HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-03-06 Transcription
March 6, 2006
March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
Page I
City Council Work Session
6:30 PM
Council: Bailey, Champion, Correia, Elliott, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn
Staff: Atkins, Boelk, Boothroy, Dilkes, Davidson, Fosse, Helling, Hennes, Karr, Knoche, Williams
TAPE: 06-24 A & B,
Plannine: and Zonine: Items
Davidson:
Wilburn:
Davidson:
Davidson:
Davidson:
Dilkes:
Davidson:
Dilkes:
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Planning Director has returned safe and sound. You'll see
her tomorrow. Had a good time, glad to be back.
That's good.
a) CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING 9.72-ACRES OF LAND LOCATED
WEST OF FOSTER ROAD FROM INTERIM DEVELOPMENT-
RESIDENTIAL (ID-RS) TO PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING-LOW
DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (OPD-5) (SECOND CONSIDERATION)
This should go quickly, unless you have questions I am not anticipating. These are all
repeat items, and one is being deferred. Item A is second consideration of Elk Run, which
is, which are the two 12-plexes off of Foster Road, which we discussed in some detail last
time. Any questions?
b) CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING 1.02 ACRES FROM LOW
DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-5) ZONE TO
COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL (CC-2) ZONE FOR PROPERTY LOCATED
AT 3405 ROCHESTER AVENUE. (REZ05-00024) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Ok, Item B is pass and adopt for the rezoning of the small parcel that will become part of the
Old Towne Village Development. This is the former salvage yard on Rochester Avenue.
c) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF JJR
DAVIS FOURTH ADDITION, IOWA CITY, IOWA. (SUB05-00027)
(DEFERRED FROM 1/23,2/13, 2/28)
And Item C is, I guess, required to be deferred - is that right Eleanor? Having to do with?
No, the applicants' attorneys requested deferral. I think it's just indefinitely.
Indefinitely.
Just a question of getting the signatures.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Davidson:
Elliott:
All:
City Council Work Session
Page 2
Ok. Any questions about anything on Planning and Zoning items?
Awesome.
Good.
Traffic Calminl! Prol!ram
Wilburn:
O'Donnell:
(laughter)
Davidson:
Elliott:
Davidson:
Dilkes:
Ok. Our next item is the traffic calming program, and, as we get into this I was asked to
give a reminder for Council, so that the transcriptionist can understand us, please make
sure you are speaking into the microphones and the volume can be picked up.
How's this?
And I will try to do the same. Anissa, do you want to come up, in case there are questions
that you might need to field here? After the discussion last week pertaining to the
Morningside Drive Traffic Calming and the 4-3 vote to approve that, Steve and I talked
and we thought maybe it would be a good idea to schedule this for discussion and getting
anything out that you might want to talk about. Real quickly, just a couple of things that I
think are useful for you to have prior to the discussion. The program has been in existence
approximately ten years, and this was a program that was generated by the Neighborhood
Council, but specific neighborhoods, I mean, the Tenachay Neighborhood was the one
that really was the force behind it, and our first traffic calming project were the speed
humps on Teg Drive that are still there, and everybody seems quite pleased with, but I did
want to emphasize that, just to remind everyone, that we had been really hounded by the
neighborhood, the neighborhoods, for these sorts of projects. And so, Council decided
rather than consider these on kind of an ad-hoc basis and who can scream the loudest that
we would try and set up a program to bring some objective criteria as best as we could to
the program. So, it's certainly, I want to emphasize this, your program - you can do
whatever you want with this. We have some stipulations in terms of once you decide and
go ahead with a project we want to make sure it is engineered according to standards that
have been developed fully, but in terms of whether or not you want to have a Traffic
Calming Program, that is completely at your discretion.
Would you, would you mind going over those two criteria that you said - one, if it met, I
think one or the other? One was speed, the other was volume.
We're going to get into that specifically if you can hold on two seconds. We're going to
get to that specifically.
I think when Jeff said criteria he was talking about the standards for construction of a
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa. City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
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March 6, 2006
Davidson:
Wilburn:
Davidson:
(laughter)
Vanderhoef:
Bailey:
Davidson:
Wilburn:
City Council Work Session
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speed hump, for instance, to make sure that it's done correctly.
Right. Right - when we construct speed humps on a street we want to make sure that
they are constructed of a dimension that is appropriate, that they're spaced appropriately,
you know, that they're basically safe.
If you're going to build it, build it right.
Exactly, that's correct Ross. Just a couple of other things, quickly, the program is
intended to empower neighborhoods. We don't dream these projects up, you don't dream
these projects up. The projects come to us when a neighborhood group gets together-
and, I think if you look at the criteria, we make it relatively difficult. This isn't something
that they can just do casually. It puts a lot of the work onto them, and they have to have
somebody who is willing to organize it, go door-to-door, get people interested, hold
neighborhood meetings, so, you know, I feel that brings some justification to the projects
once they get to you, that they are in fact something that at least a segment of the
neighborhood is interested in. We have had many projects considered. There have been
some that don't make it through the process to the point where they come to you for
consideration. We've had five implemented prior to this year. As you've heard Anissa
and I say many times, this has been a record year. We've had four implemented this year.
Five in the prior nine years, four this year. In the ten-year history of the program we have
had one failure, and that was the chicanes on Highland Drive. I'd like to remind everyone
staff had recommended against doing that project.
I remember who voted against it.
I thought those were fun.
That, that was removed after about three weeks, and I think we learned a good lesson from
that project, We've had no chicanes considered since that time. Four projects this year-
4th Avenue by City High, an alley between Bradley and 7''' Avenue, Kennedy Parkway and
Momingside Drive, obviously, Kennedy Parkway of a scale unforeseen, and probably that
we will not see again. I mean, I've looked at the map and tried to see if there's a possible
street that will get us 18 speed humps again and I really don't see that coming. $30,000 a
year allocated in your budget for consideration of these projects. In a typical year, we
haven't come near that - in many years we haven't used a dime of it. This year we are
over-budget a little bit, and you're aware of that. So, what we'd like to do real quickly is
take any questions you have, and just, real quickly, run through the criteria and make sure
it's what you want it to be, just see if there is a majority of Council that's still comfortable
with everything. Should we just go ahead and do that?
Before you open up for questions, there's a, I think, even back up one step further.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Davidson:
Williams:
Davidson:
Williams:
Davidson:
Williams:
Davidson:
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You've described, and we get into the meat of the physical changes. I think it's important
to remember that the Traffic Calming Program is enforcement and education and the
physical changes, and so it's all of those, and since we can't have a police officer at every
corner of every neighborhood, the physical changes are a way to modify some of that
behavior that was brought up last time. So otherwise, let's just open it up for questions.
Yeah, that's an excellent point Ross, and I would emphasize, the enforcement is effective,
but as Ross has indicated, you can't have somebody out there all the time, like once you
make a physical change. That is, the education aspect of it, [' II be perfectly honest with
you, in terms of our before and after evaluation ofthose initiatives, has not been effective.
I mean, we have not seen the reduction in speeds that we see with enforcement and the
changes, physically, to the street. We will continue evaluating those kinds of things, but
they have not really been that successful so far.
I would say Morningside Drive, er, 4th Avenue has been-
In terms of!
We saw a reduction down to the speed limit or below for the 4th A venue by City High, the
4"' Avenue and A Project was the one that we've done the year-after evaluation for, and
we saw reductions in speed of 4-7 miles an hour.
With the physical change.
With the physical change.
Right. It was the education initiatives that I said, when, you know, we've put up signs
and things like that we haven't seen the reductions in speeds. We are at the present time
going out to the neighborhood meetings, neighborhood associations, principally Anissa,
Marcia Klingaman and John Yapp, and we are saying that this is Council's program. That
does not in any way obligate you to approve projects, and we emphasize that, that you still
ultimately have the ability to judge each project on its own merits and decide whether or
not you are in favor of it. But, we are at least going out with this brochure and sending it
to people, indicating what the rules are, basically. So let's discuss the rules real quickly.
As I indicated, the neighborhood has to bring us either an endorsement from the
neighborhood association, or, if there is no neighborhood association, just a petition with
some signatures on it, indicating that there is more than just one person that's in favor of
this going ahead. The street must be a local street or a collector street - no arterials. If a
collector street, well, any street, it can not have a traffic volume of over 3000 vehicles a
day. That's where we got in trouble with Highland Avenue. It was very close - it was
2800 or something like that, and that's just too high. Basically, you're introducing some
arterial characteristics to that street with that high of a traffic volume whether we call it an
arterial or not. The requirement is that on a local street it must have, and this is where we
get into what Bob asked about earlier, there's two criteria: a speed criteria and a volume
ThIs represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Conncil meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Wilburn:
Champion:
Davidson:
Wilburn:
Davidson:
Wilburn:
Davidson:
Correia:
Davidson:
(laughter)
Correia:
Wilburn:
City Council Work Session
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criteria. For volume, a local street must have at least 500 vehicles a day, a collector street
at least 1000 vehicles a day. In terms of speeds, it has to be 5 miles an hour over the
posted speed, and as you all know, when we say posted speed, that isn't always that there
is literally a sign posted there. In residential zones we don't typically try and litter the
neighborhood with speed limit signs. If you carry an Iowa driver's license, you're
supposed to know its 25 miles per hour in any residential zone unless it's posted
differently. So those are the criteria, a volume criteria, and a speed criteria. Now, with
previous Councils, at least one if not two, we discussed either/or. Do you have to meet
both criteria or just one or the other? And it was determined, the way the program exists
right now, that if you meet either you're eligible for the program.
Just to clarifY, the 5-mile per hour is not the average, or 50 percentile, it's the 85'"
percentile.
What is that?
The 85th percentile. 85th percentile is the speed at which 85 % are going that speed or
slower, and they've done statistical, there are statistical theorems saying that that is the
speed, basically, your reckless drivers are the 15% above that, that that's a safe and
reasonable motorist at that speed, and that's a guideline that traffic engineers use for
establishing the appropriate speed limit.
So it's not the average driver, it's most drivers.
85%. Yes. That is correct.
Most drivers are driving more than 5 miles per hour.
And so we can certainly talk about, in order to tighten up the program, and that's what
you'd be doing. There would be several projects that we have implemented so far that you
would not have implemented ifboth criteria had to be met. And Anissa has pointed out to
me that, interestingly, the two that have caused all the controversy recently, Morningside
Drive and Kennedy Parkway met both, so we would have met both criteria with those two
streets.
[ thought you said last week that it didn't meet the volume.
Well, if I said that I wasn't sure, and Anissa pointed out that I was incorrect.
Oh, ok, ok, that would have changed my vote, actually.
He was in casual clothes, and so tonight.
ThIs represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City CIty Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Davidson:
Wilburn:
Davidson:
Champion:
Bailey:
Elliott:
. Correia:
Davidson:
Wilburn:
Bailey:
Davidson:
Correia:
Davidson:
Correia:
Schreiber:
City Council Work Session
Page 6
I apologize for that. I was not sure, and Anissa pointed out that it did meet both. Once,
and we can discuss if you want to change it, in fact, should we do that before we proceed?
Just open it up.
I mean, there are a couple more steps in the process, but, is that a step that you would like
to make any change to? A majority of Council?
I don't wish to change it.
I don't wish to change it.
I do. I think, to take, I would assume you could take almost any street in town that's a
decent street, where cars don't have to stop to let other cars go by, which is to me
unbelievable that we have that situation, but we do, I think the average motorist is going to
go 5 miles over the limit. You're going to find that on any street. Ijust think that's not
appropriate. I think it has to be at least both of these things, not either/or.
Well, it doesn't make sense if there's volume and not speed that you would do it, which
we talked about. I mean, I'mjust saying the other side. I mean I could see why there
would be the desire to do speed and not volume, but you wouldn't do volume without
speed, because isn't it the purpose?
Well, you could.
That's cut through traffic, a lot offolks cut through.
Yeah, you could.
And that becomes another issue for you to discern a particular project. If the desire is to,
there's too much traffic going by my house because of some particular situation, we want
to make it harder to do that, well, that traffic doesn't disappear, it goes around.
It goes to somebody else's street.
It goes by somebody else, is how. Now, however, Amy, it can be that we try and
encourage it to go back onto the arterial, which is more of a thoroughfare street, it doesn't
always have to be diverted onto a local street.
Sure. I see what you're saying. Another local street. Because I'm thinking about, like,
the Lexington, you've got there.
If you read through what they're saying here, I mean, you can have a very small
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Correia:
Elliott:
Bailey:
Elliott:
Davidson:
Bailey:
Champion:
Bailey:
Williams:
Bailey:
City Council Work Session
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percentage of people that are going over but, if you have a lot more people than that small
percentage it becomes a bigger number, so, it might not met the 85% level, but, there's
going to be a lot of cars that are causing problems, as in the case of Momingside Drive.
Well, it sounds like they have volume and speed.
That's what I'm saying - I don't think that we disagreed, I was saying that we ought to at
least have both, not either/or.
We can, the policy right now, as it stands, either will motivate a consideration of some
kind of traffic calming measures. So, if there' s volume without necessarily the speed
Issue,
Yeah, but didn't you say it's either/or? I would want both.
That's correct.
Right, and correctly it's not both, and I'm not interested in looking farther.
I think there are situations where you can have not a lot of volume, but a lot of speed, for
instance. I think it's - I don't think we've had that much of it, I don't think it's caused
any trouble except for - the only comments I've heard negatively were about the chikanes
and people who don't like the Lexington barricades, but I've never had a complaint from
other people using those roads about the traffic calming that we've done. And I think it's
a valid thing to do, the neighborhood has to want it, and I don't see any need to change a
thing that's worked out very well, even though we've had a lot this year, I don't anticipate
that happening all the time.
Some of the issue with Morningside, and I'm not, seems to be, people seem to think, that
it's driven by the school, City High, and do we work with, when there is a population that
mayor not be part of the challenge of, maybe they're unaware of the speed limit, or maybe
they're just, whatever. Do we work with that population? Have we worked with the
school, for example, as part of the education effort, and what was the result of that.
I have been in contact with every Traffic Calming Project, the 4th Avenue and A, and the
4"' Avenue by City High, and also Momingside with the Vice Principal, Will Hollander,
trying to get information out to the students about their driving behavior and everything
like that. He has been 100% supportive of the speed hump program and the traffic
calming program, because the targeted audience, they don't, they do their own thing.
They're hard to get compliance among teenagers to not show off in front of their friends,
and so his efforts as far as education within that population go not well received.
Can we do something that impacts parents? To make them aware that there might be
increased enforcement on routes to City High, or something like that? I'm not-
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa.City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
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Davidson: Yeah, City High has been, we've had really three projects directly related to City High.
Has been very supportive of traffic calming, they have voted in favor of it, been very
supportive of it.
Bailey: Right. Well, then 1-
Wilburn: We also have correspondence tonight that some of the neighbors had talked to the
Principal, supportive he communicated concerns to the students. You may be interested
to know that in the past City High had somebody to patrol the parking lot and look into
traffic complaints, and they point out the position was eliminated because of funding.
Bailey: Right. I talked to somebody this afternoon.
Wilburn: Ok.
O'Donnell: I really don't think we'd be hearing about it if they were only going 5 miles over the speed
limit, either. And, you know, I can see where we can, or we should have either/or, because
you could have 600 cars a day going down the street, but they could all be going 90, so I
think either/or is appropriate in this.
Vanderhoef: Well, after a phone call today that brought back to mind what I mentioned when we talked
about this the last time, it's as though we need to be looking at the total neighborhood. In
this case we've got one street that came in and requested all the steps, did it just fine.
However, the question of College Street was my question right away, knowing full well
how traffic moves in and around there, and, it seems to me that when we get a request for
one, that we ought to be taking a wider lens look at that neighborhood.
Davidson: Actually, Dee, that's already a standard part ofthe program. Traffic diversion is always a
concern, always has been, and it's always a part of what we look at when we are
evaluating these projects. With some projects it's a bigger concern than with others,
where there's really no - you'll recall for example with the Lexington Avenue barricade
that we did a specific follow-up study for you showing what the diversion was on adjacent
streets. There are other streets like, for example, Kennedy Parkway, that there's really no
logical street it's going to be diverted to.
Vanderhoef: No. That one is different. But in this case it's sort oflike the Lexington one, and of course
I was here when we went through all of that and we were asking about getting counts on
all those other things, but if, like in this particular case, we have a destination where the
cars are going, there's an end destination, and then they have to leave from that
destination, and there is limited ways for them to get out, I can not see how we can
possibly put humps on just Morningside without putting them on College at the same
time.
This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
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Davidson: And, if College Street residents came to us, that is a street that would be eligible for traffic
calming. I mean, right now you have it on two streets, 4th and Momingside, and if College
or the other leg of Momingside came to us, we would evaluate those in accordance with
the program.
Vanderhoef: But I think that, in this particular case, we as the City should have initiated that right when
we got the request for Momingside.
Davidson: Ok. That would be a change in policy to have the City initiate a project.
Vanderhoef: I understand that.
Bailey: I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to do that.
Williams: College Street residents were, some of them were notified. One of the residents has
contacted me several times prior to the Momingside application requesting traffic calming,
and I told him the same thing, that he needed to bring a petition in. And the petitioner
from Momingside also communicated with several of the residents of College Street and
they were invited through her to the neighborhood meeting, which is the next step that we
can discuss. So they were aware, they were notified on some minor level, not an official
letter inviting them to the meeting, but they were notified through neighborhood
representatives. So, I mean, that's part of what we did do, maybe that's not as much as
you'd like, but.
Vanderhoef: And you did what you presently have as policy. I'm not criticizing you at all on this, but
what I'm saying is that that destination situation should put the red flag up and we should
have the capability of going ahead with that.
Davidson: Yeah, and given that this is solely your program, in the course of approving a project, if
there was a majority of Council that felt, for example, as you had just indicated, you could
direct us at that time to do that and we would be glad to do that.
Wilburn: I don't like changing that basic nature of what I like about it is that it is the neighbor, the
neighborhood stepping forward.
O'Donnell: That's what it's supposed to be.
Wilburn: And I like the fact, again, backing up and looking at there is three tiers to this:
enforcement, education, and physical changes, there are other elements that are tried. If
we don't do the physical changes, we're stuck with enforcement, education, and it's
always somebody picking up the phone, "they're at it again."
(laughter)
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Wilburn:
Elliott:
Dilkes:
Elliott:
Correia:
Elliott:
Bailey:
Elliott:
Bailey:
Elliott:
Bailey:
Elliott:
(can't hear)
Wilburn:
City Council Work Session
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So we end up spending money one way or another - we're putting an officer out there,
we're putting a trailer out there, so I, it doesn't sound like there's enough to change it.
I do have two concerns. One is, when we took the vote last Tuesday night, I heard two
different Councilors say, well, they have met the criteria, we should either go along with it
or change it. And to me, I think this criteria means it is criteria for the Council to
consider. We then should be able to consider are there mitigating circumstances that
would indicate, I got the impression that you felt if they came in with a survey, and they
met one or the other, that we're almost bound to. I don't like that concept at all, and that's
what I heard two different people say, And secondly, this tends to promote a concept that
the neighborhoods have control of their streets, and that - the street does not belong to the
neighborhood, it belongs to the city.
As long as people are lawfully using it.
Well it doesn't belong to the neighborhood. It belongs to the city.
It belongs to the taxpayer.
Everyone who drives through there, it belongs to them.
They need to lawfully drive through there, that's the whole point of this program.
That's correct. But it should be for. I guess, on this concept, I feel that I can live with
this, but it does promote the concept that my neighbors and I should be able to control
Dover Street, and Dover Street belongs to the entire city, not to us. And I think what
we're seeing is, there's just going to be a whole lot more of these coming up. That's aliI
have to say.
Not if people drive not 5 miles over the speed limit, and not if people use the arterials.
Everybody drives 5 miles over the speed limit.
I don't. Except on the Interstate.
Everybody.
Well, it's good to review this, because the bottom line, and Jeffreiterated this twice, that
the ultimate decision rests with the Council, and maybe that will be a reminder or an
informant to the Council that it's still the Council's choice regardless of whether the
neighborhood, but we'll ask the neighborhood to bring it to our attention.
This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Elliott:
Wilburn:
Davidson:
Bailey:
Elliott:
Davidson:
Elliott:
Davidson:
Elliott:
Champion:
Davidson:
Bailey:
Correia:
Elliott:
Davidson:
Elliott:
Davidson:
Correia:
(laughter)
Bailey:
City Council Work Session
Page II
Good.
It doesn't sound like there is.
We don't, we don't need to, unless you would like to go through the last steps here-
No.
No need.
Real quickly, are there any traffic calming devices, principally we have speed humps and
traffic circles out there, that's what most of them, most of them tend to be speed humps.
Are there any, and you know, the Lexington Avenue barricade I think was a one-time. deal
for a special circumstance.
Yeah, that's unique.
Are there any traffic calming devices you want us to take off the table as not being
possibilities?
Well, flower gardens in the middle, for one?
What other ones are there?
Which we have.
It's called a traffic circle.
Traffic circles.
It's still there, though.
Yeah, we have traffic circles, and we are improving the looks of them, I'll tell you.
No, I thought, would you like to take them off the table? Yes, I'd love to take that off the
table.
Perhaps I should ask if there is a majority of the Council?
I like (can't hear)
I bet that answer would be no.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Wilburn:
Davidson:
Correia:
Wilburn:
Davidson:
Elliott:
Wilburn:
Correia:
Elliott:
Davidson:
(laughter)
Vanderhoef:
O'Donnell:
Vanderhoef:
Correia:
Elliott:
Davidson:
City Council Work Session
Page 12
Just to remind myself of where some are: on Market, did we use the bulb outs over there?
We've used bulb outs, we used them on Shannon Drive.
What? I don't know what those are.
That's, there on the map here.
There at the intersections, basically it bulbs out so there's a narrower crosswalk and
basically it becomes somewhat of a barrier in the street to have someone slow down.
It's over by where Economy Advertising used to be. Where there's now the video store.
That's going back aways.
I don't remember.
I do go back aways.
Unfortunately, I know exactly where it is.
Whatever.
I thought it was still there.
Pedestrian - so people can't wheel around that corner, is that it?
Ok.
Yeah.
Ok, I'm not hearing any big concerns, then. All right. We'll carry on, thank you.
Homeless Overflow
Wilburn:
Homeless overflow.
Atkins:
Wilburn:
I'll take that one. I'm sure most of you have received, over the last week or so, and were
aware of a press conference held by a group of.
Steve, I'm sorry for interrupting, but would you mind - could you turn around.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Conncil meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Champion:
Atkins:
Wilburn:
Atkins:
(laughter)
O'Donnell:
Correia:
Bailey:
Atkins:
(laughter)
Atkins:
O'Donnell:
Atkins:
Champion:
City Council Work Session
Page 13
Yeah, could you, turn around so we can look at you.
Well.
It's the turning around part, not the looking at you.
I understand.
I want to look at you, Steve.
It's cold in here.
It's fine.
You ought to see what's up here. Never mind. It's really gross.
There's an ex-possum.
The possum, yeah.
Ok. The homeless, thank you. Over the last, you know, week - ten days, there was a
press conference, and you also received a whole slew of emails concerning the issue of
homelessness and in particular, that it appeared, because of our interpretation of the fire
code, that ,there were folks unnecessarily turned away. We set up a review of our fire
code. There's really nothing in the code that addresses the circumstance of a church in
fact acting as a dormitory. We didn't have that spelled out in the code, so we relied on
some other sections. Well, those sections appeared to be constraining with respect to the
ability ofa church to bring someone in to spend the evening. Well, we've reviewed those,
and we believe we can recommend to you an ordinance amendment whereby under the
current code it requires 200 square feet per person within this church environment for
homelessness, for homeless folks, that we can change that to 120 square feet, so it's about
half, half again, and we think would accommodate the folks that were unfortunately turned
away. We believe we can do this administratively, if you can tell us, but with the
understanding that you would amend the ordinance at some, that we would prepare a draft
ordinance that allows you to amend it. We would, Doug and Andy, HIS and Fire, would
, administer it in that fashion.
Good.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Correia:
Atkins:
Bailey:
Atkins:
Dilkes:
All:
Atkins:
Elliott:
Atkins:
Elliott:
Wilburn:
Elliott:
Atkins:
City Council Work Session
Page 14
I think that's good.
Did that summarize it, Eleanor?
What is 120 square feet comparable to, in the code? I mean, give me an example.
I believe it was the boarding house - housing code, it was within the housing code. For
example, we have a variety of numbers, Regeina. There was I think in a -I'm trying to
think if the one was 70, would a single (can't hear) could be 70 - 80 square feet. There's
a number of them.
Well, let me. If you look at the fire code, which, we think is the most applicable one for
these purposes, the 120 comes from the sleeping areas of an institutional use, and the
institutional use includes an adult care facility which is defined as a facility that provides
accommodation for less than 24 hours for more than 5 unrelated adults. It seems to fall
into, I mean, I think it reasonably falls into that category, and so that's where I came out
with the 120 square feet.
Yeah.
So, unless we hear differently, we will inform the churclies of the 120 square feet and we
will proceed with the draft of the ordinance to bring to you.
Sounds good to me. Would you add something in that, as a person, I think Wednesday
night I'll be doing my fourth all-night as a volunteer at our church. And the last time we
had 16 people in one room, meeting the code. I would really not like to see that figure
doubled for at least that room. So I think if you would simply remind the churches that
they need to make their own determination on the number of people that would be safe
with volunteer people overlooking the situation, people not trained in how to deal with a
variety of people.
The code is permissive. In that the church can decide we're taking five tonight and that's
it, and that's certainly their call- we wouldn't be involved.
I do think a warning or at least a suggestion that they, they think to determine what
numbers within that capacity they feel would be a safe number for their respective rooms.
Maybe you should also bring it up with your church, too. Because initially the different
churches were going through included help from Shelter House staff.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
And we have a checklist that we had provided, well, a couple of years, well, we'll
eventually change that. But my understanding from those that I spoke to, they wanted to
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Champion:
Bailey:
Champion:
Atkins:
Bailey:
Elliott:
Atkins:
Wilburn:
Elliott:
All:
Correia:
Bailey:
Atkins:
Bailey:
City Council Work Session
Page 15
know what their maximum will be, and that's what in effect will translate to 120.
And that's pretty spacious (can't hear).
It seems like it would be.
That's a 10 by 10.
I think the existing Shelter House is 100 square feet, approximately,
Bob, what are the hours that you do?
Usually they get there about 8:30 and they leave about 6:00. Something like that.
That a go?
Yeah. I want to thank the staff for looking into this.
You bet.
Yes.
Very quick response, thank you.
I have one, sorry, one more question. So, this will be communicated immediately to the
group?
Yeah, we'll figure out a way to try and do that in the next day or so, we'll get it out right
away.
That will be great. Thanks.
Storm Water Construction Site Permits
ITEM 6.
Wilburn:
Fosse:
AMENDING TITLE 14 ENTITLED "UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT CODE",
CHAPTER 5, "BUILDING AND HOUSING", ARTICLE 1 "GRADING
ORDINANCE", TO CREATE A CONSTRUCTION SITE RUNOFF CONTROL
ORDINANCE.
Storm water construction sites, agenda item 6.
Let me get this fired up, here. What we're here for tonight is to brief you on our ongoing
effort to comply with the federal storm water regulations. That's a federally mandated
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Elliott:
(laughter)
Fosse:
Vanderhoef:
Fosse:
Elliott:
Boelk:
Fosse:
City Council Wark Session
Page 16
program that we're in the midst of right now. At this point we need to act on one ofthe
regulatory milestones in that process, and that is to put in place the construction site
erosion, ah, construction site runoff control ordinance. And that's perhaps one of the
broadest things that we've done so far as far as impact. !t'll have an impact on a number
of different City departments and divisions within those departments as well as the private
sector out there. With me tonight is Brian Boelk, and he is one of our senior engineers in
the Engineering Division, and he's been pretty much our point source storm water
engineer, and he's going to review with you some ofthe details of this, and to do that, he's
going to put that in a context of where we've been in our compliance process, where we
are now, what's in front of us, and where we're going. He's going to be somewhat broad-
brushed tonight, and then you can dig for all ofthe detail you want to go into. If we spend
too much time on detail tonight we'll be here until morning. Some of the guiding
principles that we used in putting this ordinance together is we wanted to make sure of
course that we meet all the federal requirements that they want out of the ordinance, but
not necessarily go beyond that. Unless we hear direction from you that we want to be
more stringent than what the feds are looking to get out of this, but right now, what is
fashioned is what the feds require, and we want to make it manageable as well. And
we've got some good feedback from the Homebuilders' Association on how to help do
that. Brian will touch on that as well. So with that, Brian, do you want to come up here?
Rick, did you save that tennis ball?
I wasn't in on (can't hear)
Ok, Rickjust, Rick one other thing. In your professional opinion, do you think the feds
are going to leave these standards alone, or do you think they're going to continue to make
them more stringent?
I think that the initial focus that we're going to see out of the feds is enforcement, and the
Des Moines metro area saw that last year. They came around, and they looked at
construction sites. They hit heavy fines on those that were not compliant. Once they have
everybody's attention and they're implementing these erosion control measures, I think
they'll step back and see how effective it is. And if it's effective, hopefully they'll leave it
alone.
Who was fined? The city and the contractor?
In general, the contractors and developers and builders of those. Though city could
certainly have received some of those fines, I believe in this case they did not.
They promised to return to Iowa this year, in a new location.
This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
(laughter)
Fosse:
Boelk:
Fosse:
Boelk:
Wilburn:
City Council Work Session
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Looks like it's ours.
Rumor is, they're heading east.
Yes, where?
Thanks, Rick. Well as can be seen here by the disgusting pictures that Steve referenced,
we obviously have problems, not only Iowa City, but in the state and the nation, and, you
know, in this instance debris and negligence of our waterways, so this is one of the issues
at hand, not only the tennis ball, I like to point out the smiley face basketball that's in the
left center there. It at least adds a little shining light to that whole mess. This is in Ralston
Creek, actually, just a couple blocks south of here, just south of Burlington Street Bridge.
We did, and have since then, gone in with a community clean-up event, and obviously
cleaned up this two - three block section of Ralston Creek in conjunction with the
University, one of their environmental classes and students there. So, this is one of the
problems that's out there, and it extends into just storm water quality as a whole and in
general. Again, another quick picture here in Iowa City, and you can see from the muck
and everything in that waterway, obviously you don't want your kids playing in there and
you don't want to be fishing in there, so we have some problems, and that's what we're
trying to address with our storm water management program. The first issue is illegal
dumping, and that was seen in the first slide as well as here you can see a sheen, most
likely from motor oil of some sort, again, very close to City Hall, actually. And, things,
what people don't understand, a lot of people don't understand, that the intakes,
everything goes into the intakes, into our grates, into our storm systems, does not get
treated, and there's a big education process there. That this does not go to the wastewater
treatment center, this goes directly into our creeks, into our streams, and in the long term,
goes into our rivers. So there is a big education and training process there that is still
ongoing today. We're certainly trying to tackle those issues. One of them can be seen
here with our storm drain marker program. This is one of the regulations we have under
our storm water permit, and one that we actually volunteered to put into our permit
process to take care of, we actually have included these, we'll have a handout for you and
it will have the marker in there for you to look at too. We have I think over 2000 of these
now installed around the City, with our ultimate goal of having every intake in the City
marked, that actually needs to be done in the 5-year permit process, but we're way ahead
of schedule, and hopefully we'll get that done this year. The other benefit to this is this
has been done with all volunteers for the most part. Carol Sweeting has done a great job
of getting a volunteer program to get all these labels placed, so besides the cost of the
marker itself, we have very little cost as far as installation and it provides a great volunteer
program, the 10,000 Hour group at the University, we've received a lot of help from them,
as well as from Community Service.
Several of the elementary schools have participated too.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Boelk:
(laughter)
Boelk:
City Council Work Session
Page 18
Yes, exactly. It's a great thing for schools, elementary and junior high kids to do. So
there's a lot of benefits, besides just informing the public not to dump materials down the
intakes it also gives you a source of volunteer work. In conjunction with the dumping and
the illegal, illicit discharge materials, we have received grant money from the DNR for our
mobile household hazardous waste unit, with a truck and trailer program which our
landscape, I'm sorry, our landfill recycling coordinator will administer, and you can see
the truck here and also the trailer. So that's the other thing, providing places and sources
for the public to get rid of these materials. You know, not only telling them they can't
dump them, but hey, here's where you can take them or here is some of you can pick them
up, etc. So that's abig plus. Our permit process, it's as-year MS-4 permit that's initiated
by the state and the DNR. Year one emphasized on illicit discharges and we actually
passed an illicit discharge ordinance in year one, last year almost a year to date, through
Council, and it was to regulate situations that we have here. As you can see, there's a
green tint to this water, it wasn't St. Patrick's Day when we took this picture. That was
tracked down to a service station a little ways away where there was a floor drain inside
the station with an illicit connection right to the storm sewer. There are a lot of those
around town, especially in the older areas, and we need to take care of those. As part of
that, we've been mapping the whole storm sewer system, actually almost completed now,
so if we do find and illicit discharge we can just track it back and try to find where that
source is coming from. This picture demonstrates the adverse effects of excess fertilizer,
or could be adverse effects from excess fertilizer. Phosphates and such that can cause
pollutants into the storm water system, and we've begun education on that, the use of
fertilizer, what to do, what not to do in some of our educational brochures that we've been
sending out with the utility bills. And you know, obviously fertilizers aren't always bad,
they help get the nitrogen in the soil and help stabilize our vegetation, but with excess
phosphates and stuff we can cause problems, so again, education and training is a big key
there. And that takes us to year two and three. We're about to finish year two of our
permit, year three we start right at the beginning of June, and the big focus there is on
construction site runoff control, erosion and sediment control, and there are a lot of issues
out there. And it's a hot topic around the state and around the nation, and it's going to
continue. As Dee had mentioned earlier, this is just an ongoing, enforcement is going to
increase. Here's just a few examples taken in the past. See some rill and gully erosion up
here in the upper left and some tracking and such. However, we've come a long ways.
Here's a picture from the '70s here in Iowa City, We can tell it's the '70s because you can
see the back of a Gremlin up there.
Didn't make it into the '80s (can't hear). We had some serious issues back there, building
boom and nobody was doing anything about it - no controls whatsoever out there. Just
build; tear up the land and in the streets the consequence of that. So, we're certainly
starting a step ahead of where they were back then, so that's a good thing. However, the
problems still exist. We started to implement control measures, best management
This represents only a reasonably accurate trauscription of the Iowa City City Couucil meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
Page 19
practices you'll often hear, which are called BMPs, for instance, in this case silt fence, but
a lot of times, again, going back to education, silt fences weren't designed correctly or
installed right, and you can see, because of that failure you still get sediment on the streets.
They've got several hundred feet of silt fence up on the end ofthis street, but if you were
to look at the overall picture here, there's a lot of drainage coming from the right side and
they have about ten foot of silt fence there and it obviously didn't do the job. As a result
we have sediments all over. This is out by Scott 6 - if you were looking at this now you'd
see the Fairway Store. And as you can see, they've got silt fence on both sides and that
whole area in the middle there, the silt fence blew out, is gone, it wasn't monitored, it
wasn't maintained, and as a result, we have some serious erosion problems, and all that
sediment is going right into our waterway, which will then lead to our river, and thus the
polluted river we have today. So the city, in conjunction with builders, developers,
contractors are certainly trying to remedy this problem, and we have been installing best
management practices for you know, several years now, retention and detention basins
being a main one, along with silt fence, however, we still have problems. I took these
pictures just a week ago in fact. And all within a half-mile radius, and I could have taken
several more. As you can see, no measures out there, no silt fence, no compost socks,
sediment basins, nothing to control the sediment from entering the streets here and in long
term, entering our storm sewer system through the intakes. So we still have a lot of
education and training to do, and that's the point ofthis construction ordinance is to try
and address those issues with this regulation. Just a few more - stuffleft right by the
streets, in the streets, on the curb, powder cement, sediment, and a lot of times right next
to intakes. The other thing is maintenance and monitoring of these control measures. You
know, if you do put them in, we have some silt fence here, the top left, you see compost
socks as totally disintegrated, been run over. And obviously these things aren't doing any
good if they're not maintained. You can have them out there but there not controlling
anything unless you monitor them and reinstall them. So with that, comes a lot of new
technology as well, and a lot of new changes and transitions that we're going to see and
expect from contractors, developers, builders, and City staff as well. One of them is
depicted here, and this is a concrete washout area, and you're starting to see them around
town, which is nice, and we hope to see a lot more, but the day ofthe contractor just
washing out his concrete truck directly into an intake or near it or in a drainage ditch needs
to end, and this ordinance will certainly cover that. So, you're going to see
implementations such as this, and there's various other methods of doing it, but a way to
control that washout area so they can then later come and scoop it up, take it to the landfill
or wherever it needs to go and all of that washout isn't going into our storm system. This
is a good picture of a use of a compost sock, which has become very popular lately, we're
starting to see more and more around the city, you've probably seen-
Atkins:
Brian
Boelk:
Yes?
Atkins:
What are you calling that again?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meetiug of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Boelk:
Atkins:
Boelk:
City Council Work Session
Page 20
A compost sock.
A compost sock.
Yeah, and that is, there's a variety offorms. There's things called wattles, there's socks
contained with jute mesh and recycled materials. This, it's like a sock, an envelope with
all compost filled in between there. What the purpose of it is is to allow storm water to
still enter the intake, so you're not backing up your system and flooding, but to capture.
(end of tape) Again, they have to be maintained. A lot of times, one problem is they get
run over by trucks, delivery trucks and such if they're sticking out quite a ways in the
street, but they can also be used similar to silt fence where they control at-grate drainage
and runoff as well. But, there's numerous products out there. There's inserts that can be
put into intakes that can be taken out and dumped and rinsed and washed. And, it's just a
big market and business right now and new technologies coming all the time. You can
also see here that they're sweeping the street and trying to help get that dirt off the road,
and as you can see, from the marks of going around it. And here's some good examples of
what we're looking for and hope to see in the future - some good sites. Some use of silt
fence, it looks like some compost socks as well, some other wattles and different socks and
good combination thereof, and hopefully we'll continue to see more of these. It's funny,
this was taken only about 2 or 3 blocks away from my other pictures where there was
nothing, so, you know, it's very dependent on the builders, very dependent upon the
contractors and developers that are out there right now, some of which have been trained
and some of which haven't attempted to make any changes yet. So, as I've mentioned
several times, training and communication is key to this program obviously and the
success of the program. This is a picture from a program we put on today, actually, out at
the Water Plant, and this was training on storm water erosion and sediment control on
construction sites, and we had a fabulous turnout, we ended up with about 70 people there,
made up of home builders, developers, contractors, City staff, a couple of realtors - you
name it, we had it there. And it was a big success, and we need to do more ofthat, going
to do more of that. You know, it's a big transition, a lot of changes for everybody, but it
seems like talking to the Homebuilders Association and other members, they're just
looking for some direction and some training and that's what we're trying to provide.
After this year 2-3 and this emphasis on construction, we then shift to the watershed as a
whole. This is a picture from the Iowa River, and we'll then in the future here start to
address the watershed on a big scale, a larger scale, and start getting into post-construction
methods. Trying to reduce impervious areas, put in rain gardens or whatnot to try and
lessen the runoff coming off sites and control it from a smaller scale into a larger scale, so
that's what's to come, and that is all I've got for the slides. But, as a result of the storm
water program, as I said, on your agenda tomorrow is item for construction site runoff
control ordinance, and you should have a memo in your agenda packets as well giving an
outline ofthis ordinance. We have met with the Executive Committee, Tim Hennes and I
have met with the Executive Committee of the Homebuilders Association and have been
communicating with them, as they are really impacted by these regulations. Right now,
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Champion:
Boelk:
Atkins:
Boelk:
Atkins:
Fosse:
Wilburn:
City Council Work Session
Page 21
the ordinance is regulated by tbe state and the DNR. We are required to do it, and there
are certain things that are required within that ordinance from the state level with regards
to inspection, number of inspections, the ability to stop work if we aren't getting
compliance, and such. And now we need to take that and notifY all the builders. A lot of
time in the past you have to receive a general permit #2 through the state and that's on the
contractor, larger public improvement-type scale, though it really goes down to the lot
level individually, and that hasn't really been communicated in the past. So where we're
starting to see a big change, start to see more control measures out there on the lot level, to
help reduce the erosion control and keep the sediment on-site. In order to do this, again,
we propose an ordinance which is going to involve some permits and some fines and also
some fees. In order to implement this process and this program, we're going to need
additional staff to do so with regards to review and inspections. We will now be mandated
to and in force to review all storm water pollution prevention plans that are involved on
the lot level as well as on the subdivision development level, and then also inspect those
sites a minimum of two times, we see a minimum of three, right initially after the control
measures are set up, one unexpected visit and then a third to finalize and make sure
everything is stabilized. Obviously, there might be more inspections besides that on a
complaint basis, but that's where we're at anyways as far as trying to set up that fee. And
HIS and Engineering will both be involved in this program. Engineering will take, kind of
as we do now, take this on as a whole development level, on a subdivision level, and the
SWPPPs (Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plans) will go through Engineering with the
construction plans, be reviewed and approved by us, in Engineering, then when it gets
down to the lot level or site plan level, HIS will then get involved, be reviewing the
SWPPP and doing the on-site inspections directly from there.
Do our wastewater fees cover the expense of this?
No. What we have proposed right now is a fee for what we're calling a COSESCO permit
is what we have at issue right now - it's a City Erosion Sediment Control Permit. That
permit fee will be addressed with the building permit fees. With the lot - I'm sorry, on the
overall development, and common development level, we would not have a fee, but we
would just issue our charges and invoice our charges through Review and Inspection as
we do now with all other public improvements.
Connie, you said wastewater - did you mean storm water?
Storm water utility, I assume, yes.
Go ahead, Rick has a comment on that, too.
No, I'm just corning up to help with the questions.
I never imagined myself ever asking this, but what is a wattle?
This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Conncil meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
(laughter)
Boelk:
Wilburn:
Boelk:
Wilburn:
Elliott:
Boelk:
Elliott:
Boelk:
Fosse:
City Council Work Session
Page 22
It's very similar, actually to a compost sock. I don't have a picture in here, but, it's just
another device to again contain the contaminants within the storm water but let the storm
water still get through.
And then, the other question I had was, it's for areas of construction one acre or more or
less than one acre if the disturbing activities are part of a larger common plan of
development ~ I don't understand.
Yeah, and that's a real big key. They have to obtain right now, one acre or more
development has to obtain - or a construction site - has to obtain a general permit 2
through the state, through the DNR, which requires a storm water pollution plan and
inspection. That permit is actually live and active until the last lot is stabilized with some
type of mulch or grass or whatnot. And what gets lost right now is you have a large
development that might take two or three years to build out, that contractor gets in there,
does all his public improvements, hopefully abides by the permit, gets those passed, and
he thinks he's done and has no involvement. Where really, he's still signed on that
general permit #2, that permit is still active and is brought down to the lot level side of
things, so all those contractors and home builders working on the house need to abide by
those general permit rules just as the contractor did, however, that's been lost in the last
couple years, and not realized or not expressed enough.
Ok.
I had two and now I have three. On the last one, who is then liable? You say the
developer, does the developer remain solely liable, or do the individual contractors? Are
they liable or both?
Yeah, that's a good question. Typically both, and that's being handled in a couple
different ways. A lot of times, what we're seeing now is a developer is getting a co-
permittee signature or transferring responsibility down to the contractor, sub-contractors,
homebuilders. Because that was a problem in the past; the homebuilder said I don't have
a permit, I don't have to do anything, and the developer says, well you do, you're under
mme.
Second, second question. I noticed the intakes, I've noticed around when I'm walking my
daughter's dog, the intakes no longer have grates on them. Is it because of expense? But
at least those grates kept out some of the larger pieces of boards and things like - why do
we not have grates?
I don't know if Rick, do you want to answer more than I do?
The old cast grate intakes hydraulically worked different, and they did have that grate to
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Elliott:
Boelk:
Bailey:
Vanderhoe[;
(laughter)
Bailey:
Boelk:
Bailey:
Boelk:
City Council Work Session
Page 23
help sort some ofthe things out, but once they became plugged, their efficiency dropped
way off and you had street flooding, and that's when we converted to the curb openings,
and they accept more leaves, sticks, paper cups, that sort ofthing too, but they're more
fail-safe, and that's a method that we held onto there.
So it's for efficiency purposes. The third thing, I noticed when the police run a sting on
alcohol, and there's a connection here, they publicize the good guys and penalize the bad
guys. I think at least the Council would like to know from time to time who are the good
guys for this. We'd like to, I'd like to know when I'm talking to different ones, who are
the ones who are really helping out and doing their bit, and that sort of thing.
You bet, ok.
I have a question.
So do I.
Is our ordinance, do you know if our ordinance will be similar to the surrounding
communities?
Yeah, thank you, that's a good point - I meant to bring that up. I met with Coralville and
North Liberty, we all have, I guess, on several occasions in trying to standardize this
ordinance as similar as we can so these developers, builders and stuff aren't having to
change regulations if they go two blocks to the east, a very good question. Just some
additional information there ~ the University is also on our MS-4 permit, so it's Iowa City,
North Liberty, Coralville and the University, however, due to the fact that the University
doesn't have ordinances they don't have one, but they are required to obviously inspect
and review construction sites in a similar manner, just don't have the legality of policy as
we do.
And then similar to Bob's question about the grates, I live on a street that gets a lot of soda
bottles, as people empty their cars at the end of the day, because they use it for street
parking. Are we also using volunteers to clean up the gutters in that way? I mean, I think
it would be a good -
Yeah, you know, we have an adoptive intake program which is one thing I should say too,
with regards to the grate structures, where a resident can adopt that intake, keep it clean,
and as a result gets a recycling sticker free of charge, so a $20 value, and they seem to be
very receptive to that program. We've had a lot of volunteers obtain those intakes. You
know, in conjunction, hopefully they're helping with the gutter line as well. We've had
several community clean-up events on the creeks and on the river banks in the last couple
of years, and we have two or three more planned for this year, so we're certainly trying to
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Bailey:
Champion:
Wilburn:
Champion:
(laughter)
Boelk:
Wilburn:
Bailey:
Champion:
Fosse:
Vanderhoef:
Boelk:
Vanderhoef:
City Council Work Session
Page 24
get out there and do more.
Good.
What about my question?
I think Dee had one, and then you can.
I already asked my question, Ijust haven't answered.
I'm sorry, what was that comment?
Ok.
How are we paying for this? Was that your question?
Storm water fees - does that cover the expense of this?
The intent of what we put together is how are we going to staff it, how are we going to get
it done? And, the Housing Department as well as Engineering will be doing regulatory
activities on it. Housing predicts that they're going to need an additional halftime
employee, and they've assigned a permit fee that should be sufficient to fund that position.
Within Engineering currently, Brian spends about 50% of his time on storm water stuff
now, and that time is charged to that monthly storm water utility fee. Now this ordinance
is likely to consume the remaining 50% of his time and the mechanisms are already in
place for him to charge that time offfor design review and inspection and that sort of thing
to the development activities as they occur, so again, that should pay for itself there.
I'm thinking on the flip side of this, from a developer's point of view. These wattles and
compost socks, and so forth - are they reusable? And then, how long - you say until it
stabilized - so, a contractor may have a lot of those out in yards for considerable length of
time, maybe even a full year or two years, until grasses get established. Is that?
It could be, it certainly could, Dee. Yeah, and with regards to are they reusable, it depends
on the product. Typically with a compost sock, unless it's had little use, it typically won't
be reused. If it's only been out there for a short period oftime and hasn't taken in too
much sediment in, it could be moved to another site. Eventually those things will fill up
and become plugged.
So you're saying then the cost of a single lot for a new home, we're adding another fee
and we're adding control measures that is a cost to (can't hear). This gets back to one of
my problems since I started following storm water issues about ten years ago. It's that this
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City Council Work Session
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is all being mandated by the federal government. I do not have any complaints with that,
with the exception that they turned it back to the local people to pay for.
Wilburn:
Correct.
Boelk:
Exactly.
Elliott:
What else is new?
(can't liear)
Boelk: They passed it down to the state, the state then passed it down to the municipalities.
Vanderhoef: That's exactly right. And then we pass it on down to the contractor and it passes to the
homeowner. And we wonder why we have such expensive housing, when we keep piling
on all these requirements. We need to do it, and I'm so happy it's getting done.
Boelk: No, you're right, Dee. And I've heard a couple different developers and builders, and
they've said, you hear a wide range [ guess, but estimates of this is an additional $1500
dollars per house per site that it adds for costs and can obviously vary depending on the
site, but yes. And there are some out there that can be reused, like I said, there are inserts
that go into intakes that can be reused, they're dumped out and reused, very valuable that
you can do that, but yeah, you're correct Dee.
Elliott: I think that's why Regeina's question was so important, that this is going to be done
community wide, Coralville, North Liberty. Steve, my question - the Midwest students
that are going to stop by here, they will be participating in this clean-up type of activity,
right? The college, high school students?
Atkins: They're supposed to do the creek clean up, that's the plan right now.
Bailey: So, the lot, let's say grass doesn't grow for whatever reason, [ buy the lot and I haven't
been able to establish grass and there is still a lot of runoff, then I am, as the owner,
responsible for that?
Boelk: Another good question, another gray area that's been out there is what happens in that
circumstance where that home builder gets everything, or even an instance where the
resident or homeowner wants to do his own landscaping or seeding, sodding, what
happens there? That homebuilder gets a CO and he's out ofhere. What I think we're
going to see there again is a transfership in the paperwork, in the contract documents from
the homebuilder to the homeowner saying you are now responsible for this plan. You
know, in the stabilization, the most often is going to be grasses of some sort, doesn't
necessarily have to be, especially like in a winter condition, if mulch is applied or some
sort of rolled erosion control, blankets or whatnot, that is counted as stabilization. But
you're right, it's typically going to be when that grass is - and that's going to be an issue
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March 6, 2006
Bailey:
Boelk:
Bailey:
Boelk:
Bailey:
Boelk:
Bailey:
Boelk:
Bailey:
Dilkes:
Boelk:
Dilkes:
Bailey:
Boelk:
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that's a little difficult and a challenge to go through.
So your education with the developers and the contractors, you have a pretty strong belief,
because they seem to understand this transfer of responsibility, that they will be
communicating to subsequent contractors and owners.
Yeah, I think they're going to have to. It's going to take a little bit of time, obviously, but
that was a lot of questions yesterday were regarding that issue in itself and the transfership
and co-permittee side of things, and whose responsibility is it.
When does my responsibility end and how do I get, yeah.
Exactly. We did have the IDNR there today as well and spoke and spoke on their
regulation and where they're at on their level. Usually they're just on a complaint basis.
And where's the cities liability exposure on this? I mean, Des Moines wasn't fined, but
where would that come in?
Yeah, we certainly can be fined if we're not in compliance with our permit, and our permit
states that we have to enforce the general permit #2, and then the storm water pollution
prevention plans. At least as far as I know, like I said, Des Moines wasn't - I think that
was because as long as you can show that you're making that effort, you have your
ordinance, you have your requirements,
Your inspections.
Right, your inspections out there (can't hear) to get it done, then usually they're going to
look at the other person.
Ok.
Brian, wouldn't it be the case if a hom~ builder felt that they had met the requirements of
the permit, they could ask for that final inspection and then things would be done prior to
the sale of the home?
Yes, if everything is stabilized and in place, yes, correct.
There's that provision about getting that final inspection in. So if the homebuilder would
have the option of being done with it, showing compliance or transferring it to the
homeuwner.
So if they did landscaping, for example.
Right, correct.
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March 6, 2006
Wilburn:
Champion:
Boelk:
(laughter)
Boelk:
Correia:
Fosse:
Champion:
Fosse:
Boelk:
Elliott:
Boelk:
Elliott:
Boelk:
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Other questions?
I thought, and maybe I'm wrong, but is there somewhere in this program where we're
going to have to treat all this water that goes down these drains? No.
No. Not at this time.
If the regulations keep increasing, it might be. We might be back to combined sewers, but
no.
In a few years.
I was just going to add Connie, that that's really the next step and instead of treating at the
end, it's the watershed management where you try to prevent it from getting into storm
water to start with. So that's the opposite approach than you take with a sanitary sewer.
Ok, but how can it work? I mean, I see where you can keep tennis balls trom going into
the streams, but what about all the oil and gasoline trom cars and streets?
That's part of the public education thing, as far as washing your cars, if you want to wash
your car at home, encourage people to do it on the grass rather than the driveway, and all
sorts of little things like that will incrementally add up to a cleaner watershed.
There are also products out there (can't hear) oil separators and such, again, another
business out there, but as Rick said, we'd like to do that beforehand with education and,
speaking of, those blue folders that were handed to you, that was also handed out to all the
people in attendance today at the training. Very good information in there, and also, I
believe you got a handout which just summarizes where we're at with the storm water
program, what we've done, where we're at today, what we're looking for in the future.
The homebuilders generally appeared to be receptive?
They did. It went really well.
Good - they might as well, they're going to have to do it.
I think that's the one thing - they know they're going to have to do it, I think they
understand that this has been brought down from above to us, and we're just trying to do
our job as well and yes, it's gone pretty well so far, we've had good communication with
the Homebuilders Association. And Tim Hennes and I will also be speaking at their
membership meeting this Thursday night as well.
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Vanderhoef: They probably appreciate that you have it all down concise and they don't all have to try
and drag it out of the.
Boelk: And that seemed to be it, they are just very, yes, very glad that we are making that effort
for training and communication because it seems like in other areas of the state they
haven't had that. So hopefully we're helping with that.
Bailey: And you'll be the point person and probably initially, if they have specific questions about
products, and?
Boelk: Yes.
Fosse: Yeah, we did get I believe it's an 8 - page letter?
Boe1k: Yes.
Fosse: From the Homebuilders Association with their comments on the ordinance, with their
recommendations on how we can make it work better for -them, and they've got some very
good ideas in there, and you'll probably hear from them tomorrow night and they'll talk
about those things. We're working with them to fold in what we can and explain what we
can not.
Vanderhoef: So they want to change part ofthis ordinance, is that what you're saying?
Fosse: Right, right.
Dilkes: That's what I wanted to ask, about the timing. Is your intention to do some tweaking of
the ordinance, to respond to the Homebuilders, and then so you want deferral tomorrow
and then do the first reading at the next meeting and then collapse on April 4th I think it is,
so you get it done by April 6th, is that the plan?
Fosse: Procedurally ifthat will work, that sounds like (can't hear).
Dilkes: Yeah, I don't think we want to do a bunch of amendments on the floor tomorrow. I think
that would be better.
Bailey: So would we have the public hearing?
Vanderhoef: We would defer two weeks.
Elliott: Which item is this?
Bailey: Would we have the public hearing?
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March 6, 2006
All:
Elliott:
Dilkes:
Fosse:
Elliott:
Boelk:
Wilburn:
Boelk:
Wilburn:
Boelk:
Wilburn:
Wilburn:
Elliott:
Bailey:
Vanderhoef:
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6
6
You can have the public hearing, you can close the public hearing.
Definitely want the public hearing so that we get stuff on the record. So really, the
questions in front of you are is this the right mechanism? It's not like we get a choice of
whether or not we do it, just are we doing it the way we want to, and then how are we
going to get it done? How are we going to staff this thing?
I feel good about this.
I should say that that ordinance too is based off a model ordinance that was developed by
Iowa Storm Water Partnership Program, which is through Iowa Association of Municipal
Utilities. It gathered various communities, regulators, also an attorney, a couple of
attorneys, and it created a model ordinance. We took that model ordinance then, revised it
to our liking, and discussed with others, about four other communities that have an
ordinance in place, to date, because of how their MS-4 permit schedule is set up, so we
also talked to them, got some feedback from them, what worked, what didn't work.
What are those four communities?
Benton, North City Benton North has one in place, Johnston, Altoona and Des Moines.
Ok.
Thank you.
Let's take a break until ten minutes to 8.
Ok. State Legislative matters. I believe part of this is related to the memo that we
received from Eleanor about eminent domain, and I know that you reiterated Eleanor the
League's bullet points and summary, but you're our security blanket and I appreciate the
work that you put into it.
Is there anything we need to do or should do?
Talk to the Senate.
I'd ask everybody if, those of you that are on email, are you all hooked up with the
Legislative Link so you get the Friday printout from the State?
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Elliott: I don't.
Wilburn: I do.
Bailey: I do.
Vanderhoef: You get it, you get it, Amy, you don't? Ok. I had put this in the packet, but,
unfortunately, the way our packets come out, it's always quite late from when it was put
out, because it comes out of Friday from the League of Cities legislative director, Susan
Judkins.
Correia: I'll just go in and subscribe to it.
Vanderhoef: Ok. And Bob? I think you would be interested.
Elliott: Is the address in there?
Bailey: The nice thing is it's just a page - it's a pager, theyemail it as an attachment in PDF or
Word and it's real easy,
Vanderhoef: It's a pager, and you can go to Iowa League of Cities and pop into Legislative Link and
they'll all be there, including the new one.
Elliott: Ok.
Vanderhoef: So that gives you a quick, quick quick update. One of the, I listened to a radio program
this morning that came from the Statehouse on eminent domain, and there was a
representative from out by Tipton, and Herman Quirmbach from Ames, a Senator, Tom
Bredeweg from the State League, and a woman lobbyist from Farm Bureau just
specifically talking about eminent domain, and it, the best questions that I heard to be
pondered, one of them was the Farm Bureau worried about the taking offarmland, which
is an issue in the southern tier of counties because they're trying to find a constant source
for drinking water. They have only shallow wells down there and they don't have the
aquifers to tap into, so the question for them is this business of whether, how they can trail
the eminent domain to the ballot box of the constituent who was involved in it. So, if the
city were to condemn farmland to put a lake out there to create a water source for their
drinking water, the county people can't vote for the city councilor who voted for that to
happen. And that one has been, I was at the legislature and heard this at the committee
level where someone came in and testified on this specific issue. So there seems to be
some interest of somehow tying those actions to the people who are involved in so they
can vote either for the legislator who voted to take eminent domain or what. They're still
trying to keep it very focused on slum and blight, which is what it's being used for in Iowa
as well as the things that Steve mentioned in his letter that he sent to the local legislators
and Eleanor's, so just keeping track of what's going on and making sure someplace here I
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March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
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have the list of committee members that voted this out of committee, so if you want to take
a look at it and if it's somebody specifically that you know, you may want to.
Correia: This is now in the Senate, right? It passed the House, ok, so it's in the Senate. And so
Joe's letter said they're pushing it, so there's probably going to be something, so the
strategy is how can it be least bad, least detrimental as possible? So is the League of
Cities working with those to make sure that if there's a bill, is there something that a city
of our size and our make-up, we need to be communicating to Joe so that he has? Is Joe
on that committee? Is anybody from our delegation on the sub-committee or the
committee? I can't remember from his letter.
Vanderhoef: Eminent domain.
Correia: In the Senate.
Wilburn: The League, from my understanding, the Chambers appear to be the loudest at advocating
against this sort of attempting to take specific sections and least detrimental, so the League
is going along with the Chamber, but they're taking the point, they're working the issue is
what they're doing.
Bailey: And advocating that we don't need a change in the law, that the current Iowa code is
sufficient.
Wilburn: That's their first message, and once they meet that resistance they try other, point by point
cases.
Bailey: Yeah, I know.
Vanderhoef: And you've probably read in the paper that the both Senate and the House have brought
out the public bill, and they're almost identical and we have Vicki Lensing and Sandy
Greiner, which has a piece of Southern Johnson County that sit on that committee, but it
appears, the way it's going, the public bid for cities over fifty thousand will have up to a
$100,000.00 project without having to go through all of the competition bids.
Correia: Is it at $50,000.00 right now? What's it at now?
Dilkes: It's at $25,000.00, except for roads.
Vanderhoef: So it's pretty low. And if you subscribe to the City Voices through the League, there's
been a lot of conversation in the last few days on this particular one asking why cities
under fifty thousand are only allowed up to the $50,000.00 limit before they have to go
out, because they're concerned about the cost for putting together the engineering because
they have to hire consultants all the time to do those kinds of things and the response that
came back from League of Cities was that this was a compromise at this point in time, and
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March 6, 2006
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they took it incrementally from what their bid had been for small cities and what their bid
is for big cities because there's been a difference between the two of them for many years.
So, the replies were thanks for letting us know and we'll take what we can get this point
and we'll work further to get that bid up higher for the small cities too.
Dilkes: I actually think that the bid threshold has gone, under the compromise bill it's gone to
$100,000.00 for all cities, but there's a competitive quote requirement that has to, that you
have to do, and that kicks in at different amounts for different cities. But it's a
$100,000.00 for the whole public bidding process for all cities.
Vanderhoef: But the $50,000.00 is still for the small cities on the competitive bids.
Dilkes: No. It's $100,000.00 for all cities, and then they have a competitive quotation
requirement, which is not the public bidding process.
Vanderhoef: It's a quote.
Dilkes: But that kicks in at different amounts.
Correia: Well, we're happy with what they're doing for our size city, right?
Bailey: Yes.
Atkins: Yes.
Correia: Ok. That's good.
(laughter)
Bailey:
Can we get back to Amy's question? Is there something that we want to be
communicating to Joe and Bob regarding eminent domain? As a group? I mean, I know
what I'm communicating personally, but as a group?
Vanderhoef:
I think for me what Steve set out is what I think we ought to be putting out for the City.
That would be my intent.
Elliott:
I think Steve has let them know by mail and we have let them know when they were here,
face to face, if repetition is beneficial, then.
Bailey:
Hey, it's beneficial for us, why wouldn't it be beneficial for them, right?
(laughter)
O'Donnell:
Say that again.
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March 6, 2006
Bailey:
Wilburn:
Dilkes:
Wilburn:
Dilkes:
Correia:
Atkins:
Correia:
Atkins:
Correia:
Atkins:
Correia:
Elliott:
Bailey:
Correia:
Wilburn:
Correia:
City Council Work Session
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If it's beneficial.
Did anyone have any other State Legislative matters?
If! can just move back on the eminent domain, it seems that the economic development
issue is getting the most focus, but if you look at what this bill is doing, it really has a huge
impact on public works stuff, and that's not being, you know, I think that's kind of in the
background a little bit. But, the landfill stuff, the water supply stuff, parks and - I mean.
I mentioned some of the public works stuff on a radio interview in Des Moines last week,
so, I think those things are out there, but, like you said, it's not getting as high a profile.
It's really got Rick's attention.
So, I'm sorry if! missed the letter - was there a copy ofthe letter that you sent to Joe?
It was some time ago.
Some time ago, right.
I'll see that you get another one, Amy.
Did that include the specifics about the public works? I mean, I wonder if there.
It's substantially public works related, yeah.
Ohwell.
It mentioned especially the landfill, things like that.
The length of time, too - that issue with the time and going back.
Right.
I think another issue that the League was taking up in terms of advocating or letting our
delegation know is just to make sure, if any cases where eminent domain has been used, to
make sure that they're aware of it so that the scare tactics that go along with eminent
domain can be directly confronted. Now here how it was used in Iowa City or Coralville
or any other community, and so more of just a reality check as opposed to allowing
general comments about eminent domain go unchecked.
Is there a sense that if a bill did pass that the Governor would sign it?
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March 6, 2006
Atkins:
Bailey:
Correia:
Atkins:
Champion:
Atkins:
Vanderhoef:
Wilbum:
Vanderhoef:
Wilburn:
City Council Work Session
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He could veto it.
We have a sense. I don't know.
Also could draft a correspondence to the Governor.
I talked to some League folks - I suspect they have that tucked in a pocket somewhere,
figuring that when the time comes they'll have to play that card. I'm also convinced
they're going to pass a law that's going to end up being totally unacceptable, and they're
going to be back at it again.
Great. Typical.
They're going to mess something up. Somebody is going to have a big project and they're
going to throw their hands up and say "sorry." And the legislators are going to look silly.
This is going to go on for awhile.
There's one thing that people tend to forget is that eminent domain has been in the United
States forever and ever, for public purpose. And the question that seems to be being asked
at the Statehouse by some people who want to put in all these measures is once again that
it would seem that they think in Des Moines that they can control cities and do a better job
of legislating for them, where the intent of eminent domain from the beginning was that
the local people where it is are the ones who should have the very best idea of what works
for their citizens and what they need. And it's a shame.
Anyone else have any state legislative matters?
Just one more, may I? We've all seen the House and the Senate both have sent out of
committee the Touch Play, and it's going to be debated heavily and we as a Council have
not put any words to what we want or don't want in the form of that bill. We'll have time,
I'm sure to put something together, but I would invite you all to be thinking about that and
see if we want to weigh in as a city on this issue or whether you just want to do your own
thing as an individual.
The only other pieces I have, I did last week participate in a press conference in Des
Moines with the mayors of Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, and Ottumwa about new
development block-grant funds, asking for restoration of funds. Iowa, I think, this year
received around 53 million dollars, and a billion is being proposed to be cut from CDBG
from the President's budget, so that's just an FYL Second, I participated in a meeting
with the 10 most populous communities in Iowa, and we walked away at least agreeing to
make sure that if we were doing some advocacy for our cities whether state or in particular
federal, to make sure that we're letting the other cities know so they can get that message
out to. Another part of that, we agreed in terms of ongoing communication and discussion
and future potential meetings, if we could find just a few areas where we might have some
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March 6, 2006
Al!enda Items
Wilburn:
ITEM 11.
Bailey:
Dilkes:
Karr:
Bailey:
Karr:
Bailey:
Karr:
(can't hear)
Correia:
Bailey:
Wilburn:
Dilkes:
Correia:
Bailey:
City Council Work Session
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conversations on discussing how we could approach that where we think we might have
common interests, and one of the issues that came up specifically was alternatives to
municipal finance, so that's something that we're going to, in the next one or two times,
begin discussing. Ok.
Agenda items.
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE ANNUAL BUDGET FOR
HUMAN SERVICES AID TO AGENCIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING
JUNE 30, 2007.
Item II. This is the Aid to Agencies, mistakenly got on this agenda.
It's got to be on this agenda.
I think there might have been some miscommunication - I tried to send you an email; it
wasn't working today. That is the resolution that sets aside the pot of money, not
allocating.
Ok, so it doesn't need to be deferred.
No we should probably act on that one as part of the budget. Then you come back with
your recommendations on how you want to divide that pot up.
All right. Thank you.
Ok?
So we're still taking them as two different items.
Yes.
Yeah, so I can vote on (can't hear)
They have to be two different items.
Oh, oh I see.
I'm wondering why I am there.
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March 6, 2006
Wilburn:
Correia:
Wilburn:
ITEM 12.
Elliott:
Champion:
Correia:
Champion:
Elliott:
Correia:
Elliott:
Correia:
Elliott:
Wilburn:
Bailey:
O'Donnell:
Council Time
Wilburn:
Elliott:
City Council Work Session
Page 36
I have my reasons.
Fine.
Any other agenda items?
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINANCIAL PLAN FOR THE
CITY OF IOWA CITY, IOWA, FOR FISCAL YEARS 2007 THROUGH 2009 AND
THE MULTI-YEAR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM THROUGH FISCAL
YEAR 2010.
On Item 12, tomorrow night just so you folks will have a heads-up on this, Item 12 I will
propose an amendment which will ask for the Council to receive from the City Manager
by no later than August of 2008 a process by which there will be funding available for full
staff at a Northside fire station.
Which? Is this part of the budget? (can't hear)
An amendment of the Capital Improvements plans? How could you?
I don't think you (can't hear)
. This is for the Three- Year Plan. There are two points, and this would be the third point.
But the Capital Improvement Program is only for.
No, that includes the Capital Improvement, it also includes the Three Year Budget. Now,
you can, I have no idea who might support it and who might not.
Oh, I see.
But I, just for your information, I will be submitting that.
Ok, thanks for the heads-up. Any other items on the agenda?
Short agenda.
Really short agenda.
Council Time.
You have a copy of a memo that I sent to Mr. Carlson from the Historic Preservation
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March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
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Commission. And I hand carried a copy of it to him today and talked very briefly with
him.
Vanderhoef: That was just in the envelope?
Karr: That was as part of a consent calendar response, right Bob?
Champion: Are we doing Council Time now?
Wilburn: Yes we are.
Champion: I think it would be really fun.
Elliott: Vh oh.
(laughter)
Wilburn: Hold on.
Atkins: Is this one of those Brie cheese things?
Vanderhoef: 000000.
Bailey: We haven't had the Brie yet.
Champion: To have a tour of this South Sycamore Greenspace.
Atkins: Absolutely, we've been out there - it's really neat.
Correia: Oh, that would be good.
Bailey: The South Sycamore wetlands area.
Atkins: I'll arrange that.
Champion: Well, if people are interested.
Elliott: Connie, on bicycles.
Bailey: We should bike down there.
Champion: We can bike. It's flat.
Vanderhoef: Take the bicycle out there.
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Correia: I'm wondering ifthere's something going on with the Grant Woods students? To do
something with a class or.
Atkins: Why not?
Champion: Anyway, somehow I think it'd be fun.
Atkins: Yeah. It's easy enough to do, even if it's only a couple of you, we can certainly
make arrangements to have that done.
Vanderhoef: And I would like to have one of the engineers go along, because it's been my hope that we
can extend this green way even further as the City is growing and use it for more storm
water, so.
Atkins: We'll get you an engineer along, too.
Vanderhoef: Somebody that can talk to us about that.
Atkins: Ok. I'll check back with you for some dates.
Champion: (can't hear)
Atkins: As the weather gets a little warmer.
Vanderhoef: Right.
Bailey: Oh yes please.
Atkins: I assumed that.
Wilburn: Anybody else Council Time?
Bailey: Where you are, Maui.
Correia: I took a short tour of, I don't know how many people have gone into the new Grant
Woods space? But you should go. It's a wonderful gym, the neighborhood centers have
started their pre-school programs, there is a pre-school program in their neighborhood
center, the Family Resource Center has office space, they recently hired a new Family
Resource Center director. Now there's going to be cooperative programs with the gym,
the Rec center and the neighborhood, so it looked great.
Bailey: I have a question.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Vanderhoef:
(end of tape)
(laughter)
Bailey:
Wilburn:
Atkins:
Bailey:
Atkins:
Bailey:
Wilburn:
Correia:
Vanderhoef:
Bailey:
Wilburn:
Bailey:
Wilburn:
Elliott:
Wilburn:
City Council Work Session
Page 39
Maybe we can do that when we do the trail.
March 29th, the joint meeting, it's unfortunate that that's the same time as the United Way
Celebration. Is there any flexibility with that?
Well I was asked by the United Way to check into that. Steve called to find out from Lane
if they were going to be bringing up the one-cent sales tax, was there a time sensitive
matter?
He didn't seem to be, but I didn't, remember I only talked to Lane, I didn't talk to any of
the other jurisdictions, but he's anxious to liave the conversation. I'm assuming if we
don't do it on the 29th we ought to do it as soon thereafter as we can get scheduled.
Well, I was wondering if we could go just earlier in the afternoon or later? I mean on one
side or the other of Celebration?
My understanding of United Way is that it's a pretty planned-
Yeah, if we could go before 4:30, us, or at 6:30, after they're done I mean.
Oh, you mean us.
I can't meet after, probably before.
What has typically been why we did it at 4:30 for the people who were employed and
could leave a little bit early.
I understand that, but, I mean, I think it's important for the community's leaders to be at
the United Way Celebration.
I don't think anyone is questioning that, it's just, it's just.
Right. I was just putting up another option, so ifthere's a time sensitive about the day-
Sure, sure.
Can we do the joint meeting at another time or another day?
That's the question, so?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Elliott:
(can't hear)
Wilburn:
Bailey:
Atkins:
Bailey:
Atkins:
Karr:
Atkins:
Bailey:
Karr:
Correia:
Karr:
Champion:
Bailey:
Vanderhoef:
Bailey:
Vanderhoef:
Bailey:
City Council Work Session
Page 40
I think I would like very much to meet with the school board or representatives thereof.
I think also the Supervisors, I think that week is clear, but I think some of them would like
to be at the United Way, so I told the United Way I would do a little bit of checking, I
would bring it up here, but it's a lot easier to send a notice out to the jurisdiction - here's a
couple days, or here's a day that we're going to do it, so.
I would first suggest asking if2:00, from 2:00 - 4:00 would work for people.
That's a lot of people we have to call, remember.
Well don't we just have to call point people?
I don't know.
What I generally do is I have an email that I send to every contact and then they report
back.
Guess not. Ok.
Ok.
We certainly could offer 2:00 - 4:00. I would be presumptuous, but I would tend to agree
with Dee. It was a problem last time with 4 - 4:30.
I wonder if we could just do a week out. The very next - if a Wednesday seems to be, I
mean, what would that, like the April 5th if there's not the time sensitive.
So, do you want me to suggest 2:00 - 4:00 on the 29th, and your backup would be the
moving it to the 5"" that way you have your three nights in a row for you folks.
I think you need to move it. I think you need to move it.
I think give them an option.
What about the nnd?
JCCOG.
Is it?
Mmmhmm.
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March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
Page 41
Vanderhoef: Ok.
Elliott: Can we give you a, send you an email or give you a call first thing in the morning, because
, don't have my calendar here?
Wilburn: Well, the United Way is looking for a, they're hoping to have an answer from me in, I said
, would let them know by Wednesday.
Atkins: It sounds like you're ready to make the first decision - it's cancelled.
Wilburn: Yeah, is that?
Atkins: So that, yeah, it's off.
Karr: So, mean ifthat's, then United Way would appear not to have a conflict. It's either going
to be 2:00 - 4:000r its going to be April 5"' or we're back to the drawing board.
Atkins: Right.
Wilburn: April 5"' would work better for me than going earlier in the workday.
Karr: I'm sorry, you would do what Ross? I'm sorry.
Wilburn: The suggestion about going earlier in the workday on the 29"', I used a lot of vacation time
in the last two months to.
Karr: (can't hear) There's a lot of jurisdictions whose Council members work outside of their
communities. So if you were
Champion: That would be difficult.
Bailey: Right.
Wilburn: Just to get their.
Karr: Just to get to that community, plus.
Wilburn: So the 5'" would work for me, , don't know how that works for anyone else.
Elliott: Again, may' call you first thing in the morning and let you know? 'fthe 5'" is.
Karr: Why don't I hold off until about 9:00 tomorrow morning, but you want me to at that point
offer the 2:00 - 4:00 on the 29th and the 5"'?
This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Champion:
Bailey:
(can't hear)
Karr:
Elliott:
Champion:
Karr:
Bailey:
Wilburn:
O'Donnell:
Karr:
Champion:
Wilburn:
Atkins:
Bailey:
(laughter)
Karr:
Atkins:
Karr:
Wilburn:
Karr:
City Council Work Session
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No.
Don't offer it if it won't work for Ross.
Ok, so therefore I' Il hold off until 9:00, but we're looking at moving it to April S'''.
Or, drawing board.
Or a month later, whatever.
Or the drawing board.
Or the scary thing of finding another day.
What about the 12th for folks, April 12th, AprilS'" and 12''', those two options?
It's fine.
AprilSth and the 12th?
That gives another couple options.
Yeah, same time.
We're the host, remember? Ok.
Oh maybe we could get that Brie going.
I just want to follow-up too, and just to clarify. I received the agenda items from the
secretary at the school district, we said it was on the school board agenda, and that was,
the school board won't be meeting prior to the next meeting, that's why, so I didn't know
if Lane was aware ofthat, it was the school board and not Lane that put this here.
I only talked to him a minute or two to see if it was ok to change it.
1 didn't know if Lane was at the school board meeting, and that's what I wasn't sure of.
So you'll get out that email tomorrow?
I will wait 'til 9:00 in case any of you want to check your calendars, and then I will get it
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March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
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out, yes. And I may know by tomorrow night, I don't know, it just depends how quickly
they can get ahold of their folks.
Wilburn: Ok, and I'll send an email to United Way tonight letting them know.
Karr: Because that's definitely off then for the 29"'.
Wilburn: Yes, that is off.
Vanderhoef: I can do that. I have just one thing. I'm sure Regenia is well aware of this. The
Convention and Visitor's Bureau is putting out a weekly list of events that are happening
in the City and the area, which is very inclusive. Marian and I have been talking a little bit
about it, and you can sign up for it individually to have it come on your email, and we just
were talking that perhaps we could post it here at the City and maybe put it on the internal
email so people can see it.
Atkins: We can link to that. What's it officially called?
Bailey: It is called Happenings About Town.
Atkins: Ok, I'll get it tomorrow, thank you. No, I, we ought to be able to link to that - it'll
be a good idea.
Bailey: Yeah, it's nice.
Vanderhoef: It comes out on Thursdays so it doesn't fit our packet schedules or anything and ['d like to
get it linked up with the City somehow or other.
Atkins: It's a good idea.
Vanderhoef: That's it.
ITEM 13. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE
CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR TEMPORARY USE
OF PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY,
LANDOWNER MAUREEN A. MONDANARO, AND TENANT GIV ANNI'S OF
lOW A CITY, INe. D/B/A GIV ANNI'S, FOR A SIDEWALK CAFE.
Dilkes: [ have a picture of the Givanni'a setup if anybody's interested.
(laughter)
Vanderhoef:
It is setup now?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Dilkes:
Karr:
Dilkes:
Correia:
Bailey:
Elliott:
Bailey:
(laughter)
Elliott:
O'Donnell:
Wilburn:
(can't hear)
Elliott:
O'Donnell:
Dilkes:
(can't hear)
Correia:
Wilburn:
Correia:
Dilkes:
Bailey:
City Council Work Session
Page 44
No, no, I have a little sketch of it if anybody wants to.
It's on for approval tomorrow night, agenda item 13.
It's on for approval, and there's no picture in the packet.
Can we see it?
Can we see it?
Can we go there for drinks?
Are you buying?
No, I can't buy for you guys - it's against the law.
Since when?
No it's not.
That's my interpretation.
Did you do this? This is very good.
I did.
Too many people talking.
Ok, does anyone have, as this is coming around, did anyone want to finish their council
time.
I think that looks nice. Did you draw that?
No, but I participated. He's going to use, I think the plan is to use that little area as a
staging area, the part that's close to the building.
That would be good.
This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Champion:
(laughter)
Elliott:
O'Donnell:
Wilburn:
O'Donnell:
Bailey:
City Council Work Session
Page 45
I could have drawn that in no time at all.
Wbat the heck.
You have to get your designer deck put on this summer.
Any questions for Eleanor?
No, I think it's very good.
No, I think it looks good. We'll see how it works.
Schedule of Peudln!! Discusslou Items
Wilburn:
Atkins:
Bailey:
O'Donnell:
Atkins:
Wilburn:
Atkins:
Karr:
Yeah. Ok. Next item is pending discussion items to be scheduled.
As if you don't know how painful I find this. And I suspect it's worse for you. I put
together a list in your info packet on items that need to be scheduled. It's sort of really
what you, what do you have in mind. Some of them require rounding up a whole bunch of
folks, the counties, the schools, I mean we're going to take care ofthat, hopefully some of
those issues on the upcoming joint meeting. A general housing discussion Amy and I
have to get together to kind of work up an agenda for that and I've already drafted a
couple of things that I need to share with her. So that will be coming up in the next month
or so. The things like scattered site, that's a biggy. There's a lot of things that will spin
offfrom that discussion. Maybe it's just put it on a Work Session and add it for awhile
and see even where we end up going with the thmg.
Let's start.
It's really big.
It may have to call time-out and send us back to, yeah.
And maybe just for, for that Work Session where we discuss scattered site, can we, so we
don't have to, I don't know about the state of the web at that point, can we make sure in
the info packet that the report from the scattered site is included in that?
Oh. I can.
The scattered site housing report is on the website permanently, but if you'd like to also
include it as part of that discussion in your packet again (can't hear).
This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Elliott:
Bailey:
Champion:
(laughter)
Karr:
Wilburn:
Champion:
Correia:
Bailey:
Correia:
Bailey:
Correia:
Wilburn:
City Council Work Session
Page 46
That would be helpful.
That would be good.
Then we don't have to retrieve it, Marian.
That's what I was th inking too, Connie, in my response to Ross, that it is on their rather
than someplace else, let's just put it in with that discussion.
Yeah, yeah. And I don't know, when we put it in our Work Session I hope that that's kind
of the starting point for the discussion. There's going to be several groups in the
community that have expectations broader than that, but we at least said we would come
up with some time of response to the scattered site housing recommendations.
You know, I'll betthere's going to be a lot of people who have a lot of good ideas of how
we can do this, and maybe how we should approach it. I think it's so complicated that I
don't know I'll just have to wait until after the first couple of meetings. Maybe we should
have a town meeting.
And that is, that's the Housing Trust Fund is organizing that.
But when is that? That's fall?
Well yeah, because they're going through to talk, to plan it, what is it, what does it really
need to involve, what's the agenda, going and getting, I think they're going to be meeting
with all of the players, all of the cities, all of the other entities, stakeholders, to get them to
buy into, to attend the meeting. And maybe it's sooner than fall. I think Andy is probably
going to be talking about that at that joint - from the Housing Trust Fund - to start doing
that process of getting people on board to be wanting to talk about it, to then come up with
solutions.
I just don't want us, in our typical lightning speed of government in a holding pattern
waiting for that meeting to happen before we (can't hear)
I think that's going to be-
That's why, on one hand, just kind of what Connie is saying, by saying start with the
recommendation, not to, we should have a comprehensive discussion. This is something,
we appointed this group, we said we would be taking a look at it, and so I'mjust thinking,
if we come to some type of understanding what each other's thinking in terms of those
recommendations, that might be food for information for that community.
This represents only a reasonably accnrate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Bailey:
Correia:
Champion:
Bailey:
Champion:
Correia:
Bailey:
Champion:
Elliott:
Champion:
Wilburn:
Correia:
Bailey:
City Council Work Session
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Right. They may be responding to an action or a position that we take rather than us
waiting.
Exactly.
I know I've got a problem here. I've got a problem with waiting for some other group.
Right. I agree.
In order to follow through with this, make ordinances, to make it happen, we need input
from our community, not from.
No, I'm not saying that, because what I'm saying is we have others to invite, obviously the
Housing Authority is not an other, because they are part of the City, like Washington
County, the city of Washington, or Coralville or North Liberty, because I know there's
talk about that. I mean we can focus on what do we have in front of us, we have the
scattered site, we have the consolidated plan, City Steps, which was a community wide
planning process document to go from. We have a lot of information already put together
and input from people in the city that we can start putting together some ideas, some
forward movement, and then be able to go and provide leadership within the county with
here's some ideas, what.
But also, if we feel that we need to call a town meeting before this thing happens, I think
that's what we should do, if that's what comes of discussion.
And I know the, I'm not knocking the Housing Trust, I mean I'm not knocking it, what
I'm saying, I'm interested in the borders ofIowa City right now, that's what I'm interested
in. I'm not really interested in what's going to go on from Mt. Pleasant to Minneapolis.
We have to come up with a plan for our border and then maybe it can be branched out
from there, or they could use us, or we could use them, but, I'm not, I don't want them to
make the decisions that I think we should be doing.
Connie, I think we're going to need at least one or two discussions just to determine how
we're going to address it.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that's what we are doing.
But I also think if you want a town meeting, we should call a town meeting, I mean if we
want a town meeting about it we should do that.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Champion:
Bailey:
Correia:
Wilburn:
Bailey:
O'Donnell:
Bailey:
Correia:
Elliott:
O'Donnell:
Correia:
Elliott:
Vanderhoef:
Elliott:
Correia:
City Council Wark Session
Page 48
I think there's going to be lots of people out there with ideas on this.
Yeah, I think that there already are.
I'm just, to clarify, was the purpose for creating the Scattered Site Housing Task Force,
wasn't that the purpose, to empower that group that the Council created, to get the input
from the community and the knowledgeable people, and then they created this?
I think there were multiple ideas going into creation of the task force, that's my opinion.
Was I on Council then?
How many meetings did they have? Do you remember?
They had a lot.
They met over a year, a monthly meeting, a lot of input.
Many meetings, lot of people.
So they got a tremendous amount of input.
Yeah, and then they had at least two public hearings on it.
What they have done, I think has given us an outstanding start, but I think we need to - I
mean, we have homeless, we have people who are receiving a rental assistance, we have
affordable housing- where does all that fit together, how are we going to address it, what
about scattered sites, where does the school fit into all of this, how much information -
just a whole lot ofthings. It's going to be extremely sensitive and very complicated I
think, and very important.
One of the things that was brought to me again this past weekend from a city councilor in
New Jersey, and the term of affordable housing they have the same problem out there in
talking about affordable housing with the average citizen because they mean two different
things, whether we're talking about the entry level home for the young family,
professional, to get an affordable house versus what CDBG and government say is
affordable housing in the 80% and under. Somehow or other I want to get a definition out
there that starts this conversation and we carry it through so the citizens know what we're
talking about at which time, because they just get totally tangled.
But I think.
But I think that within the conversation of affordable housing what we're talking about is
housing affordable to households at 80% of area median income and below - hold on a
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
Page 49
minute, Dee, hold on.
Vanderhoef: Yeah.
Correia: Ok. And that 80%, somebody at 80% of area median income in Iowa City for a family of
one, is about $34,000.00 or something around there, so we're talking, and you know, if
you're talking about a family of three, it's maybe $45,000.00 a year, so that is, that's what
we're talking about starter, and when you go down in income there's just different
considerations, different things that the city or the community or private/public needs to
do in each of those areas. I wouldn't say we want to say we only going to talk about
assisted housing, or we're only going to talk about entry-level home ownership. It
encompasses a whole thing, and then there are different -
Vanderhoef: I understand, but your terms don't compute out in the community, that's what I'm saying.
You've got people all over the community that are saying we need affordable housing in
this community and they're saying it for the young professional, they're not saying it for
assisted or subsidized or any of that.
Correia: Sure. Right. Different people have their different issues.
Vanderhoef: Right.
Correia: And so that's where we bring them together, it's not different.
Vanderhoef: But the term affordable.
Correia: I think it can be used across the board.
Vanderhoef: I don't think it will be used.
(can't hear)
Bailey:
But that does bring up something we probably before we have this discussion need the
chart, an updated chart, because I know that I don't have one any longer.
Correia:
We can just get that from Karin Franklin (can't hear).
Bailey:
Right, but I think that should be part ofthe packet, if we're going to be referring to that, I
think it's really important that we have that in front of us.
Atkins:
Can you tell me what you mean by chart?
Dilkes:
The family median.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Bailey:
Atkins:
Bailey:
Correia:
Atkins:
Elliott:
Wilburn:
Bailey:
Champion:
Atkins:
Elliott:
(laughter)
Atkins:
Bailey:
Wilburn:
O'Donnell:
Champion:
Atkins:
Elliott:
City Council Work Session
Page 50
The federal government - I don't have the updated chart.
Oh,oh. Because I'm putting part of the information for Amy and I I'm putting together a
list of all of our housing programs - what are we doing right now.
I want the chart. Ijust want the chart. I know, but all I'm saying is that's part of our
packet.
We can get that easy from Karin.
Gotcha.
Of those three categories, homeless and rental assistance and affordable housing, the
scattered site committee or task force or whichever it was, my understanding is they
concentrated much more on the middle one, rental assistance.
Yeah.
Assisted.
Yeah, and that's just what I was gonna say, that when I think about the scattered site, it's
not what we usually call affordable housing, I'm talking about.
Can I point out to you you're probably debating what you were planning to debate later.
We're just getting a running start.
Oh, I understand.
So will this be on March 20th? Are we ready to jump in on March 20th with this?
Yeah.
I think so.
Let's go for it.
I would plan on the March 20"" I mean, let's do something with this, even if you say for
the next half hour or so, and hopefully by then, Amy, I'll be back with you so we can kind
of go over some ideas on how to present the matter.
And you will have that chart on everything which the city is involved?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Atkins:
Bailey:
Atkins:
Champion:
Bailey:
Wilburn:
Atkins:
Wilburn:
Bailey:
Vanderhoef:
Atkins:
O'Donnell:
Elliott:
Wilburn:
Atkins:
Bailey:
O'Donnell:
Atkins:
Bailey:
City Council Work Session
Page 51
I hope so.
I just want the income chart.
I'll get you the income chart.
(can't hear)
No federal housing guidelines, median income in Iowa City so we have the updated 2006.
Steve, were you looking at anything else other than where do we start with this? It sounds
like we know where we're starting.
It sounds like you're already started.
Yeah, I'm.
Well we have the memo, that's a good starting place.
We'll do the housing and then if we need a sales tax one after we talk with the school
district?
I think if you plan to have a discussion on housing on the 20th that will set the tone.
You've already taken 5 minutes here to wade into it already with differences of opinion,
so.
What we need to do, we need to put on the Mid-American franchise also. Sometime in
the near future.
Yes, yes.
Have we.
Ok, now a question on that, I thought we were waiting on the Des Moines decision.
We were.
I thought we were waiting until after we finished our budget work.
Oh, that's right. I need to understand that.
I think we should wait on the Des Moines decision. It will give us more clarity.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meetiug of
March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
Wilburn:
Dilkes:
Bailey:
Atkins:
O'Donnell:
(laughter)
Champion:
Bailey:
Elliott:
Champion:
Elliott:
Davidson:
Elliott:
Champion:
Wilburn:
Atkins:
Karr:
Bailey:
Dilkes:
Atkins:
City Council Work Session
Page 52
Is there any idea Eleanor how soon that will be on the docket?
It's set for oral argument this week, and they have expedited it, so, I don't know when a
decision will come after that, but it's set for oral argument and the appeal was just filed a
month ago.
So wait.
I have a lot of things to do.
I can put that on the (can't hear)
It's not really going to effect our power, I mean (can 't hear)
The lights have come on at my house.
No, but I think we've been out one, we've been without one for too long.
We can go forever without one.
No.
It's been (can't hear) years, huh.
No, I don't think it's fair to either the community or the company.
All I'm saying is we don't have to do it immediately; we should do it, right.
How many of us want to wait until after the results of the hearing? I do, that's four, and as
soon as we know the results.
I'll keep it on the list.
They'll wait until after the?
Des Moines.
Decision in Des Moines.
I've got to believe they'll be quick, because Des Moines got some serious trouble with
financial issues that surround that thing.
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March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006
City Council Work Session
Page 53
Elliott:
I'm glad that somebody else has problems.
Wilburn:
All right.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of
March 6, 2006.