Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-04-16 Transcription April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 1 April 16, 2001 Special Work Session 6:45 PM Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn, Pfab, Kanner Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Dilkes, Miklo, Fowler, Logsden, Nasby, Craig, Davidson, Gannon, Yapp, Boothroy, Matthews, Amin TAPES: 01-38 SIDE TWO; 01-40 BOTH SIDES; 01-41 BOTH SIDES Planninl~ & Zoninl~ Addition - New Item 6h Public hearing on Peninsula Senior Planner Bob Miklo/Your first item is to change your agenda tomorrow night and add consideration of a motion setting a public hearing for May 1, an amendment to the sensitive areas overlay zone for the Peninsula. What we're proposing to do is. Champion/I'm sorry, I'm trouble hearing. Wilburn/I can't hear. Miklo/Okay I'll speak a little louder. What we're proposing to do is transfer the 24 acres that currently the Elks have a lease on and add 24 acres in this other area owned by the city and this is in reaction to the lawsuit brought by the Elks. I believe you have a confidential memo from the City Attorney's office that explains this further. Lehman/Basically just technicality. Vanderhoef/We're to. Lehman/And we're going to set the public hearing tomorrow night. Miklo/Right for May 1 st. Lehman/Okay for May 1 st. Kanner/Are we going to vote on that tomorrow? Lehman/No. Vanderhoef/We're setting a public hearing. Kanner/Are we going to vote after the public hearing? Lehman/No. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 2 Vanderhoef/No. Dilkes/No we're just going to set the public hearing, P & Z is going to look at it on Thursday. A. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MAY 1 ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE SENSITIVE AREA OVERLAY PLAN FOR WALNUT RIDGE PART 9-10, A 20.67 ACRE, 13-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED ON KENNEDY PARKWAY. (REZ01-0003) Miklo/Your second item is also a setting a public hearing to amend the sensitive areas overlay plan for Walnut Ridge Parts 9-10 area where we looked at this a few months back and this is an amendment to that. B. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM GENERAL INDUSTRIAL (I-l) TO INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL (CI-1) FOR APPROXIMATELY 12.09 ACRES LOCATED ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF HIGHWAY 1. (REZ01-0002). Miklo/Your third item is a public hearing on the rezoning of the Ruppert property on the south side of Highway 1 between the Wal-Mart property and the Menards property. The rezoning would be from I-1 general industrial to CI-1 intensive commercial. This is also within the airport overlay protection zone and so there are provisions with that zone that allow this to develop but have some restrictions in terms of height and usage to protect the runway. Kanner/Bob there was, I remember reading in some of the minutes from P & Z that they wanted to remove entirely opportunity to use Mason even, a Masonry for the wall, there was some concern that that would still be too much of a blank wall and then I didn't see that in a later recommendation for conditions. Miklo/After discussion Planning & Zoning felt that they would like a general condition as is included in the Conditional Zoning Agreement. Kanner/And that gives it like basically the three options for the wall? Miklo/Right. Kanner/Masonry is one of them. Miklo/That's correct. Kanner/And so why did they change their mind as to why that would not appear to be too much of a blank wall? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 3 Miklo/I believe after further discussion the majority of the Commission felt that the options were sufficient to address their concerns. Kanner/I'm just not following. What was the reason? Miklo/After discussion the Commission was happy with the proposal to allow windows, brick, or masonry or some indentation in the walls, they were happy with that, the solution that was first put forward. One commissioner early on raised a concern, there was some discussion but the majority did not go along with that concern. Kanner/Okay so you're saying the majority from the beginning liked the original proposal that the staff had given about masonry. Miklo/In the end they did, I don't know where they were at the beginning, I don't know that they looked at it that closely until the question was raised. Kanner/Okay. Miklo/By the way we are asking that you keep the public hearing open because we don't anticipate that the conditional zoning agreement will be signed by tomorrow night, one of the property owners recently died and their estate needs to sign it and so they need to work it out. Lehman/So we'll continue it to May 1st. Miklo/Right. C. CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM HIGH DENSITY MULTI- FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, RM-44, TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY, OSA- 44, FOR APPROXIMATELY 4.01 ACRES OF PROPERTY TO ALLOW 39 DWELLINGS IN THREE BUILDINGS LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF HARLOCKE STREET. (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Miklo/Your next item is the public hearing on the Harlocke Weeber property, the sensitive areas overlay staff does not have any further information on the plan, it's basically the same plan that you saw before. O'Donnell/We should know on this one since we'll be considering first consideration tomorrow night exactly exactly what we're voting on. Dilkes/Just let me back up a minute Mike, we should state for the record Ernie slipped out when I wasn't looking, and just for all of you, you need to when you leave for a conflict you need to state it on the record because obviously the tape doesn't pick up somebody leaving. Did you want me to respond to that Mike? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 4 O'Donnell/Yes I would. Dilkes/Well I think as I've said before and as I've said in the, let's see, my memo to you of March 29, 2001, the issue before you is whether the plan complies with the sensitive areas ordinance. As you told you by memo in the recent packet I did get a letter from Joe Holland representing the members of the neighborhood who indicated that he would be making further argument. I've not received that so I can't respond to that whatever it is he might say. I have some preliminary thoughts but I told him I would wait until I got his analysis. O'Donnell/Okay, I guess the only question I had is we are voting basically to see if it complies with the sensitive areas overlay. Vanderhoef/It is. O'Donnell/That' s the question that we will be voting on tomorrow night. Does anybody got any questions? And I don't have, I understand we're going to have a power point presentation tomorrow night and. Go ahead. Kanner/I have a question, for any procedural votes that we might do on this issue you only need a simple majority, the super majority is only for the specific vote on the rezoning, is that correct? Dilkes/Procedural votes such as. Kanner/Voting to defer a vote to a next meeting. Dilkes/No it's the actual vote that needs the super majority. Kanner/(can't hear). Dilkes/A deferral I think would just need a simple majority. Kanner/So it needs four out of the six. Dilkes/Out of the six. O'Donnell/But this first consideration does take a super majority, is that the way I understand it okay? Okay we can get Ernie. Dilkes/Ernie has now returned. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 5 D. PUBLIC HEARING ON A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO INCLUDE THE NORTH DISTRICT PLAN. Miklo/Your next item is the noah district plan, you will be holding a public hearing, as you know this is an element of the comprehensive plan. The overall comprehensive plan divides the city into 10 sub districts, and for each of those we are doing a district plan. We've already done one for the south, south central, noah east and of course now the noah district. The area covered generally is south of Interstate 80, noahwest of Dodge Street, although there are a few properties on the south side of Dodge Street included. North of the ravine between Brown and Kimball Avenue or Kimball Road. The river forms the south and western boundary and the water plant is included on the northern or noahwestern boundary of the district. The overall district includes about 1,800 acres, we started the planning process a couple of years ago when we had a series of neighborhood workshops, we invited property owners in the area, developers, Realtors, environmentalists, anyone who might have an interest in this part of the city to attend these workshops, and they were very well attended, we had over 100 people participate. We also interviewed the major property owners who had expressed an interest in participating in the process and got their ideas on how they would like to see the area developed. The plan itself which I won't go into a lot of great detail, we're just going to hit on the highlights tonight and a summary, you received a plan a few days ago. It divides the topics that are covered into housing, commercial and institutional uses, transportation, public services and facilities and parks and open space. And then there are eight sub areas where we pay particular attention, these are areas where we will see some change in the district over the next few years. John Yapp, associate planner is now going to cover some of the highlights of those individual districts. John Yapp/As Bob mentioned based on the neighborhood workshops the noah district was divided up into 8 specific areas that seem to generate the need for a little more planning. The first two areas are both areas that have had planning for independently, number one is the water plant site and number 2 is the Peninsula neighborhood and the future Peninsula Park in the flood plain of the Peninsula neighborhood. Area number 3 or properties along the remainder of Foster Road, up to recently this area, the development has been very limited primarily due to a lack of infrastructure in the neighborhood. But with the recent reconstruction of Foster Road and the extension of water and sewer lines into this area, more development is feasible. The plan does recommend the use of a conservation design subdivision which sets aside like wooded ravines and focuses development on the flatter higher ground. These are some apartments on the noah side of Foster Road that have been there for a number of years and they illustrate I think what the remainder of the plan emphasizes which is allowing for development on the flatter higher ground while preserving the wooded ravines and these apartment buildings coexist with some wooded ravines directly in the rear of them. The fourth area is the Taft Speedway area and this side is from the early part of the April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 6 20th century, flooding is not a new issue in this area. And unless Taft Speedway and Dubuque Street are elevated above the flood plain, the plan does recommend very limited development in this area due to the flooding, the wetlands in the area, particularly low density residential development in the area. This is standing in Terrill Mill Park looking out toward Dubuque Street and one thing we heard pretty consistently from people at the neighborhood workshops was the desire to maintain the attractiveness of Dubuque Street and improve the attractiveness of the Dodge Street corridors. Many people wanted to keep this, the green space, the wooded areas and the wide open field along Terrill Mill Park as an important entrance way feature into Iowa City. Kanner/How did they feel about the skateboard park that' s going to be there? Yapp/The skateboard park, the Parks and Rec. Commission was holding meetings after we had the workshops for this plan but at the subsequent, when we presented this to the neighborhood a few months ago the only comment I got was that people felt that the skateboard park was brought up during this time but this was almost two years ago so it hadn't been brought up yet. Moving onto east of Dubuque Street and the Shimek park neighborhood, in the Iowa City arterial street plan is the future alignment of Foster Road and while that is not a funded project at this point when Foster Road is developed in this area it will open up more area for development noah of Shimek School and again the plan emphasizes a conservation design, clustering the development on a higher ground and preserving the wooded ravines, this is very steep topography just south of the interstate. Kanner/And you want to put a trail, a bike trail along Foster Road, or is that the sidewalk? Yapp/That would be a 8 foot wide sidewalk and that' s standard now for arterial streets. Another aspect that most workshop participants emphasized was the creation of sidewalk connections and other pedestrian connections in the neighborhood, this is Whiting Avenue, many of the older streets in the Shimek neighborhood do not have sidewalks and particularly we heard the desire for connections to parks and schools. This is the playground at Shimek park and another thing that we heard of is while there' s a lot of open space in the noah district there' s very little active open space or playground areas, this is the only playground actually in the district on the east side of Dubuque Street. The plan does recommend the creation of an additional active park space on the east side, or excuse me on the west side of Dubuque Road and this is an area that because of the topography this area actually falls to the noah is very difficult to sewer and therefore we felt and many people agreed that it would be a good opportunity to create a park area. The Williams Pipeline in this plan would serve a couple of functions, it would form a buffer between residential development and the interstate, many people did not want to see residential development butt up against the interstate because of the noise and air pollution concerns and because Williams Pipeline runs along the south and of April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 7 the interstate it's a good opportunity for a buffer. It's also a good opportunity for a trail corridor in this area, the North Ridge Trail in Coralville for example runs concurrently with the Williams Pipeline in Coralville so it is something that is in the plan for the north district. I've just got a few more slides and then I'll be out of your way. This is the Dubuque Road. Kanner/John, is there a plan to go over the river with following the pipeline eventually to the west there? Yapp/Not with a trail, no. Kanner/Not with a trail. Yapp/No. The Dubuque Road area is a very low density real character area and also has some sewer constraints, because of this the plan recommends maintaining this area as is, as a lower density area and does not recommend reconstructing Dubuque Road, we do not feel that there si the need to reconstruct that road at this time. And finally the Dodge Street corridor, this is the main commercial corridor not only for the noah district but for the city, people really focused on how beneficial having the HyVee was close by to their neighborhood and they wanted to see more variety in neighborhood commercial type services, much of this corridor is more of an arterial street commercial corridor not necessarily serving the adjacent neighborhood but a much larger segment of the population. And the plan does recommend an extension of the commercial area, the star right here is the existing HyVee, it does recommend extending a commercial area to the east and the stripe line would indicate depending on somewhat how the market and how things get develop the plan sees us as a mixed use residential commercial area with some commercial services transitioning into the residential neighborhood surrounding it and the important thing there is the buffering between the commercial and the residential. Pfab/Can I ask you a question? Yapp/Sure. Pfab/How much is that angled intersection going to cause, how much of a problem is that going to, an unusual angle? Yapp/This intersection with Conklin Lane, actually that is going to be reconstructed with the Dodge Street project in a couple of years and made safer. Pfab/Are they going to change the angle of the approach? Yapp/Conklin Lane will, instead of this triangular area here, Conklin Lane will form more of a T intersection with Dodge Street so it will be a safer intersection. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 8 Pfab/And what about the one across the street there? Yapp/At Dubuque Road, I do not believe there are significant plans to change that. JeffDavidson/Actually the whole intersection Irvin will be reconstructed, it may not be exactly a 90 degree intersection there may still be a slight skew in it but the state allows that and the visibility will be much improved from what it is now. Pfab/So you're saying it's going to get a lot closer to a right angle. Davidson/Yea and right now on Conklin Lane you can even see on the map you can basically go straight out to Dodge or you can go due west out to Dodge and that will be cleaned up so there' s just a single way in and out of there. Pfab/And a relatively right angle. Davidson/Relatively right angle but probably not exactly 90 degrees just because Dodge Street is at a skew through there. Yapp/Yea and another thing that will improve traffic in this area is the traffic signal at Prairie Du Chien and Dodge, it's something that was one of the more consistent things we heard from people, the need for that traffic signal and in conjunction with the existing signal at what is now Scott Boulevard and Dodge again. Pfab/Is this a time to ask was there really strong objections to the way the streets are being laid out or the way Dodge Street is presently designed to look at? It seemed to me that there was some people were very strongly opposed to that when I was at those (can't hear). Yapp/To the existing? Pfab/No to what the. Yapp/To the proposed. Pfab/Right. Some people had some really strong, you know there might have been a majority were for it but there was really strong objections by some people. Yapp/Bob do you want to address that? Miklo/What I recall was that during the discussion of the Dodge Street corridor folks expressed a desire to have it 3 lanes verus 4 and to have some landscaping and those I believe are incorporated in the plan that we're moving forward with so I April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 9 don't see that the folks who participated in the workshops were necessarily opposed to what finally was we're going forward with. Lehman/Bob I have a question for you while your there. On the colored map that you've got a piece of it there. Where the, where Foster Road, the future extension of Foster Road to the north and the east of Dubuque Street, we really haven't shown any sort of alignment as it intersects Dubuque Street have we in the map? Miklo/Not on this map. Lehman/No but I mean that is, they will meet like the way they should. Miklo/Right, the Public Works office has worked on some concepts for that area, we don't have the exact alignment chosen but it will be an improvement over what' s there now. Lehman/Yea not the way it shows here. Davidson/I may just correct one thing Bob said, there is a specific alignment for Foster Road, when we put the water line we'll actually be acquiring the right of way and grading easements for the eventual construction of the road, we won't be constructing the actual road until you all decide you want to do that. Lehman/Is this proposed trail that will go along the water right of way Jeff, this dotted line? Vanderhoef/Well that' where the street will be too so the trail will be with the street. Lehman/And then that intersection will then probably be around in there. Davidson/Right and there will be a very tidy intersection, you may recall from your CIP discussion Ernie that that Foster Road intersection with Dubuque Street project is very expensive because the whole thing has to be reconstructed to get the geometry work in there. Lehman/Right, right, okay. Yapp/I'd be glad to take any more questions at this point? Kanner/Yea, two additional bridges over the Iowa River proposed. Miklo/We have a foot bridge in this vicinity and then I believe this is the one that was proposed a few years ago along with the Peninsula project. Vanderhoef/How did the folks feel about that one? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 10 Miklo/The new one or the one west of? Vanderhoef/The one off of the Peninsula to the east. Miklo/They like the idea of another foot bridge, and there was some discussion whether it should occur back to Crandic park or here and I can't recall the exact reason why there was a majority who wished it to occur back to Park Road and Rocky Shore. Yapp/Yea most people liked the idea of this especially people who live in the Manville Heights area to have access to the Peninsula Park without having to go onto Dubuque Street and back up to Foster Road. And also I think for people in the Peninsula neighborhood for them to be able to have quick access to the University campus via this pedestrian bridge is a positive thing. Vanderhoef/Right now it's faster for them to go to the Coralville connection than it is to go out to Dubuque Street. Yapp/It may be yea. Miklo/The people in the Idylwild Condominium development also were very supportive of that second bridge. Kanner/And can you give approximate years when you propose those bridges? Miklo/No those will have to be worked in to the Capital Improvements Program. Kanner/Oh. Lehman/Thank you. E. CONSIDER AN ORDNANCE AMENDING THE ZONING CODE ARTICLE (D), DEFINITIONS, AND ARTICLE (L) PROVISIONAL USES, SPECIAL EXCEPTIONS AND TEMPORARY USES, TO ALLOW ACCESSORY APARTMENTS IN ACCESSORY BUILDINGS. (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Miklo/I've got a couple other. Your next item will be the first consideration of the ordinance amendment regarding accessory apartments and I don't believe there was a lot of controversy or public discussion associated with that particular item. F. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION BY ESTABLISHING A CONSERVATION OVERLAY ZONE FOR PROPERTIES GENERALLY LOCATED SOUTH OF BURLINGTON STREET ALONG GOVERNOR AND LUCAS STREETS. (SECOND CONSIDERATION) April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 11 Miklo/And then you'll have second consideration of the Lucas Governor Bowery Street conservation district. G. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A PRELIMINARY PLAT OF STONE BRIDGE ESTATES PART 1, A 5.05 ACRE, 16-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED NORTH OF COURT STREET, EAST OF CAMDEN ROAD, AND WEST OF TAFT AVENUE. (SUB01-0002) Miklo/And your final item tomorrow night is the resolution approving the preliminary plat of Stone Bridge Estates part 1, a 5 acre, 16-1ot residential subdivision. This is in the Windsor or just to the noah of the Windsor Ridge development, there, if you've been out in the area you'll notice there are some townhouses being built right now just adjacent to Court Street, there is a collector street designated to be built here and that was approved earlier, I believe it was actually last year. And this would be the first subdivision in this newly annexed area that was annexed last year, the western portion of it which has sanitary sewer service was zoned RS-5, the eastern portion was zoned IDIRS because we don't have services there. And the subdivision would consist of all single family lots with a potential for a street network to continue, we do have a concept plan that the Planning & Zoning Commission reviewed and was pretty happy with unfortunately I don't have a slide of that. Kanner/Bob do, Parks and Rec. was going to meet April 1 lth about open space and decide their recommendation on what to do with that. Did they come to a recommendation? Miklo/Yea I haven't heard back from Terry Trueblood I can get a response for you tomorrow night, the thought was there wasn't any open space in this particular area that was suitable that there would be to the east in the larger development which the current developer does not have control of yet so that they would collect fees in lieu of and purchase that land or he would dedicate it once he does get control of it. Kanner/And there was some, staff had some concerns with discrepancies and those were taken care of. Miklo/Those were resolved. Lehman/Thank you. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 12 A~enda Items ITEM NO. 6H. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MAY 1, ON AN ORDINANCE REZONING 24 ACRES FROM p, PUBLIC TO SAO-5 SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY AND AMENDING THE PRELIMINARY SAO PLAN OF THE PENINSULA NEIGHBORHOOD, AN 82.1 ACRE DEVELOPMENT LOCATED AT THE WEST END OF FOSTER ROAD. Karr/Mayor just to note the public hearing that' s been added will be added as 6H. Lehman/Right it will be the last item on Planning & Zoning, I got that. Any agenda items. ITEM NO. 4f (14) (a) (b) JCCOG TRAFFIC ENGINEER PLANNER. (A) DESIGNATION OF A NO PARKING ANY TIME ZONE ON THE EAST SIDE OF UNION ROAD BETWEEN THE DRIVEWAY AT 2008 UNION ROAD AND ARIZONA AVENUE (B) DESIGNATION OF A NO PARKING ANY TIME ZONE ON THE EAST SIDE OF WILLOW STREET BETWEEN MUSCATINE AVENUE AND PINE CREST ROAD Davidson/I have one. Lehman/Yes. Davidson/Under the Consent Calendar you have a couple of on street parking items and you may have heard from some of the folks on these streets, I've had a number of discussions and indicated that to them that because it was on the Consent Calendar they needed to express their opinions to you ahead of the meeting so that you would have the option of removing that from the Consent Calendar if you want to have some discussion about it. One involves Willow Street, one involves Union, just real quickly I won't be at the meeting tomorrow night so just a one minute review of how we investigate these issues. We get a lot of requests from people for changes to on street parking and probably 75-80 percent of them are sort of neighborhood feud type issues where my neighbor parks in front of my house, he won't park in front of his own house, I'd like parking taken off, that kind of thing and those, we explain to the people that it's a public street and unfortunately your neighbor can park in front of your house if he chooses for up to 48 hours and those don't ever, you don't ever see those. The remaining 20 percent or so we do investigate, we indicate to the people that there is a priority when we look at these issues, basically the movement of traffic along the street in a safe manner is the number one priority. The convenience of neighborhood parking to the adjacent is a second priority when we look at these and we do get some that we do feel, well April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 13 of that remaining 20 percent it kind of breaks down, the great majority of them we investigate, we determine there' s not a safety issue, and so we leave it up to the neighborhood and that' s where we do the postcard surveys and we basically tell the neighborhood we don't really care, if you'd like a particular parking designation let us know and the majority typically rules. And those come to you on the Consent Calendar, you see those. There are then the smallest percentage of them are ones that we determine there is a safety issue, we make a recommendation to you without the benefit of a neighborhood survey because we feel there is a safety issue. Both of these involve visibility issues, Willow Street it's a hill in the road, and on Union it's a curve in the road. The one on Union is a request that the Police Department and the Streets Division brought to us to in this one block area on the curve have parking taken off. There is on street parking then on either side of that one block area that, and actually on Union there' s a bulb street that comes out and there' s parking allowed there as well. So the people in the vicinity where we're proposing to take it off would have still parking in the neighborhood, similarly on Willow Street, we're proposing to remove it from a one block area because of the hill in the street. Lehman/That' s one side only on Willow Street? Davidson/Yea although there' s no parking on the other side of the street. Lehman/So it would be no parking at all on both. Davidson/On either side, actually at both of these locations on either side of the street but beyond the area there would be on one side of the street. Just real quickly Irvin let me finish, certainly there' s room for your own discretion in these, if you look around town, we do have areas where we basically make exceptions. Certainly in the area around downtown where there are a lot of old houses converted into apartments and there' s simply not enough space for parking on the site. We allow on street parking in areas where we probably otherwise wouldn't do it, Van Buren Street, south of Burlington is a good example, relatively narrow street but they simply need the parking in the neighborhood. So in both of these particular issues we've given you our recommendation certainly if you feel that there' s another point of view that overrides that simply take it off your calendar and vote it the other way and we won't put the signs up. We're very comfortable with you doing that ifthat's your desire. Pfab/I after checking it out and spending some time in the area I would recommend that that be taken off the Consent Calendar. Vanderhoef/Both of them or which one? Pfab/The one on Willow, I can't speak for the other one, I didn't check that one but I think that's a bigger problem. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 14 Davidson/I think, several of the calls that I've received I think it's fair to say that there are people who live in those areas that feel they've been getting along fine the way it is, they would like to continue to get along fine the way it is and that will be your discussion. Any questions for me I won't be here tomorrow night. Lehman/I realize that so I'm going to ask you right now. Obviously you feel there is a safety issue here or you would not be recommending that parking be removed. Would you just elaborate on that? Davidson/We feel there are visibility issues, a good comparison, in my neighborhood Sheridan Avenue, if you're familiar with that, it's 25 foot wide street, has parking on one side because the neighborhood wants it. The difference there is that there' s good visibility, you can see a car coming towards you, you can pull in behind a parked car, let that car go past. At both of these locations there is a visibility problem, and there' s a difficulty, in the case of the Willow Street situation we received a complaint from the neighborhood from someone who said there' s an issue, I can't see a car coming, I pull into the opposite lane to get around a parked car and I almost crash into somebody and that situation does exist out there. Now is there a terribly high accident rate? No there' s not, it is something that' s just a visibility issue that we feel would be safer if the parking was taken off. In the case of Union Road, same situation, there' s one complicating factor on Union Road that there is on residence that does put a lot of vehicles on the street and I'm told by the police department it's both vehicles, occasionally a trailer and I think a boat they said and I'm recalling, and that exastorbates the visibility problem on the curve at Union Avenue. Irvin. Pfab/Are you aware that there was ever an accident on Willow Street? Davidson/We checked Irvin and I think there was a couple and certainly not an excessive accident rate, and you shouldn't believe it, either of those locations that there's an excessive accident rate there is not. Champion/How many excessive accidents does it take to change it? Pfab/Pardon. Champion/How many excessive accidents does it take to change it? Pfab/That wasn't my question, how many excessive ones, how many accidents. Davidson/The order of magnitude was two or three over a five year period so certainly not a high number. O'Donnell/How much contact have you had from the neighborhood Jeff?. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 15 Davidson/I've had probably, I've had one call on Willow Street and we've had two on Union from people who live right in the area. And there' s, by the way there' s not Mike an excessive number of residents affected, there' s about two or three at each location. Pfab/I would. Vanderhoef/I had one e-mail on the Willow Street one. Pfab/I would suggest that possibly that might be something the neighborhood ought to take up if it's, if the neighborhood feels very strongly about it but I'm a little reluctant to, since there' s no parking on one side of the street it's a, visibility is not perfect but it's not that bad either I didn't think unless you come roaring up that hill which your not really suppose to do anyway. Karr/Mr. Mayor, we did get a request today and we're advised that two people from Union would be here tomorrow evening. Lehman/Okay. Kanner/So it makes sense that both of them I think off the consent calendar and just hear what people have to say and have discussion. O'Donnell/I agree. Davidson/Okay I'll just check with Marian Wednesday morning and direct the sign crew accordingly. Okay thank you. ITEM NO. 4f ( 1 ). RUTH J. BECK - PARKING Kanner/Steve I guess this would be up your alley speaking of cars. We had correspondence number 1 f# 1, page 110 in our packet from Ruth Beck about her daughter' s car getting towed. Atkins/Yes. Kanner/I guess my only thought is was there a warning ticket if she got a warning ticket, it might be appropriate and either way can we have a letter written to her? Atkins/We were following up and I need to check and find out where that it is so I'll let you know. Lehman/Steve isn't our procedure for towing cars that are (can't hear) or on the streets, we ticket them and then come back 24 hours later and tow them? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 16 Atkins/48. Lehman/48 hours after they're ticketed and so there is, and I'm sure this will be communicated (can't hear) 48 hour notice that we're going to tow them. Kanner/That' s why I just want to make sure because she didn't seem to mention that that happened and if that happened I think that (can't hear). Lehman/It was on my list too. Atkins/And I can almost assure you virtually that 9 times out of 10 someone' s called in and complained. Lehman/Right. Atkins/And we'll take care of it. Lehman/Okay. ITEM NO. 4d (4) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION FIXING DATE OF MAY 1 FOR A MEETING ON THE PROPOSITION OF THE ISSUANCE OF NOT TO EXCEED $670,000 OF GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS (FOR A GENERAL CORPORATE PURPOSE) AND PROVIDING FOR PUBLICATION OF NOTICE THEREOF. Kanner/I had a question, we're setting a public hearing issue GO bonds, this is Item number 4 D4, and I was just curious art for public buildings, purchasing, could you explain what that is, what art we're purchasing? Atkins/The art for public buildings may be not the best of descriptions, that is the public art program or public art advisory committee, we sell some debt each year. Vanderhoef/A $100,000. Atkins/Thank you, yes, it is the same thing. No it is not separate. Kanner/Okay, I thought you have to have a little fund for art and public buildings would be good but that' s another issue. ITEM NO. 15. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR TEMPORARY USE OF PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND IOWA CITY COFFEE COMPANY FOR A SIDEWALK CAFE. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 17 Kanner/I had a question number 15 on the Java House allowing them to have a sidewalk cafe, it mentioned about having to take down the fence their. Atkins/Marian will take care of you. Karr/I'll try. Kanner/About having to take down their fence their putting up during the winter but the neighbor doesn't have to do that. Karr/It' s, well number one it was their request to do it and number two upon their request the advise of Public Works they took a look at it and determined it might be easier for snow removal and safety issues to allow the flexibility for the fence to be removed so we worked that into the agreement, Quinton's agreement does not have it, the Java House will have it. Kanner/Do you think in the future for when it gets removed for Quinton's we should put that in? Karr/We're certainly going to take a look at it, the difference Steven how it was attached to begin with. With Quinton's got the approval the way they put it in may not allow for so much of the ease for the sleeves and the plugs to be put in and repair it as easily, it's the way it was installed to begin with. We're certainly going to take a look at it and check on that and Public Works certainly is very much interested in that so once it comes up we will take a look at it. Kanner/Yea I was a little surprised it was this permanent fence that we allowed up there. It seemed okay. Vanderhoef/In that ordinance though there is something about taking out the fences when we did the original. Karr/There is a provision that it must be returned back to it's original sidewalk appearance once the establishment chooses not to use it or should close or any of the following but again that is permanent again from taking it out to return it to a sidewalk not to reinstall it again weather permitting and that' s the difference of the installation. We're certainly going to take a look at that I think as we forward, it's a question of how we want to retrofit literally Quinton's right now. Kanner/(can't hear). ITEM NO. 10. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE CITY CODE OF THE CITY OF IOWA CITY, IOWA, BY ENACTING NEW SECTIONS NUMBERED 4-2-3, ENTITLED "LOCAL REVIEW OF April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 18 APPLICATION/INVESTIGATION OF APPLICANT"; SECTION 4-2-4, ENTITLED "NOTICE AND HEARING"; AND SECTION 4-2-5 ENTITLED "CIVIL PENALTIES"; REVISING SECTION 4-5-4 ENTITLED "REGULATION OF PERSONS UNDER LEGAL AGE"; ENACTING A NEW SECTION 4-5-6 ENTITLED "SALES TO INTOXICATED PERSONS"; AND ENACTING A NEW SECTION 4-5-7 ENTITLED "LIMITATIONS ON SALES," ALL OF WHICH PROVIDE FOR THE REGULATION OF ALCOHOL SALES. (SECOND CONSIDERATION) Lehman/Well I would like to bring up and I'm sure we'll discuss it at much more length tomorrow night but two weeks ago tomorrow night we had the first consideration of our ordinance designed at regulating alcohol sales. Tomorrow night is the second consideration and I guess I'm curious ifthere's any interest on the part of the Council in eliminating. Champion/The whole thing? O'Donnell/(can't hear). Lehman/No, there is a regulation in there that and I haven't talked to you Eleanor but I did talk to Andy last week, almost all the objections that we have gotten, or that I have gotten from this ordinance is relative to taking away the ability of the actually it would be more than just bars, I guess bars, to advertise specials, in other words if they would like to have a Bud light on Monday night for a $1.00 they couldn't do it unless that was their usual price. By eliminating Item 4 something or another I can't remember what it is Eleanor. Vanderhoef/Six (can't hear). Lehman/I'm not sure that we harm the ordinance and we certainly eliminate most of the objections that we have to it. Is there any other thoughts on that? Dilkes/Let me just clarify Ernie, your talking about the one that talks about the reducing the price from that you normally customarily charge. Lehman/Right, right. Dilkes/So that for instance $1.00 draws on Friday night would be allowable. Lehman/Right. Dilkes/$.50 draws and that kind of thing. I mean I think that it is, it is, it's kind of, that could be a problem for you in terms of what your trying to accomplish if you don't include it, on the other hand I think your right that it poses certainly some enforcement issues. I think one of the things, and I can give you kind of an update April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 19 on where we're at but and I was going to raise this issue. One of the things I think we're going to have to look at on that one. (END OF 01-38 SIDE TWO) Dilkes/Whether there be posting of prices required that kind of thing, so those are some of the issues that we have. Some of the questions we've gotten to date have dealt with that issue and that's certainly one we're going to work with if you choose to keep it in. Lehman/Well I can see a number of difficulties associated with keeping it, also obviously with not keeping it, and it seems to me the rest of that ordinance has got some really good provisions that may be able to accomplish a great deal of what we would like to do. And I guess I personally don't feel we'd lose much by taking that out and certainly make it more pliable. Wilburn/Well I would agree that I think that we really try and get something that we think is going to have an affect and I think even, and I know you said in jest throw it out but even seeing your comments Connie about the civil penalties and those type of things that there are some good components to this so I was curious Eleanor you have received some questions (can't hear). Dilkes/Yea let me just, let me give you a little update as to where we're at with this. As you know April 18th, Wednesday is the deadline for getting written comments that for bar owners on the specials. We tried to limit that comments, getting comments just on the specials restriction, not on the whole ordinance, I tried to tell them that if they have policy issues or you know that kind of thing they need to go to you. so we're going to meet Marian and I and Andy Matthews from my office are going to meet with any bar owners who are interested talking about that topic on April 19. My recommendation and I know you all have political considerations that may lead you in another direction, my recommendation I think as I told you last time is not to act on this thing until it's in the final form. So I would defer it until it's in the final form, I don't like the idea of putting out a different version before Thursday that we're going to have to then, we're going to have a different version to deal with the bar owners with other than the one we sent out to them. If you do change it your going to have to do three readings on it anyway so that' s my thinking in terms of procedure. Based on questions we have received to date I think changes are going to be necessary in the following respects or at least some type of discussion and consideration by you all. Number one, one of the questions that Mr. Moore has raised is that the restrictions, although they prohibit all you can drink for a certain price, they do not prohibit all you can drink for free, apparently that' s an issue. On the out of sight sales provision, the question is whether we focus on sale or delivery, in other words you give somebody two drinks do they have to pay for it, those two drinks at the time is all were really interested in is making sure that we deliver two drinks to that person at a time. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 20 For instance if we focus on the sale then somebody couldn't run a tab for instance because they're being sold more than two drinks at a time. Although I can see from an our enforcement. Dale are you? Helling/You might try to turn that on (can't hear). Champion/Annoying. Dilkes/Oh I can hear myself so I didn't know you couldn't. From our enforcement perspective requiring a sale you know, you can only sell two drinks at a time certainly simplifies it but I can see from a perspective of running a bar it would be complicated to be, to have to make a sale for each two drinks, you know you couldn't have a tab, you couldn't buy a round, you know that kind of thing, so that' s the second issue. The private catered events issue that was raised at the last meeting, that's a term that we took from statutes and regulations in other states, I think the catered part of that clause doesn't get us anywhere and probably needs to be removed because all these restrictions apply only to on premise consumption and catered, under Iowa law you get a special catering privilege that you can attach to your license and go out and cater outside your premise, private places, that' s not what the ordinance deals with anyway so I mean chuck the catered part of that. So the focus is on private, what do we mean by private, a dictionary defines private as intended for a restricted use of a particular person group or class. The issue then becomes there are a number of ways to make something "private", separate rooms, separate place, identification of those persons allowed to participate in the private event. For instance one of the comments that I got from a small bar owner outside the downtown area who only has a one room space is that she often has birthday parties and she'll provide cheaper beer to the group that is participating in the birthday party and she gives out a certain number of tickets that can be redeemed, that kind of thing, so that' s something you all are going to have to think about. and then finally was the issue that Ernie raised about that particular provision. Those are the questions that have come up, those are I think the things that we're going to have to, at least I know now we're going to have to deal with. Lehman/Then your recommending we defer second reading tomorrow and proceed, and then wait until we get some revisions made and then start the process again with the first reading. Dilkes/I just, as I told you last time, I am not comfortable passing an ordinance that is kind of still being worked on, so yes that' s my recommendation, is that we meet with the bar owners on the 19th, we would talk to you at your work session, well I would report to you in your packet before that May 1 st meeting, talk to you at the work session, what is it, the 30th, talk to you at the work session. Well I'm not going to have time to make the changes. We could propose some changes that would go in the packet for the June 30th meeting, we'd review those. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 21 Lehman/April 30th. Dilkes/If you want your work session, tweak them for the Tuesday night meeting and you could do your first reading then. Lehman/Okay then Mike you had a question. O'Donnell/I was going to thank you for not using the word tweaked and then you went and used it. You know is a major policy change for the city and I'm really uncomfortable tweaking it as we go. You know there are questions we need answered, to define private party, to define happy hour is it by price or is it by time? No specials, one of my questions was you can't have a special but you can give it away flee and increase the door charge. Lehman/How about private clubs? O'Donnell/Well what' s a private club? And what' s a private party? If the seven of us if we go somewhere is that a private party if one of us gets the bill. Champion/Well the simplest thing to do if you were a bar, would just be make your (can't hear) prices, make everybody pay a $1.00 to join and then you have a private bar. I think there are so many loop holes that we're just kidding ourselves. O'Donnell/They in affect have tweaked it. Champion/I do like, I do like the provision for penalties for serving minors, I do like that, I do like the penalties for serving a minor and serving to people who are already intoxicated. I think those are two valid parts of this ordinance but I'm sure as all of you know I've talked to most of you, I find the rest of it ineffective, I find it prejudicial, and I find it when you enforce this ordinance over all over the city I find it offends a lot of people. I still have problems with the fact that if I'm, I'm just using myself as an example because I'm well over 21 there' s no question about it. Lehman/Sure. Champion/I find it objectionable that if I'm at a bar with a bunch of out of town friends after a football game that I can't go to the bar and buy a pitcher of beer or six beers or 15 beers or whatever. I don't know, I mean what are we really after here? Are we really after keeping me from being able to do that? I don't think so. And are we really after that nobody in the city being able to do that because they want to stop some bars downtown from serving two more than drinks to a person? So then I find how are we going to enforce this law? Well I don't really think that police are going to be running around the small bars in the city to enforce it. I April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 22 mean we're going to have very specific enforcement and I think that a law that allows that and almost forces police to do it is wrong so I'm not going to be a soap opera about this, I think I've said enough. I think if we really want to stop underage drinking if we really want to stop binge drinking in minors at least that the best thing to do is just not allow them in the bars and that would certainly solve a lot of these problems. I guess keeping the penalties. O'Donnell/After a certain hour. Champion/Yea, right. O'Donnell/And see Connie you bring up a very good point also, you can't go up and buy three beers but you can make 10 trips, you know there are just so many ways around this and I agree that if you let somebody underage in a bar, chances are they're going to have some beer or whatever so I agree with Connie. Lehman/Same argument goes for stop signs, you can't have a cop at every stop sign either. How many folks want to pursue this? I mean I think we should pursue what we're going after, I think we can make changes. O'Donnell/(can't hear) tweak. Lehman/No I don't want to tweak it anymore, I just want to. Wilburn/After your meeting with, I mean do we start with where we have an agreement on this or I mean saying now at this point or last week after the first reading saying tweaking, going 21 is a major tweak from where we've been in the last year. O'Donnell/But you know I think you have to go back to the original intention of the ordinance and that' s to stop young people from buying beer and to stop bars from selling beer to young people. Now I think this all was prompted by all you can drink for $5.00, that' s an outrageous special. Lehman/Well but this started a long before that all you can drink for $5.00. O'Donnell/But that was kind of the straw that broke that camels back I believe. Vanderhoef/Well we had another purpose in here to that the binge drinking was also and we felt the specials certainly lead to binge drinking. O'Donnell/And that' s probably prompted a little bit by all you can drink for $5.00. Vanderhoef/That' s one of the cases and the two for one specials over a two hour time period is another one. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 23 Pfab/I think the civil penalty for serving some (can't hear). Champion/By what? Pfab/Someone who' s already drunk keep serving it. Champion/Right. Pfab/I mean I think that' s the, the civil penalties or breaking the law makes it easier to be effective. O'Donnell/But is it, is it our intention to go out on the golf course and a bunch of 50 year old men or women that one person obviously of age can't go in and buy a beer for the four some or on a bowling league if you get stuck on a beer frame can you not go up and buy a beer for the team members? And you know Ernie you bring up stop sign, you know we can't drive until we're 16 but once we're 16 if we follow the rules we're okay. Lehman/If everybody followed the rules we wouldn't be talking about an ordinance. O'Donnell/Well Ernie if your over 21, if your 17 then your not following the rule of the law, that' s the whole twist. Lehman/Well I personally have no problem with limiting delivery of alcohol to two drinks or more, I mean after all one of the biggest, to me the biggest problem we are trying to address is excessive drinking, over indulgence. It so happens it happens frequently with folks who are underage, so this is labeled as an underage sort of measure, I don't believe it is at all, I think it's something that addresses people who drink too much. The fact that we would require a bar owner or an employee to deliver the alcohol to the table to verify whether or not the people who are consuming it are of age or are enuberated is not that much to ask I don't think it's that big of a problem, I have no problem with that. Wilburn/Regardless of where it is, if you hold a liquor license permit. Lehman/Right. Wilburn/Both be, you have a problem that can be abused that has a negative impact on the community as well as individual work folks in the community here be more responsible and allow us to set up a process to hold those accountable if you choose not to be more responsible with it. Kanner/Two things we're looking at, alcohol and cigarettes are two of the major causes of death and health problems in our country. And I think alcohol I've heard a lot of people say they have a right to cheap drinks and to buy them at bars, at special April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 24 prices, that' s a right they have and I don't necessarily agree with that. Ernie I would recommend that we discuss tonight your proposal for doing away with some of the specials prohibitions. I think we should see if we have a majority that would want to keep those in there, I think they're somewhat separate from the changes that Eleanor was recommending that so we can see that one if we want to keep it in or do away with it. I would like to hear again your proposal. Lehman/Well I talked to Andy about this and I've talked to, I've only been called by three bar owners, two of them came to see me. And the indication I had from the bars owners was that they could live with the provisions of this ordinance without any particular difficulties except for the provision that eliminated offering specials just as restaurants offer specials on meals and retail stores offer specials on merchandise, whatever, they feel that as a matter of doing business they should have the ability if they want to run a special on a Monday or Tuesday night, to differentiate themselves from their competition, the way the ordinance is written they would have to sell their product at their usual price. Now their usual price could be a special price on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. But it appears to me that the difficulty I would assume Eleanor, that if usual prices would have to be filed with the city. We would have to have some measure to know whether or not they're selling at their usual prices. It seems to me there are a lot of difficulties involved with the pricing specials that the other provisions of the ordinance as we passed it last week I think do a pretty good job of giving us tools to handle this situation. And I'm not sure this is really a tool that' s necessary, if it creates that much of a problem, I don't think we damage the ordinance a great deal by taking it out. Now that' s my opinion, I don't know how the rest of the Council feels. Pfab/I would make, combining what both of you are saying there and that is discuss this tomorrow night at our public session and wait until after all the ideas are in and then have another hearing and have a vote after the first. Lehman/I don't think we're going to have another hearing Irvin, we have listened to three hours of discussion from the public, most of which was not relevant to this ordinance. Pfab/Well I think it's kind of focusing in now that when we saw that things can change. Lehman/Well and I think that' s why we're talking, we need to decide whether or not we want to keep that in or not, whether we want Eleanor to go through the recommendations that she's going to get from the bar owners and proceed with this. You know obviously seven of us felt it was worth working with two weeks ago, I just want to know if we are willing to proceed it. Eleanor. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 25 Dilkes/Ernie the one you are talking about I do think it does make some sense that if there are a majority of you are not interested in pursuing that particular restriction that we get rid of it now. Lehman/That' s what I'm trying. Dilkes/Because a number of the questions I'm getting from the bar owners deal with that restriction and that particular one is going to take some time to get in order so it would be nice to have an indication, know what (can't hear). Lehman/Yea you'd like to know before you meet with the bar owners, it's going to save a tremendous amount of time on your part, so I guess the question is. Vanderhoef/I guess I have a question for Eleanor before we make up our mind on this. I did have a little discussion with Marian as far as her office and how to address this particular issue particularly figuring out what the customary price is and whether that customary price is for all day or whether it truly is a special that is only for a time period. How enforceable this would be unless it would be for all day? Dilkes/You mean if we compared the prices on each day, you mean your normal and customary price for a particular day. Such that on Monday' s you could do $1.00 draws, as long as on Monday' s you always did $1.00 draws. Vanderhoef/For all day, versus a time period which. Dilkes/Well I think that' s a possibility, I think that' s something that has been done in other states. Vanderhoef/Well one of the things that crosses my mind on this whole thing and Ernie and I had talked a little bit about it and at first flush I wasn't with agreement with him and where I was going with all of this was that drink specials to me that have a very limited time period of say two hours encourages the public to come and drink fast and often which to me then leads to the inebriation and so forth and so what I was looking at was ifthere's going to be a drink special then the drink special must be for a full 24 hours or the hours that the bar' s open. Dilkes/We have seen provisions in other states like this yes. Vanderhoef/And how do you see that as being easier or harder to enforce? Dilkes/I think it's just the flip side of what I was saying about having it for each day, looking at the normal and customary price for a particular day, it's really just the flip side of that. Vanderhoef/Okay. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 26 Champion/Ernie, since I'm not for the ordinance I'm obviously for your amendment. Then could a bar have, I mean they could have a special like you know today is a black and tan day or black and tan night or whatever, you know that' s a common special at bars and so then if they wanted to have a happy hour they could have half price drink specials between 4 and 6 or okay I support the amendment. Kanner/Ernie for one I don't think it's that complicated, I think to have some sort of ordinance that works pretty well to not allow drink specials I think that it's either state or federal codes about definition for instance for any product outside of bars, what you call a sale, you can't have say something's on sale forever and ever, it's false advertising. You can't put something on sale for months at a time. Lehman/I'm not sure that's true anymore. Champion/Yes you can. Kanner/And it might be a state, but I've seen that where they limit what you can call a sale because it's misleading, it's not a sale anymore after a certain amount of time. My point being that we can say the same thing for if people are switching back and forth for bars on what their prices are. I think we could say very easily for instance if we had to put in that it would be, you had to hold a price for at least a month. So from that angle I don't think it's to hard to enforce it, we could make it simple and it would work like that. And I think what I've seen is a downward race to get lower and lower prices and more and more specials to bring people in and a lot of them is just to get people drunk and I don't think it's healthy and I don't think it's the greatest loss in the world if we eliminate drink specials. I don't think it's a god given right to have drink specials and we can survive without them. So I would recommend that we keep that limitation and we make sure we get the wording right so we don't have that loopholes. We do away with the ability to give away free drinks at licensed places and we also eliminate drink specials, I think it could work and it won't be that difficult to enforce. Wilburn/Connie when you say you support Ernie's amendment does that mean you are letting go for now that you have to be 2 1 to get in? Champion/No that' s still my number one priority but I think what Eleanor is asking is whether a majority of the Council approves getting rid of that part of the ordinance and yes since I don't like the ordinance at all I'm totally willing to get rid of it or any other part of it. Vanderhoef/Just keep widdling away huh? Champion/Except for the penalties. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 27 Lehman/Well we need to know obviously, I believe that with the civil penalties and the ability to go after the establishments that serve people who are inebriated that we do have the ability to at least the consequences of folks who drink to much. I think the difficulty associated with the drink specials both philosophically and operationally are enough that I don't know that it adds a great deal of what we're trying to do. The rest of the ordinance I think contrary to what Connie thinks, I think it does offer us some pools that will really help control the situation that we have that has not been controlled in some time. But I need to know. Wilburn/I'll agree with that. Lehman/Eleanor needs to know, are there four people that would eliminate that Item 4 on drink specials from the ordinance that we passed last week? Pfab/Can I ask you a question before you go there? Is this the time to go everything just say nobody under 21 in the bar? If we're going to make a change maybe this is the time to do it. I would go along with Connie on that I don't know ifthere's any other support. Lehman/My only problem, and I have a personal problem with that, I know you do too Ross. I think we have said and I don't disagree with it totally, we may end up at 21, I don't think there' s any question about it. I do believe there are significant numbers of people who do enjoy going into bars for dancing and musical groups and whatever that would be prohibited from going into those places. Now we have said publicly that this was not an ordinance that was 21, the public has understands this ordinance is not a 21 ordinance. I think there would be significant amount of objection from those people who do go into the bars who are 21 who have not felt they need to address it because that' s not been on our plate. Champion/That' s true. Lehman/I would like to see us go do this ordinance with the agreement that if we are not satisfied with the way it performs that we will agree to look at a 21 ordinance let' s say at the first of the year, I mean evaluate what this one does, if it doesn't do anything that we agree to come back and look at a 21 ordinance. Pfab/I have no problem with that. Lehman/Now do we want to eliminate drink specials? Are there four people, are there three besides me? Pfab/I think the drink special is going to be a can of worms unfortunately. Lehman/The whole thing is a can of worms. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 28 Pfab/No the drink special is telling people that a business, how they can run a business. Dilkes/Can we just clarify, just make sure, they're all drink specials, the two for ones, all you can drink, they're all drink specials. We're talking about the reducing the price on a drink from that normally charged, that's the one we're talking about eliminating right? Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/Only one. Lehman/But the way we worded it now, if you customarily sold your beer on for 50 cents a pint on Monday night you could continue to do that. Dilkes/I know I'm just, I just want to clarify that we're just talking about that one particular. Vanderhoef/Number four. Dilkes/Number four. Lehman/Number four. I have two to get rid of number four, actually I have three. Pfab/I'll be the. Lehman/I have four, get it out of there. We will defer this tomorrow night, hopefully we'll get some information back from you possibly as soon as the first of May, at least we'll discuss it more two weeks from tonight or whatever it is. But that will be out and we will proceed from there. Pfab/I would like to go on, have this go on record though that this is for a trial period until the first of the year or three months, four months, whatever. Dilkes/I think your not giving yourself enough time if you go until January first, I'm really concerned about. Vanderhoef/Next summer. Kanner/Irvin with the limitations on some of these things it might not pass at all so before you start talking about that we'll have to talk about whether it's going to pass or not. Lehman/Oh we have a request for a break. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 29 Dilkes/I have one more thing, it sounds like some of you have comments by bar owners about some of these special restrictions, just remember I can't deal with those on Thursday if they don't come to us. So if they want, if they have issues about details and language and enforcement those things, they've got to get those questions to us. Lehman/I'm aware of that. Pfab/Now if we take this part out does that mean we're still passed our first? Lehman/No we have to have the first reading again. O'Donnell/This is called tweaking Irvin. Pfab/No it's called changing (can't hear). Lehman/All right we're going to. Vanderhoef/Alcohol done. Lehman/Yea we're going to go for a drink. Pfab/Drinks around. Lehman/All right let' s take a break. ADDointments Lehman/Civil Service Commission, one appointment. We had two applications ifI remember correctly, I may not remember correctly. James Anderlik has reapplied and he is currently serving an unexpired term. Champion/I vote for him. O'Donnell/I second it. Kanner/Is he Civil? Lehman/I don't know, I assume that he is. Kanner/I'll vote for him. Lehman/Are we in agreement that we will appoint James Anderlik for another term? O'Donnell/Yes. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 30 Lehman/Okay. Champion/Well it would be his first term really. Lehman/Be first real term. Dubuc~ue Street Ramo and Linn Street Parkin~ (IP2 of 4/12) Lehman/Who' s going to speak on that? Atkins/Jeff and Joe or Joe and Jeff. JeffDavidson/Joe and I are participating on the staff committee to deal with the planning of the new library with Susan and we were asked to take a look at the short term parking for the library, a couple of things specifically, the Library Board did vote some time ago to formally request angled parking be considered on Linn Street with the new library. And then also as you know there' s been quite a bit of controversy with the potential of displacement of 64, I shouldn't say quite a bit of controversy, a few letters on the notion of displacing the 64-1A lot and Joe has an idea to present to you about relocating that function over to the first level of Dubuque Street ramp. So first off angled parking on Linn Street, as I mentioned the Library Board has formally requested that you consider this. We have taken a look at it, we originally took a look at the entire block between Washington Street and College Street what we've kind of landed on is you might as well consider it a proposal for you is just looking at the half block in front of the library between the alley and College Street. The need to reconstruct that after the construction of the new library does give us an opportunity similar to what we just did on Clinton Street where right now it's to narrow for angled parking that' s why a few years ago we didn't implement it when we did those other blocks in the vicinity. But we do feel like it is an opportunity for you, the memorandum you received from Joe and I does outline that we, even though there' s only a net gain of one space the fact that it has to be reconstructed anyway and the fact that we think it would be very favorably received from the public compared to the parallel spaces through there we do think it's something you might want to consider. Pros and cons like everything, and certainly the narrowing of the sidewalk is the negative aspect that you'll want to consider in your deliberations. We have talked to the library architect who would lay this out, do the final design of it and he has indicated he does feel like we can relocate the lights as we have proposed and the bike racks. The trees probably would be sacrificed, maybe able to, a couple of them are pretty small, may be able to be relocated. One of them would likely get cut down. But those are the tradeoffs, what we would be left with is a 10 foot sidewalk which is basically the effective width of the sidewalk that' s there there' s an additional 8 feet that' s taken up with the streetscape elements and we would try and, as far as we're April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 31 aware our goal would be no net loss of bike parking spaces, we would want to at least give that the library architect that charge to have known that loss of spaces. Lehman/Isn't the main entrance going to be on the south side of the new facility anyway? Davidson/It's on the corner isn't it Susan? Susan Craig/(can't hear). Lehman/But there, there won't be a main entrance off of Linn Street will there? It will be on the corner there, okay. I'm sorry go ahead. Davidson/So angled parking, or do you want Joe to go through his half of the proposal first or. Lehman/Well I have no problem with angled parking. O'Donnell/I don't either. Lehman/Is it possible when that next block develops that somehow that angled parking might perhaps continue on down? Davidson/I think absolutely, it's a matter Ernie, I think what we'd recommend to you is wait until the opportunity when something' s going to be reconstructed, something is going to be torn up, I think it would be an excellent idea. Lehman/Yea I do too. Vanderhoef/You're saying the south, block south of. Lehman/I'm saying that when you get from the library all the way down to the ramp to put angled parking in when 64-1A develops. Champion/Oh yes. Vanderhoef/But the cost on angled parking to do all this reconstruction I can't find it on my computer right at the moment. Davidson/We're estimating it at $44,000 right now. Vanderhoef/For one space. Davidson/But remember that' s to do the half block of reconstruction, the net gain of which is one space. I'm not so sure it would be considerably less expensive to April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 32 reconstruct it with parallel parking, it might end up costing you approximately the same amount. Lehman/You're going to reconstruct it anyway. Davidson/You have to reconstruct it anyway. Champion/Right, okay. Davidson/That's not a net difference Dee. Champion/So it's a gross cost not a net. Davidson/Right, and that was estimated off of what it cost us to do Clinton Street. Pfab/I would like to see you also look at moving all the way up to Washington Street on the west side. Davidson/If Council decided you wanted to spend another $44,000 to do that, that's something we could do. Pfab/I'm not saying it should be done right away but if it ever comes up again, I think that' s a lot handier than going down the hill especially for people kids (can't hear). Davidson/Oh yea, people love angled parking because it's so easy to get in and out of. Champion/Oh it's so easy to get into. Lehman/And that' s always an option right. Davidson/I mean the next time CIP comes up you can consider if you want to spend. Pfab/If we could think of an excuse to put it in right now I wouldn't oppose. Champion/We can't put it in now. Davidson/Steven. Lehman/Well do we have agreement that we'd like, I'm sorry go ahead. Kanner/The library has no plans to redo that area unless we agree now to redo that, is that correct? Champion/No, no. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 33 Davidson/My understanding Steven is that that area because of the construction of the new library will get considerably torn up, certainly that was our experience with Tower Place that it basically needed to be reconstructed when we got done and we're proceeding with that notion. Kanner/So your saying there' s no additional cost because of the library. Davidson/We have not estimated the cost of reconstructing it to put it back the way it is now with parallel parking. I would imagine it would be in the ballpark being approximately the same amount of money. Kanner/So either way we're going to be spending $40,000 to $50,000 to put it back the way it was so it's going to have to be redone. Davidson/It needs to be redone. Kanner/$40,000 to $50,000 we're not spending any additional money above what was planned. Davidson/We have not estimated, Steven we have not estimated the expense to put it back the way it is so I can't tell you exactly what it is so I can't tell you for sure if it's exactly the same or ifthere's a slight difference. Our impression is it's probably about the same. Lehman/So are we in agreement? Champion/Yes. Wilburn/Yes. Lehman/Do it. Davidson/Okay thank you. Lehman/Joe, that was easy, let's see if yours is as easy as Jeff's. Joe Fowler/Of course, we've looked at trying to find additional short term parking in the central business district, the proposal that we've come up with is to take the bottom level of the Dubuque Street parking ramp, separate it from the upper floors and make it short term parking. Lehman/Entrance and exit both off ofLinn. Vanderhoef/No. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 34 Fowler/No, the entrance would be off of Linn. Wilburn/For the short term. Fowler/For the short term, the long term would have to enter on Dubuque Street, then they would both merge, where your coming off of Dubuque Street you go down the ramp about halfway make a left and go up, at that point is where the short term parkers from the bottom would merge with the long term parkers, they would go up and around and exit. The closest thing to compare to is the Eastern Iowa Airport where you have one large parking lot, you have one gate that you go into for short term, one gate that you go into for long term but that you merge together so that you only have one exit. Champion/Would you have different colored tickets coming out of that (can't hear)? Fowler/Yes. Champion/And then how would you know, how would anybody know if I had a long term ticket and I parked down there? Fowler/There would be gates so you couldn't get it. Champion/Oh okay. Fowler/We'd take a combination of jersey barriers, the cement cones that you see along a construction site to block it off and then there would be a gate as you pulled up it would just automatically open and let you out, but you couldn't, there would be no way to open that gate to get in. Lehman/Could you enter through the short term gate and go up to the long term parking? Fowler/No, well you could but you would have a short term ticket. Lehman/Which you would get for what 3 hours? Fowler/Yea. Lehman/Okay. Pfab/And there' d be a penalty if you exceeded that. Fowler/Yes. Champion/You mean like the lot we have now. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 35 Fowler/It would be set up just like the Linn Street lot with the same fees and. Lehman/How many spaces? Fowler/I think it's about 90 down there right now. Lehman/90 spaces. Champion/My only problem with that is I mean I totally support the idea so don't misunderstand me. But I use that entrance and I'm a long term parker obviously, I don't have to use it, that's not the reason I'm pointing it out. But you know that is probably the worst entrance because there's no storage space, you know what I'm saying, you get your ticket. Fowler/Right. Champion/There's no storage space for your car. Lehman/Stacking. Champion/Stacking whatever, and because there' s a stoplight just shortly ahead of you, you can really and so all those short term parkers in there, I don't know, you know that' s, you really can block up traffic trying to get into that ramp even. Vanderhoef/What we might get if we put angled parking in that block though is that extra space because we'd have the cars coming out into the street so there would be a possibility of a barrier there that would allow a second car. Champion/So your on the sidewalk if your the first car. Lehman/How soon would you do this? Fowler/We could do it, we'd have to order the gate equipment, the estimate that's in here for $10,000 is for one exit which would probably require us to lose a few parking spaces for 15 to 20 we'd put two exits and not lose any parking places. Lehman/We'd do this prior to, well actually we're going to start losing part of 64-1A first of November anyway. Fowler/Right. Lehman/So if this is something we wanted to do we'd want to get started on. Fowler/Yes we could order the equipment and have it installed fairly quickly, I can't give you a time table but I think it would be fairly quickly. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 36 Vanderhoef/Personally I would like to just close down 64-1A because I have concerns with cars going in and out of there even though quotes there might be a fence there or whatever but to have construction set up on that lot and then also having parking on that lot could be real dangerous maybe. Lehman/They won't let them do it. Vanderhoef/And the other thing is if we're providing more spaces in these two lower levels of the ramp to pay for the attendant for that parking lot for just such a small number of parking spaces left I don't think is still effective use of our money. Champion/Oh I think they go in and out pretty fast don't they? Fowler/The preliminary designs that I've seen from the library project would take past the cashier' s booth out of 64-1A so the cashiers booth and that entrance would be gone. To get in and out you'd have to take out the post that are in the southeast corner right now and so in that one narrow area you would have people entering 64-1A, entering the alley to get to the back of the Holiday Inn and entering the Linn Street parking ramp and I don't think it's a very safe traffic situation. Vanderhoef/I don't either. Kanner/And how much would it cost? We'd have to relocate the attendant hut too right? Fowler/Yes. Kanner/How much would that cost? Under $20,000. Wilburn/Put in a kiosk. Fowler/No I don't think it would be that much. Lehman/That's pretty cheap. Fowler/That was totally installed by city staff but I don't believe there would be enough parking spaces in there that would cover our expenses to operate it, if we did decide we wanted to continue to operate it, it might be more economical to try and put some parking meters back in but when your construction crew comes downtown your going to have probably 20 construction vehicles trying to find a place to park so if they don't have access to that lot they're going to take your metered parking on the street. Lehman/Can we rent it to them? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 37 Fowler/Sure. Lehman/Sure. Vanderhoef/Absolutely. Pfab/Good idea. Lehman/Do we want to proceed with the work in the ramp so we have? Kanner/And I also like Dee' s idea about and what Joe was saying about closing down the whole parking lot. Lehman/Well we play that one by ear I'm sure if it sounds tough as it sounds like, it'll be closed really anyway. Vanderhoef/Yea and it's not cost effective so why put in a few spaces and. Pfab/Are we going to be able to handle the traffic without getting round up coming in and out of that red light? Champion/(can't hear). Pfab/Thank you Connie. Lehman/Okay Joe you've got a go. Fowler/Okay thank you. Champion/Well I just want to say before we get into this discussion that I'm in favor of keeping any parking we can on that lot during construction because if it's not at all practical or feasible of course I don't want it there but I think it's important that we keep it. Pfab/But the construction people have to park someplace and if you rent it to them. Champion/Well that may be (can't hear). O'Donnell/That' s a very popular lot. Lehman/Yea it is. O'Donnell/And I would like to keep that open as long as we can. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 38 Atkins/And folks also not to forget that it is as Mike said very popular, holiday season comes up, merchants are going to be interested in seeing that, and that' s hit on our revenue and our parking fund we use to pay the bills on the parking funds, lots of ups and downs on this issue. Vanderhoef/Well renting the lot for a construction site. Atkins/Helps the parking fund. Vanderhoef/Could help the parking fund. Atkins/It doesn't thrill the merchants and it helps the library now but it (can't hear). Pfab/But it will keep the construction vehicles off the street. Lehman/Well I think that' s an issue your going to have to deal with when construction starts, just see what the situation is and at that time your going to have to make a determination as to whether or not that' s feasible. Shuttle and Summer Transit Service (IP3 of 4/12) Lehman/Are you speaking to that issue? Fowler/Yes Ron and I will. I actually broke it down into two different topics and first topic we'd like to address would be the new 25 cent fair. The downtown shuttle was established as a way to reduce demand for parking in the central business district, it was initially funded by the parking fund and since been totally funded this year by the Transit Division. In the winter time it carries 14,000 - 16,000 riders per day, we've had JCCOG conduct on board rider surveys and they indicate that at least 25 percent of the people riding the shuttle would drive if the shuttle wasn't available. This was done approximately two years ago so that' s the most recent number we have. So we believe the shuttle was reducing the demand for parking in the central business district by 175 - 200 cars per day during the school year. We've recently been contacted by Old Capital Town Center that they feel there' s a shortage of parking in the Capital Street parking ramp and they're looking for ways to reduce demand in that facility even more and said that they have had a major tenant in who came into the parking ramp at 3:00 in the afternoon, couldn't find a place to park this during the school year why should I locate my business here you know there' s no place for my customers to park. So my concern with the 25 cent fair is that it will increase the demand for parking even more than it is and I'm not sure that we have the capability to handle it at this point, Tower Place is going to open but we're also bringing in new commercial into that facility and it' s really hard to judge how much that' s going to add to our parking inventory at this time so I guess I have feelings that my personal feeling is April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 39 that charging the fair would reduce the rider ship. It would increase the amount of time it takes to get the bus around because people are going to have to stop and pay which is going to take longer to load and that the longer time, shorter trips and a fair we're going to increase the demand for parking in the central business district. That's my pitch on the first issue. Champion/I think you've made that clear. Pfab/And how do you really feel about it? Fowler/Well I think it's a program that we put in that' s been very successful and I'd like to see it continue. Champion/And I agree with that, I don't think we should nickel and dime it. Lehman/I don't either I think we should charge a quarter. My mathematics isn't real good but if 50 percent of the riders quit riding the bus and the other 50 percent paid a quarter that would put about what $30,000 in the kitty. Fowler/I think it's 23-26. Lehman/Okay and then if the other half that you say aren't riding the bus start driving and they all park for at least an hour downtown that' s another $60,000 in the kitty, you know that' s about $90,000 that the city. (END OF 01-40 SIDE ONE) Lehman/I mean that is right isn't it? Fowler/Yea that' s correct. Lehman/And your adding how many parking spaces over here over what we're taking off Iowa Avenue? Fowler/We'll end up with a net of gain of a couple hundred parking spaces. Lehman/That gain of 200 spaces over there that we've got to pay for. I'm going to lose this one. Champion/You are. Lehman/I'm losing but I just have to make my point. Vanderhoef/No your not necessarily. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 40 Lehman/That we're going to get about $90,000 and we're pretty well strapped anyway. Kanner/But you said the other half are going to be driving. Lehman/No Joe said that. Kanner/Not the other half won't be driving. Lehman/Your going to get half of them off the bus how are they going to get downtown? Twenty-five percent said they would drive. Twenty-five percent according to Joe said they'd drive. Kanner/Twenty-five percent, that' s not half. Lehman/All right that' s $60,000, all right $60,000 that' s just peanuts. Kanner/And how much for police time for additional accidents? Pfab/And how many customers. Lehman/I don't know that we had any additional accidents before we started running the shuttle bus, so I don't know that police time is an issue. Champion/And look how many parking spaces (can't hear). Lehman/Oh oh I forgot the ticket. (can't hear). Pfab/How many customers would decide that Coral Ridge doesn't look so bad after all. Lehman/I don't know there' s a bunch that have already decided that. What' s your pleasure folks? Champion/I think the shuttle is great. Pfab/Yea, I'm for the shuttle, keep the shuttle. O'Donnell/I think they should expand the shuttle. Pfab/Yea I do too. O'Donnell/I really respect your opinion. Pfab/Why don't you tweak this opinion. O'Donnell/And I really like you a lot but I disagree with you. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 41 Vanderhoef/Well I don't disagree with you I will go with the 25 cent. O'Donnell/The purpose is to keep cars out of the streets downtown and out of the parking area and I think that it would, Joe has told us that this has accomplished exactly that, I'd like to send it out two more blocks and see if we can't get more cars off the streets. Lehman/Okay. Vanderhoef/And I think truly that the folks who will maybe initially will say well it's not free anymore if they truly find out that there isn't parking downtown and the parking that they get is expensive that they'll find a 50 cent round trip is a pretty cheap way to get downtown, a hassle free way to get downtown and they'll be willing to pay 50 cents for the round trip. Champion/Part of the success of the shuttle though Dee is that it goes around constantly and it's really, what every 17 minutes or, I mean it's going to be rapid. Lehman/Convenience, convenience. Pfab/It's a shuttle, it's a real shuttle. Champion/If you have to wait, sometimes I see like 10 or 15 kids on the corner waiting for the shuttle, now if you have to have them go in and put a quarter in and the next one goes in and puts a quarter in. Lehman/They're pretty quick. Pfab/Is it time to stretch them at all? Fowler/No it's no time to stretch it. Champion/(Can't hear, away from microphone). Pfab/I'm for Mike' s idea stretch it, put a bigger engine in it. Lehman/Is there really, there aren't even three people who want to charge for this are there? O'Donnell/I think you're the only one. Lehman/Okay we're not going to charge for the shuttle which is a big mistake but we've made those mistakes before. Now how about the summer part of it. Now before you start the summer part, Steve told the Council when we were talking budget April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 42 that his budget was premised on the idea that the shuttle would not run in the summer. Is that correct? O'Donnell/I don't like the way you just jumped across the, (can't hear) big mistake and then went forward. Lehman/Hey I lost this one okay. Vanderhoef/You let go what you can't change. Lehman/That' s right, anyway, I think that was the assumption when we did the budget but go ahead. Fowler/I've got to take a breath on that one. Pfab/While you take a breath I'm reluctant to see that change in the summer. Lehman/Yea I could use one. Vanderhoef/I think I could too. Lehman/Decaf. Fowler/We're always looking for ways that we can potentially improve the transit service to the community and one of the things that we thought about would be to end the shuttle service in the summer and then take the hours of service that were saved during the summer and redistribute them during the winter when there' s a higher demand for ridership. And the initial area that was identified for doing this was the Oakcrest and Towncrest area because it's an area that has high density population. The Oakcrest has very good rider ship now, we've heard from students in that area that they ride the bus two or three days a week depending on their class schedule but the rest of the week they drive because the bus doesn't necessarily match up with the class schedule five days a week. Lehman/Do they pay .75 cents to ride the bus now? Fowler/At times. Lehman/They do. Fowler/Depending on which. Lehman/But they wouldn't pay a quarter. Fowler/Program they have. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 43 Lehman/All right sorry about that. Pfab/They have a pass. Fowler/Anyway, I won't go into all the different fares that we have. Lehman/That's all right. Fowler/So that was one area that we looked at that we could improve service in, another area would be to extend service to the Scott Industrial Park on the east side of town. So if you would like to discontinue the service during the summer redistribute the hours during the winter when the demand is higher it could be done with no increase in the budget. Wilburn/I would add that, I've had three economical development visits to the Industrial Park area and on all three occasions extending bus routes out there came up so just discontinue that I would like us to pursue that option. Fowler/Ron can address, he's been looking into that area out there a little bit, Scott Park. Ron Logsden/One thing we looked at was to expand our current mall route, and we could expand it, we've done timing, it's going to make it tight and I'm a little hesitant to do that because on that particular route we do service Goodwill, they do have a high number of persons with disabilities who are assisted by wheel chairs and a few make a route in order to extend that service if you have several people on that particular route using that ADA accessible feature of the bus then it throws the schedule off a little bit and then it makes it tight and then with our timing. We can service I think reasonably well service to Scott Industrial Park but in that area Saddlebrook has expressed interest and so has Heinz, businesses along Heinz Road, we really can't service them, it's pretty much a straight shot out to the Scott Industrial Park and back in, in order to keep that mall route so it still can maintain that 45 minute schedule. We haven't looked real closely into some sort of an east side circular route service all of up and down Scott Boulevard, First Avenue and around the circular route, and that' s another option that we can look at if we do eliminate the summer as a possibility, we haven't looked into that very close because we wanted to talk to you guys first before we even pursue that but that is a possibility and we can come back with some costs and let you know ifthere's a difference in the amount we're saving in the summer and that would also incorporate probably the east side loop that we're doing morning and afternoon during the school year. That would be a very similar route to what we're doing there. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 44 Pfab/Have you ever looked at adding a second, and I don't know where to tell you where to go with it, a second shuttle? Either out to the east side, to the west side or back and forth alternating. Fowler/We've looked at different areas that we could expand but to keep the service frequent and short we're pretty much at that limit right now if you would go any further your going to be starting to look at a half hour bus trip as opposed to the 15 minute. Pfab/Well if you hit a couple high, there' s no way you can make a round trip in 15-16 minutes is there? If you just made a couple. Fowler/Not to get out much further than we are, I mean. Pfab/You couldn't get to the Sycamore Mall you couldn't get? Fowler/No. Pfab/Okay. Wilburn/I'm glad you've been looking into that out in there, I suppose one of the difficulties is what shifts, and I don't know they all work on the same shift pattern or not out there but have you been talking to David? Okay good. Logsden/Yea we've talked to David Schoon and talked to Cheseapke Packaging and Display I believe is the one company that' s going out to the Scott/6 industrial park. I had conversations with them to their shifts and it looks as if we can serve two of their four shifts but they operate 24 hours a day and two of their shifts don't. We can get people to their work or pick them up after work but without expanding service past 11:00 we couldn't service all of their shifts. Lehman/Well the more frequently we offer service and the more routes we, I mean we, bus rider ship is tough to get out, but the more frequent the routes and the more routes we have obviously the better chance we have of carrying more people. I mean I would certainly favor being able to offer better service particularly a time of year when the weather is inclement and we can expect to get more rider ship. How does the rest of the Council feel? Because the funding of this is going to have to come from not running the shuttle for what June, July and August? Fowler/Basically yea. Champion/I don't have any objections to that. Pfab/I'm. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 45 Vanderhoef/Or would you start it back up when the students come back? Fowler/We would drop it. Vanderhoef/In May. Fowler/When school ends, yes, and start it back up in August when the students return. Lehman/It would be three months. Pfab/I'm really opposed to taking away the reliability of the shuttle even though the use goes down, I don't know maybe it would be possible, can you stretch it any in the summer time when there's less riders? Can you go any farther? No. The route is basically frozen. Lehman/How does the rest of the Council feel about? Pfab/I just hate to see once you stop it, people figure out other ways to do it, and your rider ship (can't hear) is just a downhill stair step. Vanderhoef/Until we know, they've done it all these years without a shuttle, now we've got a shuttle and if they get used to the pattern I think it will pick back up so I'm not concerned about it, particularly as long as it stays free. Pfab/The people that don't have to have a car or don't have the ability to get a car the shuttle is a constant. Vanderhoef/It doesn't mean that they don't have a regular bus route that they can take. Lehman/No but Irvin the whole idea of this is based on the fact that there are so few people riding the shuttle in the summer. That' s why, is this not correct? Champion/And anybody using that shuttle is really within walking distance of the downtown. Lehman/Especially in warm weather. Champion/Especially in nice weather. Lehman/Are there four people who would like to see them move forward with this? Vanderhoef/Yes. Champion/Yes, yes. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 46 Lehman/You've got it, that's a go. That's a go. Kanner/Joe when are we going to get the bike racks? Logsden/The funding has now come through on that, there was a problem with switching it over from STP funding to federal transit administration funding and now that flexing is done so the specs are about done, we'll probably go out to bid on that in the next three weeks. Pfab/That will be Internet bidding, that will be Internet bidding. Logsden/No that' s not allowed. Kanner/So the bike racks will give people some more options that will be nice to have. CDBG ALLOCATION (ITEM NO. 7). PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THE FY02 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN, THAT IS A SUBPART OF IOWA CITY'S 2001- 2006 CONSOLIDATED PLAN (CITY STEPS), AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO SUBMIT SAID PLAN AND ALL NECESSARY CERTIFICATIONS TO THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND DESIGNATING THE CITY MANAGER AS THE AUTHORIZED CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR THE CONSOLIDATED PLAN. Lehman/Who is going to be speaking to this? Atkins/Steve' s going to do that. You know as Steve' s making his way to the microphone, I'm going to. Lehman/He's there. Atkins/Well he can. You know there is something to the headlines have a lot to do with what your day is going to be like. Lehman/Yea. Atkins/Well reading this morning' s paper I'd like to just take two minutes to comment, the Housing and the Community Development Commission and I are not wrestling and rolling down the street fighting over housing money. What the staff does and I have the upmost respect for the work that the Commission does is that we go over these things and as we were reviewing recommendations, it's my obligation to point out if there are broader policy issues. And we felt, and that' s why you got the memorandum that you got, that the Peninsula had been a priority for you, in the Peninsula plan there was a request for family housing that is a good way to jump start to get the Peninsula construction activities under way sooner. That it's April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 47 better in dealing with the issues and we have to admit to it, particularly those that relate to publicly assisted housing to get it down in the front end before all the development occurs and it just seemed to make sense which is what led to the recommendation that we put in the packet to you. It's certainly your decision but I feel compelled to lay out all those other policy issues that may have some at least peripheral interest on this thing, so please understand I have respect for the Housing Commission and we're not fighting about it. Pfab/I have a comment but I'd be happy to listen to Steve first. Atkins/He goes next. Steve Nasby/Good evening. Fiscal Year 02, Community Development Block Grant and Home Partnership program allocations, you had some information in your packets but I wanted to let you know that this year we did get $970,000 in Block Grant dollars which is about a $32,000 increase from what we got last year and in the Home Program we received $74,000 more than we got last year so our funding is up a little over $100,000. And both those programs received a little bit larger Congressional appropriation last year, the folks in Washington were a little more generous. There was $4.4 billion in the CDBG and $1.6 in the Home program so we did enjoy a little bit of a bump this year. The HCDC Commission goes through a pretty standard process that they followed over the last few years. In January the applications are due, in February they have all the applicants come to them, make oral presentations and the Commission and staff get to question and answer them and then in March evaluates the projects, ranks them and makes the rules and recommendations. And on April 5th I put together a great big book that you got in your packets that were scanned in, it's about 300 pages, and this is the project resource book and in that are copies of all the applications from folks asking for money. They're divided up into sections, recommended for funding, projects not recommended for funding and then projects that were withdrawn. And then also in the book are all the Housing and Community Development Commission memos and then evaluation memos from the staff, and then you also have the Housing and Community Development Commission rankings and their rationales for the decisions that they made. The Project Resource book and those recommendations that the Commission has made formed the basis of what we're going to be holding the public hearing on tomorrow night which is the Annual Action Plan and the Annual Action Plan is a tool that HUD requires us, or a document that HUD requires us to submit and it's just the implementation tool so we put these projects in a nice budget and the format and send it off to them and we do that on an annual basis, that allows us to program these moneys and that' s what we'll be having the public hearing on and a copy of that Annual Action Plan is in your packet for this time. The Action Plan will be covering all 20 activities, there' s 20 activities, a number of them went through the HCDC process, several of the other ones such as program administration, housing rehab. and Aid Agencies were set aside dollars that Council had discussed and decided to take that approach with it. The Housing April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 48 and Community Development Commission funding kind of breaks down Economic Development, about 6 percent to the dollars, Public Service projects about 8 percent to the dollars, Public Facilities 16 percent, Housing 59 percent, Administration 12 percent, and (can't hear) contingency. And I think we're going to have some carry over at the end of the year that we'll put into a contingency budget so we will have a little bit left. The Annual Action Plan will be reviewed by the Housing and Community Development Commission at their meeting tomorrow night. We've also had the Action Plan out for public comment since March 31 and that 30 day comment period will run out May 1. If there are any changes to the Action Plan as far as projects or funding levels or what not, those things will need to be changed by the time we get to your next meeting on May 1 as we're asking the Council to approve that Action Plan on May 1. The HUD deadline for submission of that plan is the 15th, so we really only have the public hearing tomorrow night and then the actual vote on the Action Plan on May 1 st. Lehman/So you're looking for a vote on the May 1 st meeting. Nasby/Yes sir. Kathleen Renquist from the Housing and Community Development Commission, she's a chairperson, she's here this evening and Gretchen Schmuck is here as well. So I guess with that short presentation if you had any questions. Pfab/Going back to your question Steve, is it possible that this shortfall or the Peninsula could be made up in Economic Development fund? Atkins/Council has. Lehman/It's Council's decision. Atkins/Basically complete discretion to do that Irvin, that' s not out of the question. Pfab/So then that would put that on the ideal track and we could also maintain what the CDBG board did. Atkins/It could be done, again why I, when I wrote my proposal to you was it was intended to kind of show you what all the various policy issues might be. If we were to use Economic Development money for a housing project, that does take away from Economic Development issues. We had two revolving funds that we were proposing to put together, one was to be city sponsored, and one was to be sponsored by CDBG money. If we don't have the one we now have the other one to fall back on but if we're going to start taking money it's just kind of convoluted but the bottom line is we just continue taking money away from Economic Development, we simply it may be more difficult to fulfill our housing goals. Pfab/Is it, are there funds there now and if so how much? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 49 Atkins/I beg your pardon. Pfab/Are there dollars in each of those funds or either of those funds now? Atkins/I'm not sure what you mean by each of those fund. Pfab/Well you said the two are Economic Development. Atkins/We have budgeted $700,000 in capital moneys for Economic Development projects and we have a half a million dollars operating budget for Economic Development. Pfab/So there's a $250,000. Atkins/Irvin there' s no doubt that you could call upon basically any of your resources other than restricted funds. Pfab/It appears that this would have two benefits, one is since this is like you say in the article or thing you wrote, it is a city project. Atkins/Yes. Pfab/And this is where we in a sense kind of put our best foot forward, it's a new innovative and it definitely had some very plus possibilities. Where can we get more bank for our buck than doing that with that Economic Development money? Atkins/That' s the policy question I think you all have to answer is that the proposal that we gave you we believe that I believe that the Peninsula was a priority for you, that housing, family housing on the Peninsula was a priority, this allows it to jump start it and get it going. I really believe we're better to get it up front as opposed to dealing with it when it begins developed or when it is developed. The other, any other project that you might select that would be eliminated or reduced in order to come up with the money for this, we'll call it the Peninsula Housing Project can reapply at a future year. I mean if that (can't hear). Pfab/I think that also the other part is after all the process had been done I think we owe some, a certain amount of respect and efforts the work that those people put into and sorting that out and I mean to basically veto their efforts when we have another alternative I. Champion/(can't hear). Vanderhoef/No we're not. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 50 Pfab/Well we're changing it, this is the recommendations and I, veto okay you pick your word. Vanderhoef/I don't disagree with you that we need to find the dollars to do this and what I looked at on the allocations there were a couple of things that struck me and number one was that there is a request for some dollars for the Foxboro Ridge construction and this is one of the projects that would be like for Phase 3, Phase 1 has been built, I understand it has not been completed, and Phase 2 just broke ground this year and won't be completed until next year and so I don't see that it's critical for those dollars to be allocated this year, it certainly would be a project to look at in another year. What I would like to suggest and coming up to full funding for the Greater Iowa City Housing Fellowship for the Peninsula would be to reallocate the $234,000 dollars that were allocated to Foxboro Ridge and complete the allocation to Greater Iowa City Housing Fellowship which is roughly $200,000 that they are short in what they requested, that would leave us about 34,500 remaining in that I also looked at the other requests that were not fully funded and one of the projects that I'm very fond of find that they do a good job and consistently produce housing for folks is the Habitat for Humanity and they asked for $75,000 for this year to buy lots and those lots tend to be at the $25,000 dollar level, I would suggest that of the $34,000 that another $25,000 be given to Habitat for Humanity to buy a second lot this year and the remaining $14,533 could be added onto the Metro Plains development and this project is one of them that is leveraging a lot of dollars out of state funding as I understand it and with that state funding anything we don't allocate then decreases the state funding they can get for the leveraging. Am I correct on that Steve? Nasby/The projects requesting home dollars can push there are several of them, they can leverage $3.00 in state funding for every local home dollar that's correct up to a point. Vanderhoef/Up to a point, so they had requested $300,000, the allocation recommendation was $250,000 and so another $14,500 would be closer to their allocation. Nasby/Yea they could still leverage the maximum home dollar. Vanderhoef/They could, okay, great, so it would still be 3-1 for our CDBG funds. Nasby/This will, they still meet the 3-1 requirements. Correct. Vanderhoef/Well that' s what I would like to personally recommend to the Council that we look at funding the Peninsula and additional dollars for Metro Plain housing and for Habitat for Humanity. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 51 Pfab/I think maybe on the short term that we may, you might be able to put some marks in the plus column. But one of these days if we go in and basically take the recommendations of work fund, I wonder how long we're going to be finding really good people for the CDBG Commission or Board. Lehman/Irvin let me say this and this is my eighth year on the Council, we have been, we have guarded those folks' integrity zealously over the last eight years, I can remember once or twice we changed an allocation and I think nobody has anymore respect for those people than the folks who sit around this table. Pfab/Okay. Lehman/Occasionally I think there may be issues that are, that we see in a different light than they do but I think in no way it takes away from the respect that we have for those people if we don't see allocations exactly the same way and I certainly would not want those folks to feel that we have anything less than complete confidence in them because we may choose to make an allocation a little different. I mean this is a public hearing, pardon. Atkins/And I also want to comment on that, please understand that that, I feel that I have an obligation to point out to you that if there are broader policy issues associated with basically anything that your involved in and it's not out of disrespect whatsoever for the Commission and I want that understood. And I still believe the recommendation is a good one and you will decide it one way or another but it's not because of any membership on the (can't hear). Lehman/Any change we've ever made we've really struggled with for the very reasons that we brought up Irvin. Pfab/I don't think it's a case of disrespect, I don't think that' s the point, I think it's the work that they put in and just haven't (can't hear) over. Lehman/Well tomorrow night. Dilkes/Ernie can I make a comment, and I say this every year and I apologize but tomorrow is the public hearing, you haven't got the input that your suppose to take before you make some of these decisions so. Lehman/That's what I was starting to point out. Dilkes/It might be good to. Lehman/Any decision now, there will be discussion at least from the Council it appears on this issue tomorrow night. Are there other issues that we want to ask Steve about April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 52 relative to CDBG moneys because these discussions will take place at the public hearing? Pfab/You'll be here tomorrow. Nasby/Yes sir. Kanner/I have a few questions. Lehman/Yes. Vanderhoef/So do I. Kanner/But first for the housing to comment on what Dee was saying looking at giving more money to Habitat, I too think they are a good organization and do some good things but talking to Steve he said that they don't have a sight actually for their lot and that' s been a problem in the past and so that' s one thing we might want to keep in mind. Nasby/That' s correct, they did not identify a lot, or lots. Kanner/In the past they've had a problem not identifying. Nasby/Finding affordable lots is a difficult venture for all the non-profits but yes they had some difficulty. Vanderhoef/Yes and they need to have the money ready to go when the lot becomes available so it's catch 22 the way we look at it. Lehman/Steve should we make a change or a recommended change in the allocation to the CDBG's moneys? Is there an opportunity for that board to meet between now and the 1st of May? Or should we make, how could we do this and still act on May 1 st and do so legally? Nasby/Let's see packets (can't hear), packets go out Thursday, so between now and Thursday we would have to have a special meeting after Tuesday if you directed Commission to make changes then we would have to try to call a special meeting. Karr/They go out the following Thursday too, so you wouldn't have to do it in two days. Nasby/The following Thursday, no it's a week and two days. I can, Kathleen's here and I can ask her what she thinks the likelihood is of a public meeting between now and then. Now they are going to meet tomorrow evening but concurrent with your Council meeting. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 53 Kathleen Renquist/Yea we can meet tomorrow night but you guys will be probably messing around with this the same time. Lehman/You won't know until after tomorrow night what we're going to do, we don't know what we're going to do until after tomorrow night. Renquist/Our regular meetings are the third Thursday and we had made a special effort to make the meeting tomorrow night so that people could be here for the public hearing at the same time. Well we can talk to the Commissioner' s tomorrow night and see when they could meet for a special meeting, so that' s no problem. Lehman/If that' s what you would like, if we make a change or make a recommended change, I guess from my own perspective would you prefer that the Council make a recommendation or that we refer it back to you? Renquist/Me personally or I, the Commission. Lehman/No the Commission, how would they feel? I have a little problem I do think you folks do do a wonderful job and if there is. Renquist/I wanted to make something very clear that whenever we make recommendations, they are recommendations and the final say is with you. Lehman/I appreciate that. Vanderhoef/That' s very nice. Renquist/So we work very hard but we work really for the City as well it's not just for ourselves personally. Lehman/We know that, well we'll talk about it tomorrow night. Thank you. Wilburn/Well having served on the Commission I can think of times when Dee and Mike or you came in front of Parks and Rec. Commission recognizing that you have bigger policy considerations to put in (can't hear). Lehman/Oh and I think that' s understood. Wilburn/I still got angry but. Lehman/Well that' s okay you got over it. Are there other questions we have for Steve tonight before the public hearing tomorrow night? Vanderhoef/Yes, I would like to ask whether you have received the business plans from the two micro enterprise recipients. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 54 Nasby/Ruby' s Pearl and Extend the Dream. No we have not received business plans from them, I think they're, some of them are waiting to make sure the funding goes through before they go through some of those hoops. The Ruby' s Pearl folks are open for business so I'm assuming they have at least some documentation that they can provide to us but I have not seen them yet. Vanderhoef/Okay and that was specifically something that the Economic Development Committee requested to have in hand before we voted on this issue so. Nasby/Yea the ED Committee when you met looked at the Commission recommendations versus ED fund and also the other too and had decided to go with them and I know that was a point that was brought up and you wanted to see business plans. That was not a requirement for the CDBG funding so the Commission didn't have benefit of those. Vanderhoef/No I understand the Commission, this is nothing about the Commission, this was a later request from Economic Development Committee to have a business plan in hand before we made a decision on these. Nasby/Yea the Extend the Dream folks they are working with the University of Iowa, they will have a summer class as I understand probably a fall class that they will be devoting the bulk of it's time to working on business plans for those micro enterprises with the Extend the Dream, they will also help them set up the mechanics such as time cards, accounting, taxes things like that so. Vanderhoef/But they are not working with the umbrella organization of Extend the Dream who is the recipient of the dollars. Nasby/Correct. Vanderhoef/So that's the plan I want to see versus the micro businesses that may come in at a later time. I understand clearly that we haven't had good guidelines for HCDC to request this, I mean this was not something that they were suppose to ask or was on the application form so I don't leave any responsibility to them to have information that we haven't asked for, it's something we should have put on there a long time ago and didn't so I'll take credit for not getting that one in place when I thought it should have been in place. The other question that I have is about Ruby' s Pearl in that if they are already open for business and their allocation is to, they are requesting or have been suggested to receive $20,000 to increase the wages to a living wage and in the application it suggests moving up from $7.00 an hour to $9.00 an hour what are the requirements for new jobs if these two jobs are already in place? The two co-owners are already in place so how many more people are they to hire to be eligible for the CDBG moneys and can they count themselves as part of that? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 55 Nasby/Yea in a micro enterprise, micro enterprise is defined as a business with five or fewer employees, at least one of which is the owner so when micro enterprise they count the owners. Vanderhoef/So those two would count. Nasby/So those two would count, yea in the application I believe that they said they would have three full time equivalent positions so it would be retaining the two with the slightly higher wage and creating a third position at the $9.00. Vanderhoef/At the $9.00 an hour. Nasby/And then they would have to create those and maintain them for at least a three year period of time or else they'd be in default of the loan. Kanner/And what happens if they don't fulfill that? Nasby/We would do, go after repayment of and we'd stop payments if we hadn't paid out all the money and then we would also have provisions in our agreement with them for recapture of the funds that were paid should they were default, I mean that' s something we have standard with all of our agreements. Vanderhoef/So here again this is a three year and the pay out would be whether we do it monthly, quarterly, annually. Nasby/Yea I mean how they're going to draw those moneys for that salary I don't know, if it's going to be the operating capital or one lump sum or are they going to buy inventory or are they going to prepay rent, insurance, things like that I don't know at this point. Because the request was 40 percent of what they requested, they requested $50,000 and they got 20 so we'll have to do some negotiating with them to figure what exactly our money is going to buy at this point. Vanderhoef/Okay well I'll be making a proposal tomorrow night but I'll wait them. Kanner/Yea I, I want to comment on the Extend the Dream proposal also. I talked to some people in the community that give it some high recommendations and I've also worked with Tom Walz at Wild Bill's coffee shop and I think it's pretty exciting but I too would like to know what your proposal as far as how many employees full time equivalent, what's the time frame for getting that employee numbers and the pay. We talked a little bit about that and I think it would be helpful to know what your going to be asking for when you get a written agreement with them. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 56 Nasby/Okay we will probably be negotiating these agreements once this funding all goes through, we will start the negotiations for the agreements and the CDBG regulations allow you up to $35,000 per job created, now local practice has been about $10,000, looking back at the Candleworks thing and the Torus enterprises about $10,000 per job. So using that kind of local guide we'd be looking about 10 full time equivalent positions. I know on their applications they said that they would have 30 persons employed or benefiting from this activity, those are not all full time equivalent positions so we would crunch those 30 down into at least from our standpoint we would be looking at least 10 full time equivalent jobs. And I did chat with one of the professors that will be helping these folks and they will be obviously under state law federal law and so they'll have to pay minimum wage except for some of the folks that come from Goodwill that have sheltered employment and/or job coaches there' s a waiver that they get for their employment so they are not paid at a minimum wage level so they can keep some of their other benefits so that would be kind of a floor for the wages that we'd be looking at would be minimum wage or whatever it is for that waiver, they'd have to have that waiver to be less than that. Lehman/I think I hear that there will be some comment tomorrow on the Peninsula Project and perhaps on some economic development recommendations, are there other areas that we're going to need Steve to be able to respond to tomorrow night at the hearing? Champion/My only real concern is the Peninsula development. Lehman/Well and we'll do that at the hearing. Kanner/I have a couple of questions. Lehman/Are they questions that we should have at the hearing? Kanner/Well I think here they're going to help the tone but just a comment that I think I think I'm piggybacking on what Dee said it makes more sense in my mind to have some of these things nailed down before we vote on them such as for Economic Development, these agreements that your going to reach after, it seems that we would want those before to be a little more specific. Does that make sense? Lehman/Or can the allocations be conditional? Nasby/Well the allocations that you set forth and vote on we will then take those numbers and sit down with the sub recipients as we do through the course of our practice and negotiate those terms. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 57 Lehman/But if the terms, if the applicants, if we approve the allocations, conditional upon their business plan being acceptable and whatever, is that a possibility? And if they don't comply. Nasby/If you want to make. Lehman/I mean is that possible? Vanderhoef/That was what I just put out. Nasby/Yea you can condition those I mean, we haven't typically done that in the past that typically the only conditions we put on things is if they don't receive some other type of funding then those moneys would come back for reallocation but we haven't gone and said your going to do this, this and this at the time of funding. We've left that up to a later point. Vanderhoef/Well maybe I'd better ask you the rest of my question because that's what I was going to put out was that go forward with allocating them but not releasing funds until the business plan was in and it had been reviewed by both staff and Economic Development Committee and brought back to the Council with a recommendation of whether to fund or not. And if we don't fund then send it back to HCDC to be reallocated. Lehman/You can't do that Dee, you can fund it and as long as it meets the approval and they meet the business plan and they get the money, the Council should not have to vote on it twice. Vanderhoef/Okay so just approval of. Lehman/If they meet the conditions and get the money. Pfab/I think if we would have made these rules up front I would not have any difficulty but I have great difficulty changing it now that maybe somebody that we didn't want to get it may be in line to get it so we're going to try and tie a little string on them. Lehman/I don't think that has anything to do with it. Vanderhoef/No. Lehman/But anyway those are the kinds of questions your going to get Steve, good luck tomorrow night. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 58 Kanner/I've got a question. In the action plan there' s approximately 6 percent of money from previous years not spent or programmed, I don't think it was contingency money it was something else. Is that frowned upon by the Feds? Nasby/Well we certainly like to use all the money we program for those activities but for example some of the money that was returned and unprogramed was for administrative dollars that we just didn't spend, we budgeted them but we didn't spend them so instead of keeping them and rolling them over we just put them back in the pot. And that' s something you can certainly do that. Kanner/Pretty much acceptable and standard kind of thing. Nasby/And I think we have at the present time a couple projects that haven't spent their money and haven't shown good progress that we're going to recapture the money on it's just they've had the ample opportunity to do so and I think the Commission will recapture those dollars. One of them was some home money from the affordable housing funding pool that we've had come up there for a couple of years and haven't, and one time we've allocated it which was to the Village Green last summer and that one didn't get (can't hear) and so that money came back to us and we haven't had any other requests for it so we might as well reallocate it to a specific project, get it out there. And then the Old Brick thing will be coming up on two years old and they haven't spend $20,000 so we'll recapture that money. Champion/I have at this point a technical question about the Peninsula project. Habitat for Humanity and the Greater Iowa City Housing Fellowship can they use those funds to purchase land on the Peninsula or is that part of the (can't hear)? Lehman/Anywhere. Nasby/Yea they will be purchasing land that' s part of the proposal. Champion/So that, okay that's. Nasby/They'll be buying it from Stamper and Associates. Kanner/And I wanted to ask I guess you or HCDC usually ask applicants if they could, if they wouldn't get full funding if they can still do the project. And how did the Housing Fellowship reply if they didn't get the full funding? Nasby/I believe the answer was without looking at the minutes that it would have to be a smaller number of units that would be reduced. Lehman/They indicated that in the letter. Nasby/19 okay. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 59 Lehman/A lesser funding also would result in a smaller amount of money being allocated by the state so the scope of the project would be somewhat smaller. Nasby/That would also, yea they would lose the $25,000 a unit. Kanner/But they would still do it. Nasby/The could undertake it with a smaller, on a smaller scale. Vanderhoef/Fewer units out there. Nasby/Yea but we also have the one purchase issue which is another piece of this. Vanderhoef/This is a one time opportunity to get in and get scattered sites which is something that' s important in my mind as well as the best price possible for the land. Lehman/Okay anything else for Steve? Nasby/Thank you. Lehman/Thank you Steve. Nasby/You bet. Smokinl~ in Public Places (1P4 of 4/12 packet) Lehman/Eleanor is that, are we going to, are you going to handle that? (END OF 00-40 SIDE TWO) Dilkes/And probably want to use the public place definition or at least parts of it that are included in the state code or you wish to focus your efforts just on restaurants. Wilburn/My initial interest with this and subsequent conversations with the Clean Air (can't hear) group, but in the last week or so since I noticed that this was going to be on the work session, (can't hear) really been focused on restaurants and restaurants alone. Vanderhoef/I agree. Pfab/That' s where I would. Dilkes/Okay does that do? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 60 Kanner/Well one of the, before living here I was living in Columbus, Ohio and they had an environmental law judge and that Health Department, the County Health Department had the authority to make rules regarding public space health and they decided to rule that only restaurants would be smoke free and not other places. The case came before the Environmental Law judge and he ruled that, they felt that it was unhealthy for some, it was unhealthy for everyone. So I don't know if we, we probably don't have similar law, but I think the point that' s being made there is relevant in that if we feel second hand smoke is dangerous to people I think we have an obligation to look for the all of the workers in public spaces, that includes restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, and just as we make laws regarding their safety as far as equipment we don't allow unguarded unhealthy cooking practices for employees or cutting meats with unguarded blades, I don't think we should allow smoking it's a tremendous amount of ill health is caused by people working in places and I would recommend that we talk about all public places not having smoking. It's successful in California, it hasn't affected businesses from all surveys and I think it would work here also, I think we have 70 percent or more of the population that does not smoke. And even those that do smoke I think significant proportion would be in favor of it so I would say all public spaces, I want to see what other folks have to say about that. Lehman/Well we have one for all public places, and one for restaurants. How many are interested in all public places? We can handle this rather quickly. Kanner/Well I don't know I'd want to hear some comment Ernie first and see. Lehman/Okay. Pfab/Okay I mean I think that' s what you were asking for is comment. I think that would be great but if the public is ready for this then, if it isn't then I think you know we can make any kind of a law but if there' s no public support for it or to not, efficient public support, I'm like you I would say no smoking in any public place, but until the public is reasonably coming along with this I don't know if we want to do that. I don't know if, if we can make all kind of(can't hear) but it doesn't mean that it's going to be followed. Kanner/I think the majority is ready for it Irvin and I think it's something that' s been going on the healthy public space movement that's been going on for about 30 years or so, really picked up steam and. Pfab/Well I agree. Kanner/And we have a place like California and people say well California is totally different from Iowa, I think just as much California people want to go into public places and be able to have the workers. And people with asthma being able to go April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 61 into these places to and that' s another area of discrimination, we don't want to foster people with physical disabilities should be able to go in these spaces, we shouldn't discriminate. Lehman/Okay how many here are interested in talking about an ordinance that will ban smoking in all public spaces which would include bowling alleys and bars and etc. Steven obviously is interested in that, is there any other interest? Pfab/I'd be interested in at least the educational aspect of it but I don't know I think I'd have some difficulty supporting it 100 percent. Lehman/All right are we, the majority of us are willing to start the restaurants. Pfab/Definitely. Lehman/Okay you've got a start with restaurants Eleanor. Not that the rest of it doesn't have merit because I think that may very well be true. Kanner/Let me ask though is there any legality in Iowa about banning? It seems to me that there could be repercussions or possible lawsuits from workers your saying banning in part, why not ban the whole thing if you feel it's dangerous to people? Dilkes/I don't think t hat you have an obligation to legislate in this area so I'm not particularly concerned about that. Wilburn/It's more of a political question (can't hear). Lehman/I think your right yea. Pfab/Yea I think that would be great. (All talking) Champion/I think your definition of public space might be a whole lot different than mine, I don't want to really consider it. Dilkes/Now whether, I think the more likely scenario is and I don't, I don't know that this would happen but in terms of some kind of equal protection argument would be that public places other than restaurants which have similar. Wilburn/Functions. Dilkes/Situations that are not being prohibited and aren't being required to be no smoking, I could see a restaurant making a challenge on that basis. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 62 Kanner/Oh coming from the opposite (can't hear). Lehman/Right. Dilkes/Right. Lehman/Next question. Dilkes/But I'm not concerned enough about that to say don't just do restaurants but I think that' s a possibility. Vanderhoef/And if I remember correctly I don't think your wrong Steven and the state' s that now have more public spaces included they started out with restaurants and moved forward as I understand it to include more public spaces, the didn't do it all at one. Wilburn/But they focused their effort. Vanderhoef/They focused the effort on restaurants first, got public acceptance of that and then gradually added more spaces to that ordinance. Lehman/Okay Eleanor. Dilkes/When I say restaurants, I'm just generally talking about places at which food is sold for on premises consumption, remember that can be lots of different things, a bag of potato chips, you know etc. because that issue is going to play on to some of my other questions. Do you wish to set time limitations during which smoking is permitted and prohibited? Pfab/Absolutely not. Dilkes/Such as the Ames ordinance does. Vanderhoef/Oh I think there may be some. Dilkes/Now I'm getting shaking heads from. Pfab/24 hours. Vanderhoef/I think there' s a question in here number one on defining the restaurant. Dilkes/Yea we're going to get to that. Vanderhoef/So maybe if we get to that one before we answer this one. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 63 Dilkes/Do you want to do that? Lehman/Can a restaurant be a restaurant in the evening and a bar after a certain time? Pfab/No. Dilkes/It depends on how you define things. Lehman/Oh. O'Donnell/It's a great question. Vanderhoef/That' s where I was going with it. Dilkes/Well I think yea, I mean by the time limitations plays into that, I mean if you think a restaurant is a restaurant during the day and a bar at night and that there isn't carry over smoke that' s an issue you need to think about. Vanderhoef/Well the carry over smoke is one of the things that I don't have the facts in front of me but I was told today that there is some research out there that says it takes several days for the carsenagens to go out of the air not just a few hours so stopping it one point and moving forward. Dilkes/Well Dee let's come back, I think that's a good suggestion, let's come back to the time limitations first. Vanderhoef/Okay. Dilkes/Do you want to have limitations based on percentage of food sales or percentage of alcohol sales? The idea being that is there a point at which the food sales is so low and the alcohol sales are so high that smoking should be allowed. Lehman/Is there a state? Dilkes/And you see the cafe ordinance that was presented to you included kind of the 50 percent. Lehman/Is there a state definition of restaurant based on volume of?. Dilkes/Not that helps with this. Lehman/Okay all right. Wilburn/I think based on the changing nature of bar restaurant, who offers food, who offers drinks since that' s so blended I think that what we're getting at is the April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 64 primary activity and some type of, whether you're saying 50 percent food sales, I think that helps define the primary activity. Dilkes/There is some legislation or proposed legislation that I have seen that doesn't use a percentage but just, it seems like maybe the American Cancer Society has one like this and if somebody out there who knows can help me. But this just doesn't focus on percentage of sales but just talks about the primary activity is food sales and incidental to that is alcohol. I think that' s a really tough one, I think enforcement ofthat's going to be tough so I think we're going to have to get a little more specific than that. Vanderhoef/Well I'd like to go with percentage and I want to be sure when we go with percentage that we're talking about receipts not food coming in the back door, you can keep your food percentage much lower if you only add up what they pay for the groceries that come into the kitchen versus I want it so that we will total up the restaurant charges. Dilkes/The gross receipts, what' s coming into the, or what their sales are. Lehman/Yea gross receipts, right. Kanner/Well Dee is just making that clear because I think that makes sense to do that. Vanderhoef/Yea because we saw some things in previous literature that that was the way it was skirted in (can't hear). Lehman/Define a bar by a percentage of gross receipts that' s food and what will that percentage be to make a restaurant? Pfab/I'd say 50 percent. Lehman/I don't have any idea. Pfab/Over 50. Lehman/Is there any sort of standard in these sorts of things? Dilkes/I mean I've seen. Kanner/Know how CAFE came up with that 50 percent figure, did they base that on anything? Dilkes/Ernie do you? Kanner/We have some folks that might be able to answer that. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 65 Pfab/Well they want to know if they're being asked to respond. Kanner/You've got to come on up to the microphone. Lehman/I need you to speak in the microphone. Kanner/Introduce yourself. Dan Ramsey/I'm Dan Ramsey and I'm a member of CAFE, from Iowa Code 137.F. 1 that redefines it in the Iowa Code is 50 percent of the gross revenues from food is defined as a restaurant. Is that right, are you familiar with that code? Dilkes/Yea I'm familiar with that code I'd have to go back and look at it with for what purpose. Ramsey/But that defines anything with gross receipts of 50 percent, 51 percent would be defined of food would be defined as a restaurant. Kanner/Do you know what like Eleanor was saying, what context or purpose they're talking about defining a restaurant? Ramsey/No I don't know what context or purpose that's for. Dilkes/Yea I guess what I'm saying is that I don't know that it makes sense to look at other definitions of, I mean we've got lots of definitions of our zoning code of restaurants, we've got, there' s definitions in the Iowa Code of restaurant. The issue is at what point, we're comparing alcohol sales to food sales in this context and that' s what you need to focus on. At what point, Ames used 10 percent, I mean it had to be you were exempted if less than 10 percent was food, but they had the time limitation too so I don't think that necessarily (can't hear). Ramsey/I think for simplicity sake you know it's easy to say if you've got 51 percent of food sales your a restaurant, if you've got 51 percent of liquor sales your a bar, it makes it real simple, and that' s kind of, in order to make it the most enforceable and the most effective and it pays to make it as simple as possible. Pfab/Well what about between 50 and 5 17 Lehman/Oh come on Irvin. Dilkes/Well let me just. Pfab/No I'm serious. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 66 Dilkes/I mean I think it depends on what your policy. Pfab/Over 50 percent I think is the way you should say it. Dilkes/I think it depends on what your policy position is, I mean 50 percent of food sales is a lot of, is a lot of food, you know, or you may think it's not a lot of food, I mean you just have to kind of, yes 50 percent is easy, it's right, it's halfway in between your right. But I don't think that' s necessarily means where you all need to end up. Lehman/Eleanor is it possible, is it possible for us to tentatively say that a 50 percent is a good number and then start, and find out just what kinds of places we're talking about rather than going ahead and say 50 percent this is the number by golly and that' s it. Champion/I (can't hear) which is clear. Lehman/I think we need to know. Pfab/Over 50 it's right down the middle. Kanner/Yea Ernie I think that' s a good idea, I think tentatively say over 50 percent and then we get a survey of 5 or 10 restaurants/bars and the Field House and a few other places and. Lehman/Vito's which will be a big one, Bo James will be a big one. Kanner/Mondo' s, and we find out what there' s is. Wilburn/We're talking annual gross. Lehman/I think it would have to be based on annual sales. Dilkes/Now let me, likely the way that we're going to have to do this is we're going to have to require a sworn affidavit as to what the sales are. Lehman/Right. Dilkes/So in terms of a survey I don't have any authority to, I mean I can ask that they provide us with that information but I don't have any authority to make them give me that. Pfab/Are there, do these operations make any reports to the state over various concerning this on how much is liquor and how much is food? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 67 Dilkes/Do they? Yes. Pfab/Well if they do, why couldn't we use. Dilkes/So maybe we can get that from them. Eileen. Eileen Fisher/(can't hear). Karr/Eileen I can't hear you. Dilkes/Yea you have to come to the microphone. Eileen Fisher/Eleanor may be able to get that information but it's not public information. The State Liquor Commission or something, they would give you the information. Pfab/But if there is something out there that we can use so we don't have to reinvent it. Dilkes/It may affect their dram shop insurance, that' s right. Yea so that the percentage of their alcohol sales may affect what dram shop they have to buy which is kind of the, which may provide some incentive to be truthful on the affidavit that they submit for our purposes. Pfab/Well maybe not an affidavit, just say what are your receipts? Dilkes/Well an affidavit is a sworn statement. Pfab/Oh all right. Lehman/Can we check that? Dilkes/I mean we can certain. Lehman/I mean can we check? Dilkes/Do you want to see if I can get that information? Lehman/See if that information is readily available to us. Pfab/And is workable and will work for us. Champion/Well do we need to know that, maybe we just need to ask the owners, you know maybe we say we are considering this, how do you think that' s going to affect your business? I mean do we really need to know exactly their gross sales? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 68 Lehman/We're going to make a law based on a percentage, we don't need to know their sales we need to know their percentage of sales. Champion/Oh okay (can't hear). Vanderhoef/We don't need to know their sales, just their percentage of sales. O'Donnell/Could you ask them if they would become a smoke free establishment? Lehman/We can do that right now. O'Donnell/Well I know but they've done that. Vanderhoef/I think they've been asked at this point by a lot of folk. O'Donnell/They have been asked. Vanderhoef/Yes. Lehman/And some of them did. O'Donnell/Because I know there are some around that are smoke free. Vanderhoef/Absolutely. Ramsey/Some have been asked and the thing is no matter whether or not they've been asked or not it depends upon, a lot of it comes down to the workers health, I mean a lot of them have to work in a restaurant, even though they've been asked, if they decide not to the workers that still work there still have to breath smoke. And the kids that go in there involuntarily with their parents still have to breath the cigarette smoke. O'Donnell/So it's a health issue. Ramsey/Yea that' s right it's a health issue. Lehman/Okay Eleanor I think we have said 50 percent or more. Vanderhoef/Tentative. Dilkes/And you want me to see what information I can get. Vanderhoef/Yes please. Lehman/Yea I think that would be a good idea. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 69 Dilkes/Do you want me to do some sort of survey or do you want me to start by seeing what kind of information I can get from the Alcoholic Beverages? Lehman/Well I would think that if that information is available from the state that a survey may not be necessary. Dilkes/I have some concern ifEileen's group couldn't get it that I'll be able to get it, I'm not in any. But maybe as a licensor of(can't hear) we'll see if I can get it. Vanderhoef/Plan A is to try and get it from the state, Plan B is to go to the survey. O'Donnell/I'd like to get it so we don't have to tweak it later. Vanderhoef/This is our goal here. Champion/51 percent to eliminate that program. Pfab/Well how do you, would it be 51.1 ? Suzanne Jock/I'm with the American Cancer Society, it's my understanding and I'll get you the details, that the 50 percent came with any business that wants to be open and sell alcohol on Sunday has to have 50 percent of their proceeds be food. Karr/That is an old, that's an old law that's no longer in affect. Jock/I know that' s one of the things that we looked at in drafting this ordinance. Karr/It's no longer in affect. Dilkes/It's a used to be. Lehman/Yea. Jock/Because then it was real clear and nobody (can't hear). Dilkes/The Alcoholic Beverages Division would have had to have that information obviously but I don't think that' s the case anymore. Karr/And Suzanne to tell you the truth it wasn't real clear and that' s why they no longer have to do it. That was a problem. O'Donnell/It would have made it awful easy. Dilkes/It's a tough one the percentage. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 70 Lehman/Yes. Dilkes/Okay now Mike our goal is to not have to tweak this. O'Donnell/Thank you. Dilkes/We are going to ask a lot of questions before we get this ready for first reading. O'Donnell/Well try and be accurate. Lehman/We tried last time. Dilkes/Do you also want to include an exemption for what the state code refers to as bars, places that sell alcohol and have seating for less than 50 people, seating for serving of meals for less than 50 people. Lehman/Doesn't the 50 percent take care of?. Dilkes/Well not necessarily, and CAFE's ordinance has both these things, it exempts bars and it has the 50 percent limitation. Vanderhoef/But 50 seats. Dilkes/The additional 50, or yea the 50 seat, then the question becomes is there a point in which a place is so small, not necessarily what it's gross receipts are but that the size of it and you can imagine a couple of situations where you might find t his, a small tavern but in that case it's likely that their alcohol sales are going to exceed 50 percent. So what might be more likely a small restaurant that sells alcohol but that doesn't have alcohol for 50 people. Vanderhoef/And that' s where you can't separate and have a smoking and a non smoking section. Dilkes/No under the state code is exempted and under CAFE's ordinance it's exempted as well. Champion/I think we should go with, we should start out with CAFE' s. Dilkes/CAFE exempted a bar. Champion/Yea but they already, we've got a lot of support from them and I think this is going to create, it' s just like the alcohol ordinance a lot more controversy than we think. And so to eliminate the problem of well if I decided not to vote for it (can't hear). April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 71 Pfab/Would you like a drink? Karr/Could I expand on Eleanor' s example one second? We have a couple very small charming restaurants that have liquor options, those liquor options probably cost more because they specialize in food. So when you talk about the 50 percent requirement, they're going to be less than 50. Champion/Oh. Karr/Okay but they are definitely restaurants, they are not bars but their wine may be more expensive, more exclusive and therefore your percentages and I just want to bring that to your attention because there may be some people say how come a little establishment that' s a restaurant with the profits showing and receipts showing that is any less restrictive than a restaurant seating more. And I just bring it to your attention because I think it may come up. Lehman/Why would we exempt restaurants under 50 people or bars of under 50. If their a restaurant their a restaurant. I don't understand that. Dilkes/That was included in CAFE's ordinance. Ramsey/We took that provision primarily from the 137.F. 1 from the state code of which it calls also in the 137.F. 1 calls for seating less than 50 to be exempt. Lehman/Why? Ramsey/I don't know why the state does that. Dilkes/It's 142, the chapter that requires that no smoking areas be designated in public places exempts bars and defines a bar as a place that sells alcohol that has seating less than 50 people to serve food for seating less than 50 people. Lehman/I don't see any reason in the world why we would exempt a restaurant that has 40 seats. Kanner/Yea I think it's just as simpler to say that if you have 50 percent of sales or food to just say that's a restaurant and we're not going to allow smoking. O'Donnell/That would be much clearer. Kanner/I think we don't mess with that other stuff. Lehman/I don't think so either. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 72 Eileen Fisher/The intent of CAFE's is to exempt all bars no matter what their size is and include all restaurants no matter what their size is. I don't know exactly if our ordinance. Lehman/Yea okay I think that' s what we're saying. Dilkes/Okay I think that' s not what it says though, because what you did was you used the definition of bar in the state code which all a definition of bar in the state code about smoking is a place that sells alcohol with less than 50 seats for serving of meals and so. So I think that but that's, it would allow an exemption for small restaurants, what we think of restaurants. Lehman/But we wouldn't. Dilkes/Okay so you just want to go with the 50 percent. Lehman/Yea. O'Donnell/Yea I think that' s clear. Your not going to change your mind on me are you? Lehman/If you go tweaking on me your in trouble. Dilkes/Okay then having done that let' s go back to the time limitations, whether you want any time limitations. Lehman/Well let me ask a question, do the restaurants in the community that do not allow smoking, do they start allowing smoking after a certain time? O'Donnell/No. Lehman/Then why would we allow smoking after a certain time? Dilkes/That' s a question for you all. Champion/Cases where, I mean I really do need to think about that provision, I don't want to make a blanket statement out, where I think of places, a few places that really are restaurants but then they really do become bars. I'm not hung up on this but I'd like to, I'd like to wait and hear from public on that one. Lehman/What about a bowling alley that becomes a golf course? Champion/Well I can't. Pfab/Just because you (can't hear). April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 73 O'Donnell/You thought this was going to be easy didn't you Connie? Champion/Nothing is easy. Kanner/Ernie there is one place I know that's trying, Bo James is a smoke free restaurant during lunch, they're trying this new thing recently. I think it gets a little complicated again to, you say 8:30 and then someone wants to light up at 8:15 and it makes the food servers job a little more difficult I think it's just easier again to just say no and you don't have that iffy period of time. Lehman/I think ideally that' s what we would say, now we might have to change it, I didn't use that word Mike. O'Donnell/Thank you very much. Kanner/I think untentatively we start off with no time period and then we throw it out there like that. Lehman/See how it flies. Vanderhoef/Yea get public reaction on it. Wilburn/I'm not tentative saying it. Pfab/I'm not either. O'Donnell/What was that Ross? Lehman/As of officially. Wilburn/I'm just saying no. Lehman/We're proceeding as if there will be no check, time will not make a difference. O'Donnell/Or we can tweak it at a later date. Vanderhoef/Go away, go away, go away. Lehman/Tweak and Retweak. Vanderhoef/We've got a couple oftweety birds that are. Dilkes/Well the question, because your just dealing with restaurants we don't have to get into our certain public places exempt so that takes care of that question. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 74 Kanner/Except private social events that could be a problem again with the alcohol issue we'd have to figure out a way to deal with that. Lehman/Well I'm not sure that we're going to deal with private place, I mean a private event I'm not sure we really want to do anything with. O'Donnell/No. Lehman/No I mean I don't think we want to do it with the alcohol ordinance either. Pfab/Private event in a public. Dilkes/No. Kanner/Well a restaurant, let' s say a restaurant, they say we're going to have a private room just for this party. Lehman/Then they're not going to be able to do that in a restaurant. Pfab/I would say if it's a restaurant no, if you want a private party and smoke go to a bar, have your private party there. Kanner/Yea if people feel strongly about that. Pfab/I feel very strongly about that, keep the smoke out. Lehman/You know I'm not even sure that' s an issue because most of the places that I know of that have private, look at the hotels or whatever with private parties, there' s no smoking in those, they don't allow it. I don't know that that' s a big deal. Pfab/They took care of that for us. Lehman/Yea, I'm not sure that it is an issue. Vanderhoef/We'll hear about it if it is. Lehman/We'll hear about it before we do anything about it. Dilkes/Okay and this comes from the Ames ordinance. Do you wish to prohibit minors from being, well you're not going to, it's not an issue. Wilburn/It's not an issue. Dilkes/You're right. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 75 Lehman/We're going to let farmers in too. O'Donnell/I think we've already improved a lot on what (can't hear). Dilkes/What? O'Donnell/A lot of what Ames did. Dilkes/You have people in this room that agree with you no doubt. Okay what about outdoor seating areas? Champion/Who cares. Lehman/I don't have a. Champion/I mean I can't legislate everything. Lehman/I don't think that you can control outdoor seating. Dilkes/Well restaurants have, so you want in the outdoor seating areas. Lehman/I don't have a, if they want to allow smoking outdoors I don't have a problem with that. O'Donnell/I don't have a problem with that either. Wilburn/(can't hear) the issue the contained environment and if your outdoors then. Lehman/It's not contained. Champion/(can't hear). Pfab/I would imagine that if they do that it would drive non smokers away so they'd figure it out at least to. O'Donnell/And if we get into that we'd also have to ban buses, I mean have you ever followed the bus? Think about it. Lehman/We do ban them indoors. O'Donnell/Then that' s where we should ban smoking. Kanner/So Eleanor do we have to say specifically say we're not banning the outdoor seating for restaurants? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 76 (Vanderhoef and O'Donnell talking) Dilkes/I think you would. Lehman/Well you're in a minority in this one. Pfab/Okay that' s fine I'm just telling you. Dilkes/Well I think if you just say restaurant it would encompass the entire restaurant and so I think your going to have to exempt the outdoor seating area ifthat's your wish. Kanner/Irvin make, I'd just like to hear Irvin's case for why we should ban it in outdoor. Pfab/Well it's a restaurant, that's where food is served, the bar and it's outdoors that's fine (can't hear). O'Donnell/Let' s specify indoor restaurants. Vanderhoef/What I would say to you Irvin is that if they have outdoor seating available then you have a choice whether you go outside and be in the smoking area or whether you stay inside where it's non smoking. Pfab/So you drag all the smoky stuff back into the (can't hear). Dilkes/Although that' s not necessarily different as designating one area as smoking and one area as non smoking. Wilburn/And I'll go back to the issue of the confined space. Vanderhoef/That's why I say there still is a choice for those people who do not choose to be in the smoky area. O'Donnell/And the purpose is to try and get away from the, you have a room and there' s smoking here, and non smoking here and this invisible wall that stops everything. Lehman/It doesn't, yea it doesn't stop. O'Donnell/That' s what their. Lehman/Right, okay outside smoking. Dilkes/And. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 77 Pfab/If we four against smoking outside. Lehman/Irvin doesn't want to smoke outside so he doesn't have to. Dilkes/And the counter to that is obviously the employees go in and out and are near the smoke. Lehman/Smoke blows away, we need 8, outside on windy days. Dilkes/So the policy rationale is the smoke blows away is that okay? Lehman/Well at least. Dilkes/Recirculated to the world, okay. Champion/We'll have a big exhaust fan that goes into the building. Pfab/I say no, no smoking where there' s food. Lehman/Irvin we're past that now. Pfab/Okay, all right, I just want to go on record, that' s all. Dilkes/All right and then the final issue is I think the penalty. Under the state code it' s, now remember we're going to have two types of penalties, we're going to have the penalty against the owner who doesn't designate it as a no smoking place and the penalty against the person who smokes in violation of the sign that says no smoking. Under the state code both those fines are $25.00 civil penalties. In Ames by way of example, they did $500.00 for first offense, and $750.00 for second offense or subsequent offense against the owner or manager whoever is in control and $25.00 for the person smoking. CAFE talked about doing $100/$200/$500 for both, you can do permissible infractions under state code you can do up to $500 for the first offense and $750 for subsequent offenses. I have a little concern about increasing, and I'll talk to John Klaus at Ames as to why, if there was some rationale for leaving the penalty against the smoker at $25.00. Despite the Attorney General' s opinion I have a little bit of concern changing that penalty because it's the same offense really as exists under state code and it's a $25.00 fine, so I have some concern about changing that. We're changing the rules for the manager and person in control of the restaurant, we're not really changing the rules for the smoker so I have some concern about changing that fine. Pfab/So you're saying the state law says that if a person that smokes in a no smoking place the designated fine is $25.00. I'd say we probably should go with that, not that I like it but I think it's probably going to make it a lot simpler. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 78 Dilkes/Okay and the rest of you. Pfab/Besides how are you going to stamp their drivers license every time they get one so you know what to do the next time? O'Donnell/No. Kanner/That makes sense and then it would be $100/$250/$500 for the owner, the licensee? Dilkes/Ifthat's what you want to do that' s up to you. Kanner/That makes (can't hear). Lehman/I would think moderate sort of fine for the first fine and then escalate so that you get their attention. Dilkes/I suspect, well who knows, I think the biggest benefit of the ordinance is to have the. Chris Clair/I'm Chris Clair, I'm with CAFE also, really the matter of penalties doesn't assume major precautions if you have a nice clean ordinance. I think Madison has had an ordinance in place for five years, they've had four citations in five years, it becomes self enforcing, we don't want to punitive, if you get the right ordinance without stop goes and things like that in it everyone understands it, it's self enforcing and so the penalties are a small matter. Lehman/I think that's right. Dilkes/That's what I was just going to say, I don't the penalty is a big, I think it'sjust having the ordinance on the books yea. Lehman/Okay. Dilkes/I think that' s all I have. We'll go ahead and draft it with these parameters and I will look into seeing what information I can get about the gross receipts of alcohol licensees from the state. Summer Schedule Lehman/All right everybody' s got to stay awake long enough to do the summer schedule which we have in front of us. Being good little boys and girls we brought our calendars along. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 79 Karr/And what I've done is I put on the top of each page your current schedule and then based on the information received from you on absences or possible conflicts simply made a proposed suggestion for altering the schedule. I'm not wedded to these, it was something that we could talk about and you could take a look at. Lehman/I have a question, the July proposed you have the 10th and 17th, is there a reason why we wouldn't have the 10th and 241h? Karr/Yes there was, I have two Council people gone the week of the 23rd. Lehman/Very good reason. Karr/And because of the holiday. But again what I did is. Lehman/One of those could be skipped meeting perhaps. Karr/Absolutely, what we did was take a look at two a month but staff wouldn't be heart broken if you wished to decrease to one. Lehman/And we can make that decision later in the summer if we need it. Karr/Well we prefer not we've got a number of projects going on right now that it really is, it's really very late for us, we're going to have much more special meetings if we don't determine this quickly. Lehman/But if we found we didn't need the meeting on the 17th at some point in time it could be? Karr/Yes but what will happen is quite frankly things will get scheduled. Lehman/Yes but we aren't going to do that folks. Now are the proposed dates in agreement? Karr/No but I mean it will get scheduled if it's there Ernie. Pfab/I would like to sleep on this and come back and discuss this tomorrow. Lehman/I know that but we talked about it two weeks ago and didn't get anything done. Champion/Let' s do what we've done before, we have one meeting in July, we have one meeting in August, if we need a special meeting we call it, it's that simple. Karr/Great pick two, great pick two. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 80 Champion/You know either one in July would work for me under proposed and either one with August would work for me that' s on the proposed. Kanner/Let me just look through here Ernie. Vanderhoef/I will miss one meeting in July. Lehman/Either way. Vanderhoef/With the 10 and 17, and that' s the way it is. Champion/Well what Connie's suggesting is one meeting in July and you wouldn't necessarily miss one depending on the date Dee. Lehman/But the 17th would certain, the 17th is two weeks after the last meeting in June, three weeks. Karr/You'll note that the June calls for an adjustment because of absences also I just want to point that out. Lehman/Is June okay with everybody? Champion/Yes. Lehman/Okay June is a go. Vanderhoef/Okay so your going. Lehman/12th and 261h of June. O'Donnell/We moved the meeting from the first part of June to the 12th. Lehman/Right. Karr/That' s correct, did you get one of these? O'Donnell/Yes, I did, it doesn't matter to me I'm just going to be here. Karr/So then we go to July and because of the 3rd with the 4th and some conflicts we suggest 10 and 17, now there' s a suggestion maybe to drop to one, your call. Vanderhoef/(can't hear) 10 please. Karr/10 going once, 10 going twice. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 81 Lehman/All right hold it. Champion/Get rid of 17. Vanderhoef/If we need another one you know the 31 st if that, I haven't looked. Champion/We can always have a quorum to vote on some things. Karr/Okay so we settled on July 10th. Lehman/July 10th Karr/Okay August. Champion/They both work for me in the proposed. Karr/Are we looking at one or two? Champion/One. Vanderhoef/Okay if we're going to go from the 10th. Lehman/I don't know that we should. Vanderhoef/Then I think we ought to go with the 7th of August does that both somebody else's? Karr/Connie's gone but other than that the 6 are here. Lehman/We can't do it on the, do it on the 14th or 21st but the problem I think we're going to be very hard pressed to get by with one meeting each in July and August. Vanderhoef/Why don't we do it the 31 st? Karr/We have done that in the past. Champion/We only had one the last two years we've only had one in the summer months. Lehman/Like I said it's a wonderful idea, how about? Vanderhoef/Well how about the 31 st of July? O'Donnell/We've already got one in July. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 82 Lehman/We've got one. Champion/We've already got one in July. Vanderhoef/And then we'd have some option of not having two in a row in August. Champion/No we're only going to have one. O'Donnell/We've got July how about the 21 st of August? Champion/Great. Lehman/That means that tentatively we're. Vanderhoef/That' s a long time between meetings. Wilburn/It's six weeks. Champion/Well then how about the 14th. Vanderhoef/That' s (can't hear). Kanner/Dee I like your idea of 10th, 31 st and one in August, 10th of July, 31 in July and then one in August like the 21 st. Karr/I've got. Lehman/Wait a minute. Karr/Okay I just have some people gone as far. Lehman/The 31 st. Karr/Just and again they can speak up, I've got some people gone that week before as far as preparation for the 31 st, we have two people. Wilburn/I'd just have to do some fast reading, I'll be on RAGBRAI. Karr/Yea we've got two people. O'Donnell/Why don't we do July 17th and then August 21 ? Vanderhoef/We'll fax you your packet. O'Donnell/That way we get away from our six week miss. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 83 Vanderhoef/Well they all have those fast turn arounds. O'Donnell/I'm thinking June RAGBRAI this year. Vanderhoef/I think six weeks is too long before meetings. Champion/Oh six weeks probably is to long. Vanderhoef/So 10, 31st, and 21st. Karr/Okay and then we're back, so we've got June 12th and 26, July 10 and 31, August 21 and then we move to September. Champion/Do we need two meetings in June probably? Lehman/Probably. Karr/Yes we do in June for a couple reasons. September you've got a couple issues with, a couple of holidays, the suggestion is to alter it to the 1 lth and 251h. Lehman/That's fine. Vanderhoef/That's fine. Karr/September is okay as proposed. October then because of rotating your September schedule and the potential for primary. Lehman/9th and 23rd. Karr/I looked at the 9th and 23rd. Again as we get later, we can talk about changing it but it' s just something, and I did the same thing in November, November is a little bit different because of the holiday schedule and reasonalizing that last time people didn't want to be with Thanksgiving didn't want to have a packet to read and so I put them back to back in November. Lehman/Okay. Champion/Are you sure it wasn't because staff didn't want to have (can't hear). (A few talking) Karr/And we can always change these but that was the basis for the. Lehman/All right. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 84 Vanderhoef/If we don't need the 20th can we skip over to the 1 st? Karr/You mean in November? Vanderhoef/Okay. Karr/We'll see, I'll do a revised one and stick it in the packets and put it on your calendars. Lehman/All right. Council Time Lehman/I know you guys all want to leave but there' s a couple things. We really need, we have that meeting with the PCRB on Thursday, and I really believe we need to be thinking before that meeting, you know that was set up four years ago, and I think we need to remember the circumstances which it was set up, the purposes it was set up for and what we envision it to be in the future if we choose to keep it in the future. In other words think about that historically where it is, where it was, and where we'd like to see it go but I do think those are questions we're going to have to answer among ourselves. We need to set a date and we can do that now if you'd like to do evaluations for the three employees that the Council has. We need to decide what information the Council needs prior to those evaluations, so that that information can be gotten and made available. Champion/What month are we in April. Kanner/What month are you proposing? Lehman/I'm not I'm just saying we need to set a date and we also need to decide what sort of information that Council would like to use in performing those evaluations so that everybody gets on the same sheet of music. Vanderhoef/Well I'd like to have the salary comparisons for the folks that Marian has given to us before. Karr/From within or other cities or both. Vanderhoef/A little bit of both. Kanner/When did we do it last year Ernie? Karr/June. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 85 Lehman/I don't remember the date. Wilburn/It was June. Karr/It was June, I believe so because. Lehman/We can do it, it' s just a matter of getting the date set and deciding the information. Last year we had a bit of an outline that we used, if that was all right fine if it wasn't all right and we want something different, we need to decide that. O'Donnell/I think it was fine last year, it was good. Champion/Why don't we skip it this year? Okay. Kanner/June sounds good. Lehman/What' s that? Kanner/June sounds good. Lehman/I can not, June is for me I can not do anything until after the week of the 1 lth would work for me. Champion/What about May? Lehman/May I could probably do easier than June. Champion/Okay. Karr/Eleanor will be gone that last week in June also so it's either the all three of us to do it at the same time but we need to do the first one in June or in May or later. Lehman/Yea why don't we try and do it in May, we have Council on the first and the 15th right. It needs to be preferably I think in the morning. Champion/Right. Vanderhoef/Okay just not the 31 st because that' s the last Thursday of the month. Lehman/We're looking at May. Vanderhoef/I know. Lehman/You've got May, okay. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 86 Vanderhoef/But not the 31 st of May, early in the week I'm fine. Lehman/But earlier in the month. Vanderhoef/Okay, not the 241h or 31 st. Karr/I'm gone the week of the 21 st to a conference. Lehman/You are gone how about the 10th which is a Thursday. Champion/Perfect. Atkins/I'll be there whenever you tell me to be there. Champion/I like your style. Lehman/Does the 10th work Thursday at 8:00? O'Donnell/Fine. Pfab/Fine. Kanner/8:00 AM your saying. Lehman/8:00. Pfab/When is it? Karr/May 10th 8:00 AM. O'Donnell/It would be better about 8:30. Champion/8:30. Lehman/Or 8:30. O'Donnell/Anybody else notice on this schedule here that we have two Tuesdays, we've got the 17th. Atkins/Oh I can't be there May the 10th. Champion/What did you just say earlier? Atkins/I'm sorry it's the Iowa League, it's the Iowa League of Cities I mean, I just hate to blow that off. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 87 Champion/What about the 9th. O'Donnell/As long as it's 8:30. Kanner/Well we have a joint meeting in the afternoon. Lehman/On the 10th? Kanner/On the 9th. Vanderhoef/On the 9th, we can either shoot the whole. Lehman/What about the 8th Tuesday? (END OF 00-41 SIDE ONE) Lehman/Will Tuesday work the 8th? Champion/Fine. Pfab/That' s fine with me. Lehman/8:30 on Tuesday. O'Donnell/And there's still two Tuesdays in the schedule. Lehman/All right. You know I've got a couple other things maybe we should wait for them tomorrow night. Vanderhoef/Boy that' s coming up real fast. Atkins/That is quick. Vanderhoef/That is real quick guys. Atkins/No we're okay on that. Lehman/Two weeks, three weeks. Atkins/And I mean seriously, I can just go late to the meeting. Champion/No we wouldn't have you do that. Kanner/Ernie were you done? April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 88 Lehman Yea I've got some other things but I'm not going to do them tonight. Champion/Can I excuse myself?. Lehman/Yes I guess. Kanner/I had a few things. Lehman/Okay. Kanner/(4f(15) letter from Lori McCurn) We had an issue about public housing and income deductions and I'd like to talk about that at a work session, we had a response from our staff, I think there might be some merit in the proposal that Connie was bringing up and would like to have some further discussion on that. Everybody know what I'm talking about? Vanderhoef/No I do not. Pfab/Lori. Atkins/Lori McCurn. Kanner/We had a tenant say that her husband who is paying child support to a previous relationship. Vanderhoef/Oh the one wanting the exemption. Kanner/And wanted to be able to deduct that from income considerations and under the current law it's allowed if the housing authority allows it. But the recommendation from our staff is not to do that. Vanderhoef/Because we can't afford it. Kanner/Well that' s one issue, there' s some other issues too but I think it's worth talking about and seeing ifthere's any other things that come into play and how it all works out. I think she does have some points and I think also our staff certainly have some points. Pfab/Is this going to be talked about individual that has to be in executive session? Lehman/No we won't talk about individual, we'll talk about a policy. Kanner/Policy I think. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 89 Pfab/Okay I have no problem with that. Lehman/Well I guess the question is are there four people who would wish to bring this up or are there just to accept the recommendation of Maggie Grosvenor and staff. O'Donnell/I think Maggie has done an outstanding job. Lehman/Who would like to discuss it at a work session item? Pfab/I don't care one way or the other. Vanderhoef/Not unless we can afford it and it doesn't appear by the recommendation that we can afford it and so I would say no. Pfab/It might clear the air and I think after speaking to Maggie and to Doug I'm perfectly happy the way it is but I'm also willing to look at it. Wilburn/You know now that I think about it based on input on both sides I'm comfortable going with the, not necessarily for some of the reasons that Doug has said but I support the staff' s recommendation but I think we were asked something that I think the Council would reiterate or reaffirm, if we reaffirm the policy we reaffirm the policy. Lehman/I think we all received phone calls from this individual and I told this individual to write a letter with details and that letter would be referred to Maggie or comment from the Housing and the housing folks and I explained that I for one put a great deal of confidence in the recommendations from that staff now if we want to discuss it I personally am satisfied with the recommendation from the staff. I think sometimes addressing these things publicly create more problems than it solves so I'm not interested. Wilburn/I also have a problem just contacting her directly and letting her (can't hear). Atkins/We do owe her something in writing. Lehman/No, no, I think we need to respond, I'm not saying we don't respond because I do believe we do need to respond. Vanderhoef/(can't hear). Pfab/Is that something that we would want to each have a little input on or check it out before you send it? Lehman/Well I think the response is do we accept the recommendation from the staff?. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 90 Pfab/That's fine, like I said it doesn't make any. Lehman/But any of us, we were contacted individually and certainly all of us should feel free to contact here and make whatever comments we would like but there will be a letter from the Council. Pfab/Okay I have no problem, it's, the only thing is that what Ross brought up is maybe at some point in time it may be good for staff to know that we support them. Lehman/Well they'll know that immediately. Wilburn/Well the only other question I have is you blurted out a response from Council, does that mean Steve' s drafting on our behalf and Steve you know, if he doesn't know. Atkins/Normally what I would do is I would draft it on behalf of, I mean Ernie would sign it but I prepare usually I prepare drafts for Ernie and. Lehman/He's basically supporting the position of Maggie and the housing folks. Pfab/Is that something that each Council could have a look at before you go ahead and sign it? Atkins/Sure. Lehman/No problem. Pfab/No I mean that way everybody feels comfortable by signing off, you know I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other but I think that might clear up all the pieces that are (can't hear). But it doesn't make one bit of difference. O'Donnell/I think the letter is going to be so simple that we're just going to take the staff' s recommendation. Pfab/If everybody's agreeable to that that's fine with me. O'Donnell/That' s the way I see it. Atkins/You understand we're not, we're really not recommending, we simply this is what we've done in the past, it's been that way for years so if you want to change it you need to take action to change it. O'Donnell/Right. Vanderhoef/And there aren't four of us who are willing to change it so. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 91 Pfab/Everybody comfortable. Vanderhoef/But definitely contact the lady and say that Council is not willing to change the policy. Lehman/Okay anything else? Kanner/Yea two other things, Steve you gave us a letter about the City Park trails and number 8 in our info. packet. Atkins/Yea. Kanner/I have a concern about the $150,000 that's going to be taken from intra city bike trails and annual maintenance. Could you explain to me what' s happening, what does that mean (can't hear)? Atkins/Basically what we do is those maintenance programs, intra city bike trail, we annually appropriate a lump sum of money, now that doesn't mean every there are projects but we do appropriate it on an annual basis. And what Terry is thinking is take those moneys that are made available annually, add to what we've already budgeted, we can do four of the six legs or components of the City Park project. I mean the money is available, what the consequences would be with respect to other projects that would come along during the course of the summer we wouldn't have money for that unless we reappropriate and we'd have to go somewhere else. It seemed to be a matter of priority on the part of Commission as well as Terry and at least I sense from a number of you there was interest in, that' s our highest profile park. Kanner/So I mean some bike trails will not be maintained as well? Atkins/No I'm sorry it's not a matter of maintenance, maintenance money meant resurfacing and doing some things, we will still do the small projects, I don't think those that use the bicycles trails given one year delay in maintenance would notice a significant difference in the thing, that' s clearly a personal opinion. Kanner/Okay and then the final thing I wanted to bring up to the Council is a number of you have been following the case with the Press Citizen building, the Burns owned building across the street and there' s been a big issue about the sidewalk, the public sidewalk that's in between it, in fact that's going to come up in our conversation I'm sure about giving further money to Burns. Aside from that giving further CDBG money, the problem with that sidewalk which is the only accessible way to get from the front to the back is that it's owned by the next door neighbor which is Fox and there' s an easement by Burns for the Press Citizen building to use it, so neither of them want to really put any money into it and I April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 92 have a proposal for Council that perhaps we can talk, it might all be resolved by our next meeting but if it's not I called the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity office and we might have legal standing to make a file a complaint that there' s not fear accessibility there. This is with the U. S. Housing and Urban Development. Vanderhoef/But aren't we already in court with them? Kanner/It's a slightly different issue, this would not mean that they're going to say that your right or your wrong they would come and they would interview and they would look at it and they would say your in violation of federal statutes and so I'd like us to consider a discussion at our next meeting of whether we want to sign a letter and say to the Fair Housing folks will you investigate that. So the proposal is to send out a letter to see if we do have standing and they would accept our complaint, a resident, residents are somewhat I think intimidated being there. Their elderly and their disabled folks and I think they're reluctant to file a complaint on their own because of received repercussions whether they're real or not. So I would say that we should see if we can file a complaint since we've given significant money to that project and let them look into that. Lehman/Who' s been dealing with that in Eleanor' s office, do you know? Kanner/I think Sarah. Atkins/Sarah. Dilkes/Sarah is handling the litigation. Lehman/Well the litigation, but the issue on the sidewalk may be a different issue. Dilkes/Oh your right the sidewalk isn't directly involved in the litigation but it's an issue between as Steven has said between Fox and Burns and. Lehman/You know it's a private sidewalk so there is an easement, Burns has an easement across someone else' s sidewalk for the use of the tenants in his building. The issue is who' s going to pay for the maintenance of that sidewalk, Burns apparently doesn't feel like he's obligated to do so, Fox doesn't need to because it meets whatever needs he has. O'Donnell/Has it deteriorated? Lehman/A little bit yea. Kanner/It's impassable and many times in the winter and you have people in wheel chairs and elderly folks with canes that just can not go through it. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 93 O'Donnell/How is that any different than us requiring somebody to keep up a regular sidewalk? You know I thought if the sidewalk is not in repair. Lehman/Yea but it's private sidewalk. Kanner/It's private we don't have jurisdiction. Pfab/But shouldn't there be a contract for the easement something in that document? Dilkes/Well there apparently isn't, I haven't seen the easement document if there is one. Pfab/Is there is one fine, if not, I. Kanner/I've seen it Irvin and it doesn't say anything except they have a right to use it, it doesn't talk about maintenance. Lehman/To use it. O'Donnell/Well again certainly, who' s liable if somebody falls and gets hurt then? Pfab/Well that' s not the problem, the problem is the people. O'Donnell/Well no that is the problem Irvin. Kanner/Burns claims Fox' s insurance covered an injury that happened there, I don't know if that turns out to be the facts but that' s what Burns is saying. But I think we can perhaps move it along in a positive direction if we consider filing a complaint, if we have standing, if the Fair Housing folks say we have standing because their under contract with us for another few years because of the CDBG home money we gave that we can write a letter and then they'll say well yes you have standing and we'll come and investigate it and we'll see if this violates the fair housing standards for accessibility. Lehman/Eleanor could we get some sort of a memo from Sarah on this, is that, I mean is that appropriate? Dilkes/Yea we can look into whether we can make such a complaint and how they view it. Lehman/Can we do that without a tremendous amount of effort, I mean this is something that has been going on forever, and there's no excuse for it. Dilkes/I think we can just call them and talk to them and get some feel for it. Lehman/Okay would you just check it out. April 16, 2001 Special Work Session Page 94 Kanner/I can give you the person I talked to. Lehman/Anything else? O'Donnell/No. Lehman/All right, let' s get out of here. Adjourned 10:15 PM.