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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-01-25 Transcription January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page I January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session 9:00 A.M. Council: Bailey, Champion, Correia, Elliott, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn Staff: Atkins, Karr, Rocca, Franklin, Knoche, Helling, Trueblood, Fosse, Davidson, O'Malley, Mansfield, Lewis Tapes: 06-07, SIDE 2; 06-13, SIDE 2; 06-09, SIDE I and SIDE 2 BUDGET OVERVIEW Atkins! Okay, all set to go? (several talking at once) Regardless of what the point is, you're on camera today. Couple things for you to get started off. Today is capital projects review, but I want to give you a couple of announcements on (can't hear). One is I hope a number of you had the chance to see you're got (can't hear) in the Gazette (several talking at once). Karr! I'm sorry, I can't... you have to wear the mikes. Thank you. Elliott! I'm putting it on. Atkins! At the last work session, we discussed the issue of the dramatic increase in residential values and how we might chose to deal with that. We have roughed out a proposal- I don't have it to hand to you today, but we will have it in time for the next meeting. What we've done is take a look at the tax rate, and from what I understood, we're attempting to lessen the impact of the residential value increase by lowering the tax rate and using reserves to cause that to occur. Now a couple questions come to mind. Ifwe make this effort, will the County and the schools choose to do that? We don't know. But what we've done is put together a new tax rate proposal for you that eliminates the emergency levy, reduces the benefit levy, and through the use of cash from our reserves, reduces the debt service levy. That is somewhat similar to a pay-as-you-go process. We choose the debt service levy because quite frankly it could improve our financial standing. Whenever you use cash to pay for capital projects, those who rate you from a credit standpoint, are impressed. We'll have more for you on that shortly, giving you the exact numbers. It's being polished right now. On the 30th, you have boards and commissions in the evenings, to remind you. On the 31 st, I don't recall if we agreed to 8:30 or 9:00 to noon. We have an open session. It would seem to me, excuse me, it would seem to me that if you have specific issues, that would be a time to prepare yourselfto put those on the table for discussion, and then we need to set up a work session with fire and police, that's the information you gave me the other day and I have not done that yet, but will get that to you shortly. Okay, Capital Plan. Correia! I have a question. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 2 Atkins/ Yes? Correia! I would like to get a sense, how would we get a sense what the County and the schools are going to do, besides paying attention to their public meetings? I talked to a school board member and they approach budget very differently. Atkins/ Yeah, they do. Correia! Urn, but I think we should talk with the County about our concerns because I think that's important for the taxpayers that we do that. Wilburn! Should we send a letter? Should we try and get a meeting? (several talking at once) Elliott! Can you just call Lane? Atkins/ I can call Lane. My gut instinct would be, it may be something that, Ross, you should do. Talk to the Chair of the School Board. Sally's the Chair. Mike is the Chair at the County, County Board. I think just a quick visit with them. Then if we need to do something more formal, like (can't understand, several talking). Yeah. Is that okay? Champion! I'm not sure the School Board has any control over that. (several talking) Correia! Don't they have any levies like we do? Champion! Oh, yeah, they have levies. Yeah. They could reduce those. (several talking) But the General Fund, I don't think they can. Correia! I think that would be the best way to proceed, though. Get a sense. Wilburn! I'll give them a call. Correia! Thanks. Atkins/ In front of you, you have a...maps, specific maps. It's just intended to give you a little better feel for where capital projects...they're in alphabetical order. They're in the order that you'll see presented to you today. Making notes on projects - I'd sort of recommend you use your budget book. Either that or just.. .make your notes on the projects. We'll be working from that, as well. The Capital Plan, as we balanced it, involves obviously a debt management plan. What we tried to do continues an operating policy, is that as we retire debt we will consider new debt. Ifwe retire $4 million and it's never exactly dollar for dollar. There'll be years where you'll be.. .ifyou look at our debt position ten years ago, we were at 38%. By 09, we're at 40, and so we haven't dramatically altered our debt capacity position. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 3 Elliott! Steve, that's 38% and 40% of the General Fund? Atkins! Of the assessed values. Elliott! Ofthe assessed values, okay. Atkins! There's a chart in here, Bob. Champion! Yeah, there is. Atkins! On page 26... the chart on the top of the page, you'll see the numbers, the spikes in there, the Library Bond, you understand the principal and the.. . our debt plan assumes that we will take full advantage of any grants that are available, and that we will continue to have a favorable market for our debt. We also make the assumption that there is no dramatic change from the State. The State has traditionally not gotten in our way with respect to debt. Could they potentially freeze something or alter it? The answer is "yes," but they have not done that as a matter of practice. They generally deal with our operating budgets. Can I make the assumption that there will be no dramatic change on the part ofthe Council? Okay. And those that we've got some cost and investment in, we will continue to proceed with, such as the McCollister/Mormon Trek. You could always change those, but I'm making the assumption. We also assumed that there will be no dramatic change in the construction market. Most everything in here of any consequences did. Generally, we've been happy with our ability to get, to get good bids. And finally that we will assume the continuation of our credit rating at its current levels. And with that, unless there's any questions about what we're going to do today, we're ready to go. We're going alphabetically out of the book. Who's up? Airport Runwav 7 Knoche! The first project on the agenda today is the Airport-Runway 7 extension. You can see in the foreground there, there's a crane laying down. That's a crane that's there today putting the box culvert together for Willow Creek. This project, about $4.7 million will be a 95 FAA grant, 95%!5% City match. The project has had a little bit of a setback. Originally, the FAA grant was supposed to be in place already with the grading bid. With that setback, we're optimistic that we'll have a grant in place by August or September of this year, and be able to get it out to bid and get some construction done this fall, and hopefully have the runway extension done next year. The project would include the grading, runway - the actual paving for the runway extension, lighting, and then also moving some of the equipment around on the Airport property. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 4 American Lel!:ion Road - Scott / Taft Avenue Knoche/ Second project is the American Legion Road, Scott Boulevard to Taft Avenue project. This will improve American Legion Road to an urban cross-section, curb and gutters, storm sewer, include an 8' sidewalk along that, that would connect out to the Windsor Ridge subdivision, and also the Windsor West subdivision that's currently coming into play. That one will be funded, it shows GO Bonds, but they'll also be some development fees that'll go along with that project. Wilburn! What's the...I forget the, how do you calculate that percentage, developer fees? I saw Karin walking up so I thought maybe she.. . Franklin! The developer fees are calculated based on an equation for whether it's an arterial street or a collector street. Generally speaking, there is a percentage, which is contributed to community-wide traffic, and a percentage that is contributed to traffic from the development. The percentage for the traffic from the development then is split 50/50 for one side of the road, the other side of the road, and it, then it's a per acre fee. Vanderhoef/ Okay, and on our map here, the golf course addition is one closest to the built-out Windsor Ridge. Then that other rectangular piece that backs up to Scott Park, is that being developed now? Franklin! Not at this point in time. That's the property that's owned by the Hieronymus family, just to the west of the golf course. Is that what you're talking about, Dee? Vanderhoef/ Uh-huh. Franklin! Yeah, that's not being developed at this time, but in time it will. Vanderhoeti' And they also own the little block... Franklin! Right at the comer? Vanderhoef/ Dh-huh. Franklin! I think that's correct. Yeah. Yeah, so we have two other, that property which would redevelop at some point, which would be potential contributor to this road, and then of course on the south side of the road. Vanderhoef/ So we can go back because this is a bit of a hopscotch that we're bypassing undeveloped. Franklin! Right, and this proj ect is scheduled in the out years for Fiscal Year 10. What we have done with these projects, that as we get development along these roadways that require some improvement to City standards in the future, is we put This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 5 them in our Capital Improvements Program and that's one of the conditions upon which a final plat can be approved, is that the road is in the Capital Improvements Program and then we do the exaction. So, as soon as we're looking, usually at annexation or rezoning, the next step is to get that road in the Capital Improvements Program. And so, we have it all set for any future development in that area. Okay? Aviation Commerce Park South Franklin! The next project is Aviation Commerce Park South. This is development of approximately 68 acres south of the Airport along Mormon Trek Extended. It is dependent, as you all koow, upon the closure of the north-south runway, which, and the completion of Mormon Trek, all of this should take place and be finished - at this point we're estimating the summer of2007. Much of it, of course, is dependent upon funding from the FAA for the runway, but that appears to be the schedule we'll be able to fulfill now. The infrastructure to the site, when Mormon Trek Extended is completed, the road, sewer and water will be provided to the site. The Capital Project reflects the fill that would be required for these acreages to make them buildable. Some of that may be diminished, that is the amount of fill we would have to fill, by the culvert project that we're currently undertaking at Mormon Trek and 921. Correia! This funding says "miscellaneous other," what is that? Franklin! I think Mr. Atkins or Mr. O'Malley might be able to answer that. O'Malley/ I think that we were hoping that on the sale ofthe Wal-Mart property that we could use some ofthose funds to apply for this area. Correia! And ifthat is held up or doesn 't happen? Atkins! Sort of a basic underlying principle is the Airport will pay for the development. We will be fronting the money, as they sell off the lots. That's how we would ultimately pay for it. Wal-Mart is just one of the examples. But we, if we do sell any debt or use any of our own current cash, and I'm not real sure when we will make that decision, but the bottom line is the Airport would bear all the costs. Wilburn! So, eventually transfer (can't hear). Atkins! Yes, should be a wash for us, all said and done. Elliott! Karin, before you leave the Airport, can you kind of give us an idea of what's south of there? There is an area that on our maps here is ringed by a dotted red line, and then what's the situation south of the Airport? If and when thoughts of development occur. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 6 Franklin! South of the Airport.. .in this area here, is that where you're talking about, Bob? Elliottl I'm talking about a little further south. Franklin! Immediately south of the development area, I lose my arrow here, I'm sorry. If you can look at your maps, where'd it go? Okay, we have the Colonial Lanes, which is right on the highway there, and then there's the pond that is part of Lakeridge Manufactured Housing Park, and, of course, Lakeridge Park takes up much of that area just to the south of Morrnon Trek. Elliott! Okay, and then... Franklin! And that's all in the County. Elliottl That's all County. Franklin! The bowling alley is in the City, but the manufactured housing park is in the County. So, w e don't have any control over that right now. Elliott! Is that within the joint City development... Franklin! It's within the fringe area agreement, but this is one project in which, this was a number of years ago, this property was developed over the objections of the City. We did not advocate the residential development in this location. At the time, the County Board chose to zone it for the manufactured housing park regardless. Okay? Elliott! Good, thanks. Brookland Park Redevelopment Trueblood! (several talking) Okay, Brookland Park redevelopment, this is a project that started out with a PIN Grant proposal, the Melrose Neighborhood Association became very active in that. They were granted half of what they were seeking to develop this concept plan. So, we through our budget contributed the other half and this is what we ended up with. It was a very active group. We had four or five meetings, and good attendance at each one of them. Get this on the right page. This park was established in 1924, so it is a very old park. It had, it had, still has but won't have, a number of access issues as far as accessibility goes. It also had creek flooding issues, okay, how come I can't find my arrow? There we go! Right down in this area right down in here, every spring and sometimes more often, that entire section of the park would be flooded, acting kind oflike a storrn- water management area. Some parts of this project include actually doing some relocation of the creek. It meanders a little bit more. How come I keep losing my arrow, Mr. Rick...Mr. High-Tech? What's that? (several talking) This you mean? I didn't want to do a dance. (laughter) Okay, it's not coming up anymore. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 7 There it is. I found it! The creek through there is actually proposed to meander more than it does right now and be more in the center of the park, which provides more green space over here; some steps to actually help minimize, probably not prevent the flooding issues. It includes... this sidewalk currently exists in the park, but it's going to be completely tom out and rebuilt. Over in here there's steps, concrete steps, that have become a big problem. That's going to be replaced with a ramp, concrete ramp, just leading into the sidewalk. It includes a new shelter, a relocated shelter, to make it more easily accessible. That includes all new playground equipment. It basically is a complete renovation of the park. Currently scheduled for PYa?, proposed for PYa? All of the, when we met with this neighborhood they came up with about it must have been 50 or more ideas for the park. The point where we had to remind them, 'Okay, now this is a 2.3 acre park. It's not a 230 acre park.' You know (laughter) but they were basically just going through ideas, no holds barred, realizing that they would have to eliminate a number of them at another point. We'll continue to have just so you know, we'll continue to have a problem with the railroad crossing, okay, there we go. Up basically in this area right here, this is used, this gets a lot of pedestrian traffic from students. There's apartments over there and they cut through the park to get to the campus and in the railroad area, they use that as a shortcut, which is not a safe situation, but they will continue to use it. We actually met with the railroad to see if we could have their permission to create a pedestrian pass over the railroad there, knowing ahead of time that we probably wouldn't get it and we didn't. They just don't want any part of that and won't give permission to do so, but part of the reason that they won't is because that whole stretch along there is used as a, I don't remember what they called it - a staging area? Resting area? Something like that, basically all the way from the street, way back up past the University. If they had a long train that needs to delay for a while, that's one of their areas where they can park the train for an extended period of time and for safety and liability reasons, they don't want students having to, even though they do now, they don't want students crawling through boxcars to get to the other side. If they do it now, it's not an official crossing. If it became an official crossing, they would still do that and then the liability increases, so that's part of the reason they don't want to do it. Wilburn! Someone had actually shown me pictures, a video of students crossing over there and I suggested they send them to Jeff. Trueblood! Short of building a probably 10' or 12' high fence all the way from the street, way back past the park, it's not going to stop it. So we have posted signs that say 'this is not an official crossing' and the signs don't last very long, and so it's basically just something we have to live with, I guess. Any questions about this? Elliott! $225,OOO? Trueblood! Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 8 Champion! Is there any possibility, I can't remember the layout of the land there, it's pretty flat, isn't it? Trueblood! Well, part of it is flat. The rest of it is pretty sloped. Not nearly as sloped as say Benton Hill Park. Champion! We couldn't do one of those underpasses like we have over in the Longfellow Neighborhood? Trueblood! We looked at that, and it was actually an engineer from the railroad that we met with. We looked at that and thought well, maybe it's possible, maybe not. It's going to be very, very expensive to do something like that. Wilburn! Good job on the PowerPoint, Terry. Burlin!!ton Street Median Franklin! Okay, this project is the Burlington Street median. It includes a median from the Iowa River to Gilbert Street, that's the concept. This is something that goes back to the near southside redevelopment plan, that was adopted by the Council in 1992. We brought a movie of how this would look to the Council back last spring, and with Council's direction are going forward with looking at a design of this. We are in the design phase now. We've hired a consultant to work with the team that represents the staff, Iowa D.O.T., the Downtown Association, and the University of Iowa to put together a design concept and a preliminary cost estimate for this. The next step then would be to come back to the Council with the design concept and if you approved it and wished to go forward, the next step would be construction plans and construction. Right now, we have this scheduled for FY09. Bailey/ How does that coordinate with the potential redevelopment on the comer of Clinton and Burlington? Right next to the... Franklin! We will.. .as we look at development, such as the one that you're referring to, we're going to be looking at limitations on access to Burlington Street regardless. Just to try to increase the functionality of Burlington Street. It's likely that the most that we will have...well, if the median goes in and even ifit does not go in, that we will be looking at right-in, right-out type of access points, if any, or exit only. Bailey/ Okay. Correia! And there's also, is the University planning development on Burlington and Madison, so that coordinates with that? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 9 Franklin! Correct, and one of the reasons that we wanted to have a University ofIowa person on this team was to take that project into consideration, and Larry Wilson, who's going to be on the team, is the person who's kind of in charge of working through that. Elliott! Karin, median would double as safety islands? Franklin! Right. The idea is to channelize pedestrians as much as possible, to organize the traffic there, to have those refuges for pedestrians, and also just to enhance the functionality of Burlington Street. Elliott! And our any of the streets that are further, let's see...Burlington goes east-west. Further east, are any of those streets going to be just closed off so you can't enter or exit off Burlington, or is it now assumed that all those streets will remain? Franklin! All ofthe streets, Madison, Clinton, Linn...Dubuque, Linn and Gilbert will remain open, and then east of there will just be as it is today. Okay? Davidson! Amy, I did want to add that the University has been very supportive of the Burlington Street. They see it as a way of hopefully (can't hear), and you never mentioned that we want to make it look nicer too. Franklin! Oh, great! (laughter) Davidson! We'll be exploring some landscaping treatments (can't hear). Butler Bridl!e Pedestrian Trail Davidson! This project is the Butler Bridge pedestrian trail. I think most of you are aware that with the Iowa River Corridor Trail being extended under Interstate 80 now that essentially the trail between the Coralville Dam and Napoleon Park is completed, very nice regional trail. Approximately 12 or 13 miles. Still a few improvements on the Peninsula, specifically the area of No Name Street and Taft Speedway, you're on the street in those parts, but we feel it's perfectly safe to be on the street, on those particular streets, but may at some point want to enhance those areas with a trail, but otherwise it is complete. There is an area that you see here though that we think can be improved and really improve the safety for pedestrians and bicyclists. I don't know if you're familiar with this area, but if you cross the Butler Bridge now you are on the.. .you are on the basically the shoulder of the roadway in this area. It gets filled up, although we do sweep it occasionally, it gets filled up with sand and other debris. So what we would do is extend the piers of the bridge and construct a separate bridge - you can see it on the drawing there - to the downstream side. We have a grant application with the State that is in currently for 80% of the funding for this. You can see there in your CIP manual that we have this in FYO? That would be contingent on receiving the grant funds. We'll reassess the project if we don't receive them. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 10 That's a State Recreational Trails program, and we should know by early spring if we're going to...that's a competitive program with everybody else in the State. You'll see we have negotiated having 25% of the local match being provided by the City of Coralville. Eventually, according to the Land Use Agreement that is in place, the quadrants formed by Dubuque Street and the river, three of them will be in the City of Iowa City and... three will be in Iowa City and one will be in Coralville, hence the split 25/75 of the local match with Coralville. Vanderhoef/ Tell me, our boundary lines are in the middle of the river. So, half that bridge is in the County, correct? Davidson! Right now, three-quarters of it is in the County and one-quarter of it is in Iowa City. Eventually, three-quarters of it will be Iowa City and one-quarter will be Coralville. As the area's annexed, that's how the annexation will occur. Vanderhoef/ Seems to me we ought to be getting some County funds to connect up there. Davidson! I think the County sees this situation, Dee, the same way they saw, you know, they got burned on First Avenue in Coralville where they went in and replaced a bridge at several hundred thousand dollars and then a couple years later Coralville annexed it. And I don't think they're going to let that happen again. Vanderhoef/ I know. However, those County folk do use the bridge. Davidson! And that's an excellent item to bring up at JCCOG (cart't hear). I also wanted to add, we have also decided after some discussion with Linn County, we've been working with this corridor group on the delegation going to Washington. Some of you will be the delegates on that trip. We made a decision that both Linn County and Johnson County would come in.. .at the last minute we decided each of us would come in with a trail project, just in case in Washington they decided to make trail projects a priority, we wanted to have a project that was ready to go. We took a look at what was out there and this was a project that was ready to go. We had the grant application done and everything. So, we will actually be asking for special earmarked funds, as well, so we have two possible sources of funding for the federal share ofthis. Camp Cardinal Road Knoche/ Camp Cardinal Boulevard project is one that's currently under construction. Streb Construction ofIowa City is the prime contractor. They're finishing up phase two right now. The first phase was to get both ends of the project completed from Melrose up to Deer Creek, and get that portion open, and then there's a connection to the Clear Creek Bridge on the Coralville end that needed to get done. Phase two is getting the utilities - storm sewer, some sanitary sewer, and some water main in, in between those two points. This project is a joint project with Coralville and Iowa City, and then Southgate Development is also a This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page II partner in this project. The project will be finished this summer and the connection will be made. It's a little bit different cross-section than what we see on most of our streets. It'll be a two-lane street with a median separating the single lanes. In the middle of the project there's a regional detention basin for the Southgate Development project of which ones are those...it's Cardinal Ridge Development, and then also what will be developed with the Camp Cardinal area. So, the road grade actually serves as a dam for part of the detention basin. There will be an 8' sidewalk that'll go the full length of the project, so it also acts as making continuity in the trail system. Elliott! On the Butler Bridge proj ect, it shows the amount that will be shared by Coralville and you said the Camp Cardinal Road, Coralville is involved with that, but it doesn't indicate on our materials the portion that would be paid by Coralville. Knochel What you're seeing in this budget is just the Iowa City share of it, including the share that we're paying for Southgate Development. So you don't see the Coralville share in this. Court Hill Trail Davidson! Another trail project is the Court Hill Trail. I think most of you through your work on JCCOG are familiar with this project. We just received Transportation Enhancement Fundings so we have programmed it for 07. This is a project that's actually...it's not all that well known, but it's been in the plans for, or we have been planning for it for 10 or 15 years. As development projects have occurred in east Iowa City, between Scott Park and Creekside Park, we have gotten bits and pieces of the trail and have quite a bit of it acquired in the area between First Avenue and Scott Park. There are also segments of it built in that area already. Most recently, just to the west of Scott Park, tying Scott Boulevard in with the subdivision streets in that area. That was completed a couple of years ago. I believe what we're looking at here is an area where, in conjunction with the Meadow Street Bridge reconstruction this past summer, it was set up to have the trail accommodated in the vicinity of the park there on Meadow Street. We will be extending it then in this project all the way through to Creekside Park. We have flood easements required after the 93 flood that will enable us to keep the property acquisition to a minimum on this project. I have had questions from a couple of you about the eventual extent of this trail. I mean, right now it is planned between Scott Boulevard and, excuse me, Scott Park and Creekside Park. It does extend.. .it does connect then to trails in the Windsor Ridge area, Lindemann Hills area. On the other side, however, beyond basically between downtown and Creekside Park, to stay along the creek, we would be faced with hundreds of property acquisitions because basically they're all private, individual lots. So, our thinking has been that either through the, there's a good grid street system with a lot oflocal, low-volume streets. A lot of bicyclist find that going from Creekside Park to downtown a fairly easy commute. It would also be This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 12 possible to formalize that through some wide sidewalks, for example, along Muscatine Avenue. You could put an 8' sidewalk in. That will be subsequent to this proj ect, but I did want to let you know that we have at least been thinking about those things. Elliott! This, there is the existing trail from Scott Boulevard for what, a couple blocks? Does this hook up with that, or is there going to be some dead space? Davidson! Yes, this will be an element of that. Now there will be some areas, Bob, where this trail will be signed to be on streets, low-volume local streets, and to tie essentially the segments of the trail system together. But for example, East Hill Subdivision, in the vicinity of the Meadow Street Bridge, when that was platted, we got property so we can just go in and build the trail through there. Vanderhoef! I would like to see the extension via the sidewalks be placed on the unfunded list at this point in time so that we're real clear opportunity time, or whatever, that we widen sidewalks and rather than say just to downtown, I want it to say to the river trail, so that it goes and makes a complete connection. Dodl!:e Street Reconstruction - 1-80 to Governor Knoche! Dodge Street Reconstruction, a project I've been working on since I started in 1999 (laughter). So, we're getting close to the end. This is a project that Metro Pavers is the prime contractor on, currently under construction. This is, the picture that you see is what it looked like most of the summer up there. Unfortunately, we didn't get as far along as we were hoping. They didn't get the 8' sidewalk reconstructed and they also didn't get the roadway lighting put up on that piece of the project, but I think with the work ahead of them, I think we'll get done this next summer. We'll be taking off from where they ended at Dubuque Road, going up to Scott Boulevard, skipping over a little bit there - that was reconstructed there with the Captain Irish project and then going four-lane north to Interstate 80. There will be an 8' walk that goes all the way along this, and there's going to be quite a bit oframp reconstruction that goes along with this project, also. Originally, D.O.T. wasn't interested in doing any ramp renovations, and now it's going to be probably a pretty significant part of the project coming next year. So, there's going to be traffic congestion. It's probably going to be worse than it was this summer, just due to the fact that we're going to be dealing with the interstate and dealing with the interchanges. There will be a point where this southbound, Highway 1 to eastbound movement onto Interstate 80 will be closed so that, that ramp will be closed for that left turn movement. What has to happen there is some shifting of traffic from the southbound bridges of Highway 1 and then the northbound bridges, so there's going to be some staging that goes on there. It'll make it pretty congested. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 13 Elliott! What's the, what's the time estimate on that? I noticed.. . Coralville's was way behind. How far behind are we on this, and when next year, or later this year, are you anticipating that? Knoche/ I would say that by the time they've got the work done in the winter, we're probably two months behind getting just the.. . kind of the restoration work done in that first phase of the project and then it's a full construction season that they were given in the contract to complete the remainder of it. The advantages, they did do some of the fill work in the ravines this summer, and so they have some of the preliminary stuffready to go. So, the second phase, which takes the three- lane up to Scott Boulevard, probably move along a little bit faster than what we had originally planned, and then there will be the ravine work that they have to do between Scott Boulevard that A.C.T. Circle. So there's going to be some significant work that'll have to be done there. Bailey/ Near Governor we lost a lot of trees. What's the landscaping plan for this, once it's finally completed? Knoche/ The landscaping plan, what we did during property acquisition was basically gave the, gave money to the property owners to redo any landscaping that they lost. There is a landscaping plan from Dubuque Road north to Interstate 80. There's some revegetation that's going to happen down in the ravine areas where quite a bit of trees have been lost, but as far as kind of that urban-feel area, it'll basically be up to the property owners to redo some of those. In the end, we end up losing... I think there was... there were three trees at the comer of Prairie Du Chien that were lost, one of them was due to the (can't understand) that went in and the other one was at the request of the property owner, and then there were a few trees that were lost along Dodge Street, but there were a few, actually a few of the trees were lost earlier than that, there were some dead trees that were cleaned out, so... Elliott! That house on that comer looks so much different now than it did. Knoche/ Yes it does. Elliott! Hardly recognize it! Knoche/ Yeah, when I....Mr. Stamp owns the property there. We were working with him early on. They were concerned, but then after they lost the first big tree, they said, 'Well, why don't you just take the second one and we'll, you know, replant, and make them nice again. So, that's, that area in there, there's some redevelopment that's already occurring in that area, and there's going to be more redevelopment occurring. So, 1... Bailey/ So it's really up to them. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006, January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 14 Knoche! It's really going to be up to them to put back the trees, as they want, and the other issue that we had in that first urban area, is the clear zone basically being ten foot from the back of curb, there was no place to put them back in the right-of- way. Bailey! Okay. Vanderhoef! How much of the time that we lost was due to the lateness of the D.O.T. deciding on changing the ramps and re-engineering of all of that? Knoche! There was really no time lost in the redesign work, because that stuff is in the final phase, it was-always going to be in this next construction season. So, it really didn't hurt the schedule of construction in this first, in the first season. So, I don't, there really wasn't much time lost there. I... Vanderhoef! Money lost in engineering? Knoche! The D.O.T. is paying for all of that. What ended up happening was, after we started looking at the traffic volumes, it was decided that a dual-left turn lane was needed from that eastbound off ramp to go north on Highway I, and so, we were having traffic backups on Interstate 80 and rather than having that happen again, after we do a major reconstruction, the D.O.T. thought that it would be best to go ahead and incorporate that into the project. So, as far as redesign, there really wasn't much redesign done. It was basically a matter of adding on some lanes. Elliott! Question on the photo on our left, how deep is that, and how deep do you have to be before you're required to have a protection from cave-ins, that sort of thing? I used to work in ditches (laughter) and I... Knoche! Sure, it's five and a halffoot deep is basically the bury that we have on our water main, and three to four foot is kind of where OSHA cuts off as far as where they recommend a trench box. It also depends on the soil types that are there. The... that safety part of it is up to the contractor to take care of. We as a city, we don't take on that liability as being the safety monitors for the contractors. Elliott! You don't... we don't look at it, it's up to them? Knoche! We look at it based on the safety of our employees. We don't look at it based on the safety of their employees. If there is a situation where it's not a good situation, we will recommend to the contractor that they not go down in the hole, but we don't, we're not their safety officers. That's a liability thing that we don't want to take on. What you see here is some water main work that's going on. This is a piece of water main that was being constructed on Prairie Du Chien. Then also a hydrant that's, that was relocated. We're also, with the project, reconstructing all the water mains from the Governor-Dodge intersection, all the way up to Interstate 80. There is some old water main in there and there's, in This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 15 some areas there was three water mains paralleling each other. So we're combining everything together into one water main and basically putting a new system back in there. It will be better for our water division as far as if water main breaks come up, they know where they need to go to find things, and also will be better for Roberts' Dairy, it'll be a better water supply for them. Vanderhoef I Is this the final piece of water and sewer that needs to go in that will service the area north of the Highlander, that 130 some acres out there, that are in our growth area? Knochel This does not. This takes the water main along Dodge Street, up to Interstate 80. There's still the piece of water main that goes down ACT Circle and kinda goes back where Pearson is. There would be a future upgrade that would take sewer either across the bridge or underneath Interstate 80. The overpass bridges or underneath, to service the Highlander and north of there. The work that you're kinda seeing going on out there now is some sewer work that's being done. We're, currently the lift station at...the Highlander lift station dumps into a sewer in front of, right at ACT. Circle and it goes down through AC.T.'s campus and comes into a trunk line at Hickory Hill Park. We're re-routing that sewer along Dodge Street, and then it'll go in right by the Press-Citizen building is where we're tying into that sewer. So, there.. . currently out there they're boring underneath Scott Boulevard, and as the sewer work progresses to the north, they'll also be boring underneath Dodge Street at ACT Circle. And then probably one of the nicest things as far as the look on Dodge Street is the undergrounding of the power lines from Governor up to Dubuque Road. We worked with MidAmerican Energy to underground all the power in that corridor. So, it definitely has cleaned things up and it looks very nice, and it'll be nice once we get the roadway lighting back up again, to get that first three or four blocks lit at night, but it turned out it's a very nice project. DubUQue & Church Streets - Left Turn Bavs Davidson! The next project is the intersection of Dubuque Street and Church Street, specifically, the addition ofleft turn bays. Elliott! This is the O'Donnell corner? Davidson! Is that what it's referred to as? Very good; I didn't realize we were getting all that (laughter). That's even better. This is a project that you've heard me say many times that the best thing you can do for the arterial street system is keep your intersections working. The intersection works, generally the rest of the street works. This is an intersection that during specific times does not work very well. We deliberately put the Cambus in the picture there because the bus movements through here - the geometry, well, you can't really see, but that bus is having to encroach way into the oncoming lanes in order to make that turn, and what happens is, if you have busses kind of simultaneously trying to move through this This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 16 intersection, sometimes it just shuts down. We were able to adjust a stop bar over on the one approach that keeps the traffic pulled back a little bit, but what's needed is left turn lanes on Gilbert Street, or excuse me, on Dubuque Street. At the same time, we will take a look at Church Street while we have the intersection all tom up and being reconstructed, we would like to be able to get (TAPE ENDS) is in 08, so it will not be the next construction season, but the following one. The University is very supportive and has indicated they will work with us in terms of the impacts on the parking lot at the President's home there, and this is a project that received 80% funding through JCCOG. Elliott! And this provides the bus room to turn right there? Davidson! Yes... Elliott! The holdup was the oncoming cars wouldn't stop back far enough to let it turn. Davidson! Yeah, this will improve the geometry of the intersection for those large vehicles, and then of course the other important thing will be the left turn lanes...l mean, on Dubuque Street on the important ones. This will have another benefit for those of you, and certainly I qualify, we hear from people who live in the northside neighborhood about cutting through traffic coming up Kimble Road and the large hill there on Gilbert Street, this will hopefully reduce some of that cut- through traffic. I think there's also some incidents of people coming up Dubuque Street, if you see a gap in traffic and you know you're going to have to turn down Church, you zip up Brown, you zip up Ronalds... Champion! I do it all the time. (several talking) Davidson! And the reason for that is the delay for left turners at this intersection, and so hopefully that will minimize that, as well. Vanderhoef! Will we have an arrow? Davidson! Yes, with the separate left turn lanes we'll have a protected movement. Bailey! What will this do to the brick on the 1900 block of Church Street? Davidson! With the what? Bailey! The brick street, right in front of the President's home. Davidson! Well, our intention would be to tie the bricks in. I mean, we.. .you know, the City has the policy of preserving all the existing brick streets. We'd attempt to do that. Elliott! What was that? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 17 Bailey/ Not my favorite project. Dubuque Street & Foster Road Intersection Knoche/ The Dubuque Street-Foster Road intersection project is another one that's still under construction. Metro Pavers is the prime contractor. This... installed the light at the Dubuque-Foster intersection, and also added left turn lanes, and then also an informal right turn lane off onto Foster Road. On Foster Road there's also left turn lanes were added on this project. You can see there's also the extension of the Iowa River Corridor Trail was made along Dubuque Street, up and around the corner on Foster Road, through the frontage of the church property. We also have brought it across Dubuque Street and continuing it up the frontage road on the east side of Dubuque Street. The project also included two retaining walls that ended up turning out very nice. Those are cast_ retaining walls with a brick, or a limestone veneer put on them, and the contractor that did those for us did a very nice job. This one, all that's left out here is some restoration and to get the roadway lighting put back up and the medians. Bailey/ And then the medians are on the unfunded list, to improve the pavement cross- section, provide trees and shrubbery. Knoche/ That project alludes to, from where our project ends up... Bailey/ So is that project further... Knoche/ It'd be further to the north, further towards the Interstate. We have curb and gutter ends about here. It's proposed to take the curb and gutter up to the interchange and then do some planting in that median. Bailey/ Okay. So, the median's coming down towards town, which are still torn up. Once spring comes they'll be seeded. Okay. Knoche/ They'll be seeded. Bailey/ Thanks. Elliott/ So, the Dubuque entrance into town will be done clearly by football season. Dodge Street possibly? Knoche/ Possibly. Elliott! Possibly. Okay. O'Donnell/ Don't count on it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 18 Vanderhoef/ (several talking) different kind oflighting out there? It's awfully dim out there, and this is a major entrance to our city, and I would like to improve the lighting and as we go down the line, change it all the way to downtown. Knoche/ Yeah, and it may seem dim right now just because the roadway lighting hasn't been put back up, so there's probably half a dozen light poles that need to be put back up yet, so... Vanderhoef/ It was dim before we started the proj ect. Knoche/ It was dim before? Okay. Vanderhoef/ I've never thought that that was a, an inviting and show the activity. Because we come into residential and it's the entrance to both the campus and the downtown, it's like strangers come in and they expect to have strip kind of things, and they expect a gas station and so forth, and it's like they get off there and they whip back on and they go to the next one because they don't realize that everything's down there. Bailey/ Maybe we need better signage. Because it is residential. I don't know that lighting...I mean, there are lots of houses along there. I think lighting would be, it doesn't need to look like a landing strip, I suppose. Vanderhoef/ It's a matter of the style oflighting, I think, and the intensity of it. Bailey/ Well, I've always felt that better signage because you're right - you expect that I'm getting off at Iowa City, I should see Iowa City right away and you don't, and when I'm giving directions I always tell people, you know, it.. .you won't see things right away. You have to come to that intersection with the bridge. So maybe better signage would indicate that, hang in there! Don't go backwards! Vanderhoef/ Well, the "welcome to Iowa City" sign... Bailey/ Right. Vanderhoef/ ...is further down by Park Bridge, so it's not as... Bailey/ Right. Vanderhoef/ Something with... Bailey/ ... "this way to downtown Iowa City" sort of... Vanderhoef/ ... business district. Elliott! Dee, it doesn't say "welcome" though. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 19 Vanderhoef/ It doesn't? Elliott! !tjust says "Iowa City," Bailey/ And sometimes it just says (several talking) Well, I think your point is well taken, that people need to know that they actually took the right turn to get to the business district. Knoche/ And we can look at the lighting compared to the kind of the arterial standard that we have right now, and just see what improvements would need to be made to, you know, upgrade a little bit more. Champion! I actually find it kind of refreshing that we don't come offthat road and find a gas station immediately. Bailey/ Oh, me too. Vanderhoefi' I do too, Ijust want to make sure that they find downtown. Emen!encv Communication Radio System Atkins/ Emergency Communications Radio System - we don't want to spend a whole lot of time on this this morning because we have the presentation this afternoon at I :00 P.M. The budget we have here represents, if you remember the Executive Summary, first two options, where we could do some very basic work -,. nothing anywhere close to what we'd really like to see done. I would ask that, we'll just move on by this one. This afternoon after you finish the presentation and I'd like for you to think about what's next. If you sense, and we may need to get your decision ultimately at a work session, if you sense that this is something that you'd like to pursue - the Joint Communications Center - Andy, Sam, I and a number of others would kind of like to convene the group that worked through the consultant to actually put together some sort of a plan, to see if this is something we can afford. Something we can do. Vanderhoef/ Would there be time to do it when we do boards and commissions, that evening at the end of boards and commissions? Atkins/ After you hear the presentation, what I'd just really like to hear from the seven of you is some indication "yeah we think this is a god idea," because I mean Andy and Sam have to be kind of cut loose to begin organizing on how we're going to approach this and there's lots of politics in it. Other cities and the Sheriffs office - I don't mean that negatively, we just simply have to deal with a number of players to make this work. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Conncil budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 20 Elliott! I guess I'd be surprised, unless the cost is prohibitive, I'd be surprised if we aren't all for any of this kind of activity that we can get. Atkins/ It's a big ticket item, but we also could fix ourselves well into the future by making this investment. Well, (several talking) yeah, we need a plan of action and if it's rejected or refined - maybe you like it and the County doesn't and that doesn't take us very far. We do have a plan and we do need to invest in our communications system and we have that also sort of as a fall-back position. We'd rather be going towards the Joint Communications Center. Okay? Vanderhoef/ Discussion about relocation, is that. . . Atkins/ Relocation? Vanderhoef/ Of communications. Atkins/ Oh, where we're going to put them? Yeah, that's one of the main, yeah...well, there's relocation of antennae. (several talking and laughter) Festival Stal!e - Sidewalk. Shelter & Restroom Improvements Trueblood/ You might recognize this picture - Riverside Festival stage. This is a project that we've been working towards for some time, not the stage itself - it's already there, obviously, but... there it is! (laughter) Just like the title says, it's actually three different projects rolled into one. There's restrooms, a park shelter, and a sidewalk. Now, the sidewalk, actually we'll have a slide later on in the presentation about something else where I can show you more where the sidewalk runs, but essentially it's proposed to run from the entrance area up here, kind of meandering down this way, past the ponds and through a couple of shelters. Not right through them - between a couple shelters, and to the main parking lot down there. It's going to be a lighted sidewalk, and the reason for that, obviously, is after events out here, primarily the Shakespeare Festival, but we do have other events going on there, that don't end until after dark and people have gone to taking their flashlights with them in order to see to get back to the parking lot and occasionally step in a puddle of water, but the restrooms, although we haven't pinpointed it yet, the restrooms and shelter are probably going to go in this area over here. Would also like to emphasize that these facilities are not just for this Riverside Festival stage and the Shakespeare Festival. Obviously they will accommodate crowds there, for the most part, but restroom will also be open for all park users. The shelter will be open to reserve for picnics and so forth, just like the rest of the park shelters are. Wilburn! There've been several weddings there and... Trueblood! Pardon me? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 21 Wilburn! There's been several weddings there. Trueblood! It's become pretty popular with a wedding location. We probably have 10 or 12 weddings per summer at this particular facility and then we have other, you know, like concerts and children's theatre and just an occasional lecture, I guess. Elliott! Do you rent those facilities or are they... Trueblood! We rent them. Right, and for the Shakespeare Festival, Riverside Theatre pays us so much per ticket that they sell, so they in effect rent it as well. O'Donnelll Terry, where's the next closest restroom? Trueblood! Well, there is what our folks call "Old Brick" that's, well, I'm not sure which hill you're talking about, Connie, but it's back up, if you see this sidewalk right here going behind the facility, it goes up back in there probably I'm guessing 300 feet away from there. We actually talked about, 'Okay, can we renovate that restroom, create an accessible walk-way to it, and make that do instead of building a new one,' and all things considered, it just became much more feasible, let alone much more convenient at this location, to build a new restroom. O'Donnelll I think this is long over due, for the softball players (several talking) Vanderhoef! Terry, refresh me on the sidewalk situation along the lower park road that would take you to the other parking lots, that is north and east of the lower road, one that's... Trueblood! You're talking about the sidewalk that goes directly in front of upper City Park? Vanderhoef! No, this is in (several talking)... Bailey! Across the street from this, right? Vanderhoef! Uh-huh, across the street, so it's east of the lower road and further north. Trueblood! Yeah, that's a trail, can be used as a sidewalk, as well. And that was redone, I believe, just two years ago. Vanderhoe1l And that leads right into the parking lot there? Trueblood! Well, no, it's on the opposite side of the road of the parking lot, but people --- there is, there's actually two trails in that section of the park, and where they converge, or approximately where they converge, there's a curb cut there so you can go across the street, across the park roadway, adjacent to the parking lot, yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 22 Wilburn! Are you talking.. . right next to the river where the boat ramp is? Vanderhoef/ Uh-huh. Trueblood! Okay, that's an extension of what I was just talking about up by the board ramp, yeah. Goes right along the river there. Vanderhoef/ So the new sidewalk you're talking about swings around and goes between the two shelters to the main one, and then if you're going to the parking lot clear over here, you're going to have to walk all the way through the parking lot, across the road, and get up to, or is there any way you can cross the road near the theatre, and get on a trail or a sidewalk? Trueblood! Yes, you can. (several talking) We do have an aerial photo later on about another project, if you... talk about it then. Champion! Terry, when you're talking about restrooms, and I don't see it on your list, maybe I missed it. Have you, what have you talked about in bathroom facilities by the skateboard park? Has that... Trueblood! That's in there. That is in there, it's on the.. . (several talking). Vanderhoef/ Oh, on their priority list. (several talking) Elliott! You use the skateboard park a lot, Connie? Champion! Do I use it? I take my grandchildren there, and I get tired of going behind the tree. (laughter) Trueblood! We are, since you bring that up, we are, since it's on the unfunded list for the time being, we are thinking about this summer of actually purchasing or building a, I can't think of the best term, but a cover, if you will for porta-potties. Maybe put a couple porta-potties inside this three sides shelter so that they can sit in there and they won't be as obvious, and they would be far less likely to end up floating down the river. Champion! That's a great idea. Fire Station #2 Rocca! Good morning. I believe you do have a handout regarding fire station #2 and I tried to give you just a quick profile ofthe facility. As you can see, it's about 38 years old, and when it was designed and occupied as a fire station, it was primarily for fire protection services, and you well know that the operation's changed quite a bit over the last 38 years. In addition to having Hazmat 1 housed This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 23 there, basically the entire Johnson County Hazardous Materials Team program is based out of there. But with female firefighters and the like, storage needs, the facility is truly in need of an upgrade. Utilities, whether it's plumbing, electrical, we've done some bandaid fixes, really short term, but it's apparent to me, and I'm sure to you, when we build these facilities or upgrade them, we are looking at long-term use for the city. So in a nutshell, this station really does need a lot of attention. We initially had deferred a lot of the larger ticket items, but again, once we determined how key it was to delivering service to the west side campus and UIHC, it seemed like a logical location to maintain and to make a good investment in. Elliott! You said a logical location. You're looking ahead 10,20 years and it still remains a logical, functional location. Rocca! Certainly it does. Again, particularly with the University of Iowa needs on the west side. There are other issues I point out - the majority of district 2 on the west side is served well by this facility, from a first, first arriving unit standpoint, but when we get on the other side of 218 and we start to get stretched out pretty thin, particularly in a structure fire response situation. So, for the immediate area, this facility would make sense to make this kind of an investment in. Vanderhoef/ What's the response time when you go west of2l8? Rocca! A lot of it, of course, depends on time of day, but it's not uncommon for us to exceed six minutes with the first arriving unit and be more in the neighborhood of eight or even 10 minutes for subsequent arriving units. You know, a lot of, of course, everything we do is time-dependent. The quicker we get there the more likely a successful intervention, regardless of the type of emergency. Vanderhoef! And what would the, if the County were called? I'mjust trying to think of getting emergency response fast, is there anything that works with the ambulance service? Rocca! Well, we've had kind of a long-standing discussion about whether consolidation makes sense or not. Right now, they seem to be operating well as a stand-alone agency, but I think as we look to the future, it's realistic to look at our facilities, to expand them to accommodate some type of consolidation, or becoming fire-based EMS. In terms of arterial roadways out there, we're looking at the Camp Cardinal extension as a good connection for fire protection services. Exactly what impact that will have and how that develops is yet to be seen, but it would make sense to expand to accommodate multiple companies out of a fixed based facility. Vanderhoef/ Where are the County ambulances, where are they centrally.. . located? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 24 Rocca! Right now they have two at their headquarters, which is on south Dubuque Street, near the County Administrative campus area, and their third unit is out, is based in Coralville Fire Station, right now. And those do run 24/7, all three units. Vanderhoef! Okay, so...until we get another bridge across. I'm just trying to think if there's any way that we can get service to that part ofIowa City from another unit any faster than this eight to ten minutes for the backup units. Rocca! Right now it's an issue. It's something that we've looked at. We're not exactly sure what the solution is, whether through our mutual aid agreements if there's a solution there, or ifin fact we're looking at, out the road a little further on having our own fixed base facility fire station out on the other side of 218. Vanderhoef! And we know the hang-ups there! Rocca! Unfortunately we do. (laughter) Champion! Do you know off-hand how many calls come out of that station? Rocca! We ran some numbers for you earlier, and it seems to me that roughly 25% of our calls could come from there, so over the course of a year, approximately 900 - don't hold me to that hard and fast, but that'd be pretty close to it, since we run 3,500,3,600 calls a year roughly, a quarter of them would come from that station. O'Donnell! Andy, how many firemen staffthat station? Rocca! Three firefighters 24/7. O'Donnell! Three? Rocca! Total of nine are assigned there. Other questions related to fire station #2? Move on to fire apparatus? Wilburn! Let's take a break, if you don't mind. Twenty after? Fire Apparatus Rocca! Okay, if we're ready to go. I do want to move back to fire station #2 and just make one point. I think regarding a question Dee had about planning, and if you look over here. I won't take Rick out with the laser. In the plan we do call out the need for station #5 in the south planning district area here, and then station #6 is currently in our strategic plan for station 6 out in the southwest planning district, so they're on the radar screen and how we get there will be another discussion, but I wanted to let you know we're thinking ahead in that regard. Okay? All right. We'll move next to fire apparatus. Engine #1 is scheduled for replacement. I think, if you recall, our replacement scheduled basically has us This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 25 operating front-line pieces of equipment for about seven years and then they go into reserve status for approximately seven years, for a life of 14 years, and we were thrown off track a little bit, I think, with looking at the aerial ladder purchase, which is this current fiscal year, as well as some other budget difficulties three, four, five years ago, and so it got us off that schedule, but reserve apparatus are typically, or front-line apparatus, are typically retired with roughly 65,000 to 70,000 miles. Prior to that, they were going into reserve status with an excess of 90,000 miles and were virtually worn out, and so they were in the shop probably more than they were of much use to us. So, again, engine #1 has just about come to the end of its front-line status and will go into reserve status, provided we move forward on the purchase of a replacement piece of equipment. Elliott! Andy, what wears out on the trucks? Rocca! Typically drive train components, pumping components. Elliott! It's the pump, not the truck itself, and the engine and the axles, over the road trucks go 200,000 to 300,000 miles. Rocca! Yeah, I mean they're hard miles. They're driven hard. They have a lot of weight to them, 750,000 gallons of water, and all the associated equipment and that load is on the equipment, so the suspension, drive train, power train, are the typical components that would be problematic. Baileyl Andy, while you're up there, somebody asked me about Plaza Towers and our abilities to address an emergency there. I know that they have some good fire suppression sort of systems once they get up and going, but can you just address that? Rocca! Sure, I mean, the whole notion ofhighrise firefighting is not uncommon to us with the hospital complexes, with the residence halls. We have operational guidelines that drive how we operate in those situations. Recently, we were taking tours ofthe Plaza Towers project with personnel to familiarize them with the built-in fire protection systems and access, emergency egress, emergency commnnication components that are built in to the facility. So, we're ramping up and being prepared to do the best we can with the resources we do have. Baileyl So, as these buildings go up, you familiarize yourself, you train on them, and you also are working with them as they develop fire suppression and emergency sorts ofthings. Rocca! That's correct. The Fire Marshall's been up there and our new Fire Inspector position. They spent an inordinate amount of time making sure the fire pump, fire alarm, sprinkler system, stand pipes, communications systems are all in working This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Couucil budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 26 order, and again, as well as acclimating our people to those systems so we can use them in the event that we need to. Bailey! Okay, but citizens shouldn't expect to see trucks that necessarily go that high, that's, I mean, I think that's what they look for, is if we have the capacity.. .it is true! But, I think they don't realize the behind the scenes things that go on. Rocca! Again, the building is built with a lot of fire protection devices, components, construction in mind, and we use our existing procedures and refine them for improvements as we determine the need to. Bailey! Okay, thanks. Wilburn! You continue on-going training on actual buildings with repelling and confined space rescue and all that? Rocca! Oh, yes! Other questions related to fire apparatus? Champion! Is that fun to go down the side of a building? Rocca! You know, it really is (laughter and several talking at once). It is fun. Elliott! You have a bizarre idea offun. (laughter) Rocca! Thank you. First Avenue! IAIS Railroad Crossin!! Imnrovements Davidson! The next project I think is one you're familiar with. We met with you last spring to get your approval in going ahead with a Iowa Clean Air Attainment grant application, which you did approve. What you see here in the picture is of course what we would like to build. This is a computer generated shot of the effect that the proj ect would have of raising the railroad and lowering the street, which we feel is a very workable project. What is standing in our way right now and then the reason the project is programmed in FYI 0 at the current time is we need to find some money. 10 fact, what you have as $5.4 million is probably going to be more like a $6 million project. We have had to do some redesign of it for the railroad and have that done, and have a workable project still, but it is a bit more expensive than we had hoped. We are currently applying for $2 million through the ICAT program. We should find out late this spring if we are, or probably early this spring, if we will receive funds from that program, and then it's just a matter of us, we will probably apply again to that program. There's also some other possibilities out there through JCCOG, STP funds could be used on this project. Wilburn! That's Clean Air program. Clean Air program, is that what you're... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 27 Davidson! The Clean Air program is a program we've currently applied for. That's the same program that we used essentially, how we justified the funding of this project is that there would not be all the congestion from vehicles idling while trains go by, and we made those calculations and hopefully the State will find that compelling. The STP funds through JCCOG are just for any arterial street type project. Those funds could be used, and there's the possibility, especially if we could get fairly close. You know, if we could get a couple two, three million dollars and only have two, three million more dollars left that we needed, we might want to consider special earmark through the delegation going to Washington. You know those projects are ones that, they don't like a project like this that you're really, you don't know how you're going to fund it and you don't know for sure when you're going to build it, but if we get close enough that we could start honing in on that, I think then we could go to Washington, get money to complete it, and be ready to go. So, just a preliminary design right now, but we do feel like it's a very worthwhile project. Elliott! Jeff, do you have any count on how busy First Avenue has become now, compared to other streets in the city? In other words, I think we need to look at also justifying ihis by the amount of traffic that's disrupted. Davidson! Yeah, First Avenue is clearly increasing. The increases in this portion of it, near this commercial area, have not been nearly as visible up further north in the residential area where, since the extension was put through, the volumes have, the volumes were lower up there to begin with, so the increase is more noticeable. Down here we were in the range 12, 13, 14,000 vehicles a day, and I believe we're between 15 and 17,000 now. Eventually the notion of turn lanes on First Avenue - you know this intersection with Mall Drive right here, we can't put a protective left turn arrow in because we don't have a separate left turn lane. That would really enhance this intersection if we could do that. And we may actually have to start thinking about those kinds ofthings, Bob, but for the time being, it is a manageable situation, and hopefully as additional streets are built, you know, Taft A venue in east Iowa City, which is in your unfunded list, as we continue expanding the system the volumes will moderate here on First Avenue, and that volume, by the way, is.. . for an arterial street's probably in the middle. We have our super high volume routes of Highway 6 and Highway 1, and then we have much lower volume routes, such as Kirkwood Avenue or something like that. So, it's about in the middle. Elliott! Sometime, this is not the time, but sometime because this is still iffY, and even if it weren't iffy, it's several years away, is there anything possible we can do with the railroad, the fact, one, they creep through. I've had concerns. I just get so many calls about people. . . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Couucil Budget Wark Session Page 28 Davidson! Bob, if you can answer that one, you should run for Governor, because I'm telling you, that is the $64,000 question. We have tried, and tried, and tried, and... Elliott! ['11 take the $64,000. (laughter) Davidson! And I won't say we don't get any cooperation from the railroad because that would be an overstatement, but clearly, they've got a business to run and they're going t run that business according to the authority that they have. Wilburn! I know the Principal at Southeast, whenever there's a train logger, then 20 minutes is on the phone to try to get them to move it, but.. . marginal success, at times, so... Bailey/ There would also be issues with... .issues with fire, the fire truck movement, because that. . . wouldn't there be if we did that? There's a station right over. .. Davidson! The impacts on fire station #3, the impacts on the Jr. High School, the ambulance services - they kind ofreally try and avoid this area for their operation because of the operability of trains. Elliott! I always, when I'm coming down Kirkwood, [ always turn off on Summit and go down the road by whatever that street is by the Bakery there. I try never to drive...(several talking)...yeah, it's...it's a mess. Champion! You're probably responsible for the extra traffic on Summit Street, thank you! (laughter) Davidson! I guess I'll just stay up here and do the next project since I have the following one, as well. Gilbert Street - Bowery Left Turn Lanes & Prentiss Street Storm Sewer Davidson! Gilbert-Bower-Prentiss intersection is one that we came to you when it was a planning project; explained to you that we had a crash history on Gilbert Street that concerned us and raised some red flags for us; determined that putting left turn lanes, separate left turn lanes, on Gilbert Street is something that we feel would reduce the crash rate here, so that was the motivation of the project, for the project. We did look at realignment of Bowery and Prentiss, and have at least at staff level made a determination that it is really not worth the impacts to private property, including a property that is on the National Register of Historic Places, and so we are not going to realign the intersection; will continue to work with an off-set type signal system, a little bit inefficient compared to what we would like, but it is workable, but certainly the left turn lanes on Gilbert Street is something that will be very beneficial because it will reduce the crash rate. We do have this This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 29 project under design right now, in hopes that you will agree with implementing it this next year. Champion! Why wouldn't it work just like you have down at Kirkwood and Gilbert? Why wouldn't it work to have those one-way lights? Do you know what I'm saying? Davidson! Yeah, this one actually does work like that, in that it's, right now the north and south at Gilbert, or excuse me, at Kirkwood and Gilbert is split phase so that you can run it without a left turn lane, you can run it with an arrow, but each side has to go consecutively. That's not typically the efficient way to run the intersection, and that's how this one works too. Bowery goes and then Prentiss goes and then Gilbert goes simultaneously, so it does actually function, not exactly the same, but with some similarities to that signal. Gilbert St / Hil!h wav 6: Dual Left turn Lanes Davidson! Next project then is the intersection of Gilbert Street and Highway 6. This is a project that you heard us carping about for several years. This is probably, at least to generalize, one of the worst ifnot the worst functioning intersections that we have in town right now (can't hear) arterial street system. It is gone beyond not functioning well during peek periods, to actually not functioning very well during off peek periods. You can come through here at 2:30 in the afternoon and have to sit through more than one cycle of the traffic signal, if you want to make a left turn. Some of that is compounded by the fact that the signal system all along Highway 6 as we know is set up to favor the through movements on Highway 6, and that's to the detriment of the side streets, but we figure overall is an efficient way to run the signal system. What is needed are dual left turn lanes on both of the Gilbert Street approaches, so that with roughly the same amount of green time on the signal for that movement, we can move - not quite twice as many - but many more vehicle through there on the left turn cycles. This is a project that in your deliberations ofthe CIP, we need to know from you if you want to pursue this project because if you do, we need to get going. This project is in FY08. We know there are going to be relatively significant, we will attempt to moderate them, but relatively significant property acquisition issues with this project, so that if you are not in favor of going ahead, please let us know. We have been in touch with the property owners on two of the quadrants - the service station that you see here. They are, they came in to speak with us and said that they are contemplating some upgrade in their facility and are aware of this project and want to know kind of what we have in mind to do before they make that investment. Ross and I and Steve met with Hills Bank a few months ago and discussed the project with them and I think they're interested also in how you intend to proceed, but this is one with all the growth in south Iowa City is unfortunately not going to get better. It's going to get worse and we need to be thinking about what we want to do. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 30 Elliott! Jeff, I'd like to go down there with you sometime, perhaps other members of the Council would too. I'd actually like to see when you could say, over here is what we're going to have to do, and over here is what we're, and see which businesses, what places, what has to be done. Davidson! And we've done some preliminary engineering on this project, Bob. Could probably sit down in the office with you and do that, although it certainly helps to be out there, but we can maybe do both. Elliott! Yeah, I'd like to.. . Bailey! Can you briefly walk through that now, if we're going to start thinking about if we want to proceed. Davidson, Yeah, just real briefly. There are essentially three scenarios. This is one of those projects where, as I've said, unfortunately it's impossible to do without impacting someone. There's just too tight of a situation, and it's a situation that for years and years and years worked fine, and it's just that the growth of the city, it no longer works fine. In a nutshell, Regenia, you can do the widening to both sides, you can do it all on the east side, you can do it all on the west side, and there are pros and cons to this - I'm talking about Gilbert Street now because that's where mainly the widening is. We will set this up so that any future, we'll work with Iowa D.O.T. to make sure that any future improvements to Highway 6 are accommodated in this project, that we don't then have to be tearing it up three years later for some project on High way 6, but principally the impacts are to the Gilbert Street ends of this intersection. As I said, it's a fairly conventional median and do a left turn lane. While we're in there we'll attempt to upgrade the sidewalks and the pedestrian crossings, and all the things that we would typically do, but do a left turn lane on each approach with the median. We will have to.. . now, we have done enough preliminary planning to know that there are some things overall that we can do in the area, with the cooperation ofthe businesses, to maybe improve some things that they're not aware can be improved. For example, where the Waterfront Drive intersection is, that would become a right- in, right-out intersection. Where the Hills Bank principal entrance is would become a right-in, right-out intersection, but you can then go a little bit further down Gilbert Street and where the Aldi driveway and the secondary Hills Bank driveway come in, you could formalize that, change the interior circulation patterns of those businesses so where that would potentially become a signalized intersection that would really facilitate the movements in and out of those businesses. You know, if some of those businesses have come to the point where they have gotten beyond the, 'Oh, I just want the access as close to Highway 6 as possible,' to realizing that it just is not working for them. Their clients and people who come to their businesses are being put in peril because ofthat. We now have an intersection in the top ten high crash locations in Iowa City at Waterfront Drive. It's because of this situation, so we've gotten to the point where it's getting serious and we need to really think about this comprehensively and be This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. -------,-.-----------~-~,-~--------~--------"-.--""--..- _.__.~._-._---">--._--,_._,--._---_._-_._-_._--_..__..-.,,-._~-- January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page31 able to sit down with the business people, each individual one, go through the impacts to their property, and show them how it could potentially work better. Bailey/ So, how much do you need? How much space do you need from.. . okay, you don't know. Davidson! We don't know. Correia! Jeff, when you say dual left turn lanes, on Gilbert there's a left turn lane, single.. . so two on each side, for going left, and then two keeping the two that go straight? Davidson! Yes. Correia! Okay. Knoche/ It's basically adding one more lane, and that's where the property acquisition (can't hear). Vanderhoef/ And have we had discussions with the D.O.T. about dual left turns offof Highway 6 because I think that's... Davidson! We've had discussions with them and we've done a capacity study, Dee, and shows that those are not needed at the present time. V anderhoef/ You're kidding? Davidson! No, and as speeds come down on the highway, as it becomes more congested and speeds come down on the highway, when you get to that magical 35 m.p.h., you can start going to protected, permissive left turns. Right now it's protected only on the highway. Remember what we did on Burlington Street a few years ago? It was the best capacity improvement we've ever made. It's.. . certainly in the 25 years that I've been here, when we went to protective permissive, left turns, used to be protected only - just an arrow, it was the only way you could turn left. We went to protective permissive and it really opened up a lot of capacity on Burlington Street. Once the speeds drop below 35 m.p.h. - 35 and above, people have trouble making decisions about that protected left turn, especially younger drivers and older drivers, and that's why we have protected only when the speeds are 35 and above, but when it's 35 and below, we got to protective permissive, introduce a lot more capacity to the highway, you don't need to (can't hear). Elliott! Jeff, explain permissive? You mean you have a green arrow and then it just, a green light and... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofthe Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 32 Davidson! .. . green arrow, permissive's when it goes to the green ball and you have to make a judgment, yield to on-coming traffic or make your left turn. Elliott! Just wanted to make sure that was it. Yeah, that's a huge improvement, I think. Vanderhoef! I just can't believe the left turns going north on Gilbert... Bailey! The light's longer, the way the light.. . (several talking).. .on Highway 6 than you do when the lights are.. . Vanderhoef! The stacking is so long. Knoche! One thing that's not reflected in the budget is that there's $2 million of federal STP funds that have been allocated for this project, the Gilbert Street-Highway 6 intersection project, so, and that was through JCCOG, we did get that money. So that's just one thing that didn't show up in the budget. Vanderhoef! Uh-huh. Hil!hwav 6 Improvement - Lakeside to 420th Knoche! This is a project that has been contemplated for quite a while. I think the concept statement I saw in the file is from 1993, and that concept statement that was put together was for four lanes, continuing the four lanes out past Scott Boulevard. What we're doing on this project is not going with a four lane but doing with a three-lane with the dual left turn lane down the whole corridor. There will be a fourth lane for eastbound Highway 6 that will end at Heinz Road, and that basically ends up turning into a right turn lane onto the Heinz Road intersection. This is a project with the D.O.T. Ends up being about a 65!35 match. We have 35% match on it. We will also be doing some intersection improvements at Industrial Park Road, Lakeside Drive. There'll be a turn lane added there. Along with the.. . last year when we talked about this proj ect, we weren't contemplating putting a traffic signal in at Heinz Road. Now there will be a traffic signal put in at Heinz Road. So that's something that has been added since we talked about this last year. We will still just be doing the intersection improvements at Scott Boulevard. We'll be putting conduit in, getting things ready to go when a signal is warranted there, but currently there is no signal warranted. And, we'll be continuing out past 420th Street to make that intersection a little bit better. O'Donnelll Where was the signal you were talking about? Knoche! Heinz Road will be, a signal at Heinz Road. That.. .probably one of the, as we started going through the planning for this project, that's probably one of the biggest concerns that I've had from people on down in the Saddlebrook This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meetiug of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 33 Development is really not feeling safe coming out there, and so I think it's a great improvement to actually include the traffic signal with the plan. Bailey! Sidewalks, trails? Are there... Knoche! There will be oversized shoulders, paved shoulders, which can act as part of a trail system. There will, we'll still be using the frontage road as the trail connection down to Bon-Aire. There's a sidewalk, 8' or 6' sidewalk there, down to Saddlebrook, down to Heinz Road, and then we'll continue a sidewalk down to the Moose with the project, and that's all on the south side of Highway 6. Bailey! On the south side, is there a sidewalk from Bon-Aire to Lakeside? Knoche! There is not, but there's a frontage road there that, and the sidewalk that's from Heinz Road back to Bon-Aire was put in so that people can get to the bus stop that's at the Bon-Aire Mobile Home Park. Vanderhoef! But the sidewalk down to the Moose is not in this project? Knoche! It is in this project, it is included, and then one other thing that's included is a bus pull off just to the east of Heinz Road so there'll also be a bus pull off there off of Highway 6. Gets the bus out of the through lane and then they'll be able to get back in so there'll be a formal bus stop up on Highway 6 at Heinz Road. Elliott! Is this inclusive of what we're dying in front of Lear, or is that a separate project? Knoche! This is, this includes that work. So this will include the intersection work at Lear, and the roadway improvements on Industrial Park Road. Elliott! And this will, because I know I was surprised at the amount of semi traffic on this highway, just from our discussions with Lear, and this will significantly aide that situation. Knoche! Yes, the biggest thing that helps, you know, right now there's no turn lane so you get those turning movements out and it makes it a much safer corridor to drive through. Vanderhoef! Tell me, on funding of this, do we have the availability of any TIF dollars that would help with that because of the industrial park area? Franklin! It is in a TIF district. We could. Vanderhoef! Well, it's certainly a benefit to that TIF district, in my mind, so ifit's a project that we could exact some TIF dollars to it, I think we ought to. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 34 Champion! That's a good idea, Dee. Bailey/ Why? I mean, it looks like the funding is fairly, I mean, why go there I guess is my... what are you thinking here? Vanderhoef/ Well, certainly Road Use Tax could be used on some other project, if we decided to shift into some TIF dollars, and I just think that we have plenty of internal residential arterials and so forth that we can use those road use taxes. We can use those also on trail systems and stuff. Bailey/ So you're thinking of as we look at unfunded, if we wanted to shift, to keep that in mind for this project - TIF dollars? Vanderhoef/ I think we should explore what we could exact out ofTIF for this project. Wilburn! There's logic to if you set up a district to do something to make (TAPE ENDS) Bailey/ ... well, yeah, this was actually what they, in their CIBA application, this was our commitment, these improvements along... Champion! ... that's a great idea. Lower Muscatine Avenue - Kirkwood to First Avenue Davidson! This next project is one that's in FY09 and is one that is just kind of in the real formative stages of deciding exactly what we're going to do; however, we have put it in a funded year because of some discussions we've had with Kirkwood Community College over their future plans in the area and the need to work with them to do some improvements specific to egress and getting in and out of there, their facility. And so this is one that we have some time to do some initial planning on, but we wanted to review sort of what we see it being at the present time. This project would reconstruct Lower Muscatine Avenue, between Kirkwood Avenue, which you might recall, it was reconstructed...Kirkwood Avenue was reconstructed, was it all the way down to this point, Rick, or do we need to go.. ..okay, down to where the bend in the road is there, by the church, as you see in the one photograph there, and would take it down then to the First Avenue intersection and what we've done is looked sort of comprehensively, it's kind of two separate corridors at the present time, and the picture on the right- hand side here, right at this area is where the transition from two lanes to four lanes occurs, as you get into the commercial area. What we are thinking right now is that this is a good candidate for a project that would take the entire corridor, widen part of it to three lanes, and narrow part of it to three lanes. What you have in this commercial area right here, although it is a four lane section, is that because of all the turning movements at Mall Drive and into the businesses, the interior lanes essentially work as de facto turn lanes and so you have very little through capacity in those lanes, and the through capacity, even when we This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 35 look at the JCCOG arteria] street mode], the (can't hear) volumes are such that we think that with the three lane sections that it'll work fine, and what that enables us to do is one of the things, one of our principle things that we want to improve in this area, there we go, is the pedestrian system, the sidewalk system. You can see where this terminates right now, there's not good access into the mall, there's not any sidewalk whatsoever through this area. Ifit is possible for us, and we don't know, we're much too preliminary, but for example, if we can save these trees, those trees right there, by narrowing the street down and putting the sidewalk through, you know, that's something that by narrowing the street we'd have the ability to do. We do fee] like widening it and adding the center turn lane in the portion that's two lanes, further down the street, is also something that, in terms of our long-range planning, would be appropriate. One thing that we need to know more specifically is what Kirkwood's plans are, Kirkwood Community College's plans are, and we're staying in touch with them. They're considering severa] different things right now. Once they land a little more specifically on something, we can then formalize some of our planning. I mean, at the extreme, and it may never come to this, the notion has occurred to us of realigning Sycamore Street with their parking lot entrance drive to formalize that intersection, potentially signalize it, potentially put a round-about. There's a number of things you could potentially do. But, make it easier for people to get in and out of that intersection, while at the same time improving it for pedestrians. Those are, that's kind of overall our goal for the project. So, there'll be more to come on this project, but that's at least right now how we see it unfolding. Bai]ey! As you can imagine, I've heard from a lot of neighbors in this area, so as we move forward and Kirkwood moves forward I think it's going to be really important to have some thorough discussions with neighbors because they're certainly feeling the impact of Kirkwood, but also they're in that sort of 'what's going to happen' and real]y nervous. So, as we move forward, I think getting some clarity on what we're doing and hearing from them would be really important to make this project work. Davidson! Right, and certainly that's exactly what I was talking about when I said we need to (can't hear)... Bailey! Right, of course. Elliott! Jeff, I'm one who usually thinks that our streets are considerably too narrow, but the four lanes in this stretch are, as you said, very much useless, because it does, even if you're west bound, you know it's going to end so you get over, and if you're east bound, you want to stay out of that left lane because there's going to be cars turning so you're absolutely right on that, and I travel that all the time. Davidson! The other thing, just incidentally that I forgot to mention, is that having the turn lanes would allow us to put protective left turn phases in on the Mall Drive traffic signal which right now does not work well to do that and that's why there This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 36 are no protective there. We've had requests for those, so that might, that would be another... Vanderhoef! Just backing up one second, actually this is Karin. The Gilbert Street intersection, which is being funded with road use tax, is also, at least the south side of that intersection is in a TIP district. Franklin! That's right. Vanderhoef! So that's another potential to look at, please. Franklin! Okay. Lower West Branch Road Reconstruction Franklin! Okay, Lower West Branch Road reconstruction; the principles behind this are very similar to the American Legion Road project. With this one we have moved it up. It was in the out years of our Capital Improvements Program, but it's now project for FY07, and that's a consequence of the development that's been going on in this area, including the Lindemann Subdivision, the north farm of Windsor Ridge from Court to Lower West Branch Road, and what you see in this illustration in terms of the building, is part of the larger Windsor Ridge projects. Those are some of the condominiums that are right up to Lower West Branch, and of course we'll be seeing development farther to the west with the project that the Three Bulls now own that was approved under Plum Grove Acres, between Bickford Cottage and the Pacha property. We expect that to be coming on line soon, so the demand for this road to be improved has increased. We do have commitments and partial funding of this from development projects that have taken place within the last five to six years here. So now we're ready to go. Okay? Elliott! Karin, do these little blips of county property, does that cause any problem other than it just looks funny on a map? Franklin! Well, what it means is that as we do the road reconstruction that we will need to be potentially acquiring some rights there since it's probably in those spots it would still be the 66' wide right-of-way with an easement over it, as opposed to dedicated right-of-way. Any place where it is within the city and there's been a development project approved, then we have gotten the right-of-way dedicated through the annexation and rezoning. Elliott! Now I presume what has happened when this has been annexed somebody has preferred not to be annexed and therefore there's this little strip of property that remains county? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 37 Franklin! Yeah, for the most part, I mean, on this particular, on this piece if, it is the Lindemann original farmstead on the south side of Lower West Branch Road, and then the property immediately west of that, and then of course on the north side of Lower West Branch Road is quite a bit of property that still remains in the county, and, yeah, that's what we have to deal with. Elliott! Does this, cause any problem, or is it just something you deal with? Franklin! It's just another factor in getting it done. Elliott! Okay. McCollister Boulevard Knoche! I think I'll start out with kind of an overview of where McCollister Boulevard and Mormon Trek Extension are at. Through the last couple of years, we do have the Mormon Trek Extension down to Willow Creek, which is the west edge of the Airport property. We also have built a sanitary sewer up to the west, underneath 218, and up into the W.E. development. With that, it's opened up about 400 acres of property for development, and we're seeing the benefits of that right now. The MWD Davis Subdivision with the Menard's going in, JJR Davis Parts 2 and 3 are starting to develop, and then the Carousel Ford site is also there. We have a project that we're, we have let and we have yet to award, but the Mormon Trek Extension and box culvert project, which we'll build a box culvert underneath Old Highway 218 and reroute Willow Creek for the big storm flows, and then also allow us to extend the Mormon Trek Extension to Old Highway 218. So, if construction goes on this year, we will probably see the Mormon Trek Extension completed probably will be spring, summer of next year, and so that will have that traffic piece put together. The McCollister Boulevard piece, we have federal earmark to build the river bridge. We will start at the Mossman Building, Old Highway 218. Part of that will be put in with the Mormon Trek Extension, but it will go, continue east from there, go just on the north side of Meskwaki Park and then cross the river, and then it will be the south edge, of the Public Works' complex, and tie into where McCollister Boulevard is already put through in Sand Hill Subdivision. We are currently working on the environmental assessment for this project. We have the draft document right now. We feel that we'll have a finding of no significant impact and so we will be able to go ahead without any major problems. There is a wetland that we've already mitigated for, just to the west of Riverside Drive, so, or I'm sorry, to the east of Riverside Drive, so there was some wetland impact, but we had already mitigated for those. There will be some tough construction. We do have to go through an old landfill. We have to go through an old sand pit, so there's going to be some tough construction that goes on here. Some of you have been in town for a while, will recall that the sanitary sewer project for the Willow Creek trunk line was going to go through the same area and they ended up loosing some equipment in the old sand pit, so (laughter) we'll be based in that area as far as the construction goes, but we'll be This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. ...___..1....._...... January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 38 moving ahead with design and be moving ahead with the river bridge design also this year. Elliott! Hope we can at least talk about the McCollister name some time. Don't shutter. Bailey/ When we're thinking ofthat river bridge design, I'm assuming we're thinking pedestrian, or bike, okay. Knoche/ Yep, there'll be oversized sidewalks, those types of things. .. Bailey/ ... really nice to do that, yeah, great. Champion! .. .keep up our tradition of good looking bridges. Bailey/ Yeah, we have some great bridges! Elliott/ A bridge is a bridge. Champion! Well, in your eyes, but then you don't like public art either. Bailey/ .. . right, and then we'll let, right, and then we'll let Connie sort of advocate for a beautiful way to get across things and we're all.. . (several talking) Mercer Ball Diamond UDl!rade Trueblood! This is the Mercer Park ball diamond complex, actually taken from the roof of the Aquatic Center, which we'll talk about next. But, we have $300,000 budgeted over a three-year period, $100,000 each in 06, 07, and 08, and that's for a variety of projects, primarily three of the four diamonds need to be relit. They range in age from 25 to 30 years, some a little newer as we had to replace lights and that kind of thing, but the big concern is the lights are inefficient and the poles, most of which are wooden, are, they don't last forever, let's put it that way. The, it's a little big challenging having it phased over a three-year period because $225,000 of this project is for the relighting the three diamonds, and obviously the best way to do that is to let a bid for all three of them at once, but we're working on that right now. The first thing, diamond #3, which is the southwest diamond that, ifI can find my arrow again, would be this one right over in here, which you can't see very well, but that's the second smallest of the four diamonds, and because of the increased play in baseball, as opposed to softball, and because Babe Ruth is expanding into a younger age group of baseball players, we need to expand the size of that field slightly. There isn't a great deal of room, but we can move the homerun fence out some, but the main thing over there is that a few years ago, Rick and his cohorts tore up that field and when we buried the caterpillar there, the ground settled later. So, remember that caterpillar? It was sitting there for quite a while after a guy went bankrupt and we couldn't move it, so it was sitting out there in left centerfield, but at any rate, what was it a water This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 39 line or something that.. . sewer line, okay, but the field did settle some so we have to do some excavation there, shave off a comer and another, in the other outfield to move the homerun fence back some. Champion! What is a caterpillar? Trueblood! Pardon? Champion! What is a caterpillar? Trueblood! You know, a little fuzzy bug (laughter). Champion! You buried it? Trueblood/ No, we're referring to a big earth mover. Champion! Oh! Trueblood! I don't know ifit's Caterpillar or John Deere or whatever it was. Champion! Okay, okay, okay. Trueblood! But, it was big, I know that. So that's the primary (can't hear) of this particular complex or project. Are there any questions on that before we move on to... O'Donnell/ I was wondering, which is the building that Steve Atkins hit with a towering home run? Trueblood! No, actually that was a foul ball behind a back stop. (laughter) No, that building, yeah, okay it's this building right here. That building used to be twice as tall, though, but when his ball hit (laughter). Bailey/ So, this... Trueblood! This is the new concession stand right there that we built a couple of years ago. Bailey/ So these fields are used for the Little League, boys' baseball, and then the adult- refed? Trueblood/ I'm sorry? Bailey/ So these fields are used for baseball, youth baseball leagues and then... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 40 Trueblood! These fields are used for three, actually four different purposes you could say. Field #1, which was developed a lot over the last couple years into a premiere baseball diamond, is used by both Babe Ruth and City High baseball- it's now home to City High baseball, and occasionally other groups, but primarily those two. Field #2, the same groups. Field #3, those groups, plus we rent the fields out. Field #4 is the only true softball diamond there and we use that for softball league, primarily a church league that we rent fields to. But, we also rent the fields to youth baseball, adult softball, and so forth, and so summer.. .our summer program, summer City High, summer Babe Ruth, and some are just purely rentals to other baseball and softball organizations. Mercer Park / Rec Center Roof Repair Trueblood! Next, thanks. The roof proj ects, which is proposed for $350,000 in FYOS, this one right here represents that lower portion of the Recreation Center roof and I should stop there and say that this is not an entire replacement for both the Recreation Center and the Mercer Scanlon facilities. This just goes over the craft room, potter's studio, dark room, restroom area in the Recreation Center. You can see that it's got a lot of things on top. Some of this, particularly this big one, was added after the last time this roof underwent major repairs, which was I think about 17 or IS years ago. It was almost a replacement, but not quite. So, it's just that small portion on the Recreation Center roof and this one right here, as you can see, there're six patches in a 10' perimeter, so we're constantly having to do patch work and as you all know I'm sure, flat roofs just don't last as long as pitched roofs, but for large buildings, often times that's your only alternative. This is out at the Mercer Park Pool, doesn't include the Scanlon addition, which we added a few years ago. This is just the roof over the pool, and to give you an example, right here you see this area, it's supposed to be and originally was straight up and down, but now you can see it's coming off at an angle. What happens is you get some shrinkage and then it starts pulling away from the perpendicular spots and causes a lot of that kind of patch work and seam work and so forth that's needed. This roofis IS years old and well, if funded as proposed, it'll be 20 years old by the time we replace it. Elliott! Mercer Park roof? Bailey/ The pool. Elliott/ Is IS years old? Trueblood! IS years old, opened in 19S5. Champion! That's amazing. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of Jauuary 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 41 Vanderhoef/ Refresh my memory, please, on the downtown Rec Center, the single story parts that we're talking about re-roofing over offices and pottery room and that stuff. Do we have footings under that to go up on that building? Trueblood! I couldn't tell you. Vanderhoeti' Anybody know? I think it was looked at, you know, eight to ten years ago, and I just can't remember. Trueblood/ My guess is that that part might have, but the other parts that are essentially two stories high don't have that kind offooting, because when we have looked at expansion, the two primary areas that seem to be most feasible would be one, either to the east over the existing parking lot, or to the north going over the street, and building in that area that used to be the bus station. Vanderhoef/ Good, thank you. Old Bus Depot Land Acquisition Atkins/ For purpose of showing the old bus depot as a land acquisition is one to remind you that it's a parking system asset, doesn't mean you have to do this, but it would be an expense for the GO Debt as we proposed, or the General Fund. We have continually proposed that we don't really invest in that spot, that it should be preserved for some future use. Things that come to mind were an expansion of the Rec Center, possibility of a new Joint Communications Center, as well as police storage area. The, I guess it's a transformer, whatever that big electrical thing is, we've gotten a letter from MidAmerican saying that they will eventually phase that out and we would, in effect, trying to preserve our rights to purchase that site. The long-term City policy has been for many years that we would own the three blocks on that block and the thing that we don't own is the Mid- American site. For the time being, we're just simply asking you to hold it as it is. Correia! So we, we already own it through the Parking Fund? Atkins/ Right. Correia! So, what, why would we purchase it? Why would we switch the way it's purchased? What are the... Atkins/ Ifwe were to tear it down, as well as the John Wilson property were tom down and used for some other government purpose, Rec Center, Joint Communications Center, whatever the circumstances, it seemed to be me that we have an obligation to purchase that asset with General Fund monies from the parking system. That's what paid for it originally. Correia! Because the way it's owned now, we're constrained for purposes related to... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 42 Atkins/ Constrained is a little strong, Amy. Correia! Okay. Atkins/ It's simply an identification of how the property was originally purchased and how.. .it was acquired through the use of parking revenues. Ifwe're going to use it for something other than parking system, it would seem to me the only fair way to do that is reimburse the parking system for that purchase. Correia! Okay, I see. Bailey/ But it's a question offair-ity and not legality? Atkins/ Absolutely. Bailey/ Fairness, not legality. Atkins/ Fair-ity? (laughter) Bailey/ We're just making up words right and left! Yeah. Correia! Okay, so it's basically, I'm sorry, so it'd be transferring money from... Atkins/ Some time in the future you'll have a line-item budget under a Capital Plan that may be GO Debt $400,000, purpose - purchase of Old Bus Depot. Correia! And the money would go to the parking, to transit. Atkins/ .. . monies would go into, no, the parking fund, not.. . right. Correia! Okay. O'Donnell/ Steve, have we cleaned up the grounds there? It was an old gas station. Correia! Are there brown fields? Atkins/ I don't believe. Rick, I know, had done some work on the cost for clearing the site. I don't know, did we do anything on environmental? I don't recall that. Okay, we'll have to check. Bailey/ I thought maybe we discussed it before - you said we hadn't done anything. Atkins/ My answer is that I don't think we have, but before we go to take it down, and particularly if you go to build on it again, we'll have to answer that question. (several talking at once) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 43 Vanderhoefi' And likewise might there be if we were taking out the substation, might there be environmental concerns there? Atkins/ We would probably ask them to confirm. Champion! It might not pay us to take the (can't understand). (laughter) Atkins/ It's a real.. "attractive building. Champion! It could be. Atkins/ I like the use of duct tape on the windows (laughter). Bailey/ Guys always like duct tape. Atkins/ Guys like duct tape! O'Donnell! Probably the most solid part of the building. Vanderhoef/ Could we just put a drape around it for the next four or five years until we're ready to use it? Atkins/ Mike's observation is the duct tape holds it all together is probably... Bailey/ So that parking lot to the north of this is, we own that? (several talking at once) Atkins/ ... we allow them to park on the roof of the old (can't hear; several talking at once) No, we rent. We've assured them if at some time that building comes down, we would just switch them over into the Chauncey Swan. They... we in effect have an obligation to provide that parking, which they do pay for. Wilburn! I'm sorry, Steve. In terms of the transfer that was brought up earlier, I'm presuming that, refresh my memory, the police of some of our enterprise (can't understand) but when we need to make a capital investment, and any of our enterprise funds that we've got, both the reserves and the cash, to... Atkins/ Yes. Wilburn! That's why we pay back and forth? Atkins/ Yes. You're not obligated to do it, but it's long-standing history. Wilburn! So essentially we're borrowing from ourselves and repaying? Atkins/ We borrow from ourselves, right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 44 Champion! Or we use cash reserves. Vanderhoef! But then it goes out on debt reserve, so it's new cash into parking, and... Atkins! Ifwe were to buy this piece of property with GO Debt, those monies...you would have a tax obligation to pay for that GO Debt, and the parking system would be made whole because the value of the fixed asset, $400,000, has been converted to cash. By the purchase, the cash is transferred then to the parking fund. Wilburn! Thank you. Fosse! On the environmental questions on this site, we'll check with Joe. I think he has some records from when that was purchased and whether or not the tanks had been removed at that time and what sort of assurances might exist. Park Road Bridl!:e & Intersection Improvements Fosse! Our next project is the Park Road bridge and intersection improvements, and what this project does is combine major maintenance on the bridge with a capacity improvement on the intersection there. The bridge deck is in a degrading condition. It needs to be stripped down to the beams and we're going to be doing an economic analysis to see whether it's cost effective to try and salvage those beams or to replace the beams, and then when we replace the bridge deck, that center median will come out and we'll reconfigure the lanes on there, and we may actually widen the bridge to get five lanes on there if we show that four will not be adequate, but what we want to accomplish is to provide a dual left turn lane off of that bridge so that eastbound, turning north, will (can't understand). We need that capacity there, and by the same token for southbound on Dubuque Street, we want to put in a dedicated right turn lane for them turning onto Park Road, because we have a lot of capacity issues at that intersection, and that's keeping with that, our theme of working on that corridor. We've done the Foster Road intersection improvements. We talked about Church and Dubuque earlier, and this intersection. This is the major link between our downtown and the north corridor. We want to get that in shape. Questions? Park Shelters Wilburn! You've been coming up a lot here. Trueblood! Not nearly enough. (laughter) Bailey! Everybody says that. Trueblood! Our park shelter replacement project, I would like to start by saying we do replace shelters on occasion as necessary, or perhaps add a new one through our This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 45 annual park maintenance and improvement budget, but we felt it was time to do a, more of a large scale shelter replacement, and this is just to give you an idea. This particular shelter is in North Market Square Park, which from the overall view doesn't look too bad, but if you get up close you can see a lot of things that are wrong with it. This bracing, for example, right in through there is something that we had to add. I think this bracing up through here might be something that we had to add as they start swaying in the wind, but at any rate, $140,000, $70,000 each over a two-year period, to replace these. We, most of our shelters, I don't know if most is correct, but many of our shelters, the ones to be replaced anyway, are 36, over 36 years old. Now that seems like a nice round figure and how did we come about finding that out? Well, our most senior maintenance worker has been with the department for 36 years, and he tells us that a lot of these were there before he got there, so they could be 37 years, they could be 55 years. You know, sometimes the records don't hold up very well going back that far. Elliott! Terry, where did you say... this is? Trueblood! North Market Square. Elliott/ That's over by whatchamacallits (can't hear). That's the one that's in the middle of the street there. Trueblood! I guess you could look at it that way. Yeah, I never had thought about us having a park in the middle of the street. (laughter) Elliott! ...drive right into the middle of the park ifyou...okay. Trueblood/ We'll move that. (laughter) Actually, North Market Square, in case you didn't know this, is one of the two oldest parks in the city, North Market Square and College Green were both platted with the original City plats, they're 150 plus years old. We can go to the next one. Bailey/ I have a question about the shelters. In Public Art, you've been talking about incorporating elements of art into shelters. Is this going to be included in this project and... Trueblood/ That's something that we'll certainly look at. Yeah. Bailey/ Okay, because I think that's a terrific idea. Trueblood! By the way, I did forget to mention that this is budgeted, $140,000 comes about figuring we need to replace ten park shelters at $14,000 each - some will be a little more, some will be a little less, and I should let you know too that one of our park commissioners has indicated that he would like a discussion with, at the commission level, to discuss maybe not replacing the shelters with $14,000 This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 46 shelters, but maybe building just a handful of shelters at greater expense, made of stone, brick, whatever, that kind of thing, so that discussion may come about. Peninsula Park Trueblood! This is Peninsula Park. This picture right in here was actually taken just this past weekend. That's a group of volunteers that are clearing dead wood and some undesirable trees for the new disc golf course that's being developed out there. Mr. Atkins said that he would go along with this project because it's the closest I will ever come to seeing a golf course built in Dubuque, or in Iowa City. So, finally getting my golf course! (laughter) This up here is a couple of our supervisors supervising the project, and down here in this comer is our Public Works' Director and his City vehicle, and (laughter) inspecting the trails. Next slide, please. Here's an aerial of Peninsula Park. Unfortunately, this was taken prior to the time any development was occurring, but right in this area right here as most of you probably know is the dog park that's currently under construction. They have most oftheir fence in, maybe all of it. They have a rather large hole dug over in this area for the pond that's going to be part of it, and the disc golf course, the parking lot is in already, it's right in there. The disc golf course that I mentioned, there's going to be a couple of holes right in here. Most of them go through the wooded area and some over in here that will occasionally be under water. Now, when you look at the wooded area, I don't want you to think of a disc golf course as having fairways like a regular golf course. You know, they just clear out stuff, it's not the kind of thing that has to be mowed every day; have to be mowed on occasion. Basically rough. The one thing I would like to let you know too, while I've got this photo up here - I keep loosing my arrow - is the park goes back up in this area a little ways and maybe about up that far is park land, and with a new development, we are going to be getting additional park land, think it's right up through here so we'll have quite a bit of river frontage along there. The money that's budgeted, and won't go into the dog park or the disc golf course, it will go into future prairie plantings. Perhaps at least one shelter, maybe two. It will do some trail work, some other trail work, just nature trail kinds of things as opposed to the bicycle trail that's going through here. Perhaps a canoe launching area somewhere over in here, but that, you know, there are vehicular traffic issues that would have to be resolved for that. And, if necessary, some added parking, and in a way, we hope it will be necessary and in a way we hope it won't. We don't want to build a huge parking lot in this area, but of course if we have to, that means it's getting a lot of use. So, any questions? Vanderhoef/ Would there be any other place to tuck in a small parking area, that wouldn't all be in one area? Trueblood! Well, first thing is that we don't want vehicular access going beyond this point right here. Vanderhoej} Okay. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council hudget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 47 Trueblood! Other than service and emergency vehicles and that sort of thing; bicycles, of course. So what we've done is basically the parking lot comes over around here like this, but it can continue on down through here so it would be kind a long narrow parking lot if necessary. Of course, there's a parking lot right over here in Terrill Mill Park that, you know, ifpeople are good swimmers or have a boat (laughter), or if we had a pedestrian bridge right there. That's all I'm going to say (laughter). Bailey/ I knew that bridge would corne up in this slide. When you talk about the potential canoe launching, has there ever been any discussion about the City operating canoe, kayak rental? As a recreation. Trueblood! Not that I'm aware of. Would you like to discuss it? Bailey/ I don't know. Trueblood/ No we haven't discussed that. Vanderhoef/ Am I right, that area that you said we might be acquiring there to the north along the river, isn't that the area that's high up on the bluff that we can't get close to the river. Trueblood! I haven't hiked back in there, but I understand quite a bit of it is a bluff area. Matter of fact, I'm told that the Irving Weber rock is somewhere along in there. Where he used to dive off of it into the river. Champion! He dove into that river? Vanderhoef/ Well, before the reservoir, it was deep. Champion! I wouldn't dive...(several talking at once) Rec Center Window Replacement Trueblood! This is not the Peninsula Park, this is the Recreation Center. Kind of give you a couple before and after photos, but this started out couple of years ago to be a window replacement project, and it still is a window replacement project, but it's expanded considerably to where it's really kind of more, not just window replacement, but exterior renovation, exterior enhancement, so that this right here, as it exists right now, the pool- this is the sound end ofthe Recreation Center, the pool right there, so in the new plan, of course this fence will go away and so would these - I guess they're fiber glass panels, and so we would have windows top to bottom along through there. It's basically going to replace all of the exterior windows and all of the exterior doors and all of these panels, like this right here. The Recreation Center is over 40 years old, by the way, and these This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 48 were all original, and then you may recall, you don't have a real good view of here, there's that concrete trellis, for lack of a better word - that's going to disappear. There's basically three things this will do. One it's going to improve the exterior looks of the Recreation Center vastly. It's going to brighten up the interior a great deal, and it's going to help with energy costs, but, so we're actually working on it right now with Shive-Hattery and things are progressing. Budgeted it over a two-year period, so at that stage, we'll be doing it over... Elliott! Now, don't I recall seeing people being able to come out of the pool into the outside area between the building and the fence? Trueblood/ They'll still be able... Elliott! Is that eliminated? Trueblood! No, they'll still be able to do that. Elliott/ But no fence? Trueblood/ There'll be a fence, but it won't be a solid fence like this. It'll be a more attractive fence of some nature that won't be like a wall around it. Champion! Well, ifthere's some really good looking young girls sunbathing there, it might cause a traffic wreck, if you can look through the fence. Trueblood! Well, we figured now that that's widened and has turn lanes and everything that it should be okay to do it now. Vanderhoef/ So probably a viewing lane too (laughter). Wilburn! I need to take a break. Riverbank Stabilization - City Park Knoche/ This is a project we've been working with the Corps of Engineers on to get some federal funds to line, or either with ripwrap or some other type of natural vegetation to hold the bank along the Iowa River there in City Park and a lot of it is lined already. Basically it's lined on both sides of the river down to the boat landing in City Park, and then on the east side of the river, it's lined all the way down to the Park Road Bridge. This is the area that's on the inside of the bend and they're having some erosion problems and we're losing about six inches of land a year off of City Park to the river, and, depending on flooding, that type of stuff - we haven't seen a whole lot of flooding the last couple years, but then we also have some issues on the south, or the south side of Park Road Bridge on the Dubuque Street side, which would be the east side, where it's starting to have some erosion there also, and there's a pretty high power transmission power pole This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. .._~----~.,_._...._._._-,-,_.. ~,-----"-,---""",,,--,-----'-'---~----------""--'.,-~ January 25,2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 49 there that Mid-American's worried about, and if we don't do something about it, eventually we could probably see some impacts on Dubuque Street. This is some funds that the Corps of Engineers have, but it's a pot that they have to draw out of, so we're working with them to try to get somebody to, basically what I've been told, is it's kind of a you have to talk to your congressman and get some names in that way as far as possible earmarks, per se, but we've been working with the Corps of Engineers and it's one that hopefully we'll get funded here in the next couple years. Rochester Avenue Bride:e Knoche/ This is one that it's not embargoed yet, so we're, it still can carry the traffic, but it is one that is starting to fall apart on us. It's getting towards the top of the State bridge funds, so we're.. . have it funded out in FY09 with hopes that it'll get towards the top so we'll get some State bridge funds for it, similar to what we did with the Meadow Street Bridge. You can see there's some corrosion of the rebar, concrete's falling apart. This will be one that we will replace similar to the Meadows Street Bridge. We'll have oversized sidewalks that'll be a part of the construction, and it'll look probably very similar to the Meadow Street Bridge. Vanderhoef/ And will that be three or four lane? Knoche/ I think currently we would look at replacing it with two lanes, but we could, looking out in the future, we could go three lanes if we need to. Vanderhoef/ Because it's working so well on Rochester with three lanes to the east of that bridge, I would like to certainly look at minimum of three lanes there for future, since that bridge will last - what? 35,40 years. Bailey/ I'm not following you. You want three lanes because with the anticipation that Rochester will be three lanes coming into town? Vanderhoe11 On west of the bridge. Knoche/ We have, Rochester currently is striped three lanes down to 7th Avenue, which is just on the east side of this bridge. (several talking at once) Vanderhoef/ Well, but the point is that if you were going to do the third lane west of the bridge... Bailey/ And why do we need three lanes west of that bridge, it's residential. Vanderhoef/ For turn lane. It's residential. It carries a huge amount of traffic and when people are trying to back into driveways, or back out into traffic... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 50 Knoche! The concept would be a dual left turn lane where if people needed to get into their driveway, they could get out of the traveled way, and not... Bailey! I've never had a problem on Rochester, except around Regina. Champion! Well, r still don't see why you want the bridge to be three lanes. There won't be any turning on that. Bailey! Well, because if you're going three lanes, they're saying keep it three lanes. Knoche! You'd have to maintain the lane configuration across the bridge if you go with the dual left turn lane, on the west side of the bridge. Elliott! That third lane also helps with traffic when the City bus is stopped, because traffic really tends to pile up past this city stop, city busses, if people are hesitant to pass it on the left side. Vanderhoef! And the side street action, coming from north of Rochester, also can use that turn lane for entry onto Rochester. It's... because r travel it multiple times every day. r see lots of congestion problems with turn activities. Bailey! r just go straight and don't seem to have a problem. Sand Lake Recreational Area Atkins! You'll recall, it's probably been a year or so ago that.. . report the idea how that large quarry of 158 acres, how it might be used in the future as a recreational site. r sensed from the Council that there was general agreement that we pursue, and we have done a number of pi arming items with it. We have discussed extensively with the property owner. We have not settled in on a price yet. We got appraisals done. Terry and his folks will begin the process of some sort of a plan on how we might use this particular piece of property. We've also talked about how we might take the property and actually take it all the way over to the river. There's a, that doesn't tell me a lot - that's water. Anyway, incorporating that into our plarming process. The crp that you have in front of you is substantially for the acquisition of the land. I'd like to assume that we could wrap this up. I'd like to assume we could get this acquired at the very least in the next year or so, so that we do hold the property, and do some serious planning on how we can go about making it the recreational facilities we'd like. r would also like to have you think about a couple of the old timers are saying we can't have two Sand Lakes. There's a Sand Lake behind the Hills Bank, and this one is called Sand Lake, so we're likely to need a new name somewhere, of which r don't have any (several talking). McCollister Pond, and make Bob crazy! (laughter) Well, whatever we decide to call it, we will need to give it a name. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 51 Bailey/ Half of it could be Mormon Trek Pond and then half of it could be McCollister Pond. Atkins/ I'm losing you now, I mean (laughter). Vanderhoef/ Tome, this is an ideal proj ect to look at, naming rights with a large contribution. Elliott! In addition, Steve, to me there's no hurry put on finalizing what it will be. I think it will be very beneficial, just to have it, clean up the area, make it look nice, and if... it's just a pretty... Atkins/ We need to get it acquired and I'm convinced through some (can't understand) we could make it a reasonably attractive (can't hear). Yeah. Bailey/ So we have in here $250,000 from FY06 to go towards the purchase. Do we have, how close are we to... Atkins/ We've not sold those bonds yet. Bailey/ Oh, okay. How close are we... we're working with the current owner to see... Atkins/ Well, Rick, how close are we do you think? Fosse/ We're within a couple hundred thousand of each other on price. Bailey/ Okay, we're negotiating price. Atkins/ We've had appraisals done, and our appraisal came in good for us, but bad for him. Bailey/ And he wants more. Atkins/ Essentially, yes. Bailey/ But we're not competing with anybody else? Atkins/ One of our arguing points is that an abandoned quarry, I mean, something that could be an attractive water feature created, it only makes good sense to me to be put to public use, I mean, ifhe's going to own it, the property's going to own it and just sit on it. They said, 'We can build condos around it...' I sort of doubt that. Bailey/ So you're suggesting naming rights maybe that couple hundred dollars could be a name. Right? (several talking at once) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 52 Elliott! Steve, is Casey Cook still, he made a presentation on what he'd like to see done on the body of water. Atkins! The Little Sand.. .this is Big Sand Lake. His Little Sand Lake had a bike trail (TAPE ENDS) There's no doubt it all fits together, yeah. The, I'll use the"M" word - the McCollister Bridge connection, I mean, there's a whole lot of things you can accomplish with trails and transportation improvements, all kind of come together right at that spot. Sand Road (Gilbert Street South) Knoche! The south Gilbert Street-Sand Road project is a joint project with Johnson County. This is one that we had bid last year as a larger joint project, the project all the way from Napoleon Lane down to 480th Street. The project, we didn't award last year due to some high bids, so the County came back to us and said we'd like to separate our project out from Sycamore Street south. We still want to do a joint project with you to the north, but we'd like you to take care of that project, and so we worked with them. We'll have a four lane road down to where McCollister Boulevard'lI come across and then there'll be three lanes down to Sycamore Street. We'll start off with that three lane being striped two lane with some wide shoulders so we'll have some bike lane, basically an oversize shoulder with some bike lanes in there. Elliott! When you say again, where the four lane will stop? Knoche! Basically at the City limits. Where McCollister Boulevard comes across is where the four lanes will stop. Elliott! Okay, and then three. Vanderhoef! At Sycamore, or just beyond? Knoche! The four lanes will be at the City limits, which is, McCollister Boulevard and Sand Hill Subdivision is already built, McCollister Boulevard there (can't hear)... Elliott! .. . and that's Sycamore coming out, you say? Okay. (several talking) Okay. Vanderhoefi' Okay, four to bridge and three to Sycamore. Knoche! This project, it has been awarded to Metro Pavers. This is one that you awarded Monday night, and so they'll start this spring on it. So, it'll be four lanes, curb and gutter, storm sewer, we'll have an 8' sidewalk that'll run down the west side along the Public Works' property, down to where McCollister Boulevard will come across. We'll also be tying in a trail that's already been constructed in Sand Hill, a 10' trail. We'll tie that in to the River Corridor Trail that's already there along Sand Road. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 53 Vanderhoef/ You say on the west side of the sidewalk? Knoche/ We'll have an 8' walk on the west side of Sand, of south Gilbert, and then, by the ball field, yeah, on the side where the ball fields are, along the frontage of the Public Works' site, and then there's already a 10' trail that's already been constructed in Sand Hill that's on the east side. We'll make that connection in. Vanderhoef/ Okay. So, we need a crosswalk piece there somewhere to cross over? Knoche/ Correct. And that'll be incorporated into this project. And what you see there as far as the budget just shows the City's share of the project; it doesn't show the County's share. The County share is about $625,000, so a total project is about, well, it's about $1.4 million, somewhere in there. Vanderhoef/ Do we have a bus route that's going to go down that far? I know we talked about it with that development and that location. That... Davidson! Yeah, it's one ofthe things that's under consideration in the route study that's ongoing right now with a staff committee. You know, I can't say that there's a lot of potential ridership down there. I think there are other areas of Iowa City where we're focusing a little bit more because potential ridership is a lot higher, but it is under consideration, and every time you put a looped street in, that facilitates transit movement, if and when we decide to put a route in. Vanderhoetl I just was thinking about bus pull off, that kind of thing. Davidson! Yeah, unless there's a real severe traffic situation, we don't typically like to incorporate the bus pull offs. The drivers hate them because then they have to pull back out into traffic, so it's only in a situation where for the protection of the bus, basically we need to get it out of traffic, on a much lighter traveled arterial like this, the bus can just stage on the street, like it does on most arterial streets. Vanderhoef/ Okay. Soccer Park Improvements Trueblood! This is the soccer park, that's why we put a sign right there. This, obviously, shows an action picture. Rick wanted to have one of his son but he couldn't find one so he put this one in instead. (laughter) There's a couple of proposals here, one of which we do currently have, I believe it's - yeah -- $100,000 budgeted for this Fiscal Year, and then $250,000 proposed down the road a bit in FY09. You may recall, some of you, that when this soccer complex was originally designed, it included down, basically in this area right here and extending further to the west, a large open area that was originally going to be a five-field softball complex. That kind of fell by the wayside as far as priorities when we entered This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 54 into that long-term agreement with the University ofIowa for use of their facilities, so it was no longer a priority; however, we still have that open space there and what we want to do with it now is to develop a couple of what we would call backup soccer fields, and that's just when we have some work to do on one of the others or when we need to give it a rest or something, we'll have backup fields. They can also be used for practice. And, two practice softballlbaseball diamonds for youth. Now, when I'm saying practice, it's just that. It would basically be a backstop, improved turf, an infield, maybe player's benches, and that's it. They would be there not for competition, but simply to rent out for practices, because we're getting more and more crunch for that, and also in the short-term down in that general area, we want to construct a pond that we can, it would be an amenity, but primarily it would be used for backup irrigation system. Right now our entire irrigation system comes from the effluent, from the waste water treatment plant, and it's worked out great in most respects, but it does contain a lot of sodium, I guess it is, and we've because it's getting so much sodium put on the turf, it causes us problems, so we occasionally need to just use, not City water in this case, but pond water instead of always corning from the effluent. In the long term, we're looking more at accessibility and trail issues. This trail right here that you can see is actually could be termed an extension of the south Sycamore Trail system, comes in way at the northeast comer of the soccer complex, but it terminates right there at the main parking lot. We would like to extend the trail down to at least the southwest comer of the complex, maybe even the southeast comer as well. But it would also help with accessibility for people with disabilities to be able to get to the various fields. Now, we've got 17 fields down there. This sure isn't enough money to build 17 different trail systems, if you will, throughout the park. Whatever we can do would be most helpful, and then other things could possibly be handled through scheduling. For example, I mean, if a boy or girl has morn, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, whatever that wants to corne and see them playa lot, but they're disabled, particularly if they're in a wheelchair, requests could be made that such and such be scheduled on a field that is accessible, you know, that kind of thing. We don't need to make 17 fields accessible, although that would be ideal, but we do need to make at least one of each size, and there're three different sizes, accessible down there. Vanderhoef/ Terry, how close would we be then to connecting up to the trail that goes with the storm water management piece that goes down there on the west side, that comes out of the Saddlebrook and Whispering Meadows and that. Trueblood! How close geographically, or how close in terms of scheduling? Vanderhoef/ Yeah, to connect up. Can you show me on a map... Trueblood! I'm not sure I can answer that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. -~-_..~-^.,-'-'-'-'----" ,~---~-~-~-",_.---,~_._-~._-_._---------- January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 55 Knoche! The trail system, the trail system that goes along south Sycamore, drainage way, is already tied into the Soccer Park. And that's the piece that's shown on this picture. When McCollister Boulevard gets extended across and with the sidewalk system that we put in, that would probably be when the connection would be made to the Saddlebrook trail system that's in Saddlebrook. Vanderhoef! Okay. Knoche! But the project that we did three years ago, the main trail system is already tied into the Soccer Park. Elliott! Very quickly, there are a few happy people, anyway, that you put a - what? A bocce court at City Park? Bocce. How about ultimate Frisbee? Are anything.. . can that come up on the horizon for this complex out here? Knoche! We have not had any ultimate Frisbee requests. Elliott! Okay. Knoche! But there's space out there (several talking at once) Elliott! At the college and university level, it's getting pretty popular. Knoche! Yeah, I've seen them out at the University soccer complex on occasion. But, yeah, we'd have space to accommodate that. (several talking) Vanderhoef! You're calling them practice fields. Is there any advantage to having those for tournament, or would they not be regulation size fields? Knoche! Are you talking about the soccer fields or the softball? Vanderhoef! Soccer. Knoche! Soccer, okay. Yeah, that's certainly, if there's a big tournament down there, which there is on occasion, they can be opened up for that. Vanderhoef! They would be regulation so that they could participate on that too. So that would truly make us 19 fields. Knoche! Right. Gotta put that into your sports (several talking). Bailey! It would be interesting to hear what capacity we have in the area for soccer. Wilburn! We've had, for fall sports, Mike Moran has been going to those meetings with me, too, and we both put out the, they've looked at with longing eyes the existing This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25,2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Page 56 facilities in all the communities, but as the success of their efforts in recruiting, thinks our areas going to put a strain on all of our facilities then, and... Elliott! This is destination events? Wilburn! Yes (can't hear), at least that piece known to them, but they'll be glad to here there's more space, but the competing space issue, as Terry brought up, is felt throughout our Parks and Rec stuff. The success ofthe sports authorities going to add to that. I know from firsthand experience just the softball accessibility for practice, it's really challenging. Bailey/ Whatever happened to the indoor soccer practice, did they ever find a spot or do they still go to Cedar Rapids? Knoche/ Not to my knowledge they haven't, no, and I actually talked with a couple people involved with the Alliance and the IYC, which are the two primary competitive groups in town. Told them basically that ifthey ever wanted to get together an include us, we'd be happy to sit down and talk with them, but I haven't heard a thing. Bailey/ Okay, thanks. Svcamore Street - Burns Street to the City Limits Knoche/ This would extend the four lane that's currently on Sycamore Street, down to Lakeside, Wetherby, and then would do a three lane cross section south to the city limits. We would include an 8' walk on one side and then a regular sidewalk on the other. Storm sewer improvements, and the biggest struggle here is going to be dealing with the existing traffic on the street, you know, with the subdivisions that are down there and the current subdivisions that are platted, it'll be a difficult one to build, but one that's definitely needed. Elliott/ I hope we can look at the intersection with, this is Sycamore and the Highway too. The people who are westbound on the Highway and turning left or south on Sycamore, I have, early on, did it myself. You wait and you wait and you wait, and you assume it's not working so you go ahead and turn on a red light, and then next time you realize, no, it's just an unbearably long red light, and I've seen it miss a rotation. That... so, because there's going to be more traffic coming down that, I would assume. Knoche/ We'll also look and make sure the detections working. Yanderhoef} Will that have (several talking) fees, exactions for that piece? Knoche/ Yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 57 Davidson! Weare taking a look at some detection issues. You know, we're kind of in a pilot project status with the camera detectors and we're going to a new technology that's going to work better for us, so... Transit - Bus Replacements Davidson! This project is, well, we hope to go out to bid very shortly. This is to replace six of the O'Ryan busses. They will be wheelchair lift equipped and bike rack equipped, just like the current vehicles are. We have funding for four already. Weare anticipating getting funding for two more this year so that'll allow us to replace six. Unit price is a little over $300,000 for a bus. Elliott! Are these smaller and more fuel efficient? Davidson! No, these are the 40' busses. In terms of fuel efficiency, I'm not exactly up to speed on the technology there, but it's basically the same type of vehicle, 40' , full-size, heavy-duty bus, that has a life cycle of approximately 12 years. These have exceeded that amount, but we do like to get at least 12 years out of these. That's one of the advantages of the larger busses, Bob, is that you do get, because they're a more heavy-duty vehicle, you get a longer life span out of them. Elliott! I'm just thinking with the price of fuel though, when it.. .most evenings and many afternoons you see the bus driving empty, totally, complete - well, except for the driver. Davidson! Yeah, and they are continuing to work out a scenario for blending the smaller vehicles in the evening when the rush gets slower. Elliott! Good. Atkins! I'm going to butt in on wrapping this thing up. We've got to get you out of here by 12:00 because we have a I :00 with you all again, and the room has to be reset. Schedule Wilburn! We have to take a look at the calendar though. Atkins! We have the 30th scheduled for boards and commissions, that evening. That's full. We have people until 9:00, so we couldn't.. . and we have the 31 st. Could we start a little earlier, 8:30? (several talking) The 31 s" we need to finish up the CIP. There's a number of unfunded projects we want to talk with you about, and we also want you to be able to. ..and then we could move into some of the other operating things. Champion! Can we start at 8:00 in the morning? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Work Session Page 58 Atkins/ We're here, I mean the staff.. .on the 3 1st? We should be able to wrap the rest of this up in about an hour, and then got on to the remainder of the budget. (several talking) O'Donnell/ I will be here at 8:30; I can't make it at 8:00, but that's fine. Atkins/ Okay, so we're going to start at 8:00, knowing that Mike can't be here? 0' Donnell/ No, that's fine. I think it's perfectly acceptable. Atkins/ 8:00 on the 31" and we'll finish up the eIP. I'll have your tax rate things and a number of other things to bring to you, and then that also is an opportunity for you all to raise issues with us, and you may want, depends on how it goes, you may need to think about another. . . Bailey/ I think we need to think about another session. Karr/ You want to set another one, or do you want to talk about that? Bailey/ I always like to block off dates. It's easier to cancel than it is to schedule. (several talking) Oh, because it's on the computer. Wilburn! Why don't we make sure the next session we get together.." Karr/ Why don't, if it's okay with you, Ross, why don't, if you could give me a call on some openings, maybe I could - at your next session give you some dates that we could look at? That might save some time. Wilburn! Okay, everybody get an opening or two to Marian, okay? Elliott! What are we talking about, prior to that.. . (several talking). Karr/ It'd be after the 31 st, but would have to be, don't want to speak for Finance here, but we have to set the public hearing on the 13th, and we have to have time enough. There're figures and stuff... they wanted, they would love to have it that first week, if possible, done by the 5th. That's.. ..6th Atkins/ That tax rate issue.. ..(several talking) Karr/ I'm sorry? Vanderhoef/ I am out of town the first and second. Bailey/ I'm out the first. Wilburn! Why don't we get those dates to Marian so we can wrap this up here? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. January 25, 2006 City Council Budget Wark Session Atkins/ Thank you all. See you around 1 :00. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 25, 2006. Page 59