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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-09-24 Transcription September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 1 September 24, 2001 Special Work Session 6:30 PM Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilbum, Pfab, Kanner Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Dilkes, Franklin, Mollenhauer, Trueblood, Matthews, O'Malley, Schoon, Craig, Davidson, Schmadeke, Holecek, Boothroy, Fosse, Klingaman, Fowler TAPES: 01-85, SIDE TWO; 01-86, BOTH SIDES; 01-87, BOTH SIDES Joint Meetin~ with Library Board - Parkin~ Library Board Members present: Magalhaes, Singerman, Dellsperger, Parker; Swaim, Prybil. Lehman/Library Board, this meeting has been called I believe to discuss the parking around. the library, who from the Library Board would like to discuss this? Lisa Parker, Board President/Thank you Eruie, we did want to sit down and talk with you a little bit and talk about parking for the library considering your going to be considering the developer proposals for 64-1A and I know that you know that the library is a heavily visited spot, we get over a half a million visitors a year and obviously convenient parking continues to be one of the primary interests of the patrons of the library. We had a survey that was done about six months ago and that was the greatest area of concern of library users. A lot of our users are parents with strollers and young children, getting them into the libraries is an important part of library services so we wanted to talk a little bit more about parking as it applies to that developer proposals. Lehman/Okay before we start a general, Joe Fowler, I think I saw him here. Atkins/He's here. Lehman/Joe would you like to step up to the mic. Council some time ago discussed the parking issue at the library and I believe at that time there was a majority of the Council who concurred that some portion of the ramp associated with the Sheraton Hotel should probably be reserved for parking use and I think we gave that to you Joe and I think where are we at that? Joe Fowler/We got our cost estimates back on reserving the lower levels, initially we thought it would be about $10,000, they forgot to include labor and the cost estimate when we got it and it came back at about $20,000. We've been trying to figure out a way to wait until a developer, if a developer is picked for 64-1 a and see how the plans all tie together. We've looked at different options and the option that we come up with right now is to contain the library construction lay This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 2 down area to a small an area as possible and then go ahead and meter the parking lot the remainder of the parking lot. So probably a little over a third of the lot would be construction lay down and the rest of it would be parking meters with a short term, we're looking at probably like a two hour time limit in that area. Lehman/And how many meters would you anticipate would be there? I realize that's kind of hard to do when you haven't talked to the contractor. Fowler/Yea that's, we've gone out and looked at it Ernie, I can't honestly give you a number. What we would lose would be the row right along Plaza Center and then the next row back and then we'd have the next two rows which are a little, about the same length and then one short row and then the area along Linn Street. Vanderhoef/Do we have the meters available or are we purchasing meters for this? Fowler/No we have meters available, they were meters that were from the Iowa Avenue Streetscape, when we put in Iowa Avenue we put in new parking meters, so we have meters available. What we would have to do is we'd go out and drive the meter posts, we'd have to buy the meter posts which are probably about $12.00 a piece into the asphalt and then we'd set the meter heads on it. Singerman/Your talking about the Dubuque Street ramp or the? Lehman/Talking about the. Fowler/The surface parking lot next to it. Originally we thought we were going to lose that entire area for construction lay down and. Parker/This is at the point the library is being constructed before the developer (can't hear). Fowler/Right, yes, before the developer ta~kes it, it's kind of an interim move while we find out exactly what the future for that area is going to be. Lehman/Joe what would happen if the construction of the library needs for whatever reason to use that entire lot? Would we then proceed with the reserving the lower levels of the Sheraton lot? Fowler/I think that all of the discussions that we've had and Susan can verify this were that they would take the minimal area necessary, we'd leave the driveway open, we'd take the current cashiers booth out of there to make it a little easier to get in and out. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 3 Parker/Of course what we're interested in what will be done during construction but of course our primary concern is beyond that when there's a building on 64-1a and parking for the future. Lehman/Joe is it our plan? I think it is our plan that after 64-1A is (can't hear) when that construction starts that we do reserve the lower levels of that ramp for the library and hopefully at some point very close to that the Ground Transportation Center would be available to move permit parkers out of that facility. Fowler/We would anticipate moving permit parkers out of there Eruie over to the new facility, the thing that I would hate to make a commitment on right now would be ground level parking because in our preliminary discussions if there's any skywalk connections, the skywalk connection would have to be 18 feet high to give the alley clearance enough in the event any large equipment or anything needed to get to the back of that area. If a crane was going to get into work on the back of the either the new building if there's a new building or on the back of the Sheraton. And so that would tie in between the second and third levels which means you would probably have to make your pedestrian cross over on the third level of Dubuque Street ramp and I think it would be difficult at this time to say exactly where we were going to put parking until we found out where the library really felt the parking was better served if it was going to be up at the third level where people had the direct cross or if they would rather have it at ground level to walk across. I don't think there' s any problem getting a commitment to dedicate some short term parking, I think it's hard at this point to identify where the parking I think it's hard at this point to identify where the parking would be until we know the final plans of what would happen with 64-1a. Lehman/But it's fair to say that if at all possible we will retain as much of the surface lot as we can in metered parking. Fowler/During construction. Lehman/And when that leaves depending on the, on what's going there and the configuration of that we will then reserve some sort of space in the Sheraton ramp for library use. Fowler/Somewhat. Lehman/I think I hear Council saying that that' s what we had planned to do. Vanderhoef/We had planned. Fowler/Some way either you know like we used to do in the Capital Street ramp where there were signs that said no parking 6:00 AM to 10:00, we'd have signs that said maybe two hour parking and have to go through and maybe chalk tires, we might This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 4 have gates. I think it would really be hard to pinpoint exactly what we're going to do until we decide what happens with 64-1A. Lehman/Okay, and that's going to happen pretty soon. Kanner/Just to get some background information, before we went to hourly parking for the whole lot on 64-1A we had meters in just one section. How many meters did we have there? Fowler/18. Kanner/So one could assume that there weren't, that library users didn't have permit for the rest of the parking lot, they were just using those 18 spaces. Is that a correct assumption? Fowler/That's correct, yes. Kanner/So how many people do you anticipate would want spaces for the library, more than that 18 that was currently used 2 or 3 years ago that was all that was available. Parker/Well there was parking available on College Street before Jim Clark put up the building he has there, there was other parking available in the vicinity of the library prior to the time the lot was made that the next to the library was made available. I, daily for the library. Craig/And Steven the parking, when the meters where there on the lot on 64-1A it was also at the time when the old library lot was on it's comer of Gilbert and College and many, many library users used that lot as the library lot and it was at the time that that lot was turned over for development that the 64-1A lot became open to general parking. Kanner/Well one of the things I hear the Library Board saying is ideally they would like 64-1A to have parking for the library. With you saying that there was parking at Gilbert and College if we're saying we're putting parking in the ramp that's even closer than Gilbert and College so it seems that you would have that same amount of parking available with the ramp plus there's some proposals with some possible parking with the new development. But at least you wouldn't be any farther with the Sheraton Hotel parking ramp than you were previous. Does that make sense? So is there concern with that? Linda Dellsperger/I think what were looking for is commitment from the City to say we will provide X number of spots and I would say you know between 75-100 spots that would be dedicated to short term parkers in that Dubuque Street ramp. Where those spots will be should, we should wait and determine what's going on This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 5 64-1A so that patrons of the library would have the most accessible spots, whether that be a skywalk or if there's a first floor covered, whatever, and I think what Joe is saying we don't know that right now until a 64-1A developer is chosen but we at the Library Board are interested in having short term parking available in that lot. Parker/There's also three handicapped spaces in the current 64-1A or three or more in the current lot and obviously we'd want to make sure that those spots will be placed similar close to the library. Champion/They could go actually (can't hear) well they wouldn't work because that's parallel parking you have to have more space for (can't hear). Fowler/Our plan right now is when we put the meters in the lot that we'll wait and see where the pedestrian pathways are around the construction area and then we would go ahead and put the handicapped parking in the closest, like if there's two pedestrian areas out of there we would put one by each pedestrian area, if there's only one then we would group them in one area. Singerman/I think that we want to make sure that as you go forward choosing the development that's going to happen on 64-1A that the commitment to parking for the library kind of doesn't get lost in the shuffle, or the parking spaces get added in to the spaces that will be needed for whatever use you choose for that particular parcel of land so that it all does really add up. Lehman/I think that's legitimate because I don't know and Joe you can help me, we have what a couple hundred permit parkers in the Sheraton ramp? Fowler/About 260. Lehman/And that ramp at some point sometimes is full. Fowler/Yes. Lehman/Now I would assume that when this library construction starts and certainly when 64-1A starts that there will not be room in that ramp to reserve the number of short term spaces that the library would like to have and still keep those 260 parking pass holders. Is there room in Chauncey Swan and/or Tower Place to move some of those permit parkers because the Transportation Center is not going to be far enough along by then? Fowler/Between those two spaces and Capital Street Ramp we could move long term parkers to different facilities. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 6 Lehman/And we would, I mean I would assume that you would recommend that if we're going to dedicate a number of short term spaces we do have to provide for the hotel and the other things them and I think that frankly the lowest priority has got to be permit parkers because there are other places that we could park. Fowler/Right, we could move them around within the system until you know everything kind of shakes out, sees what development, what demand is where and continue to move them until we had the right fit. Lehman/Council comments. I mean I think there's a pretty strong commitment on the part of the Council to see to it that there is parking that is going to be available for the library. Pfab/Is there a number that the local (can't hear) that them' s adequate, a certain number of short term parking spaces (can't hear) spaces of?. Parker/I think 100 is a nice number, easy to remember. Pfab/100, no I'm serious. Lehman/She just said 75 to 100. Pfab/Okay but I mean. Kanner/Don't ask them again it will go up to 125. Parker/Is that what your offering? Pfab/No, I just kind, you kicked around, well what is the number? So okay, ideal 100. Vanderhoef/Well I'm glad to hear you acknowledge that short term parking is not just library parking because we need to keep this energy going of the shoppers downtown and encourage them to have to have an oppommity to park in short term parking too so that will influence the number and to say that this section is for shoppers and this section for library is not what I'm thinking. What I'm thinking is a group of short term spaces that will be used by everyone. Singerman/I don't think there's a practical way to cord it off. Vanderhoef/And I want it clearly that was what. Champion/Well you couldn't possibly, how could you screen it for just library? Magalhaes/Well the surface lot is not screened in any way. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 7 Parker/Library users occasional shop. Lehman/And shoppers occasionally read. Okay. Vanderhoef/Daytime activities reading and shopping. Lehman/Okay have we addressed the issues that your concerned with? Parker/Yea, we just want to make sure you didn't, you have a lot of things on your mind. Lehman/Well don't worry, when we're looking at an 18 million dollar facility downtown that' s not the sort of thing we can forget. Parker/Okay, good glad to hear it. Thank you guys. Lehman/Hey thank you folks. Plannin~ & Zonin~ A. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR OCTOBER 8 ON AN ORDINANCE TO REZONE APPROXIMATELY 14.07 ACRES OF PROPERTY FROM LOW DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, RS-5 AND PLANNED DEVELOPMENT OVERLAY-LOW DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, OPDH-5, TO OPDH~5, FOR APPROXIMATELY 14.07 ACRES OF PROPERTY LOCATED SOUTH OF VILLAGE ROAD AND NORTH OF WINTERGREEN DRIVE. (REZ01 - 00014) Franklin/Eight on a rezoning which is part of the Wellington Condominium's in southeast part of Iowa City. We'll talk about that prior to your meeting in October. The second item is. Kanner/Karin. Franklin/Yes. Kanner/It's a little confusing to me, this was I guess the wrong agenda, hold on just a second. There was 14 acres mentioned twice, and it was a little confusing to me, rezone approximately 14.07 acres. Franklin/Yea it only needs to be in there once. Kanner/What are we scratching out here? Franklin/I would say the second one, scratch out the second for approximately 14.07 acres of property. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 8 Kanner/So it's going from RS~5 to OPDH-5? Franklin/It's RS-5 and OPDH-5 to OPDH-5 entirely, it's a very small change around Jamie Lane, and we'll get into the detail of it, I think it will be much clearer when you get the staff report and the plat before the public hearing next time. Kanner/Okay. But the, so we'll have a correction on that for tomorrow? Franklin/Well probably not for tomorrow. Lehman/I think I just corrected it. Franklin/Yea. Lehman/On my copy which I will read. Okay. B. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE ZONING CODE, ARTICLE O, SIGN REGULATIONS, TO PERMIT CANOPY ROOF SIGNS. (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Franklin/Okay the second item is first consideration of an amendment to the sign ordinance to permit canopy roof signs. We've already had the discussion on that. C. CONSIDER AN ORDiNANCE TO REZONE APPROXIMATELY 30.11 ACRES OF PROPERTY FROM RURAL RESIDENTIAL, RR-1, TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY - LOW DENSITY SiNGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, OSA-5, LOCATED AT THE WEST END OF BRISTOL DRIVE. (REZ01-00011) (SECOND CONSIDERATION) Franklin/Item C is second consideration of a rezoning at the end of Bristol Drive. D. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE TO REZONE APPROXIMATELY 38.24 ACRES FROM LOW DENSITY SiNGLE FAMILY, RS-5, COUNTY HIGHWAY COMMERCIAL, CH, COUNTY, LOCAL COMMERCIAL, C1 AND COUNTY MULTIFAMILY, R3A TO COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL, CC-2 (10..99 ACRES), MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY, RS-8 (21 ACRES), AND LOW DENSITY SiNGLE FAMILY, RS-5 (6.22 ACRES) FOR PROPERTY LOCATED EAST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD AND SOUTH OF ROCHESTER AVENUE AND LOWER WEST BRANCH ROAD (REZ99-0017) (PASS AND ADOPT) E. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING APPROXIMATELY 105.2 ACRES OF PROPERTY FROM, SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL, COUNTY RS, TO LOW DENSITY SiNGLE FAMILY, RS-8 (60.13 ACRES), FOR PROPERTY This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 9 LOCATED NORTH OF COURT STREET, SOUTH OF LOWER WEST BRANCH ROAD, AND EAST OF HUMMINGBIRD LANE. (REZ01-00004) (PASS AND ADOPT) Franklin/Items D and E are the rezonings that are in the conjunction with the annexations on the east side, those need to be deferred indefinitely because we can't go through the final action on the rezoning until we have the annexation completed. Just for your information, the City Development Board has set November 7 as the date for the public hearing in Iowa City on those annexations. Lehman/Okay. Franklin/And it will be here in the council chambers. F. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF A RESUBDIVISION OF LOT 236, WASHINGTON PARK ADDITION, PART 11 (ARBOR HILL), AND 8.02 ACRE, 2-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED NORTH OF WASHINGTON STREET, EAST OF GREEN MOUNTAIN DRIVE. (SUB01-00017) Franklin/Item F is a resolution approving the final plat of Washington Park addition, Arbor Hill, there's a request to defer to this to October 8 from the attorney for the applicants. That's it. Lehman/Boy that was quick. O'Donnell/Yea. Kanner/What was the deferral date Emie for? Lehman/October 8 1 think, yea, okay. A~enda Items ITEM NO. 10. PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, ESTIMATE OF COST FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE HICKORY HILL PARK TRAIL PROJECT, ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY EACH BID, DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS, AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS. Atkins/Terry is here this evening if you want to have Hickory Hill. I saw him wondering around. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 10 Lehman/Who, oh Terry, why don't you, as long as your here we hate to waste your expertise. At our last meeting we had a public hearing which we continued on the trails for Hickory Hill Park and them were some questions which I think were probably of the technical nature and none of us were able to answer those questions but I understand you have visited with those folks who had a concem about those questions and those questions are no longer questions. Is that correct? Trueblood/That' s correct. Lehman/As proposed it will be, we will complete the public hearing and there are no objections to the plan as it was proposed. Trueblood/That is correct. Lehman/I thank you sir, sorry I brought you up there for that. Pfab/Was there any effort made (can't hear)? Trueblood/We have not made a determination to increase our supervision or inspection on the project, right now a consultant contact we have inspection at intervals during critical times, drop in, basically probably what it averages about an hour a day. Now that didn't mean that the consultant will be over there every day, but some days not at all and maybe other days 3 to 4 hours. But at the staff level we will also be visiting this project more often than we visit with most of them. We did get a price from the consultant, we wanted to increase the inspection time. Pfab/And what was that? Trueblood/Essentially if we want to go half time inspection it would be in the neighborhood of $21,000 and if we want to go full time it would be close to $40,000, about $38,000 1 believe. Pfab/Did anyone check out the sources of funds for at least a half time inspector? Lehman/This is general obligation bonds pay for this, I imagine we'd have to increase the bonding in order to do that. You obviously do not sense the need to have a full time inspector or half time inspector. Trueblood/I'm comfortable with the way it is right now. Lehman/Okay. Pfab/Are the other participants that are involved, the two different groups that work together are they comfortable? I'm not comfortable. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 11 Trueblood/Well all I can tell you is the meeting that we had that was brought up and discussed briefly and I'm sure they would be more comfortable with more inspection typically with any project your more comfortable with more inspections but it's not always affordable and so it did not seem to be a major stumbling point. Pfab/Well my concem is that this is a project that I don't think any of the participants are something that they do every day, or every week, or every month or every year, so I'm saying that the interest of the park and the people or the citizens it would certainly be something that we ought to try to do to get an on site inspector there if there's anyway to do it. O'Donnell/Terry did you say both groups are satisfied with this now? Trueblood/As a result of our meeting last Wednesday night yes, we went through point by point of the items they brought up to you at your last meeting and everything is copasetic. Lehman/I don't know about the rest of the Council but I've received phone calls from both groups who indicated their satisfaction with this. Champion/And I'm not going to spend the money if (can't hear). Lehman/Well we'll open the public hearing tomorrow night, if that needs to be discussed we can certainly do that and then we can close the hearing and hopefully we'll. Kanner/I've got, first of all did Mike give you that shirt or do you only hire Bronco fans? Trueblood/No we actually even have a Viking fan on staff but I don't know ifhe's long term or not. Lehman/Oh that's in the record now. Kanner/The tree, there was concern about the trees being cut down. Pfab/And damaged. Kanner/And damaged and going up a certain height, is that going to stay at the same standard as it was before? Trueblood/Yes. We talked to the group, what was in the specifications was trimmed to an 8 foot clearance, they preferred 7 feet but we talked with them and explained why it had to be a minimum of 8 feet and they understood. O'Donnell/And we anticipate they'll grow back. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 12 Trueblood/Most of them do. Lehman/Yes. Kanner/Thank you. Lehman/Okay other agenda items. ITEM NO. 3e(2). Karr/Mr. Mayor we'll be adding a public hearing to the consent calendar on plans and specifications for the South Sycamore Regional Greenspace seeding project, that is before you and that is setting a public hearing and that will be added to the consent calendar. ITEM NO. 6. HEARING ON PROPOSED CIVIL PENALTY OF $300.00 AGAINST OUTER LIMITS OF IOWA CITY. Karr/An addition is to the hearing on the proposed civil penalty against outer limits, Item number 6 on your agenda. After you conduct the hearing there will be a resolution assessing it, that was inadvertently left off the agenda. Lehman/Okay. Kanner/And. Lehman/Go ahead Steven. Kanner/No, well I have some items. Lehman/No go right ahead this is also the time if we have questions on the consent calendar they should come up now as well. ITEM NO. 11. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST AN EXTENSION OF THE LISTING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND LEPIC- KROEGER REALTORS OF IOWA CITY, IOWA FOR THE COMMERCIAL UNITS REMAINING TO BE SOLD AT TOWER PLACE AND PARKING. Kanner/In regards to the extending the listing agreement with Lepic-Kroeger for the parking ramp, I saw the prices which I assume are for the cost, this is number 11, page 155 in our packets. The prices listed there I assume are for the asking price for the condominiums, there are $500,000. What are the prices that we're paying for the listing agreement with Lepic-Kroeger, and has it now come down since This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 13 we're only listing two units, I would think it might come down, before we were listing much more than two units, now we're going down to two units. Pfab/Can I to answer that, attempt to answer that? Okay this is done on a commission basis and as individual properties are sold the Realtor gets paid by the percentage of the sale so it's the motivation to get a high as price as you can get and so it doesn't make any difference. Kanner/So the percentage commission is the same as before? Fowler/Yes. Kanner/What percentage is that? Fowler/Six percent with another half percent for advertising. Pfab/I explained, okay (can't hear). I was concerned that when the extra half percent was put in because that was a disincentive to other Realtors to participate in the sale of that because that wasn't split. And then I also asked that if they spent that for advertising that the city get it get be shown to the city that this is where the money went either tear sheets or something like that receipts and I. Kanner/Have we gotten tear sheets Joe from last year advertising? Fowler/I have a couple of the recent examples, one is a color ad that Lepic Kroeger had, I don't know if you want me to pass this around or not. Kanner/They're not showing the ocean front. Fowler/No, no, and then a color brochure that's been done and been available and this has been revised several times through out the listing, it's not the original, I mean they continue to update it depending on what spaces are for sale, this shows the current listing, current pictures of the facility, I don't know if anybody wants to see any of the advertising that' s been done. Pfab/I would like to see it. Kanner/Irvin do you think that half percent is some what of a detriment concerning the sales? Pfab/No I don't think it's hurting the sales but if the city is going to pay an extra half a percent or strictly for advertising, what was the advertising that was done? I think the city has an obligation that that money should be accounted for and if they say this is what it takes, fine what did you do with that half a percent? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 14 Lehman/Steven I think the half percent has nothing to do with the sale price. Pfab/No, it does, it's determined by the sale price. Lehman/I realize that but it has nothing to do with the amount that they sell the property for is based, their commission is based on that obviously but it doesn't affect the selling price. Okay any other agenda items. ITEM NO. 12. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE ALLOCATION OF PUBLIC ART FUNDS AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY, THE OWNER, AND THE CURRENT TENANT OF 2 SOUTH DUBUQUE STREET FOR A MURAL ALONG THE IOWA AVENUE SIDE OF 2 SOUTH DUBUQUE STREET. Vanderhoef/I'd like to ask Karin about the art project. The art project obviously has started out there before we had improved it, I was curious about how that happened but then I started reading your contract on the completion deadline. What happened there? Franklin/Well let me just kind of give you some background on how this whole thing started because it's entirely different sort of thing that anything that we've ever dealt with in public art to date. And probably the closest comparability is Tomado, in that Sandy Navalesi the owner of Dulcinea and Anna Ullerich who is the artist in the project, and it was basically at Sandy' s behave wanted to do a mural on that building wall for some time. Came to the Public Art Committee and said we want to do this project, they had talked to me earlier of course about it and indicated that they would be getting some support from local businesses to do the project. Wanted to go forward with it and would like a contribution from the Public Art Fund of the city toward the project, because it is a mural, it's a different kind of thing than we've had before in that the longevity of it is more limited than if you were getting a granite sculpture or could be. Although Blackhawk stayed on the wall of the Paul Helen Building for years, and years, and years with I don't know very little attention it seems but it did last for a long time. And so the idea here is that the city makes a contribution toward this as a kind of partnership with Dulcinea and with the other businesses who contributed to the project. They wished to get started to get this done by October 13 which is the dedication date for the Iowa Avenue Streetscape project and the Literary Walk and intended to go forward with this regardless. I don't know what they will do if the public art funding is not approved, I will assume they will attempt to get funding from other contributors in the community. But that's why it started is they had intended to go ahead with it and it was with that understanding that the Public Art Advisory Committee recommended going forward with this, it's not really a match because it's more than what the private contributions are. ~his represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 15 Kmmer/And this seems sort of like the unique agreement to lease from the (can't hear). Franklin/Yes, well it's not, actually the contract as you read it, they proposed leasing from the Paint Outward and Eleanor and I talked about that and thought that was a very kind of awkward unusual sort of thing and that we didn't really want to lease from the Paint Outward. What we wanted in exchange from the funds from Public Art was a commitment that the mural would be done, that it would be maintained by the building owner and the tenant and that their contract with the artist would see to all of the details that we normally have in our contract but that they would commit to it's maintenance and it's longevity for five years. Kanner/So they have the right to paint over it after five years the owner? Franklin/Yea, or to change it or whatever. Karmer/Whatever they want. Vanderhoeff Do you have a better rendition of it than what came out of our packet? Franklin/Well I don't because if you look at what is in your packet and you look at what Anna is doing on the wall it's different and there was debate about that and the Committee with one of the committee members wanting to have a much more definite concept before approving any funding. The artist arguing that she wanted to do it within the context of doing an architectural tromp l'oeil and then within that doing some fantasies about literature, but she didn't know exactly what it would be when she started and the way she works is to evolve creatively, so. Lehman/So you've seen all your going to see Dee. Franklin/That's it until you look at that wall. Champion/Just walk down there every day and look at it Dee. Lehman/Note the progress. Kanner/I think it is kind of exciting to empower the Public Art Advisory group and local business people although I think we have to discuss the balance of the decision making process a little more perhaps in the future. Franklin/Well the ultimate decision is definitely with you guys, with the Council because it's public money. Kanner/And I had another question. Did Nagle abstain because of conflict of interest? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 16 Franklin/No he abstained because he didn't want to say no to the project but he wanted to have more detailed concept of what this, well what Dee is asking for, he wanted to see what she was going to paint there before he said okay but he liked the idea of having a mural and he didn't want to say no to the whole project so he abstained right or wrong. Okay. Lehman/Thank you Karin. Vanderhoef/While your there I've got one more question for you, switch hats, I'm into the urban renewal. Franklin/Which hat. Oh okay, Dee I'm going to talk about that in conjunction with 64- 1A ifthat's okay. Vanderhoef/Okay. Franklin/Because the two things are intertwined that's why we're doing the urban renewal TIF is because of the 64-1A. Vanderhoef/Fine. Franklin/If that's all right. Lehman/Other agenda items. Vanderhoef/Oh one more, a while back I commented about looking to see how wide a walkway we were providing between our sidewalk cafe and the starting of the streetscaping or whatever it is and since we have a new one on our new Iowa Avenue rebuilt there I'm curious what kind of distance we have and so if we don't know could we get that before tomorrow? Karr/There's been no changes from before. Vanderhoef/But can you tell me, I think there might be more space there than there was before but if now I will. Karr/Oh okay. Lehman/It is at least eight feet. Karr/It is at least eight feet, but there's more than eight feet there but you want to know the distance on this particular one that they voluntarily did rather than the, okay we'll know that by tomorrow night. Kanner/I have one more. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 17 ITEM NO. 3f(1). CONSDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE PARTIAL RELEASE OF A DRAINAGE EASEMENT LOCATED ON LOT 64, SOUTH POINTE ADDITION, PART 4. Kanner/This is in the consent calendar, #f(1), page 64 in our Council packet. Could someone explain the releasing the drainage easement at South Pointe addition so that owners can build on it, and why the change all of a sudden. We've got a volunteer. Karr/Not without a mic you can't. Sarah Holecek/When South Pointe subdivision was originally replatted, basically what happened is we had a property owner start to build a swimming pool, and they did not check to see whether or not there was an easement that would encumber their building of a swimming pool. Once the hole had begun to be dug it was determined that the drainage easement was in place and they would be violating the terms of that easement. Engineering took a look at it to see whether we could reduce the easement and still have it function for drainage purposes and that' s the case so what we're going to do is release a portion of it, not the entirety of the easement to allow them to go ahead with their swimming pool. Lehman/Okay. Kanner/Thank you. 64-1A Recommendations (# 13 and #3 e( 1 ) ITEM NO. 13. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION SELECTING A PREFERRED DEVELOPER FOR THE REDEVELOPMENT OF URBAN RENEWAL PARCEL 64-1A. ITEM NO. 3e(1). CONSIDER A RESOLUTION DETERMINING THE NECESSITY AND SETTING DATES OF A CONSULTATION AND PUBLIC HEARING (OCTOBER 23) ON AN AMENDED CITY-UNIVERSITY PROJECT 1 URBAN RENEWAL PLAN FOR AN URBAN RENEWAL AREA IN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY, IA. Lehman/Karin 64-1A recommendation. Franklin/Well I think the first thing I'd like to see is that we were all very pleased to get four applications for this project. You know we've sent it out before and have not had that kind of response and it was gratifying to know that there were that many This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 18 people who wanted to invest in downtown Iowa City. We spent quite a bit of time deliberating about this in terms of what project to recommend to you. Lehman/And Karin would you tell the Council who was doing these deliberations and recommendations because I think there were I think like nine of you. Franklin/Yes, all of the folks that were involved in the staff committee are included in the memo, Susan Craig the Library Director, JeffDavidson the Assistant Director of Planning, Joe Fowler Director of Parking and Transit, myself, Dale Helling Assistant City Manager, Sarah Holecek First Assistant City Attomey, Kevin O'Malley Director of Finance, Chuck Schmadeke Director of Public Works and David Schoon our Economic Development Coordinator. That was the staff group that looked at all of the applications. As indicated there were public presentations of these applications, I know some Council Members were able to be there and I hope the rest of you saw them on television or the video. Our recommendation is for the Moen project and we outlined a memorandum to the City Council our rationale for that recommendation. We felt that overall including all of the factors we looked at which had to do with the architecture, the uses, how it would add to the downtown, the financial packages which were very difficult to analyze because there was so much similarity in them except for the original town proposal. Similarity in that they were ambiguous as to exactly what was being offered at this point in time which is not unusual. But taking all of those things into consideration and balancing out the benefits with the things that we need to negotiate putting together the development agreement we've proposed this project which is Plaza Towers. The project includes a street level grocery deli space, entrance to the hotel and retail space on the comer. I'm going to go through some perspectives here and then we'll mn through some of the uses by floor just to make sure you are familiar with the project. I think these perspectives are helpful in terms of your getting a sense of the mass of this building in the context of the buildings around it. This obviously is a view from someplace up high, north of the building, I, just kind ofhovering in a helicopter above it I guess with the pedestrian mall in front of the proposed building. This shows it from the north east of the building to get a little bit of sense of how it will relate to the library, the proportion to the library and to the hotel and to the existing Dubuque Street ramp. Pfab/Can I stop you? Franklin/Yea. Pfab/Go back to the previous, is this the one northeast, okay, no the other one, yea this one. Now the library's problem was the parking spaces, where are the spaces for the library really be when you look at this? Franklin/In the Dubuque Street parking ramp. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 19 Pfab/That' s it. Franklin/Yes, and I will point out that aside from the original town project the Clark project, there was no, there is no surface parking in any of the proposals. In this proposal there is subterranean parking for the condominium units likewise in the executive hotel proposal and those are necessary for the condominium units if they're going to sell. But what that does too is it takes away some of the demand that the project generates on the Dubuque Street ramp. That is by providing parking by subterranean, that demand is satisfied on site as opposed to putting that demand on Dubuque Street ramp but there is no specific designated parking for the library in any of the projects and only in original town was their parking at street level which would have been general public parking. Pfab/Okay so my question is where are people with disabilities stickers going to park? Franklin/Okay can I run through the whole thing and I think that will become evident and I'll try to point that out? Pfab/That was one of the problems I had with this. Franklin/This is a perspective from Linn Street and actually this one I can help you with that question Irvin, one thing that we will be talking with them about in negotiations and I've already talked to the architect about is the possibility, back here is surface parking for the grocery store and loading area for the grocery and for the hotel that we somehow get in this area a couple of spaces that are designated for handicapped parking that could be used by the public, by the general public. Then someone who was using the library could park in this space, come out here and then this is a covered walkway here, go under the covered walkway and get to the entrance to the library. And so that' s one of the possibilities in terms where we could get a handicapped space, and I think that's a fairly important feature that we want to make sure that's back in this area. Lehman/Karin, I hate to interrupt you but isn't there also the possibility of handicapped parking via adjacent as you go noah to the library on? Franklin/Yes because remember we've got those spaces that we're going to be doing angle parking in front of the library and one of them at least Susan is a handicapped right now and will be in the future, yea. So we will have one handicapped space right in front of the library. Pfab/Okay so your what your saying right now there are two convenient handicapped spaces for people let' s say in a wheel chair or with walkers. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 20 Franklin/There is definitely one on Linn Street and I think that's an important part of the negotiations it's not shown on their proposal but it's certainly something that we have made note of. Pfab/Because when I go into the library I see a number of people with wheelchairs and what not and they have, some can come by bus, some can local areas but if your out of the, since there's no other library in town this is where they have to go. Champion/But you could also put handicapped spaces easily in the parking ramp as the first parking spaces. Franklin/There are, there are. Lehman/There are. Champion/But those are at the other end aren't they? Pfab/But that's a pretty good height. Franklin/It's an issue of proximity and I think the closest, as close as we can get them the better. Another perspective just to give you a sense of this building' s height in relationship to other buildings around it, this piece right here is the top of the Sheraton. This is a birds eye footprint of the layout and this is the parking area that I've been talking about in terms of the possibility of handicapped space here. Also there's been discussion with, during the developers presentation that there be a, this is a one way in one way out, that in possibility in this location we look at a drive up book drop for the library. As you can see on the street level is the commercial/grocery/deli/retail space on the comer, the entrance to the hotel. The one thing that I pointed out in the memorandum is that you have this definition of the property line at this point by the building directly across from the library which kind of marks the entry to the pedestrian mall. Then the building steps back to allow this outdoor terrace cafe which works kind of nicely with the Sheraton's outdoor terrace and cafe here. Just breaks up the mass of the building along this line a bit by doing that. The second floor at this point, the commercial space that is shown on the second floor and the commercial space on the third floor is the space that would be available for conference space and this developer working with the Sheraton Hotel. They are working with the Sheraton to find out how much conference space is desirable, there's up to 30,000 square feet that could be made available if that's what is desired, if the Sheraton does not choose to use the full 30,000 square feet then what is left would be office space. Pfab/Now how do the negotiations with the Sheraton would be, those could be access under? (END OF 01-85 SIDE TWO) This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 21 Franklin/Pedestrian bridge to the ramp this is where I think Joe talked about the necessity of being at least 18 feet high over the alley so whether, what level it comes out at the parking ramp it may be the third as opposed to the second and this is something we would have to work out in the detail of all oft his obviously to make sure there was a good connection. This is where pedestrians would come through the 64-1A and then could take the elevator here, there, or stairs down to the entrance to the pedestrian mall below and into the public library entrances. Kanner/Although now we're talking, Joe was talking about may one floor up. Franklin/Possibly, that' s what we have to work out, I mean it depends upon ceiling heights and in a commercial space you often have quite high ceiling height and so we'll have to work through all of that in the detail of this. Pfab/Except in inclement weather. It would certainly make a lot of sense go down the elevator and scoot up and then over except in inclement weather. Franklin/Yea, in inclement weather it makes it. Pfab/In clement weather you could use the, you could trail your way through it but otherwise go down the elevator and down to ground floor to the street level on the parking ramp. There would be no reason, there would be nothing to gain going across. Franklin/Here, unless you were parked in Dubuque Street ramp. Pfab/Well as I say if your parking in Dubuque Street ramp you'd go out down to the street level and just. Franklin/Oh whichever you have those two options. The commercial space, the office commercial space, this is the third floor, this is where it could be either conference space or office commercial space depending upon the desires of the Sheraton and then you get into the hotel suites, there are 57 hotel suites and then the apartments, apartment condominiums, these become fairly sizable units as you get farther up and then the penthouse. Pfab/Question, if those go to condominium spaces they would be taxed as residential right? Franklin/I'm looking at my tax expert over there. Dilkes/If they were residential condominium. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 22 Pfab/So I mean, it looks like a great tax base increase but if you go into a lot of condominium (can't hear). Okay. Franklin/Yea, something to consider. This is the subterranean parking that would be for those condominium spaces. Okay I guess at this point before I get into the TIF and urban renewal aspects of the questions that Dee brought up before I think she was going to be brought up. Are there any questions about the essence of this project, what's in it? Okay. Karmer/I have a question, Obviously for a lot of people the grocery store is a big selling point, it's a pretty exciting feature and we talked about downtown grocery stores. In the immediate vicinity we have three grocery stores, New Pioneer, Aoeshe and Chong and their not thought as as conventional grocery stores. And previous 30 years we've had numerous grocery stores that went out of business. What sense do you have that this grocery store will make it? How much bigger is it than those other three grocery stores? Franklin/The first part I don't know Steven and I would have to have that responded to by the developer. In terms of the size, this is 11,000 square feet, New Pioneer is 8,000 square feet so it's a bit bigger than New Pioneer by 3,000 square feet but obviously much smaller than something like Fareway which is typically 22,000 to 25,000 square feet. Bigger than Aoeshe, bigger than Chong's. Kanner/So it would probably be. Franklin/Smaller than New Pioneer for sure, yea. Kanner/So it would have something probably of a specialty shop kind of air to it. Pfab/Also a deli or it's a other than a deli, (can't hear). Franklin/That there's a deli which is part of it, there's a deli that's part of New Pioneer now there's no seating area, so how big the deli would be I can't answer that. I mean in our valuation of it, you know it's hard to say what's going to make it in the market for sure, I don't profess to be able to stand here and tell you what' s going to make it in the market three years from now or next year for that matter, it's not my area of expertise. I certainly have to go somewhat by what I've heard from people in terms of what they believe the needs are for downtown. What the developer' s proposed to us, they are taking a substantial risk in investing whether it's in a grocery store or a hotel or a conference center and that they have done a certain amount of work to ensure that they're investment is going to be protected. Kanner/This leads to the, the next question, how long do we have guarantees, how long do we ask for guarantees that the grocery store idea will be there? Should we say? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 23 Franklin/You can't. Karmer/Contains it. Lehman/You can't do that. Franklin/You can't fome someone to stay in business, what you have to do is do it with the understanding that this is the intent going in, there is a commitment that they have for a grocery store, from a grocery store company, individual whomever that is going to put a grocery store in there. If that does not succeed then it can be any use which is permitted in the CB~10, and that goes for anybody who locates anything in these spaces. Kanner/So is it being looked at by your committee and then perhaps for us that we should get the name of the grocery store before we sign any paper that that's part of the deal that they tell us what tenants are going to go in there. Champion/Why would you need to know that? Kanner/Well because I think that's often done in real estate deals that you find out who the tenants are going to be before you commit large sums of money and we're actually are, and this we'll talk about more with Karin's next presentation but we're in essence committing over $1.5 million dollars of CDBG funding for an idea and I think a major component of this idea that a lot of people like is that grocery store idea and I think we need to get as many guarantees as possible that it's going to happen and I think developers ask for those kind of guarantees, at the very least, who the people are that are going in there and what their reasons are. Franklin/Part, because the grocery store is an important component of this and part of the mix, my approach would be that a grocery store tenant would be part of the developer' s agreement that that is what goes in there. Now that does not mean that I would think that in the development agreement they have to commit that it's going to be a grocery store forever because I just don't think that's reasonable to expect that could happen. With any business you don't know for sure there are no guarantees that it's going to make it. Kanner/Well no one' s saying, I'm not saying forever, but I'm saying again that that' s part of what one would negotiate and want going in as many guarantees as possible not forever but to get the best deal you can. We're negotiating, we have two sides that are negotiating, we want the best deal for us, the Moen group they want the most money that they can get out of this development and so the idea is to come to some cogon ground. Franklin/For whatever project you approve, and I don't if your going to go with our recommendation or not but whatever project that you approve, those factors which This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 24 are critical to your decision ought to be the factors that are included in the development agreement. So if the grocery store is important to a majority of the Council to make this thing go, if this is the project, if the conference center is critical to making this thing go, if the hotel rooms are, if upscale condo's are, whatever it is that makes you decide this is the project, those are the things we need to put in the development agreement because that's what we're buying. Vanderhoef/I guess maybe I could ask in a little different way, this grocery store is, has been announced that it's locally owned. I would like at least. Franklin/I hadn't heard that but okay. Vanderhoef/That was in his presentation. Franklin/I don't, okay I don't remember that, go ahead. Vanderhoef/Well somebody can correct me if I'm wrong but that what I thought I heard. Kanner/Well I. Franklin/Okay I'm sorry I just didn't hear that. Vanderhoef/And I guess what I would like to know is the experience of the person there, I'm hesitant not to have a flag on the grocery store because I think that would lend some continuity. Franklin/A flag, a HyVee Vanderhoef/Fareway, a HyVee, an Eagle, or whatever, someone that would give me more confidence in the fact that the grocery store might stay. The other thing that connects with that grocery store idea is am I not correct we would have to make a special exception to put the parking in that location and if I were looking at that and I was headed for the library I suspect that parking will get used by things other than for the grocery store which might impact the viability of the grocery store just in general if the parking gets filled up by non shoppers. What I would like you to do is go back to the Linn Street view, yes, Franklin/That one or the next one. Vanderhoef/That one's fine, show me where the driveway is in and out of the ramp. Franklin/The Dubuque Street ramp is down, well it's down here. Vanderhoef/They're connected right there so tell me how close are we putting a driveway that enters the ramp to the driveways that are pictured there? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 25 Franklin/This is the alley, which is there right now. Pfab/Just one way right. Franklin/One way coming out is their proposal. Vanderhoef/Okay and the entrance to the ramp is. Franklin/The entrance to their parking is right here for their subterranean parking, the entrance to the grocery store one way in and then you go around and come back out is here. Lehman/Is the one way out the alley? Franklin/Yes. Lehman/Okay. Franklin/So it's exactly what we have right now. Vanderhoef/Now show where me where the entrance is to the parking ramp. Franklin/It's where. Vanderhoef/How far, how many? Lehman/No it's clear up to the end right next to the Tower. (All talking). Lehman/Yep right there, even. Franklin/Okay it's, that doesn't change at all. Lehman/That doesn't change. Franklin/I'm not sure what. Kanner/No but I hear your point. Vanderhoef/But my point is we've got three new entrance exits onto Linn Street just by the time we count the alley and the two in and out of the parking lot and then we're going to mix traffic. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 26 Franklin/Well actually you've got one compared to what we have right now because right not we have an entrance into the surface parking lot and you have the alley which is two way and you have the parking garage, so you have one more additional point but fewer parking spaces back there than what we have. Vanderhoef/Okay and what I'm looking at specifically with that additional traffic in and out of there and if we choose to make our library parking short term parking on this lower level then we have a mix of pedestrians with children and we have strollers and lots of traffic going past how many driveways to access the library unless they park up above. Champion/But you're often going to have one way like, it's going to be one way into the, one way into the kind of the, a kind of lobby area. Franklin/Here this is one way. Champion/Parking area and one way coming out, now you've got two things that go both ways in and out and in and out, and so in some ways it's safer because traffic will only be coming from one side. Kanner/But the alley' s not used that much. Lehman/Well it will be because. Kanner/No, no, the old, they count that as an in and out and (can't hear). Vanderhoef/Right at the present time. Kanner/Yea. Vanderhoef/Right. Karmer/There's going to be much more traffic in theory coming around there. Vanderhoef/Well that' s just one of my concerns, mixing more pedestrians because you certainly will have a lot more pedestrians coming from the ramp headed towards the library down the street. Pfab/I think when you're finished I have a comment. Vanderhoef/That's fine. Pfab/Also what is going to be across the street? How many new residential units are going to be, and where' s the parking for those going to be? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 27 Franklin/This is a CB-10 zone where parking is provided in public facilities, there's not. Pfab/So there won't be, there should be no additional parking entrance and exits for the new residential area around the library? Franklin/No. Pfab/Okay. Franklin/There's that alley which is there now. Vanderhoef/But they do have to get the special exception to put parking in there. Franklin/Where? Here. Vanderhoef/Yes. Franklin/Yes, oh yes. Lehman/But that' s part of the project. Franklin/Which will be part of any of the proposals except for Southgate. Kanner/And it would be the same for Clark' s development at Carnegie if they wanted parking they'd have to get a special exception. Franklin/Right. Karmer/And I don't know if they're planning to do that or not. Franklin/I guess regardless of what happened on 64-1A that project across the street is going forward, will be that. Pfab/Right isn't going to attribute any more traffic at all. Franklin/Yea I guess, you know just to kind of focus on the decision making here, it's between this project and the three other projects that came in and any project that happens here, well of the four projects that have come in with this parking issue that your raising as far as pedestrian vehicular conflict, all of the projects except for Southgate's have some parking on site, whether it's privately for the condominium's or the surface parking that' s shown in this project or the original town project which is all parking on that lower level if that's an issue for you. Lelunan/You know Karin I think there's some, these are two, three, four really, really big projects, and I've seen the presentation on cable that was made at the library and This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 28 obviously we got your report, I don't know how the rest of the Council feels but there are some questions that I would kind of like some answers to before we would name a preferred developer, and frankly I would just assume, this is not a project that's not going to start for some time so if the decision isn't made for a week or two I don't think this would have a significant impact on the project. But I think Irvin's question, I'd like to know the tax base that, you know we have estimated costs on the total project which in most cases also include architect fees and whatever so I would like to have some idea what the assessed value could, and I realize that's a guess at best but I think it would be nice to have that, it would also be nice to know. Franklin/We have that. Lehman/Assessed value or. Franklin/We did an estimate for property taxes and for hotel/motel tax. Lehman/And did we do that also, the assessed value on the condominiums was at full assessed value as opposed to a roll back which would apply if condominiums were sold which is a 45 percent decrease in revenue on the condominium portion of this project. How many condominiums were in this project? Franklin/Well it's, what I have is 52 two bedroom apartments and condominiums, and I think there's probably some flexibility in this as there would be with anybody who makes a proposal for residential units. The larger traits, the 11,000 to 12,000 square feet are likely to be condominiums I would think although if there's somebody who wants to rent one as opposed to buy it I think that's within the possibility of the project. Lehman/But they can be constructed as condominiums whether or not they're sold that's a question of ownership I believe, if they're individual titles. Franklin/Right, but that's when it has tax implications, I think the only thing we can do is do our tax evaluation assuming that they're all rental, assuming that they're all condominiumized because otherwise you know it's just kind of pulling stuff out of the air which the tax evaluation anyway is based on a whole string of assumptions that we had to make. Pfab/But the other thing is these are not cookie cutters condominiums, these are very high value. Lehman/No, no, I'm very well aware of that but. Vanderhoef/But the roll back makes the big difference. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meetin; of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 29 Pfab/Right I mean that's why it's something to take into consideration, I'm not saying it's good or bad. Lehman/No, no, I understand that. Vanderhoef/And the hotel/motel tax whatever gauge your using I understand 60 to 63 percent occupancy is typically what's running in Iowa City right now so how that would come out is an important piece. Franklin/Let me just ask you, at this point in your thinking, are you wanting a comparison of all four projects, or have you narrowed it down in your minds at all in terms of the projects that your considering? Because if your down to one or two or, well if your down to one or two then. Lehman/If we're down to one there' s nothing to do. Franklin/Well, well there is, no there is. Lehman/No, no, I know that. Franklin/Because it's a matter of considering whether this is the way you want to go or not because you don't have to sell it. Audience/Yea. Champion/Oh yes we do. Franklin/Was that the library back there that is fearful that we'll forget them? I don't think so. Champion/I'm only interested in the two hotel projects. Lehman/Yea I think that I would be interested in a comparison between the two hotel projects. Franklin/Okay. Vanderhoef/Agreed. Pfab/I'm not so sure I'd say that yet because until you start moving things around it affects other things too so I don't know, I'm not at this point I'm not sure. Lehman/Irvin I'm not suggesting that we move anything around, I'm just asking for a comparison between the two proposals as presented relative to hotel/motel tax revenue, assessed value, the sorts of things that I mean apples to apples. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 30 Franklin/We've already done that for all four of them so we'll just do the modification. Pfab/(can't hear). Franklin/Well no I'm thinking of other questions besides that because I don't know what they're going to be yet. Lehman/No but we need those questions I mean I think we need those questions raised tonight. Franklin/Yes please. Kanner/Well on the comparisons do you have the TIF, proposed TIF roll backs, different scenarios? Franklin/No because they all say they want, except for Original Town, Original Town wants no TIF and pays full freight plus but all of the other ones want as much as in terms of increment financing as they can so there's nothing to compare. Lehman/(can't hear). Kanner/Well to give us the figures though at least to have those figures would be helpful to know what the TIF, the maximum TIF, let's assume they get the maximum TIF to know what the taxes would be brought in. So you do a figure, you do a comparison say this is what the taxes would bring in with A and this is what the taxes would be with B with the TIF so that would be helpful and that doesn't seem that difficult to do to figure out the TIF schedule, it's what we do with our other proposals. Atkins/No we can do that, Karin we can do that. Franklin/Help me here, can you do that easily? Just nod. Atkins/Karin none of this can be done easily because it's a lot of speculation, I mean we're going to have to assign values for square foot and do things such as that but as far as developing a TIF option. Franklin/I'm not sure how meaningful it would be but we can do something. Atkins/I guess to answer Steven's question specifically the answer is yes I think we can come up with something to give you something to work with. Kanner/And then other questions on comparison that I'd like to see is energy conservation measures, we would told Executive Hotel group that they're going to This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 31 be using triple glazing windows which at times will require no heating costs, they have such good efficiency and I'd like to know how the different proposals plan to meet the Iowa Code and energy code perhaps go beyond that. Franklin/They have to meet the code, there' s no question about that. Kanner/Right, and so I'd like to know how their going to do that and how their going to go beyond that perhaps, I'd like to see the comparison and what they're doing to go beyond that, I think we need to. Franklin/We can ask them all that question as you did at the presentations and see what answer we get. Kanner/And get some specifics, I mean we had one specific from the Executive Hotel group, triple glazing windows that's a pretty hefty investment, and I think that' s good for our community and good for the larger society. And we heard another specific with the Moen group saying that they're going to use concrete floors so that has some environmental advantages but I'd like to see more specifics from them of what that translates into some energy savings and what some of the other groups have in mind. Franklin/Okay. Vanderhoef/Something else that I would like to see is the amount of hotel rooms needed in order to support this next size conference space so that if we do truly add another 30,000 square feet of conference space then do we have enough rooms designated for hotel rooms in either one of the two hotel projects to support that conference space. Lehman/Is that the sort of thing we would get from CVB? Vanderhoef/Yes, I have the preliminary ones but I think it would important to. Franklin/Is it your requirement that those hotel rooms spaces be right there? Vanderhoef/To move up as I understand it from my years on CVB and working with it you have to have X number of rooms to go with the conference space. If you don't have enough rooms then you can't bring in a conference. Franklin/Yea I understand that. Vanderhoef/But the point is you have to have them what you call under one roof and. Franklin/Okay that's, parameter. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 32 Vanderhoef/Being side by side with this particular either one of the projects along with the Sheraton then the total number of rooms that you to put us in a competition area of Crown Plaza, Cedar Rapids or. Franklin/So if I can give the question back to you so I make sure I understand it, the number of hotel rooms needed to support the additional conference, the number of hotel rooms under one roof needed to support this additional conference space. Lehman/Well, right. Vanderhoef/Well the concept under the two roofs and how that will translate then being able to bring in that larger size group because there seems to be sort of one level that we're at right now and to move up, you can't just move up a few rooms and a lot of conference space, you've got to move up in both of those and the next size conferences as I understand it right now they are being sent to Davenport and to Muscatine because the facilities are under one roof and. Franklin/I understand your question. Vanderhoef/I need some good comparison figures that everybody sees not just what I've collected. Kanner/And to piggy back on that, to get an idea of what kind of conferences could we have, I've been told it would be hard for us to get the Iowa League of Cities here. Vanderhoef/Right. Kanner/So if you have some idea of what kind of conferences with this space would allow us to bid for, could we bring in then that additional space into Iowa City downtown not having to use the University, can we bid on League of Cities? Franklin/Sure. Champion/(Can't hear). Vanderhoef/Not with the present hotel and the 144 hotels. Franklin/Steven when you say this space, do you mean this proposal or the amount of conference space that is proposed and the number of hotel rooms that are proposed, is that the question that your asking? Kanner/Conference room space, so it goes along with what Dee is, she's talking about the hotel rooms, I'm looking at the conference room space that the proposed different proposals are offering and what ballpark are we in then if we get that space for different types of conferences. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 33 Franklin/So you want from the different proposals, I'm just trying to get clarity on exactly what your asking, so it's either the Executive Hotel proposal or this proposal given those two proposals what kind of conferences could we get with each? Kanner/With the new space yes. Lehman/Karin I'm not so sure that it wouldn't be, I don't think it would be real difficult to get the information from the Convention and Visitors Bureau as to the number of conventions in the state and the number of people who attend each one, the number of rooms required for each one. For example there are probably up to 50 rooms there's X number of conventions, up to 100 rooms there are so many, I think that information might be pretty easy to get. Vanderhoef/They have it. Lehman/And would probably give us all the information we need because then we could apply the numbers that are presently in the Sheraton along with the proposed numbers and see where that puts us and also see, my suspicion is as we get higher and higher above 200 rooms t here are fewer and fewer and fewer conferences that are available anyway but I think that chart would be fairly easily attainable and we could apply our own numbers, I mean we've got the numbers of the Sheraton, we've got the numbers of the proposals and we could then find out which proposal, I mean if both proposals will cover 90 percent of all the conventions that we could reasonably expect then obviously they're pretty equal in that regard, but I think those numbers would be available. Vanderhoef/One of the places that I've been visiting with also is check with the University and what conferences are they sending out of city right now and what size those are because there isn't something available right now because obviously we have to have the eating space and the kitchen space are the additional pieces to make a whole conference work and that's why the additional conference space is needed so you have break out rooms, display areas and still a place to seat a banquet like the League of Cities banquet. Pfab/I think there' s also a great source, information source the director of the conference. Champion/Convention Bureau. Pfab/Convention. Lehman/That's what I just said, I think all that information. Pfab/The people that are nmning it. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 34 Lehman/CVB is who I believe Karin that you could get most oftbat, I believe a breakdown by the size of convention and the number of rooms required would probably be a pretty simple way of doing it and I don't think it would be. Pfab/I would think that would be a great person to bring to a discussion, a public discussion. Lehman/Well I think that the numbers that we get will there will pretty much tell the story of, answer the questions that we have here. Are there other questions that we would like to have before we come back to this? Well first of all are there, is there an interest on the part of the Council in making a recommendation tomorrow night? Vanderhoef/No. Franklin/What you have on the agenda is a resolution designating the Moen's as the preferred developer. Lehman/Right and I'm just asking if there are four people who are comfortable with doing that, I do not believe that's true so my. Franklin/So we'll defer it to October 8. Lehman/That's correct and I would, I think we would like the information and perhaps the developer's can also supply some information that they have but so that we have two weeks fi'om today we can go through it at a work session and hopefully have, be prepared to make some sort of an indication at the next regular meeting. Franklin/Okay. Pfab/Is a public discussion here advisable or encouraged as we get, as public knows better. Lehman/Well we had a public presentation at the library. Franklin/We told the, we told the people at the presentation that the audience at that point was not being asked to tell us what their preferences were because the Council was not in attendance and that they needed to make their wishes known to the City Council if they had preferences one way or another but basically the presentations were about getting information out. Lehman/We will accept public discussion. Pfab/Right. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 35 Lehman/When we discuss this. Pfab/Is this something that the public and the Council should have an interaction? Lehman/I think we're going to have that two weeks from tomorrow night. Pfab/But just a short. Lehman/Well it depends on the interest on the part of the public. Franklin/You might have some people come tomorrow night too with the item on the agenda. Pfab/No I'm just saying. Franklin/Before we leave this whole project issue I want to get back to Dee' s question about the TIF. Atkins/Karin before you move to that I want to understand sort of what the Council has decided, that and I've been taking notes as of Karin on all these questions. Are we dealing with two proposals now? Lelkrnan/Yes, I believe that' s correct. Atkins/Okay, and so any information gathering we do right now will be on those two proposals. Lehman/Correct. Atkins/Okay because we need to kind of fashion some way for you all to make a decision on this thing. Lehman/Okay. Kanner/Ernie before, before we close that out, tell me why Southgate is being eliminated? Lehman/Well it hasn't been eliminated, if there's interest on the part of the Council including that we can certainly do that. Pfab/I'm reluctant to put anybody out at this point. Lehman/On the other hand, I agree with you Irvin, on the other hand if there's not interest or strong interest in more than two it seems to be a little bit, a lot of effort This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 36 to make comparisons of more than two. Are there folks on the Council who are considering more than the two hotel options? Kanner/Well Southgate seems like it was something worth considering, it doesn't seem drastically different than the other ones in some ways. Franklin/There's conference space, no hotel rooms. Lehman/I think there's a significant difference if there are no hotel rooms. Champion/If there are no hotel rooms (can't hear). Pfab/And I have another question for all of us. At some point in time are they expandable if the city grows? Lebanan/That's going to be pretty tough on that size ground, you've already gone about as high as you can go. Pfab/Is that the maximum built out ever? Franklin/14 stories is the maximum build out according to FAA. Pfab/Right at that point, but are there other locations there? I mean for? I don't mean to be cast in stone. Franklin/No I think it's glass and steel actually this one. O'Dormell/Irvin, maybe the library would sell. Franklin/There' s also a floor area ratio in this zone which says that on a piece of property you can go 10 stories high for the entire area of the lot but no higher, I haven't figured the FAR on this, Kevin have you? (can't hear) Franklin/Okay this is below 10 so on this particular project there would be the potentially possibly of something being built on, I think the Executive Hotel Group also is well under the FAR and could if it were structurally built to expand, I don't know, it's not something we've discussed with any of the proposers at this point. Kanner/I mean, I don't know if we want to get into this but there is a possibility going to the south over the parking ramp perhaps someday to go along with what Irvin is bringing up, so I don't think it's that far fetched that there could be some sort of expansion and we might want to think about that in some way. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 37 Franklin/Is this a question you wish me to ask the proposers? Lehman/My suspension is that ramp is not constructed in a way that would ever allow anything to sit on top unless we tore the ramp down and that's a whole new. Arkins/Joe, Joe's shaking his head no that it won't take the weight. Lehman/No it wouldn't take the weight so you'd have to tear the ramp down in order to do it which is. Pfab/But at some point in time okay when you look at these buildings here, at some point in time if the density gets greater could any of those be built up? Franklin/No. Atkins/No. Pfab/I mean the two and three story level. Franklin/Possibly some. Champion/That' s a hypothetical question. Pfab/No, no, it isn't because the library right across the street was not a hypothetical question. Champion/What? Pfab/The library right across whatever it is Washington or Clinton Street that' s not a hypothetical. Kanner/College, College. Pfab/College Street, that' s real. O'Donnell/But we had to inquire more land to do it. Franklin/I think it's probably safe to say that in any of the proposals that are before you expansion is not anticipated. Pfab/That's what I, what it appeared it was but I thought the question wasn't asked so it was one way to find out. Lehman/Are there other questions that we would like answers to before we get back to this? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 38 Kanner/Are you going to talk about the urban renewal? Well I should throw this out now I guess, I think it fits in both discussions. It seems to me that since a big part of this has to do with potential CDBG funding that our HCDC our Housing and Community Development Commission should take a look at and see what they think. That's their name you know Community Development, this is a perfect opportunity and especially with the direct relationship to the money that might be there for CDBG money so I would propose that you ask HCDC to take a look at this. Franklin/Just to clarify that, any revenue that is generated by the sale of this property is program income for the CDBG program and will need to be allocated by, through HCDC and through the City Council. Just so that that's clear, I mean it was CDBG money that bought this ground many, many moons ago and there's that obligation that any revenue that is generated by the sale of this goes to program income. Wilburn/I'm sure they would take as much as we'd give them. Kanner/No I think that, I think that looking at community development they look at other issues, they'll look at not just CDBG but I think they'll also look at perhaps we can get more through giving up some of that CDBG money and getting greater tax money, I think that's a debate we're going to have and I think it's a worthwhile debate for. Franklin/Pardon me. Champion/(Can't hear). Franklin/I think what Steven is suggesting is that this decision about the selected developer go to HCDC. Is that what your suggesting? Kanner/Not that the decision go there. Franklin/Not the decision but the input from HCDC on the selected developer. Karmer/Yea, because if we end up giving 200, taking $250,000 for this as proposed for the property, that means we're taking $1.5 million dollars less than the appraised assessed value. Franklin/Appraised. Kanner/Appraised value and so that' s a big negotiating item and so we have to weight that against losing that potential $1.5 million dollars versus potential property tax and other things that a development like this might do for the community. But This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 39 those are hard decisions and I think it's worth while to throw it before a group like HCDC who looks at these kind of issues. Their mandate is more than just CDBG funding allocation, their name implies community development and this is a perfect thing I think for them to look at and I would appreciate their input. Lehman/Is there anyone else who feels the same way? I mean I think this is a council decision, something we're going to have to wrestle with but I have no objection if we want to send it someplace else. Kanner/There's no doubt we make the final decision, it's just one more input. Lehman/Right. Kanner/We have a staff recommendation, I think it's good to run it through a commission recommendation. Lehman/Is there, anyone concur with that? Vanderhoef~ All I can is that these folks certainly are aware if money coming from this, I attended their money last week and they were looking at the dollars and asking how it could or should be spent. For the whole money picture I don't know that they have any more expertise than any of our other commissions, and I would welcome input individually but I think this belongs to the Council. Wilbum/That's what I was going to suggest that they're welcome to comment. Vanderhoef/Certainly. Pfab/So as it is right now the presentations were there, the public was said just watch and listen, is the public going to have a chance at some point to have an interaction with the Council and basically kind of a free for all because I'm sure everybody out in the public has some idea that we can easily be overlooked. Champion/(can't hear). Lehman/They'll have the opportunity to do that when we bring it up on the Council you know for action. Pfab/And we're saying at that point this is the one we're gonna take. Lehman/Well unless there's enough public discussion that we choose to delay it or because there are questions raised we would we wish to do it at a later time but they'll all have an opportunity to address the Council about it. Pfab/About all of them? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 40 Lehman/Whatever they want to your right. Pfab/No I think at, I think at that point it's until then I think we should leave all the options open. Lehman/The options are all open but I don't hear anybody saying that they want comparisons between more than just the two. Kanner/Well there are, I want more than two. Pfab/I think it's, I think they should be open. Lehman/Okay are there a majority that want more than the comparisons between the two, I mean I think if we have narrowed it down to two I don't see us going through the work of making comparisons for three or four. Pfab/I guess (can't hear). Lehman/The two is what we will need. Now the urban renewal issue. Franklin/Okay, you have in your consent calendar a resolution to set a public hearing and consultation date on amending our urban renewal plan. Currently we have an urban renewal plan which is a portion of downtown, basically why we even looked at the urban renewal plan relates to the fact that when we put out the RFP, the request for proposals for 64-1A there was discussion of having incentives for this project. One of those incentives that we have available to us is tax increment financing, in order to have tax increment financing available in the urban renewal area we needed to amend the plan that was done in 1969. What's on the screen shows you the existing urban renewal area which is the area outside the red, the. O'Donnell/Could you lift it a little bit? Franklin/Just hold it. Lehman/We can see it that' s good. Area outside the red you say is the urban renewal area? Franklin/Right, basically that area in the central and western part of the downtown. The area that, what we have done is added to this area for a couple of reasons, one is to provide this incentive to all of that area that is outlined in the gray with the area in red being the added area which includes some of the near south side as well as basically the remainder of downtown to Iowa Avenue and over to Gilbert Street. Now this enables TIF it does not require you to provide it, you still look at each project. The other thing that it adds as a tool which again is an enabling tool, it is not something that automatically happens is that you can exempt property taxes This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 41 during construction, that is another tool that you can use as an incentive if you wish to. That is also included in the plan, there's basically three things, well there's some number of things which I will count on my fingers here when I get done. What this does is it expands the urban renewal area, it provides for TIF in the urban renewal area, it enables you to exempt from property taxes during construction projects which you wish to in the urban renewal area. And it's specifically indicates the acquisition and redevelopment of the east half of block 102 which is that near south side transportation project. So those are all of the things that this amendment to the plan does, it also brings it up to date. (END OF 01-86 SIDE ONE) Franklin/That's the essence of what the amendments are before you in this plan that was precipitated by us considering tax increment financing for 64-1A and I will just point out again that of the four proposals three of them wish to have tax increment financing. Lehman/And so basically we're looking at that because of tax increment financing. Franklin/Yes. Lehman/Okay, now explain to me again why we're adding the portion that you had outlined in red, because. Franklin/To include the remainder of the downtown to Iowa Avenue and to Gilbert Street and also to include all of the commercial part of the near south side redevelopment plan, the. Lehman/Okay, fine, fine, all right. Kanner/Did any developers come to you ask for those the other areas to be included? Franklin/No, not that I'm aware of, no. Lehman/Sometimes it's nice to be ahead of the curve. Franklin/Yea, it would be. Lehman/Okay are there questions for Ka~n. Franklin/Okay I have one other little detail that I have to share with you, when we put out the RFP there was a requirement which we overlooked and that was to put one of those little legal notices in the paper and that's because it's under urban renewal. We've talked with Ken Haynie in Des Moines about this as to, if there's anyway to resolve this. What we need to do is before we have the public hearing on the This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 42 development agreement, 30 days ahead of that we have to put a notice in the paper that says we are inviting proposals and give 30 days for any response. I just want you to know that, I think we meant the intent of the notice requirement that it was splattered all over the front page of the paper but we didn't get that little 2 by whatever ad in. Lehman/Okay. Franklin/Okay. I'm done unless you have any questions. Lehman/Thank you, we're going to take a break until 8:30. BREAK Neighborhood Council Proposal for Rental Housina Enforcement Lehman/The next item is the Neighborhood Council Proposal for Rental Housing Enforcement, this was something we received in our packets and I know it's been discussed by some of the neighborhood associations, we've all had a chance to read it, what are your thoughts? Is this something we want to? I think what we should do is decide if there is interest on the Council in pursuing something in this vain, not necessarily adopting anybody else' s ordinance, but are we interested in pursuing something that will govern what happens to properties that are rented more than we're doing fight now? Wilburn/I have some maybe, I don't know if Doug is. Arkins/Doug's here, or was. Wilbum/Hey Doug, maybe Doug could address, what tools do you have available now to address some of the problems that the proposed ordinance is hoping to address? Doug Boothroy/Could you repeat that again because I'm not sure I heard everything you said. Wilburn/What tools do you currently have to address some of the issues that this ordinance is proposed ordinance is seeking to address in terms of being able to assess being a property, a property owner, rental property owner where tenants are whether it's over occupancy or some of those other issues, can you elaborate a little for me. Boothroy/Enforcement happens in a couple different ways, first we inspect all multi- family units every two years, and on inspection if we determine if there' s a violation we pursue it at that time. In the off cycle when we're not actually doing an inspection, then it's all complaint generated so if there's a problem with This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 43 parking on the grass, excuse me, over occupancy, garbage, we would go out, it's usually within about 24 hours and pursue it. The process would be then to contact the property owner, indicate what the problem is, give them the opportunity to cure, if they don't cure within that time period and don't have any reason, legitimate reason we would take them to court. Lehman/You site the property owner then? Boothroy/Yes we do, we cite the property owner and first violation of the housing code is $100.00 plus court costs so it usually averages about $150.00, then second violation is $250.00 and third violation is $500.00. And those violations can be daily. Wilburn/What, and I'm sorry I just kind of skimmed through the Davenport ordinance, when did that come on the books? Boothroy/I don't know when Davenport adopted that. Wilbum/Five years ago, and you or maybe Eleanor maybe can answer this question, or maybe I should just call Davenport and fine out myself, any sense or of any increase or setting up potential housing discrimination type situations as result of enforcement of this or reaction from rental property owners in terms of?. Do you see where I'm going? No. Dilkes/Not quite but I don't think I know the answer to your question anyway because I've not been in contact with Davenport. Wilburn/Maybe I should just call Davenport and find out, okay never mind. Pfab/Okay I have a, you stated that in the interim period between the two year inspections, approximately complaints have come up in the last two to three years, annual basis, how many have not been taken care of where you had to take them court. If you took them to court how many did you win? Boothroy/Well I can tell you that all complaints are pursued, and our goal is 100 percent satisfaction, I can't give you exact number on court cases won but we lose very, very few, a couple things happen through the litigation process, we either out right, sometimes there' s a plea agreement giving them some additional time to complete. Sometimes a fine, sometimes not a fine, but in all cases we seek compliance, that's our first and foremost objective is to cure the problem. And I think we have an excellent record on that. Pfab/And so basically you have once the complaint is filed you have close to 100 percent compliance when you get through the process? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 44 Boothroy/Right, some complaints take years, depending on the property owner and depending on the circumstances, we have been in litigation in some cases several for years. So the perception may be that compliance is not coming about but a lot of times that's due to the process of fighting in the court and delays and all the kinds of things that can happen in that process but most complaints are satisfied at one point in time or other. One of the things that is difficult with some of the nuisance type of complaints is that your not always dealing with, I mean you have turn over, you have different individuals involved, different ownership's involved, some property could have a number of different complaints over the years, they can be cured at one point but they can come hack six months or a year later, parking in the grass is a common problem that occurs frequently, we can resolve it one year and you can have a new batch of people come in and not understand the requirements and we'll be back dealing with that particular issue and so it, in some cases it is an ongoing process and probably in part the tenants responsibility as well as the landlords responsibility for making them understand what the requirements are. Pfab/Okay so if there's, if you go to a neighborhood and it appears to be a problem, it's not a case of you energetically following up on this it's a part of the process, sometimes the process is extremely annoying? Is that? Boothroy/Sometimes in the case of certain types of violations like over occupancy, the fact finding situation is extremely difficult, you basically need to have something more than circumstantial evidence, which means that number of vehicles parked, names on mailboxes, all that stuff really doesn't make any difference as far as the courts are concerned because it's all circumstantial, we've tried those avenues, we've failed on those. You have to have very first hand knowledge, our most successful way of handling that is to knock on the front door and ask how many people live there and most of the time tenants will tell us and once we have that admission we take that and are able to deal with the problem. Pfab/Okay the biggest problem that I think the neighborhood is trying to solve, it's not the people, the occupants of the house, but it's the neighbors here that are continually, I don't know if you'd use the word abuse because of violations by the other people. And I mean these, if the neighbors have rights too, and if the properties that are causing problems for the neighbors that problem is not cured it hurts the whole neighborhood, it hurts it really bad. Boothroy/The housing code doesn't deal with noise, doesn't deal with loud parties, doesn't deal with, it deals with the property itself, maintaining it in a condition that is safe and there's some minimum standards in terms ofhabitability. If it's a problem with loud parties and noise and stuff like that which is part of the issue here, that is not something that's addressed by the housing inspection department or the housing code, that is something that is handled as a policing matter, and it's This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 45 handled in the evenings. So in this point in time we don't deal with that particular issue as a housing code violation because it's not a housing standard. Lehman/Could I suggest that perhaps we refer to the Housing Inspection Services, Marcia Klingaman who's in charge of the neighborhoods, try to find out from these folks exactly what the problems are, what would be some reasonable solutions, obviously Doug I think you meet on occasion with the landlords and tenants, I mean I think we really know very, very little about the violations that we're talking about. We do know we've seen an ordinance which may or may not be a good ordinance I don't know, but I think we need to identify the problems first and find out just what it is we're trying to address. Pfab/The people, there's people here that know what the problems are but they need a place to present those. Lehman/That's what I'm saying. Pfab/But here they can't present it, now we have one part of the puzzle but we don't have the other part, the part is here but we can't. Lehman/Irvin what I'm suggesting is that we ask our staff to meet with the neighborhoods, come up with what the problems are and come back to us with some sort of a recommendation. Now would that seem to be a pretty good way of doing it. Dilkes/Emie Marcia's trying to get your attention. Lehman/Sorry Marcia, would you please get up Marcia. Vanderhoef/There's another piece of this whole thing and I think it falls under our nuisance ordinances and how they interface with housing ordinances because both things seem to be conflicting. Boothroy/We do enforce the nuisance ordinance but loud parties that's not part of the nuisance as yet. Dilkes/But Marcia why don't you, and then, I want to make sure you understand what this Davenport ordinance says. Lehman/I think I do. Dilkes/At least on its face. It represents, I think some of the questions your directing to Doug presume that there's already some of these things in place and what this Davenport ordinance does is significantly band the definition of nuisance ordinance. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 46 Boothroy/Right, right. Dilkes/Nuisance problem area to include a number of criminal offenses that are currently addressed by the police department to provide for administrative abatement of those nuisances and problems and to create ramifications for rental permits ira number of those things occur. Boothroy/Let me say just one more thing Emie is on October 4 the Housing Client Advisory Committee is going to be meeting and I think that' s a really appropriate time to present some of these issues. It's a vehicle that we set up several years to communicate about issues such as this as well as any other kinds of matters that come up with the housing code and I think that we should take advantage of it, I've already put it on the agenda, jr's just an opportunity to meet and discuss things of this nature. Lehman/Okay, Marcia. Marcia Klingaman/I think what you were suggesting Ernie in terms of getting the neighborhoods to get together and talk about the issues and what it is they want to see resolved, that has already occurred, this housing committee has gone through that process and discusses it somewhat in the memo. The Davenport ordinance was something that just for exploration they came upon and decided that in terms of addressing both the criminal element of the problems they were housing in housing units as well as the HIS jurisdictional type of things that this would be one of the alternatives to be looking at. And Doug's suggestion to get together with that committee is exactly I think where this proposal is going to ask that it be looked at and explored and responded to by staff and by people, larger landlords, smaller landlords, maybe get some of the neighborhood folks involved that type of thing. Lehman/I think we have to do, we have to get the input from landlords from tenants. Klingaman/Definitely. Lehman/And obviously from staff, and I've visited with some of the neighborhood and I'm really pretty much aware of some of the problems they're talking about and problems they should not have to put up with and ifthere's a way we can address that I think we should. But I guess we need to as a Council if we're interested in looking at this we need to give direction to meet with these folks on the 4th, we need to give direction to Marcia to visit with those folks that are involved and come back with I think you say you had specifics from the neighbors I think I knew that because I've talked to a number of the neighbors. But we need some sort of evaluation, some sort of report back from the staff, from the landlords, from the tenants. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 47 Klingaman/Well I think we need legal' s interpretation as well. Lehman/Obviously. Klingaman/Because it gets very involved at this point and that's the point in which the committee is asking for your assistance and direction. Lehman/What' s the pleasure of the Council? Pfab/I'd say pursue it, go forward. Vanderhoef/Yes. Wilburn/I definitely would like to hear what the group, it's on October 4th you said, their impressions of it, I guess what your alluding to Eleanor because the Davenport ordinance does expand into some of those law enforcement areas and I guess it's something that I'll just pursue on my own is what has been the result, or how effective do they feel this has been in Davenport. The concem that I have is some type ofbacklash within the screening process I would not want to see how the discrimination type of situations occur and so I'm just thinking out loud and I'll pursue that. Dilkes/Ross if we're directed to take a look at that, we'll certainly talk with Davenport City staff about it. Wilburn/Okay thank you I'd appreciate that. Pfab/Ross I would like to address your point there, I think it's discrimination, the a lot of the minorities are the victims and there' s no place to go for relief, I think this is a wonderful thing to assist minorities any minority because they have the right to be safe in their place where they live and there might be a lot of activity in the neighborhood but these people, where they can? Where can they get relieF?. You just grin and bear it, there' s no place you can go to. Lehman/That' s a good question, who. O'Donnell/I'd like to see some members of the neighborhood association. Lehman/Oh I think there has to be. Pfab/There's some of them are out that might be here now. Lehman/Marcia are you going to be, I mean I would hope you will be working with this group. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 48 Klingaman/Oh definitely, but I'd like at least two neighborhood representatives involved who live in the neighborhood who deal with this on a day to day basis. Lehman/Fine, fine, but I think we need neighborhood folks, we need the group that Doug is meeting with, we need landlord representatives, tenant representatives, I mean I don't know quite how we make this group up or how they choose to meet, but I do think they need to get together and come back with some kind of specifics. O'Donnell/And a certain (can't hear). Pfab/How are you going to encourage people who don't want to take part in it to take part? Lehman/The same way we always do we're going to have a meeting if you'd like to be there your certainly welcome, if you have a concern in your neighborhood and your worried about this and that, here's your opporttmity. I don't think your going to go out and knock on the doors and drag people out. Pfab/What if your a landlord? I believe the neighborhood association has worked with this for years and the landlords say well they send me my check, or cash comes in an envelope, what happens to the neighbors next to my property I'm not a great concern. Lehman/The buck stops here. Pfab/And well. Lehman/What we just said is that we are interested in pursuing this I believe. Steven. Vanderhoef/Yes. Kanner/I'm interested in pursuing this to a certain extent, I hear what the neighborhood associations are saying, some their concerns and their worries. I would like to propose though that we put it in a larger context, I also have some concerns I think along the lines that Ross was saying, in addition when they were talking about assessing over occupancy, it sounded a little bit too much like big brother, some of the things going in and trying to find out how many people were living there and the things that were going on. And I certainly don't think people want to live in over crowded conditions, their driven by high rent prices in the area and I think we need to look at that, and I think we need to look at other ways to solve neighborhood problems. I was at the State League of Cities conference and one of the workshops talked about neighborhood associations and there was talk about neighborhood mediation programs, I think something like that needs to be looked at as a solution, they have people who can access mediators in the neighborhood This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 49 for flee in Ames and Dubuque have programs like that. And it might mean looking at the budget, increasing, we have half time neighborhood services, we might need to go to full time, so if we put in the context of the greater question I think of these nuisances and nuisance abatements I would look more favorably upon further study of this. Lehman/I would think anything is open fight now, I mean we are saying that there appears to be a problem, there' s a great deal of concern by a lot of neighbors, we need to address that problem, whether that be through mediation, whether that be through whatever process but I think we need to identify the problems a little more accurately a little more closely and I think this group can come back to us and then we can talk about the things that your talking about. Pfab/I believe what' s going on here is the people who are contributing the most to the problem chose not to participate so the people who are the subject are the problems they have no place to go and this basically I think, this ordinance is maybe a last resort. I know these people have been working for years to get something like this to happen, and they came across these ordinances and said this is what other communities have done, they don't say it's the right thing but they said something has to happen. Lehman/I know that's why we're here, that' s what we're talking about. Pfab/Well if we put it to another study, another group, another group, this has been going on, this has been for bounced around for years, two years that I know of. Lehman/First time that it's been here isn't it Irvin? Isn't it? Pfab/Well but it's not that it hasn't been tried to get. Lehman/It's the first time it's been here and I think we have agreement that we would like to pursue it. Pfab/But it seems that this is going to be put off again I'm going to be one, I'm going to be very vocal, okay. Lehman/Do we have? Is it? Champion/You're right. Lehman/We turn it over, I mean I think we need to know what we're talking about, I believe these things can be defined, they can come back to us, and we can discuss it. Pfab/When will they come back to us? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 50 Vanderhoef/Okay what. O'Donnell/I would like to see a time period put on this. Lehman/Okay what's a reasonable time Marcia and Doug? Boothroy/Well I don't think we can come back right after the October 4th meeting because we're going to have to spend some time thinking about organization and asking for questions about information from staff so I think it depends how frequently. What I can do is after the 4th I can report back as to what that group thinks is a reasonable time period to have an answer back to you and I think that' s the best I can do tonight. I just don't know how to anticipate if they want to meet weekly, we can get back to you faster, but this is a citizens group and that's asking a lot. Lehman/And you do have. Jerry Hansen/The 4th doesn't work for me and I'm going to be a part of it. I have P&Z that night. Boothroy/It's between 12 and 1. Vanderhoef/Doug. Boothroy/12:00 at noon. Lehman/Well there are a number of groups that your going to have to touch bases with and I don't know how your going to be able to schedule that but I do think it's important that these everybody that we can possibly get involved with this become involved with it. Boothroy/Right, this meeting has already been scheduled so that' s what, if we have to schedule a different meeting later on to acconunodate schedules we can do that as well. Lehman/Can you send us a memo after the 4th's meeting? Pfab/Is there any reason we can't anticipate getting back within a month? Boothroy/I can get back to you with a schedule and what's going to be happening, I can't tell you right now what that's going to be. Pfab/Well can we get a report at the, not the next meeting but the next one for sure? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 51 Boothroy/I'll try. Pfab/No I'm not asking for a try, I said can we get a report of some sort, what the progress is. Boothroy/Okay. Pfab/I mean I'm not criticizing, I just want to see something happen, I've watched this go Oll. Boothroy/I can guarantee you something will happen Irvin. Pfab/Okay. Champion/It just takes time Irvin. Lehman/Okay Dee. Pfab/No, time is all used all up. Champion/Oh come on Irvin. Lehman/Dee. Vanderhoef/It would appear to me that we have a lot of interest groups in all of this and we could conceivably end up with too many people and not getting down to business, so I guess what I would like you to do is to go to the meeting on the 4th and get the proposal out there but I think we really ought to be putting together a committee that includes one big housing developer, not developer, person who maintains, management firm is what I'm trying to say. Thank you very much. And a small one and get it down to. Pfab/A neighborhood association. Vanderhoefj The staff people, the neighborhood association, the police, the legal, so you might. Boothroy/We'll have to reschedule at some point. Vanderhoef/You might end up with a 10 to 12. Boothroy/Right. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 52 Vanderhoef/Person committee but they can each go back to their own respective groups and keep bringing in information ifthat's the way it goes but just to turn it totally into going to the rental unit management group is not the way I see things going. Boothroy/Well one of the things that we're trying to do is find out who in that group would like to participate. Vanderhoef/Right. Boothroy/We have on that group large property owners, we have northside rental property owners, we have you know representatives from the University's students and we need to find out how they want to be involved, we also need to bring this to their attention and we need to set up this committee and we'll do it and we'll get back to you in terms of what our schedules are going to be and we'll try to get it as balanced as possible, it's not in anybody's interest to put this to slant this to one side or the other, it's best to make it as best an open group as we possibly can. Vanderhoef~ But I want, personally I would appreciate a formal committee makeup even if it takes the Council to give the final approval so that A an official report will come back to us not he said, she said. Boothroy/Well that's what I'm talking about. Vanderhoef/But I want to know who this list is and who' s going to be on it and like I said I would be very happy for us to make the appointment into an ad hoc committee. Pfab/Do you have, are you unhappy with asking for a report within a month from now, our second council meeting? Lehman/We're going to get a report after the October 4th meeting. Vanderhoef/We're going to get the initial report. Pfab/Okay we will get a report. Boothroy/We just need time to set the committee up, it's going to be a committee that' s going to have names associated with it, it's not going to, I mean we're doing what your asking us to do and I think you've been pretty clear. O'Donnell/It really sounds like we have some neighborhood associations that have done a lot of work on that. Lehman/They have. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 53 O'Donnell/And we need to get into that and take advantage of it. What you need to do is and Emie you and I and Connie toured the northside neighborhood and we ran into one house that disrupted a pretty substantial area and I don't think it's wrong to ask for some kind of tool to help eliminate that problem so I'd support this, I encourage the meeting early and get the committee appointed and get an answer back to us as soon as you can. Atkins/Emie I feel compelled to comment. Lehman/Yes. Atkins/I understand clearly what' s being proposed and we'll try to prepare some sort of a summary memo just to sort of decide, what you decided tonight. But basically your setting upon a policy or a position or a direction, whatever you want to call it that you wish to use the criminal behavior, police activity at a particular rental property as part of the instrument of evaluating whether these folks are going to get future rental permits. Pfab/Yes, I definitely. Atkins/I think that's what I heard you say. Lehman/I think that's a possibility. Atkins/Okay now please keep in mind all the constemation and the public debate and herring we went through when we went through what's affectionately called the party ordinance. Lehman/Yea. Atkins/The very thing that we used as a instrument to deal with these issues we were roundly criticized for. Lehman/Right. Atkins/So let' s just make sure we all understand that. Pfab/But my point is that the people that are live in the neighborhood of the properties that are not following the law, they have a right to be safe and secure in their neighborhood and whatever it takes to do that is what. Atkins/Irvin you've got no argument from me on that I just want to remind you historically what we have on the table. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 54 Champion/It was short lived abuse. Lehman/Well. Atkins/I feel better now. Lehman/Eleanor did I sense you trying to say something here a little bit ago? Dilkes/No. Lehman/Oh okay. Kanner/Steve. Lehman/Well let's, I think we need to identify the problems and then potential ways of dealing with them and obviously I think you guys have a pretty good handle on where we'd like to go. Atkins/Ernie I think Steven had a question of me. Kanner/Well just emphasize what Emie said, what you mentioned is just one possible solution. Atkins/Oh absolutely. Kanner/Putting in the bigger context of different solutions that are out there. Atkins/I'm familiar with the neighborhood mediation service, I understand that concept and we' 11 put, we'll try to give you an agenda of issues that you can worth through, so I'm fine with that. Lehman/Very good, thank you Doug. Pfab/I just don't want this have another birthday. Lehman/Thank you Marcia. Okay the gas and electric franchise, that's coming up soon. Gas and Electric Franchise (IP3 of 9/13 info. packet) Dale Helling/Okay we have Bob Latham and Lewis Irvin from Bob Latham and Associates here tonight and we've asked them to come in and answer some of your questions. If you want to go up to the podium and while they're doing that I'll just give you a little bit of background about, go ahead, about how we got where we are. Last Spring the folks from Iowa Illinois or MidAmerican contacted us and wanted to meet preliminarily knowing that the franchise was going to This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 55 expire this November. A group of us who we've identified as a committee met with them and as a result of that they gave us some language, they would suggest be changed in the existing franchise. We indicated to them at that time that we would respond to them but we were working on a public right of way ordinance which we had hoped to finalized and we wanted to try to get that finalized along with any feedback that we could give them on their language or any proposals that we might suggest, we wanted to do that all at once. Subsequently we found out that the state, through the League of Cities is proposing to come up with a model public right of way ordinance that will be finished by the end of the year hopefully, we wanted to buy into that and so we went ahead and made some suggested language changes in the current ordinance just to get some response back to MidAmerican. During that time that we understood that there was a coalition in the community that was interested in the possibility of a municipal utility and I think just prior to sending this information out at your council meeting a couple of people came and actually suggested to you that you not renew the franchise, that you explore the municipal utility issue. We went ahead and sent the information you have in front of you, the suggested changes in the language to MidAmerican with the very clear understanding these were not proposals, we were not recommendations, the Council had not discussed this issue, that you have not seen this language and that this in no way was binding the City to anything and they understand that very clearly so what we put before you then was just an example of what a franchise might look like if it were a renewal based on the foundation based on the current franchise. In the memo that I sent to you I indicated that there were a number of major issues that you still had to deal with. Some of those issues would fall in line with a renewed franchise, some of them would be in lieu of, and those are things like duration, they are things like whether we should have a franchise or not, they're also issues connected with broadening the language to make sure that if we do have a franchise that we're able to capitalize on some of the options that might come along if deregulation happens in the future, those types of things so you, several of you posed questions to us and we thought it might be, since we're not experts in this area and we haven't, the City hasn't even looked at anything like a franchise renewal with the power company for 15 years we thought that it might be helpful to have Bob Latham come in and Lewis and hopefully answer some of your very basic questions that I think your going to need to know and have the answers to in order to move ahead with this in any direction you choose to go. So we've asked them to come in tonight and help us to answer those questions and based on that I think you can go ahead and follow up with your questions. I would want to emphasize one more thing and that is that the pending expiration of the current franchise is not something that you need to feel pressured by, whether you, if you want to move in a different direction or explore a different direction, that' s fine for an interim period of time we could perhaps extend the current franchise, we could enter into a shorten franchise agreement or just proceed without one until all your questions have been answered and you determine what direction you want to go. With that I'll turn it over to Bob and fire away. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 56 Bob Latham/Thank you very much and I'll use this for now. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with the Council this evening. Just as an initial background comment, so you know who we are, we're advisers to the purchasers of electricity and gas, we're always on the buy side of the transaction. Our clients, just to give you a sense of basically who we are, we advise right now probably of 50 municipal utilities in the State of Iowa, if your an industrial in eastern Iowa your probably our client. If your a University of Iowa is also a client of ours, in the electric markets where there is electric choice particularly in Illinois, we're advisers to the Illinois Association of School Boards, basically the public schools of the State of Illinois, tonight we're purchasing electricity there for about 1,400 public schools, across the whole state of Illinois. Our practice, I'm an economist, my partner Louie Irvin is an electrical engineer, historically we both had worked with Alliant utilities and have had experience for many years in these areas. But to just make so no misunderstanding, our client base is that of always the purchasers of electricity, we negotiate contract repeatedly and in many cases we're on the other side of the bargaining table say with Mid American or whomever. Just as a, I put one picture in there, this came from Mid American a couple years ago as we were going through the electric choice decision and basically saying expectations for prices by the year 2000, 2002, this may not be exactly correct but the rank ordering is right today as it was two or three years ago. (Can't hear) Lehman/Bob your going to have to talk in the mic or we can't record it. Latham/Great thank you very much. This graph up as simply to show the comparison in Iowa, and this basically based on history more than anything else and a couple of very simple factors. If you look at the State of Iowa basically the highest prices are Cedar Rapids, Kalona, places like that. The lowest prices are also on the Alliant system, places like Burlington and the like. Okay the next tier here of highest, I note Davenport, that' s the old Iowa Illinois and obviously that' s Iowa City as well, that's kind of second highest area in the state, the next, the lowest down here, I believe I can't see that, that is the old Iowa Public Service in Sioux City which is now part also of Mid American. The kind of the two in the middle here, this is Des Moines the old Iowa Power also part of Mid American and over here we have, I think that's Dubuque which is the old Interstate Power. A couple of things just give me, just come right out at you, you have basically those that have nuclear power plants here and those that don't, basically is the historical background and even though the merger' s between say Iowa Southem and the old Iowa Electric have been almost 10-12, no I guess it's eight or nine years ago right now still there's a long way away from incorporating those prices so that it will levelized, even though the same power plants transmission systems are used for them. Basically then seeing some pressure by the people in the places like Cedar Rapids and the like to look for alternatives for their power costs. I just want to leave that picture for you as a mental picture basically you and Iowa City are on the high side of the price equation in the State of Iowa, but primarily due to the This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 57 investments of the Old Iowa Illinois in its Cordova station in particular, nuclear power plant. I want to go through some, I'll just put this up there, perhaps you can see that and follow through the outline here. You as a Council on what criteria do you choose what to do? And I presume that from your perspective your looking at this from a long term perspective, looking at the interest of the community as a whole in terms of being a competitive viable community in terms of encouraging some development as you would choose to have it developed. But one of the conditions of that is competitive prices, to make you competitive in the longer term. I put down development, and development there's a lot of dimensions of that but you want to be a long term competitive community, obviously you have the benefit of the University. As you look at the issues I think as mentioned earlier here you' ve got the question of timing, you know when do you decide? Do you decide that well you really want to keep your options open immediately because things could change in two or three years or perhaps there's certain things you want to lock in today, and I'll develop that a little bit. Among other things you need to look down the road in terms of what the implications are for the altematives you choose. Well let me just kind of get started here, in terms of some of the regulatory and legal environment in which the decision making lies. Fundamentally your purpose here is to talk about franchise, and to be blunt that's only a very secondary consideration as it comes to the economics your facing. The primary law in this state in my opinion that determines much of this issue is the assigned service territory law in this state, the Territorial Integrity Law we call it. I put it in note here the very first thing you as a Council should expect that that Territorial Integrity Law will continue, what does that mean? It means simply that whoever has the territory is the given the exclusive right for the utilization of lines in the city or whatever the territory is regardless whether it's a franchise, the franchise is somewhat immaterial and secondary to the fundamental issue and that is who has the territorial integrity? I spent about two years of my life working on the electric choice legislation up until a couple years ago, our clients there again were the buyers of electricity and one thing that was clear is that with all the fights that had gone on years ago between the municipal utilities and the local rural electric cooperatives over fights on who gets to serve the edges of the cities, this wasn't an issue with Mid American or Alliant predecessors, it was a municipal utility issue versus a rural electric cooperative issue but came down to assignment of service territory so every map, every inch of the State of Iowa is separated into Mid American versus Alliant versus Eastem Iowa Light & Power and the like. It has huge implications in your decision in terms of choices, number one because without the territory you can grant all the franchises you want to anyone who' s non exclusive franchises but frankly Mid American in this case and to part of the city Eastern Iowa Light and Power also has some part of the city. But at least in the part that Mid American applies here you have to overcome that territorial integrity issue, I'll talk later about how you go about doing that. But what it fundamentally does it allows Mid American under the current law to preclude your choice of power supply you know to anyone other than Mid American, talk as you wish about the City or something else about having choice This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 58 fundamentally unless Mid American agrees to it today that's not your choice. As I note here Mid American and Eastern Iowa Light & Power Company out of Wilton both have territory here and there are Iowa Utilities Board procedures for replacing an incumbent as in terms of territory. Franchise considerations, I think as you mentioned, it's not necessarily required that you have franchise in place. Just note here a couple reasons why you may want to have a franchise, one is to attach certain special conditions such as you could argue, you could negotiate and say we want it only if we as the City facilities are able to choose a power suppliers of our own choosing at retail is one of the conditions, there was an attempt to put that in the last franchise 15 years ago, that's dated today as I look at the franchise, you need to revise that but at least there was good thought put into that. Kanner/Say that again (can't hear) Bob, what was put in to the last one? Latham/In your last electric franchise there's a clause there that basically says that you as a City for the purpose of providing for city facilities can use have a choice of supplier over the Mid American lines, the conditions are that it tied to what's called to a qualifying facility. I believe my interpretation just skimming this is that it was envisioned that it would be coming from a specific power plant that qualified under that time would be the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act that identified what a qualifying facility was. My only comment here is in terms of negotiating that with Mid American and going forward basis I would make sure it reflected the today's law and I would be less, I would not be as restrictive as that is in my negotiation with that. A second issue in terms of some utilities, some cities. (END OF 01-86 SIDE TWO) Latham/At one time I could be wrong there but at least a couple of those have local franchise fees, and these are fees charged, they're basically you as a Council the franchise charged Mid American so much for every kilowatt hour that was sold in the area. There's no free ltmch in that case, the Iowa Supreme Court has basically said that that has to be recovered from the citizens of the city for which it's incurred so there' s no free lunch there but it's a source of revenue for people like I think it's West Des Moines and Des Moines. In terms of one of the benefits of the franchise and as you go through this basically there's, in my opinion and I'm not an attomey I'm an economist but in terms of the specific assignment of liability and the specific process by which the incumbent utility is asked to do something on the polls or do some of the streets on behalf of the city, the franchise lays those conditions out fairly well so that is one of the benefits of having a franchise. There is obviously case law and stuff, and I'm not an expert on the law on that but there is a process for that. Yes. Pfab/I thought I was following you but I'm not sure, you were saying that if the franchise or (can't hear). This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 59 Latham/Yes, yes. Pfab/The franchise or if they do something because the city tells them to do. Latham/No I meant this is a protection for the City, the protections for the city rather than having it completely up to the courts or whatever interpretation of what your rights are in asking and in this case asking Mid American to do something. Pfab/Such as. Latham/Such as moving a pole because it's in the line of where you want to put a street light or something like that. Okay, it, the process is more clearly laid out for that. Pfab/So in other words what the rules of the game are. Latham/Yes, but and obviously as I say that the other hand I'm saying there's enough of background case law I'm sure of that, an attorney would tell you that there's a fai~y good expectation of what the process is. When I was with Alliant and we would go through this issue one of the primary benefits and I do believe this it reduces the uncertainty in the minds of the city in terms of what it's liability is, where it starts and where it ends. A number of utilities, I'm sorry a number of cities have gone without franchise for years with not a lot of loss frankly either. In terms of make sure I'm clear on this, in terms of, one of the and part of the economic regulatory environment electric choice of power supplier, make sure there' s no misunderstanding, as I said under the Territorial Integrity Law the incumbent utility has exclusive ability to utilize the lines. Over those lines the power supply can be delivered on the delivery system, so even given that Mid American has let's say the lines, what are the choices in terms of power supply? Now if your a wholesale, I'm sorry if your a municipal utility you are eligible to be able to purchase power supply from almost anywhere and have it delivered to you let' s say through the local lines company, have it delivered by Mid American. That's exactly what West Liberty does, Frytown down here at Farmer' s Electric, Amana those are all our clients, they all do that, they basically say we're going to buy, in this case we're buying power from Mid American, we're having it delivered over the Alliant lines to Amana. That is available only to those who are purchasing wholesale, there' s nothing I have said yet that suggest that you would have a right to do any purchasing as a wholesale customer in terms of wholesale for purchase or resale purposes. The next comment I make here is that is really not available to retail customers for fight now, and fundamentally right now for that to change you'd have to have the electric choice legislation that some of us have worked on for the last couple years at least to bring in some competition to the supply market. Going back to the example I gave you of comparison between Cedar Rapids and Burlington the most egregious example there how long do you think it would take for those prices to come together if indeed there were a This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 60 competition of power supply, it would be very quickly. And obviously you as the City of Iowa City would something to gain certainly versus other parts like, but to the some at the expense of the Sioux City's and the Waterloo' s of the world. Kanner/In California one of the problems though was they didn't find was true competition on the retail level. Latham/Yea I think that' s a fair statement, when you look at the California experience, you know the suppliers were all forced to sell into an hourly market. I mean so like you as a supplier, I'm sorry you as a buyer let's say the City of Iowa City were become a municipal utility your source of power effectively would be on an hour by hour basis as your purchasing off the off that grid. And into that market because people were not allowed to enter into long term bilateral contracts you know it was almost a disaster waiting to happen for that. There was not a huge amount of competition but I'd say all it takes is two or so in terms of really to be competing if they're truly arms length competition. I think we have better opportunities in Iowa and I'll go into that if you want versus the California's. Iowa is blessed as like the Interstate highway here both east and west obviously but also to some extent north and south here the Avenue of the Saints. You know we are blessed with choices almost from all directions, the transmission system that serves Iowa does come from all four sides of the state and I would, and I'll go into that in a second but it's not nearly adequate enough to handle you know major additional movements but at least we're blessed with the potential for significant numbers of competitors and with a structure that would typically bring a lot more competitors than you had in California. As a simple aside the little town of down the road here, Frytown, Farmer's, no that' s a poor example, West Liberty or Coggon or Amana, when we looked for power supplies for them, about five years ago, we had 20 different suppliers willing to serve Coggon, Iowa as an independent power supply, we had four very aggressive finalists, Euron of Wisconsin Power and Light, Synergy out of Cincinnati and Mid American were the four finalists, all of which were within about 1 percent of each other. The bottom line and a result of that that competition we took what was a $18 million dollar year contract and converted it to a $11 million dollars a year, saved about 40 million dollars for those towns over the course of a five year agreement. I keep saying, I thought Bob Latham and Louie had negotiated a percentage of the savings but they don't want to give me the percentage of the savings. Some of that benefit would be available to an Iowa City but frankly it's the eventual threat of that brings competitors, Mid American acts a lot different if they believe there's a competitor out there. Just this is for your general information, in Illinois of the last four years there have been announcements of probably 20,000 megawatts of new capacity to be built. What is 20,000 megawatts in terms of bigger than a bread box in the like, well the State of Iowa has about 8,000 megawatts so the new capacity and the new only capacity proposed in Illinois was two and a half times the total of that the whole State of Iowa just the new stuff. What has happened, many of those things were announced, probably 25 percent of This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 61 those will actually be built, however, they are owned by maybe 10 or 15 different owners in terms of the plants that are being built. There' s a prospect that at least some of that would be available for movement into Iowa. Mid American has annotmced two plants in Iowa, one down by not southeast of Des Moines a natural gas combined cycle, the heat recovery systems, pretty efficient natural gas system, they've also talked about a coal fired plant or plants somewhere in Iowa, speculation it would be around like Louisa south east of Louisa County among other places. Probabilities of those actually being built, probably the same 10 percent, 20 percent, in my opinion. Kanner/Bob what about the talking about Muscatine Municipal building a new plant with the new laws, what's the chance of something like that happening? Latham/Okay I think I mentioned roughly there are 137 municipal utilities electoring the State of Iowa and about 50 of those are our clients and it's kind of like the way we talk about certain people around the farm, you know all hat and no cattle. There's a lot of talk about plans for building and if you really want my absolute honest assessment of what I think is going to happen, I do not believe the Iowa Municipal Utilities themselves will build a power plant, I believe if they do build something it will be part of a plant that is built by Mid American. Pfab/Why do you (can't hear)? Latham/Well okay in terms of economic efficiency for a coal fired plant to get any kind of scale economy like that you probably should have something that's at least 400 megawatts, okay capacity. Pfab/Size. Latham/It's primarily size, and you know yes Mid American has also proposed units and I'm under a confidentiality statement here, I'm, this is public information I'm giving you on that, Mid American has also proposed very privately some coal fired plans, as I'm saying with the cost of those and with other factors that are entering into already one of which is the slow down of the upper midwest economy. You say it today, oil prices collapsed 15 percent in the wo~d market today because of the dramatic slow down in economic activity among other things, part of the uncertainty of the middle east is of course affecting that but in terms of, there's a big difference from saying I want to build, I'll say a 350-400 megawait plant let' s say by the mtmicipal utilities and only for municipal utilities and located at Muscatine. When you start taking 400 megawatts times let's say even $1,500 per kilowatt your talking $600 million dollars. Okay and if you are to take that even if that were to be comprising 25 percent of the total capacity of some of these municipal utilities it would be a huge increase in price as passed onto their customers and you'd candidly have a lot of municipal utility managers out of work. The same thing however, you know, I have certain personal bets in This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 62 terms of Mid American's investments as well, I k now there's a lot of talk that yes we're going to build this, we're likely to build the natural gas fired plants, but by the time you start putting in let' s say 600 to 1,000 megawatts of new coal fire capacity, your talking 1.5 billion dollars or so and particularly when you know very well that their not going to build that (can't hear) suckers unless there's assurance of recovery of costs which has to be under the law, the new law we just passed this last year, it has to be tied to conditions laid out by the Iowa Utilities Board and basically, the hill you've got to climb basically says you as Mid American need to reach agreement with the Office of Consumer Advocate on recovery of 1.5 billion dollars of cost and the like blah, blah, blah. And I think there's some relatively low probability that the full amount of that capacity will be built. There's another plant that's already been announced by Entergy, which is New Orleans, and south middle south utilities and now it's over by Adair, I think that's also in Adair County, it happens to be at the confluence of a major pipeline and a major east west transmission line for electric. There's probably and equal probability that being built as any of the rest of these. What I wanted to, just basically saying that there's a lot of ancertainty right now entrance of that market, by the time that power plants would be built in Iowa if their built requires conditions that there' s agreement by the Utilities Board and the like that basically virtually guarantees recovery of the costs and so I'm not real optimistic that a bunch of those are going to be built. By entering into an absolute franchise that would say I'm locking myself in for 15 years under a franchise and even if one were to move to an municipalization one can still you know kind of blow past the franchise reasonably quickly but once a plant like that is built or committed to it makes it often costly then to Uy to get out of that in terms of trying to purchase facilities to proceed with the municipalization if one tries that. Kanner/I didn't quite follow that part. Latham/Okay, okay. Kanner/Started off with 15 year agreement. Latham/Yes, right, okay, let' s say you enter into a 15 year franchise, okay and at least it's my opinion that the Iowa Utility Board rules by which you would go about trying to buy out Mid American let's say for municipalization, okay that' s one case appress?? in that. You know if as a result of entering into a 15 year franchise if you didn't have some escape clauses along the way and even though I would argue, the franchise itself is not the primary determining factor, it would be very difficult I believe for a Council to say well I've just given Mid American a 15 year contract and then two years later say well I didn't really mean it, what I really wanted to do is to purchase their lines in Iowa City and then to go through the process of condemnation effectively of those lines. You know you have then an issue of trying to explain to the people in the community why then did you enter This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 63 into that new franchise and candidly from a public relations area I would like to be on the Mid American side of that fence. Pfab/I think your saying that while it may be difficult to get out of the long range franchise agreement it because it's (can't hear) a public opinion but your also saying it's going to, your going to have to put money on the table too to get out of it. Latham/Oh yes, absolutely, and I'll get to that in a second, yes. O'Donnell/But you can really have language in any agreement that (can't hear). Latham/Yes. O'Donnell/I mean it's how we word the contract basically. Latham/Well someone argued that almost regardless of what is in the franchise that if the state legislature that electric choice is available in Iowa that you'd have electric choice, both in terms of power supply alternatives and the like almost in that case probably regardless of what you have in the franchise. Where the franchise is relevant and this particular case is if you negotiate terms that gives you the option you know absent state law change you know to give you electric choice. Now to exercise that and that particular case I said there' s some language that I would suggest improvements on yours to make that a more viable option if you as a city for city facilities wanted to do that. I'm just, I'm going to skip through these things and I want to dwell I think on the issue of what would be the process for acquisition and some of the prospects of that. I just want to go quickly through here though in terms of transmission issues, thank you, significant in planning, if one is to enter into the process of becoming a municipal utility obviously you still have a transmission issue, if there's anything I've seen in the last decade in Iowa not only have there not been power plants built but there has not additional transmission built to get power into Iowa and to the extent that there are limited transmission links into the state, it does limit your alternatives and particularly in terms of you were presuming going to be providing firm service to the citizens of Iowa City you'd be limited in some of your choices of supply. Just some other things that are happening in the market right now, I do expect that the wholesale power prices will be falling in real price terms over the next few years, there is still quite a bit of new power capacity coming on in particularly in Illinois. Indirectly or directly that will affect Mid American's pricing. Mergers separation of generation from delivery create uncertainty and fundamentally here that, I'll use the example of Alliant rather than Mid American but in Wisconsin their separating off their transmission system you know from the generation company from the local lines company. I don't know what's going to happen with Mid American over the next five years but there's a possibility that the generation possibly would be separated from the transmission and the like. What I'm really This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 64 leading there is if you enter into a longer term agreement, a franchise, that would be difficult to back out of, in terms of, at least with public relations and may auger for a shorter time frame. And fundamental my point 3F here is that shorter term planning for most market participants does seem to be the rule. What are your choices as I see it? Number one just simply no franchise, don't do anything. Await more certainty on you know what' s going to happen in the electric markets. If, that's one clear altemative and I think the downside there is simply that there may be some uncertainty on the legal interpretations of liability but again there' s enough precedent on that that it's probably a relatively minor issue. Another alternative is simply entering into a long term contract, perhaps Mid American would be much more willing to deal with the City if it did say I want a longer term agreement, I don't know. A third alternative is simply a franchise with conditions, you know for electric choice and relatively short term. And this is basically what was mentioned before in terms of negotiations with Mid American be more clear in terms of what you power supply choices are for the city itself. I would argue that almost regardless of what you put in the franchise if there's broad electric choice for retail it's somewhat independent of what's in the franchise. I would try to keep it as short term as possible you know to keep my options open, and frankly maybe Mid American wants to keep it's options open. For the benefit of be in a position to act more simply or easily if there is an electric choice, be in a position to act. If there is some unfavorable merger or transmission transaction. Be in a position to act if you decide to consider a municipal utility. Another alternative would be to create a municipal utility for either the whole city or for some part of that such as like the large commercials or for industrials and read that perhaps as including the University as being part of that. What does that require? It does require an Iowa Utilities Board proceeding to acquire the local lines, in this case of Mid American, the case precedent is up in Sheldon Iowa, up in northwestern Iowa. That was a case that was tried through the Iowa Utilities Board and that was before PURPA, before the Public Utility Regulatory Policies ACT, I believe this is correct, I may have, no I'm sorry it was the Energy Act of 92, wasn't it Louie? Before that Act what did the Act do back in 92 or 93? What it basically said a utility such as Mid American must make it's transmission system open for anyone who's qualified to be able purchase and wheel power. For, let's say for the Amana Colonies it was wonderful, they were no longer tied effectively only to Alliant as their power supplier. Alliant had to open it's lines on non discriminatory terms to anyone who would qualify. The Sheldon case came before that, conditions have changed materially, at that time one of the reasons Sheldon wanted to get out was the relatively high costs, Mid American or whatever the predecessor there I believe as I remember was Iowa Public Service had new power plants, price increases at the time. Mid American was able to make the claim that part of that power plant had been built to serve Sheldon. Not only was the power plant built for that purpose but also the transmission lines were there almost exclusively to serve Sheldon, maybe partly for something else. Those things have changed materially right now, at this time Mid American is only contemplating the building of an additional plant. There's This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 65 relatively little lost in terms of investment if in this particular case the city were to say I want to do this now, rather than waiting for the certainty of something that's being built or committed to being built in terms of contracts to sign, for you know $2 billion dollars worth of new plant. As of right now the scale of such new plant is up for grabs. Yes. Pfab/So what your saying is if we are thinking of, if the city is thinking about going the municipal route, which your talking about, is make it known now so somebody can't come back and say if you would have told us sooner we would have done things different. Latham/Right but otherwise your locked in because we as Mid American have committed to $2 billion dollars to serve retail customers and we counted on you as the City of Iowa City as one of those. Yes. Kanner/I'm not quite fond of this, but my understanding was that FERK, the federal agency regulated access to the lines. Latham/That' s correct. Kanner/And the cost that one would have to pay for taking over those lines, the city taking over, and the second thing is that the high courts have ruled that ifa company makes a bad decision they have to eat loss, if investor owned utility decides to build a power plant they can't come back and say oh we were counting on you to use that power, now you want (cant hear), I thought that was thrown out. Latham/No that' s not correct. Kanner/Okay. Latham/Let' s go back through, there were a couple pieces, the controlling law in my opinion was the 92 act okay that made the lines, the transmission lines open as effectively a common carrier. Okay and I'll just try to go by example, in the Sheldon case Mid American, let's say a predecessor company had just committed a new power plant and there were dollars basically Iowa had a needs standard, you had to prove the need for a power plant before it could be built and the basis for need is these are the retail customers we have. The old Iowa Public Service was able to make the claim that we built this partly to serve Sheldon and therefore you Sheldon want out of this., if you want to buy us out in Sheldon your liable for your share of that that was committed to you. In addition to the generation plant, there was a second issue and that was the transmission issue, on the transmission issue the FERK regulates that yes, but the FERK regulates the prices under which that the transmission system is utilized. In that case, in the Sheldon case, Iowa Public Service said well we built that line partly to serve Sheldon but for some other purposes and if Sheldon wants off that then we have to have them pay to get This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 66 it disconnected from our system and then reconnected however it would be, well that's another million dollars. Okay, the distinction today is that under the FERK that transmission exists, it is or will be controlled by the FERK and rather than having to pay you know for huge amounts for replacement transmission as was required in the Sheldon case it would be much less today because the line is there, it will continue to be there to serve Iowa City and the University and it would not have to have duplicate lines coming in for which you'd have to independently pay. So the two things that have happened since Sheldon, one is the transmission is a much lower cost because of not having to duplicate because that's already regulated by the FERK and the second is the claim that, let' s say in that case Mid American would make that is building a power plant to serve your needs, it doesn't hold a lot of water if they've not committed to it. Okay, so that makes it easier today than it would be under the Sheldon case. I'm not underestimating this in terms of difficulty, because I'm not aware of any municipal utility that's been formed in the State of Iowa in the last 20 years. Kanner/Okay, Emmetsburg I guess is attempting. Latham/Considering it, yes, fight, and we worked, the City of Keokuk worked with us, or we worked with them for a while too but nothing really came of it. Kanner/Yea it's a tough road. Latham/Yea. Champion/(can't hear at all)? Latham/No, okay because in that case your purpose is purchase for resale and that, to qualify for that you have to either have be a wholesale, I'm sorry a municipal utility of something so that you have the ability to resell it, your going to be using someone' s lines to deliver that basically going back to the first comment, the Territorial Integrity Law limits your ability to do that. I saw some things that had come from the municipal utilities on that issue, I disagree with them on that you can't just do it. Kanner/But Connie was asking about a plan. Latham/Yes. Champion/No, not a plant. Latham/Without a plant. Champion/Could you just declare yourself without (can't hear)? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 67 Latham/You know if that were available I mean there would have been a lot of other people would have done that long ago but the key there is going back to the whole thing, it's not the franchise, it's the Territorial Integrity Law that controls on that issue. Karmer/What your saying these municipalities that don't have their power plants. Latham/Yes. Karmer/Are not in compliance with the law. Latham/No, no, no, they have long, long held territory, the Territorial Integrity component of it, they have a municipal utility, they have territory over which they have exclusive utilization or control of the utilization of the wires. Kanner/But we could do the same thing couldn't we? Latham/If you go through the process of going to the Utilities Board and condemning. Kanner/Right, so we don't actually need a plant though. Latham/No, of course, you do not need a plant, you do not need a plant, that's exactly correct. Kanner/(Can't hear) to buy n the wholesale market. Latham/You can not buy on the wholesale market without going to the Utilities Board and getting control of a territory. Kanner/Going through the process right. Latham/Yes, that's correct. Pfab/And I would imagine that Mid American would not like to give us their territory without a fight. Latham/Well certainly not without a price. Vanderhoef/If you went that route then you would be obligated to buy the transmission to (can't hear) in your territory? Latham/No, no, you'd be required to purchase at least the local distribution, and I would say the sub transmission and the local distribution lines, what' s called the transmission the major lines like down by Hills, that would be the major transmission lines. That would continue to be regulated by FERK, you'd have the This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 68 call on that as far as Mid American continue to be your transmission supplier. You would be purchasing the ownership of the local lines, purchasing or leasing or you can do whatever you would want with that. Vanderhoef/But you would have to make that purchase? Latham/Yes you would. Kanner/Yea, I think, well I get missed up, I often call transmission distribution but there' s a clear distinction, distribution is within the service territory usually and transmission is the bigger stuff. Latham/Yea just think of an interstate highway system, you've got the main lines 1-80 is the equivalent to the east west transmission line down by Hills going east and west there and there' s also the north and south line that goes to the same area. Okay if those are the major and I'll say the interstate transmission lines, they're are 345 KBA and higher which means they can haul a lot of juice. Within the City of Iowa City I don't know exactly, I do know the University is served off a 69 KBA, so it would be a smaller of transmission, it would be what we typically call transmission and what we'd be talking about here would be the sub transmission lines there and those things are starting to get expensive in terms in buying on a per mile basis, Louis I don't know your talking about a couple hundred thousand dollars a mile for new stuff I suppose. Louie/(can't hear). Latham/Let me just go through in terms of the analysis and regulatory costs significant, let's say if Mid American balks, much of this, I mean it's conceivable if Mid American would say well hey that's fine, use our system in the like that we'll voluntarily open that up, frankly that's not going to happen, and if I were in their position I would not voluntarily say either nor would you. In terms of the analysis, the regulatory components of that, your typically looking at a couple three hundred thousand dollars for an initial analysis about feasibility about doing something like this. Going through the regulatory process and presumably Mid American says we're not just going to cave in, your probably talking a half a million bucks in the regulatory process, it's probably a minimum I would think and going through the Iowa Regulatory Process to do that. There's a lot of engineering time and testimony and thinks like that in terms of proceedings, those things can be then, they can go all the way through the court system as well so you could be five years, saying I want to start today it could be five years before that process would be done. I think the Sheldon case as I remember was three years or four years that was resolved. Kanner/And Bob can any of those costs be recovered in rates if you form a municipal (can't hear)? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 69 Latham/Yes, yes it can and effectively typically that's like a capitalization of regulatory costs, it's like capitalizing costs of starting a new cooperation, yes it could be. Kanner/So an analysis would take that into account and say this is going to cost this extra half a million in your rates and your rates will probably be at this level. Latham/Yes, exactly, right. Kanner/We're either going to save money or your not saving money. Latham/Right, you know that' s what many cities in terms of one of the, as I said we work with a lot of municipal cities you know by being able to control the prices, charge to the customers for good or for bad but to be able to independently set those prices. And many of the municipal utilities do add on dollars to take care of the whatever it is in the city too, whether it's a small town park in Denver Iowa or something like that. I mean there's, I mean there ways because you have the flexibility to set prices as you want, you do not have to go through Utilities Board to get approval of the pricing. Pfab/At the present time does Mid American have to go through the Utilities Board? Latham/Yes they do. Pfab/So that is a difference. Latham/That is a difference right. But costs and timing of a querying facilities I think realistically you are probably talking about a five year period by the time you go through that process. In terms of the value what you'd have to pay for facilities, obviously there's a lot of different alternative valuation criteria that can be used for that and I'm not going to hazard a guess of what kind of bucks you'd be talking about but it would be significant. A power supply alternative short and long term, frankly and I hope I'm not coming off supportive or against these things, when I listen to some of my friends in the municipal utilities basically arguing in favor of joining in terms of a joint purchasing a coalition with primarily new plant, I just view that as a killer in terms of cost. Because if your having to try to pass on let's say to the people in Iowa City that' s like having two new Louisa generating plants and a new nuclear plant going in at once and having to set costs for all of that stuff, it would be a killer and you'd probably be looking for a new council here. Now maybe some of you like that as positive. Vanderhoef/Thank you. Latham/But frankly that's probably what it would be because there'd be a huge backlash in terms of the prices, at the same time there are alternatives, you know such as This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 70 the one group we have is called the resale power group of Iowa and I just, I have some idea of the order of magnitude of the electric load exclusive to the University in Iowa City and perhaps it would be or two thirds of the size of the existing coalition this purchasing, it's able to pull it's resources and get bids and at least, in that case it's on almost the full amount of energy but there are alternatives short of saying I've got to start something with a brand new plant that the Iowa Municipal Utilities Association would love to have you do, and I just don't think, I could not in good faith recommend to be as an alternative for a full component if you were to choose that avenue. Effect or impact on elective prices for the community I used an example of this of where you stand today, I fundamentally believe that the greater amount of competition one can have perceived or actual on the Alliant or Mid American is very beneficial it's amazing what you can get on franchises or other agreements if one plays one's cards right. I'm not going to make any statement in terms of what I do believe the actual impact of prices would be because I don't want something like that to be getting around at this point. Yes. But it really depends on what mix of short term and long term ownership or commitments one would make, it's a idamental on the generation part of it. Yes., Kanner/Going back on point five about power supply alternatives, I know that Sacramento California is an example of a municipal utility that shut down their nuclear power plant and put a lot of money into conservation and efficiency, are there other smaller cities that are examples of really putting significant amount of money into conservation and renewables, something like the order of let's say 20 percent? Is that something that we can do for power sources? Latham/Well yes you can do, the question is the cost of that, the closest example I think in Iowa, I'm sorry, the closest example in Iowa would be Wavefly Municipal Utility and I want to say loose cannon, Glenn Cannon, Glenn is a good friend and he's done an excellent job particularly in that environment where there's a very strong emphasis on renewables and the like in that area. They were somewhat saddled, okay that' s the good news on that, they've been able to integrate and I think he's at the point now he claims I think 16 percent either from renewables or significant conservation. On the down side there early in the Louisa plant and probably bit off a lot some more than they would chew. One of the things as far s the city if they were concerned about buying, whether it's buying into a wind farm let's say or a conventional coal fired facility, they come in blocks okay. And frankly Waverly in my opinion was not able to fully absorb the amount of it's commitment to Louisa for many many years and it's a problem that Tipton is facing today in a very significant sense, it just, it's just not paid out because their relatively small as a municipal utility in a relatively large hunk of capacity there. But I would typically suggest along those lines in terms of renewals there are other like minded people in terms of let's say the people up at Alta or not necessarily the local utility at Sibly but there are people like that that do produce quite a bit of wind energy where it's much more efficient candidly to do it there than in the This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 71 winds of Iowa City and by displacement one can get the effect of that without having this economies and the lumpiness and blocks that you can't necessarily always absorb let's say 24 hours a day. I mean I've made some assumptions there but fundamentally there' s a lumpiness issue, lumpiness I always think in terms of how much wind are you going to commit to you know for let's say for the 20 pement out of a total amount of capacity then you've got a plan that when you really need it the wind doesn't blow. You know in the summer time when it gets hot and you basically your buying something. (END OF 01-87 SIDE ONE) Latham/Energy effectively at the lower you know is effectively what your getting there but one of the benefits of Mid American is that your effectively getting a mix of generation all the way from nuclear to coal to you know those things and some mix of capacity with some mix ofrenewables in there. If you do it on your own as a city, to some extent the way Muscatine did, there' s a lumpiness issue there that you've either got to grow into it or your never exactly right in the mix of plant that you choose. But the best example here is Waverly and Glenn Cannon would love to talk about it and frankly they're one of our clients, they have been one of our clients. Champion/(can't hear) I didn't know a lot about this, I still don't (can't hear). Latham/The bottom line is the future is before you, it's going to take a plan, it's going to take all of you. I'm being facetious at this hour. Helling/Okay well thank you Bob. Lehman/Well no, I've got, I have no idea what to do. But there are questions and I realize and I think I heard you say there hasn't been a municipal utility created in Iowa for 20 years. Latham/At least that. Lehman/And I guess I would, I'm interested in why if there are such economies to be achieved by this in utilities I mean is there something we don't know? Why is it that there have been no utilities created for 20 years? Latham/Well I think, the people that have tried the hardest would be Keokuk, that's probably the closest thing and we worked with Keokuk for quite some time. It takes dollars, it may be a half a million dollars just in terms to get through the regulatory process or maybe it's a million dollars just to get through the regulatory process. And then the prospect of coming up with the dollars to buy out Alliant locally. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 72 Lehman/Are you talking about buying transmission lines? Latham/This was to buy the local distribution and going through that whole process, there would have been some transmission them as well. Lehman/But no generating capacity. Latham/No, no. O'Donnell/Who maintains the lines (can't hear)? Latham/There are plenty of people who would love to do the lines, Mid American would love to maintain Alliant lines in certain areas. I mean there are certain people who do that stuff and would love to do it. Lehman/But that' s an expense that you incur. Latham/That's an expense, absolutely. What I think and so I, we worked with the City of Keokuk on that issue materially and frankly my experience was primarily with Alliant which we were always the high cost producer and Bob was off in a position having to sell economic development in Cedar Rapids with the highest prices in the upper midwest which is somewhat difficult, but you can be creative on that stuff and the like. What we became masters in creating uncertainty within the community. What starts out as everyone shouting together and saying we want to do this and all of a sudden you've got your industrialists are saying well that's fine but do I really want to leave this utility in the hands of Emie. Lehman/Thank you. Latham/Okay. Lehman/No I traderstand that. Latham/Or you people okay, I mean fundamentally and then it's to proceed it requires, and I'm an economist now, it requires stability of the core, it requires a strong focus, it requires commitment to stay together on that and frankly I was somewhat successful in breaking those things up, and it's not difficult to do you create uncertainty in the standpoint here of with the University. Does the University share the complete commitment that you as the Council does? And if you can draw a wedge between those all of a sudden it makes it difficult to proceed. Who' s going to support the bond issue to buy the properties things like that, that' s where they fail, it's not in the perceived economics of it, it's a question of who gets what. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 73 Lehman/Well now what are the ramifications in these communities? Well obviously I guess we haven't had any for 20 years but utility company is the largest tax payer in Johnson County or the City of Iowa City. They're a fairly significant employer, what are the ramifications of those things to communities that go with municipalities? Latham/Well much of that, okay well let's just go through the pieces, in terms of the generation, let's say at the end of the day some one is still going to get the energy from let's say the Louisa station, even though Mid American is getting out of it's plant over in Nebraska someone's still going to utilize that plant, someone is going to pay property taxes on that on some basis. Where it would enter is on the local distribution lines. Lehman/Right, that's what I'm talking about. Latham/In that case your able to there may be some reduction in the taxes that come to you people in terms of Council but you also have the ability with the Territorial Integrity Law to charge anything you want to get recovery of those. Lehman/But how does that take care of the schools for example and the County which also collect that same taxes? Latham/Right but there are ways of getting around that. Lehman/Close the schools. Kanner/There are municipalities that put that into their rates and it's still lower than the investor (can't hear) rate. Latham/Right, yea, and I think that's, in some cases that is absolutely the case, it's not universal and don't get confused it's not universal but there are some cases, there are places like that. I think Louie in the last couple years have probably done those pricing studies for I don't know what 20 municipal utilities and set those prices. Yes. Pfab/If I hear you correctly and I understand what your saying, there would be a lot more municipal utilities if the investor owned companies weren't so dam smart. And how to break them. Latham/I don't always give them credit for being so darn smart. Pfab/No, no, but I mean as developing ways to sabotage on the road to municipality, I mean, that's what they're there for, they're there to protect their own. Latham/I mean that's what I used to do, I mean that' s. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 74 Champion/(can't hear) they are regulated (can't hear) power and energy (can't hear). Pfab/I'm not saying that their devious but that' s the mechanism that keeps a lot of utilities happening, and I'm not judgmental of them (can't hear) utility people were, if one of the utilities were as smart as stuck to it as the investor owned utilities to stop them there would probably be a lot (can't hear) it is now. Latham/I think when all said, at the end of the day if you talk to the people in Keokuk, they were really easy to get split. Lehman/Well did they? Latham/In that case there was labor versus management, there's a lot of other issues too. Lehman/Is there also the tendencies to self destruct on their own? I mean when you talk about the trust issue and you talk about the industrial commercial base and the residential base and all of these people and I think what I heard you say more important than anything else is a single vision on the part of the goveming body. Latham/Right, absolutely. Lehman/Which few communities can demonstrate. Latham/Right, invariably and I told the Council this to their face and with a meeting that Phil Wise, State Representative Phil Wise called to bring us some of us down there to talk to those people, different segments of unity???, they were really easy to split, and it fell, but they didn't have guts to come up with the money to come up with in the first place even to go there. Kanner/We got some literature from the general manager of Muscatine and he suggested separating the board as much as possible from the City Council and they've been pretty successful with that. But across the county you find, there isn't often the political will to stand up to the utilities, I know Toledo Ohio finally did a study and they found that they saved hundreds of millions of dollars by doing different forms of municipal, but they had a force, it went on the ballot and the City Council refused to do the study after it was voted it and finally they went to court and they finally got it. And you run up against like you said the investor owned utilities have quite a bit of resources and they're able to drag it on and hire people like you and go to court. Latham/Right, it would be five years, don't kid yourself. Kanner/Las Cruces New Mexico tried to go municipal, they're similar to our size in population, a University town, they voted about eight to ten years ago to go This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 75 municipal and what happens is the municipal, the investor owned utilities will put a price tag on (can't hear) costs, it's outrageous, $200 million is what E1 Paso Electric did in Las Cruces. Well FERK comes back the Federal agency and said it's only like $50 million and it eventually gets down to I think like $20 million but by this time the citizens of Las Cmces are burned out by the whole process. Latham/Sure they are. Kanner/And it's very tough to stand up to that kind of thing Ernie and I think that's the reason you don't have more municipals, I think municipals across the country, they show they're cheaper, better service or as good as service as any investor owned but it's tough to stand up to that kind of pressure over the long term, it takes a strong political will to do it and I think your right you have to have a vision. Latham/Yea, it's real simple that the process I mentioned in my comments here, since Sheldon things have changed, but no ones had guts enough in almost 20 years now to push it. Pfab/And what your saying since Sheldon it's been easier to. Latham/Absolutely, hugely so, and right now particularly since Mid American has not committed between a regulatory process, to my knowledge hasn't even applied for building those plants I mean there's, this is about as good a time as any for that and I'm not encouraging nor discouraging, I just want to give you some range of thoughts. Lehman/Your not intending to give us any direction are you? Latham/Oh well. Lehman/This has been fascinating, I really really appreciate your being here. Champion/(can't hear). Latham/Yea, well what we're trying to do at least from our perspective is our role is always advising the purchasers of this, of these things, we advise the Amana Society to put up that peaking unit, I don't know if you've seen up the new units Amana put up. They're facing uncertainty in the environment in the next few years, transmission is not being built in this state. I mean, my own personal belief is that I bet not more than the 20 power plants that have been announced in Iowa actually get built in the next decade. The ones that are being built are the ones that we're building you know. Kanner/We're calling you back in 10 years. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Cotmcil Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 76 Latham/Well I've already, I've already asked people to make sure they have the money on the line for the dinners they've promised me in case I'm correct, make sure it's in the. Andy Matthews/Bob life expectancy of Cordova Nuclear plant? Latham/It went on line I'll say in 1970 or 1973 something like that and I don't know specifically there but your probably still talking another oh I'm pulling this out and I'm within two years probably under a current license probably to about the year 2012, I could be off by a couple of years. But a lot of these people are deciding to extend those lines Andy, or I'm sorry extend those licenses, I said lines. Helling/Ernie, the folks from Mid American are here and obviously heard what was said and they're wanting to provide some information for Council as well and I advised them that this wasn't set to be debate tonight but rather an information gathering thing, I suspect they should have the opportunity to address Council at some time as well as the coalition folks that have, so I don't know how you want to schedule that or set that up or whether you want to. John Singer/We do have some comments there, some written documents we'd like to give to the Council. Karr/I'm sorry I can't, we're not picking up. Lehman/You need to talk into a microphone. Well I guess the question is obviously this is a discussion that' s going to be taking place over the next few months as far as franchise goes, I mean, we had, I think we had a really, really interesting presentation, I mean how do we want to deal with the franchise? I mean I think there are folks in the community who would like to address us with the possibility of a municipal utility, obviously Mid American would like to address us, do we want to schedule these at work sessions and? Champion/Sure. Lehman/I mean how do we want to do it? VanderhoefJ I think we need to go forward on collecting with some information, since we have this group of citizens who are very interested in it, if we only partial research it to understand what' s going on, we'll never satisfy them and certainly doesn't satisfy me so I would appreciate another time, I don't think I can absorb any more tonight. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 77 Singer/And I understand that, we did create a hand out, we thought we'd be participating at tonight's meeting and we'd like to share that with the City Council. Lehman/I was going to suggest that we take a work session when we're not very busy and we just invite the coalition to come in and you to come in and if we wait to do that we'll never do it so. Champion/We should just schedule it one at a time because it's so much to absorb. Lehman/Well also though I believe that the presentation should have a time limit, I mean you, I mean I don't have no problem with having them both in the same evening if they're limited to 30 minutes a piece. I don't care, whatever Council wants to do. Singer/Is it fair to give this to Council? Lehman/Sure. Vanderhoef/Absolutely. Singer/And this is just some information and (can't hear). Karr/Sir. Lehman/You, there you go. Karr/And your name sir. John Singer/John Singer from Mid American. Lehman/Are you from here in town? Singer/No I'm from Des Moines. Lehman/Oh you came all the way down here to pass out those papers. Singer/Yes. Lehman/I really appreciate that. Singer/But as an attachment to this we, I know some of the press that I've been reading there' s some talk about Muscatine's electric rates versus Mid American's Energy rates, there's an attachment on each one of these that came from the United States Department of Energy, let's see Electrical Statistical Report that shows electric rates as of September 1999, this was put out October of 2000, so this is the most current comparison of all utility companies in the United States. Now the only This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 78 part I kept for Iowa City was those rates in Iowa, Mid American Energy according to the Federal Government and our rates our average cost per kilowatt hour is 6.41 cents. Lehman/Okay now you save the rest of the presentation because it's 10:30 and I think we want to hear you when we can remember, this will be good bedtime reading for us all, but not tonight. Vanderhoef/Not tonight. Lehman/I don't know when Steve, Dale when this will, I mean obviously this is something that would needs our attention perhaps sooner than later, even though there is no rush from the franchise. Helling/I certainly did not anticipate that probably tonight you would say just go ahead with the franchise so I think we'll probably in the interim we'll be talking to John and folks from Mid American and about how they want to proceed after the 1 lth or 6th of November because that's the date of the expiration of the current franchise, and that' s fine, there's no problem with scheduling this out and addressing it as you need the time to do it. Lehman/Okay. Kanner/Emie we might consider something similar to the smoking issue where we have a separate night set up of an hour or two hours where we give certain amount of time to Mid American and if we want to other folks to speak to the issue, I think there's a lot of people in the community that are interested in speaking to it. Champion/I think later, I think first (can't hear). Lehman/Well I think that's a definitely possibility, we can talk about that at one of our next work sessions, we will get back to you and you will have an opportunity to address us. Singer/Okay. Lehman/And thanks for being here, I feel kind of badly that you've been here until 10:30 and have to go back and say all I did was pass out some papers to those yahoo's. Singer/Well we would never call you that of course. Lehman/Not where we can hear you. Singer/(can't hear) Dale if you want to do the franchise tonight we can do that. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 79 Lehman/Yea right, like I said we'll get back to you. Thank you very much. Okay we'll take that up at a future work session though decide if there's interest to set a meeting where we can invite folks from the coalition and Mid American and get some more information. Park and Recreation Tour, my lord, I forgot this was even on here. Parks & Recreation Tour Karr/This was just placed on the agenda at your request to see if there was a need to post it as a meeting, whether there was a quorum attending or not, you all received your invitations. Lehman/The date was what I can't? Karr/10/10. Lehman/10/10 is a. Karr/Is a Wednesday. Lehman/A Wednesday. How many folks intend to go on the Parks and Recreation Tour? I don't see anybody, oh I've got one going. Pfab/I'll go. Lehman/Okay we've got two. Anybody else going on the Parks & Rec. Tour. Karr/The Parks & Rec. tour. Lehman/Well the only reason I ask if there are four or more we need to post it so. So all right you don't need to post it Marian. Karr/So I will put in the reservations for Council members Kanner, Pfab, and Vanderhoef/and that's it. Lehman/Right, okay. Kanner/Window seat please. Karr/Aisle I know. Lehman/Okay Council Time. Council Time This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 80 Wilbung I just have a question about calendar. Lehman/Yes. Wilburn/I wrote down the 16th of October for the special work session on smoking, but in our calendars it says the 16th is Wednesday, is it? The Wednesday is the 17th. Champion/Oh it's the 16th. Karr/It is the 16th. Wilburn/Okay that's all I need. Pfab/The 16th is the right day. Karr/That's correct. Lehman/The 16th at 6:30 Karr/Correct. Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/On Tuesday. Wilburn/A Tuesday. Karr/It's a Tuesday. Vanderhoef/That's what I had written down. Wilburn/Yea that' s what I had written down, it was confusing when I looked at it. Lehman/Okay I've got two things that I should like to bring up tonight, we've been asked by Linda Severson to make appointments to the hearings for the joint funding where Iowa City we allocate some of our money for Social Services, you know it's obviously it's up to the Council I guess I would recommend that Irvin and Dee Vanderhoef serve on that con'kmittee, now there will be some problems with League of Cities which we may have to ask that they schedule meetings, or the presentations with ones that we're involved in at a time other than I think December 5 but there is an orientation meeting on the 14th, is that? Are those appointments all right with Council? O'Dormell/Fine. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 81 Lehman/Okay Irvin. All right then we'll do that and if possible you might suggest at the orientation meeting that those presentations for the 5th of December be limited to those agencies that we are not funding so that our attendance can be. Vanderhoef/We've got to do it before that. Karr/It can't wait until then by then it's all set. Vanderhoef/We've got to do it right now. Lehman/Oh well then I think it's. Karr/We can communicate that. Lehman/Can we do that? Karr/Yes. Lehman/Okay that' s done. Vanderhoef/Either that or go with that earlier date in November, I guess my question was to the budget process whether you needed this information back sooner rather than later. Atkins/It's always better sooner because we can balance the budget however what we've traditionally done is taken the previous year's appropriation add a percentage amount to it, you all then, you still maintain flexibility within the thing. So if you choose to add some more I would take it from the contingency appropriations you normally adopt. If you add a huge amount more that would be another thing. Lehman/I also have, pardon. (can't hear). Lehman/I also have a request from the Mayor of Coralville requesting that we write a letter endorsing the Coralville Convention Center project and encouraging I think it's Vision Iowa Funds, their looking for Iowa Funds for their convention center which would be I think about a $1 million dollars a year they would receive in subsidy but he would like. Pfab/That's fine. Lehman/If we're interested that we write a letter in support of their application. Pfab/I would move that we do. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 82 Lehman/We don't have to move anything but is that agreeable? Kanner/Say, this is a recommendation that we're. Lehman/To the State of Iowa they're applying for some state funds and it's just a letter of support from Iowa City supporting their position for building this convention center and receiving funding from the state. Kanner/Personally I'd want a little more information before I give that endorsement. Vanderhoef/Is it economic development money they're? Champion/It's Vision Iowa. Lehman/Vision Iowa money I think. O'Donnell/We're not applying for any are we? Lehman/No. Vanderhoef/I'm confused then. Pfab/Get as close to home as you can get. Champion/It's Vision Iowa money. Lehman/It is Vision Iowa the right, it is the right fund isn't it? Atkins/I understand they're incorporating the Iowa Child into their conference center thing. O'Donnell/Is that endorsing that (can't hear)? Champion/I can not vote for that. Lehman/No it is only, it's supportive of Coralville's plans to build a conference center and hotel in the old industrial park, that is the extent of the endorsement. Atkins/Far be it from me to give you political advice. Lehman/Thank you. Atkins/However. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 83 Lehman/However, here it comes. Atkins/How it's going to play is they're together, that's my. O'Donnell/(can't hear) that's the way I would interrupt that. Vanderhoef/Well to endorse only half the piece that' s my question. Wilbum/That' s confusing. Lehman/I don't think you can endorse half the piece. Vanderhoef/And I can't support that until I know whether we're endorsing a whole big project that includes all of this or whether just. Lehman/I sense that we're not going to be writing a letter, okay. Pfab/At least without more information. Lehman/Okay anything else for council time? Vanderhoef/Have him send us a written letter to tell us exactly what it is. Champion/Ernie if we're talking about huge cut backs at the University level (can't hear). Lehman/Okay I'm not sending a letter, is there anything else for council time? O'Donnell/Ernie are you trying to talk us into this? Lehman/No I'm not, if I were worried about that I would have sent the damn letter but I thought it would be appropriate to suggest that. Kanner/Maybe with the annex part of for the land of Iowa City we might consider it. Lehman/I don't think we'll bring that up either. Kanner/All right, two things one we got in our 9/13 info. packet information on a liquor establishments that have above ground space and occupancy levels, I think the question I'd like to pursue is do we need greater enforcement of those occupancy rates when their really jammed packed for safety sake. And if the bars are meeting the rates we need to determine if they perhaps they should be less. So I was. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 84 O'Donnell/Are you naming anybody in particular or just downtown in general upstairs or? Kanner/Well as I mentioned before Mike I went into a tour, I went on. Champion/A bar tour. Kanner/Not the bar tour, well it was but the police officer when they were on duty Friday night and went into One Eyed Jakes and just seemed very dangerous to me this is just my viewpoint and going up narrow steps it looked exceedingly crowded up there, it just looked dangerous, and I think it bears looking into in general to see if we want to limit that perhaps in some way or if the codes are being enforced. My impression is that the police aren't necessarily looking at that too closely. Champion/(can't hear). Kanner/Or occupancy rates. Champion/Fire department does occupancy rates. Kanner/Well maybe we need them to come out at midnight to check some of these places then (can't hear). Atkins/It's not out of, it's not out of the question, we can certainly train the officers as a heads up I mean if an officer walks in and this seems, you know of course we have personnel on duty 24 hours a day, I mean we could periodically check them for over occupancy, it is, it's a reasonably common complaint and that we have. What? Champion/Do you think they count? Atkins/Who the police officers? Lehman/The bars. Champion/The bars. Atkins/Do I think they count? I, personal opinion no. Pfab/But I mean at some point they develop a sense. Champion/Yea right. Atkins/Oh yea. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001. September 24, 2001 Special Work Session Page 85 Pfab/And I think for safety sake if nothing else we don't want to fire someplace (can't hear). Atkins/Well how about, unless we do differently, how about I do a little spot enforcement. Lehman/Why don't we try that. Atkins/Just try it and see what happens. Kanner/The other thing I'd like to see, ask Andy if he feels that the rates are at the right number, maybe. Atkins/I'll ask that question. Kanner/Maybe it's been a while, how long has it been, has it been 20, 30 years since we've looked at the rates? Maybe it should be less people. Atkins/How about some spot enforcement and I'll get Andy to comment on the numbers for us? O'Donnell/Well I'm sure the numbers set by size. Champion/(can't hear). Lehman/Yea but the criteria may have changed. Atkins/But Andy may. Vanderhoef/The sprinkler issue is in there too. Lehman/Okay anything else. Pfab/I'm looking forward to seeing everybody's smiling face tomorrow. Lehman/Hey if we don't hurry it will be tomorrow. Champion/Where are we going tomorrow? Lehman/Tomorrow night. Champion/Oh here. O'Donnell/I'm coming back here at 11:00 tomorrow. Adjoumed 10:35 PM This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 24, 2001.