HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-04-17 Transcription April 17, 2000 Council Work Session Page 1
April 17, 2000 Council Work Session 6:30 PM
Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Kanner, Wilburn, Pfab (arrived
6:35)
Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Dilkes, Franklin, Nasby, Winkelhake, Matthews
Tapes: 00-45 Side 2, 00-46 Both Sides
Planning & Zoning
A. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MAY 2 ON AN
AMENDMENT TO ZONING CHAPTER 14o6D-5G1 REGARDING THE
NONCONFORMING PROVISIONS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
CONSERVATION RESIDENTIAL ZONE (RNC- 12).
Karin Franklind The first item is setting a public hearing for May 2 on regarding the
nonconforming provisions in the neighborhood conservation zone RNC-12. This
has to do with eliminating the date in the code and making this more genetic that
the nonconforming provision would take affect when a property was zoned RNC-
12 as opposed to having a date specific.
B. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MAY 2 ON AN
ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM LOW
DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-5) AND PLANNED
DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY (OPDH-5) TO PLANNED
DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY (OPDH-5) AND APPROVING A
PRELIMINARY PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY PLAN
FOR VILLAGE GREEN PARTS 18-20, A 19.6-ACRE, 10-LOT, 63-UNIT
RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT WITH ONE OUTLOT LOCATED SOUTH
OF VILLAGE ROAD AND WEST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD (REZ00-0002)
Franklind Item B is setting a public hearing on May 2 for planned development overlay.
This is for Village Green, it is 63 units, 60 condominiums and 3 single family
houses, a continuation of the Wellington Condominiums.
C. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MAY 2 ON AN
ORDINANCE AMENDING THE PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING
OVERLAY (OPDH-5) PLAN, AND APPROVING A PRELIMINARY
PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY FOR VILLAGE GREEN
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SOUTH PART 5, A RESUBDIVISION OF A PORTION OF VILLAGE GREEN
SOUTH PART 3A, A 12-LOT, 3.33-ACRE RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT
LOCATED AT WINTERGREEN DRIVE WEST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD
REZ00-0009)
Franklin/Item C also setting a public hearing on May 2, again for another section of
Village Green South, Part 3A, a 12-1ot subdivision.
D. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MAY 2 ON AN
ORDINANCE VACATING, THE NORTHERNMOST PORTION OF NORTH
JAMIE LANE, LOCATED WEST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD (VAC00-0003)
Franklin/Item D is setting a public hearing for May 2 on the vacation of a street in
Village Green South, this is to enable the subdivision of the prior item.
E. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE AiMENDING TITLE 14, CHAPTER 5,
BUILDING AND HOUSING, ARTICLE H, SITE PLAN REVIEW, BY
ADOPTING CENTRAL PLANNING DISTRICT MULTI-FAMILY
RESIDENTIAL DESIGN STANDARDS AND RELATED AMENDMENTS TO
TITLE 14, CHAPTER 6, ZONING, ARTICLE 1, ZONING TITLE, PURPOSE
AND SCOPE.
Franklin/Item E, for tomorrow night a public hearing on the Central Planning District
Multi-family residential design standards. The first thing I want to do is to make
sure that everybody's clear on the area. The area that we're talking about with
this, this is the Central Planning District which is basically that district which
surrounds the downtown. The important thing to keep in mind here is that the
applicability will be in the shaded area which is where multi-family structures are
permitted. So we've got the larger central planning district which is this large
defined area around the downtown. It includes many of our older neighborhoods,
but what these guidelines are going to apply to are only multi-family projects.
One thing I feel necessary to point out is the guidelines do not control density,
they have nothing to do with density, they respect the underlying zoning. What it
is about is design guidelines when a multi-family dwelling is going to be
constructed, three units or more. There also are no density bonuses provided for in
this, I know there was a piece in the paper that had that included but this does not
include density bonuses. So there's no density relationship between the
guidelines and with the guidelines. Basically there are some mandatory features
that must be complied with and then there points that a development project can
receive and you have to get a certain number of points in order to get your
building permit. It provides flexibility for the builders but still ensures that there
are some design review and this is a consequence of some apartment buildings
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that have been built in close proximity to existing neighborhoods that have been
(can't hear) with those neighborhoods. It's to achieve compatibility between
those buildings and the neighborhoods. The committee that put this together was
made up of a number of people who build apartment buildings, people who live in
the neighborhoods, architects, and then people from staff of course. Are there any
questions about the guidelines? I didn't think I'd get into the specifics of them.
Lehman/Tomorrow night when we start the public hearing I would like if you would just
pretty much reiterate what you just said.
Franklin/Say what I just said. OK.
Vanderhoef/Karin, the only thing that I haven't seen anything about in here that I think is
going to come up is was there any conversation with the committee about the cost
of achieving those points, the additional design factors and how they might relate
in dollars to the neighborhood their building, received (can't hear)?
Franklin/I can't answer that Dee but there will be members of the committee who will be
at the meeting tomorrow night.
Vanderhoef/OK.
Franklin/I'm sure that cost as a general concept was in there and that was one of the
reasons for having flexibility and the ability to yet different points but in terms of
whether they looked at specific costs or specific items I don't know.
Vanderhoef/OK.
Champion/Well there might be some costs, it would be just like being in a historic
preservation district there are certain guidelines you have to meet to build there
and it would be just the same type of thing (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/Yea I recognize there's costs but what I was trying to get was a ballpark
number of how extensive (can't hear) it might be for achieving at least the 30
points.
Champion/Gosh I don't know.
Franklin/Yea it's going to be a little bit hard to tell because you've got that range.
Vanderhoef/Sure it will be. I know you do.
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Franklin/I mean the porches one is from 0 to 10 points.
Kanner/Karin I think I found the other one that I think you add up, unless I was reading
wrong. On the whereas it talks about.
Franklin/Is this in the ordinance for this?
Kanner/For the ordinance and for people that have it in the page computer 187, it says 3
resulting in more than 3 dwelling units, at the top one of the whereas'. But then in
the therefore it says which results in a total of 3 or more dwelling units so maybe
it's talking on something different but I'm wondering which it is, more than 3 or
3 or more dwelling units. Following me on that?
Franklin/Yes I am following on what your saying. What holds in an ordinance, I mean
this would need, we need to reconcile that so there isn't that dismiss but what
holds in an ordinance is what is in the now therefore but yet resolved, and I
believe that the intent was to go with 3 or more so that you are always looking at
any multi-family structure, I mean two is a duplex.
Kanner/Right OK, this is what I wanted.
Franklin/But I'll make sure that that is correct.
Kanner/And maybe tomorrow you could answer this, I'll ask the same question but in
the notes it said it looked like a good compromise, and it does look like a good
compromise of all the people that were there. But can you give some examples
tomorrow of stricter things that people wanted that didn't make it into this.
Franklin/OK.
Kanner/So I we can get an idea of what other things were possible.
Franklin/I didn't staff that committee but I know that one of the issues that they talked
about was having a height limitation of 27 feet that no building could be higher
than 27 feet and the consequence of this would be probably in many cases
diminishing the density or the allowable units that you would be able to have and
SO there was some discussion about that and they took that out because of concern
about affecting the density but I'll talk with them about raising those other
examples and things they talked about.
Kanner/OK. I like the point system.
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Franklin/OK. Anything else?
F. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 14, CHAPTER 6,
ZONING, ARTICLE 0, SIGN REGULATIONS, TO ALLOW BANNER SIGNS
IN CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ZONES UNDER SOME CONDITIONS.
Franklin/OK the next item is having to do with banner signs. The Council has
previously past an ordinance amendment that permits banner signs.
Atkins/Beam me up Scotty (can't hear).
Franklin/If it were that easy. Yea, OK, I don't know why this is happening and you also
asked us then to look at spacing for banners and seasonal messages. What this
ordinance does is it provides for those spacing provisions that they be no closer
than 80 feet apart. Did you get a revised ordinance tonight? OK. There was an
error in the one that was in your packet in that we neglected to include that no
closer than 80 feet in the CHol, or in the CO-l, CN-1, and RO-1 zones.
Karr/They have it.
Franklin/OK and it should be included so that spacing requirement is in there for all of
the commercial zones so you can have banners, you can have up (can't hear), they
are for shopping area as opposed to individual businesses. One of the items that
came up with the Council previously was should we allow this for individual
businesses? Our recommendation was not to do that that an individual business in
an area even if they have a 200 parking spaces which are necessary to trigger their
ability to do this have adequate opportunities for signage to identify their business
with a facia sign, pre standing sign, monument signs so that what this was to be
about was to have signage for a cohesive center such as Gateway, or Sycamore or
Pepperwood and it could be used as identification and for seasonal messages only.
You can't advertise Coke at 90 cents a six pack or whatever.
Champion/What about like a strip mall like along First Avenue?
Franklin/If the signage is, yes, because that's a collection of stores and if they decide to
have it named that describes that area yes it would apply there if they have 200
spaces.
Champion/Oh yea they do.
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Vanderhoef/Sometimes on the strip mall you have the frontage but you don't have the
200 parking places so I think that would eliminate several of the (can't hear).
Franklin/I don't know that the Cahill mall on First Avenue does have 200 spaces or not,
do you think so? Anyway.
Champion/I don't know.
Vanderhoef/Eastdale would have but, but the ones that are on the west side of the street.
Kanner/Did we hear anything from individual owners saying they wanted to be included
to be able to put banners up?
Franklin/No, but I'm not sure that a lot of attention has been paid to this either.
(All talking).
Lehman/That's right.
Franklin/Really. OK.
Lehman/OK.
G. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING
DESIGNATION FROM LOW DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL
(RM-12) TO MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-8)
FOR PROPERTY SOUTH OF BURLINGTON STREET ALONG THE 300-600
BLOCKS OF GOVERNOR STREET AND A PORTION OF THE 800-900
BLOCKS OF BOWERY STREET. (REZ00-0007)
H. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING
DESIGNATION FROM LOW DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL
(RM- 12) TO NEIGHBORHOOD CONSERVATION RESIDENTIAL (RNC- 12)
FOR PROPERTY SOUTH OF BURLINGTON STREET ALONG THE 300-600
BLOCKS OF LUCAS STREET AND A PORTION OF THE 700-800 BLOCKS
OF BOWERY STREET. (REZ00-0007)
Franklin/OK the next two items G and H which are the rezonings on Governor and Lucas
I guess I'd like to kind of talk about those together as opposed to separately
although there may be some questions or items that you want to bring up about
them separately. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail with a lot of numbers and
percentages and all that kind of thing, I mean I think that there's a basic issue here
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and that issue is whether you wish to make any change on these two streets such
that they cannot become streets which are dominated by apartment buildings. The
RM-12 zoning allows for that to occur. It says this is a multi-family area and that
is the long term expectation of what would happen there. And so it's a difference
between whether you say yes that is what we envision and want for Governor and
Lucas or whether we wish to retain the character of the neighborhood that is there
right now which is predominantly single family structures but a lot of rental
property, more rental property on Governor than on Lucas, no, the other way
around.
Champion/Are you talking about units or structures?
Franklin/OK talking about structures, that the structures that are there now on both of
those streets are primarily buildings that were built as single family houses.
Champion/OK.
Franklin/And the RNC-12 that is before you would basically freeze those streets in time
in terms of any increase of multiple units. With RNC-12 there can be no new
construction of multi-family unless it is to replace a'n existing multi-family
structure. The neighborhood conservation is about allowing the retention of
certain types of uses, the rooming houses and the multi-family, even if their
destroyed totally, you can rebuild them to the density that they are at today. You
can not increase that density and you can not take single family houses, take them
down and build apartment houses or rooming houses. You can by right build a
new single family you can by fight build a new duplex if you have sufficient
square footage. But under the RNC-12 you can not build a new multi-family
structure or a new rooming house structure but you would have whatever you
have there today.
Wilburn/Legally.
Franklin/Legally, yes, ifthere's anything illegal there there's nothing that guarantees
your keeping that at all so I think for our discussion, good point Ross, but we're
never going to say that was done illegally so let's do it again.
Vanderhoef/So how about the structures that were built and permitting during the RM-
44.
Lehman/They're legal.
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Franklin/They are legal nonconforming, their status does not change, they continue to be
legal nonconforming and if they are destroyed by 100 percent of their assessed
value they're gone.
Vanderhoef/They can not be rebuilt.
Franklin/Right and that would be the case if that stayed RM-12. The difference is what
you have the possibility of building there if the zone changes. If you have a legal
nonconforming use now under RM-12 it is destroyed, what you rebuild there is
what is allowed under the RMol2 zoning. If it is changed to RNC-12 and you
have a legal nonconforming use it's destroyed, what you build there in its place is
a single family origin plus.
O'Donnell/How big can the duplex be?
Franklin/How big can it be?
O'Donnell/Yea how many bedrooms?
Franklin/It's, you can have in a duplex, three unrelated individuals, now presumably that
would be three bedrooms.
Lehman/But you could build a 4 or 5 bedroom duplex if you wanted to.
Franklin/You could but only three unrelated people could live there.
Lehman/Right, right.
Franklin/But you could have a 4 or 5 bedroom duplex and have a family with four kids.
Lehman/Right. We're not going to be asked to vote on this tomorrow night?
Champion/No.
Franklin/No. Tomorrow night is your public hearing and then your vote would be May
2.
Lehman/All right.
Champion/Karin, go ahead Steven.
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Kanner/OK can you explain the amendment that's proposed for the conforming after
1993.
Franklin/Yes, what that is about is getting that date out of there, when we adopted that
RNC-12 zone initially it was at a specific time and basically what we want to say
here is that that conformity provision relates to when the propeay is zoned RNC-
12 so it will be different for all the RNC-12 zones arotmd the city. Such that
today is what you would have the fight to have for Governor and Lucas if it's
rezoned. Whereas on the noah side when it was rezoned to RNC-12 it was
probably that 93 date, we shouldn't have put the date in there because it doesn't
work then when you go and rezone another area because the concept of the RNC
is to allow those existing uses to continue. It is very much a compromise
position, it recognizes ceaain propeay fights in that higher density and the ability
to continue those but it says OK stop we're going to conserve fight now, what's
here right now. And what that is about is defining what the fight now is and it's
going to be different for different areas.
O'Donnell/Karin did you say that if the building is 100 percent destroyed.
Franklin/100 percent of it's assessed value.
O'Donnell/OK and that's likely to not happen.
Franklin/That whole issue of what 100 percent of assessed value is something we've
talked about before and it's hard to get there.
O'Donnell/So if it was not 100 percent and we did have a fire then they could rebuild
(can't hear) on the lot?
Franklin/That's right. Because as long as you don't abandon that use and abandonment
would be 100 percent of assessed value. Connie.
Champion/Well I just want to ask a question that you might have to back into a little bit
and I want to ask it just because I consider myself fairly new at this job, not that,
but it seems to me that when a (can't hear) are developed, issues like this were
taken into consideration in the sense that the City stfived to have mixed housing
and retain the character of the town and downtown and neighborhoods. Why then
did blanket zoning for neighborhoods become obsolete?
Franklin/Blanket zoning, tell me what you mean of that.
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Champion/Yea the whole neighborhood with the zoning it has now could it be tom down
like Johnson Street and all these big apartments built up and it seems to have
contrary to the comprehensive plan.
Franklin/Well one of the, I mean there are a couple things I can say about that. One is in
terms of our current comprehensive plan and one that we adopted in 1997 which
really focuses on neighborhoods.
Champion/Right.
Franklin/And focuses on the integrity of existing neighborhoods as well as building new
ones. You know we're doing all these district plans, well one of the district plans
that we have not done yet is the Central district and that is when we look at the
microcosm of the district and what needs to be done in that district to bring it into
conformance with or to see it developed consistent with the comprehensive plan
principles. We have the broad principles of the plan and then we have these
different districts that we've been working on. One of the issues with the Central
district that one that I showed with you for the guidelines.
Champion/Right.
Franklin/Is that that is, that's a totally developed area, it's going to be very different from
any of the district plans that we have done to date. But one of the things that
would be part of that would be looking at very minutely the zoning in that area
and how it relates to the principle of preserving the integrity of neighborhoods.
It's kind of related to the Mayor' s statement about looking at these older
neighborhoods and what needs to be done in terms of zoning. But it's a matter of
not having gotten to that point yet. Obviously there was a down zoning at some
point, it was probably, I don't know if it was in 83 or earlier when this went from
a high density zoning to the R, high density multi-family to the low density
multi-family RM- 12.
Lehman/Karin isn't it also a fact as these neighborhoods become older there wasn't the
pressure to take that off of older single-family dwellings they were in better
condition as they have aged and become older it's become economical in some
cases to tear down some of the older ones and build these (can't hear) in place of
them. You know and the longer we go the more attractive that option becomes.
Twenty years ago those buildings were all 20 years newer. And the pressure
probably wasn't to change the use so much as as we go along and buildings
become older and older, particularly if their not well maintained there's more and
more pressure to remove the buildings.
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Franklin/Yea and.
Champion/But they won't be maintained (can't hear). (Break in tape).
Franklin/No.
Lehman/That was brilliant Connie.
Franklin/Very brilliant.
Lelunan/Let me write that down.
Wilburn/But there are times too, I mean there are several (break in tape) comprehensive
plan that were beautifully for new developed but when your talking about.
Franklin/It's hard.
Wilburn/I mean the values that are in conflict are the character of older neighborhoods
and then the mixed areas because some of the older neighborhoods just aren't.
Franklin/And I mean one of the things now is that our zoning ordinance doesn't really
match our comprehensive plan.
Champion/No that's exactly what I mean.
Franklin/We don't have anything, and that's one of the development code review items
is to get that consistency between the zoning ordinance and the comprehensive
plan and that's one of the issues that will come out of that. Because we don't
have any zone really right now that provides for this kind of mix that we've talked
about in some kind of reasonable fashion.
Pfab/What method is there to prevent demolition by default? Just by (can't hear)?
Franklin/Well I mean that's kind of what happens when you zone for a certain possibility
such as for a multi-family building, what you do there is you say that there is an
opportunity here that you may at some point take advantage of and so what an
investor can do is to look at properties, by a number of them, use these buildings
for a period of time, whatever their reasonable life is and put as much into
maintenance as they feel is economically prudent.
Pfab/Or is little.
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Franklin/Or is little, but whatever they judge is to be economically prudent, then their
comes a point at which it's no longer economically wise to keep those buildings
because you've got this opportunity and that's what the RN-12 is providing in this
particular area.
Pfab/Which the RNC-12 will put all.
Franklin/That's correct, I mean basically you'll have what you have and so you better
take care of what you have.
Pfab/OK one other question, can you describe in a little bit more detail of 100 percent7
What is the statement actually say?
Franklin/It says 100 percent of assessed value, and the problem is is that.
Pfab/It costs more than the assessed value.
Franklin/A foundation has some value, so if a house bums down, you know, it's gone but
the foundation usually doesn't bum, you usually have that.
Pfab/So in other, let's say a house, apartment unit is assessed for $100,000, well the
construction costs going up and maybe the assessment being a little on the low
side it cost $105,000 to build it.
Franklin/Yea.
Champion/(can't hear).
Pfab/What's, who determines?
Franklin/But then it's, well, the building department.
Pfab/OK I just, I can see.
Franklin/Not me, (can't hear). I think that is a provision of our code that is problematic
to say the least and we've talked about this before as I've said.
Pfab/Is that something that maybe we should spend some time on?
Franklin/I think we should spend some time on it and how it works and whether, whether
in fact that's what you want to have in there. I mean I think when it got to the 100
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percent of the assessed value was at a time when there was an interest on the
Council and allowing that rebuilding to occur, at whatever it was before.
Lehman/Kafin just one comment and then I think we move along. What would be wrong
with replacement by instead of assessed value? That is, takes care of whatever.
Pfab/As it is.
Franklin/I don't know that it, I don't know that it does.
Lehman/Assessed value does not have to be the assessed value does not have to be the
same as replacement value at all.
Franklin/No.
Lehman/Replacement value is replacement value.
Franklin/But when you say it's, when you say it's.
Lehman/This is a discussion for another time, all fight.
Franklin/I know, I know.
Pfab/What request, to follow up on that did the assessor get that clause in to see that
everybody kept their assessments high?
Franklin/I don't think so.
Lehman/Steven.
Kanner/I just would like a clarification on the 20 percent protest rule that kicks in the
super majority of. Our page 255 from Melody Rockwell, the memo to Iowa City
Planning and Zoning March 31, she says formal protest to rezoning can require a
super majority vote (can't hear) an owner of 20 percent or more of the property
within the rezoning area or of the 200 foot area surrounding the area. Is that a
misprint or should it be and?
Franklin/No it's or.
Kanner/So what, let's say if we're looking at Lucas, what counts as the 200 foot around
that that would be the or?
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Lehman/Actually this is something we need for the May 2 meeting because we don't act
on it until May 2 meeting.
Kanner/OK.
Franklin/Right.
Lehman/Because we don't act on it until May 2, and that's when they'll need to know.
Franklin/Right but it's an issue that is out there for all the interested parties.
Vanderhoef/It may come up tomorrow night.
Kanner/And some people are going to protest so.
Pfab/But is that also.
Franklin/And we're getting new ones in also.
Kanner/Yea.
Franklin/OK for Lucas, 20 percent of the lots within here within that purple area would
need to be represented by protest to require an extraordinary majority vote on the
part of the Council. The 200 feet outside of it is going to go oh probably the
middle of Dodge Street here and then maybe this, this side of Governor and these
properties on this side of Governor would not get it, so if you've got people who
own properties on Governor that are protesting the whole rezoning, these protests
count for the 200 feet for Lucas as well as for the interior for Governor as ones on
the east side of Lucas count for the 200 feet around Governor as well as for the
interior of Lucas. You got that?
Lehman/Kind of, in other words it overlaps.
Franklin/It overlaps.
Champion/You don't need to write 2 letters.
Lehman/No, no.
Vanderhoef/So there' s two protest areas because there are two different requests for
zoning?
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Franklin/Yes, yes.
Kanner/Well there's actually four protests periods that people can be in, if it's an or
situation for each one.
Franklin/That's fight but what we have, well, what we had as of 4:30 this afternoon and I
will tell you tomorrow night what it is that we have as of tomorrow night, but we
have a 20 percent within both of these that will require the extraordinary majority
both of the Council. Now we may have some in here on the Governor Street, we
had one submittal today, and they withdrawal of their previous protest because
remember initially this was RN-12 to RS-8, we also have a protest that was
specifically protesting the RN-12 to RS-8 in the Governor section here. That one
will no longer count because it was about the RS-8 zoning, well if you consider
the RS-8 zoning. Did you get that? Connie you look very puzzled?
Champion/Well, no, what happens if you own two lots, but you have one building on it?
Do you get (can't hear)?
Franklin/Well we're taking, what you are representing is square footage, and we have to
take the total square footage to the area of the lots and then 20 percent of that. So
if you own a big lot you have more say than if you own a little lot.
Champion/OK.
Pfab/And when is the final time to protest or not to protest?
Franklin/Before you close your public hearing?
Pfab/And the public hearing is set for when now?
Lehman/Tomorrow night.
Franklin/Tomorrow night. So if you close your public hearing tomorrow night,
tomorrow' s it.
Champion/So then Governor, so people who live on west side of Summit Street could
support or not support the zoning on Governor, is that what your saying?
Franklin/Yes, that ifthere's people, there are people here that they would be within 200
feet of this area being rezoned. And so they can.
Lehman/Well they can protest.
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Franklin/They can protest and if it gets up to the 20 percent then that becomes
meaningful and it requires 6 out of 7 of you to vote for the rezoning.
Champion/Because that's what protesters are interested in basically.
Lehman/Right.
Franklin/That's what the state law provides for and it's basically to make sure when your
doing a rezoning because it does affect property fights that when your doing that
if there is a certain pementage that object to it that you do that very deliberately.
And also because obviously people can request a rezoning of somebody else's
property.
Champion/Yea, OK.
Franklin/OK. Are we done with that now?
Lehman/Yes.
Champion/Thanks Karin.
I. AMENDING TITLE 14, CHAPTER 6, ZONING, TO ALLOW WIDE-BASE
FREESTANDING SIGNS IN SOME COMMERCIAL ZONES UNDER
CERTAIN CONDITIONS.
Franklin/OK the next item is wide-base freestanding signs. This ordinance amendment
is to permit wide-based freestanding signs and the question that was referred back
to the Planning & Zoning Commission was one of height, whether the height
should be increased to 26 feet. The staff and the Planning & Zoning Commission
have recommended against that increase in height for all freestanding signs, we
could not make a distinction between the two. You have two ordinances in front
of you, one allows freestanding signs up to 26 feet and one allows freestanding
signs up to 25 feet.
Vanderhoef/Karin on the first ordinance that I think then you are wanting it to be
maximum height as to.
Franklin/Yea there's a typo, yea, it should be 26 and then in parentheses 26, yea Steven
pointed that out to me before the meeting.
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Lehman/OK.
J. AN ORDINANCE VACATING AN UNDEVELOPED PORTION OF WOOLF
AVENUE FROM MCLEAN STREET SOUTH FOR A DISTANCE OF 240
FEET. (VAC97-0002)
Franklin/The vacation of Woolf Avenue, we request that you continue that public
hearing we haven't had a chance to meet yet with the neighbors, but we are
meeting Wednesday.
Kanner/I have a question, when we vacate a property and sell it, can we put restrictions
on that7
Franklin/Yep.
K. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM
PLANNED HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (PRM) TO
SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY (OSA-PRM) FOR .48 ACRES LOCATED AT
THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF PRENTISS AND LINN STREETS. (REZ00-
0004) (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/First consideration of the rezoning for the apartment building on the comer of
Prentiss and Linn.
L. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 14, CHAPTER 6, ZONING, TO
ALLOW MASONRY WALL SIGNS IN THE GENERAL INDUSTRIAL (I-1),
HEAVY INDUSTRIAL (I-2), OFFICE RESEARCH PARK (ORP) AND
RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT PARK (RDP) ZONES. (FIRST
CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/First consideration for masonry wall signs.
M. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 14, CHAPTER 6, ZONING,
TO ALLOW OVERNIGHT BOARDING OF ANIMALS WITHIN SMALL
ANIMAL CLINICS IN THE COMMERCIAL OFFICE (CO-I) ZONE. (FIRST
CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/First consideration for overnight boarding of the animals in small animal clinics
in the CO-1.
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N. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CONDITIONALLY CHANGING THE ZONING
DESIGNATION FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY
RESIDENTIAL (RS-8) TO LOW DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL
(RM-12), FOR 0.82 ACRES OF PROPERTY LOCATED ALONG THE WEST
SIDE OF BENTON COURT, NORTH OF BENTON STREET (OAKNOLL),
(REZ00-0001) (SECOND CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/Second consideration on the Oaknoll rezoning request.
O. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE
CITY CLERK TO ATTEST AN ESCROW AGREEMENT FOR LOUIS
CONDOMINIUMS, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Franklin/Item O.
Dilkes/We have a call into Kristen I don't know yet.
Franklin/OK. This is likely to be, O and P are likely to be deferrals.
P. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY
(OSA-8) CONDITIONAL ZONING AGREEMENT TO ALLOW A
DRIVEWAY ACCESS ONTO FOSTER ROAD FOR PROPERTY LOCATED
AT 500 FOSTER ROAD. (REZ00-0016) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Q. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A FINAL PLAT OF WINDSOR
RIDGE, PART FIFTEEN, A 40.27 ACRE, TWO-LOT RESIDENTIAL
SUBDIVISION WITH TWO OUTLOTS LOCATED ON THE NORTH SIDE
OF COURT STREET AT ITS EASTERN TERMINUS. (SUB00-0004)
Franklin/And Q, any news on Q?
Dilkes/No.
Franklin/OK Q may also be a deferral, that's the Windsor Ridge Part 15, the developers
are reconsidering how they want to format all of that.
Lehman/Are these to be deferred to a specific date? May 2.
Franklin/Yea, defer them to May 2.
Lehman/All right.
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R. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING AN EXTRATERRITORIAL
PRELIMINARY PLAT OF WOODLAND RIDGE, PART THREE, A 22.32-
ACRE, 7-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION WITH ONE OUTLOT
LOCATED AT THE EAST TERMINUS OF MEADOWVIEW DRIVE.
(SUB00-0007)
Franklin/Item R is a resolution on an extraterritorial or out in the County preliminary plat
for Woodland Ridge Part three, this is a 7-1ot subdivision and the Planning &
Zoning Commission as well as staff is recommending approval, we have received
the notification from the Hills Fire Department that they will cover this. And I'm
done.
Lehman/Thank you Karin. Your deferring probably O, P and Q.
Agenda Items
Lehman/Anyone have any comment on other Agenda Items.
1 ) Kanner/I have a question.
Lehman/Yes.
Kanner/(Consent Calendar 16(d)) In the Consent calendar under correspondence we have
a notice I think from Jeff about parking, no parking sign be posted by Johnson and
Washington on Washington. (break in tape). (can't hear) that has to do with
voting to allow those medians to be reworked for safety reasons.
Atkins/Right.
Kanner/Are the trees going to remain in those medians, do we know?
Atkins/I don't know for sure Steven I'll find out tomorrow.
Kanner/Yea.
Atkins/I understood they were going to relandscape them but I don't know what that
means, but I' 11 find out for you.
Lehman/Other agenda items.
Appointments
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Lehman/The next one, Riverfront and Natural Areas Commission. Do we have an
applicant for that?
Champion/(can't hear).
Kanner/No.
O'Donnell/I don't think so.
Lehman/I don't think so either.
Vanderhoef/Not unless there's one in the packet.
Lehman/OK.
Vanderhoef/(can't hear).
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CDBG/Home Allocations
Franklin/Are you have your project resource book. The main point I would like to make
this evening is that (break in tape) because of the time schedule and when we have
to get this into HUD, your going to have your public hearing tomorrow night. I
know this is hard because your not going to be taking a vote but we would like is
if we could get some indication from the Council tomorrow night after the public
hearing as to whether you believe there's going to be a majority of you that have a
problem with the allocation as is proposed to you. The Housing Community
Development Commission has scheduled a meeting for the 24, which is next
Monday and they can work through a revised or alternative allocation for you to
consider. Now I think probably through discussion tomorrow night we'll have
some sense of what those others are that you may or may not have problems with.
Lehman/Karin for tomorrow night and not for tonight because tomorrow night is the
public hearing but there's a couple questions that I think are that I have. We've
received correspondence obviously from some neighbors who have some
objections to the Successful Living allocation, primarily based on the location of
that facility. And we've also received some communication that indicated that
there are several group facilities in close proximity to each other. I guess I would
like for us to have instead of information from people sending it to us from staff
as to where these locations are relative to the proposed Church relocation. The
other thing that we received was a note from or I received anyway indicating that
Successful Living is intending to close their South Dodge Street facility if they
open the one on Church Street. And I guess I'm curious as to how many people
they serve on South Dodge relative to how many they would serve on Church
Street.
Champion/It would be the same.
Franklin/Actually there would be more four more people served on Church than on
Dodge. What they are obligated to provide for on Dodge is four individuals and
on Church we're looking at eight. And when I say we're obligated to provide for
that is based on at that time D & K properties obtaining CDBG funds for the
facility on Dodge Street and so there was that contract that they had to provide
housing for four individuals.
Letunan/Is the facility on Dodge Street, I mean that closure would be at their option, I
mean they would choose to close that not saying that they have to?
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Franklin/Yea, and that is not Successful Living, that is D & K properties which have,
Theresa Kopatich is an owner in both but Successful Living is an organization
that was set up to not only provide the housing but provide supportive services.
Whereas D & K properties was just to provide the housing and Theresa because of
her alliance with EHP at the time provided some of those services but it was not
that was not what the project was when it received the CDBG funds, it was just
for the housing itself so it's different but there' s overlaps.
Vanderhoef/But there are more than four people living in the (can't hear)?
Franklin/Yes there are, yes.
Vanderhoef/But there are only four that get the reduced rate in rent which is the payback
for the.
Franklin/It was the contractual range that's correct.
Vanderhoef/So you're saying then that if they go to the Church Street house all of the
units there, all eight would be reduced rate versus the four.
Franklin/Right, right.
Vanderhoef/But they've got nine total in that other house.
Franklin/In the Dodge Street house.
Vanderhoef/Right.
Franklin/Yes.
Lehman/All right, well there will be some questions.
Franklin/Steve Nasby is here if you have more questions, he's really the one to answer
these, but I think.
Vanderhoef/So there's going to be one less person housed totally into a combined unit if
we switch from the Dodge to the Church however there will be more subsidized
housing in Church than there is in the Dodge.
Franklin/Yes, yes.
Vanderhoef/Got it.
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Franklin/However, I mean the units at Dodge Street won't disappear unless the new
buyer decides to do something different with it. This does not, if in fact that sale
takes place which we're not sure that that's the case. But if in fact it takes place
the Dodge Street house with the rooming units is still there, if your looking at unit
for unit or something.
Pfab/Is there a reason why if, since these types of units are over a larger area is there a
reason why the one on Dodge has to be closed?
Nasby/I talked to Theresa this morning about Dodge and she hasn't completely made up
her mind whether she's going to sell the property or not. That's under a different
umbrella than Successful Living is, that's under D & K which is a private for
profit. But it's not a conclusion, she doesn't have to sell it to make the other one
work no.
Pfab/Well it looks to me it's supporting the people on the north side say look at, we up
here, everything goes up here.
Champion/That's fight.
Pfab/And if she keeps the other one down there she can at least support or nullify some
of the opposition that she's coming to up in the noah side.
Franklin/Did the Council receive the map that, in your information packet there was a
letter that Marcia wrote to Northside residents?
Pfab/I did.
Lehman/Right.
Franklin/And in it there was a map that shows the location. Did you want those locations
shown for the television tomorrow night?
Lehman/If we have them I think that the important thing I think is that we have them so
we know where they're at.
Franklin/Oh OK.
Vanderhoef/I guess we have a.
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Lelunan/Well the only people that really are curious about this are those that live there
and they all know where they're at. I have no problem if you have it on overhead
but obviously.
Vanderhoef/But we've got another map that.
Franklin/I'm just trying to see what your trying to achieve with that for tomorrow night.
Lehman/I don't know.
Champion/Because I think some of us have problems with the allocations with HUD
because of the congregation of assisted housing, Successful Living, group homes,
half way houses.
Pfab/Emergency housing.
Champion/All of these congregated in one part of town and that does become a
detrimental to a neighborhood after a certain point and so I think that's why we
need to h~ow where all these facilities are.
Lehman/Well these are the things that we're going to talk about at the public hearing
tomorrow night.
Pfab/But I mean it also, this is also a public hearing for not just the people that are here.
Lehman/Oh absolutely.
Champion/Right.
Pfab/So the point she asked is do you want this to go out on TV? I would say yes.
Lehman/I don't have a problem.
Wilbunf I would like to see it.
O'Donnell/It doesn't matter.
Franklin/OK.
Vanderhoef/I would like you to take a look, did you get the map that was sent out by the
Mr. Vanderwoude?
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Man/Yes.
Wilburn/Yes.
Franklin/I have it right here fight now.
Vanderhoef/So they, they are not necessarily saying the same thing, the two maps so I'd
like that resolved.
Lehman/Well we'll have that tomorrow night.
Vanderhoef/OK.
Franklin/This is our map.
Wilburn/What he was saying was suggesting in his letter was that the the houses that are
pictured, the other types of group homes pictured on the map in his opinion are
different types of establishments where I have a question, I think there's some
similarities but I would mention it tomorrow night. I think so that the maps, the
map perception is saying there may have been one or two locations.
Vanderhoef/Different.
Wilburn/Excluded but his main point was for example he was saying that a Systems
Unlimited Group Home for mentally retarded/developmentally disabled persons is
not the same as a person who might be in the Successful Living home and I would
debate some of that but I'll bring that up tomorrow.
Franklin/Technically you have the option of allocating money to the organizations and
directing their pursuit of other properties.
Champion/That's great.
Franklin/I'm not recommending that I'm just saying that you have.
Lehman/One of the questions I'm going to have tomorrow night personally is that if this
Dodge Street facility currently houses nine people, the Church Street facility is
going to house eight. How is it, why?
Pfab/Why go through all the commotion?
Lehman/Well it seems, and spend $200,000 in.
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Franklin/I think that's something that Theresa will need to address.
Lehman/That's what I, I want like an answer to that tomorrow night it seemed to me that
we could perhaps start serving four more people than we are fight now without
spending $200,000 to purchase another piece of property. That, and that's one of
the questions. OK.
Franklin/OK.
Vanderhoef/And Hannah's project, do they have a location in mind at this point?
Nasby/They do, the former Moose Lodge building, and that was in the packet.
Lehman/Right.
Vanderhoef/I missed that.
Nasby/Yea and what they're going to do is the building is going to be basically made
made into condo units and they're going to purchase.
(END OF 00-45 SIDE 2)
O'Donnell/Is there another house out on Dubuque Street that Theresa owns like through
the back alley of?.
Nasby/(Can't hear) 716 North Dubuque.
O'Donnell/716 Noah Dubuque, oh God.
Nasby/Old fraternity.
Franklin/It's the old frat. house stone frat house (can't hear).
O'Donnell/Yea I see that one is for sell also.
Nasby/That is the one next door, Gary Patton's is the one next door, one down.
Franklin/Glenn Patton.
Nasby/Sorry. The white one.
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Franklin/OK.
Kanner/Steve.
Nasby/Yea.
Kanner/When the committee, the Commission looks at ranking, they look at how much
is being spent per person is helped by this. Is that correct?
Nasby/One of the criteria's is cost benefit and impact so that it is something they do
consider when they look at the allocations.
Kanner/Is it they look at the Dodge Street house and the net gain or do they look at the
gross gain that's going to be on Church Street and they figure the benefit?
Nasby/They didn't have the information that Dodge Street was possibly going to be sold,
they were looking at a straight (can't hear) units for the Church Street project.
Lehman/An increase of eight.
Nasby/An increase of eight yea, they did not.
Lehman/Which is significantly different than an increase of four.
Nasby/If indeed if the Church Street property, or the Dodge Street properties going to be
sold.
Kanner/Would they have looked at that or if they knew more about that and inquired
more and put that into their rankings perhaps?
Nasby/Hard to tell what they would do, like I said D & K property on Dodge is a slightly
different (can't hear) because it's owned by the for profit that was in business to
do affordable housing before Successful Living was even an organization so we
basically have a rent reduction deal with Dodge Street house where support
services are not, they're tied to it but not through a contract, like the Successful
Living houses, they are to be owned by the non profit and they offer the kind of
services that would be part of the contract so they're slightly different animals but
to get back to your question, would they consider it, I'm sure they would discuss
it. But to each commission members satisfaction.
Lehman/Thank you.
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Liquor Issues
Lehman/Next item is the Liquor issues, Steve would you like to, we may have things we
want to write down. I think your memo to us indicated a couple things and I
think, and I think there are several questions we need to ask ourselves and
depending on those answers we'll know which direction to go. First of all,
obviously we have been approach by a number of different organizations and
people throughout the community, University and whatever to address the, to
address, and we know what the problem is, but to address problems associated
with alcohol consumption in Iowa City. Now if there interest, I guess the basic
question is is there an interest on the pan of four or more of the Council people' s
to pursue it.
Kanner/Yes.
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Wilburn/Yes.
Lehman/All fight now that's number 1, we will pursue it. Now I think the other question
that you asked Steve and I think it's a very good question, we need to identify
what we perceive the problem before we can look at possible solutions to the
problem.
Wilburn/Because at this point there's no ordinance or anything on the table that.
Lehman/No, no, and I think that if there is going to be an ordinance at some point in time
it's going to come about as a result of our discussions and perhaps the most
important part of our discussion is to decide just what problem we perceive is
being there and what problem we'd like to address.
Pfab/That's exactly right. Who's being harmed?
Lehman/Pardon?
Pfab/Who's being harmed?
Lehman/Well.
Pfab/Other wise if there' s no harm, why do we need an ordinance?
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Lehman/Well I mean that's here for us to decide but I think there's been significant
amount of information sent to the Council that indicates that on the part of a lot of
people they feel that there is harm coming to the people who live in this
community. And I guess I'll be real brave, obviously the two problems that I see
as they have been presented to me and I think to the Council is the number 1 is the
over indulgence and you can call it binge drinking whatever you'd like to call it
but people drinking too much. The other problem that's been brought to our
attention time and time again is underage drinking and then I think the statistics
that we've received from a number of different folks is the combination of two
over indulgence by underage drinkers. Now I mean if these are the problems that
we see, are those what we want to talk about?
Pfab/My point is ifthere's a problem who's causing it, who is doing?
Lehman/We need to decide if there's a problem and then we'll worry about how we're
going to solve it, but we've got to figure out if we've got problems. Or if we
perceive there is a problem.
Champion/I think you stated it very well the problem is the community feels that there is
over (can't hear) by minor people.
Lehman/I think there's two issues, I think it's over indulgence number one and
consumption by minors is number two. Number two probably includes a lot of
number one.
O'Donnell/Well Emie they (can't hear) the accessibility now, we just had a bar check
and we had 122 tickets written to underage drinkers and obviously somebody's
going to check into this (can't hear) where it should be.
Pfab/Somebody's contributing to something and are they the people that are responsible?
Lehman/Steve I think accessibility is probably another one that should be put on our list
of things to address.
Vanderhoef/We also have enforcement.
Pfab/Of what?
Vanderhoef/Exiting law.
O'Donnell/State law.
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Pfab/State law Steve.
Arkins/We have local laws.
O'Donnell/That's why we're enforcing (can't hear).
Lehman/Steve under this enforcement.
Atkins/You want those split out State and Local?
Lehman/Well under the enforcement and I really at the very start of this discussion
would like to ask if we have any interest on the part of the Council which I think
is redundant but I'd like to send it anyway, and that is a letter to the Iowa State
Liquor Control Commission. We have obviously I believe that our bar owners are
I think they do a good job of checking ID's which is what we require. They
obviously do a good job in not serving minors, we don't see them prosecuted. At
the same time we know there are thousands of young people in the bars underage
who are able to obtain alcohol. We have talked on several occasions when liquor
licenses come up for renewal about whether or not the instances of offenses
within those establishments could have something to do with our renewal of their
liquor licenses and we, that, we, we can't do that. I mean we can complain to the
state and whatever. The one thing that we can't do that I would like to see us ask
the Liquor Control Commission for the authority to do is to have local sanctions
for establishments that are unable to enforce or to enforce the state law on
obtaining liquor while underage in the bars. And I think that' s a dead end street
but I would like to see us go on record with the State Liquor Control Commission
as indicating to them we have a problem that we are unable to address using
present state laws. I mean we, our bar owners do a good job of following the state
laws, they do get ID's, they don't sell to minors, and yet minors end up by the
hundreds obtaining alcohol in those bars. Obviously it doesn't work.
Champion/The other thing I think we, that needs to be addressed, is beyond the age of
when you can get into a bar is the minor penalty for an underage drinker, yes.
Wilburn/That's state law.
Champion/I know but I mean if you really wanted to attack the problems of state law
(can't hear) you would make that penalty a little more severe than a slap on the
wrist.
Vanderhoef/The penalty has not been changed in a very long time.
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Champion/No.
Lehman/No it changed two years ago, it went up to like $150.00 bucks now, it used to be
$25.00. Isn't that 2 or 3 years Eleanor?
Dilkes/The state penalty is currently for a second offense, in fact I think this has been
changed not too, $200.00 for a second offense and that can be accompanied by a
license suspension. That's the state's.
Vanderhoef/OK your talking about a bar owner.
Dilkes/No I'm talking about underage possession.
Lehman/That just changed not very long ago.
Dilkes/Right.
Pfab/You mean about driver's license?
Dilkes/There's a first offense and a second offense at the state level, at the city level we
have a city offense that is $100.00 is the fine, and once you, with court costs and
surcharge you're up to about $145.00. I'm talking about the crime for possession
against the individual drinking not against the bar owner.
Vanderhoef/At the state.
Dilkes/Served, at the city level and the state level.
Vanderhoef/So there's a fine both places?
Dilkes/Yes there's a state law that's violated and there's a city code that's violated.
Pfab/Where does the money go for those fines.
Dilkes/If it's charged as a city offense it goes to the city.
Pfab/So if there's enough offenses and their prosecuted there would be money there to
enforce to pay for enforcement.
Atkins/I doubt that, I don't think we could justify that.
Dilkes/I don't know the answer to that.
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Lehman/Well but my point.
Dilkes/I'm sorry Ernie, I just want to clarify, to make sure there's no confusion on what
you said. There are mechanisms provided for state code for tougher enforcement
of the provisions that prevent the selling or allowing the consumption of alcohol
without taking reasonable steps to determine age. OK there are criminal penalties
because of the high standard for criminal conviction that's a tough one but there
are also civil penalties that can be imposed and that can be done at the local level
hearings can, a due process structure can be set up where this is notice given to
the alleged offender, there is a hearing held and penalties can be imposed by the
Council. They do that in other cities, so I don't know that it's completely accurate
to say that we have taken every step that the state law allows and aren't getting
anywhere. I think what I have said previous, and I've tried to make this
distinction clear is that the mere number of possession of alcohol offenses in the
bars, that's the tab sheet you see, the 122 this last weekend, is not at all sufficient
to impose cope ability on the bar owner or the employee of the bar owner. But
those are two separate issues and there are some things that can be done at that
level.
Kanner/I guess one of the things I'd like to get is a report perhaps from your office
Eleanor of what is the per ponderous of evidence that would make a case against
a licensee from examples from other municipalities when they're having a civil
hearing without the criminal hearing.
Dilkes/I think probably the first thing that you would do if you decided if you wanted to
go that route is there would have to be a definite enforcement mechanism set up,
you know, like son of a sting operation. Like we've done with tobacco where you
take underage people in and see if they get served and what efforts are made to
prevent serving them alcohol. That's the kind of thing that I think they've done in
other cities and that would be required, we don't have that mechanism in place
currently.
Kanner/Yea, that's the other thing I was going to ask about the sting operation.
Wilburn/I'd like to step back a minute because we're getting at more solutions and things
to do and perhaps to me there's more problem the state, because intertwined
within all those problems we have state is the underage and the over consumption
is the, I mean there's both internal or personal problems that are caused and
there's also external. For example, things to, the vandalism.
Pfab/Drunk driving.
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Wilburn/Drunk driving, that type of.
Champion/Safety.
Wilburn/Safety, noise, those type of things that, I mean that's laced between all of those
things and I think it's important that we think about those too especially when
we're talking about some of the internal with some of the underage drinkers
because we do, this is another thing that I'm trying to look at, we do different
governmental bodies provide funding at some of the prevention efforts and if we
provide funding for prevention and interventions that help persons for who
alcohol is becoming a problem and on the other hand we turn around and say
we're willing to turn our back on the selling or someone giving, an adult giving a
minor in a bar alcohol. You know are we defeating our prevention if intervention
covers, if we allow ourselves to turn our back or whatever we're willing to accept
in power and so that's some other things that I'd like us to consider as far as that.
O'Donnell/Well and also the purpose of this. You know I don't think it's anybody's
intention to prevent a young person from going downtown and dancing or having
a hamburger in a bar after 9:00 at night, this is strictly to prevent underage
drinking. Are there any things that can be done that we haven't done?
Wilburn/Well that's perhaps another potential problem either from the University's
standpoint or the communities standpoint or business is to, in fact we've heard
several comments about what alternatives there are for those other type of legal
activities so. It's a way from that but that's a concern related that's been
addressed by several people so.
O'Donnell/Well that's a good point.
Pfab/My point would be, I think people are smart, to get into this kind of trouble there's
some calculation some place that the risks are too high or you would quit doing it.
Just like (can't hear) in Sweden, there isn't very many drunk drivers because the
risk are little to high. Now is the reward versus the risk you know if you, maybe
we have to take a little bit of look at that some way by stepping back. Are we
serious about it or are we just say we're serious? And I, and all the way around
the drinker, the operator, the police, the City Council, the public, the University,
you know are we really serious about it or do we just want to talk about it.
Wilburn/Ernie I want to, I 'm going to jump back out, you made a pretty strong statement
that the current owners and their staff are strongly enforcing ID checks, there's
something that (can't hear) what do you base that on?
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Lehman/Well I think, you know we had a meeting a year ago in, I believe a year ago this
June with a number of them all. My perception having visited with the bar
owners and I think you might find this to be true if you talk to some of our police
people is that the bar owners are pretty diligent in checking ID's to get into an
establishment, to determine whether or not your old enough to buy alcohol.
Obviously from the, I believe total lack of prosecution for a bar selling alcohol to
a minor in the last two or three years they obviously are not selling liquor directly
to underage people. We know on the other hand that hundreds and hundreds of
underage folks not only are in those bars and consuming alcohol but they're
getting drunk. And technically they have met the laws of the State of Iowa and
the ordinances of Iowa City because they did not sell it to the person that was
underage, their friend bought it for them or whatever. That I found extremely
frustrating that you can you can obey the letter of the law and this sort of activity
can occLlr.
Wilburn/I guess I mention it because you had a work session before you brought a sheet
of action steps that some bar owners suggested looking at, part of it I thought
involved use of (can't hear) machines and having, I guess the question is is there
room for improvement to what they're?
Champion/That would eliminate most of the false or fake ID's.
Wilburn/OK.
O'Donnell/Well we could also have the University on a student ID card make it one
color for underage and another color for the legal age.
Lehman/Put a date on it.
O'Donnell/That's just something. I also have a question here, and in one of my handouts
it says 8 of 11 Big Ten College towns prohibit entrance to bars for 18 year olds,
and I've got another handout here tonight that says 7 of 11 cities with Big Ten
Universities do not restrict 19 and 20 year olds from (can't hear). I'd like this
checked out, (can't hear).
Wilburn/I will share that.
Champion/One says 18 doesn't it?
O'Donnell/What's that?
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Champion/One says 18, doesn't the first one say 187
O'Donnell/One says 18 to 20, one says 19.
Champion/Right, that was the difference, one says 19 and one says 18.
Wilburn/I will share that when we were out in Washington, DC for the National League
of Cities Conference I went to the University Community Caucus and when I
mentioned that we allow persons underage into the bars now, they kind of looked
at me like I was from a different wo~d so if on a larger scale perhaps that
indicates that maybe one statistic is closer but worth, it's important to check it out.
Pfab/I have a conference, it bothers me, I'm a little reluctant to say it but I will anyway.
I'm not, I've never been a drug dealer but I understand the way to go up in
business if you're a drug dealer you give out our flee samples. Now I don't think
we're giving out free samples but sometimes some of these ads make you really
wonder how close we're getting for a legal drug. Now maybe some people
walking off with several pitchers, now this is what I'm told because I don't have
much experience and I apologize for that but if taking three or more pitchers to
one table and two or three people sitting there now that I have questions about.
Wilburn/Again an access.
Pfab/Right.
Wilburn/Perhaps an access to that question and again that was something that the bar
owners (can't hear).
Pfab/I think that it's pretty hard to say you know, it's kind of like the child of mother and
father that said I have (can't hear) an orphan. I think maybe some of these people
are not taking the responsibilities they have very strongly and I, yet come crying
to whoever they come crying at leaves me with a little bit of lack of kindness and
understanding.
Wilburn/Oh I did talk to a few of the officers that are doing the checks and one of the
things they pointed out to me was some in their minds some of the problems
related to fights and perhaps more action on their part and ease support from their
part evolve some of the young people coming from some of the surrounding
communities that like from Cedar Rapids in the last year that made, didn't they
change to make it under 21 could not get (can't hear).
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Dilkes/They do have that ordinance, I don't think it's a recent one though, is it? It's been
on the books for a while.
Wilburn/OK, but that was some of their comments, some of the folks from they say that
Cedar Rapids, rural counties, and Davenport were some places where they were
having problems on you know on the Friday or Saturday night so just thought I'd
throw that out to you.
O'Donnell/How many people at the State will think that we restrict entrance by age 21,
that only 21 year olds can go in the door?
Lehman/You got to unanimous.
O'Donnell/How many people think that's (can't hear).
Pfab/Is that a baited question?
O'Donnell/Well exact, well.
Atkins/Exactly.
O'Donnell/That's what fake ID's are, I mean, the same ID that buys you beer inside
presently will get you in the front door.
Lehman/That's true but when you have, you just said earlier 122 arrests and 4 fake ID's,
that means 118 kids got alcohol without a fake ID and they weren't old enough.
O'Donnell/Or they transferred their ID after they got indoors, and we'll never know that,
whatever. I guess the point is, that unless we have some kind of educational
process between the City and the bar owners and work collaboratively, work
together on this I just don't feel it can be (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/Well this drawing from outside the area I think is a case in point in that it's
well known that Iowa City allows you in versus some other cities that don't allow
you in at thig age and they do come.
Champion/If you had a choice I mean I think Iowa City for a long time has been a major
entertainment center for all of Southeast Iowa, I mean given a choice between
going to Noah Liberty and Iowa City, where would you go?
Lehman/Now don't knock Noah Libeay, they are friends of ours.
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Champion/I don't mean that but it has become a great enteaainment center for youth, for
young people, probably 25 and under and they come from a long way a ways.
This is not just the University of Iowa students that people kind of think that is, it
isn't just minors, and it isn't just minors from the University of Iowa and it also
isn't just minors that are creating problems for us in our entertainment district.
So I mean all we can really do with any ordinances if like Mike if we can create a
law against access, then there's no way we're going to control abuse and we can
make up any ordinances you want and your not going to help that. So I think we
need to look at are we willing to control access and do we do that with an
ordinance or do we do it with some sort of cooperation from bar owners and
baaenders who are responsible for that. And how do you deal with not the bar
selling the alcohol to the minors but the friends of the minors buying the alcohol
to the minors?
Vanderhoef/Steve's list up there responsibilities and who the players are, the biggest
player that isn't listed there are the young people themselves and what are their
responsibilities.
Atkins/That's what I was complying by a first note is that sooner or later your going to
have to tell them, a 20 year old student, your responsible for your behavior.
Champion/Right.
Atkins/Forget the rules, your responsible.
Vanderhoef/And the 21 's that are serving it to their friends
Atkins/And the 41 's and the 51 's and everyone, and those that over consume are not
always necessarily 20 years old.
Champion/That's right.
O'Donnell/And I have another question. Do you think that this can be effective ifit's
not area wide. I mean if, and I'm not going to slam Noah Libeay like Connie
did.
Champion/I didn't.
(All talking).
O'Donnell/But do you think, do you feel that it's going to be affective if it's not area
wide?
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Champion/It does need to be area wide.
O'Donnell/Well if I can't get a beer, if I can't get into a bar under 21 in Iowa City. Can
I go to Coralville or Noah Liberty?
Wilburn/Well I think also you need to look at what is it that your willing to sanction,
because we certainly contribute more to a parallel we contribute a lot more funds
and I would speculate per capita than Coralville.
O'Donnell/No where in Coralville.
Wilburn/I don't care, Jacoby can get me later. But in human services, but we choose to.
Atkins/(can't hear) no doubt.
Wilburn/But that's something we choose to and we don't necessarily look at the impact
of you know to the surrounding area. With related to that, we, this is what we
want to make a statement for our community by the whether it's an ordinance or
the level that we choose to enforce our current existing ordinances in our
community, that's what we do.
O'Donnell/Well we can enforce them but.
Wilburn/I'm just looking at your argument, I mean I can say why have laws?
O'Donnell/Well I'll throw a couple more questions out? How many more policemen do
we need to enforce this? We're, I think it's going to be a substantial number
because we're going to need people downtown all the time.
Wilburn/Something we'll have to look at yea.
O'Donnell/But we do have to look at that.
Wilbum/Depending on the level that we choose to enforce or regulate or whatever.
O'Donnell/And is this enforceable without the cooperation of bar owners? It has to be
joint project for this to be successful.
Lehman/You know Cormie you said that, and I think your right that Iowa City is a very
attractive place for people to come from a long ways away, if I lived (can't hear).
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(All talking)
Lehman/And I'm not knocking Cedar Rapids but ifI were 19 or 20 years old and I lived
in Cedar Rapids I suspect I might be interested in coming to Iowa City for a
weekend. But if you knew if you came to Iowa City and you went to a dance or
listened to a musical group in a bar, and you knew you couldn't get a beer, would
you be nearly as anxious to come? And I think the answer probably is no, you
know you can get a beer in Iowa City if your under 21, everybody knows that.
Now that's what we're looking at, it's pretty simple. You know you can get a
beer, the University kids tell us that, the police force tell us that, we know
underage kids can get beers in Iowa City bars and they can do it without much
trouble. Now to me I don't know that we can depend on or ask our police officers
to have to go in and baby sit all these guys, I don't think there are enough officers
on the police department to do it, and that's one of the reasons Eleanor that I was I
would like to see if possible, the only people who can police this and make this
work are going to be the bar owner, they're the only ones, it's their facility, it's
my house, you live by my rules. Well obviously they aren't living by the rules.
Champion/Well I think your fight about that.
Lehman/Now if most, you know the EPA, and the DNR and all of these agencies are set
up by legislation, our own housing inspection services are set up by legislation,
rules change, they change rules, and they enforce rules that you can't go back and
find direct legislation in for example City Codes for everything that we enforce in
housing and inspection services. If there were a way that the City of Iowa City
could impose sanctions on bars for frequent violations ofunderage drinking
occurs I believe you would see a dramatic reduction in underage consumption of
alcohol in the bars.
Champion/I would support that.
Lehman/Well I don't think we can do it.
Vanderhoef/That goes back to your original thing to the state.
Lehman/That's why I would like to see a request to the state to allow us to put some
teeth into the regulations that we, somehow the proprietor of the business needs to
have some responsibility for what occurs inside his business or her business, their
business.
Champion/But you know it, the laws I think are wrong, you know and that's why I have
so much trouble with this, for example if someone shoplifts a dress out of my
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store, I'm not fined, in fact, people feel sorry for me and I called the police and
that person is the one who is the one who is prosecuted and held liable.
Lehman/The person isn't your customer, the kid drinking the beer is your customer.
Champion/Well they are, well.
Lehman/And they're paying you too, you're getting the money for the beer, you're not
getting the money for the dress.
Pfab/OK that brings up another point, that is, if those people are your customers your
going to do business, shouldn't you be looking out for their best interest
somehow? Or do you figure your going to make it all on them that night and
they're never going to come back7 If you send somebody out as a customer and
out into whatever can happen, again it's rolling of the dice, what are the odds?
But if you send that customer like that I think you really have to ask yourself
some serious question. Is this a business where your customer is valuable?
Champion/And don't misunderstand I have a lot of trouble with this because I really
need to hear solutions and I know there's a problem, I mean I'm downtown and I
know, I've had my front window broken three times, my front door broken twice
in two years. And every time my front window is broken it's $1,000.00. Last
time my door was broken I had to get a whole new lock and it was $500.00. So I
know the problem is there, the solution is what I have trouble with. I know
there's a problem and you can just be downtown on a Saturday night at 1:00 AM
and believe me you can tell there's a problem. But I don't know what the solution
is, I just have problems with laws that control people's behavior, if this, it won't
work.
Lehman/Well I agree with you Conhie but we do have speed limits you can't drive 90
miles down Clinton Street.
Champion/But people do.
Lehman/Not down Clinton Street.
Champion/I think Thomberry did once. No.
Lehman/Well you know.
Champion/Do you understand what I'm saying? It really needs to your.
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Lehman/I'll probably hate myself for saying this but I really don't think very many
people out there who somebody who's 18, or 19, or 20 years old having a beer, I
really don't think there's very much of that. The objection comes, well there's
some, but I think the objection comes in when the 18, 19, 20, 21 go out wherever
they want and have several pitchers of beer and is unable to behave in a manner
that's acceptable by society. That's the problem, now obviously we have a
number of young folks who are not going to control their own behavior, we have a
situation in our bars where I think it's very difficult for them to try to control it, I
really do, I think, I don't, obviously it's not being controlled, it's happening all
the time. We live by laws all the time, we live by rules, I don't care to put any
more rules and regulations in place than you absolutely have to but I think the
situation and judging from the information that we've received from a lot of
different folks is to a level where the public is not going to tolerate it anymore.
Karmer/I'd like to look at and see what we can as far as about limiting drink specials, I
think that some of the bar owners have talked about volunteering to limit drink
specials or advertisement but we might need to enforce with code in some way so
I'd like us to look at that to see what we're allowed to do with that as far as drink
specials. Not just marketing but just.
Atkins/That's where I meant by special.
Kanner/And.
Champion/Well I think the year Bruce could do a lot with that by not allowing alcohol
advertisements in the Daily Iowan. I mean that's something that's never been
talked about from their angle and that's where all the pressure is coming from.
Vanderhoef/But the marketing is just the tip of the iceberg as far as putting in the paper
because you can walk into the bar and the first thing that they server says is from
now until 7:00 we're having 2 for 1 's or whatever. And it doesn't take it long for
a student to figure out which days of the week there' s going to be specials and
what the specials are going to be. So that is, that's not wrong, I'm not saying that
Steven I'm just saying that unless you outlaw specials period.
Kanner/Well that' s what I'm saying we might want to put minimum prices on drinks to
see what we're allowed to under state laws. Studying a number of different states
and cities and it's something that we might consider. And I have a feeling that the
bar owners probably wouldn't mind so much because it puts everyone at the same
place.
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Lehman/The all you drink specials are obviously some of the most irresponsible
advertisements in the world, that just encourages someone to totally smashed.
And I think the bars have voluntarily at least they're not running ads that do
promote that and I think that is, I believe that is something that has been done in
some communities, isn't it, where you prohibit all you can drink specials7
Dilkes/Who are you looking at?
Lehman/I am looking at you.
Dilkes/I don't know, I have heard, I don't personally know.
Lehman/OK but I've heard that that has been done.
Helling/Ernie I can shed some light on that because I've done some research, generally
what we're aware ofthat's done at the state level and more often than not through
administrative code and the State Liquor Control Commission or whatever it is. In
some cases by state legislation but as I said most cases due to administrative code
it's controlled in a variety of ways, some of them are very strict, some of them
only address certain types of things like the all you can drink or the offering
alcoholic drinks priced less than normally charged, it's addressed in a whole
variety of ways but it's fairly common and there's probably, (can't hear) I'm
aware of about 15 to 20 states that do it.
O'Donnell/How long would it take to put ordinance like this in affect?
Lehman/Well I don't know if we can do it, that' s something we'd have to ask Eleanor.
O'Donnell/I mean I'm talking 21 in bars.
Atkins/Three readings Mike.
O'Donnell/Three readings, six weeks.
Dilkes/I'm sorry what are you, are we talking about the 21 ordinance Mike?
O 'Donnell/21.
Kanner/The other thing I'd like to look at is what's the University willing to, let's say if
we needed more policing, if we did have some sort of ordinance or we wanted to
do more sting operations with the bar owners as far as if they're serving people
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who are under 21. Would their police force be willing to contribute to that? So
I'd like to find out, if the University would put in.
Lehman/There' s been a couple cooperative efforts, I think there was a state grant, is that
correct Steve?
Arkins/Yes.
Lehman/And I think it included University public safety folks.
Arkins/Public safety has gone with us in the past, RJ's nodding yes, they've helped in the
past. State troopers were out this weekend.
Lehman/State troopers too?
Arkins/This weekend, that was a special effort on the part of the troopers came to us
asking us to get involved in these types of activities that allows them different
experiences in law enforcement, and so they went with our police officers.
(All talking).
Atkins/Beg your pardon.
Vanderhoef/Was the University folk?
Arkins/Not this weekend.
Vanderhoef/This weekend.
Atkins/No, not this weekend.
Wilburn/I was trying to remember what, at what year did it change I mean I'm trying to
remember, I remember when I first came to Iowa City, I don't remember if it was
19 or 21 but at what point did all that change? Did the state legal drinking age
change back then in the 80's or was that a?
Lehman/Yes.
Champion/It changed twice.
Lehman/It changed twice.
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Champion/It went from 18 to 19 and back to 21.
Vanderhoef/Yea and they tied it to the road funds.
Champion/Oh I remember when they did that.
Kanner/The pressure stays to bring it back up to 21.
Lehman/Well we need to, what kinds of things do we need? Well Mike you asked a
question, and it is, it takes three readings to pass an ordinance regardless of, and
obviously an ordinance that would restrict entrance to bars to people 21 years of
age and older would take three readings. I think that before we go jumping into
something really really quickly, this is something we really need to spend some
time on because we've alluded to several different problems associated with
something like that. For example, surrounding areas, what it would do to some of
our other friends, what it would do to perhaps sales and package liquors from
Quik Trips, grocery stores, what it would do to parties in private homes and
whatever. We have a number of communities in Iowa as well as around the
country that has passed these sort of laws, I think we can find out from them the
results of those activities and I think in most cases for example Ames I think there
was something in our packets about that. Certainly anything that we would
contemplate doing I think should have the bar people should have as much input
as they feel necessary. I mean I think, first of all I don't think if the bar owners
can, if they can handle the problem I would much prefer letting them do it than us
being involved at all. At this point they have not handled the problem and in
many cases they have exasperated the problem by their marketing techniques, and
I think that they've pushed to the point that it's our, you know it's come to our
attention and I think something needs to happen. But certainly the bar owners
need input, I don't think anything that affects a University with 29,000 students in
it should take place in a community without first those students having an
opportunity to have input into it. So how long would it take to do it Mike? My
guess would be that we wouldn't do anything, even if our, after all of our
discussion we decide that a 21 year of age ordinance is appropriate personally I
don't see how that would take affect until after the fall semester when the kids
come here, you have a public hearing. You know I think you've got to go through
all of these things, and in the meantime my personal opinion is that it would give
the bar owners an opportunity to show whether or not they are able to control the
problem that they have not controlled to date. So my guess would be it would be
quite a while before.
O'Donnell/Let me follow up to that personally. I wasn't suggesting that we jump into
this the next six weeks.
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Lehman/No, I know you weren't, I know you weren't.
O'Donnell/What I'm doing is, there are people present in this audience should know how
quickly this could happen.
Lehman/Oh that's true.
O'Donnell/But I agree with you totally and I still stand by what I said earlier, we can
pass any ordinance we want but ifit's going to be effective we need the
cooperation of bar owners and that's who we should start with this educational
process and start it quickly.
Vanderhoef/When we talk about public hearings versus a town meeting type thing,
public hearing usually comes about in response to something that we're
anticipating doing.
Lehman/Usually after we've written the ordinance.
Vanderhoef/After we've written the ordinance. OK so we're talking about getting input
and your talking about going through the whole summer and so forth. We still
have four weeks here before students leave, we have students here this summer,
we have bar owners here all the time, why don't we do some sort of a town
meeting or public gathering where we talk about these things now before we start
putting together even our thoughts about an ordinance. I think up front.
O'Donnell/It's a good point.
Champion/It's a very good idea.
Vanderhoef/Information is important.
Kanner/Especially when we have a lot of people that are under 21 that are aware of it
now and might be more inclined to be part of the discussion then if we are.
Vanderhoef/It's been in the papers all along, there's been input, there have students,
there have been councilors, there have been law enforcement folks, everybody has
been asked for a quote. Let's get it, I mean I'd rather have it now, design
something and bring it forward in an ordinance ifthat's what we choose to do.
Pfab/I have a question. When did somebody first notice we had a problem?
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O'Donnell/When the first bar opened.
Vanderhoef/When I came to college.
(All talking)
Pfab/So I don't see, I don't see, (can't hear) so my point is I don't see pushing it out way
out into the future.
Kanner/When Noah started drinking and found land I think that was.
Champion/Even guerillas drink.
Pfab/They just don't have good bartenders don't, or good distilleries. But a point to, I
was going to challenge something that Connie had mentioned not and just taken
to discussion. There is ways to keep people from drinking, I mean from getting in
trouble for drinking. I'm not saying, because we know in Sweden it works, now
we're on that continuum do we want to be? And there is ways to get it done and
if people drink or not I don't think it's any of our business unless it gets out into
the public and at that point somebody is going to have to tow the line here and if
we, I guess if we don't they're going to run the place. If we don't enforce, if the
rules aren't enforced or aren't good rules then you know those are the people that
are making the laws.
O'Donnell/One last point, read read the papers in the morning and look at the arrests, I
do it every morning, it's like a ritual. You will find that there are people over 21
also picked up for intoxication.
Lehman/Oh absolutely.
Vanderhoef/Overindulgence..
O'Donnell/Disorderly conduct. It seems like we're throwing this whole thing on under
21 and there are people over 21 that can't hold their alcohol.
Lehman/No.
Champion/Or drink more than they hold.
O'Donnell/Or drink more than they hold.
(All talking)
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Wilburn/I'd rather, I guess I'd rather keep, we have a, there's one factor I think we're not
considering because definitely access and controlling and monitoring access is
within our jurisdiction as a governmental body under state law and so questions
about culture of alcohol and you know other activities or things that are available
in the community for persons who are underage is one issue that's related but I
think also a focus should be what is that we are willing to monitor? I mean
essentially when you say one way to look at it you say well you know we can't
control this, we can't enforce this, or if we, either by enforcement or ordinance
toughen things up a little bit or choose not to toughen things up when you say
well we can't control, we give up, I mean.
Lehman/We already did that.
Champion/We're not giving up (can't hear).
O'Donnell/Nobody's giving up yet.
Champion/No I don't think that's the problem.
Wilburn/Well I mean if people are going to use an extreme margin then I think we need
to consider.
Champion/All positions start from the extreme.
Wilburn/OK.
Champion/I mean really, don't they? You know if we are dealing with a problem that
there has, there has been a problem I'm sure since primitive man discovered rotten
fruit makes alcohol.
Wilburn/I mean, I'm used to.
(END OF TAPE 00-46 SIDE 1)
Wilbunf [Icing a former youth counselor, my focus as a youth counselor was looking at
well, kind of what they were getting us, who is it a problem for? How is this a
problem for you? How can we go about changing it? But I find myself in a
different role being subject with city law and looking at state law and responding
to some of the specific problems that we came up with and how do we go about
doing that, I think that as someone mentioned the you know the 55 mile an hour,
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someone going 60 to 65, at what point do you say enough is enough and how do
you go about doing that? And I would hope you would kind of look at it in a
similar way.
Lehman/Well I, we need to decide is just exactly, we, obviously have said we agreed that
there is a problem that probably needs to be addressed. I don't think any of us
know exactly how we're going to address it, there have been several things
mentioned that obviously would have some influence. The thing that I heard you
say Dee that there seemed to be some interest in is having a meeting before we get
into all kinds of things that we can do that we have a public meeting and invite the
University of Iowa, Stepping Up, the school board, the students at the University
of Iowa, the bar owners, people in the community who feel most affected by this
to come and give us their views as to what they, how they perceive the problem
and what they would like to see us do. Is that, am I heating that?
O'Donnell/I think we should do that.
Dilkes/I think on the timing of that, I, finals are coming up, I think the week of May 8
aren't they? So it's really quick, I mean to have a public heating and involve
students before that I'm not sure that's workable.
Lehman/Well I think that, and we're probably using the term public heating and town
meeting.
Dilkes/Well town meeting, public input whatever.
Lehman/Well obviously there would be nothing, there would be nothing on the table for
us, we would be discussing nothing, we'd just be taking input from the public.
Vanderhoef/And getting their ideas.
Lehman/Well that's taking input tight.
Vanderhoef/Well that's important.
Lehman/Steve.
Atkins/I think if your going to have, the town meeting makes a lot of sense but there has
to be some kind of a target, I mean your going to ask people to comment, and
someone will come to the microphone and will say I don't like an under 21
ordinance, some will say yes I do. We haven't really gained anything by that, I
mean I still think we're down to you as a public body need to say we are
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concerned of underage drinking and in particular over consumption. And when I
discuss this people, and young people, it's not beer drinking, it's drunkenness.
Lehman/Oh I think that's exactly fight.
Atkins/And drunkenness is the issue. If you drink till your drunk, you know were not
getting anywhere, that means that they're being served, I mean they're getting it,
they're being served, and they're over consuming, and they're heading out the
door, they're either going to get busted for public intox, get in a car, get stopped
for drunk driving or hurt someone else. I mean it's the drunkenness issue.
Wilburn/Bust out Connie's windows.
Atkins/Bust out Connie's windows yea. I'm assuming the person that did that wasn't
sober.
Vanderhoef/Littering the street.
Champion/No they certainly didn't take anything, I mean you know, it's always a
Saturday night about midnight or 1:00 AM.
Atkins/I think if you can define a town meeting saying something to the affect that
underage drinking in our community and the public drunkenness associated with
it has reached a point where we have to take action, we need to have your
thoughts on this.
Lehman/Well I think that' s what we're saying.
Pfab/Or that we will take action, not that we have to but that we will.
Atkins/Well I think you have to take action.
Lehman/Well I think that we're a. Steven.
Kanner/Well I'd like to be able to get the students who will be leaving in a few weeks to
be part of this but I also think it's important that we do a town meeting that we do
it collaborative where we perhaps break up into smaller groups and really try to
work at solutions and that we have a facilitator there similar to our goal setting
session that we're going to be having as Council and we really put something
there where we ask people to propose solution, and that this be, at least a couple
of hours that we ask people to come into, it's not saying that we can't have other
types of presentations and hearings. So I think we ought to make sure that if we
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want to do something like this we do it fight, at least one time if not more than
one time, there's nothing that says we can't do it in a couple weeks and then also
later on something similar to build this collaborative.
Vanderhoef/And Steve I don't totally disagree with you, however, what I might suggest
is that the round table and the small group might be a later step as we move
forward rather than at the initial meeting.
Wilburn/I'd also like to encourage to the students in the audience that we have received
correspondence from the University of Iowa student government, Andy Stoll is
the president and they will be here next year and so that's another way for them to
get input to someone that I, you know I left a couple messages for him and Conhie
and I are going to be meeting with the University students at some point, that's
another route for them to give input if their going to be gone this summer too.
Dilkes/When your thinking about whether to do this town meeting can I just? You need
to think about too that your authority with respect to liquor is not all
encompassing, in fact it's quite narrow. And so I have some concern about
having a town meeting where sort of open to anything when you as a body do not
have that kind of authority so it's something I think you need to think about.
Vanderhoef/And with that I would say that whether it be you or the county attorney or
someone to lay that out because getting that kind of exact information out before
this whole conversation starts going and everybody goes off in many directions. I
think it's a public education kind of thing that could be real useful.
Dilkes/Yea well we've done that in a number of forms now, we've put it in the chart,
we've put it in Andy's memo about a year ago, and but, what happens is
sometimes is new ideas come up and I it's unlikely that I would be able to
respond with any kind of definitive answer to every kind of suggestion that was
made to you at such a town meeting so and I don't, I'm not going to have the
resources to investigate all those things before a town meeting occurs.
Pfab/I would suggest that we try to put together some kind of a time table when
something will be in place and work backwards from where, what we have to do
to get there.
Champion/And I think when we talk about including people it should be part of the
process of the solution for us, we need to bring in the Quick Trips, and the grocery
stores because the cheapest alcohol in town is there, it's really cheap, so I think
we need to bring those people into the picture too.
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Pfab/But I also think that getting back to what Steve said, it isn't the cheapest, it's the
drunkenness, whatever, you know, that's really where the problem is.
(All talking).
Pfab/If you don't get drunk it doesn't hurt anything.
Lehman/You know just a thought but the meeting we had a year ago with the bar owners
in a year ago June I thought was a good meeting.
Champion/It was.
Lehman/I think we all learned a little bit about bars that we didn't know before. What
would? I mean it appears, well obviously, for those folks who tend to get drunk
in bars there isn't, they don't seem to have a big problem getting alcohol. Is it
worth our time or would it be, is there an interest in meeting with the bar owners?
These are the people, there are two groups of people going to be impacted most if
we do something with underage drinking law. Both of those groups have absolute
ability to control what their own destiny is. One is the underage drinker who
chooses to go out and drink and get drunk, the other one is the establishments that
allow that person to be served. Now one of those groups we can meet with, I
thought we had a good meeting with those folks a year ago, or it's not quite a year
ago. It may be worth our time to sit down with those folks and see if there if
there' s something, I mean I think there' s a very genuine interest on their part to
help control this thing as well.
O'Donnell/I think that' s the first step Eruie.
Pfab/I have a question for you, what has happened since a year ago when you met with
them?
Lehman/We didn't, we just met I think a year ago, that was more than anything else I
think for the Council to understand some of the difficulties and I think the Council
at that time was pretty well, had their eyes open to some of the difficulties that bar
owners experience in trying to abide by state laws and whatever. And it was, it
was a good meeting, it was a good meeting. Now I think that they potentially are
going to be faced with a difficult situation if Iowa City would choose to change
the legal age of admittance to bars. They obviously I think would have a lot to
say about it.
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Pfab/And that's my point of trying to set a time when, when do we will do something. I
think it's going to help to focus the mind on the problem a whole lot better, what
we'll do something whatever it is.
Champion/It's too early to set a deadline.
O'Donnell/We don't know if we're going to do anything.
Pfab/Well maybe we'll decide not to do anything.
Kanner/Ernie I don't think we should preclude talking with the bar owners, that sounds
like a good idea but I think we ought to try to get together some sort of town
meeting before the students leave, whatever the forum it takes and maybe have
two or three of us meet with Steve and put something together.
Lehman/What' s your pleasure?
O 'Donnell/I would like to sit down first with bar owners and get some suggestions from
them, that's where the problem is, that's where we start. From there we can come
up with some ideas and then maybe expand it into, I would like student input
also, I believe we start with the bar owners.
Pfab/I was under the impression that that was going on fight now.
Lehman/What7
Pfab/Didn't you come around and said that there was a meeting with bar owners within
the last month or so7
Lehman/Have you met with the bar owners?
Pfab/No, no.
Lehman/No neither has anybody else on this Council since last June.
Pfab/I thought you had mentioned that you had in the last couple weeks.
Wilburn/No what he brought, was given to.
Lehman/Oh they brought, they gave that.
Wilburn/They had invited a meeting with us and said.
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Pfab/Oh OK that's fine, sure I'd be all for that, I was just thinking there was on going
because that's what you came up, I was at a meeting and this is what was given to
me.
Lehman/They gave me that after the meeting, this is what they had talked about, but I
never went to it.
Pfab/Oh, yea I'd say, get all the players involved, the law enforcement, the public, the
service agencies, the bar owners, the Council, anybody else that we can, and
maybe make it small and work on it.
Lehman/Well I don't think you can do all that and keep it small. And I think that the
bar, and I would like to see if we meet with the bar owners to also have RJ and a
couple of his folks there because they understand as the bar owners do the
difficulties in enforcement.
O'Donnell/Do it, let's, let's I think that should be our first step. We should set that up
and do it.
Champion/We should start there, that's a good idea.
Lehman/I think it would help to identify the problem a little more clearly, I think we'll
learn something.
Atkins/What do you want done?
O'Donnell/Set up a meeting with some members of the police force, the City Council
and the bar owners.
Champion/I would like to meet, I mean I know the meeting has to be public and I think
that's fine but I would like to ask that we reserve maybe the first 15 minutes of
that meeting for just the police, because I would like to hear their perspective on
this without influence of us and the bar owners.
Lehman/I think we can do this very easily, I believe we can take a very few minutes and
present the bar owners with what we perceive to be public opinion as it has been
communicated to us through numerous different sources and obviously that
material is available to the bar owners as well. We can certainly ask the police
officers to give us a, or RJ to give us how they perceive the problem, certainly the
bar owners can give us a position statement if you will of where they think it is
and then we can sit down and have some dialogue as to what the problems really
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are and how they would propose to address them and how we would, the results
we would expect.
Pfab/Also what about our state legislatures? They'll be out of session here before very
long, some of them will be in the community and they're the people that laws that
are boxing us in one way or the other.
Lehman/Well I think that' s right but based on the results of that meeting with the bar
owners we're going to see where we've got problems, obviously the state
legislature is going to be out session then which is why I still want to send a letter
to the liquor control commission.
Wilburn/I'd like to see at that meeting, I would like to have if possible in front of me,
Mike brought up the question about the differences how many University
communities have this and.
Champion/Right.
O'Donnell/We need an answer to this.
Wilburn/And if possible, I mean what are bar owners in some of those other
communities do? May or not be affective.
Pfab/Are you also looking for University representatives here on this meeting?
Lehman/I don't think this meeting. This is between, obviously they are going to be in
the picture at a later point but I do think.
Wilburn/This are the fact that I don't know, if the response is that we are being hard core
for this community then natural questions are what are other communities doing
and how come they seem to be thriving or not thriving or what affects have, what
results positive or negative have done in communities as a result of existing
ordinances?
Lehman/That other cities probably.
Atkins/That will take some time. We can get ordinances fairly quickly but I mean I can,
we can get ordinances pretty quickly but I mean you want us to actually interview
them to get a feel for what goes on there? It will take a little longer.
Lehman/You know might be able to, I wonder if we can ask the University folks to get
some information from other schools in the Big Ten for us.
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Champion/I wouldn't ask them to do it.
Lehman/You wouldn't.
Champion/Because I would rather have somebody that was a little more impartial, get
statistic like Mike brought it.
O'Donnell/You know and we do bar checks and we, we list by bars number of
violations, we could pinpoint a couple of the real good bars and find out what
they're doing differently. I mean maybe it's liquors.
Champion/They're not all people under 21.
Lehman/I hate to use the word good.
Vanderhoef/Yea, that's an assessment.
O'Donnell/This has all been very intoxicating, we should take a break.
Atkins/Do I understand Ernie you want to set up this meeting, this is kind of a general
agenda, then we, once we concluded this we will consider a town meeting, now
that's with the understanding this will take a little time, the town meeting couldn't
occur before sometime this summer. You lose some of that student interest that
you were trying to capture.
Lehman/Well I firmly believe that if after our meeting with the bar owners and our
discussions and research of whatever we're going to do, we determine that we
would like to pass an ordinance and somehow it changes the rules that we
presently have that we probably would not change those rules until we had an
opportunity to have the public hearing with the students which would probably be
this fall.
Atkins/As long as you understand that going in, this, particularly with finals week
coming up very shortly, it's going to (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/That's the concern because the town meeting it either needs to happen real
soon or not until fall and that just drags this out for a very long time in here and it.
Wilburn/There are students here in the summer though.
Atkins/That doesn't mean you can't have two town meetings.
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Lehman/That's true.
Vanderhoef/Yea.
Atkins/Have one in the summer, have one in the fall.
Vanderhoef/And if we're going to talk about special meetings with bar owners then I
think we ought to be looking at a meeting of the players that we listed before so
that means that there would be one bar owner or two bar owners there but then we
would have a University, whoever is going to be involved from the University, we
would have the Stepping Up folk, a lot of players.
Pfab/So basically what I'm hearing or I think I'm hearing we basically are looking at
taking action sometime about October or November of this year if we decide to do
something.
Vanderhoef/I would like to have it done by October 1.
Lehman/Well I don't have any idea time, I think the whole thing is going to depend first
of all what happens when we have our meeting with the bar owners, what we
determine from that meeting, if we decide to take some action, I have no idea a
time frame, I don't think, I think this is way to early to determine any kind of a
time frame when we don't have any idea what we're going to do.
Kanner/But I think what I, perhaps hear Irvin saying is the earliest we would do anything
wouldn't be before October if we decide to do anything, I think we can say
something like that because there are a lot of people that are worded that we
might be doing something over the summer or in six weeks so hopefully we can
say as a Council we would not think of even doing anything before October.
Pfab/That wasn't quite my point, but my point was is this going to be a problem in the
22nd century, the way we're going, that's my point, that's an exaggeration.
Kanner/In any case, I'd like to make that point then and see ifI have concurrence that we
won't be doing anything if we did anything before October.
Lehman/Well I think this fall, I think that fall, that obviously gives us something to, but I
think that realistically we need to let folks know that there isn't anything
imminent and I don't think this is something we should be jumping into with both
feet until we know, we need to find out how deep the water is before we dive in.
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Champion/It's complicated.
Vanderhoef/It's complicated yes but I think we have already outlined pretty well what
the problems are. And to drag this on for a whole long time isn't going to change
a lot of things.
Lehman/Probably not.
Atkins/One of the things I have planned for the staff is that I was going to have a group
of us get together and quite frankly we were just going to prepare a list of things.
Lehman/Fine.
Atkins/So far in left field that no one will ever agree with it but you might as well get it
down on a piece of paper and.
Lehman/So how is that different that normal?
Atkins/Well, we look to you to give focus to the debate.
Lehman/That's fine, I think the more information we get.
Atkins/No I would like to get some other, you know some of our folks in because we
have talked about informally and when I do talk to folks, honestly the thing that
keeps coming back to us is this.
Lehman/Absolutely.
Atkins/Is the drunkenness.
Lehman/I think that's right.
Champion/And we pay a lot of, we pay dearly for that, we pay for it through police, we
pay for it through vandalism, we pay for it through litter, and all the other damage
downtown on unsayable things that happen.
Lehman/Yea but you know the real cost of that is probably in ruined lives of young
people, I mean this, the University has kids that flunk out, they can't make class,
they have kids that get into.
Champion/That's not all because of alcohol.
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Lehman/No, no, no, but that has significant impact on it and the real cost here isn't
broken windows and litter and whatever, it's problems with people.
Pfab/Then my point is if that's the case why don't we get the University involved here?
Lehman/Irvin we will.
Champion/But their not all University students.
Pfab/No no no but I say I mean the part, let's get a look at the problem and let's get on
with it.
Vanderhoef/Well that's what I was talking about meeting with the players.
Lehman/I don't know who speaks for the bar owners yet, I know there's been some
efforts in trying to organize, can we, can the staff look into this, because I believe.
Atkins/I want to develop an agenda (can't hear) Ernie, I assume that I have authority to
go over with you.
Lehman/That's fine, yes.
Atkins/Don's out in the audience, we'll find some people to get together, I'm not worried
about that.
Lehman/That's fine, we did that and I thought the meeting a year ago was a good
meeting, I think this meeting is a lot more important meeting because I do think
that I sense something is going to happen in the way alcohol is consumed in Iowa
City and hopefully the bar owners can have a significant impact on how that
happens so you talk to them.
Atkins/I'll get something together.
Lehman/Try to get something setup and I suspect get some potential dates and we'll talk
about it at our next work session.
Champion/Five minute break.
Lehman/We're going to take a 5 minute break.
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Goal Session
Lehman/We have tentative session for what dates Steve?
Atkins/May 25, Thursday.
Champion/7:30.
Lehman/No that's in the morning.
Karr/No that's April 25 with the School Board, we're to May now for the goal setting.
Lehman/May 25 is a Thursday, what time, what we have thought about and this is up to
the Council obviously but my suggestion would be that we take the Tim Shields
has been contacted and has agreed to be the facilitator. I guess my personal
feeling is that if we have Tim Shields for a half a day and then we spend the other
half a day talking City business with Steve that we might be better advised than
trying to spend a whole day with a facilitator.
Wilburn/City business in what capacity?
Lehman/Goals, what we have, what we'd like to see the City do. I think in some
respects Steve things that we've got on the agenda, comprehensive plan items,
future plans.
Atkins/What I've done in the past Ross is it's reasonably flee flowing that each Council
member sort ofbfings with them 4 or 5, 3 or 4 or 5 issues they'd like to see dealt
with, we get them on the table, we get them recorded, we get them discussed and
hopefully when we're done with it we have at least a list ofhere's the things that
you all had agreed are priority matters. It's a pretty informal goal setting process,
because that's the one I did the last couple times.
Lehman/Oohhh.
Champion/Are you all fight?
Lehman/OK.
Pfab/You just can't stand another one of Steve's lectures.
Lehman/I was going to Michigan fishing that day.
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(can't hear)
Atkins/I thought you were hurt.
Wilburn/I did too.
Vanderhoef/He is.
Wilburn/I was ready to do CPR.
O'Donnell/I thought it was the big one and I was going to volunteer Ross to do mouth to
mouth.
Pfab/And Mike was ready to step in.
Lehman/All fight, 8:00 in the moming on the 251h of May, Thursday, is that OK with
everybody?
Champion/Yes.
Pfab/251h of May?
Lehman/That's right.
Wilburn/8:00 in the morning.
Lehman/8:00 to 12:00, we'll resume at 1:00, 8-12 will be with Tim Shields and then
from 1 till whatever in the afternoon we'll work with on City goals we have for
the City and work with Steve in the afternoon.
Pfab/Do we have a quitting time?
Atkins/Out of there by supper time.
Lehman/Out by 4, no later than 5.
Champion/No later than 4:30.
Pfab/What?
Champion/I mean how many hours can we stand each other?
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Lehman/Connie I could be with you forever.
Vanderhoef/That's a goal.
Pfab/That's a good question, is this a public, is this going to open to the public?
Atkins/Oh sure.
Letunan/Yea.
Pfab/I just, is this a public meeting that' s all.
Champion/Let's don't set a specific time because it may not take us that long in the
morning and then we'll be stuck on that like we can't start on the other thing
because it's a published agenda.
Lehman/That's right, we'll do it in subject fashion as we.
Karr/We won't, the agenda will be goal setting generic.
Lehman/Your goal setting for the day period. All fight is that OK, 8:00 in the morning?
Pfab/On the agenda.
Lehman/You want to change the date on that.
Atkins/All right just so I understand that you expect Tim and the first session in the
morning, and we'll if your there by 8:00 we'll have some light breakfast or
something too, it will be reasonably informal. You'd like Tim and one of the
topics that you had was interrelations amongst yourself, Council.
Lehman/Working effectively.
Atkins/Working effectively, things of that nature.
Lehman/He's good at that.
Pfab/And where is this going to be?
Champion/Here.
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Pfab/Here.
Atkins/That's the next question, I'll get to that. And then in the afternoon it would be
where I would facilitate for you a rather informal goal session and I'll send some
written material imposing questions to you in anticipation on the thing, hopefully
we'll come out of there with a list of.
Lehman/Where do you want to meet?
Atkins/And the question is where would you like to do this?
Pfab/Well I think Honolulu would be great.
Atkins/I'm sorry we can't do that.
Champion/You know we talked about going somewhere else but I think let's have it
here.
O'Donnell/I think right here is a no brainer, if we need staff or materials they're on hand
I just can't imagine meeting meeting anywhere else but here.
Pfab/What about let's say the one of the meeting rooms in the University.
O'Donnell/That isn't feasible.
Atkins/We'll get you a spot, I mean it's, I think it's either here or somewhere else.
Champion/Here or like Des Moines.
O'Donnell/That was good too.
Atkins/Thank you very much.
Dilkes/That's profound and.
Atkins/I just need to know.
Kanner/I think the same arguments we made last time might still apply that you go out
there's more of a sense of.
Pfab/Kind of a focus.
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Kanner/Focusing in together and trying to put other things aside for many, you get more
of a feeling that's a little further out, I still that's apropos.
O'Donnell/I still say if you have a question, then you have a question in staff, staff's
available, they're readily accessible, we can be more efficient and.
Pfab/And we just do wandering minstrel type of thing.
O'Donnell/Or we could do it, no I'm in favor of doing it here.
Atkins/I need to know what you want me to do.
O'Donnell/If you have a question then your staff is close to us.
Pfab/Well I respectively disagree with you but that's that my pleasure.
Lehman/We have two respectful disagreements, how about, you want to meet here, you
want to meet here, you, you'll go wherever the rest of us go.
(can't hear)
Pfab/It's fine, it's no, I just think we have better chance of focusing away from.
Wilburn/(can't hear).
Arkins/Is it here?
Pfab/To me it doesn't matter, at least it's a five minute walk from here.
O'Donnell/We have parking here.
Pfab/And I don't need to drive.
Champion/And Marian won't have to carry lunch far.
Lehman/Well Steve why don't we meet right here, set the tables up like they are here and
Tim very very informal.
Kanner/Can I make one other then suggestion perhaps that we meet at the airport
meeting room, ifthat's allowed, that's still close by but still a little bit of
isolation.
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Champion/That would be OK.
Kanner/Beautiful site too.
Lehman/You know what we could do. Let's compromise, we'll meet at the airport 8:00
in the morning, have our lunch, come back here for the afternoon session in case
we do need, see if we can get it.
Pfab/Yea but then you have a problem of public, making an announcement to the public
and how you run the meeting or not. In other words if you finish up at 1:00 then
you can't go into the other one.
Lehman/No just, that's not a problem is it Marian?
Karr/Well let me just, a couple things, number one the minutes of last time will show
that you decided to meet outside.
Lehman/All fight.
Karr/But that's OK you can change your mind, it's OK. But secondly if you want to be
flexible with your agenda and it's a public meeting it might be confusing to the
public on where you are unless your not going to move there and you're going to
move from the airport until noon then.
Wilbum/And another thing is ifit's anyone's goal to efficiently get through this, the
more time we spend transition the longer it takes time.
Lehman/All right, here 8:00.
O'Donnell/Doesn't that make sense.
Lehman/All right it's done.
O'Donnell/Well then quit vacillating.
Pfab/I don't think we want to take this to a vote do we7
O'Donnell/No we've already voted.
Lehman/All right that would be on the 25th.
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Council Time
Champion/I don't know if anybody has walked by the new parking facility but it's really
shaping up and it's going to be gorgeous.
Lehman/0K, we can, if any of us have any particular things they want to go over at the
goal setting session which we have actually three meetings between now and then
to converse with each other about so. All right Council time.
O'Donnell/Mine will wait till tomorrow.
Pfab/Oh Dee, I think it's pointing to you.
Lehman/Anybody, anybody better go quick because this meetings about over.
Champion/Well I did want to just point out to those that I already haven't laughed with
that I thought it was quite humorous when the Press Citizen editorial was against
my wanting to put water in the fountain.
Lehman/Did that surprise you?
Vanderhoef/Was that while I was gone?
Lehman/No, that was last Friday or Saturday.
Champion/But they were for Steven not putting water in the fountain.
O'Donnell/I think we ought to compromise and put Kool-aid.
Lehman/By the way, we did, Ross and I were at the Dental School last Tuesday.
Wilburn/Yea.
Lehman/There was an incredible group of people, there were they said I heard before
between 500 to 1,000, I think it was probably closer to 1,000.
Wilburn/I think so.
Lehman/The thing that was so impressive to me about that group of people is that in the
Spring and it's warm and kids like to make noise and congregate and party, and I
think you can have almost any cause and get a certain number of people to attend.
This was an incredible group of people, I would say well I felt that at least half or
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more of all the people there were faculty, staff folks, they were not students, they
were University Hospital employees, doctors, professors, towns people, it was a,
it was a very impressive group of people.
Wilburn/Very diverse crowd too.
Lehman/And I was really pleased that they asked us to participate.
Pfab/Speaking of that, I just happened to notice your proclamation for open housing, is
that brought it up?
Lehman/I don't know but I just signed it so.
Pfab/OK it looked to me like it might not be broad enough.
O'Donnell/One question Emie. Does anybody besides me feel that we need a dog park
in Iowa City somewhere?
Pfab/I'd ask how many dogs are, how many dog owners were arrested (can't hear).
Lehman/I don't know if you decide that tonight your going to get in trouble from the
lady up there on the end.
Pfab/No, that' s fine, I was just, it was just a question, it was just.
O'Donnell/No but there's 3-5 violations a week all summer long, there is no place where
you can take your dog outside and run him unless he's tied up.
Lehman/Arrest the dogs.
Champion/Well they did throw back to the Animal Committee.
Lehman/Animal Control Commission and they will make a recommendation to Parks
and Recreation and they're going to make a recommendation.
O'Donnell/But it's not being very well received and I think we need one.
Lehman/Well I'm going to go home and see my pooch.
Dilkes/Can I, I just want to say one thing.
Pfab/I'd like permission to.
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Lehman/Just a minute, Eleanor and then Steven, go ahead, Irvin I'm sorry.
Dilkes/You've got campaign contributions on your pending list, I'm, I have started that
process of gathering some information and etc. and the main issue I'm having to
struggle with is at one point we can put the limit. But the first election it could
apply to would be the next Council election so it's not you know, it's not
pressing, and other things have taken priority recently so.
Lehman/OK.
Champion/I would just like to see us do that before any of us have to decide whether
we're going to rerun, I don't think we should be part of the discussion if we're
starting to campaign.
Lehman/That's true. Irvin.
Pfab/I would like permission to read something here about 2 ½ minutes that (can't hear).
Lehman/Relative to?
Pfab/Basically it's just if you don't watch what your doing someday somebody will help
you.
Lehman/Well you don't have to have permission to read something during Council
Time.
Pfab/No but I just wanted to 2 ½ minutes, so I just wanted to.
Lehman/While we're here and it's not quite 9:00, at the bottom of the work session
agenda are a list of future work session items, I don't quite understand some of
them, and if we can get rid of some of them I would just as soon. I don't like to
see pending items that we're not going to be addressing in a reasonably, in a
reasonable amount of time, if don't expect to address them I don't believe they
belong on them. Are there any things on here that need to be removed? I don't
know for example why sidewalk cafe's are on there.
Atkins/We're going to have to, we're drafting a new ordinance for you.
Kanner/And alcohol issues.
Lehman/Sidewalk snow removal.
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Pfab/I think the time to do it is when it's not snowing.
Kanner/Yea.
Atkins/I gave you a memo in the packet, we did some basic research, and in fact under
my time.
Lehman/Well I saw that.
Atkins/I want to put that on for a work session, is that what you want to do.
Kanner/Yea.
Lehman/Senior Center skywalk, we do have set. Deer management committee, their
going to meet.
Atkins/You have it set for the Senior Center skywalk?
Lehman/Well Mike said last time he wanted to put on a work session.
Atkins/Yea I know.
Lehman/Well no no, but he had.
Atkins/Oh I'm assuming next month.
Lehman/PCRB meeting is going to be scheduled.
Atkins/It already is scheduled.
Lehman/It is scheduled.
Kanner/The what?
Lehman/PCRB meeting.
Atkins/May the 1 st work session.
Champion/What is commercial use of sidewalks, what does that mean?
O'Donnell/Sidewalk cafes.
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Atkins/That's something.
Pfab/It really shows out in front of dress shops.
Atkins/We approach the DTA trying to encourage more sidewalk sales that we have
some rather severe regulations, we got nowhere, and I can take it off.
Lehman/All right, take it off.
Atkins/More downtown outdoor shopping.
Champion/Great.
Atkins/And I couldn't get anybody interested.
Champion/Right I think people just do it.
Atkins/Well but I'm talking about something reasonably comprehensive where that the
Downtown would get behind it, promote it, and I just couldn't get anywhere.
Champion/Oh I know what your talking about, right.
Wilbum/The Hickory Hill West, I guess I'd rather see since the Parks and Rec.
Commission since we've instructed them and their going to be looking at the
master plan I guess I'd rather see that.
Lehman/Taken off.
Wilburn/That come up through the.
Lehman/I'd take that off too.
O'Donnell/Good point, good point.
Champion/(can't hear).
Lehman/The Deer Management Committee is on there just because we're going to talk
to them.
Atkins/You are getting a report from the Deer Management Committee next month
outlining some changes and procedures and the organization and so forth.
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O'Donnell/Do we need any members on that committee do you know?
Atkins/No, in fact the proposal is going to shrink the size of the committee. They may
need some members Mike because they've got categories of appointments, you'll
still have to make appointments but they want a smaller committee.
O'Donnell/I'm really getting tired of the Deer Management Committee taking all the
verbal abuse their taking, people are, you know this is a great group of people and
many of them are many of them, not hunters, they're just people that understand
they had to make a decision.
Lehman/Well I'm also getting tired of comments that are made of accusing the City of
this and the City of that. The decision on the Deer Management Committee was a
group of citizens of this community who made a recommendation, and their
fellow citizens are.
Champion/But your not going to (can't hear) that.
Lehman/Well except some of the comments that are made are blatant, untruth.
Kanner/But Ernie I think that's why we should discuss this as, this was an ad hoc
committee and it's hard to pin down exactly what the rules for the ad hoc
committee and we should formalize those so that everyone has equal access to
that committee to the extent that we set up the rules and I think that's where part
of the confusion is because we've been getting different messages about access to
that committee and having input and so I think is merited in a work session to
clarify that.
Lehman/I don't mind except that my understanding is that the Deer Committee has
always had public meetings, anybody who wants to speak to them has been able
to.
Kanner/But how do we get, if we want to put new people on, what are terms, we really
haven't really formalized that to my understanding and that's something I think
we need to.
Atkins/That's what we have a draft of.
Vanderhoef/That's what's coming.
Atkins/We'll do just that for you, for something (can't hear).
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Lehman/All right that's something we're going to talk about.
Vanderhoef/What I would like to do if it's OK with the rest of the Council is to say, send
a letter to our representative Dick Myers and thank him for putting the
amendments on for the suppressors for the distance at the state law, change state
law.
Kanner/Say that again.
Vanderhoef/He attached the amendments to some state bills to change the rules, the word
use of suppressors in our Deer Management.
O'Donnell/Silencers.
Pfab/Silencers.
Lehman/But only under very very expressed conditions.
Vanderhoef/But he is the person who.
Lehman/Did it.
Vanderhoef/Went out and did it and I think we should acknowledge him.
Champion/Well are we all in favor of it before we?
Lehman/We don't have to be in favor of it but we still have to choose whether or not
we're going to do it but just the fact that he did it enabling cities to be able.
Vanderhoef/Have that opportunity.
Dilkes/You do have a memo that was handed out to you tonight from Dennis Mitchell
from my office and Lisa explaining how that all came about because there was
some questions raised about it last time. So anyway that's in your stuff.
Lehman/OK.
Kanner/Well keeping that on there, Deer Management.
Lehman/That's fine. See you guys tomorrow night.
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Atkins/See you tomorrow.
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meeting of April 17, 2000.
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