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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-01-23 Transcription January 23, 2006 City Council Wark Session Page 1 January 23, 2006 City Council Work Session 6:00 P.M. Council: Bailey, Champion, Correia, Elliott, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn UISG Rep: Schreiber Staff: Dilkes, Karr, Franklin, Atkins, Helling, Fosse Tapes: 06-07, SIDE I PLANNING AND ZONING Franklin! We've only got three items tonight in Planning and Zoning. a) CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR FEBRUARY 13 ON AN ORDINANCE REZONING 1.02 ACRES FROM LOW DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-5) ZONE TO COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL (CC-2) ZONE FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT 3405 ROCHESTER AVENUE. (REZ05-00024) Franklin! The first one is setting a public hearing for the 13th, on rezoning 1.02 acres from low-density RS-5 single-family to community-commercial, CC-2. This is for property located at 3405 Rochester Avenue. The previous site of the Zychek Recycling establishment (laughter). That's what he called it! So, we'll be looking at that the next time, and it's all going to be integrated with the commercial development that was approved there already for Plum Grove Acres on the neighboring property. b) CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING APPROXIMATELY 10.41 ACRES FROM LOW DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL ZONE (RS-5) TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY/LOW DENSITY SINGLE- FAMILY RESIDENTIAL ZONE (OSA/RS-5) FOR PROPERTY LOCATED EAST OF HIGHWAY 218 AND SOUTH OF MELROSE AVENUE. (SECOND CONSIDERATION) Franklin! Item B is second consideration of the rezoning from RS-5 to OSA-RS-5. This is for Galway Hills, Part 4, a 24-lot residential subdivision on the west side, and then c) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF JJR DAVIS FOURTH ADDITION, IOWA CITY, IOWA. (SUB05-00027) Franklin! Item C is a final plat of JJR Davis 4th Addition, which is off of Morrnon Trek Boulevard, the east side of Morrnon Trek Boulevard. We have had a request to defer this to February 13th by the attorney for the applicants. And that is it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23,2006 City Council Wark Session Page 2 Elliott! That's B or C you're deferring? Wilburn! C. (several talking at once) Vanderhoef! Karin? Just for information, is this case also including that last strip ofland that Dane's own? Or is this just Davis's property? Franklin! This is just the Davis property. Vanderhoef! Okay. Franklin! Now... when you say the strip ofland that the Dane's own, west of Dane Road? 'Cause there's a little sliver of Dane property in this... V anderhoef! Yeah.. . Franklin! ... that abuts the old transitional... Vanderhoef! ...and then west of the old Dane Road, there's... Franklin! Any property that the Dane's retained, west of Dane Road, is included in this. Vanderhoef! Okay. That was what I wanted to know. Thank you. COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS Wilburn! I believe the first is the Animal Care and Adoption Center Advisory Board, Lisa Drahozal Pooley. (several talking at once) Okay. All right, and the next one, I have a conflict of interest. It involves appointments to the Housing Community Development Commission, who...one of their primary responsibilities is the distribution ofthe CDBG and Home funds, so I will back away from the table while you deliberate. Bailey! Okay, so it looks like we have three applicants. Elliott! I'm interested in Yolanda Spears. Champion! So am 1. Bailey! Great, so we have four for Yolanda. All right. Correia! I was wondering about... I noticed that we haven't had anybody applying for the Airport Commission. So, I was looking at Kristopher Kroona who had applied for (can't understand). He's an insurance auditor, has a finance background. I wondered if...ask him ifhe would be willing to apply for the Airport Commission. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Wark Session Page 3 Dilkes! Well, it's not the Airport Commission. Airport Zoning Board of Adjustment and (several talking at once). Oh, you mean coming up. The problem with.. . the ones we've had problems getting applicants for, not the Airport Commission, but yes. Karr! If! couldjust...the way we do procedurally is when we do notify an individual that they did not receive the appointment, we send them a list of all the current vacancies. So, they would know that. Now, certainly, Council members may wish to encourage them, but they do know of vacancies at the same time. Elliott! I have a question also. How prevalent is it for a person to serve on more than one of the Airport related commissions? I thought it was kind of unfortunate because this person left in the middle of the term, and leaves two openings as opposed to one. O'Donnell! Oh, he resigned from the Zoning Commission long before... Elliott! Oh, is that right? (several talking at once) Is it common that some...that the same person serves on multiple Airport... O'Donnell! He didn't do that. He resigned from the Airport Zoning Commission to the Airport.. . Elliott! I see, okay. Karr! We've applied for the Airport Zoning Board, Commission so many times, it's caught up with the second appointment, as well. Elliott! I'm just catching up then... O'Donnelll Wonderful question though. AGENDA ITEMS ITEM 6. APPROVING OF AN AMENDMENT TO A REAL ESTATE CONTRACT - INSTALLMENTS BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND UNITED ACTION FOR YOUTH FOR CONDOMINIUM UNIT l-C IN TOWER PLACE AND PARKING. Elliott! I have an item on 6 - that's the request for a... Atkins! ... where did we leave that last appointment? (several talking at once) Thanks, I'm sorry. Elliott! What's the realistic expectation for this? This is the second time. This is the payment for purchase by the United Action for Youth. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Work Session Page 4 Bailey! They have hired (can't hear) realistic (can't hear). Elliott! I would like not for this to come up, if we're going to do something.. .so, something you feel strongly is going to happen. Atkins! Is there a little bit of a leap of faith? Yeah. Elliott! Okay. Champion! And that's okay. Atkins! Yeah, but there's.. ..I can't comprehend circumstances. It will take them a while and they've been very candid about it. They've invested in the property already. Wilburn! And they're taking an action to try and prevent the fundraising for it. We know where they're at. They're in it. So... Bailey! Would we have the option to forgive part of the debt? Champion! We could. Atkins! I would think so. The... we were acting as somewhat as the financier for condo, I can't imagine why we couldn't... Dilkes! I think it...generally property has to be sold for fair market value. If there's a public interest in taking, and we certainly do on a number of occasions take less than fair market value, for various reasons, but I think you'd have to articulate that reason. Elliott! I like what I have been told about it at this point. Wilburn! Other agenda items? ITEM 9. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A CONTRACT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE MORMON TREK BOULEVARD EXTENSION - WILLOW CREEK TO OLD HIGHWAY 218 PROJECT. Elliott! Why...how unusual is it that we've been asked to defer the...Rick is out here. The (can't hear) project. Wilburn! Which item are we talking about? Elliott! This is item 9. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23,2006 City Council Work Session Page 5 Wilburn! Thank you. Fosse! Oh, the awarding bid? Elliott/ Yes. Fosse! That's related to some property acquisition issues. And... Atkins! We're in the midst of acquisition with the University, and it just simply hasn't come together. Elliott! In other... we thought it was going to go a little more hurriedly than it did and... Atkins! Certainly did. Elliott! Okay. Vanderhoef! Which item? (several talking at once) Atkins! It's the...what do you call it, Rick? This project? What do you call this thing? Fosse! I'm sorry.. .oh, the Mormon Trek extended? Atkins! What is this project? Culvert! Thank you. Fosse! Yes, culvert. Atkins! That's what I was looking for! (laughter) Forgot one word. Wilburn! Other agenda items? Item #3e(2). CONSIDER A RESOLUTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MARCH 21, 2006 ON THE IOWA CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY'S STREAMLINED ANNUAL PLAN FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006 AND DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH NOTICE OF SAID HEARING. Correia! .. . Public Housing Authority plan, we're setting the public hearing - when will we receive that? Karr! You typically receive it prior to the public hearing, unless it's a large document and we will send it out to you preceding the information packet. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Wark Session Page 6 Item #3e(1). CONSIDER A RESOLUTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARlNG FOR FEBRUARY 13, 2006 REGARDING THE INTENT TO ENTER INTO A LEASE AGREEMENT WITH LEADING EDGE ENTERPRISES, L.L.c. D/B/A NEW YORK NY DELI FOR THE LEASE OF THE GROUND FLOOR COMMERCIAL SPACE IN THE IOWA CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY BUILDING Vanderhoef/ I know it's just setting public hearing. Will we get some more information on that contract in the library, when they're talking about a sub-lease and all that stuff? Karr/ Can we go back one second to Amy's question. Often those documents are quite large, and we do not include them in the Council packet. We note in the packet that it's on file in the office, but because of the volume of it, and I just, I'm not quite sure in this particular case if it's going to be distributed to you, or available because of its size. Yes. Dilkes/ The information with the lease will come in their packet, the next packet, prior to the public hearing, as it always does. Vanderhoef/ Well, I'm just, the sub-lease that they talk about in there...shall we say worrisome to me until I know what it is. Dilkes/ You certainly could call Susan Craig and talk to her about it. That might be the easiest way to get the information. Atkins/ That would be quickest, but I can certainly ask her for a memo. I mean.. . (several talking at once). She wouldn't mind. Dilkes/ The question is, does that memo come earlier than it normally comes, which is with the next packet. Atkins/ ...be with the next packet, but I would talk to her and.. . yeah. That's not soon enough? Call her, okay. Vanderhoef/ I'll just call her. Oh well.. .go see her tomorrow. Elliott/ But it would be.. ..we will get that memo? Atkins/ Yes. That's fine. I'll prepare that...have it prepared. Vanderhoef/ All right, I think that's good. Wilburn! Other agenda items? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Work Session Page 7 Item #3g(2). Steve Fugate: Restaurant oil collection Vanderhoef/ I like the offer of the recycling from the Iowa Energy, or whatever it is. (several talking at once) Elliott! Which one is this? Wilburn! It was a letter of correspondence. Elliott/ Oh, yes, yes. Vanderhoef/ I'll be interested in what you find out on that. Wilburn! Dale, you contacted him, correct? Helling! Yeah, there was some follow-up done. We're in the process of determining what happens now with the waste oil that the two haulers who are currently hauling it away. Maybe Rick's got some updates. Fosse/ Dog food. Right now it's being recycled as dog food and then they're also. checking into ways to convert it to biodiesel, as well, but they do recycle. Wilburn! Okay. Elliott/ I think that's potentially one of those win-win situations. Don't get many of those. Item #3g(10). Gina Peters: Johnson/Linn County Public Leadership Group Meeting Vanderhoef/ Uh-huh. It's certainly something if we start looking at the recycling in the downtown in particular, in a total fashion. I was curious, Mr. Mayor, previous Mayor was to go to the public leadership group. Will you be following up with doing that one? Wilburn! Uh' what's the date on that one? Karr/ .. . (several talking at once).. . already booked for the 25'\ I think. Wilburn! Yeah, I already have a commitment. So... Vanderhoef/ That's the... Atkins/ I've attended those, as well, and that was just a full day and I gave them notice that I wouldn't be there. Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Wark Session Page 8 Vanderhoef/ I've got something on the calendar, but I can't remember what it is. (several talking at once) Dilkes/ We really need you all to speak up a little bit. We're having a hard time... Karr/ I've got the earphones on and I can barely...(laughter)...you've got your budget in the morning. ... afternoon (several talking at once) Bailey/ It starts at 4:00. Wilburn! I'm in a meeting with some of the other mayors in the county at that time, so... Elliott! And, Connie, there's a Jail Facility Committee meeting at 4:00 that day, I believe. Champion! On Wednesday? Elliott/ Yeah. Wednesday the 25th. Wilburn! We're all over the place that day. (laughter) Any other agenda items? SNOW REMOVAL Atkins/ It means snow removal. Rick's up. Wilburn! Got a PowerPoint, Rick? I was going to be disappointed if there wasn't. Elliott! The last time you started offby saying dog food, and I thought that was some code word or something. Fosse/ No! And I think animal feed might be more accurate there. It's some.. . animals eat it. But, Steve asked me to put together some information for you about our snow removal efforts, and it's something that Public Works and Parks share. So, what I'll do tonight is just give you a quick outline of the various types of winter weather events that we prepare for, then look at how we deal with it for streets, take a brieflook at sidewalks, trails and bridges, and then we'll wrap things up by looking at the Central Business District and look at what some of the public and private responsibilities are in Central Business District. Has anybody figured out what street this is? Vanderhoefi' It must be Burlington. Elliott! I presume Burlington. Fosse/ Burlington, yes, that's right. That's looking east on Burlington Street. Winter storms come in all sorts of different flavors. We've got the fluffy kind. We got the wet, heavy snows, and then the nastiest of all, the ice storms, and each one This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23,2006 City Council Wark Session Page 9 requires different techniques to deal with it, and for us, storms that start out as one and then change into another can really goofus up, and those seem to be some of the most challenging. So, let's look at how we deal with it, at least for our streets. Beginning the Friday after Thanksgiving, our Streets' Department splits into two II-member teams, and one of those teams is on call 24-hours a day, through the first Friday or through the first weekend in April, and the Police Department will call us in or sometimes it's just obvious when to corne in to begin dealing with the snows. The city is split into II snow routes. We have II snow plows and that's why we have 11 people on each team, so if you ever wonder why the street's division has as many people as it does, that's determined by the number of snow routes. The last time we added a snow route was in the winter of2000 and 2001. The size of the snow route is in the 70 to 80 lane mile range, and what that is intended to do is, for an average storm - if there is such a thing - that a person would be able to cover their entire route during one shift. So that's what that's all about. We have 11 routes, and let's zoom in a little bit, and look within the routes. You'll see that each street has a different color on it, and the red streets are arterial streets and bus routes, like if you go along Friendship there, you pretty much can follow where the bus goes by following the red route. Next is the green, or excuse me, the blue routes. Blue routes are ones that have some difficult terrain or have a history of drifting, those are next on the priorities. And then finally are the green streets, which are the lowest priority. I believe Dee lives right here? Notice, she's on a green street. There's no favoritism here (laughter), and then after all these are done, we go in and start working on some alleys, but sometimes they don't get to the alleys before the next storm comes along, and it gets us. Here's one of our typical snow plows. You can see we got the plow in front, and we started adding... we got wing plows on our trucks now. They're really somewhat difficult to operate. Takes a lot of skill, but what that does, it's just a wider swath, which means fewer passes. We can get more done in a given amount oftime. It's like having a 30-inch lawn mower versus a 20-inch lawn mower. You get 50% more done. O'Donnell! Does that also pile it up deeper in the driveway? (laughter) Fosse! Yes, we have techniques to do that. (laughter) Vanderhoef! Thank you very much! Bailey! The packing down is a special technique. (laughter) Fosse! Now, on the back of the truck, this is the business end for getting the material out on the roads and we've got different mixes of sands and salts. The one thing to know about our applicators is that they're speed sensitive. So, once you set it to a certain rate, say 300 pounds per mile, regardless of what you speed you're going, it's going to put down 300 pounds per mile, which is a nice thing. For various mixes, if we have a mix that's heavy on the sand, light on the salt, that can go down to 300 to 400 pounds per lane mile range. Ifwe have a mix that's virtually This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23,2006 City Council Work Session Page 10 all salt, or salt and a little bit of sand, that goes down into 100 to 200 pounds per lane mile range, and something we're experimenting with this year is those lighter applications, because we want to put down as little of material as we can, and we'll talk about that more in a little bit Here's what, how you operate it We've got ajoy stick. It used to be a maze of hydraulic levers in there. Now it's all condensed into ajoy stick. This powers up the system, this runs the plow in front, this runs your wing plow, this one - can't read it here, but that says "blast" and that that does is that spews extra sand and salt out the back, so if you're coming up to an intersection that's icy, you hit the blast button, it puts down an extra dose of material down there, These down here, this controls the application rate, and this controls the rate at which the thing spins in back and how wide it's going to throw the sand and salt. So, if you've got your wing plow down and you need to throw it wider, you speed that up, If you don't, you narrow it up. And then if you pull back on the whole joy stick, that elevates the truck. So, you're all ready to go. If you run short, somebody's sick, we can get you out there to clear the streets. (laughter) Depending on the type of event we have, if we've got freezing rain and ice out there, we do put the chains on the trucks. This is very important .. .interesting is then the back wheels, you do both wheels, and the front, they only put them on one wheel, because that's all you need to steer with is one wheel there. The reason this is so important is the sanders you'll note, those sander boxes that slide in there, sit quite high and it gives the trucks a very high center of gravity. So, if you start sliding and hit the curb, over you go, and we don't like to do this, and that's one of the reasons that on our new trucks, we've started to specify what's called the "municipal body" and that's got a conveyor built into the bottom of a regular dump bed so we don't have to put a sanding box in there, keeps the center of gravity down, helps keep these trucks on their feet. It also holds more sand and salt, which means they can stay on the routes longer and there's less time spent coming back for more fuel, or more sand and salt. And they're also more versatile in the summer time. The downside is our leaf boxes don't fit in these, so we'll need to modify our leaf boxes if we get more of these trucks. During the heavy snows where we get like three to five inches ofthe heavy stuff, our snow plows don't maneuver well on cul-de-sacs and they don't have the power to push the big snows around, so that's when we get out the end loaders. We own two end loaders, we rent five additional ones in the winter time, and during those heavy snows, the snow plows are out, remember, we've only got eleven people on a shift, and then they park the plows, they come back, and they get these, and those are the events where we get the complaints from the people on the cul-de-sacs because it does take additional time to get out and deal with those situations. So, if you get some of those complaints, usually that's what's going on. Oh, here's where we store our materials. We've got a pile, we keep our sand over here. This is our salt building, which was a nice size when Regan was in office, but it's not anymore. We've outgrown that. We do store some salt outside, and we'll talk a little more about that later. Something we're doing differently this year is that we're pre-wetting out salt with a wetting agent, and it's a com syrup derivative and it's got about 30% magnesium chloride and what that does is it increases the rate at which the salt works, gives it a little more bit, it's This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Work Session Page 11 got better adhesion. So it stays on the road, eats down fast, begins melting quickly, and works to a lower temperature, and all this translates to lower application rates, as well, which is really the goal that we're after - putting down less material out there and having it be more effective. So far this year, we've been very pleased with it. Salt costs, we're paying about $42 a ton. It costs about another $12 a ton to put this on. It goes on at about eight gallons per ton and so we're up in the $52 range, $52 per ton range, and at the end of the year we'll sit back and see ifit's worth it, but right now it looks like a good way to go there. Here's.. .it's being sprayed on there, then it's stirred, then some more sprayed up there. So, after the salt's delivered, we add it. There are places that sell it pre- applied. The thing you'll notice in the street is it looks different. A plow will go by and you're used to seeing that brown snow behind a plow because there's a lot of salt in there. Well, you're not seeing the salt this year because depending on the type of storm, we throttle way back on the sand and just put the salt down, and so if you look at it up close, this is what you see when you look at the snow and the next day the snow's pretty well gone out there. If the weather's right, and that's one of the things that you really need to keep an eye on. We're fortunate here in Iowa City in that the D.G.T. operates a number of weather stations around the State, and we've got one right out here where Melrose intersects with Highway 218 and we can log on and get that data, real-time, zoom in there, and we can see that as of 3 :30 this afternoon, if it started snowing, the information here tells us that it would be a good day to put down a light application of salt only, no sand in there. Winds are below 15 m.p.h., our pavement temperatures are up in the 37 degree range. When your pavement temperatures drop below 15 degrees, or your wind is above 15 m.p.h., it's the rule of 15, you really need some abrasives in there. So, you've got to get the sand in there and mix it in at the higher rates then. There are some things to watch out for when you're going with a straight salt mix. I was driving through Cedar Falls last year and I saw this snow along the side of the road, and didn't make any sense that there was any snow there, and so I stopped and looked at it. It was salt. That's... they were having very poor adhesion to the road and it was scattering and all going offthe side of the road, and this went on for miles. I wanted to vac it up and bring it back (laughter). But, it's easy to waste this if you don't know what you're doing, and not only is it costly, it's not good for the environment either, and even if you have good adhesion on the road, it's possible to put down more than you need, as you see in this case here. The only good thing about this is the next snow that comes along won't stick to that pavement. There are also incentives to put down less salt, as well, and the obvious one that we've all seen is it fills our drainage structures and we need to run the street sweepers a lot in the spring time. It also degrades air quality because of the traffic on it, it kicks up a lot of particulate matter, it's not a good thing to have in the air. Something that a lot of people don't realize is because it is an abrasive, it trashes our pavement markings. Something that looks good in the fall, by mid-winter doesn't look so hot anymore. Sand just wears that off, so we want to... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Wark Session Page 12 Wilburn! Excuse me, Rick, that prior slide was all, that was all sand with grass growing out of it, wasn't it? Fosse! Yes. Wilburn! That's what I thought. Fosse! Back there a couple...you can see that culvert there is about half full of sand, and we...it gets in our culverts and in our ditches, and we need to clean that out. Wednesday morning when we're talking budget, we'll talk about what this is costing us in pavement markings. That's one of the line items that we'll be reviewing. And one thing to note, is when our Streets' Department is activated and working 24-hours, our Equipment Division is, as well. It's very hard on the equipment and we want to make sure that the stuffs out on the street going, so our mechanics are there to deal with things as they come up, which is good. Going back to the salt building a little bit, you can see that we're starting to stack salt outside because we don't have enough room, and we really don't want to stack outside, especially if we use the pre-treated salt because if we get one of those winter rains, it starts to wash that off, plus the run-off from the salt pile is not that great. We had a lot of snow in December, close to 18 inches, and this is what our salt building looked like just before Christmas. This is what we wanted for Christmas was more salt. So let's move on and talk about sidewalks, trails, and bridges, just briefly. We all know that you're responsible for clearing your own sidewalk in front of your house. This is an idea that Steve brought with him from another community, and that's putting out pre-mixed sand and salt so that residents can come along and scoop up what they need and keep it at their home, and we're going on 20 years now of doing this and it's worked out very nicely. We've had very little trouble with contractors coming and taking the piles. Had a little bit ofthat, but not much. Our trail system is expanding every year and our Parks Department has been gearing up with the equipment necessary to get out and clear the trails and they do a very nice job ofthat. They also clear the sidewalks on the bridges. Our Streets' Department, the only sidewalk they clear is one stretch along Benton Street that abuts University Heights. The people in University Heights will not shovel it, and we have no means to make them shovel it, so we have about three lots worth that we shovel. Into the Central Business District now. Business owners are responsible for shoveling the sidewalks in front of their businesses and that includes businesses that are on the City Plaza, as well. They're responsible for clearing the snow in Zone 1. If you recall, Zone I's that area that we allow sidewalk cafes in. Our Park's Department keeps the fire lanes clear, and then they also keep things such as the stairs and some mid-block crossings clear, as well. I heard that there were some complaints about bike racks and what our Park's folks do, is they try to keep at least a bike rack or two open at every entrance way to City Plaza, and in weather like this that's easy to do. In December, that was more difficult, but we do have a lot of bicycling commuters in town. If you go downtown tomorrow, you'll see a lot of bikes on the racks, and most of those are commuters. Some of them are long-term storage, and that can This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Wark Session Page 13 make it difficult to clear around the racks because if there's bikes chained to them there all winter you just can't clean out from underneath it. Also, downtown we do something called snow removal, which is different than snow plowing. When you plow snow you just push it off to the side; when you remove it, you physically take it out of there, and when we get enough snow in the downtown area, it is necessary to do removal, and that's a nighttime effort, when we're all asleep, we put together a team of Street folks, Park's people, and then private dump trucks, and what the Park's and Street's people do is get it all to the middle of the street in a big wind row and then this machine here launches it up into trucks and truck it off and we dump it off down by the Streets' Division, and an average night, we'll spend $8,000 to $10,000 in one of those efforts to get that done, between in-house costs and what it costs for the private dump trucks. If you remember, all of our trucks have the sanders, they're outfitted for sanders now so we're not going to be hauling in there. So, with that quick overview, I'll open it up to questions and see what else I can cover for you about snow policy. Elliott! I had a couple of questions. One is I know that one ofthe trails off of Sycamore was plowed and then swept. Do we really need to double up on that sort of thing? Fossel I think it depends on the storm. The sweepers can be very effective if there's not ice down there. Ifthere is ice, it can kind of polish it, but I can talk to Terry about that. Elliott! No, I just wondered because, you know, every... you're paying somebody to do that and it gets plowed and then the sweeper, obviously, just cleaned the sidewalk, but does it really need to be that clean. That was one. Is there a higher, is the cost going to increase if we would say, we'd like to have downtown have a higher priority, mean, snow removed earlier. Is there a cost effected with that, or does it just put some residential streets behind and we're going to get some complaints there. Fossel Oh, okay. Let me back up to the plow and broom first and then I'll answer that. When you see the plow and then the broom, it's because it's too deep for the broom to get all by itself and then the broom gets it down where it's suitable for pedestrians versus cars, which we do on the streets. Now, on the downtown, if we want a higher priority, at least for those walkways in front of the businesses, it's something that we should work with the businesses on because they're responsible for that. If we want to clear out the piles of snow and the snow that accumulates in the diagonal parking, and what parking we do have on streets downtown, that could cause delays to the outlying areas, because it's the same group of folks that do that, is clear those outlying areas. Elliott! I just thought...I think from the other day when we were talking about the roll back, as the rollback on residential property hurts us more and more, we have to be increasingly receptive and friendly to commercial property, and that's especially true downtown, and when downtown is the last one cleared, it makes This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Work Session Page 14 you wonder well, what's our priority for making our downtown a viable situation, and obviously, there are many thoughts that go into that. Fosse! Right. The order that it occurs in now is the streets are plowed at the same time as all the other streets are plowed, with the individuals shoveling their walks, just like we do at home. It's snow piles that wait until everything else is done. Elliott! I also think our business persons downtown certainly, I'm disappointed with how they treat the sidewalks. Fosse! Some do a good job, others could use some work. Bailey! Remember that question that came up when we were talking about this at a work session about the possibility of snow emergency route? For example, Holly Street right now. I know one of the big snows, there's cars that stay there and you can't.. .some haven't moved for maybe two weeks, and it's hard to get all the other snow and... Fosse! That's the nature of a college town that we're in, and my colleagues that work in communities that don't have colleges do enact the snow emergencies on somewhat of a regular basis. We do have an ordinance in place, and basically what that says that if you have a street with parking on both sides, during a snow emergency, everybody needs to be parked on the even side on even days, odd side on odd days, so that you can get at those areas. In reality, it's very rare that that's enacted because you're going to end up towing a lot of people out there. The students just aren't around, and.. . aren't cognizant of when an emergency is enacted. Bailey! But we could? Fosse! We could. Bailey! .. . decide to do that so that... Fosse! Yeah, one of the requirements is.. .it's in our ordinance, is that we put signs, when we enact one, that we put signs at all major entryways, saying that the emergency's in effect and the summery of what it means. I don't know how you would sign that, that would be.. . (laughter). Dilkes! You could change the ordinance to. . . you know. Fosse! Yeah. Bailey! So, I'm assuming that piled up cars effects our abilities to actually clear the streets well. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Work Session Page 15 Fosse! Yes. Bailey! I mean, it gets in the way of the snow plows and it causes problems. Okay. Fosse! It does...snow removal, as well as street cleaning, and that's why we do our spring cleaning during spring break. We line up and we get lots of shifts going and we do the signing and get that done during spring break. Champion! I think we actually do a really good job of snow removal. I guess my problem with the downtown is that we make the students move their cars at 2:00 A.M. or I :00 A.M. because we're telling them we want to clean the streets or plow the snow, and I don't see that happening. I saw it happening at least the night that it snows, and then what happens is businesses plow their sidewalks, or shovel them. The walkways never get cleared and then when it's warm you've got three inches or four inches of water because they're.. . and it's unbelievably messy, so to me if we're going to make people move their cars at 2:00 A.M. because that's when we clean and plow the snow, I think that's when we should be doing it. I mean, they come in the next morning, those intersections ought to be clear. That's my objections to making students move their cars all the time and tow them when they don't move them, if we're not going to make use of that time. O'Donnelll Well, we do plow at 2:00 in the morning. I got woke up by a snow plow last Friday night, or early Saturday morning. Fosse! And when we do the removal in the downtown area, that starts at 11 :00 and hopefully we're done by 8:00. Atkins! Rick, isn't it a matter, the same people that do the residential, the street cleaning, are the same people that do the downtown snow removal? And it's always going to be, in effect, a day late because if they're out doing street work, they cannot be downtown doing a very labor intensive snow removal effort. So, I can understand your point. We still need to have, whoever parks downtown, move their car, but it's going to be a day late. You with me? Because those same people have finished doing their arterial, collectors, residential, and then the next day or late that night, they're called back in to do the snow removal. So, it's like it's always going to be 24-hours behind. Champion! And what about, I thought we didn't plow residential streets unless there was at least four inches of snow? Atkins! Three now. Correia! Yeah, what is the policy? That's what I hear the most frequent. Let's call them complaints or concerns about is, the snow plow.. .it's snowing and the snow plows aren't out, and what is the rule or the policy? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Wark Session Page 16 Fosse! The old policy was until there's three inches of snow, they aren't plowing, but as a matter of reality, we get out sooner than that because what happens is the arterial street system begins to break down long before that. The old school of thought, especially when you had a lot of sand in your mix, was that you needed to, you didn't drop the blade and plow that snow off until you'd had a chance to put some sand and salt on it, and let it work a while. Well, that just hasn't proved to be a good idea, that new technologies work better. You want your plow down sooner than later. So that's where that old three inches came from. Bailey! Well, there were plows out Friday night and there wasn't a lot of snow and I was actually quite happy that there were plows out. I mean... Fosse! More often than not, that's what you'll see. Bailey! Yeah, because it becomes very slushy and that's when I get concerned about because... there are some cars just don't do a good job of getting through the slush that builds up on arterial streets. Fosse! One place where there is a judgment call that I wouldn't mind some input on is in the downtown, when we do snow removal, when we come in at night and get it out of there, how big do the piles need to be before you do that, because when you're looking at a minimum of $8,000 to mobilize and do it, do you do it after a two-inch snow, or do you wait until you have five or six inches on the ground? And...if you all would like more clean than not, just let me know. Bailey! I would prefer more clean than not. I mean, I would prefer smaller piles. And that's, I have a question about the letters we got about the bike racks. The concerns was not that the bike racks were snowed in, it's that they were piled in, that the snow had been, I think, pushed, and that was my observation too because I know we got a lot of snow in December, but that wasn't just the result of the snowfall. Snow had been pushed against the bike racks. Fosse! Yes, and I talked to Terry about that and he said that keeping the bike racks clear has been a priority for them for years. It just got goofed up in that one storm. They put their first priority on getting the walkways clear, and the next priority is clearing off the snow, or the bike racks, and that's certainly easier if you don't push snow onto them. Bailey! There were lots of.. . and they were piled in quite a few days, and so.. . okay. Elliott! I think.. . having to do with that is where the bike racks are placed, because if they're placed right adjacent to the curb, then they're going to get dumped on and the bikes will get damaged. If there's some way to.. .I think we talked about making it, putting out more information, that people parking bikes downtown need to go to the ramps and park their bikes there during the winter. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006, January 23, 2006 City Council Work Session Page 17 Schreiber/ Seems like the theme is that there just aren't enough people to do everything. Is there any way to have emergency personnel that comes on during portions of large snow falls so that we can get (can't understand) or move things up in priority? Bailey/ Do eleven routes really do it, and do eleven-member teams really do it? I guess would be the (can't hear). Fosse/ Well, yeah, we have eleven trucks. We're probably a year or two out from adding a 12th route and a 12th truck. Our crews can work a maximum of 16 hours, then they need at least eight hours off, so that they're awake at the wheel. So, sometimes we do get overlap between both teams working outthere so we can have blowers going as well as the trucks. As far as supplementing staff, it's just a matter of bringing temps on. We bring temps on in the summer time to pour concrete and asphalt work, in the fall for leaf removal, but we haven't been bringing temps on to help the snow removal in the winter time because that's such an unpredictable thing. You can schedule concrete repair, you can schedule your leaf vacuuming, but you can't schedule your snow storms. Champion! And the other problem I think we have is we're really right below the snow belt, and how much do you want to invest in snow removal when we may go three or four winters before we have a really what I would call a big snow fall, and I'm not a believer that every street has to be free of snow. I don't think every street has to be totally free of snow. I think sidewalks need to be cleaned. But, I think, how much money do you want to put in to something that we don't, it's not like we're 200 miles north where we're getting snow, can depend upon a certain amount of snow every winter. We really don't get a lot of snow. When we get it sometimes there's a lot, but not very often. Vanderhoef/ It melts off faster down here (several talking at once). Bailey/ Well, I don't get many calls saying 'great job on snow removal.' Champion! It's not perfect, but you know... Bailey/ I get calls on not perfect but good job (several talking at once). Champion! ... the complaints I get are because snow in their driveway, and I'm sorry, I don't have any sympathy fOr it. Wilburn! I did get five calls that said they did like the solution added to the salt. Fosse/ We are hearing positive things, and we're especially hearing from the bicycle community out there because we don't have that sand residue in gutters where they ride. What's that? (several talking at once) They're not crashing. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23, 2006 City Council Work Session Page 18 Wilburn! Okay, thank you, Rick. Elliott! An observation and a question. We talked about, obviously temps would be significantly less expensive than regular people working overtime, but I would wonder after looking at joy sticks and all of the (can't understand), and not only that, but how you maneuver the trucks, it's...it has some amount of skill involved in that. Fosse/ Oh, you bet! Elliott! I would say much more than some amount. I'd be up in somebody's front yard. Your going with salt more than sand, and obviously chemicals, is that correct? Is that much more environmentally friendly? Fosse/ Yes it is, and the reason for that is the total amount of material going down is less. We're just, we're backing away from how much we're using and we're going to find that bottom end, but we're working into that so we don't have too many complaints along the way. Bailey/ If we would want smaller piles of snow downtown, can you give us a sense at some point of what that dollar amount would be? I mean, if downtown becomes a priority, can you give us a sense of what that (can't hear)/ Fosse/ It'll really vary by the winter. But right now, we wait... Bailey/ Sure, use this winter as an example, because...I don't know, December was very snowy, and that's also a time when we really want people downtown and able to get around. Fosse/ Right, and in December we cleared, or we did removal in the downtown area twice, and had that been January that might have been only once, but we added that second one in because of Christmas shopping season and we wanted to make it more inviting down there. And as I said, each time you do it, it's in the $8,000 to $12,000 range. Atkins/ The snow thrower, we have one? Fosse/ Uh-huh. Atkins/ Would two make a difference? Well, it would obviously make a difference, buL.. Champion! We need more dump trucks then probably. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofthe Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006. January 23,2006 City Council Work Session Page 19 Atkins/ Then my next question would be, we...the dump trucks are operated by private contractors. F osse/ Right, we take bids every year, call them in. . . Atkins/ Right, and we require them to be able to produce ten trucks or something. Would increasing the number of those, of course, the snow blower thing, yeah, like culvert yeah, the snow blower thing (laughter) could only work so fast. Fosse/ Yeah. We also have a tractor-mount one at the Airport, but I don't know that... having two of them would really help a lot, it's just if we want to make a decision to get in there more often than less often, then we'll work with that direction. Atkins/ Well, I think we're hearing more often. Fosse/ Yes. Elliott! Also, there's a possibility that what we're talking about is strictly priority issues, . and we're going to.. ..somebody's going to get short-changed no matter what. Is it going to be residential streets, is it going to be the downtown area, but I think that Regenia pointed out that particularly in December when we would really like to encourage people to corne here, when they see that there are huge piles of snow and big puddles and slush, that's discouraging, so... F osse/ Kind of just brings on that Christmas mood. (laughter and several talking at once) Wilburn! One of the other ideas when the SMID carne up was we were going to do some pooling of infrastructure, street cleaning, snow removal, so it's unfortunate that that didn't get through. Thanks, Rick. Our formal meeting starts at 7:00 P.M. We have Council time. I'd recommend we wait until after our formal meeting. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of January 23, 2006.