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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-11-07 TranscriptionNovember 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 1 November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session 8:20 P.M. Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn Staff: Atkins, Karr, Dilkes, Helling, Franklin, Howard, Miklo TAPES: 05-76, SIDE 1 and SIDE 2 LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES Lehman/Okay, the next item are reviewing, or establish, legislative priorities. Wilburn/Excuse me, Ernie. Lehman/Yes? Wilburn/Before we get into the first item on the work session, I just have a process question about our work session agenda tonight. Lehman/Yes? Wilburn/I know I the past when things come up between a work session and the next, between work sessions, and it's not always possible to get around to folks about an item being included on the work session. I mean, things come up, but I'm curious as to how we ended up with Historic Preservation on the work session when at our last work session, it seemed pretty clear to me that we were going, that this was going to be an item essentially end of the year for the new year Council. So...okay... Elliott/I contacted... I wanted to get three other people (can't hear) Lehman/Got your mic on? Elliott/Yep. Karr/Now it is. Elliott/Now? I (can't hear) because I thought (can't hear) not right. Contacted three other people... Lehman/In any case, that's why it's the last item on the agenda (can't hear). Wilburn/I just, just to let you know, I object to that happening. It's on the agenda so we'll discuss it, but I recall in the past when couple Council members called a special Council meeting... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 2 Karr/I'm sorry, Ross...Dee, I can't hear Ross with that ....(laughter). I'm sorry. Wilburn/...have to (can't hear) a little softer. Vanderhoef/I'm not even nibbling yet. (laughter) Wilburn/I mean, I recall in the past we had a couple Council members call a special Council meeting and we individually chose not to appear here and it just has the flavor of that occurring. So I'm just letting... O'Donnell/I think the two Councilors couldn't get a majority of four, and this time it evidently (can't hear). Lehman/Well, anyway... Wilburn/The fact...what, I'm just letting you know the fact that some of us were not contacted about this happening, just left a bad taste in my mouth. Lehman/Okay. Wilburn/That's all I'm saying. Champion/Well, I had the same question. Thanks for bringing it up. Because I don't think we have time to discuss Historic Preservation. We've got a lot of work to do on this zoning code if we want to get it done before the first of the year. Bailey/Well, and I thought we had agreed upon a work plan for that issue. Champion/Yes, after the first of the year. Bailey/And what's the point of making an agreement if, you know, then we just second- guess ourselves all the time. That...it's just not leadership in my mind. If we make a decision, we go forward with it, I feel. Champion/We said after the first of the year. Bailey/We did, and I was really clear on that. So, I was surprised, and wouldn't have known this except I get the notifications and it came in after 3:00 on Thursday. It was very strange to see two notices. Lehman/Okay, we will continue that discussion when we get to it. Legislative priorities. Champion/Dee, thanks for getting these together. Bailey/I got mine together late. It's on your ..... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 3 Vanderhoef/Oh, okay, thank you for seeing that because I haven't read the pile... Bailey/Well, one is the hotel/motel tax, which we talked about last year. Vanderhoef/Good one. Bailey/And one is this developing a system by which hospitals and clinics report employer information for those uninsured patients they see, and this is recorded and tracked by the State, so we have a good sense of what uninsured people are costing the State, especially in tracking their employment. I mean, it's one thing when somebody doesn't have insurance and they're unemployed, but it's a completely other when we have employers in the State that employ large numbers of people and they aren't covering their employees, and I think that's a good thing to track. I think it benefits us. We have some standards in the City about what employers provide when they seek assistance, and we also have a Free Medical Clinic that we support from Council funds that I think we should be more aware of who is receiving State assistance and free assistance. Joe Bolkcom advanced a bill like this last year - it didn't get through, but this is some more to what he was talking about, and it's a matter of reporting. There's no penalty or pay-in, unfortunately. Champion/... attached to it... Bailey/There's no patient names attached, just employer names and locations, and then the data about part-time, full time, and average number of hours. It's simply a tracking mechanism for us to understand how we subsidize health insurance in this State. And then because of the location, we could track it for how we subsidize it in the City. Vanderhoef/Tell me why we're talking about only those who employ 50 or more employees. Bailey/I think the bill named 25 or more employees, but I was trying to take into consideration that many small businesses do not provide insurance and that is something that employees know when they are employed by a small business. I was trying to balance interests, because I mean what we're looking at is really employers who have profit margins who are, you know, employ large numbers of people and yet do not provide health insurance. Does that make sense? Champion/Well, it might be interesting to know how many small businesses don't provide health insurance, too. I mean, I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't object to the number of 50. Elliott/I'd do it for everyone. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 4 Champion/I think you'd be amazed at how many small business do provide health insurance. Bailey/And I think I used 50 because that's often used as a cut-off standard for some tracking and some benefits that are required to be provided by employers. I'm flexible on that. Vanderhoef/I'm not sure that it would be that useful without all of them, and if I were to expand on it even, you're disallowing or how would you count, those individuals who are under independent contract with large employers, who know that they will not have benefits, but may stay on as an individual contractor. I'm thinking one of the early ones that I knew of that did this was IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, for instance, and they had highly technical people who they hired as independent contractors who worked specifically without benefits and those... Elliott/You cannot just identify independent contractors. There have to be qualifications. Wage and hour people, you can't just say 'well you're going to be an independent contractor.' There have to be requirements, and there's a list of 20 requirements, most of which you have to meet in order to be an independent contractor. A lot of people would like to do that, but it's much more complex than just deciding that's what you'd like to do. One of the things is that any time they ought to be able to do the same kind of work for other employers, and any number of activities and requirements that must be met before you can be termed someone who is doing work for you to be called an independent contractor. Vanderhoef/But can't you post a job real specifically for, say an engineer. Elliott/If you meet the qualifications, but it takes more than just saying you're going to do it. There are qualification and they are.., rather strict. Vanderhoef/Qualifications...well, are you saying these are federal hiring qualifications, or are they... Elliott/They're wage and hour guidelines, Department of Labor. Dilkes/Dee, you can't escape the wage and hour requirements for employees by calling someone an independent contractor. That's... Lehman/May I suggest that in legislative priorities there are general issues which I think we need to bring to the attention of the Legislators. I don't think we're going to design a bill for getting data for uninsured patients. I think it's important we let them know that we feel this data's very important. Obviously, they're going to make determinations as to how many people are working and so on. I mean, do we agree that that's something that's...all right. Other issues? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 5 Vanderhoef/Okay, I was...it was suggested to me that I make a list of some of the things that we've talked about before, some of the things that are incorporated, shall we say, for instance, the value fund, REAP, I see there's a typo. CAT grants, not CAP grants, and Vision Iowa and certainly the TIF is one of the things that we have found very beneficial for our community, and I think we have used it very wisely, and it has been thrown out several times in the past few years by the legislature to try and get rid of all TIFs or certainly change them considerably. ~o I would be interested if there's anything from our group that they would deem acceptable in a change of TIF, or whether you think TIFs should go away. Champion/Oh no! (several talking at once) Vanderhoef/Okay. Is there anything that you would see as a potential change to how TIF is being done right now that you could support? Champion/Well, I think there have been abuses of TIFs and I think that's what's probably getting to the legislature. I think Iowa City has a really respectable TIF record, so they would just leave us alone it'd be fine. (laughter) Vanderhoef/Okay, I guess maybe what would be helpful is to know what you see as an abuse. Champion/Should I be very specific? I think drawing a line across, around Interstate 80 to extend the TIF area is an abuse. And, I mean, that's not illegal so fine, if you do it's fine, but I think those are the kinds of things, and when you extend TIFs for 25, 50 years after, I don't know. That kind of abuse, I think, is what irritates like the school district and the county and I think that's where they're getting the pressure to get away with the TIFs because it's very costly to school districts and to counties when we, urban areas have a lot of TIFs, or a large amount of TIFs. Lehman/Is there... Vanderhoef/So what you're saying, I think, is that you don't want TIF districts continually expanded to keep from paying off the original purpose of the TIF. Champion/Right, that's good. You put it better than I did. Lehman/Well, TIFs should be project-specific. Vanderhoef/Okay. Champion/Good, that's even better way to put it. Lehman/I mean really, and then when that is satisfied the TIF is gone. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 6 Elliott/TIFs, as we use them judiciously, I think have been very beneficial for Iowa City and Iowa City has benefitted from it. Lehman/Okay. Vanderhoef/All right. How about CAT grants - those are the small grants for community attractions. Champion/Well, I think all those things have a real value for the State. It's, you know, if the State doesn't have the money, I think those things are things you do when you have the money. I don't know - I have difficulty with that. Vanderhoef/Okay, Vision Iowa and Values Fund, both personally I see that they have had problems in the multiple ways that the State might chose to fund them. Do you have any recommendations on how you would like to see those funded? Elliott/I just think in general these have all been used beneficially, but I think I would be interested in TIF having our highest priority, and I'd like to hear what the City Manager might have to say as a person who works with the budgets. Atkins/On TIF? Elliott/On any of these. It just seems to me, these are all beneficial, but I think to me TIF is what I would like to see Iowa City pushing for at this time. Not pushing for, putting our highest priorities. Atkins/I would, my opinion on TIF is one of preserving the current law. We have been very judicious about it. We've done some unique things and the fact that we have performance standards built into our TIF, a lot of cities don't do that. We use tax abatement on a limited period of time - usually in five to seven years the TIF is finished. There's only been a couple of occasions where we've actually sold debt, where you pledge the TIFs. I'm not dissatisfied with the current law, but I think I'm more satisfied with our current policy, as a City, and the way that we manage the uses of things. As far as the Values Fund, REAP, the CAT grants, Vision Iowa - those are all things that have been beneficial to us. We've applied for and have secured monies from all of these grant programs. We do well when we're competing with other communities for these monies, and I think preserving them within reason, within the State's budget, is certainly in our best interest. Elliott/Would you disagree with them putting the highest priority on TIFs? Would I be out of line on... Atkins/No, you're not...it's not a matter of disagreement, Bob. I'm not dissatisfied with the current law. I think there have clearly been, and abuse is a matter of sort of like beauty, it's in the eyes of who's looking at it. I think the State and our system, federal, state, local government, when they create opportunities for us to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 7 compete for and pursue funding for projects we would normally not be able to fund from our own resources, that's what State government's all about. That's what they should be doing for us. Elliott/I'm...sounds good to me. Vanderhoef/Okay, having heard what Steve said then on TIF, we all agree that we've been very judicious in how we've put together our TIF projects, and what our personal policy is. Is there anything within our personal policy, our City policy, that we would like to propose for TIF? Atkins/I think that your personal policy, I think there's wisdom in limiting it -- when the 20-year life is up, it's done. It can't be extended. It can't be manipulated. Done is done - you move on. Clearly you need to have the capability to sell debt, and in selling that debt you need to be able to pledge an asset, and so therefore, you know, once the life of that debt's taken care of, I think you should be able to make the assumption that the project is fulfilled...the City has fulfilled its goal and the project would hopefully have contributed to whatever is attempting to attribute to. That make sense? Wilburn/Growing the tax base so that the commercial.., all that can be added. Bailey/Right. Vanderhoef/Well, the.., certainly we recognize that taxpayers throughout Johnson County are picking up some of the project costs when TIFs are expanded over a long period of time, so via our county taxes and our school taxes, we're picking up some of the slack, and... Atkins/It's difficult for us to apologize for anything that we've done in TIF. There are communities that have done some things, I think, that... Champion/I'm not apologizing. Atkins/No, I .... and I don't think, we need to, particularly because we use performance standards. Vanderhoef/The performance standards is the thing I was getting at, to see if there was anything in the way of performance standards that might be recommended. Champion/Well, I think the project-specific. I think that's a really good performance standard. Lehman/Well, project-specific and I think time limits are also something that could easily... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 8 Atkins/How you measure those, I remember in another community that I was serving 100 years ago, we were extending a water line and it was an expensive, and we were thinking about doing it with TIF. The only obligation was they had to purchase so much water. So that we could justify the fact of creating debt to build the water line, to build it and have it set there empty didn't accomplish anything. So they had a minimum amount, excuse me, a minimum amount of water that they had to purchase from us. To me that was the same as a performance standard. It protected our investment, made them step up to the plate as well. Bailey/So, are you suggesting that we would propose, or suggest, to our delegation that our community standards be part of the State standards for TIFs? Vanderhoef/Or examples, at least, for how a responsible TIF could be done. Bailey/Well, I think we are a shining example of responsible TIF, although I think, I don't know how I feel about that. If I were director of economic development or the governor, maybe I would want to impose those standards to the State, but I'm not sure about.., communities use their own standards. Wilburn/That's what I was going to say is that it may be likely that performance standards would just be adopted and then you're back to, everybody's going to .... I mean, it gets back to that beauty in the eye of the beholder thing. Yeah, we've got standards (can't understand) about 30 years or you know, yeah. Bailey/Or we don't have specific wage standards or we don't have... Champion/The problem is they're thinking of getting rid of TIFs, so I mean, we want to protect them, I mean, we really do want to keep them. Bailey/I think they're a good tool and they've obviously worked very well for us and I ' think our community has specific standards that we have adhered to and I'm actually quite proud of the way this community has used TIFs. I could be more critical of other communities, but I'm not sure that that's exactly.., my official role. Champion/They're not doing anything wrong. Bailey/Right, they're certainly not in violation of anything. That's absolutely true. Vanderhoef/Okay, I had one more thought on this, was the projects that are allowed for TIF, and in real specific, there's been a lot of discussion at the State about cities building, for instance, a golf course that's owned by the City, and that has gotten a lot of criticism for one or two cities in the State. So, just in general, how would you feel about any kind of TIF to, here again, Iowa City wouldn't have the opportunity because we're project-specific, but in cities where the projects are not specific, then rolling over TIF money to build libraries and golf courses and city This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 9 halls and those kinds of things, it's being done and those are nontaxable projects and for me, I don't think they should be paid off with TIF dollars. If it is infrastructure that is required to make a project work, be it a street or a stoplight or a water line or a gas line - those kinds of things are related to a project that is building our tax base. But should we be using TIF dollars for nontax projects, like golf courses, libraries, and so forth? Lehman/You know, I think if you're project-specific, I can certainly envision a situation where a city, and I, well, North Liberty. If they wanted to build their Community Center, which I think is an absolutely crown jewel for that community, and wanted to use TIF to build it, I mean, I think that's an absolutely worthwhile project for that community, and it would be project-specific. Now, using it for none project and another and another and another, I disagree with. But I can see where there are situations where you might want to use TIF to do a public project from which there is no tax revenue. Vanderhoef/Well, there's differences of opinion in the State legislature, obviously, so I'm just asking. Elliott/I'd just like to have us go on record that we're interested in maintaining TIFs, that they are valuable for economic development, and for community planning. Wilburn/Maybe just add the caveat that because we have local performance standards to insure their, I mean, that the...that way we're letting them know that whatever it may be that there are certain... Atkins/One of the nice things about that discussion you're having is also you could interpret that to be an extension of home rule. Allow us to make our, I mean, give us the tools, allow us to make our own decisions, and Dee, on occasion, and it is clearly an issue of opinion, sometimes you need a substantial public project to jumpstart, to cause something to occur. City halls, libraries are a little unusual. I think I can probably understand the golf course more than anything because it's a revenue generator. Vanderhoef/And that's the one that kicked off the whole thought of it, and created some very differences of opinion at the State... Atkins/When we think of these things, encouraging the State to give us a lot of flexibility, also helps strengthen our overall process. Bailey/Well, and I think as a body, making a broad statement about TIFs and then choosing as individuals to express our opinions, concerns about golf courses coming under that or whatever, I think, is maybe a more appropriate way to do it because as a body I think we want to protect home rule and I don't, I really don't want to make judgments for other cities. They have different community This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 10 standards. I don't think that that's what we should do with these resolutions, or this resolution. I don't know. Elliott/I like addressing things in general, that we are in favor of maintaining TIFs as a tool that communities can use. We hope that they're judicial, and used judicially, and that the legislature then tackles the specifics and how it's put together. I don't think it's up to us to... Bailey/But by tackling specifics, we may also...what Steve said is we have to recognize that we may also be contradicting ourselves with the home rule issue. If we want them to get very specific, and yet we value home rule - I think these are tools that cities should chose how they use them and what bests fit their city and their community standards. (several talking at once) Vanderhoef/Okay. Bailey/I have plenty of opinions (laughter). We can lobby individually for this. Vanderhoef/Certainly, that's fine. Maybe I'll go up here to the top, manufactured housing on leased land, as a single-family dwelling. The standards on these were written back in the late 70's, early 80's, and manufactured housing on leased land is taxed not by assessed value, but it's assessed by square footage. This has not been changed in all these many, many years. At the time that that was put in, there was certainly a very short life for the manufactured housing, and it was commonly called trailer houses, and many of them were still not even on foundations. They were sitting there on wheels. Times have changed a whole lot, and the value of these homes now are maintaining their value and in some places, they are even being increased in value, and certainly when you walk into some of the nice ones that we have in this community, you think you're walking into a stick-built house with all the same kinds of amenities of fireplaces and... Lehman/We all agree that's an issue we'd like to bring up? Elliott/Well, why are we identifying them as manufactured housing? Why don't we just say housing? Why do we have to distinguish between manufactured and... Vanderhoef/Because State law does, that's.., okay, that's (several talking at once) Any problems with anybody on that one? Lehman/You got it. Bailey/No, not off the top of my head. Vanderhoef/Okay, the condominium thing, all rental units taxed as commercial property. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 11 Elliott/...commercial property, if the property is for commercial purposes, tax it as commercial property. Period. Yes. Lehman/Taxed by use, not by ownership. Elliott/Yes. Hey, Dee, you're getting a lot of agreement with you here. Champion/I agree with these other things, especially protect home rule, but I, do we need to have a whole bunch? Is it much more effective to just pick a couple? Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/Well, these are...many of these things, all fit into this big umbrella of total rewrite of the property tax law. Bailey/So you'll do the...so we could list these as sub... Vanderhoef/They're just things to keep in mind as you are certainly looking at property tax reform and these are things that all could fit into it. O'Donnell/Dee, explain the rental unit for me. Vanderhoef/If it has a rental permit, it is a rental unit. O'Donnell/So down on south Johnson Street where... Vanderhoef/If it's a rental unit, it's taxed... Bailey/We talked about this a little bit last year when we did condominium taxes (several talking at once). Vanderhoef/And this is what happens, some of the old apartment buildings were changed by legal forms to change them from being apartments to being condominiums, even though they continued to be rented. So, we lost over 50% of the assessed values off of those properties, if you look at today's rollback. Bailey/But obviously if they're condominiums that are owner-occupied, they're residents. So I mean, it's... Vanderhoeff Steve, you can probably give me the more of the history on the real estate transfer tax. It just came to my notice in some things that I read at the end of this last session and there's someone out there that's asking to take real estate transfer taxes as their pot of money to do something that they wanted to do. This was a tax that used to come to the city... Atkins/Long time ago. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 12 Vanderhoef/And the State took it back. It was one of those that traditionally we had had, the State took it back, now somebody else is looking at it and saying 'oh, why don't we take this pot of money' or a percent of this pot of money. Atkins/As I understand it, it's more intended that the State would likely continue to collect the tax, taking it away from cities, even though such transaction that occurs locally, and then use the money for, it's a policy issue. I think the Johnson CountY Housing Trust, I can't think of the other, they've expressed some interest and money's being set aside. I think the general policy that a real estate transfer tax occurs here, you know, money that's generated here should stay here, but we haven't done very well at that lately. Bailey/So is the trust fund group... Atkins/They're going to, I suspect... Bailey/Is that the group that's interested in pursuing that? Because I wouldn't want to be actually, I can see that it's beneficial to come back to cities, but the trust fund concept is... Atkins/Well, and I don't have any trouble with them. Personally, I would just assume the real estate transfer tax rest with you all and you could decide with the spending, whether... Vanderhoef/If it came to our general fund and it came for the transactions that we have to handle, and anything above and beyond that transaction would be our general fund of monies that we could put into however we needed it. That would be the home rule piece again. Atkins/Matter of policy, I think the position I would encourage you to take is real estate transfer tax rightly belongs here, not in Des Moines. Dilkes/But not as an administrative expense. We don't handle that transaction. The County does. Vanderhoef/But doesn't it go through our assessor? Dilkes/No, it's a, it's a tax on the transfer of property that's dealt with by the, yeah, basically by the County. Atkins/We don't have a lot of involvement in it. It is... Bailey/It's done at the County level and it goes to the State at this time. Atkins/Yes, important thing is... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 13 Vanderhoef/It used to come to the cities. Atkins/Used to. (several talking at once) Bailey/Well, if it comes back to the city, I'd like to put it in affordable housing since it seems like that trust fund, that's what they would be using it for. Vanderhoef/Maybe, but who knows what it's being used for. I think it's being used probably as a general fund piece at the State. Atkins/It's a very popular tax in Illinois, where local governments can... Bailey/What do they do with it? Atkins/Put it in the general fund. (several talking at once) Lehman/You know, it's becoming real obvious to me we're not going to get tothe zoning code tonight. So folks who are sitting here to listen to the zoning code discussion, I mean you're welcome to stay for as long, but we're obviously not going to (laughing and several talking at once). Okay, next? Bailey/Tomorrow we're going to talk about zoning code, right? Lehman/We need to get this wrapped up because Connie has to leave at 9:00 PM. Champion/Yes, I do. O'Donnell/And I'm going with Connie. (laughter) Vanderhoef/Well, do we have an item here? Lehman/I don't know. Do we? Let's move. Vanderhoef/Okay, one of the priorities for the League of Cities is this looking at the road use tax and the formula that is out there, and certainly that would put us at odds with counties, who also get a piece of that pie, and I think you saw in the, I think there was a pie chart, I have a pie chart some place on how that is broken out. I guess I don't have it with me. It's not in there? But that formula has not been changed in many, many years, and if it has changed, it has put more money into the State road use tax rather than to counties and to cities, and here again, in my mind, this is a home rule kind of thing that I would rather the State not hold on to as much of the road use tax, but to send it to the communities where they know what they're transportation needs are and their plans are, and build accordingly. Any comments? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 14 Bailey/I'm still not sure I understand the formula for road use tax, but we don't have to get into it tonight. I will do my own homework, and (several talking at once). Vanderhoef/It comes from the federal transportation, and comes on down. Bailey/In pieces and... Atkins/Tax per gallon. Forget what gas costs, it's per gallon. Bailey/Right. Okay. Vanderhoef/Okay, then we've pretty much hit "5". Certainly in the property tax reform we've got, want to uncouple farm land and urban property, and stabilize then, we've been asking to put a floor on rollback on property tax at the 50%, only not call it rollback, but then there are some other things that we give back to the State to try and balance this out, so you can read that in the League piece. And we keep getting requests at the State to create new grants and possibilities for specific revenues, and to my mind, the more that we can get to come back to the cities to pick and choose our own, rather than have the State still control it and give us, or maybe fund one year a grant for maybe some environmental thing, and then the next year they don't fund anything, and you're all vying for the same dollars. I'd just rather see some of those grants dropped, and certainly not create any new ones, and work with our general fund. We have got to have the predictability for our long-term planning. Bailey/Yeah, I would agree with that, but not the concept of dropping grants. Vanderhoef/Well, if they aren't going to fund them consistently... Bailey/Right, but... I mean, I think our priority could just simply say, you know, stabilize and give us some predictability. We don't have to mention the grant programs or... Vanderhoef/Okay. Lehman/How many issues do we want to take to this meeting of the legislatures? Bailey/Last year we took six. Lehman/All right. Bailey/Do you have one - does anybody else have one? Wilburn/There's a couple things, and one of them I suspect several lists ago. We did talk, I don't remember if we talked about under the guise of home rule, but we talked about the no smoking, giving cities the right to choose. A second thing, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 15 and I guess this is just an invitation, I will, my understanding is that there is a legislator or two, there's several states in anticipation of higher energy costs, helping to boost the light/heat programs or some other set of funding to help with the increase in energy for low-income folks with gas and heating. There's a couple different versions of some possible bills I've heard. I'll be talking to some folks anyway, but if I come up with something more tangible between now and the time we meet, if anyone else... Vanderhoef/Yeah, I would be interested in reading it. Karr/Mr. Mayor, just for the point of clarification, prior to your meeting, you had requested that this be in the form of a resolution, which would be on the 15th. IS that no longer on the 15th? Because that was the reason for this to be added at this time, to have it on the next meeting. Bailey/Yeah, I think we agreed last year that we were going to do this... Lehman/Yeah, well I think that that's fine, but do we want to limit the number of things is my only (several talking at once) I think if we go in there with a whole (several talking at once) we're not going to get a lot of attention. Champion/Six is enough. Elliott/If not more than enough. We certainly wouldn't want to exceed six. Lehman/Obviously, I think the uninsured patient data is something we seem to have a fair amount of interest in. Would that be one? (several talking at once) All right. TIF, the importance of TIFs, along with... Vanderhoef/Well, how about just putting... Bailey/Property tax reform? Vanderhoef/All of number five, just...wording them as supporting reauthorization on. Lehman/I would agree, but from my own personal perspective of all of those listed, TIFs is far and away the most important tool for us. O'Donnell/I agree. Atkins/If it would be helpful to you, I could probably make this nine look like six. (several talking at once) Lehman/Okay, you are charged with that, Mr. Atkins. Champion/You volunteered. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 16 Wilburn/Can you do it in the next five minutes? Atkins/I can draft a resolution, I suspect, for you. Dilkes/We don't have just nine. We have eleven, thirteen. Lehman/Well, several of these are dealing with property tax. The condo ownership, the manufactured housing, the limit on the (several talking at once) those are all property tax issues. Bailey/And I...yeah, we could just say property tax issues and when we speak to them, we could just speak to those various specific... Vanderhoef/Uh-huh, list them underneath, which is what the League has done on a number of them. Lehman/All fight. Atkins/Why don't you let us take a crack at that - we're saying...amend it on the floor. Lehman/All fight. Vanderhoef/Sounds good. Bailey/Great. Lehman/Now I don't know if we're going to get much accomplished on meeting schedules. Champion/Can I move we adjourn? Lehman/Wait a minutes, I think that if we adjourn, we have a work session scheduled for tomorrow, is that correct? And, is the agenda for that work session posted? If we were to continue this work session to 1:30 tomorrow afternoon, would this agenda still be valid? No, no, this would be continued. Elliott/As you would a public heating. Lehman/Right. O'Donnell/Can you do that? Champion/Are we going to... Vanderhoef/Recess, recess until... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 17 Atkins/We understood tomorrow is... Karr/The only thing that you don't have on it, quite candidly, Historic Preservation standards. It's the only thing not posted. Zoning code and meeting schedule are both on both of them. Lehman/All right. HISTORIC PRESERVATION STANDARDS Elliott/I would like to address Historic Preservation .... Lehman/Okay, we got two minutes. Elliott/...at the earliest possible time. Bailey/Pardon me? Elliott/I would like to address the Historic Preservation, the debate we had the other night, and I would like for the Council to approve whatever it takes to approve what Mrs. Duarte wanted to do. O'Donnell/Gutters. Bailey/I know what the issue is. Lehman/I suggest that perhaps we contact the Chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission and get their opinion of that issue, and have them get back to us. Elliott/Be fine. Lehman/As to whether or not that is a significant issue for them. I think the ball has to be in their court. Bailey/Okay, but if it is a significant issue for them and they can't take it on in, as quick a fashion as you would like, Bob, are we going to just take this up next year as we previously agreed? Elliott/No, I would be in favor of rectifying...what I consider rectifying may not. The unfairness of it, as soon as possible, as we do with other things that come up. Lehman/May I suggest that we contact the Chairman of the Historic Preservation, and ask them how they feel about this particular issue, whether or not this is something they really have a strong opinion one way or the other on it, and let's deal with that when it comes back. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 18 Elliott/Yeah, that's... Franklin/What are you asking them to do so we can pass it on? Lehman/The issue was whether or not... Franklin/To take out that one standard? Lehman/No, no, not necessarily, but the changing of the eave spout slightly changed the slope of the roof. Is that slight change a significant issue with Historic Preservation, or is that something that could be considered insignificant and the standard be changed, from their perspective - not from ours. Franklin/Do you want to change the guideline, or do you want them to change the outcome? Lehman/Want them to look at the guidelines, and (several talking at once). Bailey/Bob just wants the outcome to change. I mean, in my understanding it's not necessarily comprehensive review of guidelines - it's an outcome change. That's what Bob is calling for. He's simply calling for an outcome change. He just wants things to turn out differently. Lehman/Can't change the outcome with the same standards. If the standard is something... Franklin/So what you're asking them to do is consider changing that standard to enable Mrs. Duarte to do whatever she wants to do. Lehman/I think there's a bigger issue. Is the changing of that standard significant in maintaining historic integrity. In other words, is that slight change, is that significant? If they don't feel it's a problem and it's okay to change the standard, they should tell us. Bailey/I would suggest that... O'Donnell/Or did they just follow the code... (several talking at once) That's what I'm... Dilkes/The issue...they followed the code. They did what they should have done. The issue is whether that standard, you want to change that standard, just like you have the ability to change all, any standard or one standard or all standards, and so I think what the Mayor is asking for is to get the Commission's view on that particular standard. Is that how... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 19 Bailey/So I have a question about process. So, now if people don't like the results that they get at Historic Preservation, I anticipate that they will appeal. I anticipate that we will find that the Commission did not act arbitrarily and then I anticipate that we will be pulling strings from our Historic Preservation guidelines. This doesn't seem like a good process to me. Wilburn/Which was why I thought when we left the meeting (can't understand) let's just review the entire thing so we don't end up with that. Elliott/when something appears unfair I think we should rectify it, and I think that the City should do that when they come upon an ordinance, a policy, a regulation that appears unfair, inappropriate, they should address it, and not wait until a time when they can address everything comprehensively, which will be years from now. Bailey/Well, respectfully, Bob, I've sat in every meeting and I would suggest to you that every citizen I've heard since I've been on this Council would suggest that a decision made by the City was unfair to them, and they didn't like it, and I'm, you know, I really am concerned about her particular situation (TAPE ENDS) like fund for Historic Preservation, which the Commission has talked about, but I can't see that we start pulling threads here and there to... I have no problem reviewing all the guidelines comprehensively - no problem whatsoever, but you pull one thread and there's another and another and we will get appeal after appeal. You're setting a difficult precedent for us to uphold. Wilburn/Because we will never be able to put out a comprehensive planning document, anything, without, you know. If you, if any of us are able to call for a line-by-line item review when a complaint comes up, you know there's no point in putting together a comprehensive document. Elliott/I say when you see unfairness you should try to remedy it, and we get people coming to us all the time asking us to do something. Sometimes we oppose, sometimes we don't. That's, I have no problem with that. I think whatever the majority wants to do is fine. Lehman/No, there is no appeal process. (several talking at once) I...but I would really, you know, this all may be settled when we get the opinion of the Historic Preservation Commission. There may be absolutely every reason in the world why they did exactly what they did, and if not... Bailey/So are there four who are willing to do this? I'm not willing to do this, and I want to state that. I'm willing to review the guidelines. I'm willing to look into a grant fund for people who face these kinds of issues. I'm willing to do a lot of different things, but I'm not willing to piecemeal ordinance after ordinance after ordinance because something is unfair, because unfortunately, that's the way it will be. We will constantly hear these kinds of appeals. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005. November 7, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 20 O'Donnell/I don't know that. Lehman/I'm willing to see whether or not they feel that that is a fair standard. Bailey/Okay, so that's three. Vanderhoef/Uh-huh. Champion/The problem is, that if the rules had been followed from the beginning, she wouldn't have the problem she has. They did not get a building permit. Lehman/Somehow I'm well aware of that. Champion/So, I mean, they've created this terrible problem. I agree. She's got a big problem. Bailey/I agree. Vanderhoef/It would have cost the same whether she had gotten the building permit. Champion/Now they have to tear down what they've started. Yeah, they started. Vanderhoef/Well, just on the gutter area, but all the rest of the... Lehman/Okay, folks. We're done until 1:30 tomorrow. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 7, 2005.