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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-07-31 Transcription July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 1 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session 6:30PM Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilbum, Pfab arrived 6:32 PM, Kanner arrived 6:40 PM Staff: Helling, Karr, Dilkes, Franklin, Nasby, Grosvenor, Matthews, O'Malley, Davidson, Long Tapes: 00-79, BOTH SIDES; 00~80, BOTH SIDES PLANNING & ZONING A. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDNANCE REZONING 20.78 ACRES FROM INTERIM DEVELOPMENT MULTI-FAMILY (ID-RM) TO PUBLIC (P) FOR PROPERTY LOCATED WEST OF GILBERT STREET SOUTH OF NAPOLEON LANE (REZ00-0017) Franklin/OK first item is public hearing on the rezoning on 20.78 from ID-RM to Public P, this is for the public work sight. Is everybody familiar with where this is? Lehman/Right. Franklin/Do you have any questions on it? O'Donnell/No. Franklin/Zip. B. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE REZONING 35.15 ACRES FROM PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY (OPDH-1 ) TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY (OSA-1) AND APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY SENSITIVE AREAS DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR WALNUT RIDGE, PART 8-10, A 23-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED ON KENNEDY PARKWAY (REZ00-0013/SUB00-0010) Franklin/OK the next item is public hearing on an ordinance rezoning 35.15 acres from OPDH-1 to OSA-1. This is the continuation of Walnut Ridge Parts 8-10, it's at the north end of Kennedy Parkway. The recommendation is for approval subject to the final plat including a city forester approved to replacement plan and a conservation easement for the long term care of the trees. Questions. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 2 Lehman/Go. You're doing really well. Franklin/Thank you. C. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE ANNEXATION OF 69.37 ACRES OF PROPERTY LOCATED AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF LOWER WEST BRANCH ROAD AND TAFT AVENUE (ANN00-0001) Franklin/Item C is the annexation off of Taft Avenue and Lower West Branch Road that we talked about last time. D. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE TO CONDITIONALLY REZONE 30.32 ACRES FROM COUNTY SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL (RS) TO LOW DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-5) AND 39.05 ACRES FROM COUNTY SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL (RS) TO INTERIM DEVELOPMENT RESIDENTIAL (ID-RS) FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF LOWER WEST BRANCH ROAD AND TAFT AVENUE (REZ00-0012) Franklin/Item D first consideration of the rezoning of that property from County RS to RS-5 and ID-RS combination zoning. E. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE TO REZONE 54 ACRES FROM PUBLIC/ INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL (P/C) TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY - PUBLIC (OSA-P) AND FOR APPROVAL OF A PRELIMINARY SENSITIVE AREAS DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR PROPERTY LOCATED IN THE NORTH PART OF THE AIRPORT PROPERTY, WEST OF RIVERSIDE DRIVE. (REZ99-0001) (PASS AND ADOPT) Franklin/Item E which is the noah airport commercial part, we're going to ask you to defer that again, we still are working on the land swap with Super Value. Lehman/Till the 15th? Franklin/Yes, yea we remain hopeful. F. CONSIDER A LETTER TO THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF gUPERVISORS RECOMMENDING DENIAL OF A REZONING OF 125.43 ACRES LOCATED WITHIN FRINGE AREA C EAST OF DANE ROAD AND WEST AND SOUTH OF THE LAKERIDGE MOBILE HOME PARK FROM COUNTY A1 RURAL AND RS SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL TO COUNTY RMH MANUFACTURED HOUSING RESIDENTIAL (CZ0027) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 3 Franklin/Also Item F we have a request from the developers to defer that for two weeks to the 15th. Lehman/To the 15th. Franklin/And I'm done. Champion/Wow. Lehman/Karin that was really. Franklin/Outstanding. Lehman/That's probably the best job you've ever done. Vanderhoef/I feel enlightened. Lehman/I think you probably, who's going to be visiting with us when we express some concems about subsidized housing? Franklin/Me. Lehman/You, OK I want you to stay there. Vanderhoef/Do we have any other? Lehman/Pardon. Vanderhoef/I just wanted to see if there were any other things we needed to ask about. Lehman/Well that comes up next after subsidized housing. As you are well aware at our last regular meeting we approved spending some money for housing project in which there was some questions from the Council as far as the guidelines and whether or not the project met the guidelines on Monday night, it did on Tuesday night, it subsequently was. Franklin/Yes. Lehman/Approved and I think we need some clarification between the Council and the Commission as to what, well first of all I think the Council probably needs to approve whatever guidelines and I personally feel that the guidelines that they had would have approved had they been submitted to Council. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 4 Franklin/Well HCDC will be looking at those over the next couple of months and then get a recommendation back to the Council. Lehman/But I think things like, for example, the interest rate whether that is an annualized rate or an annual payments, or whether it can be a balloon or whatever, those things need to be spelled out. Franklin/Clarify what the options are. Lehman/I think that' s right, Dee has some questions as far as rates. Franklin/Mr. Nasby would you like to join me? Vanderhoef/I was, I've talked to Steve about these anyway. I had had a question about where the dollars for this fund were coming from and they are coming from our general fund which is a concern to me about just in general taking general fund moneys and Steve had indicated that we did not have to use general funds for this loan to meet our match funds that we could use enterprise funds and pay back into the enterprise fund and therefore leave those dollars available in the general fund. So then I started looking and thinking about the enterprise fund and lost opportunity because obviously we have to have interest payments on that and of course the interest payments there will be lower than prime and Ernie and I were just visiting a little bit and we'd like them to take a look at taking prime minus a percent so that it would be a floating number instead of putting a base number in there of so many percent for the loan it would be prime minus a percent so that the interest is also paid back to the enterprise fund and not have to pay that out of our general fund also. So I'd like them to take a look at that and see how we might be able to work that one. Lehman/Well the other thing that we could do is also use the (can't hear) that we have to pay for bonds. In other words that rate less whatever so there is an advantage and we can offer an advantage for subsidize. Franklin/And not state a specific rate in the guidelines but just reference the. Lehman/No it has to be (can't hear). Franklin/Yea. Vanderhoef/That way it would be fair for each project that came along and it wouldn't be somebody gets a really good deal because prime is way high and this makes it a level playing field for everyone. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 5 Franklin/Well it will vary then if we reference prime or reference the GO bond. Vanderhoef/Right. Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/But if we reference prime minus a percent then everybody will always get whatever that percent minus is and whether that's 3 percent or what it is. Franklin/Right, sure. Pfab/What, in today's interest rate, I don't know what is prime, right now? Anybody know? Lehman/Kevin. Kevin O'Malley/What 9, 9 ½. Pfab/9 91/2, OK where in today's, in relationship to today's rate what kind of a number are you thinking? Vanderhoef/Well with that prime then what. Pfab/(can't hear). Vanderhoef/OK but the other figure you have to look at is what the enterprise fund can earn off of their dollars if they were to invest it that day. So if the CD's if they were doing CD's and the CD's were worth 5 ¼ and it was 9 then we've got 3 ½ percent. Pfab/OK then what I'm saying to you is what kind of number are you thinking of paying to that? I hear two different, I hear you working from what our bonding costs are, you're working from prime going in but what number in today' s market would you consider? Vanderhoef/That' s what we need to compare these two numbers, what we can earn off of those dollars for the enterprise fund and what the prime is and work with whatever that difference is. Pfab/You want to work up from what we can earn or do you want to work down from the prime? Vanderhoef/Work down from the prime. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 6 Lehman/You know it would be better to go from what you could earn though. Pfab/I would say now that. Lehman/Take for example, you can get 5 and take 2 off. Pfab/Oh do we want to take 2 off?. Dilkes/Can I, can I? Franklin/(Can't hear) for a gist of what your about. Dilkes/Are we talking about dispersion of subsidized housing? Lehman/We're talking about subsidized housing guidelines. Vanderhoef/We're talking about the guidelines. Lehman/Oh I think that because we're. O'Donnell/We're not supposed to be. Franklin/You're getting the evil look from Eleanor. Lehman/Because the work session item is relative to dispersion of. Dilkes/I thought we were talking of dispersion of, dispersion of subsidized housing. Vanderhoef/Just dispersion, we can't talk about the (can't hear). Lehman/No, no. Dilkes/Well I don't think that is not what my understanding was so I don't think we can assume that the public would (can't hear). Pfab/What were you talking about? Lehman/We're talking about dispersion of subsidized housing. Franklin/Oh we got the gist of what you want. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 7 Wilburn/Well excuse me Ernie, I mean it seems to me at the last Council meeting, the message was to the Commission and the staff to talk to the Commission about examine the guidelines. Vanderhoef/Guidelines. Wilburn/And clarify them, these sound like some. Lehman/That may well be but the priuted thing says dispersion and that's all we can talk about. Dilkes/And I think the discussion last time was there was discussion about the guidelines, when it wasn't clear whether you were going to award that money or not but then it became, then that issue wasn't as crucial in terms of timing and it became an issue of dispersion of subsidized housing. Lehman/Right, this discussion that we were attempting to have we will have when we get the guidelines returned to us for comment. The dispersion portion of it we can give some idea now to the Commission. Dilkes/Right or if you want to talk about it next time. Lehman/No that's fine but I do think because my feeling is that we should do discussion on dispersion of housing, give you an idea of what we're thinking, you can take that back to the Commission, let them work it over, see what they can come up, send it back to us along with the other criteria, at that time we will discuss the entire issue. Franklin/OK. Lehman/OK Vanderhoef/And we can talk about gap (can't hear). Lehman/Regarding dispersion of subsidized housing. Champion/Well I think all of us have some idea of what dispersion of low income housing, subsidized housing or any type of housing that the city gets involved in or the federal, through the federal government or however. And I think we need to develop some guidelines for that because I do believe that we have conceutrations on this kind of housing in town and I personally don't think it's healthy. So that's, is that what we were going to talk about? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 8 Lehman/I think we need to clarify, I think there are two issues and I think there' s some. Vanderhoef/Scattered. Lehman/There' s some, yea, scattered which I've always felt meant moving, having low income or subsidized housing scattered throughout the community. I think that' s something we have looked at for the time that I've been on Council and I've always felt that's a good concept and I think. Franklin/Does that mean? I'm going to throw out some questions as you go through this discussion so I can get some clarification of where you all. Does that mean then that you would expect to see low to moderate income or subsidized housing in most every neighborhood? Champion/Yea, that would be ideal. Lehman/Or wherever feasible, I don't think. Champion/That would be ideal. Franklin/Wherever feasible. Lehman/I think that's pretty critical, but I don't think for example that your going to find a great deal of affordable housing in Walnut Ridge. Champion/Right and the affordable housing, I think you should though, but ideally you would but that's probably not going to happen and I'm not so sure I'd want to put somebody who needed to be in subsidized housing in Walnut Ridge. Lehman/(can't hear). Franklin/So, OK, so it's scattered but it's scattered in certain places. Lehman/Wherever, I think wherever we can do it, this last project I thought was absolutely perfectly fit, what we have said we wanted to do and that is we have put the housing in an area that did not have any subsidized housing it certainly was scattered, it's not in an area that currently has an overload of subsidized housing and in that regard I think it met the criteria perfectly. But I think what Dee talking about at the council meeting. Vanderhoef/Was concentration. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 9 Lehman/Was concentration and we need to decide what is concentration is, are 10 units in one place concentrated, is a 16 unit apartment house concentrated? Is, what is concentration, I think that's what we're talking about. Franklin/When you say place or area when your talking about concentration what do you mean by that? Do you mean a block, a project, a neighborhood, a half of the city, east of the river, west of the river? What' s the place? Pfab/South of 1-80. Franklin/South of 1-80 OK. Wilburn/I guess what would help me. Franklin/No I think that is a critical point. Lehman/No your right. Pfab/The devil's and the details is the problem. Wilburn/I guess what would help me as I was thinking about your comments and that number of duplexes being available is the underlying premise of, I guess I need a better feel from you for the underlying premise of all this. If we look at concentration, dispersions, and terms of maintaining, having some affordable stock available in the community then I support that and I'm comfortable with that. But I'm getting a sense that there' s some other underlying thoughts related to concentration dispersion. Am I incorrect in that or? Champion/Well I think your incorrect, I mean I, where I'm coming from is I think people of all economic levels function in an environment that is mixed. It's certainly proven that kids function better in mixed environments, in no matter what end of the spectrum your at. And so my whole idea is when you get concentrations of low income, high income, middle income, you don't diversity economic diversity and I think that's, I just personally think that' s not healthy. And when you get low income congregated in certain areas, you could have problems with kids in those areas and I think they do better, they function better if they're dispersed throughout the community and have some standards to live up to. And that' s where I'm coming from and I don't even know ifthat's possible to do but that's how I grew up, that's the neighborhood I live in, I think the Longfellow neighborhood is a perfect example of a mixed neighborhood, where there' s every spectrum of economic and educational levels in that neighborhood, and everybody functions very well, it's a very tight nip neighborhood. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 10 Wilburn/I guess the part that I would agree with you that if you give any group of people some type of stigma that that can that can create some problems. Champion/Right. Wilburn/It's some of the other comments that I get uncomfortable with, because of someone' s economic status, because of who they are, and then, I'm not blaming, that's the part that's uncomfortable. Champion/I know, I know, I know, it is uncomfortable, that's why we have difficulty talking about it. Vanderhoef/And one of the things that crosses my mind when I talk about concentration is that if it's a large enough concentration so that the community conservation says Oh that's low income housing then that stigma is put there. If it's a small enough concentration it's like well I know there's some low income housing in that general neighborhood someplace but I don't know which one's they are and that' s the kind of thing I think your looking at that Longfellow built out in that way. Champion/Right. Vanderhoef/That there weren't 30 units all on one cul de sac so that there is the comments made by the community in general that's the low income housing because they can say everyone on that street is low income housing. Champion/And it's too bad we can't replicate the Longfellow neighborhood. Lehman/Well the Peninsula is intended to. Champion/I know and that's great. Franklin/Yes, I mean that is one of the efforts in the Peninsula. Vanderhoef/And you don't know which one is a subsidized and which one isn't. Champion/Nobody cares. Vanderhoef/That' s exactly fight and that' s what I would hope for in our whole city. Franklin/But we've already said, you've already said that there are going to be some areas of the community in which this mix is precluded. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 11 Champion/Well there shouldn't be any areas where it's precluded. Lehman/Well maybe not feasible I'm not sure it's precluded obviously (can't hear). Vanderhoef/They aren't precluded except for a developer who says this is too expensive for me to make whatever they choose' to make in their area and that's the tough one and whether. Franklin/Well just to kind of throw this out to sort of get you roiled up, make an analogy to open space, where when we adopted the neighborhood open space plan we knew that in new developments it was going to be relatively easy mechanically to get open space because we could either require open space dedication or we could get fees in lieu of. You can do that same sort of thing with affordable housing, it's called inclusionary zoning and it sends shivers up some people's backs to even talk about that but that is one way to achieve this goal of diversity in this category of housing. We're talking low to moderate housing and let's remember that what we're talking about here too is probably between 50 to 80 percent of median income, maybe we'll be in the 30 percent of median income when we have rental properties which we get in the diversity of housing types. So you can require those kinds of things as development occurs, but in terms of our existing neighborhoods with open space the decision was that well we recognize that the only way we were going to get open space in some of our existing neighborhoods was to put public resources toward it and buy it. The Miller Orchard neighborhood, I mean it was kind of given that the only way we were going to get a neighborhood park there was to buy something and we did. That is a way also that you as a body can decide that you are going to provide these opportunities throughout the community is that you are willing to invest more in certain places to make it feasible. Politically this is extremely hard. Lehman/What's the? Franklin/And I know it is. Pfab/There' s something even harder than that and that is to make some of the requirements for developments to say this will, your development will include this. Franklin/Yea that's what I mean by inclusionary zoning. Lehman/That's what she said, that's what she's saying. Vanderhoef/That' s what she just said. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 12 Pfab/No, no, she said buy your way into it. But the other is legislature. Champion/She was using that as an example. Lehman/What is the percentage we require in open space? What' s the formula for open space? Franklin/It's based on the number of people that are potentially going to live there and I think it's 3 acres per thousand or something like that. Vanderhoef/You're right on. Lehman/And how many acres would a 1,000 people accommodate generally in an RS-5? Franklin/Say that again. How many acres will it take to get 1,000 people? Lehman/(Can't hear). 1,000 people how much acreage in an RS-5 zone? Franklin/Well if you figure that it develops at about 3 dwelling units per acre and there's probably about 2.1 people per unit, figure that out for me Steve. 6.3 people per acre. Lehman/So it would be 150 acres approximately for every 150 acres we ask for 3 acres of green space. Franklin/Yea. Vanderhoef/And most of the neighborhoods the way that they worked out was that it took. Franklin/What are you thinking Ernie? Vanderhoef/The park side is worth (can't hear). Lehman/I'm just figuring the formula. Franklin/OH. Lehman/I mean in this case your talking about basically 2 percent, 2 percent of the new development. Franklin/Oh I see to get a percentage. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 13 Lehman/Is required green space, could you use a percentage figure by neighborhood for example and say that a certain, not over a certain percentage will be in low income or subsidized housing within a neighborhood. Franklin/Well and that' s where you get to what is the proper percentage and that 3 acres per 1,000 came from some national standards about neighborhood open space and you presumably would need to come to that same kind of conclusion for anything else that we're talking about for affordable housing and that's looking at where inclusionary zoning is done and what the percentage is. When we did, we used to have industrial revenue bonds, if you had industrial revenue bonds for housing that 20 percent of the units needed to be for low to moderate income, that they were affordable. That's under the old law. Kanner/What's the percentage of people in Iowa City that are low to moderate income? Nasby/Non student we calculated it, gees Marianne was still here and it was about 35 percent of the non student population. Lehman/Is low to moderate. Nasby/Is low and moderate, under 80 percent? Lehman/What' s low? I mean, (can't hear) do you have anything but low, percentage is low? Nasby/Percentage is low, I'd have, no, not at this time, I'd have, no not at this time, I'd have to go look, I can look and find out what the 90 census information and give you some. Champion/But low income to moderate doesn't, they don't usually buy houses, right, they don't qualify for. Franklin/When your talking about 30 percent of median and less no then you're not talking about ownership your talking about rental. Champion/Right, rental vouchers and things like that. Franklin/Yea. Champion/And it's 80 percent around 80 percent of median and maybe 70 that could actually purchase a house that' s nice (can't hear). Franklin/70 to 80 that could access $120,000 house. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 14 Nasby/Fairly close but you have to assume they don't have a lot of other debt, I mean that's a catch. Champion/Right. Pfab/I think there's another element in here, I don't know if it's a problem or a benefit but it appears from my observation that a low to moderate income or low income where it's rental if it's properly managed and the people that are allowed in are screened and they take care, they, all the neighbors feel safe. Champion/OK. Pfab/That makes a world of difference. Now I'm as I'm. Franklin/That's probably true with any income level. Champion/Right. Pfab/Right but right, yea, it's more so there because they don't have the control, other people can (can't hear) with their feet and move on, and these people are, you know they don't have as many options. So I'm more, I'm as much concerned about how the percentage is as how we control how these units are managed. Lehman/Well. Franklin/That' s another issue. Pfab/And that' s the only. Yea, I know but I mean that' s all part of it, and I don't think you can do one without the other. I mean I think you can go into a relatively high housing cost neighborhood and run these things very carefully and (can't hear). I mean it's, there's always going to be some prejudiced, there's always going to be some uncomfortableness but I think the secret is, or not the secret, one of the things your going to have to manage these you have to see that every person in there feels safe and I think that's our biggest problem that we're running into down there by Proctor down there. I mean I think there's a lot of people down there who are not comfortable, they do not think their safe, and whatever the reasons. Lehman/What do we want to tell the Housing Commission, I mean this is on the agenda because we have expressed some concerns about concentrations. And I think obviously this is going to be something I think they are going to need to try to work out but what do we want to tell them? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 15 Pfab/Well ask them to come up with some suggestions. Wilburn/I personally would rather, I don't know how others would feel, and I know you've had the debate in the past but I personally would rather move towards an inclusionary zoning type of thing rather than as each project comes up have to tussle over what a concentration is and what that means and I mean. Pfab/And scatter it. Lehman/Yea but I think that even inclusionary zoning would not necessarily address concentration. Vanderhoef/That's right. Lehman/It would address scattering it but what Dee expressed interest in was large numbers of traits in close proximity to each other, I think that' s what we're talking about. And obviously when you dilute that you also increase the cost of housing, I mean you can build 4-plexes a lot cheaper than you can single houses. And you can build 16-plexes a lot cheaper than you can duplexes but once you say you can't have 16 units in one you know one building, if that' s what your saying you materially affected what it's going to cost to do the project. Franklin/And that' s where just the general zoning has an impact too in terms of what kinds of housing types you can have or whether you allow or encourage in an area. Vanderhoef/So in your inclusionary zoning I'm thinking out loud and (can't hear) and like Ernie says that can be dangerous. In an RS-5 there isn't any way that it could be written that there could be a 4-plex. Franklin/No I think as you are looking at different zones for instance and again this is without having done any research and coming off the top of my head. If you were doing a RS-5 development which would be a single family detached, let's say it's a straight ahead, it's not a planned development. Then a certain percentage of the units in that subdivision would need to be entry level units. It would not mean that you had to have apartments but you would have to be addressing that probably in that regard it would be that moderate income level of the 70 to 80 percent of median. Which again let's just say for the sake of example and I shutter at this possibly being in the press but that a development like Walnut Ridge, I see Add??? and Fred back there, a development like Walnut Ridge that in that development you would have to have some accommodation in that development somehow for units that were in the for ownership, in the $110,000 to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 16 $120,000 bracket or that you would have some rental units through a planned development that were accessible to lower incomes, lower not low, but lower. Champion/Right. O'Donnell/It would have to be a revenue, and it would it almost have to be a multiple unit. Champion/No it could be a lower. Franklin/It could be, it could be a condominium, it's likely that it would need to be some other kind of housing type because of the housing type because of the costs there and so then you get into the planned development, in a development like that because the price is there I mean your talking about. Vanderhoef/Yea. O'Donnell/Well then the lots (can't hear) 80 to 150. Franklin/I'm sorry what did you say. O'Donnell/I said are lots are tremendously expensive there. Franklin/Yea. Champion/But you would have to yea, you would have to do something differently like you could, I drove up there the other day, if you were coming in on Court Street where they're opened that road up. Franklin/Oh you're in Windsor Ridge, I was on the other side. Lehman/Walnut Ridge is west of West High School. Franklin/Walnut Ridge is on the west side. Champion/Oh right OK, they sound a like to me so, I wasn't going up that road. Lehman/They both have W's, that's good. Champion/Right, they both have W's. Pfab/That will do it to you every time. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 17 Champion/But you know as you're going into those developments you could as you go in on the entry way have maybe 2 or 3 duplexes or 2 or 3 smaller houses, there are a lot of really cute houses in town that are between $90,000 and $108,000. There are a lot of them that are really cute. Franklin/And when you. As Windsor Ridge on the east side develops because of the mix of zoning there, remember we approved across the noah side of Coua Street there are townhouses, there are multiples there, now those are not necessarily, they're not going to be for low income but they may be accessible more to the moderate income level. But also remember when we had in our discussion of Windsor Ridge and the change on the south side of Court Street. Champion/Right. Franklin/And the uproar from the neighborhood of were these units going to cost as much as there's. Vanderhoef/And that had to do with what was already in place with zoning when the folks. Franklin/Yea. Vanderhoef/Purchased there so doing it in a new development. Franklin/Yea. Vanderhoef/Is a different kind of an animal than. Franklin/Kind of yea, I think you'll still have the uproar. Vanderhoef/Trying to separate it back into and that' s the same thing like you say when we start changing zoning' s that we get a lot of folks unhappy because they purchased and built with an expectation and changed the rules on them midstream, that' s, that is not one that I want to open up on a regular basis. Pfab/I think maybe not a, that brings up a point that crossed my mind here oh maybe the last couple of days and that is the idea of grandfathering things in when we make changes. I think we have to take a serious look at when we decide to grandfather something in that that grandfather dies off at some point and it's no longer as changes come about that grandfathering goes away. It might take 10 years, it might take 20 years. Champion/That's a whole other subject. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 18 Pfab/No, no, no, but I say it's not totally, you're talking about going into a neighborhood that was already there, they're grandfathered in. Vanderhoef/I'm saying I don't want to do that. Pfab/You don't want to do that but at some point in time if you're going to move change and integrate the different income level homes those people eventually are going to have to know it's coming down the road, at some point in time. So grandfathering has a time limit. Lehman/What do we want to tell the commission? Franklin/Could you just take about 3 or 4 minutes and tell me what you think concentration means to you. What it, when you say there' s a concentration, what does it mean to each of you? O'Donnell/Don't start here. Lehman/Start with Dee because you had the biggest complaint about the last project. O'Donnell/I have really no idea. Vanderhoef/What I said earlier about identifiable to the community. Franklin/Of course that' s an after the fact, we'd like to get there before. Vanderhoef/Right and. Franklin/I guess so use that as a model. Vanderhoef/Use that in the model and for me for instance the one we just did there have been so many parts to Village Green that through all the parts of Village Green 30 to me would not necessarily be concentration but 30 on one street, one cul de sac, that's a very identifiable to me. So maybe I'm looking at 8-10 max. in one location and then you've got to move a block or two away to have another one so you do get this inner spursing of different priced homes or unsubsidized homes, they may be homes the same size, they may look all the same but some are subsidized and some are not, that's fine. But scatter them. Champion/I don't have an answer for you but you know like I said what I'm really looking for, maybe that' s really naive of me and maybe that' s narrow minded but I think people should be living in mixed groups. I mean there' s nothing to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 19 substantiate that it has any value at all I guess just because I like it so much I think everybody ought to like it. O'Donnell/I don't really even like the term concentration, it's got a negative ring to it. Champion/Yea it does. Franklin/It does. O'Donnell/I guess I'm really not sure what that means. Champion/Oh do you know what brings this all up and this is really why we're talking about a whole different housing level here because you do have areas in town that people consider not a nice place to be and Broadway is, and I'm just going to say it, Broadway and Lakeside have terrible reputations in the community. Pfab/Nope. Champion/And I think. Pfab/Back to my point if they were properly managed, if they were properly managed that makes a lot of difference. Champion/Well you know I don't know how properly managed they are and I think what we're trying to avoid is that kind of a situation but this is really a whole different type of housing that we're talking about here. But I mean I think when we look at the concentrations of subsidized rental property in that side of town we've created problems for ourselves because of it and that' s what we're trying to avoid happening again. I'm not against subsidized rentals of nice housing I'm for it totally but I think you've got to keep it from becoming a getto. Lehman/Irvin. Pfab/OK, I commend Connie for bringing this up, I think your in a great position to make that statement and I think that's a very strong statement, I support you 100 percent because not only do you like it but it appears that records and history says this is a good way to go, it's not just because you like it and it works. And how we get there that's the difficult thing but no it's somebody had to say those, glad you did. Vanderhoef/I was talking to Heather Shank Friday and she said there's a very good film that she saw through the University of Iowa Law School about (can't hear) and concentrations and so forth and she was going to try and locate it and she thought This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 20 it would be a great thing for both council and the commission to see and I would be real happy to. Champion/Maybe we should try to do that. Lehman/You know I really think from what I'm hearing because I don't think any of us are able to articulate precisely what we're thinking or maybe. Franklin/It's hard. Lehman/It is hard and I also think that perhaps the discussion is taking the place because of some of the concentrations that have occurred in a couple spots in Iowa City that in hind sight maybe we should have spread them out a little more and this last project did that. I don't believe that we're going to be able to tell the commission anything other than we have a concern for seeing the spreading of around the community and like this last project in my opinion was certainly was spread around the community but I think they need to be aware of our concern. I don't know if they, those folks work with these issues a lot more than we as a council do. I guess I'd be interested in seeing if they have any recommendations. Franklin/But they also do not typically deal with and can not in their allocation decisions deal with location issues, that those are ones, aside from the functionality of the area for the particular agency or project. So I think there are going to be as at sea at this as you all are as we all are because we've talked about this at staff too and it' s extremely hard to get a hold of and identify and you know be clear about and be fair about for everybody. Champion/Well I really need to be fair and this is not the first time this problem has come up before City Councils. Franklin/No and it won't be the last. Champion/(Can't hear). Vanderhoef/And it will continue to come up unless we have something to go on. Pfab/I believe I heard you say something that I was surprised you just said and that was they had difficulty deciding because of location, it's not part of the criteria. Franklin/Yea. Pfab/But I understood that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 21 Franklin/I mean that's no, that's not their purview. Pfab/But doesn't Council have the ability to change those criteria? Vanderhoef/Sure. Lehman/Sure. Franklin/Yes as long as it's legal and I mean that's, remember what we're talking about here that HCDC primarily deals with the allocation of federal funds. Champion/Right. Franklin/And so their charge and their purview is very narrowly defined and it is appropriate that the more difficult questions of balancing happen at this level and not at HCDC level. I think the commission certainly would be, well I'm not sure they would be happy to but they will look at this issue and separate from their funding allocation discussions give you some input but I'm just saying that it's conceivable that their going to have just as big a struggle as you have and not be able to give you something very clear and well defined as to how you deal with the issue. Pfab/I would say maybe a joint meeting of after some study, sit down and try to work out amongst us because I think we have, we have the ability to change some of the rules as I understood somebody say and I thought it was you or Eleanor that we can make some different criteria, we can move (can't hear), move in a different way. Dilkes/Well I think there's a couple issues there, one is when you do that, I mean you don't do it when a project comes to you. Lehman/Right. Dilkes/Criteria have been applied at the HCDC level and then secondly with respect to the issue of location which harkens back to the Successful Living project on the north side there were a couple, the reason location was such a problem there is that it was properly zoned for the project, location was not included in the criteria and one there were a number of other things but you can't just change the criteria at any point along the way (can't hear). Pfab/Over a period of time when there' s nothing on the table, that's the time to address it which I think is proper right now what we're trying to do. Now I think this other one is basically taken care of is that right? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 22 Franklin/Oh yea. Pfab/So that' s not part of it so now we say that brought up an issue that maybe we should be taking a little higher look at and trying, try to flush out and I think that' s what we're struggling with. Lehman/Steven. Kanner/A couple possible starting points, and it was mentioned bad examples, Cabrini, I'm sure the movie of the St. Louis Housing Project probably every Urban Study everybody person saw that. So we start out with what our bad examples and along those lines perhaps we have some studies that you staff and/or the Commission brings to us that talks about what doesn't work and what works that' s been mentioned before but give us maybe a summary if not the study but that, and as others have mentioned there are studies are out there and say is it a problem? I gave some research about group homes that seem to say most group homes are not a problem in a long run and I would like to see more of those studies that talk about group homes and concentrations of different income in different areas. And one of the things that I think that the lessons that was learned from places like the St. Louis projects or Cabrini is that it's important that the people feel they have some control in their lives, in managing their lives and Irvin brought up the idea of having to have support and so I think that' s one thing that Housing Commission can look at is how can we support these. There are some programs of people that apply for grant money that do these kind of support things but maybe we need to be a little more proactive if we're going to be more proactive in general so that' s another starting point to look at. What kind of support is needed in different income housing. And another starting point as I mentioned before is let' s look at the Iowa City population and what percentage is low and moderate income. That might not be our ending point but let' s say let's start there and see can we get close to that, can we get half of that, a quarter of that, I think that might be a good place to start. And we mentioned some of this but I just want to emphasize again, zoning we have to have zoning that allows multiple housing units in some places. So when we think about rezoning, we rezone something from RS-8 to RS-5 we might want to think that that' s not the thing to do if we're going to try to get lower income housing in those places because we said it's cheaper to have multiple units. So in that sense we want to think how to encourage the lower income housing in those areas and what the zoning affect is. And I think that' s it right now. Franklin/OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 23 Pfab/I would add one other thing here, obviously one of the resources in the League of Cities (can't hear) probably somewhere in the country projects that did work that were successful and also large developers they have worked with this problem at different times and different locations. Lehman/I think we've probably told you absolutely nothing. Champion/Nothing. Lehman/No really, no really, I don't think you can quantify anything we've said tonight except we have a concern. And how we accomplish what we're trying to do I don't have any idea. I think it would be nice to let the commission to chew on it, I think you may be exactly right, they may not have any more success than we've had but I do think there is a concern. How we address, I don't think anybody. Champion/Karin, let me ask just this zoning question here, when we, when we allowed like the condominium's and the townhouses surrounding that area, is it Windsor Ridge, that' s planned development zoning and not just OK, I just needed the answer to that OK. You can cover a lot of territory with that. Lehman/Right, right. Franklin/Oh yea you can. Pfab/I think one other thing that you can say and I think it's (can't hear) not just by me is that the group that has to that we're dumping this off onto let them know we have the same problem and I feel an empathy here to try to figure out a way to make it work. I don't see any dissension. Lehman/Well I think it's important and Eleanor brought this up too, we in the absence of changing any sorts of rules, we are not really in a position where I think it's remotely fair for us to try to change rules, or make rules or deny projects that are brought to us without having given them the rules to go by. Franklin/Well fortunately your kind of in the in between stage where we won't have very many things we'll bring to you. Lehman/Well see what happens. Franklin/OK thanks. O'Donnell/Is that all clear? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 24 Franklin/Oh. Lehman/It's very clear. Review zoning items, pardon me Agenda Items. O'Donnell/Senior moment. Lehman/That A looked like a Z. Kanner/Because there's not too many agenda items (can't hear). Champion/No it's really pretty clear cut. Lehman/Pretty quick. O'Donnell/(Can't hear). Lehman/Well that was a quick review. Council appointments. AGENDA ITEMS Dale Helling/Emie before you go on, Jeff is here for another item if anybody has any questions that you might raise tonight or tomorrow on the stripping on Rochester this would be a good time to bring that, ask that. Vanderhoef/Oh I'm delighted. Kanner/What' s that? Vanderhoef/The stripping on Rochester. Helling/It's the consent calendar the last correspondence item. Lehman/Right. Kanner/Oh the three lanes. Lehman/Three lanes, right. Vanderhoef/To get a turn lane. Jeff Davidson/The only reason I asked Dale to clarify this is that we would like to get going on this Wednesday morning and we'd like to get a press release out tomorrow just to let people know that there will be some disruption in that area. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 25 Lehman/Anybody have a problem with it? Davidson/(can't hear) raise it as a concern tomorrow night we wouldn't want to put a press release out tomorrow. O'Donnell/I think it's a great idea. (All talking). Vanderhoef/Stripping it so we have. Lehman/Restripping Rochester so it has a turn lane. Pfab/In the middle? Davidson/Yea. Vanderhoef/In the middle between Rita Lane and. Davidson/Like First Avenue or Muscatine Avenue. Pfab/Oh sure and if there' s enough space. Davidson/There is enough space there, thank you. Lehman/All right. Pfab/Great, I think that's a great idea. Lehman/OK Council Appointments. COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS Champion/We just have one application for the Public Art (can't hear). Vanderhoef/And Karin has moved back into the city. Champion/Yea that' s (can't hear) I checked the address. Vanderhoef/So I move we appoint Karin Michaeli. Is it Michaeli? How do you say it? Michaeli. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 26 O'Donnell/I second that. Kanner/We'll follow your lead on that. O'Donnell/Can't even pronounce it. Vanderhoef/I'll call Karin tomorrow and ask her how to pronounce it. Lehman/Good because I, yea, could you do that. Do we have consensus on that? Vanderhoef/I can call her any day so. Kanner/So she moved coincidentally at the same time this came up? This is the same person who applied. Vanderhoef/Who was appointed. Kanner/A month ago. Vanderhoef/But she was living in the county at that point in time, and now she gives an Iowa City address on her application so she has reapplied. Lehman/OK. Kanner/Did she really move? Pfab/Don't go down that road. Vanderhoef/Don't look at me. Champion/We have to assume that she. Lehman/We assume that the information on the application is correct. Vanderhoef/We assume the address is correct. Pfab/I think they put a, bulged out the city limits (can't hear). Vanderhoef/She's a very nice young single woman, she probably has a new roommate living (can't hear). (END OF 00-79 SIDE 1) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 27 Vanderhoef/I can't remember. Lehman/All right College Washington street calming, traffic calming. I guess we could have had you stay up there. Davidson/We have completed a total of four traffic calming projects in Iowa City since we began our program and the traffic circles on College and Washington Street are the third of the four and one year after the installation of any project we're suppose to collect some information and come back to you and let you make a decision on whether or not the project should remain. The two we've, the two we had prior to this one, one is still in place on Teg Drive and I think operating successfully. The second one on Highland Avenue was taken out, in fact we didn't even make it a year, we made it about a month or three weeks. Lehman/A week. O'Donnell/It was a little longer than that I think. Champion/It didn't take too long. Davidson/What you have in the information from me is actually four things. We did a follow-up traffic count, and I've given you the comparative information, it looks like we've had some reduction in vehicle speed very slightly, some reduction in volume as well. Certainly wouldn't want to attribute it entirely to the traffic calming devices but I think they've been a contributing factor especially with a slight reduction in speed. We also gave you the collision record, it doesn't look like anything significant there. As we did initially we surveyed the emergency service, public works and transit providers, you had a statement there from the fire chief. Once again I think sympathetic to the neighborhoods concerns but simply saying that he doesn't like the idea of traffic calming features that do not distinguish between emergency vehicles and other vehicles. And then also results of the neighborhood survey, which you see there we have a majority although it is a slight majority of persons in favor of keeping the three circles there. We received a number of comments although I haven't received too many lately, initially when we distributed the survey I had a lot of telephone calls, which I think ended up being split about equally of people in favor of them and opposed to the traffic calming features. The survey comments tended to be more heavily weighted towards people opposed, opposed to them even though the overall survey was positive for keeping them. Interestingly enough we did split out the multi-family and single family residences and found almost an identical response rate of people slightly in favor of them. I think there had been a perception on the neighborhoods part that all the single family people would be in favor of them and all the multi-family people opposed to them and that was not the case. And also This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 28 wanted to you know we give people the option of telling us I like traffic calming I just don't like this traffic calming do something different or I hate all traffic calming and that' s why there is a distinction in those two responses of people who were not in favor of them. I do want to mention to you that when we did initially work with the neighborhood we did determine that really this was the optimal type of traffic calming for this neighborhood and that the other features that we've used in other places successfully for one reason or another just because of the specific circumstances of this neighborhood, for example, speed humps, you know we've used those successfully in a couple other locations but because of all the driveways and the way the alleys come om and that sort of thing it was just a little more difficult. We really do believe that if you're in favor of having traffic calming in this neighborhood that the circles are probably our best option. Champion/Well I am, I'm going to support keep them there because I (can't hear) 53 percent majority but the reason I'm being swayed is 36 percent, there was another percentage, I can't find it on here that wanted traffic calming but didn't necessarily want the. O 'Donnell/12 percem. Davidson/That was actually just 12 percem, 7 persons. I think you might be referring to 32 percent said I don't want any traffic calming. Champion/Don't want anything so that gets it up there 53 plus 12 gets it up to 64 percem or whatever it is so I can support it bm one thing and this probably isn't the time to discuss it but when we do traffic calming in the neighborhood I think the reason I have so much trouble when it's brought to me is not anything that you have done or the neighborhood has done but I have problems with a 1 percent controlling something and I would like to see us move to a 60 percent and I'm comfortable, it's kind of a (can't hear) when you start change on me with those traffic patterns. But I am going to support keeping them there. Are we still going to have all those flowers in there, whose going to maintain those flowers if we do keep them there? Davidson/The flowers are curremly maimained emirely by the neighborhood, the city does provide a little funding of the purchase of materials but the neighborhood does do all that. And there were comments both positive and negative about how they look now. You know this is Iowa City I guess so. Pfab/I would have to, I would like to relay some of my own personal feelings on these. I had heard uproar and I was not on the Council at the time and I thought oh my god it's one of those things that you try but it just doesn't work. So unthinking I was coming up Summit Street and looked down at Burlington and I said there's just too much traffic I'm going to cut down to College Street and cut over to Governor This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 29 and I'm on the, I'm out of here. Well the first time I looked at that got down into there I said I wasn't sure if I was going to get out of this, so that definitely slowed me up. So then I thought well gosh I wondered if I did that right so another time I tried it and I was able to maneuver it a little bit easier because I had figured it but the third time when I came up to Burlington Street I said forget it I don't belong there I ain't going there so it worked. Davidson/It works. Pfab/It works, I mean which unfortunately so and I just let it go and then all of a sudden and I realized this was coming up and I received a number of calls from people in that area and the only thing that I, the only comment that really came to my mind how was pleased the people that are in that neighborhood because it worked, it slowed up traffic. The other, maybe the most important thing was how well the people felt that the city staff had worked with them and how pleased they were and the time and effort that was spent there so I definitely will support it no question. Lehman/OK how does the rest of the council feel? Wilburn/I support leaving it there. I saw the letter from Andy addressing concerns of emergency vehicle. Lehman/Nice job. Wilburn/Yea, I was biking through there and I saw a police officer coming through he had to slow way down and then kind of like I thought well if he needs to go that fast why isn't he on Burlington Street. Lehman/It' 11 slow cops down, that' s a good thing. O'Donnell/Well traffic counts down, speeds down and Irvin won't drive there so evidently it's working. Kanner/Jeff I just want to confirm the survey of the traffic count and the speeds when in 99 and when in 2000? Davidson/They were both done in May Steven, unfortunately I was not the one who conducted the count initially, it was Doug Ripley who worked for us at that time and I could not find the records of exactly when that count was taken. There was some persons in the neighborhood who felt like the initial one had been taken early in May when school was still in session and the one we had taken was after the semester had ended and that could be, I was not able to confirm that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 30 However that' s one of the reasons why you might be able to attribute some of the reduction in volume that there were fewer people in the neighborhood that the students had moved out by then. Kanner/Yea I'm willing to keep it in there but perhaps down the road we need to look at the traffic count again if we don't know if it was taken when the students weren't here or not because that would be a big difference. Davidson/Oh undoubtedly (can't hear). Kanner/Wanted to know if it's making a difference because the speed is insignificant and maybe most of that decrease can be attributed to that. And maybe there is a need to have traffic calming but maybe this is not working, it's worthwhile to found out if it is not working. Davidson/Yea the results of the survey and we did give 5 or almost 6 weeks for the survey to be returned because some people that normally live in the neighborhood do not live there in the summer time. The number of responses. Kanner/No I don't mean that, I'm using survey for both, I'm saying survey of traffic counts. O'Donnell/Talking more timing. Vanderhoef/(can't hear) and speed. Kanner/Yea and saying that they need to be the same period a year apart and maybe they weren't we're finding out to see if these are in fact effective. So I'm going to approve it now because I don't think it's harmful but I would like to know exactly when the counts were taken for the traffic if you can get that. Davidson/We know they were taken in May we just don't know exactly what day. Lehman/Well it sounds like we're going to keep. Davidson/OK. Vanderhoef/I would like to go to what Connie said about the 60 percent. I've had about equal number of calls both ways for and against and obviously it was very costly to put in and take out down on Highland, these are in, I'm not going to recommend taking them out. But when you have a split neighborhood that is so close to 50/50, yes you get neighborhood input and some people think the Council' s being very responsive and then the other half is saying the Council isn't This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 31 being responsive because they're not listening to us. So I think the bench mark may well need to be moved up before we ever put in anymore and looking at my general fund that might be something that I would consider dropping in another year. Davidson/Yea if that is something you are interested in doing and of course you can make the traffic calming program whatever you want it to be, it is your program solely. We do have another neighborhood now that has engaged us to begin the process on Lexington Avenue Lehman/Right. Davidson/And so if there is an interest in changing some aspect of the program please let us know because we're in the middle of it. Vanderhoef/Let's do it. Champion/I think it would be a lot less trouble for you at Council discussion time if it were 60 percent and they had a clear majority. Kanner/I like 60 percent, I would like to see a proposal come to us for 60 percent. Davidson/Well we do try and really clarify with the neighborhoods after if you recall we had a little bit of confusion with the Goosetown neighborhood that regardless of the process we go to ultimately the 7 of you will decide if any traffic calming features are implemented in neighborhoods or not. O'Donnell/I don't have any trouble with that 60 percent Connie I think that's a good idea. Vanderhoef/So a minimum of 60 percent before we ever put them in might. O'Donnell/No problem. Davidson/I mean is there a majority of Council that wants to indicate to us that. Vanderhoef/I do. Pfab/I'm uncomfortable with the 60 percent. Lehman/I am too. O'Donnell/Why? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 32 Lehman/I think 60/40 you're worried about one person having too much to say ifit's 51 percent by the same token your saying that it requires basically two-thirds of the people to influence the one-third. O'Donnell/It's a good sound majority. Lehman/We don't have a requirement on the part of Council that we do traffic calming even if there' s 75 percent that want it. Davidson/That' s correct. Lehman/I guess I would rather leave it at the 50 and if the Council with 55 percent chooses not to do it they can choose not to do it. I don't need that 60 percent in there. Wilburn/And maybe 49 percent of the people in the neighborhood are the ones that are speeding down the road. Lehman/Yea. Wilburn/I mean you don't know. Lehman/I mean ultimately we decide and it doesn't require, probably doesn't require the 50 percent. Davidson/Well and remember you're getting a percentage of the people who respond. Lehman/Right. Davidson/Which isn't the entire neighborhood. Vanderhoef/This comes back to me partly in numbers and effectiveness as it's been pointed out the speed has not been changed that much to call it significant. Davidson/Although it wasn't that, it wasn't that much higher than the speed limit to begin with. Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/That's exactly right. Davidson/So we'll just keep it at the simple majority then for now. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 33 Lehman/Well I don't know how many people want to go to 60? Vanderhoef/I do. Lehman/I see two, three people. woman/Four. Lehman/I see four. O'Donnell/Ernie I don't see any problem there, I think it encourages the neighborhood to come together and kind of mobilize to do this and it's going to, I think it's going to encourage more people to vote on it so I don't have any trouble with it. Lehman/I don't disagree with you but using that 60 percent then you would tell them to take the circles out because we only got 55 percent or whatever here. O'Donnell/Unless we survey them fight now and told them 60 percent and I'll bet we'd have a 60 percent. Vanderhoef/Put them in is I think the bigger thing, once they're in but I think we need a clear cut consensus for us to go forward. Davidson/Do you even want to see any proposals that we don't get 60 percent on? Lehman/No that' s a good question, what we're saying is that unless we get 60 percent of the people in the neighborhood we will not look at, that's what we're saying. Vanderhoef/There we go. O'Donnell/I think that' s a clear majority Emie. Lehman/OK you've got it, (can't hear). Davidson/OK so if we don't, from now on if we don't get 60 percent we won't bring them to you. Lehman/That's fine. Davidson/Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 34 Pfab/My only comment was I received a large number of phone calls but I did not receive one dissenting. Lehman/I didn't either. Champion/No but I do think you are changing a neighborhood by doing traffic calming. It's a major change to a neighborhood and so therefore I really feel you need to have a true neighborhood consensus, we'll it wouldn't be a consensus it's a natural vote, but. Lehman/We just did it, 60 percent. Champion/OK. Lehman/60 percent, thank you. RECOGNITION OF EMMA HARVAT Lehman/We've had a number of letters and calls and whatever regarding the renaming of the Civic Center in recognition of Emma Harvat. I think we've all read the letters and whatever we've gotten in our packet. That's open for discussion. Wilburn/I would like to, I'm interested in honoring her in some way and specifically by renaming the Civic Center for three reasons. Council Members come and go and I think if this building were named after someone and specifically Emma Harvat it gives the building a historical connection and a city that was foresighted enough to have a Historical Preservation Commission that type of thing, I think that' s an important thing. Secondly I think it's a tool for, it can be a tool for education, the public especially conversations with kids, young women. I'm frequently walking around town with my kids and they're always asking me why does that say this or what does that say and so it opens the door for conversation education for people that feel this is an important thing to do. And third with all the concern about voting and lack of interest in the voting process I think it' s another tool to as far as conversation to highlight importance especially with the 80th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. Obviously in our packets people clearly identified contributions that she made as a business women and cleaning up well making records for the city so I think it would be a positive thing. Iowa City has home to many firsts, especially women. First state university to admit women on equal basis with men in 1855, we've had many first women in the, university had the first female professor, Phoebe Sudlow, in fact I went to Sudlow Junior High. But also you know it's home of the Iowa Women's Foundation which is one of the groups that' s encouraging us to do this. I think a couple of you brought up a concern about just not naming this building after This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 35 anyone, a public building, I will point out that we did, or the past Council did name the Recreation Center the Robert A. Lee Recreation Center and even though it was because of a financial contribution we have Scanlon Gymnasium. There are have been other public buildings that we've come to know them by the current name, for example the White House is the White House but the White House has also been known as the President's Palace, the President's House, the Executive Mansion and 1901 President Roosevelt gave it the name White House. And even the Capitol as the U. S. Capitol was being constructed it went through periods of construction, fire demolition but when it was being built, a portion of the building was built was actually called for the House of Representatives was housed in a building called the Oven. So I don't think that, you know we've come to think of those with historical significance and I think this would be a good sign to give this building some historical significance and historical talk for reasons I've already mentioned. Pfab/I would support what Ross has said. I have a slight, a little bit of a concern and because of my concern I would like to see this put off maybe for 30 or 60 days but that doesn't mean I'm against it. I believe that there should be more of an education of the public to what this woman really did. From little I'm able to pick up here and there she was an extremely remarkable women, I don't think I would have messed with her and I think that's what the city needed at that time so I have, but I don't have much information and I would love to say yes if this person is what I pick up with little bits and pieces but I'm afraid if we name it without postponing it and getting some public information, some public education of who she was I think we may be missing a great opportunity. But I'm in favor of eventually naming it after her, if what I understood. O'Donnell/I don't favor naming a public building after anybody, I just, you know we do have the White House, we don't have it named after Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton. Wilburn/It wasn't always the White House though. O'Donnell/Yea but it is now. Champion/Well I don't think you'd want to name it after one of them. O'Donnell/No exactly, Connie that's my point. Lehman/You made a point. Pfab/So when you get a good one grab it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 36 O'Donnell/No, I didn't take part in naming the Rec. Center, I wouldn't have supported that, I do not feel that it's an important thing to do. I recognize them as accomplishments and would be in favor of putting a plaque up on the building, there' s another one out there. I understand we are going to name a portion of the Peninsula project after Emma, Emma Square and but there are many people who have served this community and you can name them and their very recognizable, Minnette Doderer 3 ½ decades, she did serve our community. There's Mary Neuhauser two terms in the City Council and I wouldn't support either of them or for that matter you Ernie and I've said that. I just think it's more of a (can't hear) thing and I'm not in favor of naming a public building. Vanderhoef/Well I would like to look towards some way that we can consistently honor folks in our community whether it be the plaque routine, whether it be a park area that has bricks with their names and what they did at that time, what they were known for, what they should be remembered for and our public buildings I would just as soon not start renaming because we're going to leave somebody out that was terribly important to our community. Pfab/I believe the process has already happened and I believe that it's a, there's a great neglect at naming buildings after women. We have the rec. center is this, and this school and this and this and this and women they just aren't named. Now there' s another reason why it maybe important, it may be a good thing to name it to name this building after Emma and that was this was the type of work she was in, this is where she made her mark in the city building, the civic center whatever it was called at that time city hall. O'Dormell/Irvin the ScanIon Gymnasium is named after the family not after an individual. Pfab/What the Robert A. ? O'Donnell/I didn't have any part of that, that was done. I understand how long it was 35 -38 years. Lehman/I don't know. Vanderhoef/So that would make Chuck Schmadeke Public Works building. Lehman/Connie. Champion/Well I as much as I think this woman was pretty incredible and I think I probably would have been a really good friend of hers I really have problems as a Council naming this building in Iowa City's history. I think we need a lot more This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 37 public input, I don't think it should be our decision, I know it can be our decision but I think there are a lot of people in the history of Iowa City that maybe we don't even know about them who might have done actually something just as outstanding so I do have problems with it at this point. I do favor recognition of her, I like the idea of the possibility of the park in the new Peninsula being named after her. There' s some ideas other people have had like or putting a plaque in her under her picture. But I mean that's kind of where I'm at right now, it's all happened too fast, I think it's a major decision and I don't think I've had enough time to get public input on this. Pfab/I wasn't aware that there was a park in the Peninsula to be named after her. What happens if we decide to name the building and leave the other area to be named area after somebody else? Lehman/Whatever we want to do, that's our choice. Pfab/I mean, but what I can gather and I have to admit it's bits and pieces, this woman made a major mark at the city hall at some point and she's retained this over history. I'm like Ross, we have to get our young people connected into history like they say if you don't know where your going you know, where you've been. Karmer/Well I too like what Ross had to say the reasons he supports it and I believe symbolism is important and also I think it's kind of an economic draw in a sense that like the Literary Walk, people are going to come to the Literary Walk and really get into that and the building itself could be an attraction talking about the symbolism. The only problem I have is having said that symbolism is important what can often (be) ignored maybe defaults a person. The symbolism of what Lincoln did was important but there were certainly a lot of faults and I want to find out if we're going to name a building after a person, what were some of her faults. Is that going to come back to haunt us? Was she an owner of housing that was segregated? There was quite a bit of segregated housing in Iowa City and so I'd like to be able to weight that against all the good things she did versus the reality so I could accept some faults but I want to hear more about that so I have not heard from the committee about that, I read their presentation and the history which was very exciting to a large extent. And just in, I think it's on side I don't think this will influence me too much but it was interesting history when the city voted to have municipally owned electric power of 150 votes and the history talked about how she was on the side of the popular side but actually she was against that idea and the city council overtumed the popular vote and went with our current contract that we have to this day for electric power, I found that kind of interesting. So I guess I'd like to have a delay and consider again, have some more discussion in that and have some way of having some public discussion, I think it would be good for the community to do that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 38 Lehman/I think renaming a public building is something that if we seriously considered it at all should have a significant opportunity for the public to have their input and I think their input would not be limited to Emma Harvat, it could be absolutely anybody who ever served this community either as part of the city government or any other capacity which means there probably are numerous candidates that folks within this community would like to see this building named after. I personally, and I read the article in the Iowa. (Can't hear). Lehman/Oh yea (can't hear) and I frankly and I you're right, I don't think there' s a person among us who has faults on the other hand I think you recognize people for their achievements and you don't put them down for their faults. At the time she was Mayor of this community there might have been a lot of things that were socially acceptable that are not today and I certainly would not want to take away from her accomplishments by something that by today' s standards wouldn't have been appropriate. Vanderhoef/Cultural standards. Lehman/I believe that this is a person that definitely is worthy of some recognition and I would love to see, you know we've got all these pictures back here and I could see a 11 x 14 picture with a frame and a light and a plaque under it explaining who she is and I do think it's only appropriate that she too be recognized. However I do not believe naming a public building particularly the Civic Center for an individual is something I would be interested in doing. Obviously we have a difference of opinion here but I would like with the concurrence with the Council if we choose not to pursue naming the building but at least we send it back to these folks and ask them in what fashion they would like to see us honor this mayor other than naming a building. O'Donnell/Sure. Pfab/Well I think that the people brought this to our attention made their decision already. Lehman/I think we have just made ours too, now if they're interested in some other method of recognition I think they should be afforded that opportunity. Kanner/Well Ernie I don't know if we made a decision that we're against building naming the building after a person. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 39 Lehman/I think I heard four people say they weren't interested in naming the building. Kanner/Connie then, I guess I didn't hear that. Champion/Well I (can't hear) well I'm not totally committed but I think I would really have to be convinced not about naming this building after anybody. I don't think there's been enough public input, I think it's a major step and I think we should find another way to honor her. Kanner/What I would like to see is a public forum maybe put on by the Historical Commission that we have a debate including whether or not we should name the building after a person and all the ramifications after that and look at the issue of are there enough women being honored in that sense and then also the specifics of who it should be named after. I think it would be a fun thing to do, and I think it would be interesting, I think you'd get a lot of interest there. And it would allow people to press their case for other individuals in town. Vanderhoef/You know you just mentioned a few minutes ago about the Literary Walk and how excited people were to see Iowan's recognized there and there wouldn't be any reason why we couldn't have a community team leader kind of walk in front of city hall and honor not only council folks but also folks but people who have championed our human rights, who have championed our historic preservation, who have championed housing kinds of things for our special populations, other populations. I think we could come up with a lot of things that would give due recognition to many folks who deserve it and leave our public building names alone. Pfab/I would agree with you 100 percent except I looked out the window here and I looked at the Robert A. Lee Recreation building. Vanderhoef/We can't do anything about that. Pfab/You just take away all the credibility when you say that. Vanderhoef/But there' s no, there has never been a policy about naming buildings so what has been done has been done and we have one that has been done. Pfab/Is that the only one? I'm not aware of another but I know there' s a lot of buildings that have names here, I would love to hear that at our public discussion or what's the term, public discussion, I like to hear other names, buildings of names, I try to sort it out and there was one, I know Helen Lemme School, I can think of that as a women. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 40 Vanderhoef/But that' s not our (can't hear). Pfab/No, no, I agree, but there' s how many named after men, and there you know the population is a little tip toed to the little bit more towards women than it is to men you know and you know and again it's a little old balanced, the justice, what is fair and what isn't? And you know you take the Robert A. Lee thing off we'll forget it. O'Donnell/I think there's four. Lehman/What does this Council want to do? Vanderhoef/Pursue a new idea other than the building. Lehman/Well I guess is there an interest in naming the Civic Center after an individual? O'Donnell/I would be in favor like I said earlier a plaque on the building, maybe a room within the building, maybe the Harvat Conference Room or something like that but not a city building, I won't name a city building after any individual. Lehman/Do we have consensus we'd like to do something to honor? Champion/Yes. Pfab/Let me offer a suggestion Ernie, what about having a public hearing on bringing up the whole thing, bring it up for a public hearing. Whenever, get it out in the open. Lehman/I think the answer, we have to determine whether there are four of us interested in renaming the building. Pfab/Maybe it depends on. Lehman/Or naming the building not renaming the building. Kanner/So what's the vote for people that are not interested in renaming the building? Pfab/Naming it, just. Lehman/Naming the building period. Kanner/Or naming the building, what's the vote? Could we have just a show of hands? Lehman/Yea I mean I'm not. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 41 Champion/I'm not interested in naming the building. O'Donnell/I'm not interested. Vanderhoef/I'm not interested. Pfab/I am, I'm interested. O'Donnell/This is for not. This is for not Irvin so you've got to go the next time. Pfab/Oh get out of here. Lehman/Well but we have, are we all interested in doing something? Champion/Yes. Vanderhoef/Yes. O'Donnell/Sure. Lehman/To honor, can we send that back to those folks and ask them for some other discussion? Champion/Yes. Vanderhoef/Yes. Wilburn/Could we, I don't know how others feel, I, you know, a couple of you mentioned the Peninsula and that' s fine. Two things that I would point out and maybe let your thoughts known about this in asking for suggestions from the group. I'll again point out the historical significance and the other thing would be related to civic or city hall whatever you want to call it because that's in my mind that' s a difference so if the possibilities are open for naming a room, conference center, council chambers. Champion/Yea. Wilburn/If that's a possibility then I would like to let them know that that' s a possibility. Champion/That's (can't hear). Lehman/I think any of those are a possibility. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 42 O'Donnell/I would be more in favor of that, I'm just not in favor of naming a building. Wilburn/OK. Pfab/And then I would like to ask you which room your going to name Robert A. Lee room (can't hear). O'Donnell/Irvin you know when the Rec. Center was named I was not part of it, I would not have named it after Robert Lee. Lehman/You didn't like him. O'Donnell/I liked him very much, I knew him. Lehman/Oh really. O'Donnell/And I went to the Rec. Center with him but I would not have named the public building after him, and I cannot make that clear. Pfab/That' s the whole thing (can't hear) I keep looking in the mirror and that' s what I see. OK. Lehman/OK the next, we're going to take about 10 minutes and then we're going to start back with alcohol. (BREAK) ALCOHOL ISSUES Lehman/We received from Eleanor a memo outlining the various things that we can consider relative to drinking problems downtown and her assessment of those and what I think we should do is with your concurrence is to pick the items that we think we may be interested in seeing some research work done on and then schedule a work session and consider those items so we've all the memo, we all have copies of the memo here in front of us tonight. I think we need to give some direction to our legal folks as to what issues we think might be appropriate. O'Donnell/You know. Champion/Should we go down the list one by one? Lehman/Well. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 43 Dilkes/That would be easiest. Lehman/We can do, OK, the first one is the trader 21 restriction which obviously is something that we can do. Pfab/That's the one I'm in favor of. O'Donnell/Number 4, go to that one, that's down the line Emie, that's. Lehman/Well let's go to number 2. Pfab/I think that's frost with danger. Champion/I don't think so. Lehman/I think that' s the one. Vanderhoef/I saw in one of the states I want to say Indiana maybe the things that came to us from Stepping Up that it was a state law not a local law but they insisted that any drink special you had would be for the entire day. Lehman/That sounds. Dilkes/Yea I saw that too I, that didn't make, didn't quite make sense but based on the. Vanderhoef/It might discourage drink specials. Dilkes/Yea, there were a number of states according to the stuff that Stepping Up sent us that have Happy Hour legislation. Matthews/Just as a caveat with respect to comparisons with other state laws you have to be careful with such comparisons because specifically for example with respect to Iowa there' s an area where we're precluded from entering with new legislation and there' s an open area and every state might have specific areas that are off limits and those that local municipalities are invited to legislate so I have, I think you have to carefully look at each state laws, each states laws and what authority they have, what leeway local goveming bodies have to enact additional legislation. Champion/I'd like to skip number 2 because I prefer number 7. Lehman/Well I think that maybe 2 and 7 could be considered together. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 44 O'Donnell/I think they're identical. Lehman/Personally I feel that. Dilkes/No. Lehman/The unrestricted specials probably create more problems for overindulgence than any single thing that happens in the bars downtown. Champion/It's pathetic. Lehman/I really do and if there's a way of prohibiting all you can drink specials I would go for that in a heart beat but I don't know if we can do that. Dilkes/Number 2 and number 7 are a little different. Lehman/No I see that. Dilkes/Number 2 is limitation on the specials themselves and number 7 is a price limitation. So but, so number 2 are there four of you that want us to take a look at number 2 limitation on drink specials, happy hour, that kind of thing. Pfab/I have no interest. Lehman/I see 1, 2, 3, 4. Champion/No well interested in concurrence with 7, so I guess I'd say I'm in favor of it. Lehman/Well but, all fight number 2 is a go. Vanderhoef/What I would like to see rather than spend whole lots of time on it is those that you can push out right away we may choose as a body to send a letter to the state legislature that these are things that we would like them to take a look at. Lehman/We may also even choose to meet with the state legislatures and discuss, I mean I think this is, this is a lot deeper than. O'Donnell/Yea, Ernie number 2 though. Vanderhoef/Well we have state legislative day coming up in October again and I have that date if I pull my calendar out and so we would have our legislatures here that This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 45 if we have some that we said we know it's the state prerogative perhaps we could talk to our legislatures in a group at that time. Dilkes/Correct me if I'm wrong Andy but our big concern on this one on number 2 is not an issue with respect to state local power. Vanderhoef/It isn't. Dilkes/That's not the issue no. Matthews/That's not the issue no. Dilkes/So there are other issues, there are commerce clause, constitutional law issues, first amendment issues when it comes to the advertising limitations and those kind of things so the issue here is not a question of will the state let us do it. OK. I mean we have to look at that but that's not the main issue. Lehman/Eleanor, my, from my, what I've read I believe I've seen where other states have restricted all you can drink specials, wouldn't they have the same constitutional restrictions as we do? Or are your talking about state (can't hear). Dilkes/Well I, but, well, yes, the same constitution applies to us all but we do have to look at the structure of their state law and what their allowed to do and secondly I'm not going to, just because some other state does it I'm not going to say. Lehman/No, no, I know that. Dilkes/It's not going to be my opinion that you can do it so I still have to look at the issues, but yes we recognize that there are other states that have done this kind of legislation. Helling/Just for your, for your information this is something I think some of you are aware that Stepping Up is looking at too and there' s been some communication there between Stepping Up project and area legislatures on this issue. One of the things was brought up was the question whether or not it would be at the state level, whether it would be a statute or whether it would be a administrative rules on the part of Liquor and Control Commission and that' s something that in most other states that regulate it it's by administrative rules rather than states statute. So but the question was raised there would the Liquor and Control Commission have the authority under state law or would there have to be enabling legislation for them to have to do that and I think that' s something kind of the same thing they're talking about here if you want to do it locally would there have to be enabling legislation. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 46 Dilkes/Now if you're pushed, I mean you could make a decision that you wanted to push for legislation at the state level and not look at this locally but I mean that's an issue that you can decide. Lehman/Well would it be worth our time to meet with the Liquor Commission? Helling/Again that's your call but that's something that Stepping Up is looking at as well. And in fact they have met with them on other issues a couple years ago. Lehman/If it were determined that they could make such an administrative ruling we could certainly communicate with them and ask them to do such a thing. Helling/Sure. Dilkes/Sure. Lehman/Can you check that out at the same time Eleanor? If regarding the specials, can we in your research work could we contact the whatever liquor board whatever you call it and ask them if this is within their purview to make such a regulation. Dilkes/We can talk to them about that, I don't know that they've decided that, if that issue has not been put to them they may not have made that determination. But we can certainly ask. Lehman/We can put it to them. Kanner/And actually I've. Dilkes/No but we can't require them to give us an answer to it. Lehman/No, no, no. Kanner/I've talked to staff and they would be willing to come here to talk to us so I think it would be worthwhile to have them come during a work session. Lehman/I wouldn't disagree with that. O'Donnell/If you're going to support number 2 and eliminate drink specials, what prevents somebody from charging a $10.00 cover charge at the door and selling beers for $.25 all night. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 47 Champion/Listen they do that, they charge $5.00 at the, and they don't anything for the beer. O'Donnell/Well but Connie I'm saying that there are ways to skirt this. Matthews/And there are ways to craft the ordinance to. Lehman/But you can't do it. Matthews/To or at least make it far more problematic for them. Now factoring into pretty much all of these altematives as some of you have already concluded, how you're going to deal with the outlying communities, with any alternative you decide you wish to pursue unilaterally there are going to repercussions outside this community which at a state level would be far less a problem but getting the state to do anything is more problematic. Lehman/Well that' s something I think we have to deal with if and when we decide to take some sort of action, I think (can't hear) to contact the county, or Coralville. O'Donnell/Surrounding communities, I think you need total involvement here in the surrounding communities to make anything we do effective. Lehman/We're going to elect number 2, number 3. Karr/Mr. Mayor if I could just insert, you've got a joint meeting coming up in September also with those same entities that you might want that to be considered at that time as discussion. Champion/Good idea. Vanderhoef/Put that on the agenda. Lehman/See that's on the agenda. Number 3. Champion/The problem I have with this one is there are already penalties in place, I have to stand up here, I'm sorry. The real problem I have with it is who is the so called criminal here. And I have problems with bars where the person selling the alcohol being penalized for being something they didn't do I think most minors who are doing alcohol in bars are getting it from their friends or across the table or under the table. And I would like to see the penalties for people using fake ID's or having alcohol under age be significantly higher than they are now because I would tell you that you have to call daddy for $500.00 your going to think twice about drinking underage in a bar. If you have to have $50.00 you know what This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 48 student doesn't have $50.00 on them, they could collect that in pop cans downtown. So I don't know who are you punishing them, I think a bartender who deliberately sells somebody alcohol. Lehman/We can do that now. Champion/Is, we can already do that I mean somebody should be fined, but what if this kid has a fake ID and maybe the bartender looked at the fake ID and maybe he's already thought to himself, he's already thought this person looks under age I'm going to ask him for ID, he asks for the ID, the kid's got a fake ID and then he serves him the alcohol. Lehman/We can't prosecute. Champion/Now he's ful~lled his role, he's thought about it, he's acted on it, so that's his role, he' s not guilty of any crime but giving that person alcohol, to me we ought to punish the real criminal here. Dilkes/Connie, and he wouldn't be. Champion/Oh I know he wouldn't be. Dilkes/I mean there' s a couple things to keep in mind here, most of the underage drinking citations are not, a fake ID has not been involved. OK. It's a question of being in there and having the alcohol available as opposed to getting the alcohol with the fake ID. OK. Possession of alcohol underage, you've got you know classic situation where the person who is of age goes and gets the beer at the bar and brings it back to the table and you've got kids underage sitting at the table who are in possession of the alcohol. (END OF 00-79 SIDE 2) Matthews/Determination of the person purchasing is or looks reasonably to be of age, in a town where you can be underage and you can be sitting at a table with someone of age with alcoholic beverages at the table there still is a duty and an obligation on the part of the bar and it's employees to determine whether the beer sitting in front of the person who reasonably looks to be underage should have a beer in front of them. The bars responsibility at the door under our law. O'Donnell/What ifhe's got a wrist band on him or what ifhe's got the stamp? Matthews/With those kinds of options then you can look into the reasonable efforts to ascertain the age of the person but you know the mere fact that they're sitting at a This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 49 table, the table or waitress or waiter did not serve them that doesn't relieve them of their responsibility, that's a continuing responsibility some bars won't necessarily acknowledge that or continue with that responsibility. But when the waiter or waitress passes by and there' s a 16 or 17 year old sitting there with a beer in front of them just because he or she didn't serve them doesn't absolve them of responsibility. Lehman/But we have not been doing any prosecuting along what the line you're talking about of with to my knowledge. Matthews/There have been few and few charges and convictions of employees selling to minors, it's problematic given the way number one the way the law is set up and the lack of you know so called sting type efforts to really make a concerted effort to see what is being done to determine the age of these individuals. Champion/Well the problem, and I'll ask the question again because I may be more interested in this. The problem with one of the bars in town where it's all you can drink by whatever you pay to get in. Now it's my understanding that if you're of age you get a red cup, or a blue cup or a green cup and if you're not you get a white cup or whatever. Now because I have a lot of kids of age they spend a lot of time downtown when they're home they tell me it's all you have to do is go to the table and pick up the right color cup and go to the bar. Matthews/Pick up an empty. Champion/Right that's exactly what they do so controlling what we're talking about I don't know how you do it but ifthere's some way to do that I'd be in favor of it. Dilkes/I think the thing you need to remember Connie is the standard of proof is that when they sold the alcohol they knew or they should have known, they had reason to know that the person was underage. So in other words they have to make reasonable efforts to ascertain that and I think you have a fairly good argument that if cups are everywhere and all someone has to do is pick up a certain color cup in order to get served that's not necessarily a reasonably effort. But that's the standard and I think it protects the person from being inappropriately prosecuted too. Champion/Oh right I agree, no I agree totally. O'Donnell/Do we have a statistic on fake ID's during our sting operations, do we know how many fake ID's confiscate? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 50 Matthews/I don't have stats on that, PD might, all I know is from prosecutors standpoint I'm in court prosecuting these and it's very rare that a fake ID is involved. O'Donnell/But you know what if I were underage and I went into a bar and got my wristband or got my appropriate mark on my wrist or hand as soon as I got inside the door one of the my 21 year old friends would have my fake ID. So I really don't think that you can, I really think the fake ID is used and is used frequently downtown. Dilkes/But the issue is that you only need the fake ID to get in the door so once your at a table where there's alcohol there you have access to the alcohol with no need for a fake ID. And I think we did get stats from the PD on PAULA citations and some of the recent stats we got from them and by far there were very few fake ID's use of a fake ID. Wilburn/And some of you are still making an assumption that the underage person isn't buying the drink because I've observed that. Champion/That what? Wilburn/You can't just assume this underage person is not buying the drink from the bartender. O'Donnell/Because they have the appropriate wrist band on. Wilburn/Or no. (All talking). Wilburn/At some places their not even being checked, I've been downtown the last two months on Saturday's observing. O'Donnell/Well that's clearly the bartenders fault. Champion/No I guess then we'll see you there. Wilburn/No I mean I'm not like you I'm not going to tackle anybody but just direct observation. Champion/I like to tackle directly, bicyclists, skate boarders, cars. Lelunan/How do we, how do we, if this is occurring downtown that we have underage kids buying drinks, why is it that we don't have any establishments charged? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 51 Matthews/Again you know it's a proof issue, usually the police come in making their rounds on bar checks and it's pretty much after the fact all they know is there' s an underage person with alcohol there. They don't know what happened before hand, that's why for example a sting type operation or not even necessarily a sting operation an officer not in uniform, not well known who' s just sitting at the bar observing, watching what they do and you know making a charge or a citation after watching what the employees do to ascertain or fail to ascertain the age of the person, a charge can be made on that. But what happens the way it's currently run, the current procedures we employ, the bar checks happen pretty much after the fact, after the waiter or waitresses serve them and so the information you get a lot of times is simply anecdoted from the defendant who is charged, how did you get this beer? And a lot of times they aren't going to be real cooperative in telling you. Lehman/Why don't we, why don't we have officers who sit in the bar and (can't hear). Matthews/I visited with RJ, it's somewhat problematic because once the officers do that are well known to the bars and to the customers there. Dilkes/But I think that's, there's, that's the issue here is that this procedure is already authorized by state law. Matthews/And we can do that as we do with the tobacco checks with sting. Dilkes/And we, and we can do it it's just a question of putting an appropriate enforcement mechanism in place, some kind of sting operation or whatever. But so that's the issue for you here, there's no question that we can do this, it's just a question of dedicating resources to it and you telling us that that's what you want to do. O'Donnell/I think it's really clear and the reason that tobacco checks are effective you have a certain age, and everything, I've read this over and there' s some very good that could reduce it but every time I try to see which I thought was most effective I kept coming back to you have to be 21. You know because of the way around everything else, if we say you will be 21, if you go in and they're under 21 then in my mind unless they have a fake ID the bar's responsible. You know if we check with the door and you have to be 21 to get in there and drink beer and you go to a bar to drink beer, it' s. Pfab/I have a question and I think it's reasonable to believe that most people are pretty smart and I think that' s what we're (can't hear) these people know how far they can go and we won't draw the line. I mean they know we're going to play cat and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 52 mouse with them for, and I don't know how long we've been doing this, I have a lack of knowledge because I just don't go to a bar, I'd be very uncomfortable at it so I can't draw any personal and that doesn't make me right or wrong so I think if we, how to start on the assumption that the bartenders, the owners, the bartenders and the patrons are all pretty smart people. They know just how far they can push the (can't hear) and they're doing it and we're looking like a bunch of dopes. OK so then the next question is how many hours have the public officials and what not wasted on this issue? If you're 21, if you have a liquor license under 21 you don't go in it, if you do you get nailed and that's it, it looks to me like it's relatively simple, I don't say it's that simple but everything else is cat and mouse games. Champion/So Irvin then what do you do if I want to take my whole family out for a holiday dinner and we decide to go to the Greek restaurant down here. Lehman/It's not a bar. Champion/Well they have alcohol. O'Donnell/Certain percentage is food though. Lehman/There are tests you get. O'Donnell/Certain percentage of food then it's a restaurant. Lehman/Yea, it can be a restaurant until 10:00, a bar (can't hear). Kanner/Well use the example, you enjoy the Fieldhouse food, your family yearning for the Fieldhouse, same thing. Lehman/That could be a restaurant (can't hear). Dilkes/I think those are issues of crafting the ordinance to make sure you allow what you want to allow I mean for instance you could have a provision that said as long as you're accompanied by a parent it's OK, I mean there are things to do to address this. O'Donnell/Now that' s a good thing. Matthews/And to try to minimize the games that you know they may play with respect to what' s a food item, what' s a non food item, that' s a problem in crafting the legislation. You can minimize it, you're going to find innovative people to get around it, but you can minimize it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Cotmcil Work Session Page 53 Pfab/And Mike came up with a perfect example, cigarettes, you're either 21 or whatever the age is, I guess it's 21. Matthews/It's 18. O'Donnell/18. Pfab/Whatever it is you are or you aren't, and you can pretend you are but if you get caught you get nabbed so you don't go to protect too many now. But at that point if they if they use a fake ID nail them, nail them hard the first time so they, it helps to modify their behavior. Matthews/Well there are rami (fications). O'Donnell/Connie had a really good point, you know the offender is the one where, and we can't control the fine, the fine amount, that' s a state issue. But if it does cost more, if you do get picked up then you have a great deal of reason to think about it before you go out. Lehman/Except that I think if you pass the 21 ordinance then we do control the fine if you're under 21 don't we Eleanor? If we make it illegal to be in a bar under the age 21 and somebody goes in that bar who's 19 that fine is set by the city, is that not correct? Dilkes/That fine would be set by us. O'Donnell/That's a local ordinance, I'm talking buying beer, that's state. Vanderhoef/But there would be a maximum that municipal fine could be? Champion/Yea. Vanderhoef/Which is? Dilkes/It's, what is it Andy? Lehman/$100.00 or $150.00. Matthews/Simple misdemeanor fines are going up, presently they are statutory, it's a simple misdemeanor, first offense is a $100.00 fine, second offense is what is it $200.00 or $200.00 and suspension of a driver's license not to exceed one year. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 54 Pfab/And is there a third one? Matthews/Those are subsequent ones so it would be $200, $200, $200. Pfab/Oh one in duress. Kanner/I wanted to follow up what you were saying before as far as the bar' s responsibility you're saying that if the standards they have are so loose that anybody can drink I didn't quite understand what are the consequences or what are the civil and criminal penalties that we can enforce if we find that people are getting in in an secondary fashion as you described and it's not the bartenders directly serving. Matthews/Again it's a question of proof, what is the evidence and again how are going to come up with that evidence, by the time the police are in the bar citing an underage person we don't know how they got served and it's unlikely they're going to tell us or the bars going to tell us what happened. There are various mechanisms both with respect to criminal prosecutions and subsequent criminal and civil penalties that result from the conviction of the employee. There are independent civil options that the city could take regardless of criminal conviction of an employee for serving an underage person but again it' s a question of proof. Can we make a case that the employee or the bar failed to take reasonable efforts to ascertain the age of the person. So it's always going to come down to that. Champion/That's got to be difficult. Kanner/So does it, so it doesn't have to be a police officer does it that observes that couldn't it be someone else trained because if you go into Brothers and you sit back in the tables you see that there' s no way that the bar is enforcing the under 21, there's people bringing pitchers, it's so crowded, no one's looking at anything and there' s underage people drinking there. So if we had someone that was trained that wasn't necessarily a police office that observed that situation would be a good way perhaps? Matthews/It would be some evidence, how persuasive it would be would depend on the judge for the magistrate, a lot of times when it comes down to you know in particular the non officer situation' s. For example, barking dog complaints, when it's a one on one situation one neighbor says this and one neighbor says another it becomes real problematic for the magistrates whether or not there was a violation so if you have a local citizen to take it upon himself or herself to go and make these observations. Kanner/Well no I'm not saying. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 55 Matthews/Make notes and taking them to the police department you know it's not the strongest evidence that we could gather up. Kanner/I'm saying perhaps on the auspices of the police department, not necessarily the police, and also does it, it doesn't have to be criminal charges, we can ask that civil penalties before City Council acting as a licensing board. Matthews/Correct. Kanner/So if we have someone who's trained by the police department that goes and observes, we send two people to go into the bar and observe what' s happening and they report back to the police and then we bring a civil penalty to that bar, that doesn't seem that complicated. Matthews/Arguably that could be done yes. Dilkes/This is all, there are ways to do this and I think Steven you've identified one of them, I mean, but the question is do you want to dedicate the resources to doing that? Matthews/You're gong to have to (can't hear). Dilkes/I mean we're not just going to go down to the PD tomorrow and say OK go for it, I mean the issue do you want to invest in such an enforcement effort such that we can you know bring civil penalties against the license holders? Matthews/You could require hearings before the Council. Dilkes/Hearings before the Council, your time, our time and that kind of thing and that' s fine you just have to decide if you want to do that. O'Donnell/Could we require by a city ordinance that anybody in a drinking establishment must have an ID, can we do that? Pfab/No I think that's pretty difficult, that's a state having an ID card. O'Donnell/Well I mean if you have to. Champion/Everyone has to have what? O'Donnell/Everybody in there has to have an identification. And I've said before the University can take a stronger approach in this. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 56 Matthews/Arguably I think you could probably could. O'Donnell/So that would appear to answer a lot of our questions, unless you have a fake ID, unless you have an ID you can not go in the building. Vanderhoef/A picture ID. O'Donnell/A picture ID. Lehman/But I think Eleanor told us that most of the cases we prosecute don't have fake ID's, they've got ID's they're no damn good. O'Donnell/Well that's exactly my point Ernie if it's required to get into a bar they'll have one. Lehman/They have them now and they're drinking. O'Donnell/We just said that many of them don't have them. Lehman/Fake ID's but they have ID's, they got in. O'Donnell/Well if they have a picture ID. Vanderhoef/But if they get in though the point is they either did or didn't get the stamp so right now it's legal for that 18 year old to go in and use his own ID. The whole point is you can't buy liquor with that ID but that does not stop him from paying someone else to go to the bar and buy him a beer. Now if he gets intoxicated why then he gets in the sting operation he will be charged with. Lehman/With what? Vanderhoef/Possession and/or. Lehman/He doesn't have it anym0re, he's drunk, he got rid 0fthe glass, what are we going to charge him with? O'Donnell/Public intox. Vanderhoef/OK so that's where the breathalyzer. Lehman/You can't give 1,000 breathalyzer's, it won't work. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 57 Pfab/I would think that maybe if we. Vanderhoef/Zero tolerance. Pfab/If we step back here, it looks to me to prove somebody bought or consumed alcohol is not an easy thing to do and I would bet that if we start looking at the lobbying efforts that are going into making these state laws tilt in favor of the bar owner. That there' s probably a good number, a good amount of lobbying money helped to make those laws very difficult to enforce. So they're written in favor of that so why fight them on their own battlefield. We have the option, we have the authority, 21 if you've got a liquor license you're either 21 or you're outside, that' s it. And then just, at then at that point see how it works. Nothing else works. Lehman/Is there, under a 21 ordinance could the bar be fined for allowing underage people for being in the bar? Dilkes/Ah yea. Lehman/So you could fine both the underage person and the bar? Vanderhoef/That's the way Ames does it, it's minor on premise is the terminology that they use. Lehman/They fine the bar owners. Matthews/And they can sight both. Vanderhoef/They can sight both. Champion/OK what do we? Vanderhoef/I have a question because I don't know. Champion/(Can't hear). Vanderhoef/We say we can do this civil penalty and we can have city council listen to the case. Tell me in your best guess how much legal time will it take to prosecute one person for underage drinking? Matthews/Prosecute one person. Kanner/Or the license. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 58 Matthews/You mean the employee permit your licensee. Vanderhoef/Yes. Matthews/With an attorney or without an attorney. Vanderhoef/Well I'm talking about our city attorney's. Lehman/Staff time. Vanderhoef/The staff time that we're looking at because I have a mental picture that there' s no way this pays out at all other than we get the attention of the (can't hear). Dilkes/Well I think that' s going to vary pretty dramatically with the case, just like our prosecutions of possession of alcohol under the legal age right now varies from case to case depending on how aggressive the, whether the person has an attorney, how aggressive they are. Matthews/Number of witnesses. Dilkes/Number of witnesses. Matthews/They can go from five minutes to an hour I've seen it. Vanderhoef/And there's preparation time and we're talking about first offense is $100.00. Matthews/Well first offense currently is dealt with differently for an employee who serves an underage person. First offense currently for licensee permittee or employee selling to a minor. Licensee is $1,500.00 fine, you rarely see those because it's rare the licensee is saying yea go ahead and serve an underage person. It's a $500.00 fine for an employee, now with respect to civil penalties in addition to those criminal penalties for first offense, it's a $500.00 fine, second offense within 2 years 30 day suspension plus a $1,500.00 civil penalty, third offense within 3 years 60 day suspension $1,500 civil penalty, fourth penalty within 3 years revocation. Then if you go apart from the criminal conviction aspect of it and you do civil penalties without a criminal conviction you know administrative proceedings before the Council first offense is a $300.00 fine, second offense civil penalty up to $1,000.00 and arguably suspension of a person' s license and revocation depending on circumstances and the view of the Council. And so it depends what mechanism you're using for the enforcement and whether you're This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 59 talking about the criminal penalties or the civil administrative penalties or both together. It's somewhat confusing but there is a procedure for all that. Lehman/Got it. Vanderhoef/This is the only way as I understand it at least that we can legally get at removing or not approving a liquor license, we have to go through these steps. Dilkes/Yep. Vanderhoef/To make this happen so I guess this is our, this is my dilemma, I don't know about the rest of you but this is my dilemma of how much are we willing to invest in the procedure to get to the point where we will have legal authority to pull the license on these folks. Dilkes/And one thing we should note is that they always have appeal to the state. Vanderhoef/Sure. Kanner/Dee I agree we should weight the costs and the benefits but I have a feeling if we bring a few of these people in for civil penalties they're going to learn that they had better police their bars and it's going to be their responsibility, they're going to have to hire one or two more people to go around and make sure that the minors are not getting alcohol illegally, and I think it will be worth the cost. I think we should put it on the table of what it will cost in legal time and other time and see if it' s worth it for that. Vanderhoef/Well this is what I really want to end up to be, this to me is if we aren't going straight out with the 21 then we have to have something in place that we're willing to go through the steps that it takes to get the attention of the owners and the licensee holders. Lehman/Connie had a question. Champion/I just got to say what I'm thinking of trying and maybe nobody will agree with me and then I can just move on my way but you see I'm basically not against putting the 21 ordinance putting the 21 ordinance into affect but I do want to stop the drunkenness, that' s what I want to stop. And I think our alcohol laws are archaic and frankly I don't care if a 19 year old has a beer, I probably shouldn't have said it but I said it. And I don't have any objections to a bunch of college kids going downtown and dancing and having a good time, my concern is not that, my concern is that Iowa City bars are out of control as far as pricing goes and how much it costs to get drunk, it doesn't cost anything, and they allow these kids to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 60 get drunk and they serve drunk kids and I don't care of the kid is 18, 19, or 25 it doesn't make any difference to me. So the things that I'm looking at is minimum pricing, enforcing the capacity codes so bartenders and waitresses and waiters can see who's drinking, some kind of enforcement of to the bars. If the bars aren't willing to enforce some kind of order then I'm willing to go to 21 but that to me is the last resort because that's not what I'm after, I'm after kids getting back to home safely that kids the alcohol situation downtown is affecting students studying now, I mean it used to be Saturday night was party night now it's, then it was Thursday and Friday an Saturday and now it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday because you know for $1.00 you can get a pitcher of beer. So maybe nobody else agrees with me I really hate to see our student population not have the opportunity to go on a date with someone who's 21 and dance and eat dinner and have a good time and maybe you can't do any of that without just saying you've got to be 21. But anyway that's where I'm coming from, does anybody have the same ideas I do? Pfab/Connie how long have we been playing this cat mouse game? Champion/We're not playing any game. Pfab/We are. Champion/No we're not. Pfab/Because. Champion/If you're interesting in stopping 21 's from drinking, I'm not, I'm interested in stopping drunkenness. Pfab/No I'm not interested, but nothing else will work, we've tried. Champion/Why, people over 21 get drunk and act stupid too. Pfab/Yes but we've danced around this thing and then you say the bartenders aren't following up. We can't, how many more chances, they're smarter than we are, they know how far they can push us and they're doing it, they're jerking our chain. And if you want to get jerked fine, you know my times isn't worth it very much, nobody else' s in this room is, and how many time has this been repeated and repeated and repeated, you know it's fine. The bartenders are out there making money and we're sitting here wasting our time. Lehman/Well I really don't think, we really just started to address it and I think, and I'm not sure that what you say is exactly right but I hear what your saying. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 61 Pfab/But how many times have you suggested we're going to give them another chance? They know what they, when we say. Lehman/I don't know that we've, I don't know that we've ever said anything other than we would meet with the bar owners which we have done and now we are proceeding from that point. The problem that I've got with the bar owners, with the whole drinking situation is that it seems to me and maybe we've got a mechanism with changes. Bar owners are able to serve young people until their stinking drunk legally, now they don't serve them, but they are able to go into their establishments, get drunk on their cans, walk out at 2:00 in the morning stinking drunk and the bar owner has no responsibility, it doesn't seems like. Pfab/Who made that law? Lehman/It sounds to me like there's a way that maybe we can. Matthews/Except that isn't the law that it might be an enforcement, lack of proper enforcement. Lehman/We have not been enforcing the laws to prohibit (can't hear). Matthews/There are laws against public drunkenness against public intoxication and the police cite them, a lot of times you see criticism because of those efforts to cite for public intoxication but in fairness to the officers it's usually in connection with another incident that' s occurring too. And there are laws dealing with bars serving to the point of intoxication, their on the books at least. Lehman/We don't, we do, there is, to my acknowledge there is nothing that keeps or least we're not enforcing anything that makes a bar owner responsible for people getting drunk in his establishment or for underage minors consuming in those establishments, now we're not enforcing those laws in Iowa City, are we? I'm talking to the attorney. Dilkes/We're enforcing some of those laws, but we are not enforcing, we are not making a concerted enforcement effort to enforce the law that prohibits sales to minors having knowing or having reason to know their under age. Lehman/When is the last time we had a bar owner cited in Iowa City? Does anybody remember? Matthews/Probably about a year, year and a half ago that I'm aware of that there was an actual conviction. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 62 Lehman/There was one. Pfab/What was the fine? Matthews/It was probably the $500.00 fine for the employee. Pfab/So the odds are pretty good you know that' s the cost of doing business. Kanner/No they were shut down for a couple weeks wasn't it? Matthews/No, the employee probably lost their job. Kanner/But there was a bar that was shut down that had it's license suspended for a couple of weeks. Matthews/I don't think that was related to serving of a minor. Champion/No it's not related to serving to a minor. Matthews/I think that dealt with after hours. Kanner/After hours, yea. Matthews/Yea that's right. Kanner/I had a question for our attorney's, number 4, getting to what Connie mentioned before about capacity, can we say that for liquor establishments there should be a lower capacity? Lehman/It's already set. Kanner/No, can we set it lower, if one of the problems is that it's so crowded you cant tell what's going on. Champion/They're never enforced, that's why it's crowded. Lehman/We could perhaps reduce some of it right now but we don't seem to enforce capacity. Matthews/That' s. Kanner/Well aside from the enforcement, what did we do? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 63 Matthews/It's under fire code primarily. Vanderhoef/Yea. Kanner/But can we go beyond the fire code and say that we want it to be this level, can we do that legally? Matthews/Well how would you come up with a formula, would it be based on square footage? I mean. Kanner/Whatever, we'd come up with some formula, I'm just asking is that legal within the city? Lehman/That would be pretty tough. Dilkes/I don't know that' s we'd have to look at it. Champion/When the last time we enforced a capacity? Dilkes/I'm, I mean if we're not, the issue here is number 1 are we enforcing the capacity of restrictions, number 2 are the capacity restrictions set inappropriately so Champion/I'm not saying (can't hear). Dilkes/We don't know, I mean, I don't. Kanner/Right that's exactly the question, that's why we should look into it. Dilkes/I don't know, if we're not enforcing the capacity. Right, but if we're not enforcing the current capacity of restrictions then how does one get to the issue of whether their. Lehman/You don't. Dilkes/Appropriate or not. Lehman/Right. (All talking). Helling/You might recall a couple of years ago, I think it was about that time frame we talked about this and at that time the report of the Fire Chief was that when we go This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 64 in and look at this it's impossible to count heads in some of these places and so what they've done is kind of do an estimate and bar owners have been very cooperative about shutting down the door and getting some people out before they start people in again but it's not absolute numbers because it's impossible to go in and determine the absolute number of people in an establishment but again I would stress at least from the Fire ChieFs standpoint the bar owners have been very cooperative when they've showed that concern to shut down the door until (can't hear). Kanner/It's not too hard to count who's coming in and out, they all have bouncers at the door that can count it very easily. Helling/It would be easy for them to do it, it's not easy for us to go in after (can't hear). Kanner/That' s one of the things we need to perhaps say that you have to be a little tougher on doing that. Pfab/I think we said a lot a little things. Champion/Well we're just starting a discussion. Lehman/Well I don't know where, where is it we really want to go with this7 Pfab/Going back to Connie's point about people getting liquor so cheap, isn't it cheaper to go buy liquor someplace else rather than a bar if you really want to get drtmk? Champion/I don't think so. Lehman/Not if for $1.00 pitchers. O'Donnell/21 pitchers for $21.00 is pretty rock bottom. Lehman/What is it we want to do here? I don't know that we're getting anywhere. O'Donnell/I don't think we are. Pfab/You know I've been thinking that for about the last 4 to 5 years. Kanner/2, 3 and 7 is my preference. Champion/2, 3, oh I think those are all good, 2, 3, and 7 1 agree with you Steven. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 65 Lehman/Eleanor what is your take on our ability to enforce our present laws to try to address the problems downtown? You say it would take more. Dilkes/Well that' s a whopper of a question. Lehman/No, no, no, no, I'm sorry but you said it's going to take increased enforcement, obviously that means increased funding, more efforts on the part of the police department. I mean is this something we can do? Dilkes/This is something we can do, you know how effective it will be, I can't tell you I don't know if I can predict that but I think it's certainly something authorized by state code, it's something that we don't currently do, and I don't know if I can go much farther than that. Vanderhoef/OK for me this is this dilemma I've been talking about and as long as it's something we can do I think perhaps we need to make a shot at doing the enforcement of what' s on the books and then see where the pattern goes at that point. Dilkes/Well I think, and I think maybe Dee what you're saying is one of the things that seems to come up repeatedly in these conversations that you have about alcohol is the question of whether the bar owners are doing what they need to do to prevent underage people from drinking. I think this would allow us to somehow get a little bit of a handle on that, now, and I don't what it necessarily will reveal. Vanderhoef/And it might correct some of these other things that we've sort of put band aids on say maybe we can do this but I guess the more we talk about it the more I think we should go forward with this now and then have our talk in September or October whenever we can have. O'Donnell/Go forward with what? Vanderhoef/Go forward with the enforcement of the civil penalties and have the hearings that we have to hear and find out what it's costing us in time and labor and how successful it turns out. O'Donnell/You know what we have to do we have to look to see how many police officers we need to do just that, and we're not talking 15 people in these bars, we're talking thousands, how many more police officers do we need to enforce this? I agree totally, we have laws on the books to cover underage drinking and whether we, it doesn't really matter what age we think is appropriate the State of Iowa says your going to be 21 to drink beer. And until that's changed that's the way I feel on this. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 66 Lehman/No but I think what Dee is saying this doing what we've been talking about doing obviously if your going to do this every night, every night sure is a lot of people, on the other hand if you start getting some convictions it may change dramatically what happens in the bars. If somebody has to close their bar for a month or a week. Vanderhoef/And then maybe we won't have to go to a 21, who knows until we do this first step and do what's available to us I guess that's the way I want to go. Kanner/So look into #3 in the interim and then get the results and then when the students are back put it all on the table and see what' s up. Dilkes/Wait a minute, we're not talking about having the results of #3 in September in October, or November, December, I mean it's going to take some time to get this up and running and it's going to then take some time to evaluate it. Matthews/And you're going to have to bring RJ into this mix on (can't hear). Dilkes/Yea RJ's got to tell you, we've got to talk to him about how he's going to do this. Vanderhoef/And legal staff too. Helling/Just to give you a perspective I think initially we're not probably talking about adding officers but we are talking about overtime and that's the money that your talking about. Vanderhoef/We have students coming back, we have all the major functions in the fall that tend to fill the and overfill the bars. O'Donnell/If Mr. Norton were here tonight we'd be talking about a police auxiliary. Champion/Can we tax, can we tax? Vanderhoef/Missed that comment. Lehman/But I would agree that we do, do we all agree that we want to look at #3? Champion/Yes. Pfab/No. Champion/Yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 67 Lehman/All but one agree to look at #3. Champion/The other one that Steven said was a good one too 7. Lehman/Well the drink specials and minimum pricing I think that's something else that we really do. Pfab/But can we, do we have? Vanderhoef/Well we can do some research on those. Lehman/That' s what we're going to look at and find out. Pfab/OK, now. Matthews/With respect to #7 1 think I, we note that in our comments to, are you going to take a piece meal approach and just attack it from perspective of bars, I mean you can buy liquor in places other than bars. You can go to the grocery stores, you can go to convenience stores and are you contemplating a minimum price formula across the board all over the city? Pfab/County. Lehman/Could you look at a price formula for alcohol consumed on the premises? Champion/Yea, right. Lehman/I mean that could be your criteria. Matthews/We need to look into that but you know that' s a possibility. Lehman/Yea I think that would be a lot of distinction. Vanderhoef/Single case. Dilkes/Are you talking about 2 as well? Are you just, the happy hour, drink special stuff as well as 77 Vanderhoef/Yea. Pfab/I go back to what I started with first. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 68 Vanderhoef/I would take pitchers off the table. Lehman/Go ahead Irvin. Pfab/OK I go to back to at the beginning, I think the bartenders are not stupid, I think they're very smart and I think we ought to admit that, the laws were made by the lobbyist are protecting the liquor industry, I'm sure they have ample funds to do that. What' s the motivation for the bar owners to follow the law? And the odds are, you know it's like, it's better, it's almost as good as winning the lottery. Matthews/Yea, you know playing devil's advocate and I hate to be put in the position really of defending the bars in an issue like this but current state law as it's formulated is fairly neutral, I mean it's not biased, it simply requires that there be a reasonable effort on the part of the bar, it's employees, ascertain the age. I think that's minimal due process, I don't think that's weighted necessarily in favor of the bars, maybe some of the fines could be stiffer or bleak but it's, with respect to that that's more of an enforcement issue, a question of evidence and proof rather than dealing with a law that's seems to be drawn in favor of(can't hear). Kanner/Well Andy of the state' s that we saw in our package Iowa certainly has the weakest liquor laws of any of those that were listed here (can't hear). Matthews/Oh no there, you didn't see Missouri I take it. Pfab/All right let me ask you this, let' s just make a guess at how many people were drunk in the year since somebody was fined and what's that odds, 1 in 10,0007 You know pretty good odds for a business person. (can't hear) O'Donnell/I think we're talking (can't hear). Dilkes/I think all Andy was saying is that a standard of knowing or having reason to know is about as far as you can get I mean unless we're going to impose strict liability on people and I don't think that's what we do in these kind of situations. Pfab/I (can't hear) Andy's, I stand to be corrected from Andy's point of view and I have no problem with that, but again what' s the numbers? How many people went out of bars staggered down drunk and with that sits one conviction of bar owners? Champion/The other question I have is Eleanor is it possible legally for the city to fee for the liquor license? Dilkes/To what I'm sorry. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 69 Champion/For the city to have a liquor license fee along with the state fee? Dilkes/I don't think so. Matthews/That's like we preempted. Lehman/The state, well look I think we've said we're going to look at 2, 3, and 7, and when your ready for us to look at it closer Eleanor you'll get back to us. Dilkes/2, 3, and 7. Lehman/Right, and I think obviously it would be important to draw RJ needs to be involved in this and also I think the Liquor Control Commission needs to look at the possibility of discussing specials. Matthews/That was a question I wanted to ask just for clarification, you do have a couple of representatives myself and the Mayor as to Stepping Up, we're on the Executive Committee, they are looking at some of these same issues and I assume it would be OK to kind of dovetail this research to timing wise, the thing the City Attorney' s office can determine fine. Also they've been talking about visiting with the staff of Liquor Control Commission, if we want to do that bring them to town and we can try to schedule those to dovetail. Not necessarily together but. O'Donnell/That's a lot of merit to #11 too Ernie. Pfab/Let me ask you this. Is the University itself willing to add any muscle to help this out? Kanner/That's what I was going to ask. Matthews/In what way? Kanner/Public safety, can we get public safety involved? Maybe they're the people that come up the hill and give some personnel time. Dilkes/I don't, I don't know if they have. Matthews/Again I think you need to bring RJ into the mix on that, theoretically sure I mean we do law enforcement activities with other law enforcement agencies with the state highway patrol on speed crack downs. We probably you know 28E that aid us with respect to a lot of that but you know that likely could be done but your going to have to bring law enforcement into the mix to do that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 70 Kanner/So can we begin to talk to the, you're going to be talking to Stepping Up can you mention to the public safety that we want to see if they can get involved in any way. Helling/I think that University public safety officers have already been involved in accompanying our officers into the bars when they do the checks that results in some of the PAULA arrests and that so they've already been involved. Kanner/Well they've been involved but it might take more involvement. Helling/Yea that's, I don't think that that's probably something, that' s something Stepping Up could recommend but it would have to be more directly arranged between the city and the University and probably between (can't hear) and RJ. Kanner/Well whatever I'm asking can the city take that initiative and start stepping up their involvement and asking about. Helling/Sure. Lehman/Well I think we need to get. Vanderhoef/(can't hear) is on the Stepping Up committee. Lehman/I think we need to get a plan, and after we get a plan then we can approach the University and I do think there would be some interest on their part in working with us. Wilburn/Could you check on #11 as well? Dilkes/Yea I was just going to mention that, that sort of goes along with the. Lehman/It really goes along with #3. O'Donnell/Number 11 makes a lot of sense. Champion/Yea it does. O'Donnell/OK good. Champion/I didn't know what that meant. O'Donnell/Are we ready to move on? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 71 TOBACCO ISSUES Lehman/Well I think we're going, we are going to move along, I think. The next item is Tobacco issues, I think did we all get a copy of this letter from Pat to Steven? Did you get a copy Steven? Kanner/Yea. Vanderhoef/I haven't read it, what did it say? Lehman/Well take a note to look at it but I think that our discussions relative to tobacco issues would probably be better if we met with and discussed this with Pat. Dilkes/Just, what we were going to do tonight. (END OF 00-80 SIDE 1 ) Dilkes/Just sort of outline for you what we can do with respect to enforcement on tobacco issues. And then the two options of having sort of Pat White be involved or having us go in along. Andy and Pat have talked and Pat has made the offer to come to a work session and talk to you but we wanted to run through this first, see what you want to do, if you want to have Pat White come talk to you then we'll arrange that. Matthews/Just as a brief overview in connection with possession of tobacco products by persons under the legal age that being age 18 a scheduled fine is currently a civil penalty under state code, first offense the penalty went up as of July 1 from $25.00 to $50.00, second offense is $100.00, third offense is $250.00. For violations by employees, that is for sale by employees of tobacco products to minors it's a simple misdemeanor, the fine for the first offense is $100.00, second offense $250.00, third and subsequent offense $500.00. With respect to revocation suspension and civil penalties now in addition to the criminal penalties I've just mentioned following notice and hearing the state or the city as local authority can impose for a first violation against the retailer a fine of $300.00, for a second violation a 30 day suspension for a second violation in two years, for a third violation against the retailer 60 day suspension for third violation in three years and a fourth violation for the retailer revocation for the fourth violation if it occurs within that 3 year period. There's also a provision under state code for the false use of a driver's license to purchase tobacco products is considered a simple misdemeanor, it's a $100.00 fine and the report goes to the IDOT and their license revocation penalties that could attach for that use. Now under state law similar to what has been discussed in connection with alcohol the city could impose administrative penalties following notice and hearing again while the language This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 72 seems to mandate that the city upon a conviction shall impose a hearing minimal due process at least as we interpret and as most cities that follow through with administrative hearings require at least some notice and opportunity for hearing on the part of retailer, the simple conviction on the part of the employee isn't sufficient to make that imposition of the $300.00 fine and then the subsequent license suspensions and revocation. So again it would involve some council time if you wish to start imposing those type of civil penalties based upon the convictions. It isn't specified clearly under state law who would get that money for those penalties, in comparison under those administrative procedures and penalties under dealing with alcohol the code specifically states that local civil fines that are imposed are kept by the city, there's no such language in the Code of Iowa with respect to these administrative penalties that a city would impose as to who gets those. I would need to visit with the state to see how they feel about that but again those are procedures that are available to you, it would involve some time commitment on the part of the council. Dilkes/Could you run through the two options Pat White' s involvement without. Matthews/Yes, now as originally contemplated Pat when Pat and I first just started talking about this because the state code permits the city as a local authority to impose these civil penalties that the procedure for notice and opportunity to be heard and vision some type of you know prosecutorial function, typically we could serve as the prosecutor but we would in essence be having two roles as prosecutor and as city attorney and that is somewhat of an awkward situation, it's far cleaner case if as Pat has offered to and if time will permit him to do and it looks like in the future it will to have Pat's office serve the prosecutorial role of in connection with those civil administrative hearings and penalties and allow the city attorney to serve in her traditional role in advising council. Now Pat had indicated to me that as much as he would have like to have had this in place by now time constraints have precluded him from doing so, they are bringing aboard a new civil attomey which will give him more time and this would be something that person would be assigned to do if the Council has interest in pursuing it in that fashion involving the county attomey's office and he's very interested and willing to do so if the Council still has an interest in utilizing that method. Vanderhoef/I would be interested in having Pat White or one of this attorney's appear at our joint meeting because I think there' s an interest on the part of the Johnson County Health Department to pursue tobacco also and if we would move forward in a collective manner and have Pat layout or his attorney lay out what we could do in a joint process I think I'd like it. Dilkes/I think. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 73 Pfab/Dee. Lehman/Well just a minute. Eleanor. Dilkes/I think the count, I mean this, the initiative that Pat started came to us from him and the Department of Public Health so I think they're. Lehman/They're well aware of it. Dilkes/They're informed so I don't know that the County. Vanderhoef/(can't hear) talk about it because there may be, if the county attorney is setting all this up then we would be county wide and we certainly have a lot of folks at the joint meetings. Dilkes/Yea if the other cities are. Pfab/My suggestion is tell them full speed ahead. Is there any reason why we shouldn't? Matthews/Would you like Pat to come and visit with you? Pfab/No I mean other than revisit reinvent the wheel again and again and again why don't we say looks good to us let's go? Lehman/Well what are you saying do we work with Pat White or do we? Pfab/Yes, yes. Lehman/Well thank you then that' s what we're, I think that you. Pfab/Rather than just come in and talk with us and see if it's OK if he does it, I say let' s do it. Vanderhoef/But I'd like him to talk to the whole county wide when we have joint meeting and. Pfab/Oh that (can't hear). Karr/I'll put it on the agenda. Vanderhoef/And (can't hear). O'Donnell/(can't hear) to be affective it has to be county wide. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 74 Vanderhoef/I think so and I think this is a great partnership that we can do with other political bodies. Dilkes/So are you wanting us to tell Pat then that your supportive of this procedure in Iowa City? Lehman/I think that's correct. Kanner/Emie. Lehman/Yes. Kanner/Yea, I'm in support of this and I also want us to consider that some sort of deadline where if the county does not prosecute in a reasonable time whatever we determine that is then we'll go ahead and prosecute for these civil penalties. Vanderhoef/Let' s revisit it say 6 or 8 months after it's in place and started to work. Matthews/Would you like Pat to come to your next meeting to tell you in terms of his time frame that he envisions and his personnel and staffing requirements when he might be able to have something in place? Lehman/We're going to need to know that. Vanderhoef/We'll all be at the joint meeting so if he does it there then everybody else hears it at the same time rather than do one presentation. Matthews/I'll give him a heads up on it then. Lehman/Well a memo certainly would be appropriate. Matthews/Sure, OK. Kanner/Yea I like the joint meeting coming to the joint meeting. Matthews/Fine. COUNCIL TRAVEL ISSUES Lehman/OK. OK Council travel issue, we brought this up I think a month or six weeks ago and Steven you said you would be interested in discussing this more but at that time we said with the (can't hear) approval of council that travel on the part This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 3 1, 2000 Council Work Session Page 75 of Council to meetings that we were invited to attend would be reimbursed and it would be at the cost of the city, without an invitation we would not reimburse (can't hear) expenses or registration. Now is the time that we can discuss that further. Kanner/I'm not that prepared on it but as I recall what I was thinking is that we set a limit of council member a dollar limit or some other types of limit so we don't have to go to the clerk or to the mayor each time that we as a group say this is how much we can afford, these are the, you have to do within this set of circumstances, you just can't go to Tahiti for any reason. Lehman/(Can't hear) Tahiti. Kanner/Well it's a little high. O'Dmmell/Yea it's pretty nice. Kanner/But, I like the idea of being able to do it in that sense knowing what my limits are. Vanderhoef/I see that as just increasing our salary, I mean we all quote have the same salary and if you're on legitimate business you can turn in an expense voucher and be reimbursed and if you aren't then it comes out of your own pocket. Lehman/You have to turn in vouchers anyway I think don't we Marian? Vanderhoef/Yea. Karr/Our procedure like any other city employee is to request it in advance and get it pre- approved, then you get a travel advance, we no longer require receipts for food, we have a per diem so then you would just turn in your hotel if it were an overnight stay and then we would reconcile it upon your turn. Lehman/But. Kanner/Well the question was having it laid on the mayor, I think that was a part of it. Lehman/Which the Mayor doesn't appreciate, those are questions I'd really prefer not to have to address. Kanner/Yea I think it's just easier if you say these are limits of what kinds of events you could attend and this is a limit we have for you as an individual and you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 76 Pfab/I'm all for doing it like what the Congress people do, $800,000 a year and then if you spend anymore that' s out of your own pocket. Lehman/Well right now I think that we have certain restrictions that we do not reimburse for political events, is that correct? So you, and I don't know exactly what your asking Steven if you could be a little more specific. Vanderhoef/Where would you use it? O'Donnell/Are you asking for a monthly travel allowance or? Kanner/No I think the issue came up because, originally it was proposed that the Mayor, you'd have to go to the Mayor for pre-approval, and so I'm saying right now we say you can go to the League of, the National League of Cities and the State League of Cities and I don't know what else. And I'm saying instead of having to go back to the Mayor for other things we say these are the parameters of what' s acceptable for going as a Council person and these are the parameters of the amount of money you can spend in a year. Lehman/I do think we have one parameter, any event that to which a Council is invited or the city is invited to participate doesn't require the Mayor to approve anything. Wilburn/That' s what you said last time. Lehman/That's what we said and that' s kind of the way we've been operating, that if your, if we're invited that's fine but that doesn't require, I mean that' s just a matter of going and turning in expenses. What more, how much clearer do we need that? Kmmer/It depends on how much we have to go to the Mayor for approval of something I guess is the question. Lehman/Well the way we left it if we weren't invited to attend as a city or a council person and you choose to go you go at your own expense, that's the way we left it, now it's changed. Pfab/Well I think that leaves a wonderful loophole, you just call up and say invite me. Lehman/Irvin you didn't have to think of that. Pfab/Well it's as obvious as a ground we walk on, but the other point is I'm going to give you guys a break here and bring up something else here. Now that is for going out and inspecting things in the city, does that (can't hear) cars run around and I got This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 77 about 1/3 of the way I wanted to go and if there's available it just says, I believe that's, what does the rule say on that Marian? Is there some kind of a rule, we had our orientation here that say? Karr/In town use of city vehicles should be kept to a minimum to allow the vehicles to available for the city staff to do their jobs. Again arrangement should be handled through the clerk's office, a minimum of 3 days notice is requested, that's the March 29 policy. Pfab/OK. Vanderhoef/3 days. O'Donnell/And you know what, we all make this huge salary a year. Pfab/(can't hear). O'Donnell/And that does I believe, you know, when your elected you understand that this isn't for a $40,000 to $50,000 a year job. You know it's a community service and that money we do make I believe is intended to pay us for doing these little extras that we do. Pfab/To do what? O'Donnell/To do these little extras that we do, you know I went over to Santa Fe Drive three times, I went to Lexington Avenue 3 or 4 times and talked with people and I do this but I do not feel it's necessary to ask for anymore money to do this, you know that' s part of this service that this job is. Wilburn/I'm sorry what's the, what's the conflict driving with the existing policy that was just brought up? Pfab/(can't hear). Wilburn/OK so why are we talking about this? Lehman/Well I think. Pfab/Give it Ernie and Steve a break, that was all. Lehman/Well I think and obviously you got a car this afternoon, did you arrange for it 3 days in advance? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 78 Pfab/No. Lehman/How much in advance? Pfab/About half an hour, and if it' s available if not tomorrow or the next day because there were things I wanted to check. Lehman/Well did you ever think about taking your own car? I mean. Pfab/I'm not going to turn it in, but it's. Lehman/Well I guess. Pfab/But I have two drivers at home for one car. Lehman/Yea. Vanderhoef/I put 3,000 miles on my car last year. Pfab/Well I mean, if you wanted, well that' s fine. Vanderhoef/And I didn't turn it in. Pfab/I feel, this is how I look at it, I feel like I donate, this salary is a stipend that's about all it is, but I put in an awful lot of hours of my time, my time is worth something even if we do talk about the bars over and over and over and over and over again. I do put a price on my time and I feel that's adequate and I think that's all the citizens. O'Donnell/And the price on your time is established, when we run we know we make $5,000 a year. Pfab/Whether we earn it or not. O'Donnell/Yea well said. Wilburn/Well the three days seems to be to courtesy to the staff. Pfab/I'm sorry. Wilburn/The three days notice seems to me to be an issue of planning and just courtesy to the staff. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 79 Pfab/Well if it's available, I just said if it's available I'll take it if not whatever comes available. Vanderhoef/However what I feel is an imposition in asking quote if it's available is that Marian is having to go against the policy that' s in place that says three days is requested. The other part of this that bothers me is that this is a city car that' s available here and who is to say that one other city employee doesn't have a more pressing need and can't get to that car when they do need it. Pfab/Well I think that' s pretty simple to do, but what happens if you arrange it for 3 days ahead and how do you know an emergency won't come up? (Can't hear). Vanderhoef/They schedule a spare care to handle emergencies. Pfab/Well maybe there' s two cars out of there. Vanderhoef/See that' s part of the scheduling. Pfab/I question why it's necessary for the City Clerk to do that and it appears that if a council person goes in and asks for a car that the staff is going to be intimidated and say well if they want it we'd damn well give it to them, I don't get that feeling and I'd never encourage that anyway shape or form. I went in and said is there a car available I'd like to go and inspect some things and that's it so I feel it's kind of like going to the bathroom putting up your two fingers to ask the City Clerk to go and see if there' s a car available. Lehman/I think the whole question really has been historically council people have never used city vehicles to drive around the city, the question we have is is that appropriate? I don't know, in the time I've been on the council, council have never used city cars to drive around and look at things that are up for discussion on the city agenda. And my understanding is that over the years this has not been a practice. Wilburn/Well that' s not, that's not what the. Pfab/That' s not (can't hear). Lehman/It said city council's, I realize the cars are, this is a city policy for city employees but council's in the past have never used city automobiles or charged mileage for looking at things that are on the council. If we decide that' s an appropriate sort of thing that' s fine, if it' s not appropriate we can say that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 80 Pfab/I believe it is and I'll tell you why, now if I go down, and I'm looking at a neighborhood because there seems to be a problem and I'm trying to figure it out. Now does some little old lady look out her curtain and say hey this guy, this little green car keeps driving around the block here, now with a city car, everybody' s going to know that's what it is and also I think it's a way to show the flag in areas where there might be some difficulty if a city car happens to go down through there a couple times it puts other people on notice, hey if you don't like to follow the city rules other people can be aware of what's going on. Lehman/The other side of that same argument is someone sees a council person driving a car and suddenly says what the hell is a council person doing driving a car, we're not furnishing cars for the council, they should furnish their own cars. So I mean there is a certain. Pfab/Does it say that anyplace? Lehman/No, no, I'm saying the public. O'Donnell/Perception. (All talking). Pfab/Well maybe we ought to have a public hearing on this. Lehman/Well I don't know, whatever the council wants to do is fine with me. Dilkes/Can I just make a suggestion to throw it out there? Lehman/Sure. Dilkes/Maybe what you need to do is have an expense allocation, for each council member has a certain amount of expense that they can use each month, they still have to submit a voucher for it, they still have to, just like we all do, you know in my budget I say I've got X amount budgeted for continuing legal education but I still have to document it in order to get the funds so each council member would have some kind of expense allocation. It wouldn't be compensation because you don't just automatically get it. Lehman/No it would only be (can't hear). Dilkes/But if you incur the expense then you get reimbursed, and you could set that expense allocation at a place you believe to be appropriate for the council, you know so much car use, so much whatever use, so much. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 81 Pfab/Well, OK for instance there was allocation to go to Washington, DC, I didn't go there. There were other things I had to do so I didn't go, so you know that was fine, I would have loved to gone and it was budgeted for it, I say well fine, I'm more, I feel more concerned about what's going on locally because I keep in touch other ways what's going on in Internet. Dilkes/Well and depending on what the, I don't know exactly what your issues are, but depending on what your issues are you could require, you could do expense allocations in certain categories. Pfab/I think that would be great. Champion/I don't think so. Lehman/What does the council want to do? Champion/I think we ought to just let things slide along. Lehman/We ought to what? Champion/I think we ought to go home. Wilburn/I guess I was confused, I thought the three day, I thought that was guidance for council, I personally don't see anything wrong with that existing policy and I don't maybe if my car breaks down one day or maybe I don't own a car from a future council member but by using common courtesy to work with staff to have that available for me to check things out, I personally don't see a (can't hear). O'Donnell/But if your car does break down, you check out a city car for a specific reason then, I mean you pick it up to. Wilburn/With three days planning to. O'Donnell/I've never claimed three days ahead for my car to break down but you check out a car to drive out to let' s say Lexington Avenue and then come back I, I really don't see the need for the cars, I really don't. Vanderhoef/I don't either. Wilburn/If I don't, if I'm a future council member and I don't own a car, I personally. O'Donnell/We give bus passes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 82 Wilburn/What's that? O'Donnell/We give bus passes. Champion/That doesn't always work. Wilburn/I think. Kanner/It's hard to get out to the waste water plant on a bus. Wilburn/I think there' s an expectation on the public that we try and be informed and I think that if I don't own a vehicle again with 3 days notice that there' s any problem with it. Maybe there are people, I can't control that would say what the hell is Ross doing driving around in a city car but (can't hear). Pfab/He's doing what we elected him for. Wilburn/If we have the policy and I follow that policy then I don't, three days notice I go to the spa I come back. Lehman/Well we need to nail it down so that the staff folks know that we come in for a car just precisely what the rules are, if it's three days it's three days. O'Donnell/Well Mr. Mayor what do you think? Lehman/I am, I have got, I have never used a city car for my own business, I have not turned in mileage, I can understand where somebody might want to turn in mileage, I've never done that. Other council people have not, we have Irvin would like to do that, I. Pfab/No if the city car's available that's fine, I think it's better. I think you basically you show that the council is doing what it's suppose to do, it makes it, it presents some city representation out wherever the people are. Lehman/Well I don't disagree with that Irvin except that in all the years I've been here that has not been the case and I think Council has probably done a good job of looking at projects before without using city cars to do it but whatever you guys want to do I don't care. Champion/Well I'm not willing to give some expense list, I don't think we need anymore bookkeeping to keep track of and I don't think we need to burden the staff or anybody with that. I also have never turned in any mileage or expenses but This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 83 however I think there are people, that's easy for me not to turn in the expenses, frankly I don't need the money. But I think there are times, the reason I want to play these rules too much I think there are times when people run for city council that gas money might become important to them so I don't want to get into this. I think if we follow the rule which is the three days to go to a project with a city car I think we'll be OK, I don't think we should try to solve a problem by making a lot of rules. I think we just have to go with what we have and stick with it. Vanderhoef/I think the three-day rule is a good rule. Lehman/All right. Wilburn/And I think going through the, if we'd have the City Clerk' s office follow that policy I think it's appropriate to do that in terms of managing resources. Vanderhoef/Well it would be fine then. Wilburn/Because maybe you don't see it and have an experience but I know when people know when there' s a city council member in the building, whether or not you know that or not that's a different issue but people know when we're in the building and so consciously or subconsciously it changes behavior and I've got to get. Lehman/It's tough for staff to tell a council member no. Pfab/I said that was, that was, to me that was legitimate once I understood what it once, no big deal. Vanderhoef/The three day. Lehman/All right three day it is, now as far as other expenses for travel I mean is the way we (can't hear). Pfab/I would say some kind of what Eleanor said some kind of an allowance of some sort. Champion/We haven't. Pfab/Or whatever, I mean we all have to growing, we also have to educate ourselves as we go along. Some people decide to go to the National Conventions League of Cities, that's fine, some of us stay here, some other places. Lehman/Well you have, obviously. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 84 Vanderhoef/Well these are where we were invited. Lehman/Yea I know that. Vanderhoef/As membership members of those things and committees off of various organizations. Lehman/But those are all by expenses I mean those are (can't hear). Vanderhoef/Those are all taken care of so I can't imagine what we would be putting together an expense account for that are not directly related to an invitation or a membership because your appointed a member to do something for this council. Kanner/Well there's a, Dee I would say that for me the Boston Conference won't be as helpful perhaps as a regional conference on transportation or parks or rec. or something like that where I think I can learn a lot more and help me in my council dealings. Vanderhoef/Those are legitimate requests to have reviewed. Pfab/But you weren't invited. Vanderhoef/If your on the committees. Pfab/No not on the council. Kanner/No these are conferences where perhaps we're not invited but we just know about, there's educational conferences that go on all the time just as Eleanor was saying there's legal training, legal education where there not specifically invited but you pick and choose and so if there was a limit saying $2,000 in travel expenses or $1,000 in travel expenses what did we spend each for going to Washington it was $800.00 or so I think, $800 to $1,000, if we said let's say $1,500 for the year for each of us that you could use in your expense account whether it's going to the national or going beyond and we can make exceptions if your on committees for the national. To me it just makes it easier and less having to put the onus on the Mayor to say yes or no that we are individuals that we can make the decisions our self within limits. Lehman/I really think if we got a conference and someone wanted to go, obviously those things are going to be far enough out that we plan for it anyway and I don't have any problem if somebody else wants to go to a meeting, given that what the council, the council wants them to go well that's fine, but I don't think that giving This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 85 a blanket allowance for travel is a good idea. A good, I mean I have no problem going to parks and recreation conference or whatever but I do think that council needs to be legitimate. Champion/Right. Lehman/City business that's sanctioned by the council for you to go and I don't think that having, not that anybody would abuse it because I don't know that anybody would. But it also would, it also would never leave you open for criticism, any council person, I went there, it was authorized by the council and whatever and that was legitimate business, it was approved. It's a little different than saying well I had this allowance of $1,500 travel and so I decided to go to this meeting, it just happened to be in Sarasota Florida, I didn't go to Washington and spend my money there, so I went down there. So I think just for our own protection as well as the city's if we want to go to a conference we can ask, I don't see a problem with it, we've never had a problem (can't hear). Kanner/Ernie I would always let council know where I was going, I would any every other cotmcil member, that would be part of the requirement. But I think it's not bad to be open to criticism that individuals we make, that as political people we make decisions and let the citizens decide if that was bad. If they see you're going to too many of these conferences let them criticize and then have to, the council member should have to explain that position. Lehman/Well a way you don't have to worry about that is if you don't authorize the allowance to start with. How many would like to authorize a council person to have a certain amotmt of travel expense up to a certain amount? Pfab/I would. Lehman/Do we, we have two. O' Donnell/No. Lehman/We have two, OK, that' s all we have. OK the car situation will be a three day notice for use by council. Pfab/So in other words the current. Lehman/Yes, except that I think, does the council expect each of us to give a three day notice when we want a car? Champion/Yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 86 Vanderhoef/Yes. O'Donnell/Sure. Lehman/Then we will ask that the city. Pfab/Then you should change what it says there. Champion/No it says. Pfab/It says if possible. Karr/It says is requested. Pfab/Is requested. Karr/A minimum of three days notice is requested. Kanner/I think leave it as requested, once in a while if someone asks for a day I think Marian knows if it's needed by others that if it's free go for it, I think leave it the way it is. Dilkes/I don't think, if I can be so bold, that Marian wants to be put in a position of making a decision about whether it's necessary or unnecessary, that's the whole issue here. Vanderhoef/We're leaving our employee in a very sad position, I like three days. Champion/Because she's not the boss, you are, you are her boss, how can she tell her boss there's no car. Lehman/Three days. Pfab/Why does she, why does she have to be in the middle of it anyway? O'Donnell/She' s not if we say three days. Lehman/All right. Champion/She's not. (All talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 87 O'Donnell/Three days. Pfab/But she has to go down and get the car. Champion/Don't ask her to break the rules, that's what we're asking you. Pfab/No, no, no, but why I think most of us are old enough to figure out how you sign a car out. Lehman/Well I think that's fine as long as you have the three day requirement that's no problem. Pfab/OK, so then she doesn't have to do it. Karr/So just to clarify then, council members will go down to HIS three days ahead of time and check out their cars. Champion/Right. Karr/That's a clarify. Vanderhoef/They will. Lehman/And also, but I think we're going to have to, I can't imagine but when you check out a car you check it out and record the mileage and. Pfab/Yes. Karr/Yes. Lehman/I suppose that if you check out a city car you also indicate what you use the car for or where you went. Karr/There' s a destination line yes. Lehman/Destination and whatever, so you can't just check out a car and drive around you have to have some indication. Karr/Well you put down. Pfab/Well it's city business. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 88 Kanner/Well it's assumed it's city business. Pfab/I mean other than that we're breaking the law. Lehman/I realize that. Pfab/I mean it's either city business or it's not. Karr/So we should redo that last. Lehman/Dale. Helling/Could I just, just add one thing just for understanding, we're, I think we have enough cars and you know we're not flushed with cars, we try to keep the number at a minimum. Sometimes of the year they're readily available, some times they're very tight, and I'm assuming that if we run into that situation you would want to, all of you would want to know about it or whoever if. Pfab/Right. Helling/If the inspectors or the folks who need the cars aren't able to get them. Pfab/Right. Helling/OK I just wanted to make sure. Pfab/The staff comes first and if it's available but that' s where the three days is maybe more difficult and not necessary. Helling/No I just think it would happen like I said there are times when times of the year when the cars are most heavily used. So what I'm talking about is over a period of time, days, weeks, whatever we ran into some problems and we would let you know and maybe say OK here' s a better time of year to do this. Pfab/OK that's fine. Lehman/Well we'd be more flexible. Pfab/That was my thing, if it's available fine, but now if somebody says well the staff doesn't like to say no to a city councilor, well I wished that wasn't the case so if there's a way around it I don't know, three days that's fine. Vanderhoef/Three days does it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 89 Pfab/Whatever it doesn't make any difference that's. Lehman/OK. Council time. COUNCIL TIME Pfab/It's not quarter till ten. Vanderhoef/I would just like to know we have received both an Internet and now we have a letter from Mr. Wahls' about this storm water that' s sitting in the backyard. O'Donnell/Santa Fe. Vanderhoef/And I'm not sure what legally we can do, this came in the mail today, I apologize but it was on the e-mail two or three weeks ago with multiple pictures and all that. And so this is just a follow up on it. Karr/But did, excuse me did you get it at your individual homes or was it on Council's e- mail? Champion/It came to our homes. Karr/I don't have it. Lehman/I didn't get it. Pfab/I got a letter, I got one just like it, I thought I had it with me. Vanderhoef/This letter just came today. Karr/But see we haven't accepted in correspondence, staff hasn't seen it. Vanderhoef/OK. O'Donnell/Here' s a copy if you want one. Vanderhoef/Yea. Champion/Yea. Kanner/Could you explain what happened Dee? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 90 Pfab/The water gets in. Vanderhoef/The claim is which I have no way of knowing is that perhaps the grading was not done correctly and therefore there are two lots that have homes on them that have standing water as deep as 10 inches for a period of time. O'Donnell/4 to 6 weeks. Lehman/Could we have, ask Dale to have somebody check this out? Helling/Glad to, I haven't seen it either. Lehman/Right, apparently it just came in today's mail. Vanderhoef/I'll give you this one. Helling/OK yea we'll. Karr/And if any of you have the original, the original one or pictures we do not have it. Lehman/I don't either. Champion/Do you have the original Internet? Karr/No, it did not appear to the Council e-mail. Champion/I just got rid of my e-mail. Karr/It came to the individual council members and not the general council address and I don't get. Vanderhoef/Would you like me to leave my machine here tonight and you can look at it tomorrow? Karr/I can, sure, I can pull it up. Champion/Because there were several, there were 3 or 4 different letters on that e-mail. Pfab/I will save you a copy. Vanderhoef/You get attachments. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 91 O'Donnell/I should tell you that I have been over to Santa Fe a couple times and looked at this and have talked to Steve and Chuck Schmadeke about it. Lehman/You mentioned it to me too. O'Donnell/And it is, it's really a terrible thing in that backyard, you have a brand new house and you can't use the backyard and I went over like 10 days after it finished, after it rained and there were like 6 inches of water standing. Lehman/Well it's a problem with the developer. Champion/Right. O'Donnell/Well and that's what it is but. Pfab/Are one of the developer' s gone, what do you do? Lehman/Well I think he's not gone yet. O'Donnell/No. Lehman/This is brand new subdivision. Pfab/OK so is there any bonds after the development? Lehman/I'm not sure we're involved in this, we'll call. O'Donnell/There's a (can't hear) drainage code and not a municipal drainage code but there's a grading plan that's turned it. Lehman/That's all right you'll call and check on it. Helling/We'll just have to call and check and find out what' s the problem and what if anything can we do. Lehman/Irvin anything. Pfab/No, (can't hear) time. Lehman/Mike. O'Donnell/Lexington Avenue is going to be coming around and I went to a, I live in that area and I went to a meeting there the other night with about 20 to 25 people and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100 July 31, 2000 Council Work Session Page 92 you know it was really something because there's a 12 year old girl that lives at the end of Lexington, I think it's going north across Park Road where the cars always jump the road and jump the hedge and you end up in their back yard about 100 feet down. If you have a 12 year old girl that won't play in her yard and you can hear these cars all night, I live low enough, close enough to hear the cars bottom out on these dips and these neighbors are very concerned about this and they're fairly unanimous in doing something. Lehman/We're going to get that soon. O'Donnell/And we will get that but I want to make everybody aware. Pfab/I would recommend a College Street traffic calming device. Lehman/Circle. Ross. Connie. O'Donnell/Good night. Lehman/Good night guys and ladies. Kanner/Good night. Adjourned 9:50 PM. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of July 31, 2000. WS073100