five or eight foot sidewalks?
Trueblood/Oh it could be both size.
Lehman/Both probably.
O'Donnell/But when we replace them they will be a minimum of five.
Trueblood/Well it just depends some of this might be replacing you know several (can't
hear) existing sidewalks so (can't hear).
Champion/Have we planted those seeds yet?
Trueblood/Pardon me?
Champion/Have they planted the seeds yet?
Trueblood/No we haven't we're still waiting because there's a possibility, I don't know
what the status of it is of getting a grant from the Corp. of Engineers. Do you
know anything more about that?
Franklin/Should know something next week...
(can't hear).
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Trueblood/OK, we had to hold off on that until we find out from them.
Kanner/Connie what was that?
Champion/It was clearly seed money, seeds, the Peninsula park money is.
Trueblood/Prairie seed wildflowers.
Champion/Not to seed money to get the park (can't hear).
Wilburn/Grass seed money.
Champion/But seeds, flower seeds, grass seeds, weed seeds.
Lehman/Weed seeds are free.
Trueblood/Weed seeds we have plenty of, we don't take those. Scott Park development
basin excavation, that's kind of a dual purpose project, only part which the park
project, the other part is to tear up the park before we do the park.
Fosse/Scott Park (can't hear).
Trueblood/No the, part of that it's a water, it's a storm water management area, part of
that has to be skimmed out in order to get the capacity replenished for water,
correct?
Fosse/That's correct?
Pfab/Is that because it's sulking it?
Vanderhoef/Yea.
Pfab/OK so that's just the process because I know at one time it was a huge thing but I
haven't been paying much attention.
Fosse/It's still huge it's just that the bottom tire that it used to be.
Lehman/Just on it's (can't hear).
Pfab/But it's doing what it was intended to do.
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Fosse/Yea.
Trueblood/Scott Park fight here, all of Scott Park is actually all of storm water
management area, that's where we used to play the bulk of our soccer games
before the complex was built. I can tell you there's still enough capacity to make
the port a potties (can't hear).
Pfab/Comments are free, oh Chuck.
Trueblood/Skateboard Park, there is $200,000 budgeted there, tentatively in FY2001 and
I will tell you that's going to be a tight budget. We have been going through a
community planning process as you are aware and we don't have a preliminary
cost estimate yet but the verbal preliminary cost estimates I've been given by the
consultant are closer to probably like $250,000.
Lehman/Those appear on this top 10 doesn't it?
Champion/Yea, but didn't last year we moved it up?
Trueblood/No, you know why, it wasn't, that's a good point, it wasn't even on this list
of prioritize because it was in FY2000 and since more money is needed that's
been lifted and pushed back to 2001.
Lehman/OK.
Trueblood/But otherwise I'm it would have been in the top 10, if you just think about it.
Atkins/Isn't the history, the Council added that item back in?
Champion/Well we moved it way up, it started at the bottom and we moved it up.
Atkins/Because the Commission they had it way down.
Lehman/I think that's right.
Atkins/And then you pushed it up.
Vanderhoef/Yes we did.
Trueblood/I will tell you since we're on the subject we've gone through five community
planning sessions with the consultant and I'm sure you undoubtedly saw in the
newspaper that our community group has selected what they consider to be their
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top three priorities as far as locations in priority order. What we plan to do is go
to the Parks and Recreation Commission at their February 8th meeting to talk to
them about that and then February 14 or 15th whatever your work session is after
that if it fits in with your schedule we'd like to come back and talk to you about it
as well before we proceed any further primarily about location.
Champion/And what were the three locations, Terrill Mill and.
Trueblood/Terrill Mill.
Champion/Mercer.
Trueblood/City Park and Mercer Park.
Lehman/We'll get that later.
Kanner/Terry, a couple questions, how many people are using it now with the temporary
one and what are the projections for how long this will be a big sport? Will it go
the way a platform tennis if anybody remembers, platform tennis?
Atkins/It lasted about two days.
Kanner/I still see the courts around.
Trueblood/Probably about 30 or 35 years ago when the skateboards first came out it was
said then that it was only a trend it's only a fad that'll pass by, like I said that was
30-35 years ago, it's actually becoming more and more popular. If you see these
things like on ESPN with the X-Games and that kind of thing, it's really I think
to the popularity of it. We don't have exact numbers how many are using the
temporary one because it's non supervised at Mercer Park but we did take counts
on occasion and we counted as high as 60 kids at one time using it the temporary
ones at Mercer and it wasn't uncommon at all to see 25 to 30 at a time.
Pfab/If you think it may not, it may not be very strong you should see of the publications
that are put out by the people, suppliers, and associations or what not and this
thing is. Apparently is it televised an awful lot?
Lehman/Yea.
Pfab/So it must be, it's a sport that lends itself to televise the (can't hear) suspect is
probably the reason for it.
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O'Donnell/What are the ages of the kids Terry? I mean common number.
Trueblood/The ones at the meeting have ranged from an age from I would guess 12 to
28, not counting me.
Kanner/Have you gone down there on the course?
Trueblood/Pardon me?
Kanner/Have you gone out there on that course?
Trueblood/Oh yea.
Lehman/Not on a skateboard.
Trueblood/Not on a skateboard not sure. Not on your life.
O'Donnell/And this was at Mercer Park?
Trueblood/Pardon me?
O'Donnell/That we have the temporary set up at Mercer?
Trueblood/We're still there.
Kanner/Is there any statistics that the folks are using the skateboarding park make use of
the building, go into the building and use the facilities?
Trueblood/Yea, they use it, I mean it's not like your going to see a lot of kids going in
and playing basketball or volleyball or swimming and then going out on their
skateboards. There is some of that but mostly it's you know if there out there
they'll go out there and use the vending machines or restrooms or telephone or
that kind of thing or to get in out of the bad weather. They use the building but
there' s not, there' s not what I would call a high sense of.
Pfab/Multiple use.
Trueblood/Yea, we haven't had any requests to put the ramps in the gymnasium yet.
Pfab/SHHHH.
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Trueblood/Let's see, South Soccer complex is still under construction, Sturgis Ferry Park
Development, we plan on going to sit down there in house and doing some things
this spring just to kind of clean up the area a little bit and.
Champion/Yea it's pretty bad.
Trueblood/Find another dime we'd do a lot more.
Champion/You've got a lot of dimes.
Trueblood/The next one the Tennis Court Renovation and Lighting is actually not
renovation and lighting, you may recall last year it was that $80,000 was removed
from that budget from the lighting portion and we've resurfaced City Park, the bid
has been let to resurface Mercer Park, actually renovate Mercer Park which will
be done this spring and then there's another portion in the budget where there's a
request for $80,000 to re-light both of those. Walden Woods Park Development,
we've met with the neighborhood group there and you'll see some activity there
this spring, early summer. Waterworks Park again that one's kind of on hold
because of that Corp. of Engineers possibility for the grant. Wetherby Park
development will be completed in the spring and I don't know what to tell you
about the airport.
Atkins/OK.
Pfab/Let me just go back on this Waterworks Park, is, with the Corp. of Engineers
involvement do funds come with that then? Does that bring funds?
Trueblood/Yes that's correct.
Atkins/Karin's helping, your following that grant?
(can't hear).
Kanner/Just to clarify then about the Waterworks, it's going to be struck then from the
capital budget?
Atkins/No, we're going to leave this at 250 and we're also applying for a grant, this
project and the Peninsula project.
Pfab/There was something in the park that I, City Park.
Atkins/I beg your pardon Irvin I didn't hear you.
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Pfab/I heard you say something earlier.
Atkins/Yea, we've got 250 in here for the Waterworks Park, that's you see it, that's to
the top, the Peninsula Park is for the bottom.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/Both of which the Corp. of Engineer Grant has a bearing on both projects so we
have in affect $350,000 budgeted, take that back $600,000 if you go look at the
five year plan for both sites OK.
Kanner/And where was the other (can't hear) thousand?
Lehman/The Peninsula Park 134.
Atkins/Page 1347
Vanderhoef/Yea.
(All talking).
Atkins/So those are in affect tied together, (can't hear) different locations.
Vanderhoef/So your going to move those out one more year is that what your saying?
Atkins/No leave them where they are.
Vanderhoef/OK.
Champion/Just waiting.
Trueblood/And there will likely have to, likely see something on the Peninsula Park for
quite a lot more money maybe in the unfunded year we had talked about that in
the beginning. It doesn't show there now but it'll probably show up.
Vanderhoef/Surprises.
Trueblood/Pardon me?
Vanderhoef/Surprises.
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Trueblood/Well I think it was just an oversight, I don't know why it didn't get put in
there the unfunded portion.
Airport
Atkins/OK. I'll do my best to handle these airport projects for you, Ron is not here. The
airport commercial park is (can't hear) the Council Members should be familiar
with that project. It basically involves 50 acres of airport land to the noah end of
the 1735 runway which we set a policy on that will eventually will be closed.
This is the cost of putting water, sewer and street in creating affect
commercial/industrial park.
Lehman/And this money is recoverable from their rents, is that not correct?
Atkins/It's a policy position you'll have to settle in on but.
Lehman/That's been our policy.
Atkins/Your policy has had been last year we moved this to unfunded but with the
proposed economic development strategy I moved it back up to 01 so you all have
to understand. We'll consider it at that time, won't think about this is that this
project is the basis of it are utilizing city funds for the creation of this commercial
park, there are FAA regulations that have some impact on what we can and can
not do. I think we have CN-I zoning, we chose to put there, there's a whole raft
of issues, Ernie I think that committee, the Council committee that worked with
the Commission is going to have to kind ofreconvene yourselves to get.
Lehman/OK.
Atkins/But the bottom line on this one was that the sale or lease of the land was to
reimburse us for our investment.
Pfab/I understand that the Airport Commission also is hoping some of that income will
help them maintain.
Atkins/Yes, I know where your going with that.
Pfab/Is that, is there?
Lehman/Maintain what?
Pfab/Is there enough pieces of(can't hear) to go around?
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Atkins/The project at 50 acres and what we expect it to lease for depending on what the,
I mean all of the, the afithmetic I have not done yet Irvin but again as a bottom
line if this ultimately generates income, it is to reduce the property tax subsidy to
the airport. That's where it's suppose to go.
Pfab/Oh, okay, all right now, am I correct are there going to be, there's no federal
airport.
Atkins/Moneys.
Pfab/FAA whatever.
Atkins/There are federal regulations on the use of the land because it's adjacent to the
airport but.
Pfab/But no funds with it.
Atkins/There is no federal money forthcoming for this. Now three projects down, master
plan land acquisition, that is overwhelmingly federal money, that' s a 90-10
money. The underground tank replacement project is what it is, it's, there's 50
year old old box cars evidently they've got one put together for gasoline, or jet
fuel and whatever they put into those airplanes and their shot, they've got to come
out.
Kanner/And this is recovered by rent from the people using the airport?
Atkins/These tanks, the airport fight now Steve does not generate sufficient income to
pay it's (can't hear) it's way and that's operating expenses only, we do not charge
against the airport fund the cost of capital or in affect their property tax subsidy
would be even greater. It's something we can calculate for you but we have not
traditionally done that. This project they do get a somebody help me out here,
fuel flowing fee.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/To my knowledge it will not pay for this tax, these have to be replaced one
because their leaking, secondly environmentally they should be replaced.
O'Donnell/Is there cleanup involved Steve?
Atkins/Don't know.
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Lehman/I don't they're leaking yet are they?
Atkins/No.
Lehman/We just want to get them out before they do.
Atkins/We want to get them out because they're 50 years old and.
Lehman/Right.
Atkins/And we, to my knowledge the Airport Commission has not tested the soil and
please keep in mind that there are many activities that go on at the airport that I
would not be familiar with because they're somewhat independent nature.
Kanner/Steve then could I get a report of what our total property tax subsidizing is for
the airport including the capital?
Atkins/Total capital, sure, that's easy enough to put together. (can't hear) got a note of
that? Yea we'll take care of that for you.
Atkins/Beacon Tower Repainting, the Beacon Tower needs to be repainted.
(can't hear).
Atkins/Yes. Master Plan Acquisition is the continuing purchase of land and other issues
associated with implementation of the master plan, it's a 90/10 program, these
federal grants, and our share are very loose estimates. The reason is that we don't
know really until you actually nail down the purchase of the land, then you have
to await the federal reimbursement, that can offer occur over a period of years. I
think and I apologize for even saying this, doing this but if Council members
recall I sent a memo to you one of our concern was the carrying cost that we're
using our own reserves now to carry some of the cost of the airport at the time.
That's a lost opportunity cost for investment on our part.
Pfab/But once you go into a project like this and you understand that the Fed.
Atkins/Yes.
Pfab/Are going to do a certain amotmt of, you're doing that so that you'll get the money?
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Atkins/Barring some sort of disaster on the part of the federal government, FAA change
in rules, congressional appropriation change, we have a strong of commitment as I
can imagine we can get on 90/10 funding, unless something happen.
Pfab/So it's just a matter of time.
Atkins/It's timing yes. And when we buy this land we obviously have to pay for it and
then seek reimbursement and sometimes the reimbursement doesn't happen on a
flash, and that's often.
Champion/How long are you talking about?
Atkins/Two years sometimes.
Champion/Oh so it's not like five or ten?
Atkins/No but you know but when you write $4-500,000 checks 5 percent interest on $4-
500,000 over two years is an extra $40 or $50,000 of income that we don't have
available to us and so. It's something we track but there's not much you can do
about it.
Vanderhoef/No, not when we compete with everybody in the region for those federal
dollars from FAA.
Lehman/We actually do pretty well.
Atkins/Yea we do, no we've done very very well.
Lehman/Better than most.
Atkins/And I think we've clearly settled in on the policy it's going to be a two-runway
airport I think that' s going to have some bearing on making some of these things
we want.
Landfill
Atkins/Hazardous Waste Recycling we have to redo that one, that' s what we just bid so
that will be redone. Construction of a new landfill cell.
Fosse/Could slide off a few years.
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Atkins/Yea, I think you'll find it interesting just as a historical perspective I can
remember the time that I've been here that a new landfill cell cost about $200,000.
Champion/You should have done ten of them then.
Lehman/Yea but weren't the specifications different then?
Fosse/Right.
Lehman/But you did tell them they have to redo them all.
Atkins/Yea, it's what, 15 times what they used to be?
Lehman/Yea.
Fosse/That's before the liner.
Kanner/Is that on a work session of ours to talk about the issues of losing haulers and
fees?
Lehman/Will be.
Atkins/Steven what I've asked Chuck to do is David's going to redo the budget, when it
comes to landfill operations we're going to redo a budget and bring it back to you
because you do have to discuss that and that will, you'll have an opportunity to do
that. I just don't have those numbers finished yet. Chuck, Landfill Gas system
out to bid.
Schmadeke/It's out to bid now yes.
Atkins/OK. Other projects I'm on page 137. Allocation for public art, now your time, is
your nickel diming comments in, the Planning Director? Right, we have one time
budgeted $100,000.
Champion/Right I sit down now.
Atkins/I reduced it to 75 for budget balancing.
Franklin/25 cents.
Champion/Another $25,000 out of this small budget item.
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O'Donnell/I didn't even hear a comment.
Franklin/I didn't have a chance to.
Atkins/Go ahead.
Franklin/No you've said it all.
Atkins/Thank you very much.
Pfab/One question back on this landfill gas system.
Atkins/Right, the methane system.
Pfab/Right, is there, at this point no one knows what the yield will be fight?
Fosse/That's fight.
Pfab/All right so and them I'm told that the biggest problem if there is a yield how do
you convert it to something that's valuable other than smoke which isn't (can't
hear) OK or warm up the air?
Lehman/It's never going to pay for itself Irvin.
Pfab/So I was just trying to think here if it could be, could it ever be a way of heating
water to do something else? I don't know that's just my guess?
Atkins/Oh I think there' s no doubt that if we had a reasonable quality of the methane as
far as it's percentages and all that business we could capture it and use it for
something on the side.
Lehman/Heat the building.
Atkins/Heat the building.
Lehman/Are we going to heat the new building with used oil?
Atkins/I think, no.
Schmadeke/The furnace cost was between $20,000 and $30,000.
Atkins/Oh okay.
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Lehman/Doesn't, numbers didn't work on that one did they?
Atkins/No they didn't. And most landfills which are a (can't hear) located the difficulty
when you capture the methane gas is getting it somewhere, trying to get it
somewhere.
Pfab/So I was just trying to think if it was at this point we have no way, but if it does
rather than just bum it even if it's just heating water or heat the building or
whatever.
Atkins/It's going to put off methane gas for a long long time.
Pfab/Right so once you kind of figure out.
Atkins/Once you get the system together something technologically may come along
later on even different generations.
Fosse/We do heat our digesters at the east water plant with methane with waste (can't
hear).
Pfab/OK good.
Fosse/We're already using that.
Pfab/How is that reasonably successful?
Fosse/Yep. Caterpillar used to make an engine that ran on methane that it would power
generator they just quit manufacturing that and we're hoping that when all the
landfills putting in these systems that they'll get back in the business of doing
that.
Pfab/(Can't hear) have we ever had one?
Fosse/No, we've never had enough gas pollution at the waste water plant to do that.
Kanner/So Rick on this landfill gas system if we wanted to do something down the road
we're going to need additional capital funds, there's nothing built into here as far
as possible heating?
Fosse/That's correct, this is just for the manifold system that collected and then flame it.
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Wilburn/Bum it.
Pfab/I understand there are ways you can strain this gas somewhat to get purlties in and
out.
Fosse/Yea it's not pure methane by any measure.
Pfab/So, but there is a way a process available now, I'm not saying it's cost effective but
we can get good methane gas out of it?
Lehman/It depends on what there is, don't you have to wait to see the volume of what
we're going to get and then determine whether we can do anything?
Fosse/Yea that's the game plan.
Lehman/Yea.
Atkins/Now, anymore questions for art, all on gas?
Kanner/Did Council put any limit on per piece for the price of purchases?
Champion/No.
Atkins/There's a $100,000 annual appropriation.
Vanderhoef/Was there not a policy for that was $100,000 minimum?
Atkins/I don't recall (can't hear).
Lehman/There was probably more of $100,000 back.
Franklin/The resolution.
Vanderhoef/(can't hear) $100,000 maximum.
Lehman/Then why did say a minimum?
Vanderhoef/Because I lost.
Champion/I would support a $100,000 minimum.
Atkins/You know I think she may be right.
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Vanderhoef/I know.
Franklin/The resolution adopting the program set at $100,000 and then to as part of the
capital projects program and then what it specifically indicates which is a little
unusual because it was about a discussion of whether we adopted it by ordinance
or resolution, and in the resolution it says if you were to change the amount of
money or to disband the public art the Council needs to have a public hearing on
it which you could have as part of your public hearing on the budget.
Atkins/Well I'm assuming that it's in the budget.
Franklin/Technically that would meet that requirement.
Atkins/Yes, yes.
Lehman/OK.
Champion/I do object to this cut.
Atkins/OK.
Champion/(Can't hear) first.
Kanner/Can we publicize then that the specific note that Dee brought up when we
mention a public hearing?
Pfab/Do you have your say?
Atkins/Absolutely.
Champion/I will.
Lehman/Well aren't these the sort of things that we'll talk about after we (can't hear)
have a session.
Atkins/Yea when you have your own session your going to want to put items on the table
that your going to either want.
Lehman/Mark it down Connie and bring it up.
Champion/I've got it down.
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Lehman/OK.
Atkins/Bus acquisition, can't spell buses right but what the heck. We need to buy six
replacement. This is a federal program that we thought was threatened a number
of years ago about 3-4 years ago and Congress did one remarkable turnaround as
you know I think I pointed out our operating budget is $40,000 more in federal
aid than we anticipated. This is the one that makes me the most nervous is that if
they ever go after reduction in this these buses are $300,000 a pop and this is just
the normal replacement schedule where we have to compete in the state.
Davidson/We compete against every other transit system, basically money comes from
the state, money comes to the state from Washington, a specific amount and then
the 34 transit systems in which Iowa City, Cambus, and Coralville are three of
them compete for that money. So this has a potential of you know possibly you
get three in one year and have to wait on the other three in which case you then
step up your maintenance on the ones that so there's a way to deal with it but we
certainly shouldn't count on all six of these in the year that they are programmed.
Champion/Steve hasn't the, even though people complain about the flee shuttle hasn't
that the number of free riders in that free shuttle given us some little extra boost as
far as in this funding goes?
Atkins/There is a nose count and it does help I mean the number of people you can put
on the bus, they grant us aid accordingly.
Davidson/Yea that would apply to the operating funds not to these capital funds.
Atkins/Yea not to capital.
Pfab/Do we have to put part of the money in or what's the balance?
Davidson/17 percent.
Pfab/Oh okay I get it.
Atkins/It's basically an 80/20 grant.
Pfab/80/20 okay a round number okay.
Davidson/It builds up a little bit because of the, if you put lifts on the buses, because of
ADA they increase it to 83/17 rather than 80/20.
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Atkins/We have a good fleet, I think we do a very good job of maintaining that fleet, this
is a routine schedule for replacement as Jeff points out we had to add a year, that's
not going to be a back breaker for us.
Pfab/Is there a life expectancy on those buses?
Davidson/12.
Atkins/12 years I thought.
Davidson/We've kept them 15, 18.
Atkins/Maybe longer.
Pfab/Just by great detail for the maintenance?
Davidson/That's fight.
Atkins/Joe' s very meticulous, I mean we'll put the engine, I mean there are some we'll
pull the engine and put a new engine in.
Lehman/I'll bet we do that several times in 12 years?
Atkins/Oh yea, there are a million miles on those things.
Pfab/Does the city have the staff to do that?
Atkins/Yes, yes, yep.
Champion/Yea.
Atkins/I'll take you out and show you that some day.
Vanderhoef/Where are we budgeting now for our SEATS vans?
Davidson/When JCCOG Dee when the March meeting of JCCOG you'll approve the
transit plan and revisions to the transit capital plan and beginning in 2001 it will
show SEATS vehicles for Iowa City and Coralville. They're not in there right
now because this current fiscal year we haven't had them but beginning with the
new one we will.
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Vanderhoef/OK.
Kanner/Jeff, we had some problems with one of the buses with the rear door opening and
it was a particular brand of bus and do you recall which one that was?
Davidson/I don't recall the particular brand but I do know the problem you were
referring to. There are very stringent requirements at the federal level for bidding
these and setting your specifications up and that so we are, we make sure our
specifications are such that we're getting a vehicle that's satisfactory but you do
have the whole bit thing with the federal money.
Kanner/We're going to try to stay away from that brand?
Davidson/It would depend on how severe the problem was determined to be. If it was
something that was satisfactorily rectified then we would certainly give them a
chance again but if it's something that we haven't been able to get satisfactorily
rectified then we would eliminate them for consideration.
Kanner/And what do we do with the old buses?
Davidson/Sell them and depending on how much their sold for it's a high enough
amount that we can prorate it back 80/20 or 83/17 whatever it was bought for and
we get to keep the book share amount. But ifit's, I believe if it's under like
$7,000 we get to keep all the proceeds.
Atlkins/Do you know what the bus washer and vacuum (can't hear)?
Davidson/That's the drive through wash and the cyclone cleaner, it's not a hand held
Hoover or anything, it's the thing that they stick on the side in the front door and
then it cyclones everything out, I mean it's a big elaborate piece of equipment.
(can't hear).
Lehman/No no it does too, if your standing at the back doorway then you go right
through the bus into the.
Davidson/Yes.
Lehman/Literally it hooks onto the side of the.
Davidson/It will not, it will not lift a person up.
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(All talking).
Davidson/There's no wicked witch of the west stuff, it's a, but a piece of litter it'll pick
up and suck through the machine.
Lehman/It's really pretty cool.
Pfab/The whole bus.
Davidson/Yes the whole bus, the whole bus.
Atkins/So the cigarette bus.
Davidson/You thought they swept out by hand.
Lehman/You were down there too.
O'Donnell/I didn't see it (can't hear).
(All talking).
Pfab/Maybe we could schedule a demonstration.
Lehman/I'll watch but I won't participate, all right.
Pfab/Because you're a little guy.
Kanner/They were the Orion buses Jeff.
Davidson/Orion.
Kanner/Yea if it runs.
O'Donnell/Everybody has a problem with other Orion buses.
Davidson/Well the whole, the doors and the lift are the two most sophisticated things
with respect to maintenance and, I mean this kind of weather it drives them crazy
so it's not uncommon to have maintenance things with those and I'm assuming
Steven that' s gotten satisfactorily resolved but Ron could let us know for sure.
Kanner/Thanks.
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Atkins/You're on, you're item.
Trueblood/Well we're looking for volunteers for the next project here, deeded body.
Actually this is something that we do every year with the University of Iowa for
those people who have donated their bodies to science and they do a where they
do and incinerate the remains we have a cremains out there and they'll have a
service on a particular day every year, they'll have upwards of 300 people in
attendance.
(END OF 0-10 SIDE 2)
Trueblood/Put a little monument there (can't hear) the year, no individual names or
anything like that. And were about out of space there and what we'd like to do is
take a section (can't hear) northeast corner of the whole section there's some area
that we used for the piles of dirt that we need to refill graves that have settled.
And underneath that many years ago they piled a bunch of concrete rubble so it's
not suitable for burials but we can clean out some of it, put in a tank, build a little
gazebo, and do some landscaping and so forth and make it a nice little area for
this ceremony to take place and have an area designated for the markers to go.
Champion/How long does it last?
Trueblood/How long?
Champion/I mean is this where your putting the remains too?
Trueblood/Yea this could last for 500 years.
Champion/Oh.
Trueblood/Depending on how big of a tank you want to put in. So, but you know I would
say it easily would last for probably last for a couple hundred and probably more.
O'Donnell/It's a very good project.
Trueblood/Pardon me.
O'Donnell/It's a very good project.
Trueblood/There's a, there a pretty big possibly we can (can't hear) cooperating with
Mercy Hospital the hospital (can't hear). Nothing official yet but Jim Moore has
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spoken with one of the representatives and we think we can get some help so
(can't hear).
Atkins/Moving on. Cemetery Expansion, that project is underway.
Trueblood/It is underway although we talked about possibly putting in, you recall last
year one of the cost saving measures was to eliminate the (can't hear), estimating
cost was about $350,000 and we talked about maybe putting that into unfunded
years not to lose track of the project. You want to talk about the next ones or do
you want me to?
Atkins/Yes, or you go ahead.
Trueblood/I don't know anything about them.
Lehman/Civic Center.
Atkins/Civic Center improvements we annually budget, we annually, yes I know you do.
We annually budget a lump some of money there, this building's 40 years old
there's always something somewhere that has to be fixed, changed, and we just
set aside appropriations some years we use it, some years we don't.
Kanner/And why $75,000 to $50,000?
Atkins/We had a couple projects that were underway in the year 2000 or the fiscal year
associated with the renovation and the adding the third floor and I figured after
doing that adding, we ought to be in pretty good shape hopefully won't need it.
Trueblood/Some of you may recall a couple years ago we put out a bid to re-roof the
entire Civic Center but we did it in kind of phased approach or sections and two
of the sections if I recall correctly was over the council chamber or the fire garage
that worked on and it was decided to delay the others partly because they weren't
in bad as shape, partly because there was going to be construction going on, good
timing to partly do the cost so this flux the other areas that were not included in
that.
Lehman/What do we when we replace the rooF?.
Trueblood/When we replace it?
Lehman/Yea.
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Trueblood/Well those particular projects the entire roof exterior was removed.
Lehman/New sheeting, new insulation, new everything.
Trueblood/Oh yea, most if not all the insulation was removed because over the years we
had so many different leaks that the insulation absorbed (can't hear).
Lehman/Yep, fight.
Trueblood/Took all it's effectiveness out.
Pfab/Is there a way to make the roof repair more permanent? Is there any design changes
or said building hatched roof on it or something or some way to keep this annual
wear and tear on he root'?.
Trueblood/If I recall correctly and of course this is essentially a flat roof a lot of it is
anyway and (can't hear) traditionally not as long lasting as others. We actually
looked in to putting a pitch roof on and the cost was just astronomical. What
they've done is that we use a tapered insulation now so that it does have just a
sligthest bit of slope which makes it drain better. And the materials they are using
these days are much better as well so it should last longer.
Atkins/We did that with the Rec. Center?
Trueblood/Yea.
Atkins/We did the Rec. Center 5-6 years ago.
Trueblood/Yea at least.
Lehman/The library too.
Atkins/And the library you know, were really forgetting all of our, the rec. center's, this
buildings 40 years.
Trueblood/One of the things too that they did so many years ago at the park and
recreation center they put a rock on the roof over the machine and of course that
puts a lot of weight on it for one thing but the other thing it makes it harder to go
up there and find the leaks and repair the leaks and that kind of thing and we don't
do that anymore.
Champion/What was the purpose of that?
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Lehman/Hold the tan paper down.
Fosse/Yea.
Wilburn/Steve can let me ask you before it gets by us. Why is the Civic Center
maintenance under Park and Rec.?
Atkins/I inherited that, Terry' s never squawked about doing it.
Trueblood/That's a lie.
Atkins/Never squawked a lot about doing it. I can't think of a good reason.
Trueblood/I never could either.
Atkins/I can remember one other, in my professional life one other circumstance where it
was, but normally it's under a Public Works department, or a general services
administration you know, a lot of internal services.
Trueblood/I think Dale or Chuck might be able to shed some light on it as well, since
they've been around a long time but the Park and Recreation Director' s office
used to be in this building (can't hear).
Wilburn/Oh I see.
Trueblood/Of course when they hired me they decided they didn't want the director's
office over here any more.
Atkins/And I think one other thing is that this is one of those decisions, it's not that, the
best thing to do was driven somewhat by the individual's involved. Terry's senior
maintenance senior worker, Steve Roberts, is just excellent as far as skill level
with HVAC and he does Mercer Park, the Rec. Center, we just sort of took him.
Trueblood/Sure.
Atkins/Yea.
Champion/This would be the only building that wouldn't be covered under Parks &
Recreation.
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Atkins/Well Terry has a number of outlying buildings, Chuck has a number of outlying
buildings also but the folks that his maintenance workers generally take care of
they're there properties. It's really this building that's kind of the one that's the
odd person out.
Trueblood/This, Steve has budgeted partly to govemment building funded, partly to
recreation and there are occasionally like they'll call on him at the library or the
senior center for some assistance along those lines too.
Atkins/Steve's a very capable fellow, I think he can manage that.
Trueblood/Speaking of Steve, the next item is one that he initiated with the Civic Center
HVAC and it's just a lot of worn out and efficient heating and cooling stuff as you
can see there it's 1991 or earlier that is in deed in replacement and upgrading so
it's become more efficient both in terms of heating and cooling and energy boost.
Atkins/Some of this also is going to tie into the new our millennium tower, that whole
system is going to, and so really now is the time, we're going to upgrade this
HVAC system let's do it the same time were going to make the tower operational.
Kanner/Terry what' s the pay back on the utility savings for upgrading so it's a little more
efficient system?
Trueblood/You know I couldn't tell you just off hand, whenever we do that Steve always
goes to Jim Schoenfelder Energy Coordinator and they calculate that out but for
my people mind I can't calculate it.
Champion/All right we can supply time, but some things are just comfort too and it just.
Atkins/Yea this is a public building, a lot of comings and goings and.
Lehman/Well in this case it's a matter of replacement because the old system is worn
out. It's not a matter replacing it just because we want to save energy.
Trueblood/No but whenever we do that.
Lehman/We do.
Trueblood/We try to do it energy efficient.
Atkins/We can get you some numbers on it, give you some ideas because Jim calculates
some each year each department gets a report from Jim which explains their
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energy usage and if you're up or down you'll see some spikes, I mean we try to,
in each department has, here's the buildings Chuck is responsible for, here's your
energy consumption, and then he has an efficiency rating that he will give it.
Trueblood/Many divisions have in their operating budget a line item called energy
payback fund.
Atkins/Yep.
Trueblood/And so it might pay X thousands of dollars a year because of some project
that we implemented that qualifies for this but it's on maybe a 5 year $5,000
(can't hear) fund to go back into that ftmd to replenish it.
Kanner/Is there any federal funds available for these kinds of things?
Atkins/I've never seen any.
Trueblood/There use to be.
Kanner/But not too much now.
Atkins/We have state grant that (can't hear) when...we got that award 4-5 years ago
(can't hear). It just makes good economic sense for us to do this.
Pfab/Was there ever any that anybody remembers looking for ways to really conserve
energy way back?
Fosse/Oh Yea.
Atkins/Oh yea.
Pfab/Was the city able to take advantage of that?
Atkins/Oh my goodness yes, we in fact we should give you some of our reports, we've
saved loads of money on that. We have historically, we can pull some of those
reports (can't hear).
Fosse/Millions on utility costs.
Pfab/So what your saying your always scanning the horizon?
Atkins/Absolutely.
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Trueblood/Everything from light switches to furnaces.
Champion/This is kind of off the wall but I think about all the stuff we've (can't hear)
and how many times you've changed it in four years. I mean not you but...
Atkins/Yea.
Champion/...But city management has. I wonder why we never thought about putting
(can't hear) when you had two doors that, this place is always so cold.
Atkins/Cold?
Champion/Yea.
Atkins/Well one of the ways you know we, of course it was very expensive, all your
doing is open space, you know we've kept the revolving, I think that's the only
revolving door in the city that I know of, I can't think of any other. We've tried
many number of things, it would be nice to have a double lock door. On the
second floor you know we finally put doors there, so the coldest spot in the
building is right out there.
Champion/And that it's pretty limited.
Atkins/Yea, and usually folks are in and moving into another part of the building. I
don't know why we never.
Champion/It was a bad design flaw.
Atkins/Well it was a, it's a 1960's architecture and virtually every Council that I ever
dealt with said why can't we lower this and that's the ceiling of.
Lehman/Law library.
Atkins/Law library, unless your a lot of really short attorney's you can. We've said
we've tried to figure out a way to do that because that's a huge huge expense.
Pfab/Have you ever, would it ever be possible to build an entrance over or in from of the
door.
Atkins/Push it out?
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Pfab/A second.
Atkins/I don't see why, I guess it's possible, yea, pretty much.
Pfab/I mean that was your question right, you don't want to go in but is there anything to
stop, I don't know what design.
Champion/It probably wouldn't be worth the money since everything has been closed off
(can't hear).
Atkins/Yea we've pretty well buttoned up. Because when I first arrived we, this building
had virtually no investment in handicapped accessibility and I do think we can say
now that when we set up on that task to get this place in that shape. I mean we
chose to sprinkle the building we have to do that. Our position has been that if we
are going to require other folks out there we should apply the same rules to
ourselves. That was expensive. That's some of that $50,000 but we do those
things. Okay.
Kanner/Can I get you mentioned there were some reports and things.
Atkins/Oh sure, Rick will make a note of that, we'll get you some energy conservation
reports, take a look at those and see what it does for you and we can get you some
more. Okay. Capitol Outlay, I think I explained that in my budget review.
Downtown streetscape, we're out to bid Rick on Phase III, we're out to bid yet?
Fosse/We've set public hearing on.
Atkins/We did, yea that's right we did. Economic Development it's proposal on the
Economic Development Strategy, I don't know ifnow's the time to go over that
in detail, I would like to spend some time with you on that strategy as certain
items if you wouldn't mind, skip over it.
Lehman/OK.
Atkins/Entrance to the city, that's just a beautification account. Fiber Optic, Kevin
sitting here, Kevin you'll have to talk on the microphone explain what your up to
on that.
Kevin O'Malley/We've noticed in the past that we a lot of times are in the roadways for
different projects and we decided a long term plan would be good to connect all
the buildings with fiber optic. A lot of our future projects such as the geographic
information system and our financial application system means that we have to
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get data and voice sometimes to outlying buildings and doing this job we said
well you've got to start sometime so $200,000 in this budget, and hopefully we
can get from here to the north wastewater treatment plant. From there we've
pretty much got a lot of parks, Napoleon Park is hooked up in the south
wastewater treatment plant is hooked up to that line so from here we want to pick
up the Rec. Center, Senior Center, Library, parking garages and wastewater
plants, pretty much have all of our buildings connected.
Atkins/And again why do we want to do this, what's the?
O'Malley/More or less because it's an information age and we need to find more
bandament if your familiar with the term bandament enough to push information
down the pipes, fiber optic pipes essentially, it's a very efficient way of doing it
and the fiber optic is getting cheaper so it's about time we got to that point.
Pfab/And all of this would be underground?
O'Malley/We would take advantage of it whenever we could, there's a lot of fiber can be
strung overhead.
Pfab/OK but as, so what best best choice.
O'Malley/Yea if we're doing a project something underground with the utilities we'd lay
the fiber optic in there. Most of it now is underground.
Pfab/I believe it was out here on Iowa Avenue I watched the University bury tons of that
stuff or just 40-50 (can't hear).
O'Malley/That's the kind of project we want to get involved with.
Kanner/We franchise agreement with the cable TV folks and there's all kinds of things
that are opening up in the market. Have we talked to them about some sort of
agreement possibly to save us money see if anything can be worked out?
O'Malley/Years ago we had some agreement but changed companies or a couple times,
we used to talk about it, Dale you might remember 10 years ago about a cable
network.
Dale Helling/We have a institutional network from the original franchise, it's not fiber
though, it's coax, that was one of the things that we discussed in the franchise
renewal negotiations ending four years ago and starting about 7 years ago. We
talked about various ways to do it, the city constructed the incremental cost back
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to the cable company and we were unable to negotiate anything with them other
than some reserve capacity in their system if we want it. I suspect that probably
in the long run it's probably more efficient and probably less expensive since we
are connected anyway to have our own rather than to lease that space from the
cable company but we have talked about it and we have tried some figure out
some ways to build that a number of years ago with the help of the cable company
and they weren't interested.
Kanner/Have we talked to the telephone company recently?
Helling/You'd have to ask Kevin, traditionally the phone companies their infrastructure
is mostly twisted, copper wires not would be the age.
Kanner/But aren't telephone companies getting into this business, it's a big thing now
that and maybe their willing to offer us some good deals if we go along with
them.
O'Malley/There is, and the industry has started blur lines between what is telephone
business and what is entertainment business and for that one reason we're talking
about putting in a carrier hotel concept in the new optic Tower Place parking
ramp. I mean, whatever you want to call it Tower Place parking, and that carrier
hotel would be a floor off the mezzanine which the University and all the phone
companies and all cable companies could locate their fiber optic points and we
could sell space to them and thereby we could jump on their systems. And that's
just in the review stage fight now to see ifthat's feasible.
Champion/Kevin do we have the technology to make use of these (can't hear) actually I
don't understand all this stuff but.
O'Malley/Yes we currently use it in this building.
Champion/Oh OK.
O'Malley/And in the Police.
Lehman/This is also for FY2003 so I mean technology may change between now and
then this isn't something we're talking about doing the next two years.
Pfab/Is, how long is the present franchise with the cable company in affect?
Helling/Till 2006.
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Pfab/2006.
Helling/Yea about 6 more years.
Pfab/Is there, has there been any recent discovery or looking into the idea of the city
owning, building their own franchise somewhere down the road?
Helling/It's been talked about, it's called overbuilding when you duplicate the structure
that' s there and except for small communities where perhaps they already have an
electrical system or something own the boat and so forth it's just not not
financially feasible to do that.
Pfab/Because I get a feel there's going to be a strangle hold on using those cables, the
fiber optics could (can't hear) when you watch the consolidation of those
industries, anyway.
Helling/It makes it more difficult to overbuild because the fact that now the existing
utilities are combining. Unfortunately US West is way behind in the technology
compared to some of the AT & T and then so.
Atkins/Moving on. Kevin back up again. Finance computer system.
O'Malley/Ok this is a project that we've been exploring for the last nine months. This
Financial/Human Resource computer system is an enterprise computer system,
our current computer system is more departmental, it only really serves about 3 or
4 departments and we want to make it, expand on that and fully serve all the
departments what we call enterprise resource package and it would allow more
functionality for people at their desktop for people go get into our accounting
system and to acquire data from each person.
Lehman/Was this the system that we had, there have been bits of talk with the County
about sharing some sort of software, is this the same system?
O'Malley/Yes, I talked with them about three months ago and I just got back and
they've got some interest but they don't seem to have much, the supervisors might
have some interest but the IS department there is just waiting for us to make the
move, more or less.
Lehman/It looks to me like we've, have we not made a move here?
O'Malley/No, we were pretty close to making a decision and then we had some staff
changes and we haven't been able to hire people in those positions.
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Lehman/So we haven't done this even though it's in this fiscal year?
O'Malley/Right, we've done a lot of planning and research on it and we were ready to go
out to bid.
Lehman/And we are talking to the county if they want to talk to us?
O'Malley/Oh yea, they, one of the proposals was from one of the vendors was to this
system is large enough that any other governmental agency could hop on board as
long as we have an infrastructure like fiber optic plan in place. And they could
share some of the licensing fees.
Lehman/OK.
Kanner/Kevin, could you just tell me again how it's going to save us in the long run or
help us in the long run.
O'Malley/Well there' s a lot of duplication, well number one we don't have a human
resources package, essentially suited, fight there we'll save some money by
automating some of their clerical tasks plus capturing some application input.
There's a lot of people now that like to do a lot of business off the Internet and we
want to take advantage of that technology. Our current technology doesn't
support that so I mean on the human resources side it would give a lot ofpayback,
on the financial side there's some things going on in the industry, some open
standards which we don't really have here currently, we do a lot of patching with
our current system and in our satellite plants like waste water and water, a lot of
those people do their own some of their accounting, and they all do a little bit
different. And then you come here and we'd kind of put it all on the same page.
And that's why they'll be able to do it at their desktop the same way we do it at
our desktop and it'll save some duplication. And also the other side of
information system is besides data collection part is to get useful information out
and our current system doesn't allow us to sequentially search the database.
Pfab/So basically your using the term data mining.
O'Malley/Yea we have no data mining abilities now and that will be one of the benefits.
Any other questions.
Lehman/I think I know what you said.
Champion/I have no idea.
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(All talking).
Atkins/Well we'll bring it back to you comprehensively.
Kanner/Could you give an example of what data they would be mine out of there that
would be helpful?
Pfab/Could I offer a suggestion?
O'Malley/Sure go ahead.
Pfab/What it does is allow you to find, pick up an incredibly small trends and you can
make projections and you can determine what happened in the past, what you can
anticipate happening in the future. It's just an un, this is the big industry right
now where the real money is going into is data mining, they all want to know
what your driver's license number, how old you are, all this and that and that's
what they're putting all together and that's what the city can do too.
O'Malley/That' s a large part of it, we have a lot of different individual databases, we
have, and this type of system would make an integrated database which we might
have a payroll database but several different files in it and we'd have an account's
payable database with several different files in it. Account's receivable database
with several different files, this would be one database that you could search
somebody' s name, it might be an employee, and you also owe them money so it
might be account's receivable and I know you can grow this database and get the
search through it easy.
Champion/Does that have (can't hear)?
O'Malley/It's all information, it's all raw data.
Champion/Is there a point where there is too much information ever?
O'Malley/Oh yea, there's (can't hear).
Wilburn/There still would be council time.
Atkins/There you go Ross.
O'Malley/Any other questions.
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Pfab/Big brother and Big Sister (can't hear).
(can't hear)
Lehman/All right.
Atkins/Fire apparatus is a replacement schedule (can't hear) another one due in 02.
Champion/Did we ever do?
Kanner/How does that fit again this equipment fit in with the OSHA requirements and
staffing levels that we have?
Atkins/We have, we are fully aware of the OSHA requirements, we run on an upper
three persons, the OSHA requirements at the scene of a structure fire require four
people. That means before two people can enter the building, two must be outside
basically have the ability to rescue, so what we do is we handle that personnel on
scene by way of dispatch. If we have a call for a working structure fire we will
dispatch two pumpers which in affect brings not only to bear on the fire, more
water and equipment, but also brings six people, that's how we handle it. There's
a strong lobby to require cities to put at least four on a pumper and that would
substantially drive up our personnel costs, but given our incidents we've been able
to do that policy and we've not had any jeopardy to any of our personnel that I
know of, so that's how we do it. For the technical aspects we were the OSHA
requirements are certainly, the ADA requirements for this that we just built an
indoor specs, we've been (can't hear).
Kanned And were getting more assistance from outside fire communities and we're
assisting them?
Atkins/Generally speaking that's probably true and of course we have the highest
incidence just because we have the largest population. We have on duty with this
current, with our current personnel 13 personnel and that allows us to respond,
generally with the weak turnout with people we have on staff at the time at given
point in time, we could take care of most structure fires. But if we get a second
and a third call, normally what happens is that people from let's say Coralville
will come in and staff our station, they may not be at the scene but they will come
in and staff the station with the possibility responding to another call. Now the
fourth fire station will which is the next item on the, will change that somewhat
to, because we're still, we're only proposing 9 personnel and that's pretty much a
minimum what we can do at that fire station. Floor drains, you know about that
Jeff?.
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Lehman/You know some things we don't need to know about.
Atkins/All I know is the floor drains at the transit building have to be fixed.
Davidson/Transit building, yea I assume that' s related to the settling of the building so.
Atkins/GIS package.
Lehman/Is this GIS package compatible with what Coralville and County and whatever,
are we on the same sheet paper?
Fosse/Yea, we've been meeting with Coralville, the University and the County all about
talking about different platforms and making sure we operate on a platform that's
compatible.
Lehman/OK.
Fosse/And this dollar amount that' s in here now is just.
Lehman/A guess.
Fosse/Just a guess for a starting place, we've just taken proposals from consultants who
are reviewing them now an implementation plan and part of that plan will have
the schedule with priorities and costs associated with that so nine months from
now our time for the next go around on this budget we'll have some good figures
to be able to plug in here.
Lehman/OK.
Kanner/So how does this fit into the fiber optic network or does it at all?
Lehman/It's totally different.
Fosse/Where, well where the fiber optic network can be of assistance to us is getting this
information, sharing this information with the outlying divisions of the public
works department, being waste water, streets department, because a good share of
what this will do is help us manage our infrastructure because it's especially based
database.
Pfab/Now I have a question, does that also eventually go into the other system he was
talking about?
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Fosse/There will likely be some ties between the two.
Atkins/That whole.
Pfab/They all talk to each other.
Atkins/Hopefully they will all talk to each other but these are, I'm not even sure how
good of a guess as these are so to understand but something is going to certainly
have to be on.
Pfab/This is the other one, the idea of data mining, you can see all these little trends in
crime and what not and you can anticipate it, that's what it's.
Atkins/Iowa Avenue Parking Ramp, we didn't get time to change the name, that's under
construction, Library Expansion is a recognition of the moneys for the westward
expansion. Parking near southside, your familiar with that. Peninsula Property
Development Karin.
Karin Franklin/What that' s about is basically just what we've been doing over the last
fiscal year in terms of working through, getting a developer for this project which
we'll talk about a little bit next Monday. These costs are for Dover, Kohl and
Associates for their continuing consulting on a periodic basis as well as doing a
housing market analysis to look at the housing mix and see in fact the market can
bear it.
Pfab/Thank you.
Franklin/You're welcome.
Atkins/Police Second floor design, that should be design and construction, I have that
shown in 2000, that should be 2001, a likelihood of presenting that project to you
is not going to occur (can't hear).
Lehman/Ifthat's one we had scheduled for this year and then we took it out.
Atkins/We scheduled, we set, we put it in for the next year and I think it's more likely it
will be sometime this summer before we put that together.
Kanner/Your saying police second floor design move to 2001.
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Atkins/01 yea and that's design and construction, we've done all the, we're doing some
of the final design work to present that project to you shortly I just think it's more
than likely that we'll (can't hear). Public Works Complex, we bought the land,
we're starting to put the project together. There's a lot more to do on that before
we bring it back to you, it's not south of the airport now, it's on Gilbert Street
(can't hear). Ramp maintenance repair, that's a biannual maintenance project we
set aside. Senior Center furnishing/lights that's virtually done, she, Linda had to
put together some committees and all sorts of other folks to get that decided and
they're still deciding that. Interchange project.
Davidson/Yea that was the, should be under construction this year we're just, we have to
get a clearance from the State Historical Preservation office, we're just waiting for
that.
Atkins/Oh yea I think we shared that with you. Since the interchange is adjacent to the
Pentecrest which is on the national register we have to do a historic evaluation.
Lehman/Are they going to be asking for money tomorrow night?
Atkins/Who?
Lehman/Historic Preservation?
Atkins/They would be asking, more interested in staff.
Franklin/Nothing to do with them.
Lehman/To do this sort of work?
Atkins/Oh this has nothing to do with them, they didn't do this.
Karr/I can't hear you Karen.
Atkins/OK yea, it has nothing to with the Commission.
Lehman/OK.
Champion/It wouldn't be bad if they never did.
Kanner/Jeffwhere's the interchange going to be?
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Davidson/It will be, there's a, if you look at Younkers from the Pentecrest there's a right
angle where Younkers comes out, right into that comer is where it will be built.
Atkins/You want to give them a brief description? I don't think we shared that with
everybody.
Davidson/Yea it's basically what the name says, an information center, a place where
people can go in, it will be staffed, it will have transit information, and route
schedules, it will have a waiting area, it will surrplant the two old bus shelters that
are on the island, the island will remain but it will be landscaped. It will provide a
pedestrian refuge area though still. The information center will also have rest
rooms for transit drivers.
Kanner/And we going to allow Coralville folks, both drivers and to use that as a bus
drivers?
Davidson/I don't know what the arrangement has been, I mean right now the Coralville
drivers use the Airliner. And I don't know if that, if something else has been
worked out that's satisfactory to them right now. We'll at least make sure we
have route and schedule information for Cambus, SEATS and Coralville in there.
Kanner/And are we going to put a curb cut in that island there, I've heard some
complaints?
Davidson/Curb cut in the island?
Kanner/Yea, you can't get the middle island there's no curb cut curb accessibility.
Davidson/Oh yea it will certainly be, it will comply with ADA when we're done with it.
Kanner/Can we move that up and get that curb cut in there?
Lehman/Why would we want a curb cut in the middle of the island, that would
encourage people to cross in the middle of the block?
Kanner/No, people, there's, you load the buses.
Champion/The bus stops there.
Kanner/And it's a bus stop, loading and unloading, and to get to that island there's no.
Davidson/Yea it will no longer be a bus stop.
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Kanner/Yea but I'm saying until that happens perhaps.
Davidson/Well that's suppose to occur this spring, we're suppose to be tearing it out.
Atkins/I have to see it, I can't picture it.
Davidson/Yea, right now buses do stop at that island, it is a place where certain buses
where you get on and off, it will not be that when this project is done, everything
will be on the parameter.
Kanner/OK.
Davidson/Now I think what I was referring to simply was if you are crossing from north
to south or south to noah you have to go through a portion of the tip of the island
and that will be, that will have a ramp such that it is fully accessible.
Kanner/And one other thing since we're talking about the computers and networks, will
the staff that are in the building there have a computer to tell callers more exact
about bus schedules and so forth?
Davidson/Right now Steven they just use their manual schedules and I don't know that
that's been a problem, I mean, the transit drivers are very knowledgeable about if
you say this comer, they can tell you exactly what bus and when it comes there.
Kanner/Well I found it to be a little bit of a problem when I called for information, and I
always wondered you know, it seems like their not using a computer and you can
just confirmed it, it seems that if there was a computer with all the stops in the
city that that would be something that we could be worth funding.
Davidson/We could certainly see that, it doesn't seem like it would be a very difficult
application at all.
Atkins/Yea, I think it wouldn't be that difficult, I'd think there's got to be something out
there that will allow that, technology that is.
Pfab/Would that also be (can't hear) to your transportation center before too long. Is
that?
Kanner/Oh.
Davidson/Say that again?
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Atkins/Could be there too yea, that's a good point.
Champion/Be a better place for it.
Atkins/Well for, if it's just a buying software, I just don't know.
Davidson/I don't think it's really come up as a notion before.
Atkins/As long as (can't hear) be a problem with it.
Kanner/But there is a question is the new, the new proposed transportation center on
Burlington going to replace this building right now?
Lehman/No.
Davidson/No, no, this will still be the main interchange between Coralville, Iowa City
and Cambus. The Transportation Center will be served by Cambus and Iowa City
and will be served by Coralville by a transfer on one of those routes but it will not
replace that that's the interchange.
Atkins/(can't hear) Methane, Transit Center parking lot and you'll, yea we've talked
about that one. Parking Lot Resurfacing, and everybody knows the transit
buildings built on a landfill.
Davidson/The Transit building' s actually built on stilt's.
Atkins/On stilts.
Davidson/The rest of it is on the landfill.
Atkins/The rest of it's built on the landfill so we periodically have to resurface that and
that it is for capital projects. Those that have been proposed, given you that time
Ernie, tonight and tomorrow night you have Board Assessors, conference board at
6:30, 7:00 you begin your schedule with Boards, Commissions, and Agencies.
Lehman/From my understanding that may run until 10:00.
Atkins/Oh.
Karr/There have been additions to the schedule which we will distribute tomorrow night
and if you stay on time and if they stay on time your booked until 10:00.
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Champion/Well we'll have to stay on time.
Lehman/We'll try.
O'Donnell/I thought we had a scheduled until 9:00 didn't we?
Karr/But there were some additional requests that came in because of the holiday, the
letters weren't received.
Atkins/That's all I have.
Vanderhoef/Are we going to meet Monday afternoon two weeks from today?
Lehman/Well two weeks from today I can not, that's scheduled for a morning meeting, I
can not meet on Monday mornings so we can talk about that now or we can talk
about that.
Champion/This is the Monday February 7th meeting?
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/Yes.
O'Donnell/What time is that?
Champion/8:30.
Lehman/Well it says 8:30 in the morning, we can do a 2:30 again if we want, it's not on
the sheet.
O'Donnell/What's that under?
(All talking).
Lehman/Well why don't you look at it and we'll talk about it tomorrow night.
Kanner/Well let's see if we can do it fight now.
Champion/You know at 2:30 I'm probably not going to be able to do that because I just
can't leave the store at 2:00 in the afternoon.
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Lehman/Well do you want to do it Monday night?
Atkins/Two nights in a row.
Lehman/Two nights in a row, I can do that.
Champion/I don't know about that.
Atkins/Yea I know.
Kanner/Can we do it just a little earlier than like 5:30?
Champion/Can we talk it about tomorrow, I'll check with (can't hear).
Atkins/The 291h is a board meeting because I want to put a resolution on a public
hearing, that is an extra meeting.
Lehman/Right.
Karr/And that's OK, that's a go, the 291h?
Kanner/February 291h.
Atkins/Yes.
Champion/What day of the week is that?
Karr/Tuesday.
Atkins/Tuesday night, it's your off Tuesday and I want to call a budget hearing for that
night.
Lehman/A special meeting.
Atkins/Yea, so you do not have, it's just the way your budget schedule, or your the way
your meeting schedule meeting was set up.
Champion/Does 2:30 on that Monday work out for everybody else?
Lehman/We'll do it tomorrow night.
Kanner/I can do either time.
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Atkins/Thank you staff.
Lelunan/Thank you guys and gals.
Pfab/Thank you very kindly.
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