HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-10-16 Transcription October 16, 2000 Special Work Session Page 1
October 16, 2000 Special Work Session 7:30 PM
Council: Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilbum, Pfab, Kanner (Champion Absent)
Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Dilkes, Franklin, Logsden, Davidson, Long, Trueblood,
Winkelhake, Fowler, Amin
Tapes: 00-97 SIDE TWO; 00-99 BOTH SIDES; 00-100 BOTH SIDES
NEAR SOUTH SIDE TRANSPORTATION CENTER
Davidson/(tape problem) Coordinating the effort with our consulting firm of OPN
Architects of Cedar Rapids, Desman Associates, Chicago area and HLM of Iowa
City along with Bradd, we have Brad Lange and Steve Rebora ofDesman, Bradd
is with OPN, both Brad(d)'s are with OPN. This is I think the third time this year
we've talked about this project and I'll let Bradd talk about the particulars. Joe
Fowler and I met with you the first time to announce that we had received the
initial year of the federal grant for this project, we met a second time with you to
and get your go ahead for the project at that point, we met with you a second time
then to discuss the property acquisition and the specifically the site that we
proposed and you concurred with for the project to be built on Block 102 just
south of South Burlington Street and tonight what we want to do is show you the
concept plan that we have proposed. There are two things we have been working
on for the last several months one is the concept plan to be prepared for the
Federal Transit Administration to review and approve, the second thing is an
environmental assessment which is a standard process required for federal aid
project and we've had EarthTech Associates of Waterloo working on it for us.
Those two items have to be completed and approved by the Federal Transit
Administration and then we will proceed with the property acquisition for the
project which we have scheduled for the federal fiscal year that just started
October 1 st. We've received information now that we've got our second year of
grant funding which will allow us to go through this concept planning process,
begin the design of the project and acquire the property for it. It does not, it is not
the money yet for constructing the project but I think some of you were here when
Senator Grassley stood right there and said that basically by beginning the funding
of the project Federal Transit Administration does commit then to the project,
they don't start projects and then leave us hanging halfway so we are proceeding
accordingly. A couple of points just quickly, this effort does continue what was
begun in 1992 with the adoption of the Near South Side Redevelopment plan by
the City Council at that time, we then had a design plan prepared subsequent to
that to layout sort of a little bit stronger concept of what we were talking about for
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the redevelopment of this area so this is something that is part of an adopted plan
for the city. A couple of other things I just wanted to mention, we are, we still
have a schedule to begin construction in January 2002, this would then be the
third year of funding, we anticipate getting the funding for the construction of the
project in the next two fiscal years following this one. And would be
approximately an 18 month project to construct the facility. A couple of you have
asked me if what your being presented tonight is sort of cast in stone, it certainly
is not, we have prepared this concept plan consistent with what you directed us to
do so hopefully it won't be completely unfamiliar to you. But if there is
something that a majority of you, at least four of you would like to have us maybe
look at a little bit differently than we have, certainly we have time in our process
allotted to do this. And one thing that I want you to note as well, we had a, at the
very early part of this process a 3-day listening session where we invited everyone
in the area of the transportation center to come and give us comments and what
some of their concerns were, and we have tried to address those in the design of
the facility, perhaps you've heard from some of those constituents as well, we
have tried to address those, Bradd is going to highlight those in his presentation to
you and we can discuss those as much as you like. So at that point are there any
questions for me? Otherwise I'm going to turn it to over to Bradd to actually
review the concept with you. Oh one other thing just quickly, you all have been
apprised of our recommendation to you to pull back slightly on a portion of the
project, you saw the City Manager's letter that was in the packet last week.
Because of some funding constraints we are recommending pulling back on a
commercial element. The element along Burlington Street, in order to stay within
budget, we do feel that that's an appropriate element to pull back on because it
does get us under budget then and it is something that very logically can be added
in the future, might be hopefully will be the very short term future and developed
by a private entity, we are designing facility for that to happen, very specifically
there will be connections to that commercial component when it is constructed but
we are not recommending constructing that right now. The remainder of the
facility, the day care center, the bus station, the parking elements, those are all as
we've presented to you in the past so.
Kanner/One of the ways this was sold was that the commercial would subsidize public
transportation by federal law actually I think. How much would we lose,
projected loss or how much not having that gain?
Davidson/We are intending Steven for this facility all elements of it to be a revenue
producing facility, the day care center, the bus station and the parking elements
and that is money that will go to operating the facility and then any revenue
generated which would be required for that and hopefully there will be you know
we have projected that there will be some, will be dedicated to the transit system.
We don't know specifically what the commercial element, how that will reduce
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that portion of the project, but the bottom line is to stay within budget that we've
been given, $9.6 million dollars federal, the balance local of we need to delete that
element of the project at this time.
Kanner/How much could other parts be deleted? What are the figures of?.
Davidson/Maybe that's something that Bradd can, the logic behind what we have
proposed doing, I think maybe with Bradd's presentation that will become a little
clearer.
Kanner/OK and will there be some figures about if other parts were deleted how much
that would cost and how much we lose from the Fed's?
Davidson/Yea, right, Bradd I think has the individual cost elements of the project called
out and so he'll be able to show that and then if there's something you feel we
haven't shown adequately by all means raise it and we'll, if we don't have the
numbers tonight we'll make sure we have them for you.
Kanner/OK.
Davidson/What we are looking for tonight, there is nothing on your formal agenda
tomorrow but basically acceptance of the plan generally for submittal to the
Federal Transit Administration. Now when FTA reviews it they may wish to
make some changes as well, we won't know until we get into our review process
with them so essentially what we're asking you to do tonight is approve the
submittal to FTA which may then be subject to some change at that level as well.
Vanderhoef/Do we have a date on when that has to be submitted to the Fed's?
Davidson/We don't have anything that is so hard and fast Dee that we can't make
whatever adjustments to it that a majority of you might want to make but we are
hoping but we are hoping by later this month or in November to have that
submitted so that FTA has a good couple of months at least to do their review. It
will take that long for the environmental assessment to be reviewed by FTA as
well so hopefully by February or March we would be looking at having both of
those completed and begin the property acquisition. Bradd.
Bradd Brown/Thanks Jeff. Good evening. All right, as Jeff mentioned my name is
Bradd Brown and I'm with OPN Architects and tonight I'll go through and try to
do it fairly quickly, I know you've had a long night, the design concept for the
Near South Side Transportation Center. Jeff touched on a number of these but we
began the project by define the program and keeping it in simple terms, we're
trying to design a parking facility that will accommodate 500 cars, covered bicycle
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area and we're targeting that for about 20 bicycles as well as locker facilities with
those. Inter city bus operations, it would be about 1,300 square feet of interior
space plus with an outdoor staging area for 3 buses, daycare for roughly 8,000
square feet, interior space plus the outdoor space associated with that and then the
phase II component is the commercial space of roughly 25,000 square feet. Now
as we looked at that as a design team it's kind of interesting mix of components
and uses and it struck us that there's a few things we had to account for in the
design. One of those is the parking structure, 500 cars, as we looked at the
available property it said to us that this is probably going to be a 5-level facility
which is a pretty major piece of architecture on that site and so we wanted to be
sensitive to the impact that would have on it's neighbors and it's surroundings.
Another issue would be the day care component and with the day care you've got
the outdoor play area that we wanted to be a successful pleasing environment and
also be pick up and drop off capability for vehicular parking for pick up and drop
off for the day care. The other issue to us is we talked about the program in these
different spaces where there are very different uses and we wanted to in the design
have them read as their own entity in the design meaning that to get to the bus
station we didn't want you to have to walk through the lobby of the commercial
area, those type of issues were important to us. Jeff touched on a few of these but
the project budget for Phase I, we've got $12 million dollars to build this and that
includes construction cost, it includes land acquisition, professional fees,
inspection and testing, construction contingency and public art. We have for
Phase I an alternate and that's for a little over a million dollars to add the 5th level
of the parking facility. We'd like to bid it out with a component, we have a pretty
good contingency dollars within our estimates and so we're hoping that the
bidding climate is good we can try to get that 5th level built as well. Phase II is a
commercial area and including everything, construction costs, land, inspection
testing, fees and contingency that's target at about $3.5 million dollars. Jeff
mentioned the listening sessions and we met with each group, if they were
adjacent property owners and tenants, different community groups, we spent about
a half hour with each of these groups and we presented to them what the program
was and talked about the site. We did not have designs at that time to show them
and this was a chance for them understanding the scope of the project to now talk
to us about some of the concerns that they had. As you can imagine with 3 days
of meetings, we had a pretty long list of items and I won't go through all of those
tonight but I wanted to highlight a few of the real significant ones that played a
major role in shaping the design. First, and this primarily came from people in the
Capitol House apartments located along Dubuque Street, they were very
concemed with what the facility would do, I think the thing that scared them the
most was the inter city component and with it being a residential use they were
nervous about having noise and fumes from the buses idling at night and their
windows open so that was something we wanted to take into account. Another
thing that we heard quite a bit was you know Burlington Street is such a major
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thoroughfare and what impact will this building have on Burlington Street and
there the idea of having a parking garage people mentioned that you know as you
drive down Burlington Street there's already two concrete monsters there of these
parking garages and the last thing we need is a third one right on the street and so
the message we heard there was that as we do this design we want to minimize the
impact of the parking component on the Burlington Street major thoroughfare
experience. Another was as Jeff mentioned that we need to comply with the
requirements of the Near South Side design plan, we heard a number of times this
facility needs to be ADA compliance and also with concern with traffic off of
Burlington Street and this is actually something that the city staff shared with us
as well as we designed this facility we could not enter the parking ramp
component, have day care drop off or the bus operations right on Burlington Street
because of the of that being such a major thoroughfare. I think you're all probably
familiar with the site, we're talking about Block 102, it's the east half of the
block, it's on the north side, it's bounded by Burlington Street, on the south side
Court Street, on the east side Dubuque Street and on the west side the alley, so it's
that one half city block. Some of the photos, see on your upper lef~ is a view from
the intersection of Burlington and Dubuque Street, and you can see the Mod Pod
Facility. On the upper right is the intersection of Burlington and the alley, and
we're seeing the back side of I guess what I always call the Electronics Cave.
Court Street and the alley looking northwest we see the drive up area and a
portion of Union Planters Bank and then at the Dubuque Street and Court Street
intersection it's kind of tough to see but you can see Union Planters Bank, the
Mod Pod facility down towards the background and then the Electronics Cave in
the middle. As part of this project certainly with Phase I and Phase II combined
all three of those facilities would come down. We started out as Jeff mentioned
we're going to present two phase and as we did the master plan for this facility we
started with Phase II you know we wanted to design all of those components at
once, and so I'm going to focus tonight on the bottom drawing that's the Phase II
ground floor plan, the top drawing is the Phase I ground floor plan. To start with
looking at these different uses and the things that we heard during the listening
sessions to us it was pretty clear that the inter city bus operations it felt best to put
that along Court Street because it would keep it away from Burlington Street and
the traffic issues there, it would keep it away from Dubuque Street and the issues
from the neighbors and the residential areas there and placing it along Court Street
it's across from the Federal building and that's sort of the back door of the Federal
building where they have their loading and vehicle staging area and so we placed
the inter city bus area just off of Court Street. We then looked at the office
component and our thought was that if we could put the office component on
Burlington Street that would be a natural spot because it would provide a nice
front to Burlington Street from an architectural standpoint. It would respond to
what happens adjacent to this block on the east side of Dubuque Street and some
of the things that have been proposed for the west half of the block. It would also
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take that commercial component also respond towards the downtown area and the
ped mall. So we've placed within the design scheme a three story commercial
component on the noah side of the property, we then took the day care area which
is this portion down here and we located that along Dubuque Street and what that
allowed us to do is to take the pick up and drop off issue that was important with
the day care component and place that along Dubuque Street so we've got some
angled parking out in front of the day care area for pick up and drop off, it also
allows us to take the outdoor play area and place that along Dubuque Street as
well. So thinking of Dubuque Street is now a little more of a residential type of
use and the day care pick up and drop off, it also seemed a natural area to place
the covered bicycle parking. The remainder of the facility shown in blue and then
coming in across this dashed line and you'll see in the upper level plans, that's the
edge of the parking structure up above. And so one of the things we were
concerned with as we studied the near south side design plan is it's, it talks a lot
about the pedestrian experience and what it feels to walk along the sidewalks in
this area. And so what we felt was with the commercial area and introducing a
brick paver pattern similar to what's already b been started along Burlington
Street, by introducing an arcade we can have a very pleasant experience along
Burlington Street and then as you come around the comer we then as you continue
down Dubuque Street you're walking up adjacent to and you'll see this in the later
elevations but you're walking up adjacent to the one story day care component
and the larger element, the parking structure is pushed back about 25 feet from
that sidewalk edge and then as you turn the comer your experience is now the bus
station. The two stair towers and elevators for the parking structure we placed in
the comer and you'll see in our elevations we have designed those to be kind of
book ends of the parking structure and act as a vertical element that separates the
commercial from the parking, the bus from the parking etc. again to make these
read as individual components.
Pfab/I have a request, I don't know if it will work in your presentation. Is it possible to
see a side vision of this east side?
Brown/Yes.
Pfab/Before you go, it would certainly help my picture it in my mind if you could jump
to that but maybe you can't.
Brown/Yea, I'll actually be there real quick then I can jump back to this plan.
Pfab/OK.
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Brown/And back and forth. The Phase I drawing up above shows all of those
components but with the elimination of the commercial component originally and
you can see the existing commercial facility on the comer.
Pfab/I have a question and I'm, I don't know, I'm a little uncomfortable to see so much
traffic alongside of the play area with children with all the exhaust fumes and
what not, that leaves me a little touch uncomfortable.
Brown/With the parking located out front?
Pfab/It look like it's in it out, it looks like it's the way in and out, is there any other place
that they go in and out?
Brown/For the parking garage, actually I'm glad you mentioned that because I did fail to
touch on through signage, our desire is that these two entrances are the major
ingress and egress from the parking facility. We do as, as the parking areas are
designed and if you can picture, this is where the facility starts to ramp up you do
gain that parking underneath the ramped area, it's kind of that dead end parking
that you see in parking ramps so our thought is that by coming through this
entrance that these spaces could be used as either employee spaces for the day care
area, or for the commercial space or for visitors to the commercial area.
Pfab/So you're saying that's not an entrance to the all the rest of the parking facility.
Brown/We want to by signage not make that the major entrance, we do have, if someone
were to pull in by mistake we have a bypass lane that they could take them down
to this area where they could get into the ramp but the desire is that these are the
two primary entrances into the ramp.
Pfab/Is there any way you can, is there a way to slow people up so it's not attractive to
use that as a short cut?
Brown/As this one?
Pfab/Yea.
Brown/You know it gets a little tricky and I think the best way to do that is through
signage. Phase II again, the Phase II plan is on the bottom, the Phase I plan is up
above, this is a typical second level plan and you can see the level 2 of the tenant
space for the commercial facility, we have a pretty clean simple structure for the
parking facility and each level has a little over 120 spaces. It's designed such that
the west row of parking is the slanted element, the ramp element to take you up
the different levels and the portion on the east is a level slab which helps us with
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our design on the east facade. You can see the two stair towers and then this is the
one story element of the daycare element projecting out and then a little bit of the
one story canopy element of the bus area projecting out on the south side. Within
the Phase H plans we are showing diagrammatically the proposed Hieronymus
Square Development that has been talked about on the west side of the property
just to make sure that should that happen our facility can work with that and be a
good neighbor to that project. This is that east elevation of Dubuque Street and if
it helps I can go back to the plan and come back to this as well. Again the bottom
is Phase II and the top is Phase I, starting with the commercial component on the
right we've incorporated a three-story element and we've tried to design that so
that it is in keeping with the character of other buildings in Iowa City. It's got an
arcade on the base for the pedestrian experience, and so it has a true middle, a
base, a middle and a top, and on the upper level we've got a little more glass and
we have a cornice element across the top feature, so that's a three-story
component on the north side of the building. You'll see the two stair towers that
the stair and elevator towers for the parking facility and those are as I mentioned,
we designed those to be sort of a bookend to the parking structure. Up in front is
the one story daycare component and keep in mind the parking facade that we see,
that's all pushed back about 25 feet from this one story element so again as you
walk along the sidewalk you're not walking alongside the five story ramp you're
walking alongside the daycare element. In the middle is the daycare play area and
what we've done because we want this to read architecturally as one component is
we've continued the column and beam affect kind of that arcade affect across the
sidewalk when there' s no roof behind that that's just a, in essence a screen wall
and we have an ornamental metal screen built in between there and that's actually
one of our ideas for the public art as opposed to just building a you know a nice
architectural metal fence that that could be part of the art component and relate to
the day care activities behind. So that shows you the main entrance to the day
care component. Around the side we're seeing just a glimpse of the bus station
area and then the bicycle parking area is incorporated next to the stair tower. So
for Phase I all of that remains the same except for the commercial portion and we
see the existing commercial building there. Our desire as we talk plan wise to
keep these different components so they would read as individual entities also
held true on the elevations. We wanted it to read as one cohesive complex but we
wanted it to be very clear where the day care was and where the commercial was
and the bus component so using a similar pallet of materials we have brick with
stone accents and glass on the commercial component. On the stair towers we
have an architectural pre-cast so that that can kind of mimic the buff colored
limestone material in glass and then that same material then used on the day care
and just a little bit different application with a masonry base. And then on the
parking structure you'll see kind of two interweaving planes of material and what
those are is the reddish material is a brick clad pre-cast element and the beige
material is a sandblasted architectural pre-cast similar to what you have on the
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ramp across the street. And so together our thought is that there just is essentially
a one foot offset between them it's like one wall but you get a little bit of a
shadow line between those so there's not just one continuous face across the
building, there's a little bit of play in and out to make an attractive ramp facility.
As we look at the other elevations we have on the top are the Phase I drawings
and on the bottom is Phase II, the south elevation, the bus station component is
the same on both Phase I and Phase H and so we're only showing that one time.
But you can see the stair tower, the parking ramp component, one of those major
ingress and egress points, and then the bus station component we wanted to you
know have a transit type of feel to it with a little bit more glass, a little bit more
metal so we've taken some of the same materials that we had on the top of the
office component and incorporated that into the bus station.
Pfab/Can you go back to the first floor drawing, fight. So now where those two blue
arrows are up in the upper left hand comer is that going to be the main entrance
and exits to the ramp?
Brown/Yes.
Pfab/And is it, do you have to have these other two also?
Brown/We really need to have, you know to get access to gain that usable space
underneath where the ramp goes up, I think we probably do need this ingress, one
of our thoughts here was just to, to not, to have more than one way in and out of a
ramp is often times a good idea. Steve I don't know do you, this one could
possibly be eliminated?
Steve Rebora/You really need to have a second (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/Steve you need to go up to the microphone.
Brown/Steve's with Desman Associates, he's our parking consultant on the project.
Rebora/With 500 cars we really need two (can't hear) ofegress's in and out and with just
the normal operation for the garage if ever something needed to be repaired or
something was blocked it gives you that second (can't hear). We prefer the upper
entrance and exits just a straight shot (can't hear). But the reality is that they both
will be used and are and as necessary.
Lehman/The parking has two way, cars traveling both directions instead of one way?
Brown/Right.
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Reboras' It's the most efficient parking we can use, it's two way traffic but then the
bays??? are 16 feet wide, it's also the easiest to understand the use as an (can't
hear) parking garage, not as confusing, back out the way you came in.
Pfab/So you say those are 60 feet across from, is that?
Rebora/Depth dimension is 60 feet.
Pfab/OK but when you go to the, when your looking at the exit/entrance there now your
looking at toll places there up above?
ReboraJ No, at this point we're anticipating is that there would be (can't hear) station
similar to the garage across the street that you pay a meter box so there wouldn't
be a restriction on the entrance (can't hear).
Pfab/So now OK, or is there, that's fine, I had a lot more questions but that's OK.
Brown/OK, well I'll keep going and we can come back to these plans. OK with these
two slides, this is Phase I of the north elevation and this is Phase II so within
Phase I we're proposing you would see the stair tower component and then we
have you know applied a facade to the north side similar to what we have on the
south side of the parking facility. And then in Phase II what you would see is the
three story commercial component and in the background is the face of the
parking garage. So within these scheme this face what we see here is actually
about 60 feet away from the sidewalk along Burlington Street separated back and
on the Phase II elevation you can see that arcade, an entry feature and then the
cornice treatment up above. Actually that Phase II elevation also shows
diagrammatically the Hieronymus square project as well.
Kanner/Hieronymus had originally wanted a different orientation for the parking ramp
because she was talking about having her Phase II commercial space. Is that tied
in our Phase II at all tied in with her Phase II?
Brown/You mean is our Phase II in lieu of her Phase II?
Kanner/Well I guess it is in lieu of hers but is she connected in anyway or was she
consulted in this as far as her wanting that property?
Davidson/Yea in our discussions with Mrs. Hieronymus she has been receptive to the
idea of a physical connection between our facility and her Phase I project so that
that has been an element that Bradd has made sure his design in the project,
maybe he can elaborate on that a little but actually coming to a formal agreement
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with her on that is something that will be down the road but we're at least
allowing the option to have it.
Brown/Let's see, the next, we're looking at the west elevation which is the alley view, of
the project and these are a little less exciting with the thought that there will be
future development along the west side of the block so these will be seen less and
as a priority we're not spending as much money on these elevations as the others.
Pfab/Is the alley going to remain an alley?
Brown/Well, yea, we're showing it in Phase I that it would remain as an alley, the current
Hieronymus building is designed, their building actually is built across the alley
and they would be purchasing part of the noah end of the alley from the city and
then redirecting that back out towards the west. And so that' s why when you look
at our Phase I or our Phase H plans where we show the Hieronymus Square
development it does touch this parking facility.
Pfab/Is there any, does the city, this is maybe a question for you, but can the city build on
the alley?
Davidson/The alley is of course a public thoroughfare at the present time but we have a
standardized process that we go through for the alley to be vacated and then
disposed of which you all approve so if Mrs. Hieronymus made a request or
anyone else who might develop that property in lieu of Mrs. Hieronymus made a
request for that that's something that would come through you for consideration.
Pfab/Is that alley space something the city can build on?
Davidson/It is but you would have to take into consideration the, Mrs. Hieronymus's
plan involved a relocation of rather than a straight through alley there would be an
L-shaped alley so there would still be access through there. If we were to want to
do anything with the alley Irvin we would want to go through that same process of
determining what' s going to happen with the through traffic if the alley is blocked.
Pfab/So you're saying that we need to have through traffic through there?
Davidson/At the present time the alley serves a function, if at some point for some reason
the alley were to go away we would have to determine what would happen to all
those functions.
Brown/With looking at the Phase II again focusing on that we see a little bit of the bus
station down towards the south end and then the parking structure and then on the
north end kind of a side view of that office area and we rendered that fairly solid
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with the idea that something may be built directly adjacent to it, it kind of fronts
the alley not the major street. The Phase I drawing you can see that same
elevation but without the commercial component on the end and then we see the
existing commercial facility in the background. I'm going to show a few
perspective views and we have a Phase I view and a Phase II view, this is a view if
we were standing at the intersection of Burlington and Dubuque and what we see
is the existing Mod Pod facility and that' s the noah wall of our parking garage
and again that's set back about 60 feet from the noah edge of the Mod Pod facility
or from that noah side walk. And then what we see this is the two stair towers
that we talked about as acting as a bookend and then we see the one story day care
component and then set back from the edge of the day care component is the face
of the parking garage. So you can see down Dubuque Street some of those pickup
and drop off spaces associated with the day care, now that same view and as we
look at this maybe focus on the stair tower because you'll see that same view now
with Phase II built and this is the commercial component, the three story
commercial component so that's where the Mod Pod stands now. You'll see the 3
story component, the arcade and the entry feature coming around the side we have
the two stair towers and again the one story day care and the parking garage so
this is where we address some of the concerns about minimizing the impact of the
parking garage on the neighbors and on the view of Burlington Street. You can
see by the stair towers it's soa of high, it's quite a bit of the parking garage
component and though you still see it it's not fight up front and the center of the
sidewalk so that as a person is walking down the sidewalk you'd be along the
arcade feature of the commercial component and then as you come around the
comer again your walking up adjacent to this one story component for the day
care and then you walk along next to the play area which could be a nice
experience and the whole time you know there's a parking garage there but it's
still set back from the edge of the sidewalk. Another view of that noaheast comer
and again you see the Mod Pod facility and our stair tower, you can see the
entrance into the day care area, and this is that entrance into that kind of reserved
parking area to the north. And then that same view with the commercial
component incorporated.
Pfab/What is your purpose, or what is the function of those portions of the floor, or
something looks like it jets out at the letter A and R there?
l~rown/Oh right here.
Pfab/Yes.
Brown/Yea actually just to get some of that shadow line created where we talked about
the two plains of the brick and the.
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Pfab/So that' s an exaggerated drawing is that? It looks like to me that there stick out like
5-6 feet.
Brown/We did take two components and it was part of the architectural treatment to
break up that wall, we propose that we do pull a couple of those components out,
it's an architectural feature using pre-cast (can't hear).
Pfab/What it looks like to me or it looks like it's either a place to park a special car or an
observation point.
Brown/Kind of more of an observation area, yea.
Pfab/OK.
Kanner/If you walk on the arcade there or you have a wheel chair on the arcade where
can you exit on Dubuque?
Brown/We have, let me go back to, there's about I think close to 6 feet or little more than
5 feet of slope from the west to the east along Burlington Street. And so what
we've done at the entry feature is that's the level on grade entrance, and so you
can walk along the edge of that wall or you're up into the arcade and you can walk
along into the arcade and you'll perhaps there will be entrances directly into retail
stores and this kind of thing. And so it's kind of a double sidewalk, one is up on
the on grade level and the other follows the slope down and the main entrance into
the facility is on grade, as you come around the comer we have a secondary
entrance that takes you into the store tower where the elevator is and so you can
also as you come around, you go in through the lobby of the commercial building
and get into the stair tower lobby before the commercial component. If you want
to get into the stair tower lobby for the parking structure, as you come in under the
arcade you come around on the high side of that sidewalk. And it's one of the
challenges with the steep slope across there and it's not exactly like but you see
some of the other buildings along Burlington have had similar challenges where
they have the arcade and some of the steps. We've tried to minimize that by not
having any steps along Burlington Street and for about maybe two-thirds of the
elevation it's all on grade as you go towards the west end of the arcade, that's all
on grade as well and it's just as you come down towards the eastern side where
the slope starts to fall off that we have that kind of high sidewalk low sidewalk
affect.
Kanner/So if you're in a wheelchair going through the arcade continuing east then you
turn the comer going south you can't come down the steps obviously you have to
go all the way back is that correct?
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Brown/Yes, and our thought is I guess is with the grade change there for us to have a
ramp for about 3 feet of grade at that point then that translates into about a 36 foot
ramp that which with the site restraints is pretty hard to accommodate but if
somebody was to enter the office tower you know they would more than likely
use these doors because these are the main doors into the office lobby, the side
door only takes you into the stair tower for the stairway. So if somebody were to
get into the arcade system as they come down you know more than likely their
headed towards the elevator tower to get up into the parking component or again
perhaps if any of these tenants would have doors directly off of the arcade they
would be heading down that area towards that use.
Kanner/So your anticipation is people heading east on Burlington won't be walking in
the arcade unless they intend to go in the building, they'll be on the outer
sidewalk?
Brown/Well they could do either, I mean they certainly could walk within the arcade and
experience the arcade, the edge of the columns are built along the edge of the
property line and so there's still you know about a seven or eight foot walk out in
front of that to the curb of Burlington and that would still remain. Let's see I
think we've seen that view, that's the Phase I view without the commercial
component and the Phase II with the commercial. And then this view now.
Pfab/If you could back up one, Steve see that drawing is on the fight.
Kanner/Yea.
Pfab/OK.
Kanner/Yea what I see is there's no exit on the arcade basically in a wheelchair.
Pfab/On Dubuque.
Kanner/If they're in the arcade, heading east on the arcade.
Brown/Right, for the last I don't know w hat that was maybe three or four bays of the
arcade that' s true, and as the grade starts to fall away. But again as they come into
those doors they are getting into that elevator, access of the stair tower. OK Phase
I and II and this is now at the comer of Dubuque and Court Street and what we see
is the stair tower component and the other flanking stair tower in the background.
This is the day care component, the one story day care and the garage pulled back.
We see the face of the garage wall and then projecting out in front now is the one
story bus station component and that has a pretty large overhanging canopy so that
as people are queuing and getting on and off the bus they're underneath an
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overhang. And so this is primarily it's a sidewalk to continue walk across the
block but it's also a little wider area than it's used for the pick up and drop off of
the bus area as well.
Kanner/Is that where the inter city buses also have a pick up and drop off along with the
inner city?
Brown/Yes, there's three bus staging areas, and two of them, I should go back to the
floor plan for that. There' s three staging area for the buses and existing curb line
for example off towards the east is out on that edge, we've pulled that curb line
back so that the buses as their staged there they're not blocking traffic along Court
Street. We have staging for two buses out in front of the bus station and then the
third which is an overflow and as we've met with the local inter city bus
contention it's very rare that they need all three of those, they talked about some
peak times when like during the holiday periods where students are out of class
and they're running a little heavier schedule of the bus traffic there's a third bus
staging area across the alley so primarily it's these two staging areas that would be
used.
Kanner/Our Iowa City buses would.
Brown/Would use those same areas yea.
Pfab/It looks to me I mean if you go back to the picture where you had the bus on and it's
kind of an awkward way of loading a bus because you have to walk around the
bus to get into it.
Brown/You know we, that's interesting you would catch that, we drew the bus
backwards on our perspective here.
Lehman/Right.
Brown/The bus should actually be heading the other direction, I was hoping no one
would catch that.
Lehman/That will be for interstate buses as well as inter city buses loading on the same
spot?
Brown/And Cambus as well is talked about having.
Pfab/It's going to be a busy place.
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Lehman/Well it's fine except that I would assume that like Trailways or Greyhound
would maybe be sitting there 15-20 minutes which would make it rather difficult,
well I guess you've got the other.
Brown/We have that third kind of fall back reserved spot.
Lehman/Yea which they'll probably have to use part of the time, all right.
Brown/Yea you're right, we should really be seeing the back of the bus headed the other
direction.
Davidson/Just for clarification, this is a bus stop for a Cambus and Iowa City.
Lehman/I realize that.
Davidson/The interchange of course is still going to be the main interchange down
before the Pentacrest and Old Capitol Center so a city transit or Cambus wouldn't
be spending an inordinate amount of time here, staging.
Lehman/But it wouldn't be spending any time there if the Greyhound or Trailways bus
was sitting there for 20 minutes loading either.
Davidson/Well typically Ernie there's not more than one bus, and occasionally two, so
we don't think that' s going to be a problem with the (can't hear).
Lehman/Well there is room there's three places.
Brown/There's that third fall back spot.
Vanderhoef/OK so you are envisioning all of the bus traffic to come south on Dubuque
and then turn west on Court?
Lehman/Coming down Dubuque?
Vanderhoef/Yea, to go, if you're going to head west on, to be on the fight side of the
facility you'd have to.
Lehman/I realize that but why wouldn't they come down Gilbert Street and up Court.
man/Right, they might come straight across Court Street.
Lehman/I can't imagine Dubuque is going to get a lot of bus traffic especially when it
dead ends at the hotel there.
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Pfab/Not only that then you're driving all the buses again right in from of your day care.
Brown/Actually I think coming across Court Street would probably be perhaps even
easier than.
Lehman/Yea I'm sure it would be. OK.
Brown/That was the last slide.
Pfab/You said OK.
Brown/Well thank you very much we've enjoyed working with Jeff and Karin and Joe
and the rest of the staff, it's been an exciting project and kind of a tricky one but I
think we've incorporated tried to incorporate all of the things we heard.
Kanner/Do you have some copies of that?
Brown/I do, I brought a few copies that I gave to.
Karr/I think we had also, I had just talked to Jeff I think what we'll do is get the
presentation put it on Laserfiche and have it available for you in the packet.
Brown/Yea we provided a disc of the power point.
Lehman/The material that you show on the building that was kind of, I hate to use the
word yellow but isn't that suppose to be a limestone color or concrete sort of color
not yellow?
Brown/No it's meant to represent a true limestone material like you see on the Old
Capitol building, that type of limestone material.
(All talking)
Kanner/Bradd will the environment assessment look at?
Brown/Yea, that' s really not part of our scope.
Davidson/The environmental assessment Steven is performed according to the NEPA
process, National Environmental Protection Act, which is a federal act, and
because it is a rather complicated involved process we have EarthTech of
Waterloo dealing with that, they are very experienced in these sorts of things and
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understand the process, they're in contact with FTA the whole way through. I
would probably have to get the circular if you really interested.
Kanner/Maybe just give me like 5 things they look for.
Davidson/Oh it's actually much more exhaustive than that, we even have to, well
certainly things like air quality, even things as obscure as inter coastal water wave,
you know you have to assess whether or not there is habitat present, they look at
the what I would call the Brownfield status of the site, there's a historic and
archeological survey that's done, I mean it's a very very exhaustive process and if
you'd like Steven I certainly can get you a copy of what all the factors are that
they look at but I can't tell you what they all are now.
Kanner/Maybe just a summary would be good.
Davidson/Sure we'll get you that.
Kanner/And so do they look at the air quality after the proposed project presented?
Davidson/Well what it is currently and what the impact of the proposed project is.
Kanner/OK.
Davidson/I mean that's the focus of what it is. And there's a comment period and the
whole process that you have to follow. Irvin.
Pfab/What about your showing how many levels of parking there?
Brown/There are five levels of parking proposed but that fifth level is that alternate bid.
Vanderhoef/And which number of cars are does it take all five floors to get the 500?
Brown/The fifth floor actually gets us over 500, we counted that earlier, I can't
remember it's like 540 with the fifth floor and then as we take that off we are
below the 500 as we go down to the fourth floor.
Vanderhoef/OK.
Pfab/I have a question, I believe this is a very valuable piece of space on the earth here in
Iowa City and I'm concerned that if you looked down in years that that
underground is not.
(END OF 00-97 SIDE TWO)
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Pfab/I understand from talking to Jeffthat's more expensive but to me at this, this is
basically a prime piece of property in downtown Iowa City and if you're looking
at something that you said the life expectancy could be as much as 100 years I
think it would be really, if you go to any large city that has grown over, that
everybody uses that underground wherever they can but what I'm wondering is
are we better off going underground and not go so high with the idea we can add
later.
Davidson/We set a target of 500 spaces for the facility Irvin and we were able to get
those all above ground as you've seen in the concept plan so we have not
considered the underground parking for that reason. Steve here can elaborate a
little bit on it but it is my understanding that you're talking approximately triple
the expense. Is that about fight Steve?
Rebora/(can't hear).
Lehman/In the mic please.
Rebora/Certainly there's an issue of cost and it's anywhere from double to triple the cost
to go down below but there's a bigger reason and the reason is function and what
we tried to do was we try to limit the amount of choices someone has when they
come into the garage. So if we have 500 spaces above ground we'd like them to
start up in their search and find pattern would be to pass all of those spaces. If
you have a choice of going down or going up, the likelihood is your going to go
down and find those spaces full and then have to tum back around and go back
up.
Pfab/What about an assigned spaces for the lower level on a monthly basis or something
like that with a different entrance?
Rebora/There is opportunity for that if a group of that type exists (can't hear).
Pfab/I would imagine there's a quite a number of people that park on a regular basis and
would be happy to rent a space on an ongoing basis.
O'Donnell/But still we're looking at double to triple.
Vanderhoef/Triple.
O'Donnell/Triple.
Pfab/But I mean if you want to find a place to park or cars some day you run out of room.
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O'Donnell/Well that's what they're saying it's designed for 500.
Pfab/But the other places we use we get underground are all at the other end. See I
mean, if this was sitting out and say 5 miles out of town but when you're right in
the heart of downtown I think it's something that we certainly have to consider
utilizing.
O'Donnell/We also have a budget.
Pfab/Well.
Vanderhoef/Is the day care, did I read it right that it was 800 square feet?
Brown/It's a little over 8,000, we programmed 8,000.
Vanderhoef/Excuse me, OK, so my question is, is that basically a flee stand building
that's been connected to a parking facility?
Brown/Yea, it is it's own, it's it's own entity.
Vanderhoef/Own foundation and so forth.
Brown/Exactly.
Vanderhoef/So have we looked at putting basement space or a second story commercial
over that?
Brown/The second story commercial, the parking component overlaps the day care.
Vanderhoef/It comes up over the top?
Brown/Yes. I don't know if you can see the.
Vanderhoef/I was looking for it and I couldn't see it.
Brown/The trees hide this a little bit, this is the day care component and the first 25 feet
is exposed but then it projects underneath the second level of the ramp probably
another 40 feet or so. A second level would be tough but a basement would be
possible.
Vanderhoef/OK.
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Davidson/One of the things we tried to do Dee was we basically handed Bradd the
guidelines that I, I believe they're state law requirements for the amount of space
you need per child and the projected number of children and it actually varies
depending on the age of the children as well. And so that, we kind of landed on
that 8, Linda Severson has been helping us with that, but we kind of landed on
that 8,000 square feet based on those kind of (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/Those figures and how many.
Davidson/So I think we're about right for square footage.
Vanderhoef/For the square footage, I was just thinking more commercial and if it was a
free stand and was not part of the component for structuring for our parking ramp.
Davidson/Yea similar to the Tower Place project, we tried to use a guide at least at the
very least replacing the amount of commercial space that we were displacing,
that's sort of been approximately that and the space constraints sort of landed us
on that 25,000 square feet.
Vanderhoef/And do we see the need for any kind of basement storage for any of our
parking folks or anything?
Brown/We do actually, let me scroll back to the floor plan. The area of the ramp, again
this is the plate of the ramp that folds up and then coming from the north side we
have the plate folding down where we get that dead end row of about a dozen
spaces. At the end of that you know tucked in underneath is a storage component
for parking and transit and it's roughly 1,000 square feet where they could store
maintenance material any of those items.
Vanderhoef/All our bicycles that we collect.
Lehman/Do you get any negative reaction to two way traffic in a parking facility as
opposed to one way? I mean one way obviously works rather smoothly and you
don't have at least it seems to me it works rather smoothly. Do you have a
problem with folks who are accustomed to one way facilities using a parking
facility that has two way traffic?
Brown/No actually usually it's just the opposite.
Lehman/OK that's fine.
Wilburn/(can't hear) to and it.
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Rebora/Typically a one way system is more conducive to a taller structure where you
need to get around to the top and back down a little bit quicker. But this is the
cleanest, the easiest and most efficient.
Lehman/User friendly, that's what I wanted to hear.
ReboraJ User friendly.
Vanderhoef/That's what Mercy Hospital has too.
Pfab/And you're talking all pre-cast?
Rebora/No right now this is all laid out in cast and plates.
Pfab/Cast and plates.
Brown/The main structure component is the cladding on the outside.
Pfab/No, no, but I mean inside it's cast and (can't hear).
Wilburn/Jeff what you mentioned once this is submitted there may be some
modifications required or recommended. Can you give us a flavor of what
typically what type of modification would be required?
Davidson/It's, I'll be polite here and say it's a little bit difficult to predict FTA,
sometimes they can be very easy and reasonable to work with and other times not
quite as easy and reasonable. We're at least allowing ourselves time Ross for them
to question things and want things made slightly differently. I think that FTA is
committed to letting this be our project and having it designed and approved by
you all I think that's just as important to them as it is to us but ifthere's
something that for some reason jumps out at them as being odd or strange or
something that they would not be inclined to fund we've got time built into our
process to work through those issues and make sure their comfortable.
Wilburn/But structural material kind of thing?
Davidson/No I don't believe at least that they will get into those, it would be more
functional type thing I would think.
Lehman/Where are the taxi cabs, is this for taxi cabs (can't hear)?
Davidson/There will be the ability of cabs to stage around the area, the cab operator
decided he did not want to relocate as he is now in the bus station because he
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wanted to have his maintenance facility and his operating facility together so he
indicated that just having the ability to stage a couple of cabs here is all he wanted
to do.
Vanderhoef/So tell me about the bus terminal part and waiting room, I didn't see that or
how much space is involved with that.
Brown/Yea it's part of the scope of work that you know this budget would be paying for
is the shelf space or the extra walls and the enclosure of the bus facility and then
they as the tenant will do the tenant finish out. We've based the square footage on
the program that the local representative has given us and it's really pretty simple
there's a ticket counter and I think they talked about having maybe two employees
in that area, a waiting room for 15-20 people that would probably have lockers on
one wall and then restroom facilities. They had a baggage storage area and a
mechanical space and really not much to it and again we're showing about 1,300
square feet which is actually a couple hundred square more than what the local
representative requested and we just received some more information from their
national group that it may be a little bit smaller than what they've requested so we
may need to as this continues to evolve and move forward we may need to
encroach upon a few of these spaces we have behind the bus station, that's still to
be determined.
Vanderhoef/But that would be a location also that the way it's presently designed that in
future years could be expanded and take all those (can't hear).
Brown/Exactly it could be doubled in size but who knows.
Vanderhoef/From that one spot there.
Brown/Yea, we've also, you know the day care component led to a lot of the design in
terms of pick up and drop off but to expand on of the questions you asked earlier
and it is designed with the outdoor play area and such as a day care component but
we tried to be sensitive in the design of the elevation to make it a fun and it's own
use but not go overboard so that 10 years from now let's say the day care
component were out of business or if something changed you could have the
flexibility to turn that into commercial space, you know hopefully that never
happens but you want at least protect against that possibility.
Vanderhoef/I guess I still would be interested in just knowing additional cost to put a
basement under that space.
Brown/We could do that, it could be used as storage of mechanical, it would be tough to
use it I think through the regulations of day care space because.
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Vanderhoef/Oh yea, I wasn't thinking day care space but putting in a basement
sometimes right now is fairly inexpensive even if we're not clear what we were
going to use it for.
Brown/Yea we could certainly price that out.
Pfab/Steve I believe he had a question first, do you have a question?
Kanner/Yea, Sometimes buses come in the middle of the night via Greyhound early
morning where they're locked up, is there any space where people can wait
indoors and seated somewhere that might also be heated in the winter for when
the Greyhound is locked?
Brown/And you're saying the waiting area would be locked off (can't hear).
Kanner/Well now it is I'm not sure if they're going to keep the same tradition it would be
locked at certain times and so you have to wait outside.
Davidson/Yea I assume that's an operating issue with the (can't hear) facility and I mean
we enter into an agreement with that with that entity and we're assuming we're
going to be working with the same entity that could be something we address at
the time we actually do the lease with that group, but I assume that's their policy
not our policy.
Kanner/Right so we want to, what I'm getting at is we want to look at an area where
people can sit and wait in the winter also for our buses that come through there it
might be something that worth while having for the two different bus systems.
Brown/But I would presume that the stair tower located in that comer would probably be
open not that that maybe is as large as a waiting area but there would be space
within that stair tower.
Kanner/Well we might want to figure out that configuration in relationship to waiting for
Greyhound and waiting for Iowa City and how that' s going to play out and how
people will be able to see the buses coming and also stay warm while waiting for
a bus.
Pfab/Do you have upper level floor plans? I mean we see the first floor here it's all
parking. OK all fight.
Brown/Yea this shows level two and truly with the parking facility they're all the same
as you go up above.
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Pfab/They're all the same. OK, I'm just trying to. So now how do you move from one
level to the other in a vehicle?
Brown/Through a vehicle?
Pfab/Yea.
Brown/The west you knows it's two bays of parking, the west bay you know one end it
starts out leveling you slope up and the other end your sloping down so it's that
type of situation.
Pfab/OK.
Kanner/So how much is the fifth floor going to cost in your estimation?
Brown/We target that at about $1.1 million and as we've gone through our cost estimate
we've done what I call a very detailed schematic estimate of the construction cost
but we have included in that 7 72 percent of contingency so I don't know the
number off the top of my head but we have close to a million dollars of
contingency within our design estimate and then we've also allowed a little bit of
construction contingency and that's why we'd like to bid it as an alternate because
we're hoping and again if we hit a good bidding climate, you know the bidding
climate can have a big impact on bids if you get a lot of contractors interested in it
versus times if you bid it at the wrong time and the contractors are busy so we'd
like to design it both ways and bid it both ways and hopefully see if we can make
it work.
Kanner/What is the component that receives the 80 percent federal support, I mean what
components don't receive that?
Davidson/Well we'll find out when they tell us, we're assuming Steven we're submitting
this with the intention that 100 percent of it would be eligible for the 80/20
funding, ifthere's some element that for some reason FTA isn't comfortable with
I'm sure they'll tell us about it and we'll have to work through that but we're
anticipating this entire thing that you've seen presented tonight the Phase I portion
of it will be eligible for the 80/20 fund.
Kanner/And the Phase II commercial?
Davidson/The Phase II commercial is not part of our federal aid project, that's why we
named it Phase I and Phase II, but we do believe that at some point in the future
and that could be a very short range future certainly once our Phase I project is up
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there will be an even greater amount of interest for the Phase II portion of the
project but that could of course be built by the city as a public project but I think
more likely is that it would be built as a private project in conjunction with our
project but be privately funded and be owned by a private entity.
Kanner/So and the original design where the commercial was part of the whole thing that
included anticipation of getting 80 percent from the Feds for that too. So my
point that I'm getting at is we could design this with less parking and more
commercial using perhaps maybe the same space, we could have the commercial
pushed back perhaps back behind the Mod Pod and our Phase II could be
additional commercial and that and so that's what I'm trying to get at. I think the
commercial would be a key component and that's one of the things that people are
trying to sell is the commercial is the one that's going to pay big dividends down
the road and it makes sense to me to think about having more commercial in
Phase I and less parking, I think that's more beneficial for the project but I'm
wondering if that's been configured?
Davidson/That has not been configured.
Kanner/OK. I'm trying to figure, if it's going to be in the same space would it be
approximately the same amount of money $12 million, we've been told we have
constraints of 4 million over budget with adding commercial but if we took away
parking 4 million worth of parking perhaps and then had the commercial so we
would equal 12 million we would still have the 80 percent from the fed's and have
our commercial there and just have less parking perhaps, 25 percent let's say less
parking of the 540.
Davidson/That is not something that we have not investigated.
Lehman/How would you design that structure to add, where would you put more
commercial with the anticipation that somebody's going to want to used it? I
mean you've used Dubuque Street with the day care, the bus depot is using Court
Street, where would you put additional commercial in that building if your going
to leave the one end, no, no, in Phase I.
Brown/In Phase I.
Lehman/Where would you add commercial into that project that would be leaseable or
sellable space?
Brown/I guess my initial reaction would be fight now we have about 25,000 square feet
of commercial if we were told we want to make that 40,000 or whatever the magic
number is I think the most logical way would be to increase the depth in the north-
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south direction and keep it. When you've got the commercial you've got the
stairs, and the elevator, and the restroom floor and all of those components to try
to do that again in another spot becomes pretty inefficient I think the best way
would be to make what we have bigger, make the one floor level bigger and then
still do the other floors. We could also, we've shown a three story component
there' s nothing that says that couldn't be four stories of commercial if you wanted
to add another level would be another option.
Vanderhoef/(can't hear).
Pfab/Now that will never be as high as the tallest part of the ramp?
Brown/What's interesting, you can see in this elevation even three stories of commercial
is getting close to a five story ramp because that 5th story of the ramp doesn't
have a roof on it you know it's open to the air. And the floor to floor in an office
building is taller than a floor to floor in a parking facility. You've driven through
these and if you drive a van you almost think your going to hit your roof on the
parking structure because they're kept pretty tight.
Pfab/So it really isn't inconceivable that you couldn't put a fourth story on that
commercial?
Davidson/Yea but we've tried to do, what Karin and I gave Bradd as guidance when we
started this process was to take a look at the CB-5 zone which is you know we
wanted to end up with something here as a public project that's going to be
consistent and fit in with what CB-5 zone maybe result for additional
development in this area and the scale of the building that you see here reflects,
we wouldn't recommend going at least considerably taller with this because we
want to keep it in scale with the project that has been built recently in the area
which you all know of as well of future projects on this block in the area.
Lehman/Well Jeff with the rest of that block which would include Phase II which
obviously we're not looking at right now but also the Hieronymus Square project
and the Rebel Motel we're looking at a rather sizable amount of commercial
development that basically would feed off of this facility for parking needs and
whatever.
Davidson/Absolutely I mean we're hoping that this is a catalyst for the further
redevelopment of the area.
Lehman/Right. Now what is it you need from us or you would like from us or what' s the
process?
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Davidson/You've seen the concept plan that Bradd has presented unless there is a
majority of you that want to change some elements of it, direct us to look into
something we haven't addressed, this is what we intend to submit to FTA and
we're looking for your blessing to do that.
Pfab/I would certainly, I'm very uncomfortable that we don't go underground with some
parking because of the location of that space I mean it just to me it's just like if we
were sitting out in the middle of a desert it would be a great building but I mean
that space is valuable space. You're looking at a 100 year life expectancy of a
building, it's awful hard to dig out space (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/Your thinking may be right in the 100 year perspective however for the
additional cost of three times that cost to put more parking under there at this
point in time and meet our goal of $12 million I think we have a real large
constraint and I won't support it.
Pfab/Is it, OK, I don't know if this is the right place to say this, are we basically
constrained by $12 million dollars so we don't have to go to a public referendum?
Davidson/I believe the City Manager has indicated we are constrained by the $12 million
dollars (can't hear).
Pfab/But the constraint is so it's not necessary to go through a public referendum?
Atkins/No the constraint so it can be financed by a federal grant and parking revenue. If
you wish to add any kind of general obligation component to the project that's
certainly up to you and that would likely require a public referendum.
Vanderhoef/Anything over $700,000.
Pfab/I would, as strong as I feel about using the underground I would certainly think that
that is an option that ought to be considered, that's my personal feeling.
Lehman/Isn't the significant cost factor in operating and underground parking facility as
well, ventilation, lighting, security?
Pfab/Well it doesn't have to be 100 percent underground does it I don't know?
Lehman/Well I don't know rather.
Rebora/It would add to the sprinkler system of ventilation as well as lighting because we
wouldn't have the exterior. The other thing to keep in mind is that although there
could be market for a special group to sell those spaces to, the way revenues
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typically work in a parking garage is they are expensive to build and you depend
on turnover of spaces in other words you have a number of people sharing the
same space which ends up paying for that one space. If you assign a space to
someone then you're dependent upon that monthly charge to pay for that space
which is very rare to do unless in your in a very urban (can't hear).
Pfab/Well I guess and I don't know if this is the time to ask this. How many spaces do
we have in our public parking that are assigned spaces?
Davidson/Zero (can't hear).
Pfab/Pardon.
Davidson/Mr. Fowler is signaling zero that are assigned.
Lehman/Assigned that's fight.
Davidson/In other words our permit spaces are licenses to unassigned space they don't
have an assigned space.
Pfab/So we have no, at the present time we have no assigned spaces in any of the parking
ramps?
Davidson/Apparently that is correct.
Lehman/OK let's take one thing at a time. Irvin feels strongly about underground
parking, are there other folks who share that concern?
Wilburn/No.
O'Donnell/No.
Lehman/OK what other comments do we have for these folks before we say that we like
it or we don't like it?
Vanderhoef/I would just like to found out what it would cost to put storage space under
the day care.
Lehman/Well the only thing I guess I would be interested in is what precisely that's,
that's not going to, I realize the underground space is not you know by some
standards going to cost less money but I think there needs to be a use for that
space so I don't think that basement space is going to be commercial space and if
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it's going to be only storage space can we justify the cost of a basement for
storage? I mean that needs to be addressed as well.
Vanderhoef/I agree.
Lehman/Other comments.
Karmer/Well I would like to get the commercial space in now and see it design with that.
Certainly when you have a conception it doesn't fit in with that conception the
idea is you come back with a new thing and I'm sure you folks are creative and
they would find a way to fit it in and especially if we're going to get 80 percent it
makes sense to keep that commercial component along with the idea that we're
going to be receiving money in the future for public transportation for the lease of
that after that we pay off so I say Phase I should include more commercial space.
Lehman/How do the rest of us feel about more commercial space?
Pfab/How difficult would it be to come back with our general concept of more
commercial space?
Davidson/Well I think.
Lehman/Well I don't sense that there's enough interest.
Davidson/(can't hear) that we have now.
Pfab/No, no, I mean first of all what is the cost to come up with the concept?
Lehman/Well the point is if there isn't interest incoming with it then we don't need to
move forward with it.
Pfab/OK.
Lehman/My biggest concern on that block is that there' s going to be depending on how
big Hieronymus Square is going to be there's going to be more than enough
commercial space on that block without us adding more into the basic Phase I.
O'Donnell/And a tremendous need for parking on that block (can't hear).
Lehman/Well with Phase II is what, what's the footprint there 25,000?
Davidson/What (can't hear) 8,500 or so.
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Lehman/No, the northern 60 feet of that.
Vanderhoef/The commercial space is 25,000.
Lehman/Phase II.
Brown/25,000 on the three floors.
Davidson/On three levels.
Vanderhoef/Three floors.
Lehman/25, pardon me, 8,500 per floor there's 25,000 there plus all of Hieronymus
Square plus whatever happens to the Rebel Motel which means there's a
significant amount of commercial space that's going to occur on that block
anyway.
Wilburn/And as is Phase I as designed adjusts the aesthetics putting in that particular
frontage and just again the availability of that combined with that after private like
you were saying Emie.
Davidson/And we really do believe that the Phase II part of our project, the further this
goes on the more desirable is going to be. When our facility, our Phase I facility
is built we're one additional redevelopment begins to occur on the block that
Phase II element of our project is going to be more favorable.
Pfab/When this is built how long do we anticipate this will satisfy the parking needs in
that area?
Davidson/Well this project you will recall is accelerating our construction of the next
planned parking facility by about two years and you know past then we're going
to have to wait and see a little bit what happens in the near south side
neighborhood. We do have one additional facility, we've been targeting the area
of the Federal Building parking lot but there just needs to be more critical mass in
the neighborhood before we get to that Irvin, I think you'd be talking at least
another five years, perhaps longer.
Kanner/So what's the anticipated vacancy rate in the three garages next to each other?
What's anticipate once this is built then we also have the Sheraton and then you
have Old Capitol Mall all next to each other. What's the anticipated vacancy rate
of the three garages on an average?
Davidson/It's, it's.
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Pfab/Utilization rate.
Davidson/Exactly Steven.
Kanner/It's what?
Davidson/It's what you do with rates, it's difficult to predict that precisely.
Kanner/But are we basing this on the fact that we're going to use a certain amount, I'm
sure we have some figures on it.
Davidson/This as I said, this because of the availability of the Federal funding we have
accelerated the construction of this ramp by about two years, two or three years
sooner than we thought we were going to strictly speaking needed to the policies
you've given us for operating the parking system and constructing half of the
facilities. We think though that that infusion of Federal money gives us an
opportunity to create a catalyst for additional development in this area. So
although we may have vacant spaces for a certain duration the Fed's have
essentially subsidized the construction of those so we can provide a catalyst for
additional redevelopment and then be back to where we thought we were going to
be.
Kanner/So what' s the utilization or vacancy rate either way to look at how much will be
pilled to those three approximately and (can't hear).
Davidson/Can't remember how much exactly.
Lehman/That's impossible to figure until you see what happens with the rest of the lot.
Kanner/So I would say we probably don't need it.
Lehman/Well then you can just as easily say we need more.
Kanner/Right you could go either way and I think it's kind of crazy to base something,
$2 ½ million on that basis.
Lehman/Well we have to start somewhere.
Pfab/I have just one question. At this point there is no anticipation of ever putting a
fourth story on the commercial space?
Davidson/Well the commercial space is wide open.
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Pfab/No, no, no, I mean permission to do that, that's not in the cards at this point that it
will ever be developed before (can't hear).
Davidson/No I wouldn't say that at all, it could possibly be, if developed under the CB-5
zone.
Pfab/Right.
Davidson/It could with the incentives that are built into the CB-5 zone it's possible to get
a structure basically 5 stories tall that occupy the entire lot (can't hear).
Pfab/So in other words other than the commercial viability of it there's no reason to stop
a 4 or 5 story commercial building OK.
Davidson/The underlying zoning would (can't hear) allow a taller than three story
structure.
Pfab/But the ramp is as high as it would ever be able to go?
Davidson/Well that will be zoned public so technically it would be as high as you want
to make it but we believe having our project reflect a scale and massing of what
we're going to require the private sector to do makes good sense.
Pfab/Is it, OK if you go with a fifth story since you're not going to use the ground, is it
ever going to be possible to add another story?
Davidson/Not unless you tell us now that that's something that you'd like us to be able to
do.
Lehman/But the fifth story would be a possible addition if it were not.
Davidson/Fifth story whether or not we build now or not will be designed to be added
but nothing above that unless you tell us you want that.
Pfab/And how expensive is it to add? What would the cost change if you said we would
like to go to a, the possibility of a 6th story?
Brown/For the parking garage? You want to field that Steve?
Rebora/We expect that we would have to design the foundations and the structure to take
that and it would probably be somewhere in the magnitude of about $100,000 of
construction.
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Pfab/I'm sorry.
ReboraJ $100,000 is what we think.
Pfab/To build it in.
Davidson/To design the structure.
Lehman/To design the capacity.
Davidson/(can't hear).
Pfab/You're talking design or the construction (can't hear).
Rebora/The actual construction cost.
Pfab/Looks like a bargain if it costs three times to go below.
O'Donnell/But now Emie (can't hear).
(All talking)
Rebora/But all you're doing is getting bigger foundation and more steel.
Lehman/But aren't some of these? But these details, what we're looking for, if I'm not
mistaken you're looking for us to approve the concept, whether this is five stories
or we put the footings in for six or whatever is something that can be decided
later?
Davidson/It needs to be clear though here because there is going to be a lost opportunity
if it's something you're interested in. If you ever want this to be six or seven level
parking facility you need to tell us now so we can get the structural system design
to accommodate that and you can't go back and retro fit that.
Lehman/No but you're not going to design this until you're going to get approval from
the Fed. 's are you?
Pfab/No.
Davidson/Right but we should be factoring that into the plans if that's something that
you really think you would desire, remember each level is about 120 spaces so
you know you would be on the order of 120 to 150 spaces.
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Lehman/But we're also looking at the potential of another facility two blocks away at the
Federal lot at some point 10-15 years down the road is that correct?
Davidson/That's correct.
O'Donnell/And with this, go ahead.
Lehman/Well I guess what we're really looking at is how important is it that we keep the
scale at a certain level when we have another facility within two blocks.
Pfab/I think that, I would, then I will cease to worry about the basement if you'll, if we'll
build it so if we have to we can because I look at a jail and I can look at a public
library and I kind of get queasy to my stomach.
O'Donnell/But with these present, with the present structure we're able to go up an
additional floor is that fight?
Pfab/No not after.
Davidson/Four is total.
O'Donnell/What's that?
Davidson/Five floors total of parking with what we're designing.
O'Donnell/Right.
Pfab/But they're going to bid it out at five see as an alternate bid.
Lehman/Four with a fifth as an alternate.
Pfab/OK so what I'm saying to you is are we getting a maximum use, now this isn't for
next week this is, they're telling me this is a 100 year structure.
O'Donnell/That' s fight Irvin and cars may be flying then.
Pfab/They may be.
Lehman/All fight. The other factor that I think you also have to consider when you've
got five or six or seven floors is you still only have a certain number of ways in
and out. There has to be some constraint based on the ingress and egress.
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Pfab/But this isn't, I don't think this is primary a shopping type of facility, this is more a
long term park and it's not like next to the mall. I mean I think we're looking at
longer time parking here, all day long.
Davidson/Anybody for additional floors?
Wilburn/Could we state now whether or not we wish to go with as presented?
Lehman/Yes, yes, are there four of us who would wish to proceed with the plan basically
as it has been presented to us tonight?
Kanner/No.
Wilburn/Yes.
O'Donnell/Yes.
Pfab/I'm sorry what was the, say it again.
Lehman/Are there four of us who would like to proceed with the plan as it has been
presented to us tonight which would be four story parking with an alternate to go
five and the day care center, the bus depot, commercial as you see it tonight?
Pfab/I'll go along with it.
Lehman/You will proceed and we will take a break.
Broadway Improvement Group Update (1 P2 of 10/20 packet and 4F3 of Consent
Calendar
Lehman/Who is going to talk to us about that?
Pat Meyer/There are actually three of us who are going to talk and I'm going to start and
we'll try to make this really brief. I'm Pat Meyer, I'm staff at Neighborhood
Centers of Johnson County and start looking at this project as part of my job there
in February we sort of started talking with people at the city staff about was there
a way in the past we wanted to do something different on Broadway. In the past I
think we've been rather reactive crisis happens, something bad happens and
there's a lot of activity and then that it seems like that sort of falls away and so we
wanted to approach it a little bit differently, build on the efforts that were made by
Jerry Hansen and the Wetherby Friends and Neighbors, all the improvements done
at the park some of those kinds of things and figure out a way to sustain that. We
looked at two things that we thought needed to happen and one was that we
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needed to sort of, we wanted to move from chasing problems which hasn't been
worked very well because all you do is end up just moving the problems around
and how do you tell, we're never going to solve some of them completely but that
to building more assets in the neighborhoods, how do we make sure that good
things are happening because we think that's a way to elevate things in the light,
to enlighten the experience to everybody there. The other was that we were really
worded about sort of when Econofoods left that was really hard on the
neighborhood after Best Buy had left so we wanted to look at how do, people who
live in the neighborhood also work the economics sector because those seem so
intertwined. So we pulled, I think the other thing I want to emphasize I guess I'm
really nervous doing this is how important we thought partnerships would be that
in the past for example there has been things that have happened and so
neighborhoods center scrambled the last time there was a crisis whether it be
Friends and Neighbors scrambled but we really needed to pull together a lot of
people and a lot of different, what Brian always, my boss always call "Stake
Holders" different people who have an interest in that, in the well being of that
neighborhood including the people who are renters there and homeowners there
and people who have property there and people who have businesses there and
those kinds of things. So we have been working since May the Broadway, and I
think you got a letter from, you've gotten regular updates from Steve Long from
the city staff about some of the projects we've been involved in. We came to you
for a couple of reasons, one we thought it was time to update you that we think
some really good things are happening and we're excited about some of the things
that are coming out of this. For example it was a big step but sort of bring
together some different cultures but after working with RJ and having him come
out and his staff come out and meet with residents one of the things we're going
to try is giving is having space for police and Department of Corrections at the
neighborhood centers. We've talked a long term goal being a facility, a couple
other people are going to talk about that, we're hoping we'll get support from you
but we're going to try that at least in our very crowded space to make that work
and see what the impact is on the neighborhood and think they'll be in the
neighborhood in a different way having space there rather than when they just
come into the neighborhood. We have a very active neighborhood, advisory
council, Wendi is here from that council, she is not going to talk because we're
running out of time but or because time is so late but you'll be hearing more from
that group I think as we go on. From neighborhood centers perspective one of the
big issues for us is that we are at capacity right now, there are lots of things we
would like to do in the neighborhood, we started out this process not having a
particular agenda in mind and heard a lot from, we did a series of focus groups,
number of discussions with a number of different groups about the need for more
facilities, more rec. programs those types of things. That's not something without
a lot of partnership and more facilities that we're going to do, we're so crowded
now that there's just not space. We've been really successful we think in
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leveraging a number of resources into the neighborhood, we get, we're successful
in getting grants that kind of thing but if we don't have space to do the work we're
sort of are at a point where we're stopping and there' s some real needs in that
neighborhood. We're again just at the beginning part of this part of partnerships
but we think they're important, we think they're something that we can sustain.
For example we did a cleanup this weekend, I'm not sure that we've ever had
people out in the neighborhood with volunteers from other parts of the community
to pick up all the trash. But it feels like we learned a lot from the weekend, it was
successful, people, kids were excited, parents were excited and it was something
that we can now do on a regular basis because we've done it so I think we're
building some things that will be ongoing that I think are going to contribute to
better experience in that neighborhood. I'm going to turn it over to Harry Wolf at
this point, the person from Southgate.
Harry Wolff Good evening, I am Harry Wolf with Southgate Development, I wear several
hats tonight, I am an active member of the big task force, I also happen to be on
the Board of Directors of the Neighborhood Centers, have been for years but I'll
really speak more for Southgate's interest this evening. I want to thank the city
for putting the resources behind this entire effort, Steve and his staff have been
marvelous to work with and I know Council is giving this special attention so we
want to thank you for that. We're going to need to ask you to continue to be
patient, this process will take some time and some more time and it's real
important, and what we're really asking for tonight is for that effort to be
sustained so that we don't false start some of the good things that we've done.
Frankly I think some of the false starts in the past have led to some of the issues
we're dealing with now. I'd like to make four points and leave it at that unless
there are some questions. Sustaining this effort is important as I said, we'd like to
ask and we'll ask formally tomorrow night at the meeting for Council to continue
to support any commercial, or CIP priorities as far as that neighborhood and
specifically we're concemed about the Highway 6 work that's been proposed. My
second point is falling up on that Highway 6 improvements Southgate has
explored and has designed a direct access off of Highway 6 into the Kmart-
Pepperwood area as we spoke to several months ago. We can certainly move
ahead with that improvement and we will as soon as we have in hand prospects
for the space but the Highway 6 improvements will make that project that much
more attractive so again we will be coming forward at some point for specific
approval of that new entrance. Third and this comes out of the big task force and
the economic development portion of that task force, the idea of tax incentives
have come up I know you've recently spent a considerable amount of time passing
the Sycamore area actually an extended area and specifically the Sycamore Mall
request, likely we will be coming in and asking for something similar, we've held
back until we've felt that there were users out there that would take advantage of
that. I'm not convinced that we do have users that would effectively use those
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tools but we certainly want to leave that open and again the big task force feels
that' s a very important component and we would agree. And finally coming out
of the discussions with the big task force as Pat just indicated is a need and desire
for more public facilities in the neighborhood. Everything from recreation to
public safety, and everything in between and Southgate supports that idea, I
certainly support it as a member of the Board of neighborhood centers know that
we have in a short time really have stripped the space that we have on Broadway
Street. I've had several meetings with senior staff of the city, looking at the
possibility of putting such a facility in the neighborhood whether it be directly in
the Pepperwood area or elsewhere in the neighborhood, we obviously have a fair
amount of vacant space right now and we believe that it may be very well
consistent to bring some public component into the neighborhood and mix it with
the commercial components that are already there. So with that again I thank you
for your support for the big task force and I'll answer any questions.
Pfab/How much space is not income producing, what percentage of that Pepperwood
Mall is not income producing to the owners at this time?
Wolff Well the mall itself would be upwards of, well income producing let me answer it a
couple different ways, occupied we have close to 70 percent vacancy, it would be
35 percent if you add in the Kinart area. There are still leases available and the
majority of the anchor tenants so there is income still coming into Southgate.
Pfab/So percentage of square footage how much is producing income of the total space
there and how much is not?
Wolf/I would say 20 percent is not producing income.
Pfab/So you have a 20 percent total vacancy right.
Wolff Right.
Kanner/And what' s the Highway 6 delay that you're talking about?
Wolff The city's Highway 6 project?
Kanner/Yea.
Wolf/We're not sure there is a delay we just know that you will be reviewing the CIP
budget and we just want to stress how important we believe that particular project
is to the well being of the neighborhood and would ask council to maintain that
as a high priority.
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Kanner/Oh so you're doing a little preemptive strike there and saying keep it at where
it's at and don't think about moving it down.
Wolff Right.
Lehman/Keep it.
woman/(can't hear).
Wolf/It has been, yes, we understand a portion of it was delayed this year although it was
to be doubled up next year we would just hope that the schedule is maintained.
Kanner/Is there any plan to delay this?
Atkins/Shouldn't be, it's up to you all when you do budget but right now back should be
fight on track.
Lehman/CIP.
Vanderhoef/CIP's, everything is on the table.
Wilburn/I don't have a question, I just have a comment, I think you know to complement
you as both a Board Member at the neighborhood centers but also to complement
neighborhood centers Pat for you all. Really taking a communitive development
approach to this and working with Jerry and the Pepperwood I forget one, the
Pepperwood neighborhood but you mentioned the stakeholders and putting
together the community resources you're trying to hold a collaboration together. I
know it can be difficult with everyone having different interests but realizing that
you know together there's a bigger prize that you're aiming for so I and
recognizing that everybody's not going to get what they want along the way a
particular item but together if you hold you know hold strong it will accomplish
some good things together. And also recognizing that there's different roles that
each of us can play. And I complement.
(END OF 00-99 SIDE ONE)
Wilburrd Because especially when you know negative stuff is going to happen along the
way it's really easy to get pulled to get sidetracked, these negative things happen
all over the community but a lot of times it gets accentuated because it's on the
southeast side I just want to encourage you to, you know I thamk you for coming
tonight and you know keep your energy up, keep getting together and keep
moving forward and I'm looking forward to trying to work together with you.
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Pfab/Is it possible to ask Pat a question or two? I mean is there another person that's
going to speak besides?
Meyer/Jerry.
Wolff Jerry Hansen.
Pfab/Oh I can wait for after, 10 minutes, yea just have a seat where it's comfortable.
Lehman/Thanks Harry. Go ahead Jerry.
Jerry Hansen/Oh let's see for the last two years I've been doing two things, one is
working for a living and when I'm not working for a living I've been living for a
solution to the Broadway neighborhood Wetherby problems, I don't want to make
this a life long quest, we need solutions and we need them soon. The Broadway
Improvement Group has been put together to do this, others, several committees
that look at different areas of things, I'm on the neighborhood safety and image
committee and as far as that goes we're very concerned about the image of the
neighborhood in one it's looks factor and we think that that Highway 6 project
will go a long way toward helping that out. We're going to be presenting you a
package when we finally get all of our opinions put together and this package is
going to contain very easy solution things, no brainers, either no money or very
little bit of money and you probably won't have any trouble with that. Some of
the things may be very controversial and these things I really hope that we can
count on your support for these. If we as the Broadway Improvement Group
decide that we need a program in place to prevent crime in rental housing in the
district and we choose a program to do that I really hope that we can count on you
for this. I know that this package deal that we delivered to you there may be a lot
of things you don't like, some you do like, and I hope that the controversial ones
just aren't tossed away because they may be a problem. To prevent crime in
housing we've looked to the Department of Justice and they have a program that
we're all reading right at the moment and it's a program that would cost money
and would be an ongoing type of thing for the neighborhood. Whether we decide
that that will be an option we're going to offer, that's up to everybody on the
panel but I just hope that if we do come up to you with these types of conclusions
that we think the neighborhood needs that your going to stand up and be counted
on this kind of stuff, I know it may be politically incorrect but we're looking for
answers.
Vanderhoef/How soon are you planning on bringing the package to us?
Hansen/Like Harry said it may be a little while I've been working since May but
personally I'd like to see this thing wrapped up by the end of the year.
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Vanderhoef/Prior to our budget time?
Hansen/Yes.
Meyer/Yes.
Hansen/You know like Steve said it's a little preempted strike on the CIP you know
issues and stuff.
Vanderhoef/That's right.
Hansen/But it has been delayed and to us we don't need anymore delay over there for
this stuff, we need solutions, we need answers and we need them now.
Vanderhoef/And we need some time also to work through this and put it into perspective
into the entire budget and asking for it later will be much more difficult.
Hansen/Yes.
Pfab/OK the question that I have is what is that apartment complex basically across the
street from the center?
Hansen/Cedarwood.
Pfab/OK that is a public, is that the right way, public financed.
Hansen/Section 8 Housing fight.
Pfab/OK how long is it before the owners are have run the course on that and I
understand it will not be Section 8 after that?
Hansen/Well I'm not sure whether it will be or won't be.
Kanner/Well anything can be Section 8.
Pfab/Not Section 8 but.
Lehman/Just a second Eleanor.
Dilkes/Well I think somebody should clarify what kind of housing we're talking about.
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Steve Long/It's called Project Based Housing and their contract with HUD is up in year
2002.
Pfab/2002.
Long/So we haven't.
Pfab/I have every reason to believe it's not going to continue on.
Long/We don't know for sure, we haven't heard either way.
Pfab/That's what I've heard and I from a fairly reliable source, they have no interest in
continuing on so that's something that I think is going to have to go into the mix.
Long/Certainly that' s something the city needs to look into also, affordable housing
policy it's 64 units.
Pfab/I know.
Kanner/Well can you explain contract housing with HUD, what that means?
Long/Basically what it is when it was built they received they received money from HUD
they had, they don't receive any other assistance, that money was for that project
and so those 64 units, they're all 2 bedrooms in this case, and in this case every
one who lives there has to have (can't hear) which puts further burden on the
neighborhood so they do not receive any additional Section 8 assistance, the
money was all up front is what I'm saying.
Kanner/So people can not use Section 8 assistance?
Long/No.
O'Donnell/Jerry when did you say we're going to get the packet?
Hansen/I can't say specifically, I would like to see it personally done by the end of the
year.
O'Donnell/OK.
Lehman/And it probably, when we receive the packet is probably the time we can
address specific issues.
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O'Donnell/Well there are some really good things happening there and the computers
and the park being finished and there are some good things happening and Jerry
and a lot of it is due to your tireless effort and from listening to Pat if you have the
ambition that Jerry does this thing will get done and I agree with you totally we
have to keep working on that side of town and I look forward to working with
you.
Hansen/Well I hope you know you're looking at the whole picture of this thing I mean
it's more than just put up a store front, or fill a building or pick up a shopping
cart, I mean you guys the way I look at this I mean what makes you think that
businesses are going to come to that community until we solve our people
problems over there. And Irvin you make a comment about this building go back
into a market rate building and those people would have to pay market rate rents
in Iowa City.
Pfab/That' s the scary part.
Hansen/OK, fight, now how are you going to fill that building if we don't solve some of
the more controversial problems?
Pfab/I agree, I mean no, it is a problem that's begging for solutions and I think we have
to put, that has to be basically maximum effort, it's not fair to the people that have
lived there and I think it's an area that's crying out for help.
Hansen/It is, 95 percent of people who live in that are good law abiding citizens, we have
a problem with a few people and we need to find our solutions and gear them
toward that. I know that Pat commented about putting space in the neighborhood
center for policeman and parole officer and Valefie Kemp from the DCS called
me tonight and she said yes there will be a parole officer assigned full time to that
neighbor. And on the first of November they're going to start putting up a wall in
the neighborhood center, yea so this is going to happen very quickly that we'll
have that kind of help there.
Lehman/Give us your proposals and we'll sure go to work on them.
Kanner/Pat after (can't hear).
Pfab/OK I would imagine that your going to be looking at drug testing attendance.
Lehman/That's something we can get into when we get the proposal.
Hansend That is not in the proposal that we're looking at right now but what is in there is
educating the landlords and the property owners mean this has been a huge
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problem that I've encountered in the past is that somebody that who owns a
duplex doesn't have the same kind of commitment to figure out who's going to
live there like someone else does.
Pfab/Especially if they're absentee.
Hansen/Right.
Pfab/If they live in half of it they're real careful.
Hansen/Right, and this is one of the controversial things.
Lehman/Well and you going to spell those things out in your proposal?
Hansen/Yes.
Lehman/OK.
Kanner/Pat, I had a question for you. (Can't hear) what I think what the neighborhood
center has been doing and the BIG group has been doing is exciting, one thing that
I noticed though that I had a little bit of concern is I looked at the attendance of
the last two meetings and from the 9:15 BIG meeting the attendance listed 12
people and only 2 of those appeared to be residents unless some of the staff
people might be working there and I know it's always difficult to get people to
participate in these things but I'd like to hear what efforts are being made to get
people from these apartments that Irvin was talking about, other places in there
that perhaps don't typically get involved in these kind of things so how are we
getting people besides we have the developers, the city people, the neighborhood
center staff, are we getting the residents who are fight in the middle of this, we
have two from what I see out of 12.
Meyer/Right and yea, part of that is we're doing constant sort of outreach efforts of
talking to people that we know or are involved in projects in the neighborhood,
Wendi's here, an example from that group. I think that one of the issues is that
we need to go back to the group and talk about is when we have meetings often
times they're scheduled when people are working and I think we're struggling
with some of those issues about how to improve access. The other thing I'm
heafing from people is they'd rather put energy, you know the steering committee
is important but they'd rather be working on projects that directly affect them in
the neighborhood, some of this other stuff feels a little more removed so I think
we're struggling with some of that and doing leadership development so people
feel comfortable going to meetings.
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Wilburn/You do have a core set up information from the focus groups though that I'm
assuming is that correct?
Meyer/Right.
Wilburn/OK so there's a basis to work from.
Meyer/Right, and that group is meeting every other week, the neighborhood advisory
council so that we can keep, everybody keeps talking about that and they're doing
a lot of their own, for example the dialogue with the police department is
something that neighborhood advisory is taking on and making sure we have a
good turnout and those feel like I don't know if I'm making sense but BIG is
important but I think the day to day stuff is as important for people who live in the
neighborhood about carrying out projects so who live in the immediate area.
Hansen/I'd also like to say that there's been at least 3 flyers that have invited people to
come to this meeting, in the individual committee meetings we sent out flyers to
all the people that live in the Wetherby area inviting them to be a part of this, so
there has been thousands and thousands of mailings out to these people so we've
really tried to do our best to get out there and get the message to them.
Pfab/Are we talking that the changes in the neighborhood just being restricted to the little
spot there?
Hansen/Well this was looked on as a test plot.
Pfab/Is that as far as it's, I hope we're looking at a broader range.
Hansen/This is what I'm talking about the controversial thing OK because if we put in
some type of program to eliminate crime in the rental units I don't think you can
just put it into those particular units, you have to take this city wide, there might
be some big owners like Clark or some others in town who just don't want to go
along with this plan.
Pfab/It looks to me like the percentage of parking space was an awful large percentage of
that area that you're looking there and that just to me I question if it was ever a
viable unit because of the little boundaries around what is it Highway 6, Keokuk,
Taylor and it looked to me like it was too small a neighborhood to be.
Hansen/There's a lot of people that live in that neighborhood.
Pfab/Right but it looked to me that the problem didn't quit at that boundaries.
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Hansen/It doesn't quit there.
Pfab/I mean that' s the part that.
Hansen/When we move them out of that area they'll move to another area, it'll have to
go city wide.
Pfab/It looked to me like, that was the most frustrating when I looked at it.
Kanner/One other question for Steve and Terry. Was the Mercer Park Recreation Center
suppose to take care of that whole area south of Broadway or are there plans in the
future to have recreation centers south of Highway 67 Or have there been
discussions about that?
Terry Trueblood/No that's not intended to cover that whole part of town, we do the best
we can with it and you know we are working, or initiating some programs for
primarily junior high and high school and at risk youth. But no that, Highway 6 is
quite a dividing line, we don't have any immediate plans for anything south of
Highway 6 with respect to facilities unless something like this comes forth you
know in the Best Buy building we've been talking about.
Kanner/Was there ever long term plans, discussion among staff saying maybe 10 years
down the road we're going to need something there?
Trueblood/There hasn't been to this point no.
Meyer/But I want to be real clear Terry' s been involved in some of our discussions about
what facility (can't hear).
O'Donnell/You have to be in the mic.
Lehman/We can't hear you, we can hear you, Marian can't hear you.
Meyer/I just want to be real, say that Terry has been involved in the discussions, we've
invited him, members of his staff to talk with us about possible development of
facilities so and that would be another partnership that we would look at so and I
should have said that earlier so he's been part of the conversation.
Lehman/OK we'll wait, I'm sorry.
Wilburn/Thanks for coming to make the presentation, I would encourage council
members to allow a package to come to us rather than.
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Lehman/Right.
Wilburn/This way it's coming from the neighborhood, from the collaboration before we
dictate and pick out our priorities, I would rather look at the package as a whole
and then we can.
Vanderhoef/Then we have to massage what we can and can't do and put it on a time
schedule.
Wilburn/I think that' s only fair.
Vanderhoef/I do too.
Kanner/But people might want to hold off from going to the meetings I think from going
to the meetings.
Wilburn/Well but, even here we got into a conversation with well what about this, what
about this, this is leading towards dictating what's going to come to us rather than
allowing it to come to us and then working with us so.
Kanner/I don't think that was the case Ross, in my perspective.
Wilburn/Well that was my perspective so.
Lehman/Well in any event we'll wait until we hear from them and then we'll address the
proposals that were made (can't hear). OK.
Plannine, and Zonin~ Items
Lehman/Zoning items.
Vanderhoef/Are we backwards or something today?
A. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING AN APPROVED OPDH-
12 PLAN TO ALLOW A 40-UNIT ASSISTED LIVING BUILDING ON 2.87
LOCATED ON THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF SCOTT BOULEVARD AND
AMERICAN LEGION ROAD. (REZ00-00020)
Karin Franklin/OK, the first item is a public hearing on an ordinance approving OPDH
amended OPDH-12 plan, this was for the Silvercrest development and basically it
changes the 40 unit or changes the rehabilitation center to a 40-unit assisted living
building, basically it's an Alzheimer's facility in this project. Just to refresh you
where Silvercrest is we're at the comer of American Legion Road and Scott
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Boulevard and basically it's in the southern part of this entire project that we're
talking about, this is an elevation of the building, just for your information. The
more critical part is the site plan, this direction, this way is south and this is the
general site of where the rehab facility was planned, this is the medical office that
is University Hospitals medical office and the entrance to this project is coming
from Scott Boulevard which is to the top of the drawing. The issues that were
raised during the Planning & Zoning Commission had to do with the detention
basin which really is not the subject of this consideration at all, that detention
basin was under the original OPDH plan.
Pfab/Could I offer a question or possibility a suggestion?
Franklin/Yea.
Pfab/Is it possible to rotate that so the top would be north?
Franklin/Not in my technical expertise, or lack thereof.
Pfab/OK I'm sorry.
Lehman/But then we couldn't read it (can't hear).
Franklin/I've got to just deal with what's in it, I can only go backward and forward.
Lehman/That's OK, go ahead.
Pfab/I'll accept that graciously.
Franklin/OK thank you. This is the overall site plan and this is the rehab center that
we're talking about basically this building here. Any questions?
Kanner/Oh, I'm sorry, it's going to take a three quarter's vote for us to pass this because
of the protest?
Franklin/No.
Kanner/Those were withdrawn?
Franklin/No you need to have protest representing 20 percent of the property
surrounding, the property under question and they do not represent 20 percent of
the property and the Planning & Zoning Commission recommended approval.
Kanner/And so they were, the person who wrote the letter was erroneous.
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Franklin/They were not formal protests, they were letters, objecting.
Vanderhoef/Well this isn't a rezoning per say, it's just a change of the plan?
Franklin/Yea, it is, no it's a rezoning, it's an amended OPDH which is a rezoning.
Vanderhoef/Amended OK.
Franklin/Yea so it's the same process as any zoning.
Lehman/OK.
Kanner/So I don't quite understand why those don't count as protests, they didn't fill out
the correct form?
Franklin/My understanding that those protests were never formalized, that they wrote
letters that they didn't like.
Lehman/But they were notarized.
Kanner/They were not notarized.
Lehman/They were in the packet.
Franklin/Bob Wolf's is.
Lehman/Yea.
Franklin/Prybil's is not.
Lehman/OK.
Franklin/Wolf is only along the southem boundary here, I mean I'll check on that Steven
but I think my staff would have called it to my attention if it would have been an
extraordinary majority vote, and likewise yours Eleanor.
Lehman/What?
Dilkes/Ditto.
Franklin/That both her staff and my staff would have called it to our attention if it
required an extraordinary majority vote.
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Lehman/Right.
B. AN ORDNANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM LOW
DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESDENTIAL (RM- 12) AND NEIGHBORHOOD
CONSERVATION RESDENTIAL (RNC-20) TO MEDIUM DENSITY
SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-8) FOR FOUR (4) PROPERTIES ON
THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE 900 BLOCK OF IOWA AVENUE, SEVENTEEN
(17) PROPERTIES ON THE 900 AND 1000 BLOCKS OF WASHINGTON
STREET, TEN (10) PROPERTIES ON THE 100 AND 200 BLOCKS OF
SOUTH SUMMIT STREET, FOUR (4) PROPERTIES ON THE EAST SIDE OF
THE 10 AND 100 BLOCKS OF GOVERNOR STREET, THREE (3)
PROPERTIES ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE 1000 BLOCK OF MUSCATINE
AVENUE, AND FWE (5) PROPERTIES ON THE 900 AND 1000 BLOCKS OF
COLLEGE STREET.
Franklin/OK next item is the neighborhood rezoning on Washington, Muscatine and
Summit. I do have to point out an answer to a question Steven that you presented
at the formal council meeting. Muscatine is a collector from Burlington Street to
Iowa Avenue, the arterial portion of Muscatine is coming up and when it hits
Burlington, OOPS I'm sorry Burlington here that is the arterial component
because Burlington goes on through across the river whereas Iowa Avenue stops
at the Pentacrest, OK, so I informed you incorrectly. I don't know is there
anything? I know Dee you've got some issues with this but.
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Franklin/So I'll leave it on this slide.
Vanderhoef/Thanks. I went down this weekend and walked around here and what I was
really looking at was the properties outside of what we're rezoning and looking to
see how they fit into the whole neighborhood. Now to the south we have some
historic districts and we've done some down zoning in the Governor Lucas area
and so forth. But real specifically what I was looking at were the homes on
Governor Street south of Burlington and.
Franklin/Govemor south of Burlington?
Vanderhoef/Or excuse me noah of Burlington and then Iowa Avenue directly across in
that block between Governor and Muscatine but also when I drove on down the
Iowa Avenue area those are all small homes on relatively small lots, there's not
been encroachment at this point of large apartment houses in there. And I don't
know what the mix is of rental or anything else how many have been duplexed or
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anything but I guess I would like to have staff take a look and just report to us
what is there. Where my concern really came in was with the request for down
zoning to RS-8 for that finger of properties to the west.
Franklin/This.
Vanderhoef/Thank you, west of those large apartments and it would create an island to
down zone it but yet those are all single family dwellings with the exception of
one, that' s on the comer I believe of Washington and.
Franklin/There' s a four-plex on the comer and then there' s a duplex just to the noah of
it, those two there.
Vanderhoef/But a duplex would be conforming in the RS-8?
Franklin/If it had sufficient square footage on.
Vanderhoef/On the lot.
Franklin/Let me see if the next one tells me that.
Vanderhoef/OK, then I'm not sure about that.
Franklin/I can't tell you that because in this slide we were just looking at what a single
family could convert to duplex.
Vanderhoef/I guess what I'm asking councilor's is are you interested in having staff just
take a look at the Iowa Avenue and Governor Street to see what is there and see
whether it needs any changes, it's presently an RNC-20 in that area and that's
what we're down zoning in this other area.
Franklin/Can I ask you to define the area that your talking about, I thought you were,
when we talked on the phone it was this block?
Vanderhoef/I'm talking about that block and possibly down into at least the over to
Lucas those that are.
Franklin/Both sides?
Vanderhoef/Yea that are still in the RNC-20.
Franklin/OK.
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Lehman/What does this involve as far as staff time?
Vanderhoef/That's what I don't know either.
Franklin/Well I would say that it probably is if basically what you want to look at is how
these properties are being used now, the size of the properties, the potential for
conversion under RNC-20 your probably talking about 2-4 hours of work.
Pfab/OK could I ask a question Dee?
Vanderhoef/Sure.
Pfab/You, obviously you're thinking of something so what are you saying? You're
thinking about possibly enlarging the area is that what you're?
Vanderhoef/Will at this point we've got a request and we have a moratorium on any
changes in the area that's fight there and I don't know whether this is something
we would or wouldn't pursue but without some information.
Pfab/But you're looking at the idea of just maybe (can't hear).
Lehman/No in addition to, a separate act.
Vanderhoef/In addition, I don't want to hold up what we have before us right now, that
isn't my intent.
Lehman/Her comments aren't relative to what we're going to be talking about tomorrow
night (can't hear).
Pfab/Oh OK, I was thinking that she was in a sense going to piggy back something, that's
what I was.
Vanderhoef/No I don't want to do that.
Pfab/That' s what I was trying to determine if that was what your request was.
Vanderhoef/No that isn't it but it just brought up all these questions for me and if your
willing to have staff spend the 2-4 hours to take a look at that and tell us what's
happening in those other couple of blocks, I'd appreciate it.
O'Donnell/You know I would be comfortable if, you know most of this, right through
here, or all of this is neighborhood initiated and I know that, I guess I'd be more
comfortable if it was neighborhood initiated, that' s the only comment I have on it.
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Vanderhoef/And we may find that it's all rental but when we know that what got
initiated how one of our recent down zonings happened was it was initiated after a
very legal building was put into a RNC-20 and the neighborhood all at once
recognized that this wasn't their vision for their neighborhood but the building
was already there.
O'Dom~ell/What kind of building?
Vanderhoef/It was the four-plex.
O'Donnell/That's what you call it, what was your description?
Vanderhoef/I don't know.
Pfab/It was a wooden building she said.
Vanderhoef/No it very.
Lehman/A very large inappropriate building.
O'Donnell/A lethal building is that what she said?
Lehman/Legal.
Vanderhoef/No, a legal.
O'Donnell/Oh legal.
Vanderhoef/Yea it met all the criteria of RNC-20.
O'Donnell/I guess I would be more comfortable with this if it were neighborhood
initiated and it's, I think we could, at what point do we stop extending this
boundary? I think this council has shown a commitment to preserving
neighborhoods, what we did on Governor and Lucas and what we're about to do
on this one so I guess I'm not looking for staff to have more work.
Lehman/Other comments.
Kanner/So you want to look at the appropriateness for being a conservation zone?
Vanderhoef/That' s a possibility until I have some information I don't know what might
be appropriate in there but we don't have large apartment buildings or collapsing
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of two or three lots there and all of these are pretty much the original homes of 50
to 70 years ago.
Wilburn/But you're saying that won't influence your choice about what's being
requested.
Vanderhoef/No, I'm ready to move forward with what has been requested.
Wilburn/OK.
Vanderhoef/I wish I could down zone that piece to RS-8 that's to the west there and it
creates an island so I can't do that so.
Franklin/That was discussed at the Planning and Zoning Commission and that was one of
the things they struggled with because it did leave it in the midst of RNC-20 or
12.
Vanderhoef/It's all RNC-20 around it and yet with the exception ofthere's a large
sorority house on the comer of Washington and Governor there and there's one
apartment building or rooming house right next door to it to the noah, the rest of
those are small single family houses down on Iowa Avenue in appearance, now
whether they've been duplexed or what they have been done to them I don't
know, that's what I'd like to find out.
Franklin/What's your pleasure folks?
Kanner/It's woah looking into and seeing what's out there.
Pfab/Yea I would say it's, in a sense it's it would be a way to inventory what's there and
it looks like it with a minimum amount of (can't hear) effort.
Franklin/You've got three.
Lehman/Karin look at it, don't spend a lot of time, I will not suppoa a city's initiative to
rezone that propeay, I don't mind looking at it if we just find a problem, if the
owners don't want to petition the rezoning I won't suppoa the city doing it.
Franklin/OK we'll get you the information.
Lehman/Right, now on this.
Franklin/Now on this one that you've got before you now just to go over it the
recommendation from the Planning & Zoning Commission is RS-8 for this RM-
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12 area here and for the remainder of the requested area which is t he remainder of
the shaded area that it be rezoned RNC-12.
Lehman/Now that' s Item 3 on the agenda.
Franklin/That's correct, now you've got two potential actions, you need to vote on Item 2
first which is the request of the neighborhood to rezone this to RS-8, obviously if
that vote succeeds you don't go on to number 3. If it fails then you go onto
number 3 and you aye or nay on that OK.
Lehman/OK.
Franklin/We done with this?
C. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE NON-CONFORMING USE
PROVISIONS OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD CONSERVATION RESIDENTIAL,
RNC-12 ZONE, TO MAKE IT CLEAR ANY EXISTING CONFORMING
MULTI-FAMILY USE WOULD CONTINUE TO BE CONFORMING UNDER
THE RNC-12 ZONE. (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/OK the next one is Walden Hills this is, no I'm sorry Item C is the code
amendment to take the reference to RN-12 and have it apply to everything.
D. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CONDITIONALLY AMENDING THE APPROVED
SENSITWE AREAS DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR LOT 52 OF WALDEN
HILLS, A 4.89 ACRE PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF
SHANNON DRIVE, SOUTH OF WILLOW CREEK. (REZ00-0005/SUB00-
0016) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Franklin/D you're going to pass and adopt on the rezoning of Walden Hills Lot 52 and
then you have the preliminary plat and the final plat for this subdivision. There's
one outstanding thing that should be resolved by tomorrow aBemoon and that's
approval of the grading plan and I will just let you know that tomorrow night. But
you can proceed with Items D and E, F would be the only one that you might not
be able to proceed with.
Lehman/We will proceed unless (can't hear).
Franklin/Unless I tell you otherwise.
Kanner/Karin I have a couple questions on E and, what's the difference between the
preliminary and final plat?
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Franklin/OK the preliminary is much more detailed and although this is not a very good
projection of it what you get on the preliminary are contours, all of the guts of the
subdivision basically, the sewer, and the water and the storm sewer, that' s where
it's all laid out and where the street is going to be and the what the preliminary
grading is going to be. The final plat is the legal plat which enables a property
owner to sell the lots and not until that final plat is completed can those lots be
sold and that's the legal description that is then recorded with the Johnson County
Recorder and becomes the document that allows you to sell the lots and allows the
County to assess taxes on individual lots.
Kanner/Thank you and I had another question about this (can't hear). This might not be
the best example but cul de sacs I'm not that crazy about cul de sacs and maybe
this one' s near a highway maybe that' s the only option but how do we talk about
the grids versus dead end cul de sacs?
Franklin/Well we talk about that when we look at the overall planning of the area and
when this initially laid out we had this piece of ground to deal with and we had a
drainage way through here which is Willow Creek which also is an area in which
we wanted to have a trail and some open space here because of Willow Creek.
Shannon comes up and connects with other lots up here, this is West High School
and so you've got some impediments to creating a full grid because of the
topography and what's already there. This was established if you want to have a
grid in this neighborhood what would have had to have happened is when this was
developed over here you would have brought this through and your grid would
have been more formed by a pattern in here. What we talk about in our planning
now is modified grid which is not the just arbitrarily imposed squares. In
Manville Heights you have the imposed squares in which we've got platted streets
that will never be built because the topography gets in the way. It goes right
through a ravine, well you're not going to build a street through there. So what
we intend to do now is do what's called a modified grid which takes the
topography into consideration but still has that general concept of the grid
imposed. Sometimes you can do that and sometimes you can't, you've got the
freeway here, you've got Rohret Road, you've got West High School, so there are
a lot of things that get in the way of doing that in this particular one.
Kanner/So staff they usually look for this modified grid concept in preliminary platting?
Franklin/Yes, it's at the preliminary plat when you want to look at the street pattern,
that' s when you set the street pattern and get that sense of urban design if you're
going to get it. But we've just been doing the modified prints since we adopted the
most recent comprehensive plan.
Kanner/And where is that in the, do you know offhand? (can't hear)
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Franklin/It's in the Land Use section and maybe in Transportation in the description of
neighborhoods but I don't know the page numbers.
Kanne~ Thank you.
Franklin/You're welcome.
E. CONSDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A PRELIMINARY PLAT FOR THE
RESUBDIVISION OF LOT 52, WALDEN HILLS, A 4.89 ACRE, 19-LOT
RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF
SHANNON DRIVE SOUTH OF WILLOW CREEK. (SUB00-00016)
F. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A FINAL PLAT FOR THE
RESUBDIVISION OF LOT 52, WALDEN HILLS, A 4L.89 ACRE, 19-LOT
RESDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF
SHANNON DRIVE SOUTH OF WILLOW CREEK.
G. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE DESIGNATING THE PROPERTY LOCATED AT
13 S. LINN STREET AS AN IOWA CITY HISTORIC LANDMARK. (REZ00-
0019) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Franklin/OK the next item is the Linn Street Historic Landmark that's on for pass and
adopt.
H. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF SOUTH
POINTE ADDITION, PART 7, A RESUBDIVISION OF PORTIONS OF
SOUTH POINTE ADDITION, PARTS 2 AND 3, AN 8.08 ACRE, 25-LOT
RESDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED AT THE WEST END OF
LANGENBERG AVENUE AND HEMINGWAY LANE (SUB00-0017)
Franklin/And then the next one is South Pointe addition which is an old subdivision
that's from August of the Planning & Zoning Commission, the reason that it has
taken so long for it to get to you is because of difficulty getting the construction
plans completed. Basically this was an approved subdivision that 37 lots, it was
then modified then to go back to a more traditional kind of subdivision, not
traditional, conventional kind of subdivision. And has transferred to storm water
management detention basins into one large area that is the storm water detention
basin. So basically it brings Langenberg Avenue through Hemmingway which
before ended in an cul de sac now stubs out to Russell. The legal papers are done
on this, again construction plans I'll let you know tomorrow if they're not OK.
Lehman/OK.
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Franklin/But we think that everything can be tied up by tomorrow.
I. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY PLAT OF
WESTCOTT HEIGHTS, PART THREE, A 102.6 ACRE, 53-LOT
RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED IN JOHNSON COUNTY ON THE
WEST SIDE OF PRAIRIE DU CHIEN ROAD, SOUTH OF NEWPORT ROAD.
(SUB00-00022)
Franklin/OK next one is county plat, this is Westcott Heights Part Three off of Prairie Du
Chien Road, 53 lot residential lot subdivision. You have already gone through
looking at Westcott Heights probably Part Two up here, this is Part Three and this
part which your looking at here is the preliminary plat and here Steven you can
really see the distinction between a preliminary and a final and a final is much
cleaner looking, it's just the lines of the lots where the preliminary you see all the
detail of the topography. Basically the issues here have been ones of access, the
connection through from Westcott Heights Part Two and getting that
accomplished and then making sure the site distance on Prairie Du Chien for the
access to Prairie Du Chien was adequate and it is.
Vanderhoef/And where' s the stub that's going south to the next property.
Franklin/Right here.
Vanderhoef/OK.
Kanner/Haven't there been some concerns and discussion at the county meeting about
the waste system that was going to be used?
Franklin/I don't recall one did you see that in minutes?
Vanderhoef/Yea, it was in the talking about the sewer mounds and how they were going
to be.
Kanner/Yea I think so I can't articulate exactly what it was.
Vanderhoef/It has to go through the Health Department it isn't part of our review.
Franklin/No. OK it's two communities septic mounds and it will have to be approved by
the County Health Department.
Kanner/So how does that fit in with our waste?
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Franklin/That would have, oh, well it doesn't really fit in with our waste system at all if
that was your question.
Lehman/But it doesn't have to.
Franklin/No.
Lehman/Right.
Kanner/But if it were an exit they would have to change?
Franklin/Yes but this is not within our growth area.
Lehman/Inside our growth area, yea.
Vanderhoef/It's in the two mile fringe but not in our growth area.
Kanner/Not in our growth.
Franklin/Right, and of course it has to have approval by the Health Department and this
is just the preliminary plat, all of that approval has to be done by the time we do
the final.
J. CONSIDER A LETTER TO THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
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)
Franklin/Next item is Lakeridge.
Lehman/Where are we on that?
O'Donnell/Defer it.
Franklin/We're going to defer it.
Vanderhoef/To the 7th.
Franklin/To the 7th, yea I'm expecting a letter from Mr. Downer and the draft agreement.
Lehman/Oh good we're gaining.
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Franklin/By tomorrow, I'm hoping.
K. CONSIDER A LETTER TO THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF
SUPERVISORS FINDING THAT THE REZONING OF 34.79 ACRES
LOCATED WITHIN FRINGE AREA A ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF RAPID
CREEK ROAD, EAST OF HIGHWAY 1 NORTH, FROM COUNTY A1,
RURAL, TO COUNTY RS-5, SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL, IS CONSISTENT
WITH THE IOWA CITY/JOHNSON COUNTY FRINGE AREA AGREEMENT.
(CZ0033)
Franklin/OK the next item then is a rezoning in the county south side of Rapid Creek
Road, we had looked at this some time ago to have this road fight here be the
access road, it's a drive that was going to be improved somewhat for a subdivision
down there, that was rejected at the time that that came through based on the site
distance on Rapid Creek Road so that was one of the issues that we inquired with
the County Engineer about the site distance. At this point he's looked at it, there's
no problem with the site distance there so the recommendation here is that we sent
a letter to the County Board indicating that this is consistent with the County
fringe area agreement.
Vanderhoef/But what about that flag lot?
Franklin/Well this is not, we're not approving the subdivision right now, and basically
what we decided at the staff level was to put people on notice that we don't like
flag lots, the reason, I mean it's not just because we're being arbitrary about it but
the reason that flag lots are not encouraged in the city is having to do with
emergency access. Now in the county the numbers are out here at the edge of the
road, it's a little bit easier but still it's probably not the best design, I mean why
not just make this lot bigger.
Kanner/Can you explain the?
Vanderhoef/The topography is such I presume they're trying to run a road up on the high
land.
Franklin/Right and they can still do that, they can still have their drive in here but you
know that, it may seem like an issue that's not making much of it.
Lehman/Like splitting hairs.
Franklin/Like splitting hairs yea, it's a design thing we have and in the city as I say it's
more important because in the city what could happen is that you would have a
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house built here and then with emergency access there's confusion sometimes that
there is a house stuck back in there so it's not that big of an issue for the county
subdivision.
Vanderhoef/OK.
Franklin/OK That's zoning stuff.
Lehman/All right.
O'Donnell/Thank you.
CITY PLAZA SCULPTURE SELECTIONS (ITEM #9. CONSIDER A
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING CITY MANAGER TO EXECUTE
AGREEMENTS FOR USE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON
PUBLIC ART PROJECTS.
ITEM #10. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AFFIRMING THE SELECTION OF
ARTISTS AND SCULPTURES FOR FOUR OF THE DOWNTOWN
PEDESTRIAN MALL SCULPTURE PADS.)
Lehman/Shall we do sculptures while you're there?
Franklin/Well I think we shall.
Kanner/Is it a watermelon?
Lehman/It looks like a watermelon.
Vanderhoef/Floating on the ocean.
Franklin/It's called "Balance".
Lehman/Green rind (can't hear).
Franklin/OK what has been recommended by the Public Art Advisory Committee and
this was on a 5-0 vote, was first of all that the north pads be given a priority in
terms of acquisition and that for the noah pads that we commission Christop
Spath who submitted the "Solar Markers I and II", this is Solar Marker II and they
wish to select this one for the very northern most pad which is right next to where
Arts Iowa City used to be located and that we ask Mr. Spath to develop a
complementary sculpture that brings in some of the ideas of "Balance" to
complement Solar Marker II. Note the similar watermelon shapes.
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Lehman/Does that got a watermelon on top?
Franklin/This one?
Lehman/Yea.
Franklin/Yea.
Lehman/I'll be dumed.
O'Donnell/I like it.
Lehman/Isn't that cool? OK.
Franklin/OK that' s for the north pad.
Lehman/All right.
Franklin/Then for the west pad that we acquire Gary Alsum's "Jazz" which I'll just pass
this around.
Vanderhoef/What' s the size on that?
O'Donnell/Three feet.
Lehman/Not very tall.
(All laughing).
Franklin/It's about 4 feet.
O'Donnell/Sorry about that.
Franklin/No you're not sorry.
(All talking).
Franklin/That's bronze, it's a figurative piece obviously and that would be acquired
second.
Pfab/Now does this cause any injury possibilities or breaking or as they say the crowd
after.
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Franklin/It won't break.
Pfab/OK.
Franklin/Now somebody could climb on top of it, it's four feet off the ground and they
probably would bruise them self falling off but I, you know they could fall on
their head. Nothing is going to be incident free in our downtown climate.
O'Donnell/This is the one I like.
Franklin/By the way this one is 10 feet tall, it's a biggy.
O'Donnell/How tall is this one?
Franklin/Or maybe I'm mistook, I'm sorry that one is 6 feet, it's 110 percent of.
Lehman/77 inches.
Franklin/Actual size so it's 6 something, this one's 4 feet tall because it's somebody
bending over, now if it was me it would only be 2 feet tall, got you Mike.
(All laughing).
O'Donnell/Boy are you sensitive.
Franklin/Very.
(END OF 00-99 SIDE TWO)
Franklin/You know I'd have to ask the artist that, I find that to be rather distracting.
Kanner/Yes.
Franklin/I would hope they could do it without the pole.
Kanner/You like the pole.
Pfab/That was the part that I was kind of questioning about.
O'Dommll/This is by far the best one (can't hear).
Franklin/Now this one would be for the east pad by the playground, and this would be
the last we acquire, one thinking is that we've already got activity and attractions
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there with the playground equipment and so it's not critical to have something
there right away. Also if the bond referendum is successful for the library we're
going to be doing work there, tuming the playground around and all kinds of
things so we don't want to be putting a sculpture in. This is the called "The Ties
that Bind" it's done by Jane DeDecker, she's from Colorado, Alsum's from
Colorado and Spath is from New Jersey.
Lehman/OK.
Franklin/And that's all.
Lehman/Thank you.
Franklin/It was my pleasure to be here until 10:00.
AGENDA ITEMS
Lehman/OK review agenda items.
Kanner/Point, oh (can't hear). I had a bunch of things actually going in order, Consent
Calendar) We're going to be, when are we going to be talking about the proposals
to go to three art professionals on the Public Art Advisory Committee we had
minutes that talked about that.
Karr/It should go to the Rules Committee first then it comes back from the Rules
Committee for a recommendation.
Kanner/OK.
Karr/Because it's a by-law change.
Kanner/So what' s that time frame on that about?
Karr/The Rules Committee as soon as it's accepted we'll set up a meeting as soon as we
possibly can with the two people and we'll recommend, hopefully by November
7.
Lehman/Right, there' s only two of us, we can easily have it back the next week.
Kanner/OK, I'm kind of iffy about the idea of a third, having to have a third professional,
I like to keep it open to community members, I think 2 is a good member. So
we'll discuss that more I guess when it comes back. There was discussion also
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about the Zimmer piece, Epicenter piece, and there was some question who would
own that, it would be sort of a temporary thing, the pad is to be used temporarily.
Franklin/We haven't worked that out yet, Larry Eckholt who' s very active in Epicenter,
and I need to sit down and talk about that. They received an NEA grant, the
Epicenter group did and the Public Art Advisory committee has also talked about
putting $1,700 of public art money into this particular project which of course has
to come before the City Council before it can happen. The pad that it's planned
for is the pad that would be used for a rotating exhibit that is there would be
different things at different times so I don't know exactly how we're going to
work that out. I mean that' s a whole decision making that's that gotta go through,
it's got to come through you as to whether you do want the city to own the
"tornado" or not, OK so that's not to you yet, there's more work at the committee
level.
Vanderhoef/What percent is for city and what percent comes from the arts grant?
Franklin/I don't know Dee, I mean I just don't know enough about it right now to even to
talk about it intelligently.
Vanderhoef/It's too early.
Kanner/Can you explain Nancy Purlington was quoted as not being pleased with the
translation of information provided to the artist and the resulting art? Do you
recall that and what the context of that was that was also in the minutes from the
Science Center?
Franklin/I think she felt that the artists that some of the artists who made submittals did
not submit the work that the group was most interested in. For instance there was
one in which the group was interested in this particular artist because of the
kinetic of some of the nature of his sculptures, well the artists knew that we
wanted, that what we were interested in for his work was the kinetic element but
he did not feel a kinetic element would work in this particular site. Other than
that you'd have to ask Nancy.
Pfab/I read that also and was Nancy was she faulting the artist as not cooperating or?
Franklin/No I think she was commenting on the information that was sent out to the artist
which I would have sent out.
Pfab/OK in other words, they didn't follow, they didn't focus on what you're focusing
on, is that kind of a fresh statement?
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Franklin/I think what she was saying was that the artist was not made aware of what we
thought they should be focusing on.
Lehman/Sounds out of focus here.
Pfab/So in other words so she was saying maybe that the instructions you sent out could
have been more precise?
Franklin/Yea.
Pfab/OK, OK.
Franklin/I think so Irvin.
Kanner/I have a question for I guess Dale from about the telecommunications
commission minutes from 7/24. What does it mean by community television
group? Who does that refer to generally?
Helling/Let me find the context, is that the July 241h?
Kanner/Yea on page 42 it's mentioned of.
Helling/What section, I don't have your page number?
Pfab/It's on the top of the page of, I think what he's referring to.
Helling/Basically that's the it's a group of the local access programmers of all the local
access channels and they have came together some years back and what they do is
they part of the funding from the past year goes to those entities and they get
together and decide how that's, it's about $17,500 a year, they get together and
decide what projects or they favor and then they divi up the money that way.
Pfab/I have a different question, I'm a little uncomfortable with the request for a new
name of the (can't hear) of the channel because I guess the request is to call it a
city channel.
Helling/Right.
Pfab/But I think that it would, to what?
Helling/Yea the city channel.
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Pfab/But it looks to me like it's more restrictive than what it actually does and I can see
why some names are have bad connotations to them and then like the city
information channel is and this is how we're going to do it folks, I mean I think
that's the implication or but anyway I'm a little uncomfortable with just the city
channel, I don't know the answer but I have difficulty with that.
Helling/Well just to let you know what they were thinking the city channel they thought
is was less restrictive than government because it's more than government it's
public or community program and so forth.
Pfab/But doesn't it get into county also?
Helling/It does, yea there are county things on there occasionally some Coralville things.
Pfab/Well maybe a greater city channel or something like that.
Helling/Well I will tell you that they, one of the reasons they picked they was because
they said that' s what most people refer to it anyway so I you know.
Pfab/OK well that's, it didn't say that.
Helling/No I know but that was talked about in the meeting.
Kanner/Yea and were there survey's, there were surveys taken recently, did it talk about
how it's referred to in the survey' s are there any?
Helling/I don't believe that was part of the survey, the name of the channel.
Pfab/I guess the next question is I ask is it imperative that that be changed?
Helling/I guess it's not imperative, I guess that's what the commission is recommending
and that was proposed by staff.
Wilburn/Irvin are you asking this to be removed from the consent calendar and voted on
as a separate item, is that what your asking?
Pfab/I don't now if maybe, maybe it's just my own personal concern and maybe yea, that
might, that might be a good idea.
Karr/Excuse me just to clarify you're just accepting minutes, you're not voting fight
now.
Kanner/Yea we're not voting on it.
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Helling/I think if Council doesn't want that changed then you should tell us and we'll
hold up any.
Kanner/But one thing I would appreciate, it was a 2-1 vote with 2 people absent, if it was
4-1 I would feel more convinced maybe bring it back to see if the other 2 that
weren't there feel convinced.
Helling/I know one of the two that wasn't there had no problems with it at all, but I don't
know about the fourth one.
Pfab/I mean it's not a matter of life or death but I just feel uneasy with it.
Helling/No but they're going to develop a logo and stuff so if you want us to hold up
then let us know and we' 11 do that.
Pfab/From my own personal point of view I think I would prefer that but that' s just my
own personal point of view and.
Kanner/Well I guess I'd like to see the vote from the whole commission.
Lehman/Yea but by their own by-laws they have a vote, if they've got 3 people present,
if that's a quorum, that's all they're going to have to have.
Kanner/OK, well I guess, well I'll reconsider when it comes before us.
Lehman/No, no, and I don't disagree with you, I'd much rather see everybody vote but if
their by-laws require a quorum present and a majority rules and I don't know that
we can tell them to go back and tell them they need to vote again.
Kanner/No but, well we can vote it down or up ourselves.
Lehman/Right.
Kanner/I also want to make a remark the chairperson of that her husband died recently,
Betty McKray's husband died.
Lehman/Yes I saw that.
Kanner/Husband died, Dean McKray, long time Iowa City resident, I think his funeral is
Wednesday.
Lehman/I saw it in the paper this morning.
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Vanderhoef/I missed that, thank you.
Kanner/Again in the correspondence Sally Stutsman wrote a letter wanting to reopen
negotiations on the fringe area. How are we dealing with that?
Lehman/Well it would come back to our Planning & Zoning Commission which is from
there it would be, their recommendation would come back to us and then we will
have an opportunity to look at it again.
Kanner/Are we not reconstituting the group that had met before?
Lehman/I don't see any point in it.
Kanner/They appointed, I thought it said they appointed two people.
Lehman/In Sally's letter?
Kanner/Yea.
Lehman/We had a fringe area subcommittee, two county supervisors, two council folks,
staff from both county and city, there happens to be two items I believe that there
was some disagreement on in the fringe area agreement, one of those is not
something, it was a mapping error, the other one was the 15 acres Donohue
property that Planning & Zoning specifically addressed and chose and not to
change commercial. Council specifically addressed and chose not to make, and
had neither one specifically addressed that we would not have had to sent it back
to Planning & Zoning but because they specifically refused to change it to
commercial it requires that they either reconsider it or we have a joint meeting
between Planning & Zoning Commission and the Council. And so the process
now would be to send it back to them, let them look at it again, if they reaffirm
what they did earlier, we reaffirm what we did earlier, we just send it back to the
county again.
Kanner/So they're appointing two people, they're going to be meeting and presenting
their ideas to our city planning, the county is appointing two people.
Lehman/I'll have to look at the letter again, I don't have it with me.
Vanderhoef/Well we've already got our two people who sat on it and I would presume
that they would go ahead, we don't change our negotiating people.
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Kanner/Well that's what I'm saying where are we at then, it seems like this is something
that I'd like to know what we're doing as a council.
Vanderhoef/It's Mike and Ernie.
Kanner/And how we're handling it.
Lehman/Well personally I don't see any point of having that subcommittee meet again
because we're talking about issues that have been specifically addressed already.
O'Donnell/They have been.
Lehman/By both our Planning & Zoning Commission, the Council, the county's
Planning & Zoning Commission and the County Board of Supervisor's, there' s
one thing though they want to move that commercial area at the West Branch
interchange just move the entire, Karin help. What are we doing the fringe area
letter from Sally, are we going to reconvene the subcommittee? I mean I don't.
Franklin/I'm going to try to talk the County out of that, I think we should just go back to
Planning & Zoning.
Lehman/Thank you, that's what I indicated I thought it would be the appropriate place
for it to go, all right fine, that's where it we'll be Steven.
Pfab/That' s if she succeeds.
Lehman/I've got my money you kid. We always need you but go ahead and get out of
here before we stop you again.
Kanner/Number 7 how much of the donations is going to cover the $200,000 cost of the
Mercer Park Concession project?
Terry Trueblood/I don't know.
(All laughing)
Kanner/I'm writing that down.
Lehman/Could you save that for tomorrow night, I like that.
Trueblood/Seriously I'm not entirely sure yet. What I've got here at a listing, I got, I just
got back in town this evening, had a message that I had to be here tonight and
some of this information came through while I was gone but the Babe Ruth folks
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have been looking for donated materials or at cost materials that we can purchase
and then have the contractor install whoever gets the bid but for example what
they've got as of the 9th of this month is most of this is at cost with some partial
donations. All the specified masonry material which is a considerable amount
because most of the exterior is masonry, the engineer truss package for the
roofing, electrical materials, plumbing materials, the hardware materials, the steel
doors, locks, or not the locks but the entry doors and the frame etc. and then the
all the handles, locks that closures from the doors. So they've talked to several
companies obviously in getting some donations, some at cost but at this point I
don't know how much that's going to save us on the project. Steve had indicated
that you might just want to take a little look at the project and I know some of you
have been in the new soccer buildings out at the soccer complex, virtually
identical, I mean it's the same size, the roofing would be different, down there
they are metal roofs, as a matter of fact what partially caused this project to have
to come about. You see the old, here's the existing concession, if you look real
close you can see a dent in the roof from a massive home run that shook the
foundation.
Atkins/Thank you, thank you, thank.
Lehman/Boy you talk about brown nosing somebody up?
Vanderhoef/Was that the staff game?
O'Donnell/What did you do hit that from third base?
Atkins/It's funny.
Trueblood/I didn't witness it.
Pfab/Did it embellish after you, when you hurt it, it was already embellished?
Trueblood/Oh no I would never say that.
Atkins/I've got loads of witnesses if you want me to bring them out.
(All talking).
Trueblood/The interior of this building, the interior of this building would be very much
the same as the soccer complex.
Pfab/Are you able to use the same plans there?
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Trueblood/Yes a matter of fact our design costs are quite minimal for this because it's
the same person who designed together, one of the key differences is there won't
be any heat in this building as there is at the soccer complex but there's added
costs because we have to relocate a sanitary sewer and put a new manhole in that
kind of thing. Anyway I'm really hopeful when it's all said and done that we can
get this done for $150,000 to $160,000, I'm really hopeful.
Kanner/You mean our costs plus the donations.
Trueblood/I mean the being the final cost.
Kanner/The final so it would be $150,000 minus whatever donation we get.
Trueblood/No the estimated cost right now is $200,000 so I'm hopeful that when it's all
said and done we can get it for more than $150-$160,000 range total including the
purchase of at cost materials etc. And the last I knew also the Babe Ruth folks
were going to do the roofing on it, buy the materials and they would do the
roofing. I wish I could give you more explicit answers than that but right now.
Lehman/You've done very well, good night.
Trueblood/Thank you very much.
O'Donnell/It's a nice project.
Trueblood/Can I go get some dinner now?
Lehman/Good night.
O'Donnell/Only if you take us.
Lehman/Any other agenda items?
Vanderhoef/I just have one little thing, the HCDC application, at the top of the
application it has the intent and states, a cross section of persons and then lists all
sons of things that we would look in, how we make up that commission including
age. I didn't think we could ask age and we don't put age down to fill in so one
place or another we need to eliminate the word age.
Karr/I think HCDC has a separate application sheet of optional information.
Vanderhoef/And the age is over there?
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Karr/Yes.
Vanderhoef/Because it isn't on the main.
Karr/No it's not, many of our Boards and Commissions of which we're wrestling with
right now Dee have separate applications and separate sheets of paper, HCDC has
a separate sheet of paper and I think there are some breakdowns in it, income
guidelines, age.
Vanderhoef/Income of guidelines I just didn't remember the age part of it.
Karr/Yea I think so but I'll check on that, but it's a separate sheet, it's not part of the
application for that very reason, they're the only commission.
Vanderhoef/Why would we ask age?
Lehman/I don't know why they do that.
Vanderhoef/I think it' s.
Pfab/That's a pretty good answer, I hope you keep that for tomorrow.
Lehman/Do we have any other? Do you have anything else on the agenda?
O'Donnell/I think between Steven and Dee everything was covered. I want to hear more
about that massive home run, I can't believe that.
Lehman/No. All right, I'm going to do this under agenda items but we do have United
Way Agency Community Needs Committee joint services hearings, we have two
council people who attends those hearings and I guess observe more than anything
else. Steven would you like to be one of those two folks?
Kanner/Sure is that the November meeting?
Lehman/Yes it starts in November, that's an orientation meeting in November and I
believe there are like four meetings during the.
O'Donnell/There are 4 meetings, Connie and I were the reps. last year.
Lehman/Right, and Dee Vanderhoefwould you be the other person? OK that's done.
Any other agenda items?
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APPOINTMENTS
Lehman/Appointments.
Kanner/James Anderlik for Civil Service is the only person that applied, seems like a
good person.
Lehman/James, how do you spell the last name?
Vanderhoef/Anderlik, Anderlik.
Lehman/Does that meet with everybody' s approval? All right Historic Preservation
Commission I think.
Vanderhoef/We got one tonight and I haven't read it.
Lehman/It seems as much trouble as we've had trying to get somebody from.
Vanderhoef/Oh it's Loret Mast.
Lehman/Loret Mast is that meet with folks.
Vanderhoef/And that meets the College Green Historic District.
Kanner/What did she say she's an artist?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Kanner/Her name is familiar I think.
Vanderhoef/Oh yea long time artist, activist.
Kanner/Loret Mast and she's in the right neighborhood?
Vanderhoef/Yes, she lives right up by College Green park.
Lehman/All right HCDC.
Kanner/Amy Correia looks very qualified.
Vanderhoef/I still have the concern about the other application that we have there in
conflict of interest and I don't know whether we truly ruled this gentleman out or
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not but I would rather go out for another bidding time, bidding is not the fight
word, it's getting too late.
Lehman/Advertisement.
Vanderhoef/Advertising time than to put someone on that we have a concern with,
conflict of interest.
Kanner/Yea I think we had ruled out Joe because of conflict of interest and I think he just
appeared because it's kept on for a number of weeks.
Karr/I don't know that you ruled him out for conflict of interest.
Vanderhoef/No we didn't but we did talk about the conflict of interest.
Karr/There were some issues raised regarding conflict of interest but I don't know that it
was ruled out for that reason.
Lehman/Well I mean if we feel that way we should say so now.
Vanderhoef/That's where I am coming down is I feel that we need someone that doesn't
have this potential.
Lehman/Do we?
Kanner/I guess there' s one thing I want to explore if there is anyway to get around this
because this is a great pool of people these people in the agencies and I can see
where your coming from and where our City Attorney's coming from but I just
wondered if there's any way in the future to look at because I hate to see this
whole class of people who bring a great perspective to Housing and Community
Development.
Vanderhoef/There's a lot more things that happen in Community Development besides
the human service kinds of things so I guess I would hope to get someone and we
have several and Amy follows in this line of the human service expertise and I
would choose to advertise again.
Lehman/Well I don't have a problem with readvertising again, I do have a problem with
having those people serving on the committee, I mean I think they certainly can
attend meetings and their expertise and information can be made available to the
committee but asking someone who's served on the committee that has a potential
or an apparent conflict or even a perceived conflict isn't fair to the commission
nor to the person that we're asking to do it.
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Karmer/Although we have bankers that have potential conflicts and real estate people
that serve on it that have potential conflicts.
Lehman/They're not nearly as direct.
Vanderhoef/And our conflict might be for only one issue not for multiple issues, like the
joint funding kinds of things which is what our social work folks get entangled in
in my eyes at least.
Lehman/Well we're going to appoint one and readvertise is that where we are?
Vanderhoef/That's what I would like.
Lehman/OK.
Karr/For the record could I clafify? Do you want Mr. do you want Joe to get a letter or
do you want him left active? If you're not going to appoint him.
Lehman/We're not going to appoint him, I think it would be only fair that we indicate to
him that we feel there is a potential or a perceived conflict and he will not be
considered for that but certainly should reapply for any other board or commission
because we've got Waste and Advisory fight after this and we need people.
Which brings us to Solid Waste Advisory Commission, I have a list tonight of
three people who have made applications, Kathleen Henderson, Stephen Mrstik,
and Carol Casey, each of them have applied to one or two year terms and Carol
Casey has applied for the three year term. What's your pleasure?
Vanderhoef/I guess I'll take some blame for it but when we started one other commission
in (can't hear) Mike tenure on Council we had an applicant pool to look at and
then choose from that applicant pool to fill the seats on the commission. We've
advertised twice now for a 9 member commission and we appoint one person but
as these keep coming in I feel less comfortable in appointing anyone else until we
have a pool to choose from and look at doing the balance and so forth. I also am
beginning to question whether there is truly an interest in this community for this
commission. I'd be willing to advertise one more time and see if we can get an
applicant pool out there to fill this commission otherwise it's apparent that we
don't have citizens that interested in serving on this commission.
Lehman/Well Dee I think you're dreaming if you think you're going to get a pool to
choose from. We've advertised twice, the one you're talking about we had 40
some people apply for for what 5 positions, I mean obviously we don't have the
interest in this one as we have had in other ones.
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Vanderhoef/Well in fairness I was putting out this way, as you well know I was not in
favor of this commission to begin with because I felt it was very well covered at
the regional level and that's where the comprehensive plan has to come from and
that I just still am feeling that this is not what we need to be doing and we
certainly are struggling to even get applicants.
Lehman/You're fight but do we want to appoint these three folks or not?
Karr/Excuse me can I just say one thing to clarify? It is not 9 members, it started as 9, it
was, it's 7 members, so you've appointed one leaving 6 vacancies, three
appointments tonight would give a quorum, it would give 4 out of 7 should that
make a difference, I just wanted to clarify.
Vanderhoef/I still want to see a pool.
Karr/I just wanted to clarify that 9 is 7.
O'Donnell/You can do this at a regional level and it should be done but it also should be
done at a local level.
Lehman/Well isn't the question.
O'Donnell/No but I'm just responding Emie.
Lehman/OK, are we going to appoint these three folks?
Pfab/I move we do, that would be my suggestion.
Lehman/Two, one, I mean there are one, two and three year terms, they've all applied for
the one year term, they've all applied for the two year term, one has applied for
the three year term.
O'Donnell/Do you remember what we appointed Janelle to?
Karr/To a two-year.
Vanderhoef/That was per request.
Lehman/We have one opening for a two year term, one for a three, and three for a one.
Karr/No.
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Kanner/Dee I would be open to a certain extent of getting a bigger pool and I think more
people will apply I think people don't know about it as much as the other ones
but I think we should at least appoint Carol Casey tonight, I think she's very
qualified work, for 10 years at the University with solid waste and she's on
ECICOG's as you're probably aware of.
Vanderhoef/But she's not on solid waste, she used to be on Solid Waste when she was a
University representative to the technical advisory committee, she's no longer on
that.
Kanner/But she' s with other.
Vanderhoef/She has a different job now, her job was eliminated.
Kanner/But she's still with ECICOG's I thought but in any case her expertise speaks for
itself I think. I think she would be a good addition, I think Stephen Mrstik has
some good qualifications too working with Kirkwood with environmental issues.
I have some questions about Kathleen Henderson, I'd be willing to appoint her,
she has enthusiasm and it's good that she applied and I think with the other people
that are surrounding her with the expertise we could afford to have someone with
less expertise so I would go for that. But if you want to, if the Council wants to
hold off I would go just with Carol for the three year term.
O'Donnell/I wouldn't appoint one.
Vanderhoef/No and Carol is already sitting on a commission (can't hear).
Lehman/Well we got a letter from her tonight indicating that she would prefer this and
she talked to me today, she will resign from Parks and Recreation if she is
appointed to this because she would prefer serving this.
Vanderhoef/Why don't we wait until we get the pool and then look at all of them?
Lehman/Because I have no confidence what so ever that we're going to have a pool,
we've advertised twice, we've got a total of four applicants.
Pfab/I would propose that we appoint the three of them and if Kathleen if she seems to
have is it fight to say weaker credentials in the one year term and Stephen on the
two year and Carol on the three and at least by that point you've got a quorum for
a and you can start to work. And at that point people you know it will start
generating some interest on it's own.
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Lehman/All fight we've got a nomination for Henderson for one year, Mrstik for two
year term and Carol Casey for a three year term. Are there four people who would
concur with that?
Wilburn/Since this is an entirely new commission and there's no critical mass, I would
be willing to advertise for one more cycle and hold off on the appointments, let
them know we're going to hold off for one more.
O'Donnell/I would be willing to do that also.
Lehman/To readvertise.
O'Donnell/Yea. Where are you Emie?
Lehman/I would just as soon appoint them and move on, we've advertised twice, I don't
see that we're going to have any huge pool to appoint but a three to three it means
that we will probably readvertise.
Kanner/It means we're going to readvertise anyway but it means we're not going to
appoint, either way we would readvertise.
Lehman/It means we're not going to appoint anyone. Is that fight? (Can't hear) goes to
the runners.
O'Donnell/I think it's a very important commission and I would like to get a pool.
Lehman/I don't disagree with you but (can't hear).
Karr/Why don't we, what if we also have staff write these folks a letter so that they
don't, it's really awkward when you have applicants and you don't appoint, they
read mixed signals in and maybe they would drum up some more people to also
apply.
Lehman/Well I think that's exactly right we've advertised twice and then don't act on the
ones we get I think we're sending them a (can't hear) message.
Pfab/Let me ask you this, is there any here we wouldn't appoint? And if there is maybe
we ought to tell them so if not we ought to appoint them.
Vanderhoef/Until we see the pool how do we know?
Lehman/I hear we're going to readvertise, I disagree with that but we're going to do it,
majority rules.
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Atkins/We'll send a note to them.
Lehman/OK readvertise.
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Lehman/The next item is Collective Bargaining. Steven we all got a memo from you and
I guess I have a question. Why, let me ask you what purpose you think would be
served by Council becoming active in the collective bargaining process that hasn't
been served by the way it's been done in the past?
Kanner/Well let me.just state Emie first, lay out again what I'm looking at and that way
it will answer your question in part. There's three parts to this process of why
we're meeting here, and the first part is to discuss what is the current policy to get
that clear and so I think we should hear from Dale or from Steve what exactly that
is. And then the second part is what are other cities doing for their collective
bargaining process and then the third are there possible improvements in the
collective bargaining process that would benefit the City of Iowa City to the
general citizens and for the employees and our management? So that's the
framework I thimk that we should have a discussion on this and there are different
ways of doing it in different cities and some of those might have better end
results and before we get into that discussion I think it would be best to first hear
what the process is so we're all on the same playing field and then go into number
two and three.
Lehman/Well Dale you want to, Dale works as an agent for the Council in negotiating
with the union (can't hear) you have for a number of years, is that correct?
Helling/Right.
Kanner/Dale maybe you can just explain Council's involvement.
O'Donnell/We should really see if there are four people who are interested in pursuing
this, I'm one that's not, I don't think there's anybody sitting here that's qualified
and what qualifications do you have to sit down and talk and negotiate a union
contract?
Kanner/Mike did you read my memo?
O'Donnell/I did read your memo and I ask you again what qualifications do you have?
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Kanner/Wait there's two issues here Mike once again you're saying, that's OK Irvin I'm
OK.
Pfab/I was just going to turn it for you.
Kanner/No that' s OK. There are two issues here Mike I think you're stating that you
don't, that you don't want to even discuss this issue that in the framework that
I've brought it up and you've done that before. I think that we did have, this was
put on the agenda because there was a majority that would be willing to at least
discuss it.
O'Donnell/Well let' s see if there are four people tonight Steven that want to pursue this.
Kanner/What's that? Well that's your right Mike to railroad it.
O'Donnell/That's so it is that's why I just said it.
Kanner/And I think that' s bad policy.
O'Donnell/Well that's your opinion, it's not mine.
Kanner/That you don't want to hear information that might lead to a different policy.
O'Donnell/I'm not interested Steven discussing a member of this Council sitting down
and negotiating union contracts you got it exactly right.
Kanner/OK Mike so that's fine if you want to take a revote I think that's pretty bad
process that's very undemocratic and I.
O'Donnell/You're entitled to your opinion.
Kanner/Yea, thank you.
O'Donnell/It is very democratic that majority rules.
Kanner/What?
O'Donnell/Very democratic.
Kanner/I think it's undemocratic to not hear new information but if the majority wants to
go along with that then I would have no choice and so I guess.
Lehman/Well no, no, and that's why.
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Kanner/If you want to not have this discussion that's fine but I went through a procedure
and the Council at one time did say it would be OK to have this discussion and I
think it would just be rude and it's not good for city policy to close off this kind of
discussion.
O'Donnell/I'm telling you Steven I'm not interested, if you can find three others that are
then fine but I'm not interested.
Kanner/OK I'm going to continue and ask again Dale if you would just give us a
background on how our City Council is involved with the negotiation, like the
bargaining negotiation.
Helling/Well essentially right now the City Council delegates the bargaining process to
the staff. I coordinate that for the city, we use Steve Rynecki, a labor lawyer from
Milwaukee, we've used him for about 20 years as our chief negotiator and labor
legal labor legal council and we use one or two other staff people Sylvia and
maybe one person from the library for AFSCME and we follow the statutory
procedures which I think I outlined in a memo to you a couple of weeks ago and
in terms of Council's involvement you have not had any direct involvement, if
there are things that come up in the bargaining outside of the normal kinds of, that
would place the bargaining outside the normal parameters of you know what's
commonly done in bargaining then we would advise you perhaps come back for
guidance but the process has been pretty stable in the last particularly the last 10
years as inflation is pretty stable and we all know that wages are the major issue in
bargaining.
Kanner/And then the council comes in and usually votes it up or down at a formal
meeting after.
Helling/If we negotiate an agreement that we feel that is within our authority we will
send a tentative agreement and prepare that tentative agreement Council then
addresses that, votes that by motion and then when we, once we have a tentative
agreement approved we prepare a final contract and you adopt that by resolution.
Lehman/Steven the reason I ask you why you brought this up and to me it's, well it's
very relevant to me, it appears that we've done a very very good job with our
agent that being Dale and his folks in the last number of years. I know of none,
and that's why I ask, I know of no problems with our work force, I know that we
have an incredibly low turnover of employees, I know that when we advertise for
positions we have had an inordinate large number of people who want to work for
this community, we have negotiators who care about our employees as well as
caring for the interest of the people of the community and the absence of seeing
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some flaw in the process that we're using or something that doesn't seem quite
right I don't understand why you want this discussion.
Kanner/Well I will get to that, I think.
Lehman/Well get to that because that's the whole that.
Kanner/I think Ernie the point is one could always look for improvement and other cities
do it differently and I think the goal of Council and with open meeting laws which
I think is a good thing is transparency. Now with negotiations traditionally you
don't have open meetings except for the first two.
Lehman/Well you don't have those either.
Kanner/Yea you have to by law.
Lehman/Yea, but they're not conducted by Council.
Kanner/Well they can be but my point is that we're not going to have open meetings for
the negotiations, so that hurts transparency which is OK to a certain extent but to
have City Council involvement by monitoring and being able to be there as
representing the larger issues I think is important. I think the City Manager and
the City Manager's team have a certain perspective and they do a good job at that
and I think the prospective that we bring and as I mention most likely we're not
going to say no we're going to say yes go for that but to be kept informed by
having a briefing in executive session, letting us know what the strategy is and for
us to give feedback representing the whole city plus the employees and to have
one at mid session of negotiating at approximate mid point and to have one right
before I think is a good thing. I think we do somewhat of a disservice to our
constituents when it comes to us without really having any knowledge and voting
it up or down and then not being able to talk what the strategy was at that time. I
think the time to do that is during negotiations, to not overburden our negotiating
team, I'm not saying we substitute, there' s no intent and I think I tried to outline
that, that there's no substitute what, and I would agree is a good job. I think the
discussion is can we do a better job, there are other cities that have more council
involvement, I listed three of them, Ames and Cedar Falls and Council Bluffs.
Other University type towns and I think that's a good thing, I think that
philosophy of Council being there representing the constituents and the people of
Iowa City in that greater role and making sure that that transparency is there is a
good thing. And just for the sake of citizens knowing that so that's where the
discussion is and I think it's good, it might be that I'll be convinced and maybe
other people that might be wavering might be convincing this is the best way to
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keep it but I honestly believe at the minimum we should be meeting a couple
times to hear what the strategy session is.
Lehman/Over the years that I've been on the Council and I don't know Dale whether it's
been one or two times that we have had executive session during negotiations
where Dale has brought us up to speed saying this is where we are or this is as far
as we can go or this is the point we are and the next step is arbitration. And the,
my understanding Dale and if I'm wrong correct me but my understanding is that
having done this for some time that if he senses some sort of irregularity or
something unusual in the negotiations that he feels he needs Council input or he
feels Council should know about he lets us know and we do have an executive
session. And I have no problem with that, I do not believe that there's a person
sitting at this table who can add anything to negotiations with labor union. None
of us know the first thing about it, we've got experts, if you talk about
representing the interest of the people of this community I don't think anybody is
going to do it any better than the way it's been done for the last several years. I
don't see a ripple in the water when it comes to a relationship with our employees,
the relationship between the Council and the employees, I just, I hear what your
saying but I absolutely see no purpose, the only thing I can see being served is a
very very negative thing. And I don't see us changing the way we do it now.
Kanner/I don't understand why you see this negative.
Vanderhoef/What I want to ask you.
Lehman/Why would anybody change something that's working and they have no good
reason for doing it other than we want to be more transparent?
Kanner/Because there could be more positive things.
Lehman/That doesn't cut it, people don't trust politicians and I think for very good
reason. Why do you want to be involved in it?
Kanner/Because I want to be I'm representing people and that's my duty.
Lehman/Who are you representing?
(END OF 00-100 SIDE ONE)
Lehman/I don't believe that.
Kanner/Why don't you believe it?
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Lehman/I think that your relationship and what you're really interested in doing is
making a stronger statement for "labor". I, we represent the folks, we're
management in this community, I think we treat our employees extremely well. I
think our employees think they're extremely treated well. I think if you ask any
labor negotiator would you like to negotiate with a member of the Council they
would laugh at us. First of all we don't know what we're doing, we would have
to be a tremendous impediment to a professional negotiator.
Kanner/No I don't think that, I think you belittle City Council Members and I think that
does a disservice to our profession as Council Members.
Lehman/I don't consider this a profession.
O'Donnell/Certainly not (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/Steven.
Lehman/We're doing our work but I think this is something we have no business getting
involved in now the rest of the council.
Vanderhoef/Now Steven what different outcome do you see coming by changing the
process?
Kanner/I could see that certain issues that might be presented.
Vanderhoef/Be specific what outcome would be different?
Kanner/I could see, I could see specific, I can see specific positions that are brought that
we can say we might want to favor that in a bigger sense where the City Manager
might say well this is where we have to hold the line and I think that perspective is
an important one. I think that I'm in favor of, Ernie to answer your question, I'm
in favor of good working conditions for everyone, and I'm in favor of having a
reasonable taxes for the citizens of Iowa City so I'm concemed with both and
hopefully you're concerned with both that you're concerned with everybody in
Iowa City whether they're business owners or whether they're citizens of Iowa
City or whether they work for Iowa City, I hope you're concerned about.
Lehman/I don't think (can't hear).
Kanner/Right and I am concerned with everyone also in that regard and I think that it
does a better service for it to be as open and transparent as possible and this is a
way to do that within the system of going to closed negotiation.
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Lehman/It also says something else, by changing the process, we really are saying that
we are not satisfied with the way it's been going, we're not satisfied with the
process that we have used as correct for whatever reason that we don't think our
employees have been treated fairly or they've been treated too fairly. But what it
really says is you don't change something for the sake of change.
Kanner/It says we can make, it says maybe we can do better and.
Lehman/Saying we can do better is saying there is something wrong and I think we send
a really really bad message.
Kanner/I'm sorry you feel that way.
Vanderhoef/And the message also is the outcome is wrong.
Kanner/That's pretty un-American if you feel you can't do better.
Vanderhoef/Now we have been approving.
Kanner/Ernie that' s the way it is, you try to improve, I think that's.
Lehman/I think you're exactly right but.
Kanner/You're talking, I mean people talk about growth in the city well we have to find
ways to improve and see if there are ways to improve and I'm saying this is one
possible way that we could improve and.
Lehman/Maybe we should teach our snow plow drivers how to drive trucks too, that
takes a certain level of expertise that we don't have either.
Kanner/What's that?
Lehman/We'll teach our sewer plant people how to operate a sewer plant. You know
there' s a certain amount of expertise in negotiations, none of the people sitting
around this table have any part of that expertise.
Kanner/Right, exactly, that's why we should not substitute ourselves for that expertise
and that's why we should be concerned with the overall picture and why we're
concerned with the budget overall budget and.
Lehman/Well I think we are (can't hear).
Kanner/That is our concern and we deal with sewer and we deal with.
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Lehman/By hiring qualified people to do that and I think that' s what we're doing now I
guess (can't hear) interested and other comments I'm tired of talking.
Wilburn/For me I think that and I had said this when we had this discussion before if I
work for the city I would be concerned that having Council which is, which
changes every two years having the potential of Council or a Council Member it
just makes it a very, it's a very involved process, it takes away from the stability
that I have through my collective bargaining representative talking with a long
established history a relationship evolves with that negotiation process so I think
that I would be, I would be very concerned if I worked for the city having the
political Council process be brought to the table with the collective bargaining
agreements. A few people that I talked to that are working for the city that are
members of the unions they expressed that concern when I brought the possibility
up to them. The other thing is you know we hire the staff to represent us to do
that and again there's a long established relationship in doing that in addition to
the expertise that I think the relationship adds to that stability and the process.
You know I, frankly you know I don't have the time to be involved in that process
that collective bargaining process.
Pfab/I have a question, let me ask you Dale, you've heard the discussion between Steve
(can't hear).
Karr/Irvin I'm not picking you up at all I'm sorry.
Pfab/Now do you, does having a Council person or the Council be at somewhat in a
better informed might be the term we're looking for does that help you or hurt you
or how do you look at it? How would you look at it, does it give you any
assistance to say that I'm going to report to the Council once or twice during this
process or not?
Wilburn/I don't think that's a fair question to ask of a staff, he works for us, OK, if we
want to be involved with the process that's for us to decide, I don't think that's a
fair question of a staff member.
Pfab/Well I thought it was a fair question.
Wilburn/I don't think that's, I think that's.
Pfab/Because I think.
O'Donnell/Ernie why don't you see if there's, you know we've had our discussion, let's
see if there's four people who want to pursue this.
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Lehman/Well I don't think there are.
O'Donnell/Connie's told me no, I'm no, that's two, are there two others?
Lehman/Well I'd really, obviously there are not four people who want to pursue it but I
do think that it needed a little bit of discussion and you don't agree with the
discussion but I tried to tell you how I feel about it and I feel very strongly about
it, if I felt that there were something that would positive that would occur from
this I would be right up there with you. I think the only thing that I can possibly
see occurring from this is negative and I think too much of our employees and this
community to let something negative happen to a really really great group of
folks, those folks that work for the city. That would send a bad message.
Wilburn/And you've also said that because of the past established relationship there have
been times when Dale has come forward and said here we are.
Lehman/Yes, I have no doubt Dale would come and see us if he felt there was something
to talk to us about so.
Pfab/OK my question is by putting a regular one or two contacts with the Council does
that take the decision make the decision easier for Dale in the sense that he now
he has to make that decision should I go to the Council or should I not, otherwise
it's just a reporting thing and he says well I've got to report so that's fine and go
on.
Lehman/Well you have traditionally come to us.
Pfab/That's why I asked a question now we don't have that tradition so we don't know,
at least I don't know whether he does or not but for some reason I really, when I
asked that question I was very sincere about it would it make it easier for Dale to
say well when he's going into a negotiation or whoever yes I'm going to.
Wilburn/So you're my boss and you're asking me do I make you, am I going to make you
uncomfortable, is it a problem for you, my boss to be there? That's an unfair
question to put someone who works for you in.
Pfab/Well.
Kanner/Well Ross I think you're unfair with that question, I think we're different from a
typical boss employee relationship being a political elected officials I think it's a
different relationship and we ask staff for forthright opinions all the time so we
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can base our political decisions on for as much as factual statements that they can
make, we expect them to be factual, to then follow the majority of the council and.
Wilburn/That's correct except we don't say is it OK for you to be here, that's what that
question, that's what that question, that's different than asking for expertise.
Kanner/I didn't follow that.
Lehman/This discussion isn't going to go anywhere obviously there is not interest in
pursuing what you'd like to do Steven. It's 11:00. Pardon.
Kanner/So can we, just for the record are you going to have who's against further
discussion on this?
O'Donnell/It seems like everybody.
Lehman/Well no, no. Are there people on the council who would prefer that we use a
different technique in working with our bargaining units that have proven
successful for the last 15 years?
Kanner/No can we put it in terms?
Lehman/Well that's the way it is.
Kanner/Can we, who is in favor of further discussion of these proposals?
Lehman/Who is in favor of further discussion of changing the process that we've been
using for collective bargaining, that's what your saying?
Kanner/I'm saying who 's in favor of further discussion on possible changes?
Lehman/Changes which is changing the process, all right how many are in favor of
further discussion on changing the process that we use for collective bargaining?
Kanner/I am.
Lehman/How many are not in favor? How many don't care?
Pfab/Well I, this is regular vote, this is just a show of hands anyway so is it something
that should be brought up at a formal Council meeting I'm not so sure it shouldn't,
but I don't have the answer. I thought I was asking Dale a fair question here and
Ross went after me like but I'll tell you.
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Lehman/No we had a formal (can't hear).
Pfab/No, no, in a sense so you know that surprised me so I thought it was a question is
that was one.
O'Donnell/Good night.
Pfab/That's fine.
Lehman/It's 11:00 we'll do Council Time tomorrow night.
Vanderhoef/Sounds like a winner.
O'Donnell/What have we been here about 14 hours?
Lehman/No but it has been.
Pfab/Did you check your calendar?
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