HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-01-09 TranscriptionJanuary 9, 2012 Iowa City City Council Budget Work Session Page 1
Council Present: Champion, Dickens, Dobyns, Hayek, Mims, Payne, Throgmorton
Staff Present: Markus, Fruin, Davidson, Rocca, O'Malley, Karr, Knoche, Moran,
Dickens, Fosse, Lewis, Tharp, Andrew, Bentley, O'Brien, Boothroy,
Yapp, Wyss, Steffen, Morris
CIP:
Hayek/ Okay, well, it's 1:00. Welcome back to the budget, everyone. Um, I'm going to ... we
had scheduled into this some... some upfront discussion time. Uh, which we can do if
that's what the Council wants to do. I'm going to suggest we jump into CIP and get, uh,
the presentations done, which will then bring us basically into a ... a position when we get
to the discussion of having everything, uh ... already presented to us. Um, if you guys are
okay with that...
Mims/ Yeah, I would agree.
Hayek/ I think it makes more sense. So, with that I'll turn it over to Tom or Rick.
Markus/ We're going to start with Rick and I think Rick has a lineup of staffers that are going to
be presenting the ... various aspects of the capital improvements, depending on which one
applies (noise on mic) so Rick, it's all yours!
Fosse/ Thank you!
Markus/ I ... I just want to mention, the cable TV staff has indicated they've seen this three years
in a row, and they're really hoping that it's all changed up this year! (laughter)
Fosse/ We'll do our best! (laughter) We'll do our best! Best to work with low expectations!
Uh, for the next two hours we're going to shift from operating budget and ... and focus on
the capital budget. And to do this, we're going to work from two documents, uh, one of
`em is ... is the draft financial plan, which you've all ... already had and have been
reviewing. And the other is the PowerPoint, and you all have copies, exact copies, of
what will appear on the screen up here, and the first two pages do not have room for
notes on `em but when you get to the third page you got room to take notes on the
projects and ... and the specifics (noise on mic) as we go through there. Um ... the ... the
PowerPoint organizes the projects by category, and uh, we've done our best to order the
categories and then the projects within each category, so it tracks as well as possible with
the numerical order of the projects that appear in this book. Um, but there are some
exceptions, especially when we get into the flood mitigation and uh, and uh ... control, uh
section, cause we're pulling in projects from waste water and uh, and transportation. Uh,
to help you keep track, we put the activity number, uh, in the upper left -hand corner of
each slide so you can reference back to the ... to the budget document and know where
you're at in there. Uh, one of the things that you're going to note is there are a lot more
projects in this document than we're going to talk about in ... in the PowerPoint, and the
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work session of January 9, 2012.
January 9, 2012 Iowa City City Council Budget Work Session Page 2
reason for that is, this is a financial document that contains all of the projects, both
proposed as well as ones that are active in some state. Um, so the PowerPoint and our
discussion today will focus on those projects that are proposed. The other projects that
are in here are already off and running in some manner or another. They're... they're
horses that are out of the barn now. They're either well into design, uh, construction, or
project closeout. And, we're happy to talk about those projects if you have questions on
`em, but I want to be careful today not to get bogged down on any one of those. If we
begin to ... if that begins to happen, let's ... let's pull aside and ... and set that for a work
session and we can talk that in greater detail, and then we can stay on target for our pro
... our ... our objective of today, our task at hand, which is developing that capital
program. Okay, so to do this, here are the steps we're going to do. Uh, we'll begin with
a brief overview of the financial magnitude of the program and its breakdown into the
relative categories. Uh, next we'll go through the projects in tag -team fashion. And
we'll have various staff at the table here with me throughout, and we'll go through the
categories and ... and in the order that ... that they'll be appearing. We'll have
transportation services; uh, landfill and public utilities; airport; uh, streets, bridges and
traffic engineering; flood recovery and mitigation; parks, recreation and trails; uh, public
safety; economic development. This is a new section this year. This was just included
under miscellaneous last year, uh, which is our last topic, uh, miscellaneous and other
projects, and then we'll wrap up with some projects that are on the radar. These are
projects that are ... are not proposed in a funded year, but for one reason or another we
want you all to be briefed on those projects cause we anticipate that they might come up
and... and perhaps be considered for funding or... or situations change and they might be
important to you. So we want you just to have some ... some background on those. And
then we'll wrap up with some questions and discussion at the end, and I would encourage
you to ask questions as we go, and to the extent possible, I'd like for us to make decisions
about projects, uh, category by category, and make those decisions before we moved on
...move on, because the funding streams for these categories is somewhat project, or
category specific. Either revenue bonds or ... or federal monies that are used for those...
those projects. We will not be able to do that for all the projects though, because we have
GO bonds that span almost all the categories. There are some projects that we'll want to
pull aside and talk about at the end. So we'll tag those and ... and do that. Um ... our goal
is at the end of two hours that we'll ... we'll have a product that we can work with. Um,
do you have any questions before we dive in? Okay! Let's begin with that ... that
financial overview that I talked about. And, uh, this kind of indicates the ... the magnitude
and the breakdown by category, and ... and I'll point out that ... that uh ... typically we
target about $10 million per year in GO debt, and that helps us to gauge our financial
capacity for these projects. Uh, you're not seeing the different debt sources on this page,
but uh, one thing I want to point out, if you were to go back to page, uh, C38 in the ...in
the budget and look at the ... the various, uh, GO ... uh, debt scenarios, um ... you'll note
that FYI only has about $3.2 million budgeted in it for GO debt. And, which... instead
of being around that $10 million mark. That's a deliberate safeguard that we have built
into the budget, uh, in the event that state and federal funding does not come through for
some of our flood mitigation projects, and we'll talk more about that in that category, but
I wanted to explain that ... that blip that occurs in the budget there.
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Throgmorton/ Rick, could I ... I hate to interrupt but...
Fosse/ Sure!
Throgmorton/ My vision is not as good as it used to be, and I cannot read what's here, and
because of where I'm sitting... maybe I should move, I don't know, but I can't see it very
well here.
Fosse/ Oh!
Throgmorton/ Um ... I don't maybe I should just get up and move, huh?
Markus/ Jim, you want to sit here? Try it from here.
Throgmorton/ All right (several talking)
Dobyns/ It's not much better from here, Jim! (laughter)
Fosse/ These ... these are small numbers and ... and uh, we can get you hard copies of these that
are larger...
Throgmorton/ That's the main thing I was thinking. It would be really helpful at this moment to
have a hard copy of at least this particular so I maybe ... one or two others, I don't know.
Fosse/ Okay. We will do that. Uh, for those of you who think graphically, uh, here are the
projects, uh, split up by category, and how they consume, uh, the capital program there.
And you'll see the ... the largest piece by far is the flood recovery and mitigation section.
And, related to that, I want to do a comparison, a similar comparison to what we did last
year, where we look at... at the, uh, the capital program as proposed now, uh, to the last
capital program that we had prior to the flood, and I want you to focus on the number
that ... that's down in the lower right -hand corner here, uh, this year's five -year program is
$268,689,727. Uh, you go down to our last pre -flood one, it was $112,112,646. So you
can see that it's gone up by a factor of about 2.4. That's significant! And you might ask,
a year -end to this, how's this going for us. And, I'll tell you it's going okay. It's not
going great. it's ... it's been difficult and I'll back up a slide to ex ... explain some of that.
Uh, you know, most of the increase is incurred because we have these flood recovery and
mitigation projects. And those ... those are difficult for three reasons. One is they're
technically challenging, uh, number two is, uh, they involve uh....state and federal
money in those, and that just entails additional red tape, additional time. As a rule of
thumb, we figure we're going to spend at least 5% more on any project that's funded by
state or federal, uh, money, just ... just in hopping through those hoops, and we use that
rule of thumb when we look at grant amounts. If the grant amount is less than 5% of the
project cost, we'll decline it, and we have done that in the past because it's simply not
worth our money to ... to accept that. We'll spend more than we get. Um ... and then the
third part of that is because these are flood recovery and mitigation projects, there're
strong opinions and there're strong emotions on both sides of these projects, and ... and
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that all takes time to sort through. So that combined together has made this ... this
additional effort, uh, significant for us. So with that ... uh, let me ... move forward and
we'll lead off in our first category of transportation services. Chris and Jeff will join us at
the table and dive into those.
Transportation Services:
Davidson/ Yeah the first project, uh ... Rick (mumbled). Uh, is Riverfront Crossings multi -use
parking facility, and we've had several discussions with you about this project. The
request for proposal is slated to go out this week for this project. We had hoped to have it
out by now, but we made a modification in the ... in the project a few weeks ago, uh, in
conjunction with some discussions that we had with the City Manager about basically
proceeding rather than it being one large public project, it's going to be two projects.
Private project and a public project. It's always been a public /private partnership, but
we're now actually going to split them into two projects, and we feel like give the private
sector developer a little bit more flexibility in terms of being able to select their own
contractor and that, uh, sort of thing. So we ... it's taken us a week or two to modify the
RFP accordingly. The concept of the project is still what we've discussed with you, uh,
in the past. Uh, you... you see the concept here that we developed with Neumann
Monson Architects over the last, oh, pretty much 12 months. Uh, behind what you see
here is really the important part of the project for the City, or I shouldn't say "the" but
...but certainly the ... the part that we would own and operate, and that is a, uh, 500 and
...is it 75 or 85...585 -space parking facility. Um, if you look back over time since we
built the original two parking ramps in the late 70s, Dubuque Street and Capitol Street,
approximately every five years we have made a significant addition to the downtown
parking capacity. Remember it's the City's responsibility, excuse me, to provide parking
in the downtown area. We're now... obviously downtown is growing to the south in the
Riverfront Crossings area, so ... about every five years we've added. It's depended ... uh,
one year when we just added two levels to the Dubuque Street ramp. It was, uh, a
smaller order of magnitude, more like 200 or 300 spaces, but otherwise, about, uh, about
... um ... 500 or 600 spaces every five years, and this has allowed downtown to continue to
grow because we provide the parking. And that's exactly what we're doing here. We're
in a situation where looking at what's come online in the last few years, and what we
anticipate coming online, and especially in the Riverfront Crossings area, we will need
the spaces provided here to allow downtown to continue to grow. Uh, as we've done
with our last two significant facilities, Court Street and Tower Place, we're doing a
public /private partnership and that, uh, basically creating a multi -use facility, uh, that will
have, in the case of this project and this has all been developed in conjunction with, uh,
the City Council in terms of where we're going here, uh, this'll be a workforce housing
project. That's pre... predominantly what you see here is workforce housing, apartment
units, one -bed efficiencies, one - bedrooms, maybe some two - bedroom units. And then on
the ... the first and second floors, uh, a relatively modest amount of, uh, office or support
retail, and by support retail, we don't ... we're not anticipating establishing retail here that
competes with downtown retail, but rather retail oriented to the people who will live in
the area, uh, and... and... and things like coffee shops and maybe small restaurants and
dry cleaners and that sort of thing. So that's the vision for the project. We would love to
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find a developer who wants to build exactly this. We don't anticipate that that's going to
happen. We've ... we've done the concept so that we know approximately what can
realistically be fit on the site. But we'll be negotiating with the selected developer and I
would anticipate there may even be a, uh, you know, we'll have a subcommittee for that
and we'll have to discuss whether we not ... whether or not at that stage we want some
participation by the City Council. Ultimately, the seven of you will be the ones who, uh,
select the ... the project that we proceed with here. The parking portion of it will be
financed through the parking, urn ... the transportation department, uh, and Chris can
elaborate on that if...if you'd like to know more about that, but we like ... we feel like
we're in pretty good shape with respect to our bonding capacity for that, and we will
essentially go through a process with a developer of negotiating a financial package, uh,
for the ... the private sector side of this. We do anticipate there may be some use of TIF
funds, uh, that are generated by the project. Obviously we're starting at a very low base
here in terms of, uh, being able to use TIF funds for the residential aspect of the project.
So, all of that'll be fleshed out in the next six months and we hope to be under
construction next ... uh, yet this year.
Dickens/ So what's the total ... I see 15 million through the City parking. What ... what's the total
cost of the project, just depending on what...
Davidson/ Yeah, it...it depends very much ... this project that you see here's in the vicinity of 25
million.
Dickens/ So another 10 million...
Davidson/ But if we go, if we, you know, it might not be this many floors, might be a... a
different mix, uh, so you know... we're... we're just going to have to wait and see, but
we'll ... we'll work out that financing plan and ... and again, ultimately you will ... you will
be the ones that approve the ... the final concept. What we anticipate doing then is
transacting the property to the private developer as part of a development agreement that
ensures they're going to build what we've worked out that we're going to build, but then
they'll be ... there'll be more separation between the two than we've had in the past where
we basically... Court Street and Tower Place we built as one project and then sold off
private, uh, pieces of it or leased private pieces of it, depending on the project. Any
questions?
Mims/ Yeah, I had a quick question just on the financing part of it, just a clarification. On page
C 1 it shows the, like in 2013 $11 million from parking revenue bonds and then
$5,500,000 parking capital acquisition. What is parking capital acquisition? And ... and
also I guess when we look at these...
Davidson/ The 3 million, Susan, would be the property, correct me if I'm wrong, Kevin? That
was when we (both talking)
O'Malley/ That's correct.
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Mims/ Okay.
O'Malley/ The 5 million...
Mims/ Oh, expense receipt, duh, I wasn't looking at the far left very carefully. Got it!
Throgmorton/ (mumbled) defer to Susan's expertise and ... with regard to the financing questions.
Uh, but I have two questions I guess, or actually one point and then a question. The point
is, uh, I'd like to emphasize the importance of high - quality design on this particular
building. Uh, and I say that in part because I and many other people I know in town
think that some of the buildings that have been constructed, uh, south of Burlington Street
recently are frankly, uh, of rather banal design and don't do much to advance our hopes
and dreams for the Riverfront Crossings area. I ... I won't identify particular projects of
course, so I think this particular one has the potential to really jack up the quality of
design in the area and send a very strong signal to, uh, to future developers about what
we need in that area. So I'd really like to emphasize that. The second point has to do
with the ... the fact that there's a parking structure here. I'll just say, 15 years ago when I
was on the Council, I opposed the idea of, uh, putting another parking structure in this
general vicinity. There's too many too close to one another, I believe, but I understand
the decisions been made. I certainly won't try to obstruct that or object to it or anything
like that, but I do wonder if there's been careful analysis, and I was alluding to this the
other day, Chris, whether there's been careful analysis of the, um ... the ... the relationship
between the 600 or so spaces and the number of people who will live within reasonable
walking distance of that parking structure, or will work within reasonable park, uh,
distance of that, walking distance of that parking structure.
Davidson/ Yes, there has been. Um, we do anticipate the ... we ... we fully intend for the parking
created on the site that we will have a contractual relationship with the private developer
to basically support the lease or sale, and we don't know for sure if it'll be lease or sale or
a mix, but the lease or sale of the residential units, as well as the office and retail
property, in particular the office sector is not going to grow in the downtown and
Riverfront Crossings, unless we can provide parking. That ... that is a critical, critical
element of that. Residential, clearly we feel that ... in particular with these type of units,
uh, that there is the possibility that some people may wish to, uh, rent or, uh, or purchase
units, and ... and not necessarily have parking provided, but we will at least have the
option available, and hopefully that will be an advantage for the developer in... in, uh, in
building the project here. The remainder of the parking then is for the, you know,
basically as a catalyst for the remaining growth of the area, and there's probably no better
example of this than the Court Street, uh, Transportation Center where there, you know,
in particular the Voxman, Clapp project that the University's doing in the Hieronymus
Square project, um, the ... those become much more realistic projects because of the fact
that we can provide the parking in the area and have those specific relationships in place.
We hope similar thing happens here.
Throgmorton/ Great, thanks!
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Fosse/ Move on, next project.
O'Brien/ This one's located on C2, uh, next page. Uh, the transit facility relocation. Uh, we
have this out in 2016, um ... of this financial plan and there's... there's multiple reasons
for the relocation. This facility was built in 1984, urn ... on a ... on a former dumpsite.
Um ... so there's... there's been settling issues. There's been other environmental issues
with that facility. Um... as well as the fact that we really don't have the room for any
expansion of services, um, if we were to expand into other areas of town, if there were a
need for, urn ... a larger fleet for us to be able to provide the services that we needed to
provide, we don't have the room in this current facility to be able to do that. Um, in
addition, it opens up that site for redevelopment, which I know is something that's, um,
kind of coming down the road here shortly. So, those are ... those are two of the reasons
that we have this, and once again, one of the things, and I stressed this during my budget
presentation is the funding mechanism for these, 20 million's a big number. Usually it's
80/20 on the split between federal, uh, and local on that. So it would be a 16 to 4, um,
and ... and this is just an estimate. We ... we're in the, uh ... site relocation phase of the
project. We'll move on to the feasibility study next. Um, and that'll open us up for the
ability to apply for grants for this project. But in order to ... to ... um, get those funds, we
have to make sure it's in our ... in our financial plan, so then it can be in our TIP.
Hayek/ Is this the first time this project's made it into...
O'Brien/ No. I think it's always been in a funded year on the off chance that there were funds
available, so we've ... we kind of keep pushing it back, waiting for us to ... to get a study
done so that we can then apply for... for federal grant funds.
Champion/ Chris, is it possible at all to move this up, I mean, it seems that this is (both talking)
O'Brien/ Yeah, it's in our ... it's actually in our ... in our plans for federal, our federal document,
so it can be moved up, if we have the finances to be able to...
Champion/ Great!
O'Brien/ ...to pay for our share. And that just takes an amendment to our TIP.
Hayek/ Yeah.
Champion/ I hope it moves forward quickly.
Hayek/ Yeah, I ... my sense is that there would be interest, primarily due to the ... to the
development potential of that corner.
O'Brien/ Sure!
Hayek/ Um ... and so for looking at relocation in three plus years and then starting the process of
whatever soil mitigation and everything else, it could be quite a long swing before we see
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something else out there. So there's probably interest, uh, to ... funding, you know,
contingent on funding, moving on this.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, I'd like to accentuate that at least from my point of view. I'm a huge fan of
the idea. It has enormous potential, but again, I want to emphasize the importance of
high - quality design at that intersection. We ... if we just leave it purely to the market, I
think the quality of design that we'd like to see is not going to happen. It could, but
I ... I'm kind of skeptical about that. So ... big fan of it and urn ... like to see us move ahead
in the ways that Matt just described.
Davidson/ And I think Council's aware that we're proceeding in kind of a phased approach with
the redevelopment of the corner. We think it can proceed in the phased approach,
basically as Rick's ... Rick gets his facilities out of there and eventually this one gets out
of there, but we think ... we don't have to necessarily wait for this one to go away. We
can do it in a phased approach.
Fosse/ This corner will be discussed more on the, during the `on the radar' projects. Move on?
Davidson/ This project is at the bottom of page C33, if you want to jump ahead. (several talking)
Yeah, I will mention that. Um ... and what this project is is for the acquisition of the
railroad depot, in conjunction with Amtrak service being reestablished between Chicago
and Iowa City, and we hope Des Moines and Chicago, um, ultimately. Um, we're in a
little bit of a holding pattern right now, um ... we would have the ability to purchase the
depot with local funds at this time, uh, but we are hoping to get an 80/20 federal /state
grant, depending on ultimately what the Governor decides to do with the funds that, uh,
have been made available to us at the federal level, and we're working with the
Governor's office. Matt's been very helpful in being a point person for us on that, and
the Chamber of Commerce of course, uh, but we're hoping to get an 80/20 grant which is
reflected here, uh, you can see it's in 2012. That's... that's doubtful, uh, we anticipate it
being moved out beyond that, but we're ... we're very, very hopeful that ... if we, uh, you
know, kinda keep the relationship cordial and, uh, with the Governor's office that we
believe he can come around when he sees how beneficial this will be to the State of Iowa
and we kind of hopefully can lose that perception that this is just something that's being
done for Iowa City. Uh, I think you're aware the service Illinois is going ahead and
establishing the service to the Quad Cities, uh, and so, again, another catalyst for getting
it here is getting it established first to the Quad Cities. Uh, as Chris mentioned, uh,
second ago, unfunded project #35 is then the rehabilitation of the, uh, depot, making it
handicap - accessible, uh, and creating the, uh, shelter and uh, or I should say the ... the
platform facilities, the parking facilities, and some of the other things that will really
make it a full, uh, service, uh, depot for the passenger rail service. Um ... any questions
about kinda how we're proceeding here? This is, by the way, a landmark building so
there's, uh, it would have to be approved by the Historic Preservation Commission for
this building to come down and we do not anticipate that they would do that, so we don't
feel there's a big concern with the building being sold off for other development, at least
at this time. We believe the building will remain intact and ... intact and ultimately we'll
be able to use it.
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Landfill and Public Utilities:
Fosse/ Any questions before we move out of the transportation services... section? None? Okay.
We'll move into landfill and public utilities. These are lumped together, uh ... partially
because of the funding sources for them, um, a lot of work is financed with revenue
bonds that are paid off with the revenues from the operations, specifically for these. Our
first project, is Ron here? There we go! Ron'll join me on these. Uh, our first project is
the north river corridor trunk sewer reconstruction. Now this is a project that would be
constructed ... in ... in conjunction with the ... with the gateway project. That is the ... the
elevation of Dubuque Street and the reconstruction of the ... of the Park Road bridge. Um,
there ... there are two sewers in this corridor right now. One constructed in 1983 and the
other constructed in 1936. Uh, we do not want to put 10 -feet of fill and new pavement on
top of these. We want to start anew, because of their age, especially the older one.
Operates more like a collector will during high water situations than it does a sewer, um,
so we'll want to combine these into a single sewer, and then size it for our long -term
interests. And by that I mean size it so that it is capable of serving that portion of the
Rapid Creek watershed north of 1 -80, that we anticipate quite reasonably developing,
come into Iowa City. It's rare to replace a sewer that's magnitude and you want to size it
accordingly. As part of the facilities plan for the wastewater, uh, plant reconstruction, we
looked at that Rapid Creek watershed and ... uh, looked at two things. How much is ... is
reasonably expected to develop and be a part of Iowa City, and then secondly, how best
to serve that, and we looked at bringing it in town along this corridor. Also bringing it
into town along the ... the Dodge Street corridor, and then also putting a satellite plant out
there, and so we would have another wastewater treatment plant serving that Rapid Creek
watershed. Uh, that was our most expensive option there, and it also puts the discharge
for that upstream from our water supply and the University's water supply, so that's...
that's not a good situation to have, if you can avoid it. Uh, this ... this is our least cost
option for bringing it through the corridor here. So this would be designed and
constructed with the gateway project. Any questions on that?
Dobyns/ Is this just the lower watershed area for Rapid Creek? How 'bout ... uh, areas farther
east on the interstate 80, Iowa City corridor? Is that have adequate sewage?
Fosse/ What ... what this will serve is roughly 5,700 acres up in that area, and what we did is... is,
uh, we have a corridor study for Oakdale Boulevard, will go north from Scott Boulevard,
cross I -80 and then go over and link up with ... with Oakdale Boulevard as it is now,
and ... and we took a half mile arc beyond that, and ... and all the areas south and west of
there is what is encompassed for area development. Again, that's about 5,700 acres. It
does not extend all the way out to the Herbert Hoover Highway intersection.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Fosse/ There are other options for getting that down, uh, through the Schneider Creek trunk
sewer, if we ... if we start to develop out in that area.
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January 9, 2012 Iowa City City Council Budget Work Session Page 10
Dobyns/ Okay.
Fosse/ Any other questions? Okay. Ron.
Knoche/ Uh, Muscatine Avenue water main project is an extension, uh, kind of a piece -meal of
what... of what we've already done, um, in the Muscatine Avenue inter, uh, area, uh, two
years ago we replaced the water main from First Avenue up to Arthur Street. Um, the
water division has experienced water main breaks in the area, all the way out to Scott
Boulevard, um, the second phase of the project was to actually start at Scott Boulevard
and work our way back to Willow Street. And then we'll have a third project, which may
actually go together with this one and ... and add, put the link in between Willow Street
and Arthur Street. Um, the water main'll go on the southside of the road and be
underneath the 8 -foot wide sidewalk that's there today. So we'll end up having to do
some removals there and uh ... and replace it as we go through.
Fosse/ It's just part of the maintenance of our ... of our water distribution system. Any questions?
Our next project is landfill gas to energy project, and in here we've ... we've earmarked
$2 million to potentially be included in a joint project with the University of Iowa, and...
and what I want to state up front is ... is the word `potential' here. Right now we're
working on putting together a project that does not rely on a capital infusion by the City,
but depending on ... on how it, the final form the project takes, it may require a financial
infusion by the City, and we want to have that, that capability to do that. If we do that,
it'll be factored in to the price, amortized into the price that we'll be paid for the gas,
and ... so that we'll recover that cost. And, uh, our land ... on the left side here is a picture
that shows our landfill, and then a potential route for a... a, uh, pipeline that would get
that out to the Oakdale campus, and at the Oakdale campus, they've already got a couple
Enbocker /GE, uh, generators out there that are capable of running on a multiple different,
uh, sources of fuel, including landfill gas, uh, which is just one that ... that they're looking
at for out there. Urn ... we're... we're hopeful that ... that we can pull this project together
and make it happen, cause right now we're just flaring that gas at the landfill and we want
to turn that into a revenue stream for us. Uh, the difficult... part of this equation is the
pipeline cost. There's just so much ground to cover between the two, uh, facilities that
that's what makes the ... the finances hard to pull off. So that's what we're working on
there.
Dickens/ So we would pay for the pipeline and then ... it would be billed to the University then...
in the gas prices, is that...
Fosse/ Well, right now the University would ... would most likely pay for the pipeline, and ... in
fact, uh, it may even work out that the University will hire a private entity to install the
pipeline and they'll make, uh, basically 20 -year rent -to -own payments on the ... on the
ownership and operation of that pipeline. The $2 million that we're looking at here if...
if we find it necessary to infuse into this project would likely be used for gas conditioning
and compression... compression, uh, before it leaves our landfill site. What we need to
do is get some of the moisture out of it and the (mumbled) and other things to clean it up
and get it in a ... in a condition that's good for, uh, an internal combustion engine like this.
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Dobyns/ Any right -of -way issues with the City of Coralville?
Fosse/ Not so far, that we know o£ The University... the University is taking the lead on this
project and they ... they've been having those discussions.
Throgmorton/ I'm a very big fan of the project. I've been following it indirectly for, I don't
know, about two years from ... when I was working at the University. So I'd really like to
see this project be fulfilled!
Fosse/ Good! It's an exciting project. Uh, one of the hard things for us here is ... is the siloxanes
that are in our landfill gas and we need to ... that's part of the expense of...of conditioning
the gas. Siloxanes precipitate out at high temperatures and it ... it's kind of like putting
fine sand into your motor oil. It just ... it would, uh, reduce the service life of...of
engines, so that's... that's one of our technical obstacles to this project. Anything else
before we move on to airport?
Throgmorton/ How do you spell siloxanes?
Fosse/ Oh, I ... (laughter) Thank you! Mike, would you like to join us up here? (several talking)
Let me just give you the mouse so you can advance (mumbled)
Airport:
Tharp/ Well, good afternoon again!
Hayek/ Mike!
Tharp/ I believe, uh, the airport CIP starts on C, um, 8.
Dobyns/ You're going to put Marian out of business!
Tharp/ Actually C7! (laughter) The first thing I want to talk about is ... is primarily where the
...the CIP funding sources for the, uh, airport projects come from. And it's really from
two sources. It's either from the ... the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, or
from the Iowa DOT, um, on airport projects that the FAA participates in, they pay 95%
of the share of the ... of the project. Um, DOT projects depending on what, um, the actual
project is, will pay, um, anywhere from 70 to 85% of the project costs. So, there's a
significant, uh, federal and /or state involvement in all of these projects, and if those
monies don't, uh, appear, these projects don't go forward. Uh ... part of the problem with,
uh, working under the ... the FAA for the primary source of funding is we're on the ... the,
operate more on the federal fiscal year versus our local city fiscal year, and sometimes
that causes a little bit of, uh, heartburn locally for getting everything in place. Uh, what I
want to walk through a little bit is ... is a little bit of a realignment, uh, we've been
working with the FAA in ... and their projects have kind of taken on a more, um,
obstruction mitigation and safety initiatives type things, versus what was previously in
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the book, uh, for a couple of the upcoming years. Um, so the first slide that ... that really
gets moved, uh, that we thought was going to be a project for 2013 is really going to be
moved to 2015, and that's the, uh, taxiway, uh, apron expansion and taxiway connection.
Um, let me go back a little bit. In 2012 what we're looking at finishing up is the parallel
taxiway for the, uh, primary runway, and you can see it, uh, there, uh, the 7 -25 runway.
Um, this year we compl ... or almost completed the grading portion of it. We, uh, had a
late start due to FAA funding that didn't materialize until about September, um ... next
the, this coming summer I guess we're in 2012 now ... um (laughter) we are planning on
going back and paving and lighting the parallel taxiway, and that would finish up the, um,
essentially the rehab and expansion phase, um, you know, that covered the ... the runway
environment. That would bring us to, uh, after those, what we go into is ... uh ... there we
go! A ... a obstruction mitigation phase, again, as part of the expansion on 7 -25 we took
care of a lot of listed obstructions in that runway with the ... the accelerated schedule on
the secondary runway, 12 -30, we really didn't touch upon the ... the obstruction list of
that, and that's one of the next things that the FAA wants to see funded, um, as part of the
2014 year we're looking also at updating the airport's master plan. Uh, the master plan is
the ... the 20 -year living document that the airport basically operates under with the FAA,
and as part of that program, uh, or as part of that update we'll also be incorporating the
south development studies and ... and better planning out how to, uh, facilitate the ... the
development of that south area for either revenue or ... or some other means. And then
that leads us back into the ... um ... a second round of expansion, which takes care of the
taxiway, uh, apron expansion. As you can see on the right side picture, that's one of our
...our football games, um, you know, during the football season and there's been a few
other occasions where we have some events in the area that we draw a lot of traffic and
parking is at a... a premium, um, this draws a couple of issues, not only for the aircrafts,
uh, aircraft, but also for security. Um, personnel and everybody pretty much is in the
terminal building right here, and as you look at the picture, there's a couple of aircraft
parked way out here, that if there are any, you know, potential security issues, we're not
going to be readily able to get from here to there, um, in a quick response time,
so ... we're looking at expanding the apron up front and center so that everything is ... is
more contained to where everybody is at. And that ... is essentially my CIP presentation!
Uh, future out years, uh, again, it's ... it's going to follow the master plan update, but
2017, 2018 we start to see the ... the funding, uh ... applications for the south development,
um, you know, the ... the big thing that I mentioned during the operations budget was in
order for the south to really be developed, there's... there's a couple of uh ... uh, flood
mitigation and, uh, projects that have to take place to the south area, um, and that makes
it a lot more, um ... developable for the land.
Fosse/ Any questions for Mike? Or did you have more...
Tharp/ That's...
Hayek/ What ... what does the obstruction mitigation entail?
Tharp/ What we're looking at right now are... are tree removals, kind of natural, man -made, uh,
natural and /or man -made stuff. We're looking at trees, light poles, um, stuff like that.
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We're not looking at...at major acquisitions or anything like that. We're not looking at,
uh...
Hayek/ Structures!
Tharp/ Uh, structures.
Hayek/ Okay.
Tharp/ You know, structures maybe lighted to, uh, cover the ... the obstruction mitigation, but not
anything that would call for removal.
Fosse/ Anything else? Well, good! We'll move on to streets, bridges, and traffic engineering. I
think Ron Knoche, our city engineer, will join us ... for that discussion. In fact he'll lead
that discussion!
Hayek/ Thanks, Mike!
Streets, Bridges, and Traffic Engineering:
Knoche/ The streets, bridges, and traffic engineering section starts on, uh, page C 12. Uh, the
first project is, uh, a project that will be done in, uh, conjunction with the gateway
project. It'll be the extension of a three -lane section from where the ... Park Road bridge
touches down, and ... and run a three -lane section along Park Road, up to the Riverside
Drive intersection. Um, it'll include turn lanes on ... on the intersection legs up there at
Riverside Drive to accommodate, uh, better traffic flow up there. Um, we are
coordinating this, uh, section of the roadway with the University in regards to the
Hancher, uh, reconstruction. Um, and timing, along with their construction project too to
make sure that we don't have stuff blocked off while they're trying to get, uh, stuff
delivered to their project site.
Champion/ Is the Riverside Drive, that's right across from City Park (mumbled)
Knoche/ Correct, that's the entrance to the Upper City Park.
Champion/ Okay, thanks!
Knoche/ Yep! Uh, the ... the second project is, uh ... ties in with an annual project that we have
with traffic signals, but uh, we're going to be adding a signal at Muscatine Avenue and
Scott Boulevard intersection. Um...
Champion/ Oh I'm glad to hear that!
Knoche/ (laughter) This, uh, this part of the project will actually do the widening of the
pavement to allow for the turn lanes, both on Muscatine and Scott Boulevard, and then
American Legion Road to the east, and then the signals will be put up with, uh, the
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annual project that we have for signal projects, and we ... we have some carry -over
projects, uh, from a few years, uh, we'll be ... the first project we'll work on with the
signals, uh, this spring will be Highway 218 and Melrose Avenue. We'll be adding
signals for the southbound off -ramp, uh, at that ... at that interchange. Um, the DOT
currently is experiencing some backups at certain times into main line 218, um, and also
with some construction projects that'll go on, uh, on ... 380 and 218 this summer, uh, they
will have the, um, southbound to eastbound interchange loop closed, um, at the cloverleaf
there at...at the I -80, 380 interchange. So they'll be using this as a, kind of their detour
to take, bring traffic down and move `em around so this'll help ... help that traffic move
along in that project. Uh, the second signal that we'll be working on is the Old Highway
218 and McCollister Boulevard, uh, Mormon Trek, uh, intersection. Um, this one
basically the, all the pavement's in place, just a matter of puttin' signals up at...at the
intersection, and then the third one is the Scott Boulevard and Muscatine Avenue, um,
intersection.
Fosse/ The ... the end product for this intersection with Scott and Muscatine one will be very
similar to what you see at Court and Scott now. So ... that's what you can expect it to be
like.
Knoche/ Yeah, and ... and as, uh, as we move forward we get closer to the First Avenue grade
separation project occurring, um, a signal at this intersection'll help out with the traffic
flow as people start diverting around that corridor, um, during the construction phase.
Um, a project that we're working on jointly with the DOT is, uh, overlaying of Highway
6, from the Highway 6, Highway 1 intersection, um, Riverside Drive intersection to
Lakeside Drive. Um ... the, this project is on C15 is the page that we're on.
Um ... roughly $2.7 million project that we're working on with the DOT, uh, they will be
adding, uh, paved shoulders in this corridor, um, and then paying for the overlay. We
will be doing the project design on this project.
Hayek/ I see that, uh, some of the funding comes from the ... the franchise, utility franchise tax?
Knoche/ That ... that's correct. Um, what we'll have there, if we have any, um, utility relocations
that we need to do, we'll use that money to help pay for those relocations.
Hayek/ I mean, I ... I think it's appropriate since some of the biggest payers are along that stretch.
Fosse/ Yes, and the, if you'll recall, the overhead electrical was ... was put underground in front
of the Kmart area, and uh, we ... we'd like to do that in that block to the west. Uh, so that
it'll clean up that corridor. This will also be a good project for quieting that corridor
down. Certain ... right now that pavement is ... is pretty noisy because of its condition and
it cuts right through a couple neighborhoods so it's ... it'll be good in that regard.
Knoche/ Uh, a project that we had identified last year during the budget process was an alley
assessment project. It's a bi- annual project, um, it's ... it's one that we haven't pursued
in ... as far as project development yet, um ... just due to the, um, other load that we've had
in ... flood related projects, but um, what it does set aside is money, about $180,000 every
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other year, um, if somebody would come to us and would like their alley worked on,
we'd be able to ... to pursue that project and move it forward, uh, from a design and a
construction standpoint.
Dickens/ Are we reimbursed for that?
Knoche/ That's the assessment part of it. So we ... we would upfront the money and then we
would be paid back through the assessment process. The Burlington Street, Madison
intersection project. This is one, uh, that we were... originally were hoping to have done
before the Rec and Wellness Center, uh, was opened up, uh, a year or so ago. Um, we
delayed that project because of some work that, uh, University was hoping to be able to
do with some steam tunnels, um, in that corridor. About where the orange construction
fence is shown there, there's a steam tunnel that runs up, um, to the hospital campus, um,
they've given up hope, uh, from getting FEMA funds for that project. So, uh, they've
given us the nod to go ahead and move forward on the project. Um, the design is about
95% complete, uh, we had applied for some statewide enhancement funds, uh, this year
to help pay for an offset in funding. Uh, that money did not come through. We're going
to pursue that funding again next year so this is one, uh, that we'll be seeing construction
on hopefully in 2013. This will, uh, initiate the median project from the Madison
intersection to the, uh, Iowa River bridge. So get that piece put in there.
Hayek/ Let me interrupt... where are we on the ongoing hand - wringing over design for that,
and... and... bicycle traffic and, the stuff we've talked about periodically over the last
couple of years.
Fosse/ As for the intersection or the median through the corridor?
Hayek/ Well, but doesn't the ... doesn't the work under ... under 3834 impact that?
Fosse/ It ... it does. The, uh ... the median through the corridor we'll discuss with the projects on
the corridor, or excuse me, projects on the radar, uh, but this component here for Madison
Street to the river can be built with or without the median through the rest of the corridor.
Hayek/ Okay.
Fosse/ And ... and we have a particularly strong mid -block crossing pattern here that we do want
to interrupt, uh, as far as people cutting over to get at the Rec Center, so we think it's a
good project at this location. But we do need to recognize that it will come with
operational expenses. That is maintaining those medians.
Champion/ That'd be the first time we've maintained them! (laughter)
Fosse/ Well this ... this will involve planted medians, so it's ... it's a little more involved than that.
Mims/ I know the de ... design isn't quite done, but just... ballpark, how, like how tall and how
wide are those medians?
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Knoche/ The ... the medians in ... in this ... in this block here, I believe are 10 to 15 -foot wide, I
think is where we're at in regards to that. What ... what we'll be able to do here. What's
different about this piece of the corridor versus everything to the east is, what ... there's
enough right -of -way there and space to ... to widen the road out and do what we need to
do as far as constructing and maintaining the ... the lane widths, um, the 12 -foot lane
widths that we have. From this area back to the east, we're ... we're having to ... you
know, we're taking the middle turn lane out with the current proposal that we have, so it
ends up narrowing those lanes, uh, so for the bicycle aspect of it, those lanes ... those
medians'll be like 10 -foot wide, but the bicycle access... accommodations there, it makes
it tight for the ped ... or for the bicyclists, and the, um, motor vehicles to be in there.
Champion/ Why do we make them 10 -foot wide? That seems really wide for a median!
Knoche/ That's... that's the width that's there, I mean, it ... to try to be able to maintain some type
of growth in those medians, and maintain the ... um, clear zones that we have in there, as
worked on that project with the DOT and ... and the ... and coming up with the design that
we have there, it ... we ended up taking that whole middle lane. That's the space that we
have available. And ... and that ... that's, I mean, that was a proposal that we had come up
with at that point in time. I think we're going to revisit that and see if there's a better
alternative.
Champion/ Yeah, if you made them narrower, then could you have a bike lane?
Fosse/ There's... there's currently not enough room in the corridor now to implement a bike lane,
with ... without taking out other lanes of traffic. We could perhaps do sharrows through
the corridor now, uh, but I think what's of concern to bicyclists is right now the lanes are
approximately 12 -feet ri ... wide, and they'll go down to about 10 -feet wide after the
project, and that ... that creates discomfort for the people that are ... that are bicycling...
bicycling in there.
Champion/ Well ... what I'm saying, is if the median's going to be 10 to 15 -feet wide, why
couldn't you use some of that as a bike lane? Do you know what I'm saying?
Knoche/ The ... the extra wide median is only in this area, from the Madison intersection to the
west to the river. Cause that's where we have the space to be able to do that. Everything
else'll be maintained within the existing back -of -curb to back -of- curb...
Champion/ Okay.
Knoche/ ... of...of Burlington Street.
Champion/ All right.
Knoche/ Um, Burlington, Clinton intersection, uh, improvements. Uh, this is a project that ... that
we had been waiting on the Hieronymus Square project to occur, and ... and work it into
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the schedule, um, currently the University is working on the Voxman Clapp building to
go in, uh, with Wells Fargo and Midwest One, um, we're going to try to work it out with
them that they would actually build the south leg of the Clinton Street intersection, with
their project, and ... and that way they can time it and do what they need to do with the
deliveries there, and then depending, um ... we may work the north leg into that also, but
uh, we may be able to do this one as a standalone project. We're still in the design
phases of this intersection. This project only includes the Clinton Street legs. It does not
include anything on the Burlington Street, uh, legs of the project, or of this intersection.
Mims/ So there's space on that ... northside, the southbound traffic, to put in a left turn lane?
Knoche/ Yes. What ... what'll happen is, the ... the curb lines will move, uh, I think it's 3 -foot to
the east here. There's some utility issues with the ... a big vault here, but then we'll also
be able to take away some of the on- street parking here, and... and widen it also to the
west ... to be able to get the 5 -lane section on that side.
Mims/ Okay, thanks!
Throgmorton/ I know we were just talking about, uh, improvements to the intersection, but as
best I can tell, there's no...no better site, no more important site in the City of Iowa City
than this particular location for, um, really dramatically, uh, enhancing the visibility and
...and quality of, uh, development in ... in ... in the city. Uh, that ... those two empty site,
uh, lots, the Hieronymus lot and the one across the street, where the Standard Oil station
used to be, and the Voxman Clapp site — ah, so much potential! So, you know, I really
hope that this, uh, reconstruction of the intersection will facilitate, uh ... you know, the
...the resulting improvements in those sites.
Champion/ It's gonna happen!
Knoche/ Um, the brick street reconstruction, uh, project, that's a bi- annual project also. We have
$290,000 set aside every other year, uh, to work on some brick streets. Um, this project
in this next construction season we'll be looking at reconstructing Dewey Street. Um,
from the intersection ... from basically the entrance into Oakland Cemetery, up to where
the brick ends. I think it's ... where Summit wraps back around and ties in there so we'll
get that piece done. Uh, we'll also be looking at the, uh, intersection of Governor and
Brown. Um, there's some brick ... I think that's the only extension of brick street, uh,
in ... on a State highway in the State of Iowa is that piece there. So (laughter)
um ... it's ... it's one, when we went to the ... transfer jurisdiction back to the DOT, uh, that
we maintain the maintenance o that piece. So we'll make sure that we include that with
this project.
Hayek/ Do you know if those ... are those the original bricks?
Knoche/ I do not know the answer to that, but my guess is they would be the original bricks.
Hayek/ Cause those are probably the original brick streets.
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Knoche/ Yes!
Hayek/ Leading out to the cemetery! For them to stand the test of time on a State highway!
(laughter)
Knoche/ You know, and ... what we're able to do with these projects is ... is reuse those brick. We
...we'll, we pull the brick out. We put a concrete base underneath, and then we ... we
relay those brick. Um, two years ago when we did the piece of Bowery, uh, we actually
went to a brick collector and ... and had to purchase some brick to ... to match that era of
brick that was put in on that street. So, we salvage what we can, uh, but we do have some
resources to be able to go to and ... and bring in some brick of the same historic nature.
Dobyns/ As a newcomer, is there a general philosophy that we're maintaining those streets that
are bricked, or are we slowly ... as part of a historical nature?
Fosse/ We had quite a bit of discussion about that last spring, and ... and what we want to...
Dobyns/ You can shrink it quite a bit! I don't need the whole (laughter)
Fosse/ Oh, okay! But ... in ... in a nutshell, we'd like to preserve the majority of the brick streets
that ... that we have. There are a few that we would ... we need to make a decision on. A
good example is Harrison Street, just south of the Post Office. Is that one we want to
preserve as a brick street, but certainly that ... that uh, Linn Street and Brown Street
corridor, Dewey Street, are ... are ones that are part of a historic nature of the City and
we'd like to preserve those.
Hayek/ For years we've had ... we stopped paving streets, I don't know, 20 -some years ago, uh,
for the most part, and ever since we've had a couple, you know, $20,000 a year set aside
to maintain existing brick streets, which helps patch holes but doesn't, uh, rehabilitate
long stretches, and then the last year we made a budget commitment to increase the
budgetary investment in our brick streets, to make some progress in, uh, fixing up longer
stretches of brick streets.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Hayek/ More than we used to be doing.
Dickens/ You try to ride your bike on Dewey! (laughter) Good luck!
Champion/ Oh, it's horrible!
Markus/ Rick, maybe you should mention the cost differential.
Fosse/ Yeah, it ... brick streets are considerably more expensive to reconstruct, versus just tearing
them out and putting concrete back, um, I don't remember that exact percentage right
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now, but ... but uh, that was ... that was a part of our discussion last spring and ... and
whether or not as a community we want to spend that extra money to preserve the
character of those corridors.
Champion/ Am I wrong or right in that Brown Street is 100 years old?
Fosse/ I believe Brown Street was one of the first ... brick routes in ... in Iowa City. It went from
the churches downtown to the cemetery, so I believe it ... was ... is it Linn and Brown?
Davidson/ Uh -huh, Linn and Brown. I would guess it's over 100 years old.
Champion/ Right, and we haven't done anything to it except for some minor repairs, so I think
once you build it, it lasts for a long, long time.
Hayek/ There was a lot of discussion on this in the (several talking)
Throgmorton/ I'll toss in two -cents worth cause, uh, I live on Linn Street, uh, my house was built
in 1891 and... the... the brick pavers are ... are a great asset I think for the street, partly
because of their traffic calming feature. I mean, that's a huge part of it, but you know,
there are problems too, you know, if you drive ... if you ride a bike down Linn Street and
get near Bloomington Street, there's one sinkhole that's really a killer! I mean, it just...
it's like a ... black hole, it sort of sinks straight in. So things have to be done over time
that we've not been able to do, I suppose, but the ... the brick pavers are great.
Davidson/ Uh, project 3854 is a project that is not actually one, despite of the fact that it is in the
furthest out, uh, funded year, not one that we have any kind of preliminary design for or
anticipate doing any time soon, but this is a corridor where, uh, because of the
development, uh, that has occurred, uh, and we anticipate occurring, we have been able to
get developer exactions that will eventually... we're banking right now and will
eventually help ... help us pay for the reconstruction of this, and uh, it's ... it's best if we
have it in a, in the furthest out funded year in case there's any kind of a legal challenge or
anything to us receiving those exactions. So far there hasn't been, but that's... that's the
purpose for this being in here. It's a bit of a placeholder and basically it keeps moving
out to the furthest out funded year until at some point you all make a decision that we
want to reconstruct it, and which point it would go from the rural cross - section that you
see here to a... a city street with curb and gutter and sidewalks.
Knoche/ First Avenue grade separation project, uh, this is one that, uh, we will be doing some, as
preliminary... or some initial project work this fall and then the major construction'll
start, uh, in the spring, um, of ... of 2013. Um ... we have, uh, we have some utility work
that we have to do on the north side of...of the inter, of the Iowa Interstate Railroad. Um,
and then as part of the project we have to build a temporary... what'll eventually be a
temporary bridge, but a temporary crossing on the south side of the main line, um, and
then as the excavation work occurs, uh, we'll... we'll, uh, it'll turn into a bridge. Um, and
then we'll add the other bridge, the ... this structure will be added in, uh, at the end of 13.
Uh, the work will be done for the most part under ... under traffic, um, there will be a
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large retaining wall, uh along the ... uh, west side of First Avenue, um, and then we'll
maintain pretty much an open look, back at the Southeast Junior High. Um, this is one
that we do have some STP money involved in, uh, there's... about $2.4 million worth of
STP money, federal funds, and the remainder is... is local funds.
Dobyns/ Have there been any concerns from adjacent merchants, regarding this ... as ... ?
Knoche/ The ... the...
Dobyns /... Sycamore Mall, it's sort of an at -risk area?
Knoche/ We have had some concerns from ... from the, where the Sueppel's Flower Shop is.
Um, that's been probably the ... the most vocal of the folks. Um, we have not heard any
concern from any of the merchants within the ... the mall, um ... uh ... they are, uh, we have
a project we're working on this summer in the Lower Muscatine area that ... that I'm sure
that they've probably been focusing on, but uh, we have met with the neighborhood, uh,
multiple times, uh, to ... to, uh, try to, um, hear their concerns, um, the biggest concern
from ... from this corner commercial area is that they may lose their visibility, and we're
working on some, uh, designs of the retaining wall and this space so that they ... so we'd
be able to maintain that view, of those folks.
Hayek/ Cause we have an opportunity, and there may be members in the pub ... of the public
watching this particular segment, it'd probably be a good idea just to reiterate our time
line. As I understand it, we're ... it's, this is in our CIP budget now, and so the Council
will, in connection with the budget, determine whether it goes forward with this, and then
later this year there are opportunities for the Council to look at design and then ultimately
the contact is ... is, the RFPs are sent out.
Knoche/ The updated schedule on this project, uh, will be such that, uh, we'll do the utility work,
um, utility work for Southeast Junior High and some water main work on the north side
of the railroad tracks, along First Avenue. Those projects are needed regardless if...if
this project moves forward. So, um, we're adding some water main, uh, changing around
where some water main, water services go for those folks along First Avenue, and
changing the way the sanitary sewer service for Southeast Junior High flows today, um,
and those are ... those will be standalone projects. Um, as we move, uh, further into the
fall, um, we will be working on, um, some property acquisition work, and then uh, we'll
be working on probably a standalone project for the shoofly bridge or the other crossing,
so that'll be a standalone project. And we'll start on that, uh, construction of that will be
in the fall so I'm ... my goal is, um, bidding some... somewhere around September or
October of...of this year. The Council will have a decision point there of, as we approve
the plans and specs, and move forward with that phase of it. So that ... that'll be kind of
the first decision point for Council, and then as we move forward with, uh, the federal aid
project, um, for construction in the spring, there'll be another decision point there for the
plans and specs approval of the ... of those plans also. And then award the contract,
subsequently after bids are taken.
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Hayek/ Thank you.
Payne/ So the beginning of the project, the preliminary work that you just mentioned...
Knoche/ Uh -huh.
Payne/ ...will be going on at the same time as Lower Muscatine Road is being done.
Knoche/ We ... right now the way that we're looking at it, Lower ... the utility work will not affect
the corridor. So ... so that work can ... can happen and it won't have any effects on First
Avenue. The ... the temporary crossing, that work, uh, will be such that it will occur after
we have the major inconveniences of the Lower Muscatine project, at the intersection of
First Avenue and Lower Muscatine. So, we're ... we're scheduling it such that we're not
tearing up both locations in the same construction timeframe.
Dobyns/ (mumbled) deliberations, what you mentioned was helpful, but other than those things
that Rick said was `on the radar,' some of these are sort of...more done deals than other
done deals, and I don't have a sense for which of these are closer to, you know, actually
being approved than others.
Hayek/ Well these ... these are things that, uh, have ... have, that prior Councils have ... have made
budget commitments toward, but you know, every ... every year we have an opportunity
if...if we want to to ... you know, upset the process if you will, and if there's something
we have changed our minds about, I mean, we're adopting a budget that has funding for
these items. This is ... this example is one that has been discussed for years (both talking)
made some, you know, considerable progress toward it. It's controversial, um, but the
reason we brought this up was that, you know, it ... this Council will have to determine
whether it wants to be consistent with the decision we made, which was to move forward
on it. Um, and if we're not going to, that ... that's something we have to talk about, but
part of the reason... belaboring these details is because we just want it to be clear to the
...to the businesses and individuals affected what our timeline is, because I think there
was some misunderstanding, uh, at least on the part of some people, as to when we were
hoping to do certain things on this project.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Hayek/ So...
Dobyns/ All right. Thank you.
Hayek/ So ... that, that answer your question?
Dobyns/ Yes!
Hayek/ Okay.
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Knoche/ Uh, I -80 aesthetics improvement project, uh, this is a ... a project that is ... is grant -
related. It relies completely on getting some grants from the DOT and the road use tax...
the road, the living roadway fund. Get it right, um ... this is ... the project here was a ... is a
joint project between the DOT, Coralville, and Iowa City. Uh, 2009 Howard R. Green
completed a study of...of various, uh, aesthetic upgrades in this corridor, um, kind of the,
the most significant piece of the corridor will be the barrier rail and the work that'll go in
as the six - laning project on I -80 is completed. Um, but there is some, uh, related
plantings and ... and some tree plantings and some other flowers, uh, wildflowers, prairie
flowers in that area that'll... that'll happen. Um, this is ... so what we've been doing is,
uh, we'll be banking some money as far as the grant funding goes. Uh, the DOT, uh,
currently is planning on doing the design of the project as far as the landscape design of
it, um, and then, uh, we'll work with them on getting everything installed on that. So,
um, we're ... we're able to bank $100,000 per community, so Coralville and Iowa City,
uh, over the next couple years will be applying for the grant funds for the ... for the
aesthetics project. And then, uh, the last project that we (mumbled). Um, the Dubuque
Street, I -80 pedestrian bridge, uh, this'll be, uh ... pedestrian bridge... bridge built on the
west side of the Dubuque Street four -lane, um, that will make the connection of the Iowa
River Corridor Trail from the connection, from the intersection of Foster Road, up
through, uh, the overpass bridge, and then take it up to where the Iowa River Corridor
Trail is at the Butler Bridge, um ... the ... the design here that you see is ... is very similar to
the Dodge Street bridge. That was part of the aesthetics, uh, plan that we had with
Coralville and uh, and the DOT. Um, so it'd be a matter of...of reconfiguring a structure,
identical features that we have at, uh, Dodge Street and putting in this location. Uh, this
construction season the DOT, um, will be working on urbanization of...of this
interchange. Um, so they'll be, uh, making sure as they get the ... the dirt work done and
the grading done in this area, uh, it'll accommodate the bridge on the west side and then,
uh ... the sidewalk that we have in place now along Dubuque Street goes up the east side.
There'll be an at -grade crossing at the signalized intersection, uh, here and uh, which is
the south leg of the inter ... of the intersection, interchange. Uh, it'll go ... the bridge'll be
on the west side and then the trail continues up the west side. Um, the reason ... the
reason why we have to do that is, one, we have some tight constraints with right -of -way
closer to the Foster Road intersection, um, and then ... the future look of this interchange
is the potential of a partial cloverleaf on the north -east corner of the interchange, so we
want to make sure that the bridge doesn't end up being in that, for that future design. So
that's why the bridge'll be on the west side there.
Throgmorton/ could I ask a question about that?
Knoche/ Sure!
Throgmorton/ Uh, I ... I've ridden my bike up Dubuque Street many, many times over the years,
and it's tremendously dangerous for a bicyclist. That's one thing. I understand what
you're saying about an at ... an at -grade crossing, um, that would go from the east side to
the west side of Dubuque, right?
Knoche/ Yes.
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Throgmorton/ But would it then ... would there been ... then be an at -grade crossing on the, uh, the
exit ramp?
Knoche/ There will be.
Throgmorton/ And a bridge going over the interstate, and then another at -grade crossing?
Knoche/ So ... so, what ... and what'll happen with ... with the urbanization of the interchange is
there'll be signals added at both ... at both the ramps. So the ... there'll be a signal here at
this ... at this intersection of the eastbound off ramp and on ramp, um, similar to what we
did with Dodge Street, uh, a few years ago. These free rights that happen, um, on the
south leg, now a free right going eastbound, free right coming off the eastbound, those'll
go away and it'll be at an intersection with a signal. And then the same thing will happen
on the ... on the north side. The westbound off ramp, westbound on ramp will be at a
signalized intersection. So that'll allow for that protected movement.
Throgmorton/ (mumbled) much, much safer.
Knoche/ Yes. Yep, so that'll add that protected movement, and ... just want to add this. We had
some, this says congressionally delegated funding for this project, and then we also had
money left over from the stimulus project that we did with the Dodge Street bridge, and
that money is rolled into this project also. So there ... so that's part of the funding
package that we have on this one.
Fosse/ Back to your original question, Jim. At ... at this intersection, there may not be an at -grade
crossing going across Dubuque Street there, because there won't be a destination on this
side. The trail will likely continue along the west side of the road there.
Dobyns/ How `bout where, uh, Linder Road crosses into Dubuque. Is that ... that's a potential
crossing area for...
Fosse/ It is, but ... but there'll be no signal at that location so that...
Dobyns/ So it's just the at- grade, cross at your own risk!
Fosse/ Yes. Our next project is the warm storage building for the streets division. Uh, currently
we have no building, uh, for our ... our streets, uh, dump trucks, and also for our solid
waste vehicles, our ... our garbage trucks and recycling vehicles. Uh, so far we've got
away with this. It's worked okay for us during the summer months. Uh, fortunately with
the storms that we've responded to haven't directly hit our vehicles, uh, but during the
winter months it's a problem for us, and ... and what we do is we rent some space at the
Fairgrounds for some of our trucks. Some of our other trucks, uh, we ... we get under, or
get inside at the, uh ... uh, water equipment building, and what was allowing us to squeak
by so far up until this year was that when ... when we bought Sand Lake for the Terry
Trueblood Recreation Area, it came with a couple buildings and we were using those
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buildings for winter storage and they're gone now, and we're in a position where we ... we
cannot find indoor space for our vehicles, for all of our vehicles during the winter. Uh,
the ...the buildings that are out there on the market are only interested in 12 -month leases
for ... for significant amount of money. Uh, we find that we're better off spending our
money on ... on building an 80 -foot by 80 -foot, uh, basically a warm storage building. It's
metal building. It'll be similar to the salt storage building that's down there now, and uh,
that ... that fits into our long -term plan at the public works site, and we can get at least, uh,
six of our, or excuse me, eight of our vehicles under roof at that location. It's only about
a $180,000 project, but it's not something that you'd seen before so we wanted to get it
on the program here.
Champion/ And there's room? At our, where our new maintenance area, south on Napoleon
Drive?
Fosse/ Yes, there is. We've done a master plan for that and ... and so we know where things will
fall and... and that will likely be a... a... a front - runner location for the new bus facility, as
well, down in there. So, any questions on ... on transportation before we move on to flood
mitigation and recovery? Certainly the biggest project in that section is the First Avenue
grade separation. With a few exceptions, it's been a very popular project, uh, with the
east siders. I ... I will tell you Friday night when I went home I saw it cued as far as I've
ever seen it, a ... across Ralston Creek, uh, to the north, while there was a ... a train going
across there. So it went all the way across... across, um, Muscatine Avenue.
Hayek/ Wow!
Flood Recovery and Mitigation:
Fosse/ That was something! Okay. Our next category is flood recovery and mitigation, and we
thought we'd lead that off by just reviewing our flood mitigation strategies, and these
were developed shortly after the 2008 flood, and they were reiterated in each of the ... the
periodic updates that you received from Dale in ... in 2009 and 2010, and let's ... let's just
take a minute and go through those so that we'll see how the projects that we're looking
at fall into these, and ... and, but before we do that, I want to back up just a second and
distinguish the difference between recovery and mitigation projects. Recovery projects
are ones that get us ... make us whole again, make us operational again, and we're pretty
...pretty well complete with those, with the exception of a couple river crossings for
water mains. Mitigation projects are ones that better prepare us for floods in the future.
That's the distinction between the two.
Throgmorton/ Rick, one of my fav ... one of my favorite concepts, uh, that, uh, I've encountered
over the past few years is the word resilience. So, and I'm sure you're very familiar with
it, so we need to make sure that whatever we do makes our city a more resilient place,
and I ... I understand there are at least two different ways of thinking about that, or
very ... that are very consistent with what you just said. One is to bounce back to where
you were, and the other is to bounce back to a better location or better situation than you
were in before.
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Fosse/ Uh -huh.
Throgmorton/ Okay, so that's... that's part of what I'm looking for as I hear you speak about
these particular projects. Will they leave us better off than we were before?
Fosse/ Okay! I think that fits very well into our ... our first, our number one priority there, and
that is a buyout of flood impacted residential properties within the 100 -year and 500 -year
flood plains, and convert them to open space. That is the only 100% effective, fail -proof
means of flood protection, and that is to leave the flood plain, and that's why that was our
number one priority, and we'll show you a few slides later, the progress that we've made
on that, and ... and uh, what the future may hold for the continuation of it. Uh, number
two is for the remaining homes. Implement real... realistic protection measures, such as
elevation of structures, elevation of mechanical systems, back -flow prevention, and uh,
protection of access. So that, sometimes you see how ... complete houses have been
lifted. Sometimes within houses that stayed at their existing grade, just the mechanical
systems have been elevated, and then also we're looking at protecting the access to
neighborhoods, such as along Foster Road or the ... the, uh, Normandy Drive intersection,
Normandy -Manor intersection. Third priority is to protect critical infrastructure. And,
within that our first priority is the Dubuque Street and Park Road bridge, and that's, uh,
become known as the gateway project, the elevation of Dubuque Street and
reconstruction of Park Road bridge was too big a mouthful, so we narrowed that down to
"gateway." Uh, our second priority is the relocation of the north wastewater treatment
facility. And we'll talk about both of those projects in some detail in just a moment, and
then the fourth priority is, if funding becomes available for levees and flood walls,
consider such strategies in flood prone neighborhoods. And that's where our... our three
levee projects and our ... our pump station, floodgate projects have evolved from, as these
...these fundings have become available. Any questions on those priorities before we
begin to look at the individual projects?
Davidson/ ...reasons we wanted to bring these to you is because in October of 2008, Rick and I
basically developed these four points with the City Council, at that time, to direct staff in
our recovery and mitigation measures, and obviously there's... there's been a lot of
discussion, a lot of things evolve since that time, but we do want to make sure, well,
as ... as Rick's alluded to. We ... we want to illustrate how what follows, you know, comes
from these four points, and then obviously it's ... if...if the seven of you as a Council have
some differences now that you want to express to us, now's the time to ... to get those out
as well because we are at a point where we are going to be implementing some things,
and we hope that that continues to be the will of the City Council, obviously.
Fosse/ Okay? Well, let's dive into the projects, and we'll go through them in the order that
roughly they appear in your ... in your proposed budget, and the first one is the, uh, south
waste water plant expansion that allows us to eliminate the north waste water treatment
plant. Uh, this is about a $49 million project. As I said, it'll eliminate the north plant,
something that has been in our long -term plans, but has been accelerated because of the
vulnerabilities that were exposed during the flood. Um, it also allows, we'll be building
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in room for growth, uh, from a sanitary sewer perspective. Roughly 15 years worth of
growth before we need to do our next upgrade down there and also will posture us
hopefully to ... to deal well with future environmental regulations. Most likely those will
involve phosphorous and more stringent limitations on ammonia. So what we want to do
for this ... with this is three goals: get rid of the north plant, allow for growth, posture for
future regulations. And this project, uh, if all goes well, will be bid this spring, with
construction beginning this summer and a completion date of April of 14, and we have
$22 million of EDA money for this project. Uh, we have $12 million of i -Jobs' money
dedicated for this project and the ... and this is where I want to talk about that ... that blip in
the ... in the GO bonds for FYI 5. Um ... we have $12 million of i -Jobs' money here, but
we don't think the State is going to be able to make good on all of that, and they've been
very upfront with us about it. About $5 million of that grant relies on other projects
within Iowa, not moving forward or coming in under budget. So what we are doing
is ... is we're allowing room in GO debt capacity such that if that $5 million doesn't come
through, we can still proceed with the project and not be left in an overextended position.
And while we're on that subject, I'll just mention that the, uh, the gateway project
involves $3 million in federal money that ... that we've not landed yet. We're still hopeful
that we're going to get $3 million, or more, in federal money there. Again, since... since
we do not have a signed agreement in place, we want to leave room in our bonding
capacity so that we do not overextend ourselves there. Does that make sense?
Champion/ When we, um, move the, urn ... wastewater plant off the river...
Fosse/ Uh -huh.
Champion/ ...to here, right?
Fosse/ Yes.
Champion/ That will be paid for, that bond will be paid for with sewer revenue?
Fosse/ It'll be paid for with uh ... with EDA money, $22 million (both talking)
Champion/ Right, you said that, but I mean...
Fosse/ ...i -Jobs, and then we also have a ... a, uh, Kevin, do you have it in front of you there?
O'Malley/ Yes. It's on page C...3 and ... and I think your question is ... it's not really GO debt.
It's sewer revenue (both talking)
Champion/ Right. That's my question.
O'Malley/ That's what the capacity'll be.
Fosse/ Yeah.
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Davidson/ Course the other aspect of this project is the, um ... the riverfront park for Riverfront
Crossings, and basically it's a buy -out project, reduces to zero the probability that sewage
treatment plant's going to be inundated by flood waters and then creates the riverfront
park that's a catalyst for additional development.
Hayek/ How ... how much, uh, have we accumulated in terms of the lost funds, in excess of what
we had projected? Aren't... revenues are higher than we had calculated, right?
Fosse/ Current projection is what, $32 million over four years?
O'Malley/ That's correct.
Fosse/ Which...
O'Malley/ And we're getting about 8.5 so ... per year, so we may have about 2 million over.
Hayek/ Two million over, okay.
Champion/ How much longer does that go on? Just another year or...
O'Malley/ Uh, til June of 13.
Fosse/ Jim, did you have a question?
Throgmorton/ Yeah, uh, tell me that, uh, there are significant energy efficiency measures built
into this, uh, new project.
Fosse/ Yes there are! Uh, that's been one of the, uh, the ... the primary focuses of this because
our waste water operations, this is our city's biggest energy user, so we wanted to look at
...at ways that we could reduce energy uses down here the best we can. The old plant,
the north plant, uses less energy yet, but it relies on technologies that are not, uh, reliable
during the cold winter months. So without going into greater technical detail, um...
this ... this plant will require more energy than the north one, but we're still doing the best
we can with ... with technologies to reduce our ... our use down here. And one of the
things that we do is ... is we capture the gas; we burn that into boilers so that we can ... we
can reduce our gas usage down there. Okay. Anything else before we move on? Okay.
Ron.
Knoche/ Uh, for the gateway, uh, project, Iowa City gateway project, we ... we're working with
HNTB from Kansas City to do the design work for us. Uh, the ... the phase that we're in
right now is the environmental assessment process. Um, we are in the third step of a
four -step process there, urn ... their goal right now is to be able to turn in the draft EA to
the DOT, and (mumbled) uh, in ... March, or April, um, with the goal that we would have
an approval in September of this year. Um, in September we would be able to move
forward with, uh, the design process and ... and get moving forward in that aspect of it.
So, uh, we have been looking at various alternatives. Um, we've had meetings with
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utility companies, with the University, uh, with adjoining property owners, um, just to try
to... get a feel of what the concerns are within the corridor. And ... and move forward
from there. Um, as you see in the, to the left up here, the ... one thing that you will find is
that the Park Road bridge reconstruction, uh, will happen off alignment of the current
bridge, uh, so we're looking at...at that happening downstream. Um, the ... the goal with
that is, uh, to be able to leave Park Road bridge open during construction, but also have
the potential of starting the bridge project earlier than the mainline project would happen,
because of the design process and the review process, that we'll have on the mainline of
Dubuque Street, um, we can let an earlier project that would build the, um, the piling and
the substructures of the bridge and get that kicked off earlier, uh, so the goal would be,
um, currently in the fall of 2013, uh, being able to have a bridge project under
construction. Uh, in the spring of 2014, we'll bid and have the Dubuque Street, uh,
mainline project going.
Dickens/ It'll be higher up the hill as well too so it'll be higher ... above the water...
Knoche/ Yes. That's exactly right. That's... that's one of the advantages, uh, of moving further
south is to not have as much grading to do, um, to ... to land that bridge, um, at the inter
... at the new intersection.
Fosse/ That's another reason that you see that skewed a little bit, is it gets it further up the hill
and it makes the bridge more perpendicular to the river, which helps us from a cost
perspective.
Hayek/ When we get into the design work for Dubuque Street itself, are we looking at, uh, two
lane and four lane... options? I ... I don't know if there's even a cost - savings associated
with only elevating let's say two lanes.
Fosse/ Well we ... we've been looking at...at preserving the four -lane option out there because of
the ADTs that we currently... average daily traffic that ... that we currently experience and
then also what we're projecting out over the life of the project. And there'll... actually be
some capacity improvements in this corridor, specifically at that intersection with Park
Road bridge and Dubuque Street. Uh, will probably have three eastbound lanes so we
can have a dual left turn lane off that bridge, and then also for southbound traffic on
Dubuque Street, we'll have a dedicated right turn lane, uh, to go onto that bridge.
Davidson/ And those lanes are justified with existing traffic.
Mims/ But, I think what Matt's getting at, and I think, you know, had that thought too, is ... you
know, this is a huge project, not only physically but monetarily, and is ... is there the
possibility of significant savings, monetarily, um, if we only elevated two lanes instead of
all four, and I think that's the option (several talking)
Throgmorton/ You mean elevating the north... northbound lanes I suppose, the ones that are
away from the river?
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Mims/ I'm not getting into the engineering of it. They'd have to figure that out but just...
Dobyns /But during a flood, two lanes would be under water, but two lanes (both talking)
Mims/ Right, you'd have two lanes above water so you'd have one -lane traffic each way. I
just ... I think from our perspective, at least from mine, is there a way of doing that that
could save us potentially millions of dollars if we don't go all four lanes. Maybe there's
not. I don't know.
Fosse/ Okay. That... we've... we've looked at some of those options, uh, first of all ... uh, it's
only an option north of where they become bifurcated. That is where they're contiguous
four lanes, they need to be at the same elevation or we're going to lose our turning
movements and ... and that (mumbled). Uh, once we get into bifurcated areas, that is
where we currently have problems with the flooding almost on an annual basis, where
both lanes are low enough such that we get ... during heavy rain, the Iowa River'll back up
on it or the ... or the, just the local storm sewer system'll back up, so as a minimum we
need to elevate both of them some, and ... and then if I'm understanding you right, raising
one up more than the other. And, that's... that's not one that actually was brought up and
discussed much at the public meetings that ... that we had on it. It wasn't... wasn't kicked
around.
Dobyns/ So what you're telling us that once a year we'd have to be accountable to the public for
not raising all four lanes, because two would be flooded.
Payne/ Maybe more than once a year, depending on how often we have a heavy rain!
Fosse/ Yeah.
Hayek/ What ... what you're saying is you really get north of the Mayflower before you could
even consider a less than four -lane approach to elevation.
Fosse/ Right. And then once you're north of Mayflower you get into that area where we have
the more frequent localized flooding problem.
Hayek/ Well even north of that. Okay.
Fosse/ Yeah.
Throgmorton/ Well if I ... if I understand Susan's question correctly, I think we are very
interested in having you look at the cost savings that could conceivably be associated
with differential elevation of ... of roadways. You know, either the northbound lanes
being lower than the southbound lanes or some combination that results in not all of the
roadway being elevated.
Dobyns/ But what he's saying is that a ... north of the bifurcation you ... you can't do that. I mean,
I ... so I'm not ... (several talking)
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Fosse/ Yeah, there's any number of combinations we could look at. We could provide 100 -year
protection on one pair of lanes and 500 -year protection on the other pair of lanes, I mean,
there's... there's a lot of things we can do. Right now we're looking at bringing them all
up the same amount, uh, but if I'm hearing four of you say you're interested in ... in
exploring that, uh, we can do that.
Champion/ I'm definitely interested in (several responding) Um...
Throgmorton/ Are you seeing four?
Fosse/ Two so far!
Throgmorton/ Well me for sure! Connie for sure. Susan.
Hayek/ Well I would be, I mean, except for your comments about what ... what's even feasible
from an engineering standpoint. And I guess what I'm hearing from you is that ... we
couldn't even really consider that until you get well north of the Mayflower, due to the
reasons you've, uh, just described.
Fosse/ Yes. Between this point ... and this point is where we have an opportunity to be at...at
different elevations. Urn ... certainly once ... once we get into this area, we'll want to be
and elevate both lanes to ... at least some extent, if we do one more than the other. Um...
but let us take a look at that.
Hayek/ Okay.
Fosse/ We'll see...
Champion/ ...have problem with people wanting to turn off the road. Clunk!
Fosse/ Oh! Let ... here, this is another thing. We ... we have talked about more ... this in more
detail. Here's one of the obstacles. Is the buses comes, uh, they stop at... at Mayflower
here and then they turn around here. And when they turn around, those lanes need to be
at about the same elevation or they're going to be all cockeyed, one way or the other, and
not be able to make that maneuver. And the only other option at that point is then getting
up and ... and looping around there somehow. So ... the ... the bifurcation, the width of the
bifurcation is designed around the length of a bus, and what is required to get turned
around there. And that's been one of the ... the important aspects of the design of this
corridor is to be multi - modal, I mean, we have, uh, just a lot of bus use, bicycles and
pedestrians here. Am I missing anything, Ron?
Knoche/ The only other aspect of the design of that intersection where the Cambus turns around
is, uh, the boathouse and being able to get the ... the crew boats out of that access point.
And uh, you know, the boats are fairly long and so that's been accommodated to that
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design, the width, they're also ... but with a major grade difference the boats'll drag as
they ... as they come out.
Champion/ Well I don't want you to spend forever on it, but just ... it sounds like it's just
overwhelming.
Hayek/ So if you ... if you wouldn't, based on what we're hearing, if you wouldn't mind without
going into a lot of work, just look into that briefly and then reporting back.
Fosse/ Yeah! We'll follow up with you on that, cause as we talk about it ... it's bringing back
more memories of...examining that, and some of the obstacles that exist. Okay.
(mumbled)
Knoche/ The west side levee project, urn ... to the, to the left of the slide here is McCollister
Boulevard, uh, during the flood of 2008. We were just starting the construction of that,
urn ... that... that levee project will start at McCollister, run north along the west bank of
the Iowa River to the Iowa Interstate Railroad, um, I'm sorry, Crandic Railroad
connection down (coughing). Um, we have 100 -foot of...of City property already along
the river, uh, behind the commercial drive folks. Uh, we'll be working with, uh, Bacculis
Mobile Home Park to purchase, uh, the location for the levee along the, that east line
there, and then also make the connection across City property that we already own, uh,
behind the Thatcher Mobile Home Park. Uh, this project originally was designed with
community disaster grant money that we had received, uh, in 2008. Um, we ... since then
have received a CDBG grant to be able to build the levee, um, we're in the process of
fin ... finishing some environmental assessment, but we're backtracking a little bit because
the CDBG money wasn't... contemplated in the original design, so we have a ... we have
some environmental assessment work that we have to do, which we're almost to the end
of that. Uh, when that is done, and approved by the ... by the CDBG folks and IDED,
we'll be able to start property acquisition, uh, with the goal of being able to start
construction of this project this fall, uh, of 2012. So the, uh, in the budget book I think it
shows this project being in the last fiscal year, so it'll ... things will slide basically a year,
into the 2013 fiscal year. Uh, as far as the construction goes.
Champion/ And has that trailer park flooded before? Does anybody know?
Fosse/ It flooded in 93.
Knoche/ 93.
Champion/ How many ... um, trailers are there in that park?
Davidson/ Approximately 170 between the two ... the two parks. And again, you know,
we ... we're the first to tell you the levee strategy is not as preferred as the buyout
strategy, but we simply don't ... with the folks we're working at here and the relocation
expense of 170 people, we just ... we really don't have any choices, other than to try and
protect the area.
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Champion/ Well they certainly need protection, at that income level.
Dickens/ How much money are we going to have to spend for ... the right -of -way through their
property (several talking)
Knoche/ I'm not certain of...of the cost of that yet. We have ... because of the ... we haven't
finished the environmental assessment work yet. We haven't been able to negotiate, um,
any property acquisition there. Um ... the ... the largest piece of that will be what we have
to purchase from Bacculis and then we have some easements that we have to purchase,
uh, construction and permanent along the back side of the folks in commercial court.
Champion/ I'm totally for this levee because it protects a lot of low- income people, but will it be
any backlash to other properties along there because of this levee? Has that been looked
at?
Knoche/ Um, we ... we had to do some modeling in regards to this to get some approvals from the
DNR, and we're not seeing any increase in the flood elevation of this section of the river.
Champion/ Great! Thanks.
Dobyns/ Is the Trueblood Park, was it impacted in either of the two floods? Because, I mean, I
can't see it, it's off to the left of the picture but...
Knoche/ Right.
Davidson/ Mike is shaking his head no.
Dobyns/ Okay. All right, and so putting that levee there would ... Mike, it didn't even come
close, so leveeing up river... wouldn't hydralogically put it at risk? Okay.
Payne/ So in this, uh, cost on this line item, land acquisition or right ... right-of-way acquisition,
is not included?
Knoche/ It ... it, that is covered by the CDBG grant. So it...it will be included in the federal
portion of the project. That's covered by the grant itself. And I think ... in regards to
the ... the modeling side of things, and the ... and the river profile, uh, one of the projects,
as we've gone through the ... the flood mitigation projects and flood recovery projects,
we ... we've hired Howard R. Green to do a ... a comprehensive model of the river
corridor, uh, starting in Coralville, uh, running out to where basically Willow Creek ties
in to the Iowa River, south of town, um ... so as ... as we do each one of our flood recover
projects, we get the final design done. We'll model that piece, that ... we'll add that into
the model, you know, the model shows kind of a ... uh, the concept of each one of the
projects that we've identified that we're going to move forward with. We put in the final
design to make sure that we're not changing, um, the flood profile in a negative way or
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... or minor, in a minor way such that, uh, we're... we're not causing more problems than
we're fixing ... in those projects.
Throgmorton/ This is actually one of the things that concerns me because I have not yet seen the
flood model. I haven't seen particular incremental changes, uh, resulting from ... the
effects of incremental changes associated with Coralville's levees, uh, a potential Taft
Speedway levee, the west side and east side levee, Iowa City's, or the University's
raising of ... of those, uh, bike trails on either side. Uh, so ... I, you know, I have not seen
the ... the consequences of the incremental changes, and it would I think be very helpful at
least from my point of view to be able to see that, to visualize it, uh, and so on.
Davidson/ And don't forget, I would just add, Jim, that although we are with the levees creating
the phenomenon that you just outlined, we are also through the buyout program creating
additional capacity for flood water so we're ... we're kind of working with both. The
model takes all that into consideration.
Throgmorton/ Will there ... you mentioned, um, buying out the land from Bacculis, I guess, but
um, there's also relocation of ... of people who have mobile homes in the area. I don't
know if they've already moved out or not. I'm just ignorant about that, but ... but if not,
will there be relocation assistance provided as a part of this?
Knoche/ That's correct. It, because of the federal aid, the federal money that's involved in it,
there will be relocation assistance for the folks that are directly affected, um, I'm aware
of right now there... there's just two trailers that would be affected directly. Um, I think
one is actually lived in and the other one I don't believe is lived in, but that ... last we
knew it wasn't lived in, um, but ... anybody that is in those homes will be relocated as part
of the ... the acquisition process.
Davidson/ And there's the possibility that they could be relocated within either Bacculis or
Thatcher parks. There's... there's room there for them, now whether or not that actually
occurs is ... gotta go through the process.
Knoche/ Uh, the east side levee project, um, we're ... we're just starting the ... the beginning of the
design of this process. We ... we just recently hired MMS, uh, Consultants, um, to do the
design of this project. Their office is right here in this building. Um, so they're directly
affected by the ... by the success of this project. Um, this one is also CDBG related. Uh,
levee will run from Highway 6, uh, to the north, uh, and then along, uh, the ... the Sand
Lake piece, um, along the back side of the ... of the folks there on Stevens Drive, and then,
uh, tie in, uh, to um ... an embankment that'll run around where the bus barn is, uh, on the
south side of...of Gilbert Street, right there where Crandic comes across. Um ... we are
(mumbled) the process. Um, we just recently scheduled a meeting, uh, the neighborhood
meeting, uh, with the folks down there. That'll be held at Hills Bank on January 19tH
So, um, just ... just starting the ... the very beginnings of this project and uh, looking at
2013 for construction ... on this one.
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Throgmorton/ Do ... do you happen to know how much of that construction, uh, was built after
the 1993 flood?
Knoche/ I ... I do not know the answer to that.
Throgmorton/ Okay.
Knoche/ Yeah, um, the ... there has been some redevelopment of the area, um, south of where
Southgate Drive comes across. That's probably the, I mean, the area that I know of.
Davidson/ Yeah. The ... the plat right where the arrow is there ... or was a second ago. Right in
there, that...that plat has been since the 93 flood. It's commercial subdivision. Has the
private bus, um, service, and then there's I believe an electric company that's in there as
well, but those are probably the only two new buildings since 93 that I'm aware of.
Champion/ And, can you go back to that slide?
Knoche/ Sure.
Champion/ What is that road above there? That one!
Knoche/ This here? That's Highway 6.
Champion/ Okay. Sure, of course. Thanks!
Knoche/ Yep! All right, um, the Taft Speedway levee project, uh, this is also a CDBG funded
project. Um, we are currently in a, um, having a study done by HDR, um, to kind of look
at what the alternatives are for ... for this project. The way it was originally presented was
a, um, levee along the Taft Speedway corridor, and then tied up to what was, has been
dubbed the No Name Road, uh, connection. Uh, to protect those folks in Idyllwild, uh,
the Parkview Church area, and then also, um, to protect this area of Foster Road, uh, to
allow for access out to the Peninsula during a flood event. Um, we should have a report
from HDR in February of this year, um, to help ... make a ... a decision on whether we
move forward with this project, both from the Council aspect and also from the IDED
and CDBG funding aspects, um, of this project. Um, we are, uh, currently having,
working on getting some soil borings in this area here, um, along the Taft Speedway
corridor, um, and then also finishing up the modeling of this aspect. Howard R. Green
is ... is taking, uh, some of the options, uh, that HDR has identified and tying those into
the model and then seeing what the effects will be, um, on the adjoining properties.
Fosse/ Couple things to note on this project, uh, one is with regard to the schedule. You'll notice
in ... in the program that it's out, I believe in FYI or 16. Have to go back to look, but
the ... the intent is to build this after the Park Road bridge has been replaced, because
that ... that fits into our comprehensive flood plain model of the corridor where we have
no net negative impact. So we ... we want to schedule it to reduce our risks by doing the
Park Road bridge first. Uh, the other thing to think about on this project is that if...if this
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project goes away, then we need to consider pulling the ... the Foster Road,
urn ... urn ... secondary access out of the unfunded. That was in a funded year prior to this
project ... is move it into unfunded when this project came on. So...
Throgmorton/ I guess I want to say a word or two about this. Uh, I think it's a really difficult
decision from ... from my point of view, and maybe from others, uh, I ... I've talked with
people in Idyllwild. I've talked with, uh, people on the other side of the river. I've talked
with people on the other side of... of um, of Taft Speedway that would be on the river
side of the Speedway. I see it as a pretty complicated issue, and I guess I just want to
signal that when we get to the point where we collectively will have to make a decision, I
intend to ask very difficult questions that will be hard, I think, to answer and hard for us
to come to a decision on, uh, and ... and ones that will make other people feel pretty
uncomfortable, despite the conversations I've had with them. Uh, so I just want to be
clear about that. It ... it's going to be tricky for us to work our way through, at least from
my personal point of view, and maybe from the other Council Members' point of view,
as well.
Champion/ Well, I'll be anxious to hear what ... what comes out of this study. Right now I don't
support this project at all. Period! Urn ... so you'd have to convince me that it should be
done. Cause I can't do a flood project that's going to affect other people. Um ... and
that's what bothers me about this project.
Hayek/ Let's not dwell on this. We're, you know, we're engaged in a study, and this will come
back before us for a full, uh, and deliberate discussion, at the appropriate time.
Knoche/ Uh, next project is the Rocky Shore lift station, uh, and ... flood gate project. Um, what
you see on the slides up here is an existing gate structure that's in the parking lot of Riley
Law Firm, and then the viaduct of the Crandic Railroad over top of Rocky Shore Drive.
Um, this one is a CDBG funded project, about $6.6 million. Um, 100% funding, um,
there's no local match in this one. Uh, we will be reducing this gate structure with a
pump station, urn ... it will have some impacts on the parking lot, that's already there
at...at Riley Law Firm, and then on the north side of the bridge viaduct it will be a flood
gate installed in that area, um, Howard R. Green is doing the design on this project, and
we're looking at a construction of 2013. And ... the next slide just shows kind of the...
the drainage area that we're looking at with this pump station, urn ... here where the leader
comes down, that's where the pump station'll be located, um ... this area here is all the
drainage area, and so what we're ... what we're showing here is that, uh, why is Iowa City
the lead on the project — well, because it, about 95% of the area is ... is Iowa City or, in the
Iowa City corporate area's is ... is what's being drained here. Um, the other ... the other
reason for doing this project from our aspect is, during the 2008 flood, um, in the pump
station we had five ... we had four pumps that were having to man 24 -hours a day to make
sure that we kept this area dry, and so uh, by having an automated pump station here
it'll ... it'll relieve that need in future flooding events.
Fosse/ What ... part of the reason we get the questions about why are we the lead on this, we only
have about two and a half taxable properties it'll be protected by this, and ... and I think
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that the State recognized that when they made their grant award for this, and ... and
awarded what they perceived as 100% funding for this, rather than an 80% grant. Um,
because they recognized that the greater good of this project.
Knoche/ The Riverside Drive Arts Campus project, uh, we have a joint flood, uh, pump
station ... I'm sorry, a storm water pump station at the intersection of Riverside Drive and
River Street. Um, that project was ... was a joint project between the University of Iowa
and ... and Iowa City. Um, this project will modify that pump station, um, to pump
against a larger flood event on the Iowa River. Currently the design is for a 100 -year
event on the Iowa River, uh, we'd be looking at going to a 500 -year event, um, this
project'll be split 50/50 with the University, and the University will be the lead on the
project, uh, since the ... they're the ones that are directly, will benefit the, from this project
being in place. Uh, Normandy /Manor intersection elevation project, uh, this one is ... is
reliant on funding, 100% funding and grant funding on this project. Um ... this is an area,
um, in ... in 1993 when the area flooded, uh, we were able to ... to bring in some mill...
some asphalt grindings and raise this intersection up enough to still allow for access to
occur to the folks in ... in the Normandy area on ... on, I guess on the dry side, on the
higher elevation side. In 2008 we weren't able to do that. So, um, what we'd be looking
at with this project is ... is finding an elevation that we'd be happy to live with, if we
would get the funding to do it, um, put in some storm water, back -flow preventers along
Normandy Drive. Raise this intersection to be able to get folks, uh, into those areas along
the ... the south side of the ... of the ... uh, Parkview Terrace neighborhood, um ... the ... the
issue that kind of ties in with this project is ... is our buyout policy that we've had down in
this area. Um, and that kind of goes (mumbled) take this one, Jeff?
Davidson/ Yeah. We talked a little bit on Saturday about the buyout program. Uh, we've
completed 85 buyouts between the Parkview Terrace neighborhood and the Taft
Speedway neighborhood across the road. Uh, we anticipate another five or ten. The
FEMA program has been completed. We're still in the CDBG, uh, funded program for
the remainder of this fiscal year. Um, one of the things ... how do you advance it, Ron?
Uh, we had a little bit of discussion of, uh ... there is a program, a project rather, project
#86 in the unfunded years is a project that should you chose to bring it into a funded year
would provide $515,000 for locally funded buyouts. The two ... uh, purposes of that
would be for, uh ... properties within this area that have changed ownership since the
2008, uh, flood. They're not eligible for CDBG funds, and that there were some, um, and
I had speculated that it was, uh, three or four. It's actually about 10 right in this area
here ... okay, ten residences, as well as these three that are not in the 500 -year flood plain,
uh, but ... but could be made part of the buyout strategy and added to City Park, as is the
intention for the rest of this area. Uh, if you basically decided as a council that that was
something that you wanted to fund, right now that's in unfunded years, uh, it's a
$515,000 project. So ... um, again, we anticipate another five or 10, uh, which would put
us up to 90 or 95, uh, there's I believe 137 platted lots, uh, in the Parkview Terrace
neighborhood, so that gives you an idea of the order of magnitude of what we've been
able to achieve and, you know, one ... one point that I think needs to be made in your
decision making as a council is that those four points that Rick showed you at the
beginning of the presentation, that was made when we thought the buyout program was
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January 9, 2012 Iowa City City Council Budget Work Session Page 37
going to be about 35, uh, residences in this neighborhood because we thought we were
just going to have access to the HMGP program. It was later that the CDBG program
was made available to us, which ... which basically en ... enabled this whole neighborhood
to be bought out. So ... that's something that probably wants to ... should play into your
decision making is that we're ending up buying a significantly larger number of
properties in this area, somewhere between $20 and $30 million which is, uh, you know,
in ... in terms of the investment in Iowa City, if you want to look at it that way. A
tremendous investment, but much greater, uh, buyout of this neighborhood than we
initially anticipated.
Mims/ What's our decision point on this ... it looks like it's a $1.1 million, uh, in 2014 for State
disaster assistance, which I assume is...
Davidson/ Which project you on, Susan?
Mims/ ...is, I'm sorry, going back to the intersection (both talking) my apologies. Cause we had
some of that discussion on Saturday, if, you know, if we get enough of these bought out,
is it worth putting money into raising this intersection? And so I guess my ... my question
is, we don't have this much yet, correct?
Davidson/ Correct.
Mims/ Okay. How far out do we apply for money in terms of having it in a certain fiscal year for
construction? So if we ... if we were looking at this as a 2014, when's our decision point
on whether we do want to go ahead and reconstruct that intersection?
Knoche/ The ... the difficulty with this project is ... finding the funding source that you'd be able
to pursue on it. Urn ... I'm not, that's something we'll have to do some research on.
Mims/ Okay.
Knoche/ Urn ... typically we'd be two years out ... from the, you know, from where we need to,
you know, start the application process, um, and then move forward, um, I think ... at a
minimum, we probably should do the preliminary engineering and... and get the idea of
... of what we want to do at that intersection and get that on the board so that if we would
come up with some funding source, we'd be able to move fairly quickly on that.
Mims/ Okay. Cause let me just throw out something crazy. I don't know if this works or not,
but I mean, $1.1... $1.1 million's a lot if we only end up with a few houses left in there,
and this doesn't get flooded very often. Okay? Now, obviously from an emergency
access, this doesn't maybe work, but you know if you look at that corner of Manor and
Normandy, you've got three properties ... it looks like the one on the corner is staying
there, uh, just to, I don't know which way this is oriented, but just to the right of it on the
screen you've got two that are gone and one below it is gone. I mean, I don't know what
the elevation differences are there, and if... if there could theoretically be a `temporary'
access, uh, through there in a flood event that would negate having to spend $1.1 million
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on the intersection. I mean, you know, if we get a flood event can we throw down some
gravel through those vacant areas that doesn't upset FEMA, uh, but still have access for
those people. I ... I...
Dobyns/ A temporary collateral road (both talking)
Mims/ Yeah, I'm just trying to think outside the box to avoid spending $1.1 million, if possible,
if we're going to have five or 10 houses, and we might not have another event like this
for another 20 or 30 years. And we may have it next year, who knows, but ... um ... so
just, that's why I was just trying to get an idea of the timeframe too that we'd be looking
at. Thanks.
Hayek/ Speaking of timeframe, uh, if the intent was to get this done in two hours, we're just over
half way through the PowerPoint, um ... do ... I assume we've got a little ways to go yet.
Fosse/ Yes we do!
Hayek/ And if so, should we just take a brief break, um ... five, ten minute restroom break and
then come back and power through the rest of this?
Fosse/ Sure! We're good.
Hayek/ Let's do that.
Davidson/ There was one more buyout slide. (several talking)
Hayek/ Yeah, and this may not be the perfect juncture either.
Davidson/ Uh, just one more buyout slide showing the Taft Speedway area, the red area was not
bought out, the green area — that's the Gilpin, the old Gilpin house down on the left side,
and then the large area, several lots that were, uh, individual homes. One was actually
just a vacant lot next to the Trimbull's. If you remember where the Trimbull's lived and
then the larger area there to the right was property from, uh, Parkview Church, uh, not
developed, but developable and in order to keep houses from being constructed there in
the future that was why we purchased that and eventually anticipate this being parkland
added to, uh, Terrell Mill Park.
Hayek/ Okay. With that let's take a five minute break and come back. (BREAK) Okay, we're
going to, uh, get started here. (several talking) Okay, let's try to roll through the last half
of this.
Fosse/ Yes. What we do, we've got uh ... we've got two flood mitigation projects remaining, and
we'll pick up the pace a little bit. We won't have long pauses looking for questions. If
you have a question, just barge right in and ask it. So with that, Mike, you want to take
it?
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Moran/ In lieu of all the buyouts, Parks and Recreation acquired this property, or is in the
process of acquiring this property and ... and the development of this, we had three
neighborhood meetings starting last summer to meet with the folks, walk through the
area, and ... and see what they wanted and what they didn't want. Uh, as a result of this,
this design was, uh, developed and a cost estimate put forward with that. You will see
along the river, where it's the red part, uh, the transformation if you can read up there,
about 70% of that land will be transformed, and most of that'll be all done with grading
and herbaceous plants, low lying shrubs to sort of stabilize the river bank, if you will. Uh
the yellow part of it then will be about 30 to 40% transformation and that will all be
mostly grading, just to get it to the fact to where it's usable again because of the ... the dirt
that was brought in from the water and after we do soil tests we don't know how much
we're going to have to take out, or how much we're going to have to put back in. And
then the blue is the minor stuff that was mostly all, uh, homeowners that we'll just have
to do some ... some minor grading on. Uh, down in ... in number 1 is the Ned Ashton
House and we'll pick up the Rocky Shore trail down here, uh, for Rocky Shore Road, and
incorporate that into this blue system, internal system that the neighborhood wanted as
well. And then use this sidewalk on Normandy, the 8 -foot sidewalk, uh, as part of the
Iowa River Corridor Trail into City Park. Uh, so that'll be the two functions of that, uh,
as well right now. Uh, so most of this has all been designed by the neighborhood, uh,
after this presentation we need to go back to the neighborhood and show them this, if you
were happy with that, if you wanted to make changes with that, uh, etc., etc. We've got
in into two phases, and the reason for that, one of the reasons is is that the CDBG money
actually doesn't really run out or expire until May, so we may have some more people
that take us up on our buyouts. So right now, uh, this is sort of a tentative plan until, uh,
June, and then we'll know who's leaving and who's staying, and we'll be able to make
plans for that. And then, uh, next year, uh, as part of um ... this mitigation, I might ask
some of your questions, Susan, that you asked before about an alternative access. We
want to expand Normandy Drive here and take it over into the City Park, Lower City
Park road, uh, for a couple reasons. One, uh, to make sure that we have a secondary
access into Lower City Park during the construction of Park Road bridge, uh, and
Dubuque Street, and two, we ... we've always ... I've always felt uneasy about safety in
City Park with one access off of Park Road during thunderstorms and during boys'
baseball and during times of high occupancy, so this ... this can be maintained as a ... as a
emergency access or secondary access as well. We'll be able to pave all this if we want
to, up until about this point, and then, uh, FEMA will not let us pave anything on their
buyouts. So, uh, we're going to have to do some alternatives for just that little piece,
which is not a big deal, uh, to do.
Hayek/ Go ahead, Rick.
Wyss/ Okay, I'd ... just as a brief overview and a recap as to where we're at with the Animal
Shelter replacement. As you know the flood of 08, the uh, Animal Shelter was damaged
beyond repair, and it's presently being operated out of leased facility on Sand Road,
approximately five miles south of Iowa City. FEMA has obligated approximately $1.5
million for the replacement of the structure, but it's limited in size and scope to the old
facility. The future... Animal Shelter will be constructed at a site on South Gilbert Street
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which is just south of Napoleon Park. The site has completed the archeological studies
that are necessary, and has received FEMA approval for relocation. After the flood,
Jackson Ryan Associates completed a, uh, programmic study, uh, to assess the capacity
and operational needs of the Animal Shelter, and in short, the 700,000 square foot facility
that we had was too small for the services that we provided. The specific size of the
Shelter that will be built on, uh, South Gilbert Street is unknown or it's indeterminate at
this time. There are several factors that will determine how ... how large this facility will
be. Uh, mainly on what is our need, but also on the funding ability, or the ability to fund
the project. In addition to the $1.5 million that FEMA has ob ... obligated as well as any
money that is budgeted from the City of Iowa City, the Friends of the Animal Center
Foundation is conducting a ca ... capital campaign to raise money for this project. They're
currently doing a feasibility study to try to determine how much money they will raise, or
should be able to raise, and that feasibility study should be done in early March. In
addition to that, on January, well... if I can back up a little bit. Over the... as long as I can
remember, the Iowa City Animal Services has provided sheltering services to the
surrounding communities. We have received reimbursement from these communities
through 28E agreements, and on January 25th in conjunction with the Municipal and Rule
Planning Organization meeting, we've invited other governmental entities to, uh,
participate in a presentation where we're going to describe the project, and try to
determine their level of interest in pur ... continuing to utilize the Iowa City Animal
Services for their animal shelter needs. Uh, our proposal or our request of them is that
they do plan on continuing to use our facility, as they not only continue to contribute to
the operating costs, but also contribute to the capital costs, as well. These will be
computed on a proportional basis, uh, historical ... a proportional basis from historical
usage, urn ... of the Animal Shelter, as well as current usage of the Animal Shelter. The,
um, next phase is the schematic review and design of the facility, and urn ... that's where
we at ... where we're at right now. Are there any questions?
Fosse/ Ready to move on to Parks projects?
Hayek/ Yep. Thanks, Rick.
Fosse/ Thank you!
Parks, Recreation, and Trails:
Moran/ Just a few projects we'll go through real, uh, briefly. Central business district is a new
project, uh; it's to refresh a tired central business district, basically. Uh, we want to go in
and spend $850,000 this year. Uh, these are just some of the minor problems that we
showed, uh, the ... the rusting out among the kiosks and the posting pillars is occurring;
we need to replace. Uh, the ... we have some limited, uh, brickwork that we need to do,
uh, the limestone planters are starting to separate just a little bit, and so we want to pull
those back in together so that they don't come down. So, it's really a ... a renovation
project. Uh, we also want to look at the electrical system down there, because of the
addition of lights and everything. When we designed it quite a while ago, over 30 years
ago, uh, we didn't know everybody wanted a plug -in Christmas lights and everything, so
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we've been sort of, uh, make - shifting that along. So we'd like to take that and do that, as
well, and then update some of the sidewalk areas, uh, around the central business district.
Parks annual improvements is something that we get budgeted every year. It's a
$200,000, uh, project that pays for shelters, playground improvements, sidewalk
replacement, and uh, everything that ... that comes up during the course of the year. It's
been very successful for us as far as gettin' a lot of projects done that are just little dollar
amount figures that we haven't been able to do. Uh, Frauenholtz- Miller, uh, is right
south of St. Pat's Church, the new St. Pat's Church. Uh, last year we expended funds to
do the design process, and came up with this design, uh, with three neighborhood
meetings, uh, and Schumacher and Holland led the process with that. Uh, this, uh, last
year at this time, uh, Council made the decision to move that back to FYI 5, and that's
where it stayed. We wanted to go earlier with it and got adjusted through some other
things that ... that you wanted to see done. Uh, Peninsula Park, uh, from the Iowa, uh,
Light and Power bridge, uh, right here we want to take the ... the trail system here, and we
want to start making the connection up here along the river, up to Waterworks Park, uh,
to underneath where the bridge is, so that we can complete that Iowa River Corridor, uh,
connection. This, uh, part of this though would only take this up along the land that we
actually own, which is about a quarter of a mile from the bridge up. So it would take this
existing trail and we'd branch off from there and head up into there. Uh, the second
phase of this is going to be quite a ... more expense because if you're familiar with Irving
Weber's diving tower and everything over in there, there's some pretty substantial cliffs
there that are going to be rather difficult for us to maneuver. So we're going to have to
take a look at that, and really see, uh, how we want to access, uh, into Waterworks Park.
So, currently we've ... we've planned just to run a quarter of a mile up and then do a
turnaround and then come back in here so that we can start that process for that. Uh, a
REAP grants been awarded for this already at $200,000. Uh, Terry Trueblood Recreation
Area, we're into Phase 3 of this. Phase 3 is the development of the main park lodge. We
hope to go to bid with that, uh, sometime in February and start con... construction
sometime this spring. Uh, we've finished up Phase 2 and Phase 1, uh, Phase 4 will be,
uh, also Phase 3, we've just combined those last two phases to do the development of
this. Uh, we also got a $200,000 REAP grant for that, and we got a $1.6 million Vision
Iowa grant, with the accolade that we had to fundraise $400,000, uh, we're currently at
$365,000 and I anticipate getting the rest of the money by the end of March. So we'll
have met that obligation, as well. Kiwanis Park restroom, uh, is a restroom that we now
have sort of what I call a cookie cutter, uh, restroom facility and we ... we will start that,
putting one up in Court Hill, and then that way we'll have the same design, so it'll
eliminate some of the design fees that we go through all the time. We'll initiate a series
of, uh, neighborhood meetings, probably sometime in the fall, uh, to initiate construction
next year for this. The pedestrian bridge, Rocky Shore Drive to Peninsula, still remains
one of the top two, uh, priorities of the Park and Recreation Commission, and you can see
the two options of, this is Rocky Shore Drive, uh, to access the Peninsula park through a
couple of areas into this, uh, this is not anything that is funded. We will only do if we're
able to get any kind of grant money or any kind of additional funding for, and we've been
applying for, uh, various grants for that, and... and have not had any success. So it still
remains on the plan, but won't be carried out until we get some additional funding for it.
Highway 1 sidewalk trail is a ... is a program that got moved up by Council last year into
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the priority. It's in the initial phases right now of being started from Riverside Drive all
the way to Sunset, and that'll be an 8 to 10 -foot wide trail, uh, along Highway 1. Uh...
this is a joint project with Public Works. I think what's going to happen, Public Works'll
build it; we'll end up cleaning most of it so ... (laughter) That's usually about how that
works! So...
Payne/ It's going to go on the north side?
Moran/ That's correct. And Waterworks Park, Hospice Memorial's an FY15 project. It's very
similar to, uh, the ... the Hospice Memorial, uh, that we have in Willow Creek Park. Uh,
and we thought that it was a nice area. Waterworks Park has a nice lake overlook area
that we're able to fit that in, and that'll be a project that we'll do in two years in
cooperation with Hospice.
Fosse/ Any questions for Mike on Parks' projects?
Dobyns/ Mike, is that trail that is just west of West High School, uh, near some of those new
neighborhoods, is that ... I didn't see that. That's not under any planning as far as...
Moran/ It's on our unfunded list.
Dobyns/ Okay. All right.
Moran/ It's identified but it just doesn't carry any funding with it.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Moran/ I think it's Willow Creek 3, if you're looking for it in the unfunded.
Dobyns/ Okay. Thank you.
Hayek/ At the appropriate time we'll start talking about these projects, both what we've gone
over and what is on the unfunded list, and that's when we talk about timing and priorities
and what not.
Dobyns/ Okay. That was my only question so...
Public Safety:
Rocca/ Okay, good afternoon! Uh, just a couple quick projects to update you on. Our fire
apparatus replacement schedule, some of you will recall that most of our fire apparatus is
on a 14 -year replacement schedule. Typically we run them 7 years front line, 7 years
reserve and we have, uh, before you here a 1995 pumper, uh, that uh ... actually has about
84,000 miles on it, and it's ready to be replaced in FY13. Um, again, we ... we have a
schedule and it lists all our apparatus and it goes 7 years front line, 7 years reserve. Uh,
this project has been before you, uh, in the past. It's the, uh, SCBA air system
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replacement, self - contained breathing apparatus air system replacement. Uh, you'll see
that the fire fighters are wearing, uh, they've got the air tank on their back and there's
kind of a shoulder harness, face piece configuration, and they're essentially taking clean
air into the, uh, environment that could be smoke - filled or toxic or whatever. Um, the
system we're currently operating on is approaching the 15 -year mark. Uh, we're slated to
have a 15 -year life cycle, uh, the $550,000 that's requested includes, uh, an air
compressor, as well as approximately 70 of these SCBA units, to include an air tank and
one extra bottle, or air tank, as well.
Mims/ Did you say 70 units?
Rocca/ Approximately, yes.
Mims/ Can you explain the rationale for 70?
Rocca/ Um, essentially to make sure the entire department is equipped with some reserves in the
event some are down for spares and the like.
Mims/ Thanks!
Rocca/ Uh -huh.
Fosse/ Any questions for Andy? We'll move on to economic development.
Economic Development:
Davidson/ Our, uh, most, uh, our most significant economic development projects are the next
two that you'll be seeing. And we've had a lot of discussion about these so I'm not going
to belabor anything unless you have questions. Riverfront Crossings, uh, $200,000 a year
between FYI I and FY, uh, 14. We've requested to be able to keep the funds each year in
a pot, basically, uh, as ... as, you know, the ... the projects that we're considering these
funds for are very significant, high - dollar projects, and so they're taking some time to
come to fruition, but for example on Riverfront Crossings, both the public side projects
of, uh, the multi -use parking facility, the Riverfront Park, uh, the Amtrak station are all
potential uses for these funds, and then likewise incenting the private sector, uh, on the
private sector portion of the multi -use parking facility or any number of other projects
that may come, uh, to ... to pass, um ... to have these funds available to ... to use to provide,
uh, incentives. Uh, obviously they all come to you for final approval, but ... but there are
funds there that we have, uh, available to use. Um, and then similarly, Towncrest, uh ... I
believe the ... it's $400,000, $600,000, 200, 200, FY 11 through 14 ... uh, we have our first
catalyst project about ready to come to you. A new building that will be located right
about here, we hope. So, uh, and we will, as part of the financial package that we're
proposing... we're finalizing the negotiations with the developer, but we will use some of
these, uh, funds, uh, for that purpose, and again, bring it to you ultimately for approval.
So, any question about these two redevelopment areas and the necessity for us to have
some funds to work with? Thank you.
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Hayek/ Thanks, Jeff!
Miscellaneous Other Proiects:
Fosse/ Thank you! Well let's move onto our miscellaneous projects. We have just a couple
here. The first one is the GIS system, and that's been around long enough you all know
what the GIS is. Uh, it is sufficient to say that we lag behind other communities in
implementation of this, uh, technology. Uh, it's ... it's time we go there. The ... the good
news there is though ... is that the County has developed a very robust system over there
that we're going to be able to partner with, and we already partnering and sharing
information so that's going to help with that transition. The important thing to note on
this project is when we make the capital investment, and right now that's protected at
roughly four, or excuse me, $930,000, that it will involve a subsequent operating expense
after that, and right now we're estimating that at roughly $150,000 a year, about $50,000
of that is for software and hardware, uh, needs and ... and the rest'll be for staff, to keep
that information current, because once ... once you are vested in that, you don't want it to
go stale.
Payne/ Will this ... $927,000 includes the licensing that we would need to use the County's
system?
Fosse/ It ... it includes the licensing that we'll need to use the ... the products within our
... our system. Uh, we'll work out an agreement to share data with the County, or
continue to share data cause we're sharing data now, um ... a lot of the $927,000 is for
data conversion, getting it from ... from paper format into the GIS world. Then after that
it's a matter of keeping it current, once it's there.
Hayek/ Are ... are there, you know, we talked about regionalism and things like that. Are ... will
we essentially have two separate ... IT systems, one for the County, one for the City?
Fosse/ Well the ... the actual architecture of it, I don't know the answer to that now, but we are
not going to recreate databases that the County already has. There's no reason to do that
and there are tools available to us so that we can share parcel maps, zoning maps, all
those types of things that ... that are already created. We don't have to maintain a separate
database there.
Hayek/ But we'll replicate that material and run two systems... with... similar information to it, or
do (both talking)
Fosse/ No, we'll be able to tap in to that. And ... and use, tap in to their databases.
Payne/ So basically it'll be the land base and whatever data's common, and then we'll have our
sewer system on there and our water system on there and different layers.
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Fosse/ Right. We'll populate the layers that ... that we currently do not have ... in a GIS format.
Done? (mumbled) about project docs.
Boothroy/ Yeah, this project is a citywide electronic plan submission review and tracking
system, and the purpose of this is to improve our efficiency, uh, it will, uh, reduce
turnaround time on, uh, plan reviews and by that I mean, we're looking at plan reviews
now only for, uh, site plan, building permits, uh, ultimately we're looking at subdivisions
and, excuse me, and all kinds of documents that are submitted, uh, to the City that
involve, uh, either the Planning Department, uh, in some cases Public Works, uh, and um,
HIS. Uh ... all of the, uh, departments involved are listed up there, um, and this ... this
graphic is a little broader than how we're going to use it, but uh, Planning Department,
Public Works, the Fire Department would be involved, uh ... City Clerk's office, HIS, uh,
and ... it opens up the ... the whole process via electronic system, uh, available 24/7. Most
of the plans that we get, uh, are electronic to begin with, but we require them to be
reduced to paper. Uh, to take an example, a site plan that comes into the City, uh,
normally we require six... six copies and sometimes they have as many as four to six
pages. Uh, and then these documents have to be circulated under this particular system,
uh, they would come in in an electronic format and all of the departments, uh, that are
listed up there, uh, would have instant access. They would be notified by email that the
plans are ... are available for review. It doesn't require, uh, processing the plans on the
front side, routing them, getting the comments back and writing... and then creating a
report going back out to the, uh, customer. Uh, I have talked briefly with MMS about
this. They tend to make ... daily trips down to the City, uh, bringing plans and other
documents to us. This would significantly change their workload because everything
they do is, most everything they do is in electronic format, and they would be able to
interact with us, uh, in a much quicker and faster way, and get, uh, results back, uh, in
terms of our comments. So it improves customer service, uh, it also improves inter-
departmental communication because project docs is a ... is a hub for all of the
information that comes into the City that can be shared by the work groups and ... and we
can work, uh, better together. Any questions about this? (several talking) It's in two
phase, excuse me, it's in two phases.
Dickens/ We will get some ... I think you said something about getting added fees?
Boothroy/ Right. And the, uh (both talking) there was a $28 fee that is ... is proposed that would
be, uh, added to the, uh, submittal, but when you look at, um ... what is saved in terms of
trips to and from the City, uh, going to a paperless environment, uh, it...it does save a lot
of time and money as far as the customer's concerned.
Champion/ And the timeline on this is...
Boothroy/ Uh, phase one would start this July in terms of purchasing and ... and rolling it out.
Uh, phase two would be the following year. Phase one is only, uh, site plan and building
plans.
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Hayek/ Quick question on the GIS, right before it with that annual expense, operating expense.
Is that, uh, am I understanding you're going to have some... some... some vendor or
software expense, but is ... is the data input, is that something that's billed within the City
to the various, uh, departments served by that? How ... how we going to pay for that (both
talking)
Fosse/ Well, at least part of it will be, uh, that that's related to our ... our water, sewer, and storm
sewer systems would probably be charged to those business accounts. Um, other stuff,
our roadway system, that ... that sort of thing, we do not have, uh, sufficient funds in ... in
those areas to cover that. So those may be General Fund expenses.
Hayek/ Okay. That's where I was (mumbled)
Fosse/ Yep.
Boothroy/ Questions? Okay, thanks.
On the Radar:
Fosse/ Move on to the radar? These are projects that we have plucked from the unfunded list,
and just to ... um ... get in front of you to be thinking about, and Jeff, you want to go ahead
and lead off with Burlington Street?
Davidson/ Yeah, why don't you just click the first couple slides there, Rick, um, and actually the
first two kind of go together. These are unfunded projects number 9 and number 93.
Um, and ... and we had some discussion earlier about this. Uh, this is essentially between
Gilbert Street and the river, filling in the remainder of the median that is not included in
the Clinton Street intersection and the portion that Ron went through with you between
Madison and the river, and obviously we've got to have I think ... I think the last time we
discussed this comprehensively as a council I think maybe only two of you were on the
Council at that time, so I think it's probably something we're going to need to have
another discussion about, make sure the Mayor alluded to the bicyclists' interest and
make sure the accommodation of that is done well, as well as the design of the actual
median, so this would finish it basically between Gilbert and the river, excluding those
portions that will move ahead that you've been through in the funded years already. Uh,
the signal preemption is for public safety vehicles. Right now they use the center lane,
uh, during periods of high congestion. We need to be able to get the corridor, if...if that,
uh, if that center, uh, median is now going to no longer be able to be traveled by those
public safety vehicles, we need to be able to clear out, uh, congestion, and we would do
that with a signal preemption system, which basically moves down the corridor and
manipulates the traffic signals so that, uh, the ... the, uh, congested vehicles clear out and
the public safety vehicles are allowed to go, and we feel like if we're going to do the
median, we need to do this, as well.
Fosse/ And the objective of the median project is to prevent mid -block crossings, and then also
to provide a ... a point of refuge at the, uh, the midpoint if people are crossing and ... and
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need to stop in the middle. And, Connie, to get at your question earlier about ... about the
width. The ... the outside curb lines are fixed. We really don't have any opportunity to go
wider on that, so this ... any width that is here, that this nose of the island comes out of the
lanes, and that really is ... is (mumbled) concern of the bicyclists. Uh, couple reservations
that we have about the project is we have no clear way of modeling the reaction of the
corridor, uh, from a traffic perspective to the introduction of these islands, whether the...
the level of service is going to degrade or stay the same. Uh, the other concern we have
is ... is the, uh, just the ongoing operating expenses for the medians. If you've been to
Des Moines on Fleur Drive, they have some very beautiful medians. They look fantastic,
uh, we checked in with them — they spend about $150,000 a year maintaining those, uh,
but there the water department pays for them. I don't know if you can arrange for
something like that here. I ... I don't know how (both talking)
Davidson/ Sounds like a good idea!
Fosse/ Yeah! A good idea (laughter) Okay. Moving on...
Champion/ (mumbled)
Fosse/ Oh!
Champion/ Um, if we ... we talked very roughly about talking to the State about moving Highway
1. Would that help that traffic on that, on Burlington?
Davidson/ Well that's one of the things the analysis will look into, Connie, is how much, you
know, I personally believe there's very little traffic entering one end of Iowa City and
exiting the other without some destination along the way, and so...
Champion/ I agree!
Davidson/ ...that's part of what we'll try and assess. If in fact there is a lot that is simply going
through the area, not oriented to any destination, then yeah, moving that out to the, uh,
outskirts would be helpful, but that's part of what the assessment will try and determine.
Fosse/ The advantage to having this being a State highway is the State pays to maintain those
roads. They pay us to plow `em and ... and that sort of thing, and all that would go away,
uh, with the designation.
Champion/ Would they maintain the medians? (laughter)
Fosse/ I don't think so! (laughter)
Davidson/ Almost certain they would not!
Fosse/ Now related to ... to Highway 1, uh, the ... the DOT is ... is looking at a project, probably
about seven years out the last they ... they, uh, talked with us, to continue this
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reconstruction of Highway 1 from the intersection of Governor down to Burlington
Street, and that's one where the ... the underlying pavement has reached the point where
it's difficult to sustain its life. Some of you will remember that we overlaid that in 2010,
and we're already back in 2011 doing patchwork on it, because the ... the underlying
structure of the pavement is no longer adequate to ... stay ... stay there. Uh, we're hoping
we're going to get the full life out of this overlay, roughly seven years before we do the
reconstruction. Where this project is important for us is ... is we have a range of...of, uh,
storm water problems along, in and along this corridor, that really have no resolution
without the construction of a new storm sewer through that corridor. Reconstructing the
road gives us that opportunity to do so. So the majority of the road reconstruction would
probably be DOT expense, but we would need to pay for the upgrade for that storm
sewer. And some of the other urban elements. Ron, Jeff, anything you wanted to add on
that? Okay.
Davidson/ Uh, this is unfunded project number 14 and five years ago this was in a funded year.
We even had some federal funds that had been received through MPOJC that we were
going to use on this project, to basically add dual left -turn lane to the Gilbert Street, uh,
approaches of this intersection of Gilbert Street and U.S. Highway 6. This is the highest
total entering volume intersection, highest volume intersection in Iowa City in terms of
total entering volume. Uh, the City Council at that time, uh, because of some opposition
received in the area decided to withdrawal the project, uh, we still think it's something
that's going to have to be dealt with at some point. Uh, we now have the added impacts
of basically the Riverfront Crossings area. This is the ... the southern boundary of
Riverfront Crossings and so, uh, we are already getting a lot of development interest, in
particular on the west side of Gilbert Street, all the way up to Benton Street, and so, you
know, once again, uh, as ... as the ... the name indicates, we just want it to be on your radar
because we do think it's something we're going to have to deal with in the relatively
short-term future.
Knoche/ The Gilbert Street railroad underpass is a project that was identified with the Gilbert-
Bowery- Prentiss intersection. Uh, unfortunately at that time we ... we didn't have the
money available to ... to do this. Uh, when this bridge was constructed in 1971, the
engineers were very frugal. The only thing that they allowed for was a 4 -foot wide
... sidewalk from the back of curb to the front edge of the piers of the railroad bridge.
Um, this unfunded project would actually take the sidewalks behind the pier, up towards
the abutment, and uh, be able, allow for a wider sidewalk, to make that connection to the
future Riverfront Crossings development.
Throgmorton/ I ... I'd like to ask about ... about the last two projects, uh, both ... both of which
have to do with Gilbert Street. Uh, during the last election campaign season, um, there
were discussions about, uh a road diet for Gilbert Street and discussions among the prior
Council, and I don't really know exactly how those discussions, uh, went. Uh, but I
notice there's no consideration of, uh, I don't like the phrase road diet, but anyhow I'll
use it, consideration of a road diet for, uh, Gilbert Street. Uh, should we consider that?
Should we, uh, look into it?
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Champion/ It was south of the highway, the diet.
Throgmorton/ South of...of Highway 6?
Champion/ Uh -huh.
Throgmorton/ I thought it was north of Highway 6.
Davidson/ It was north of Highway 6.
Champion/ Oh, north!
Throgmorton/ (several talking) ...between Burlington and Highway 6.
Davidson/ Right. Yeah, there was ... my recollection is there were not four votes on Council to
pursue it further. (mumbled) some concerns about, uh, traffic volumes being adequate if
the street was reduced to a three -lane section with bike lanes. Uh, but it's certainly
something that if there's a majority on Council, um, in ... in favor of looking at that
further, we can do so.
Throgmorton/ I'd like to express interest in it. I ... I don't know how I would end up going, uh,
but I'm certainly interested in the possibility, and I don't know if anybody else is.
Hayek/ Well, why don't we, uh, I mean, these are ... these are unfunded on the radar projects.
Why ... why ... at the next work session, um, you want to throw it out there, we can take a
...take the temperature of the Council on ... on whether to spend more time on that.
Davidson/ Uh, the next project is unfunded, uh, project 21, and this is a project to add, uh, left
turn lanes, uh, center left ... either a center left turn lane or at the major intersections, left
turn lanes, uh, in this, uh, corridor of, uh, Mormon Trek between, uh, Melrose Avenue,
and I believe it goes out as far as Abbey Lane, um ... and this is a ... this is a project that's
driven by the crash history in the area. Now, the ... because of the speeds being relatively
low, the crash history is a fairly benign crash history in terms of severity. Uh, so we have
not ratcheted up in priority or recommended that to you because, uh, it's ... it's mainly
fender bender type crashes related to, uh, vehicles not yielding to, uh, yielding vehicle in
front of them and uh, at any rate, the ... the $3.9 million number is very soft. We really
haven't done any ... any even concept planning of this. Uh, but that's just a number to
...to keep it in the unfunded project list.
Dobyns/ Matt, I would like to put that on, as part of a future work session too.
Hayek/ Why ... why don't you remember that, and then at the next work session, we have Council
time.. .
Dobyns/ Very good.
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Hayek/ ...and throw it out there, see if there... there's interest in that.
Davidson/ The Riverside Drive streetscape is again a project that's been hanging around for a
little while that has now, um, got some, uh, added importance because of the Riverfront
Crossings initiative and specifically, Rick, can you slide the mouse down real quick.
Um ... you know, you'll... you'll recall we have added, uh, this triangle right here, uh, into
the urban renewal area, allowing the use of TIF funds. We have the hotel project, uh,
which is proceeding right here, um, and so the ... the notion of this project is that we
would do a streetscape enhancement, um, and probably the best model that's out there is
what Coralville's done, uh, through their community of basically combining driveways,
uh, adding landscaping, adding a very nice 8 -foot wide sidewalk, pedestrian lighting, uh,
and that sort of thing, and just really making the corridor more of a walkable, uh,
pedestrian accessible, uh, corridor that's more suitable for all modes of transportation,
rather than just motor vehicles, which is there right now. So, uh, again something that if
we can get enough taxable value created in this, uh, urban renewal area, we would have
the ability to use TIF funds for a public project, uh, like that. Uh, the Miller Orchard
neighborhood, directly to the west, has identified it as a priority through their
neighborhood planning process, uh, getting this area enhanced and ... and hopefully tied in
a little bit better with their neighborhood. Oh, I'm sorry, the next one is economic
development. Um, we just wanted to kind of highlight these real quickly. Uh, the
Riverfront Crossing's multi -use facility is actually in a funded year, so that didn't need to
be on this slide. Uh, Gilbert, uh, excuse me ... College-Gilbert corner and then the
Highway 1- Highway 6 Public Works site are two, uh, corners where the City Council has
asked us, the past, uh, Council asked us to proceed with an RFP process to at least
entertain the possibility of some private redevelopment projects, uh, the sale and ... and
then private redevelopment of...of those corners, and once we get the ... the first priority
is the multi -use parking facility in Riverfront Crossings. Once we get that behind us,
we'll proceed with these two. The Moss Green office park is, uh, located out by, uh,
well, us old- timers refer to it as the Highlander area, but where Pearson is and Northgate
Corporate Park, uh, it's now actually called Moss Urban Village, uh, there's a new
development team working on that, and some exciting things, uh, possible out there. And
we'll inevitably have some public improvements that'll be required as part of that, as
well. Uh, the fire damaged downtown properties are both coming down this week.
They're using the same demolition contractor. They've been gutting the buildings. Um,
and both, uh, property owners have been in to talk to us about the potential for building
new buildings on those sites, and so we're very excited about those possibilities. Uh,
shouldn't be likely any, uh, private investment needed in those, other than, uh, one of the
projects has indicated they may request TIF funds.
Fosse/ One of the hard parts about vacating this site is, you know, we talked earlier about
moving the transit facility, which involves federal money, which will help us along. We
have our solid waste operations and traffic engineering over here, which is of a
magnitude we can move without a bond issue. The hard part is going to be this
equipment division, right here, and that's probably a $5 to $6 million facility that will
need to be built on a new site. So it's unlikely that we will have cash reserves to do that,
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and our ... so we'll need to borrow more than $700,000 and according to State this is not
an essential public purpose. Is that the right term, Kevin?
O'Malley/ That's correct.
Fosse/ Okay. So that may require a referendum, unless we can find another way to ... to fund
that. So our hard part about getting' off the corner is this building right here.
Champion/ What's actually in there?
Fosse/ The ... that's where our equipment operations are. That's where we maintain our vehicles.
And uh, do all that. Okay, our next one is the demolition of the north wastewater
treatment plant. Uh, that...
Throgmorton/ Rick, uh...
Fosse/ Sure!
Throgmorton/ ...before we go off this, uh, I just wanted to say that there ... there been many
references to TIF in the last few minutes and just want to, uh, emphasize that, uh, there...
uh, Senator Joe Bolkcom and uh, the representative ... I've forgotten his name (mumbled)
(several talking) ...uh, put on just a terrific, um ... um, event a few nights ago over in
Coralville at the Library, and our Mayor, uh, Matt, did a superb job of articulating, uh,
our City's perspective toward TIF. So I just want to make sure that the public knows that
as ... as we're engaging in these TIF projects that we're going to live up to the
commitments that Matt articulated so well, and that we're not just going to be throwing
money around at, uh, in, you know, dumping it into other people's pockets, so to speak.
Uh, and ... and just wanted to make sure that that point is clear.
Fosse/ Thank you! The ... the demolition of the north wastewater treatment plant is ... is currently
unfunded. That's about a $5.8 million project, and what you get for that is the entire site
demolished to about two feet below grade, so that that can be converted to parkland, with
the exception of two buildings, and this price tag includes the preservation of the
administration building. It's about 1936 vintage, and then also the sand filter building,
which is around, uh... 1989 vintage. So, you know, that's about the size of a gymnasium
there, and this ... little bit smaller building. So if we have flood resilient uses for those
facilities, we have some buildings there that are already built, that this estimate includes
the money to make those ready to, uh, to move in. If you want to level the whole site,
you can probably take about a million dollars off of that. So that ... puts that into
perspective for you there. Uh, landfill ground water. Last year we talked about, with the
2008 regulations that went into effect, we have more, uh, rigorous ground water testing
around our landfill, and what we've found is in the northeast corner, next to our oldest
cells from 1972 and 73, we had some leachate getting outside of our fence line there,
where we didn't want it. In last year's program we had the purchase of 17 acres in this
north corner. We have purchased that property, just last week, and the reason this is still
on the radar is we do not know yet from a regulatory perspective from the DNR if any
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remedial actions will be required in this area. What the ownership of that property, uh,
allows us to do is ... is to get some monitoring wells out here, and uh, begin to ... to closely
see what's going on in that area.
Dickens/ That the Hurt property?
Fosse/ Yes! Yes! Next, uh, Andy!
Rocca/ Yeah, the next one, uh, I actually mentioned this Saturday with respect to Riverfront
Crossings development and essentially I think we either find a new location within the
development to provide training, or we'll have to relocate to another area. I believe it's,
uh, number 85 on your unfunded project list.
Knoche/ Uh, riverbank stabilization, uh, this is in the area down by Sturgis Corner, um, you can
see there's some riprap off to the right hand side of the screen. That was done as part of a
FEMA, uh, project for some recovery. Um, it would be continuing that, uh, bank
stabilization towards the Highway 6 bridge, um, this area along here, we already have
easements for a ... part of the River Corridor Trail, to go along the west side of the river.
So it's basically allowing, maintaining that area there so that in the future when that trail
comes up as a project we'll be able to build it.
Dobyns/ Is that Sturgis Corners (several talking)
Knoche/ Yes it is. Yep. Sturgis Corner.
Hayek/ As we develop a waterfront amenity on the other side of the river, do we give thought to
the kind of stabilization we want to see from an aesthetics perspective?
Knoche/ That's something we will ... we'll take into account on this project, and ... and it may end
up that we do just a retaining wall along this side, similar to what we have behind the
Dairy Queen, uh, and Master Muffler, along the Iowa River Corridor Trail, in that phase.
Dobyns/ The riverbank stabilization on the east side is already funded? As part of the Riverfront
Crossings...
Knoche/ The east ... the east side is, that'll be part of the Riverfront Crossings development.
Dobyns/ It's funded.
Fosse/ And it's relatively stable now. It doesn't require the work that this does.
Hayek/ That'll be part of a park.
Knoche /Right. It'll be part of the park project.
Dobyns/ Yeah, okay.
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Markus/ The question was whether it's already funded.
Fosse/ The east side?
Dobyns/ Yeah.
Fosse/ No.
Dobyns/ The east side, yeah.
Fosse/ No, cause we do not have funds in place for the park development.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Fosse/ But it's not.
Dobyns/ Thank you.
Fosse/ Uh -huh.
Wyss/ The reason that the police firing range is even on the radar is that a couple years ago we
applied for and received a grant, uh, for over $60,000, which pays for equipment to place
on the ... on a police firing range. The problem that we've encountered is one that, uh,
we've encountered probably since I've been here, uh, in trying to locate an appropriate
place for a range, trying to address the ... the safety concerns, the access, the community
acceptance, uh, and because of that, uh, the ... the walls that we run into, we're ... we're
reconsidering the use of this funding, or at least the grant funding. We've engaged in
communication with the Cedar Rapids police department, uh, to continue to use their
range for our training purposes. Uh, we have applied for a grant adjustment (mumbled)
to transfer those funds to purchase, uh, equipment that would belong to the Iowa City
Police Department and Johnson County Sheriff's Department, but it would be placed at
the Cedar Rapids range, and then we would get a long -term commitment to utilize their
range ... as opposed to trying to find one more locally.
Fosse/ And that is it for on the radar, uh, projects. We're on to that point of questions and
discussions. Matt, would you like me to lead off with a ... with a recap of what I heard for
loose ends?
Hayek/ Sure!
Questions and Answers:
Fosse/ Okay. Um, first of all, you want hard copies of the financial slides that we had up front
that are difficult to read (several talking and noise on mic). Oh, you got `em! Wow!
You're good, Marian! Thank you! (several talking)
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Karr/ But I need copies, Adam! (laughter)
Fosse/ Okay! Um ... second, you'd like to see some evaluation of the differ... elevation of the
north and southbound lanes on Dubuque Street, and we can get that information to you.
We'll do that in memo form, and if that peaks enough interest that you want to put that on
a work session we'll do that at...at that point. Um, third, Jim, you expressed interest in
seeing the composite model of the ... of the hydraulics and we have that model on the web
now. So if you have any trouble navigating to it through our web site, uh, let Ron know
and he'll help you get there.
Throgmorton/ I ... I do have trouble finding things on the web site, at least so far because, you
know, I'm an experience... an inexperienced guy. Um ... so if somebody could send me a
direct link to it, that would be really dandy!
Fosse/ We will get that to you. Okay? Um, you also expressed that we explore some other
options for that Normandy -Manor intersection project, and ... and what else might exist
for out of the box thinking there. I think that's a good idea. Uh, Jim, you'd expressed
that you have some questions that you wanted to pose on the ... on the Taft Speedway
levee project. If they're technical in nature, having those in advance would be good for
us, because if they require us running numbers, we won't be able to answer it
immediately. We need those in advance...
Throgmorton/ The questions really are about allocating, uh, risks and benefits.
Fosse/ Okay.
Throgmorton/ Which is not a, really a, not so much of a tech ... they won't be really technical
questions. They'll be more like...
Fosse/ ...like policy issues...
Throgmorton/ ...more policy kind of questions.
Fosse/ Okay. Okay. And then lastly, uh, there's interest in getting the Gilbert Street corridor
and Mormon Trek corridor on the work session agendas for future discussion. Gilbert
Street for ... uh ... road diet, and Mormon Trek for the (both talking)
Hayek/ Really actually those two items it would seem to me, once we get into a discussion of
timing and priorities, I would ... I would suggest that the proponents make their pitch to
move them from unfunded onto a ... a year, um, and that's how we usually handle it, isn't
it, you know.
Fosse/ Okay.
Dobyns/ He's training me on operational procedures so I have to...
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Fosse/ Sounds good. That's the extent of my comments, uh, so with that I'll turn it over to you
all.
Hayek/ Tom, what's uh ... what's the next step?
Markus/ In ... in terms of today?
Hayek/ Yeah.
Markus/ We're going to go to Public Works operations budgets.
Hayek/ Okay.
Fosse/ Would you like to take a short break before that?
Champion/ No. (laughter)
Payne/ How long are you going to talk? (laughter)
Fosse/ Well...
Hayek/ Yes, Rick! How long you going to talk? (laughter)
Fosse/ ...I've got an hour on that. I think I can get it done in 30 minutes.
Markus/ If history is any indicator ... (laughter)
Mims/ I have a question before he starts (mumbled) again from a procedural standpoint. When
we've done this before, and I ... my memory isn't always perfect either ... we've talked
about, with the CIP, you know, what we've got laid out and you know do we want to
move some things around in terms of the current years that they're assigned to. Do we
want to push some back? Do we want to pull some off from the unfunded list and ... and
assign `em to a certain year? What are we talking about for timeframe for doing that, in
terms of staff finalizing budget and everything? Are we going to do that today? Are we
doing that...
Karr/ This is your last budget session...
Markus/ ...hope that you would do it today.
Karr/ This is your last budget session you've got scheduled right now, until the 31 St, and the 31 st
is boards, commissions, community events, and setting the public hearing.
Mims/ Then I think we need to have some discussion on that.
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Hayek/ Yeah. I mean, and I thought we were going to have another, uh, opportunity for the
proverbial horse - trading. So we, uh...
Mims/ So my first ... yeah. So my first question, and this is maybe kind of a restatement of...of
Jim's question from maybe Saturday. Kind of to Kevin, is ... the number came up today
that typically we do somewhere around $10 million a year in GO bonding. Okay?
We've talked about the fact that interest rates right now are really low. We know that our
debt level pretty much ... is pretty low actually. I'm not one to want to go out and borrow
a bunch of money just for the sake of borrowing money. However, if we have projects
that we absolutely know that we want to do ... how much additional bonding, Kevin,
would you feel comfortable with, cause I know you're probably the most conservative
one in the room in terms of doing this, um ... to move some of this stuff forward and
maybe ultimately save the City and some tax ... the taxpayers some money, um ... by doing
some stuff now? I ... I have a concern about it because I don't want to see us then two
years later looking at, oh, we still want to do a whole bunch more bonding, and we get
ourselves in trouble from a repayment standpoint. So I ... I understand the double edge to
this. But...
Markus/ Well there's ar ... also arbitrage issues that you have to be concerned about, if...if you
can actually get these projects done (both talking)
Mims/ And I gave Kevin a heads -up that I was going to ask this question, and he mentioned that
to me, so ... yeah.
O'Malley/ Yeah, there's two constraints, I mean, two legal constraints, I guess. One was the 5%
that the State requires us to stay within, and we're nowhere near that, so we could issue
...hate to say this, maybe $10 or $20 million more in the next couple years, without
impacting any rates. The dollar question or the pocketbook question is, right now it's
about, not right now. Historically, it's about 6- cents ... per million on your tax levy. So
that's $17.27 for every million dollars you want to add, it costs you about 6 -cents on that
levy, for ten years.
Mims/ Okay.
O'Malley/ Depending on the project. Some projects may go out 20 years. Um ... right now we're
getting' about 4- cents. Paying about 4 -cents instead of 6- cents. Sometimes 3 1/2.
Champion/ And what percentage are we ... (both talking)
O'Malley/ We're at 26 %.
Champion/ We're at 26, so...
O'Malley/ So the other constraint is that 30 %. So...
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Champion/ I mean, I think your idea is good, but it would have to be something really special for
me to support it.
Mims/ No, I understand, I just...
O'Malley/ (both talking)
Champion/ We raised it. It was always 25 %, now we've raised it to 30 %, which still really irks
me.
Mims/ Uh -huh.
Champion/ But ... I'm not the only vote here.
Throgmorton/ But it does sound like the cost is very low at this moment in time.
O'Malley/ That's correct. We're getting about ... our interest rates on the bonds are somewhere
near 3 %, and historically they've been... actually they've been lower than 3 %, and
historically they've been as high as 4 %. Now depending on the project, some projects
may be taxable and if they're taxable, um, then it'll be like ... more like 5.2 %.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, so it's not something we'd want to leap into blindly, but it does sound like
something we really ought to take seriously as ... and consider as a ... as a possibility.
Dobyns/ And, Connie, I was wondering as a new Member of the Board, I mean, everything
we're talking about seems really exciting to me. (laughter) Um...
Champion/ I know!
Dobyns/ ...but, you know, for those of you who have more tenure, I mean, what is special,
because I don't see the City of Iowa City ... I see `em as wanting to be more dynamic in
terms of growth. But we don't want to fall back on TIFing, um, all that much, and so I'm
hearing this might be our only opportunity. I'm trying to get a sense of Riverfront
Crossings, and other things we were talking about, what is special enough?
Champion/ Well, I think, you know, to me the Riverfront Crossing is going to move slowly until
we get rid of that wastewater plant and some other major changes, that simply aren't
going to happen overnight. Um ... you gotta look at the long -term, so I don't see
(mumbled) moving anymore... anything else into the funding year is going to change how
slow that's going to move. Um ... if there was something that they thought was really
going to help us, they would tell us. They would say, I'm sure Tom would say, can we
go up to 28 %, because I think this project is going to be really worthwhile. We can fund
it pretty cheaply right now. I haven't heard them say that. I mean, they may be
something out there, but ... I haven't heard them say we would like to add this.
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Fosse/ Well one of the other things that ... that limits us in addition to our financial capacity is...
is simply our internal capacity to accomplish projects.
Champion/ Right!
Fosse/ And we ... we talked briefly about that at the beginning. We're bumping up against the
top of that envelope there. Now there may be some economic development projects out
there that we ... we could bond for that ... that really wouldn't involve design work or ... or
conflicts in construction. That was another thing we touched on, uh, Michelle brought
this up earlier with we just have so many projects going on in ... in various sectors of the
community, they begin to bump up against each other.
Hayek/ You know, Rick..Rick, just to, by way of correction though. I mean, I ... you know, we
have used, uh, TIF in recent years and I ... it's the City's intention to do so, and I don't
...that's not necessarily in conflict at all with ... with the proposed bonding for these
capital projects, uh, that we're talking about. Um, but ... one thing that might help the...
the Council up here is ... is just to get confirmation from staff that what's proposed in the
CIP budget is three years worth of projects, with a chunk occurring in 13, a chunk in 14,
and a chunk in ... in FYI 5, with the balance on what's called the unfunded list, and that,
um, as to those three years, some analysis and ... and uh ... deliberation has ... has already
been undertaken, uh, in terms of when a given project occurs, whether it's in 13, 14, or
15. I mean, staff's already determined on its own what it would recommend we take up
in each of those three years, and that's the list we've seen. Is that a fair statement?
Fosse/ That's fair, with the addition of...of 16. We show a projection for projects in 16, but that
is not a funded year, so that's just a ... just a projection.
Champion/ Right. I think (several talking)
Markus/ ...kind of a measure of our capacity to undertake these...
Hayek/ Yeah.
Markus/ ...these projects, and I think the other part of it is, if we're seeking outside funding and
leveraging our own to get outside funding. Some of those projects aren't in current years,
um, because we're still pursuing funding on some of those issues too.
Hayek/ Right.
Markus/ I don't think you want to ... you want to steer away from seeking that funding.
Champion/ And they always have the option of bringing something to us — hey, we've just
secured funding for this. We think it's going to be really important. Then we can listen
to what they have to say and possibly move it up even at that point. We're not ... this isn't
cast in stone, as far as them bringing something else to us. And so instead of adding
things now, it might be better to wait to see if some funding does show up for a project
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that could be done sooner than later. And you might have to hire outside help to engineer
it or whatever, you know, whatever you call it, all that stuff that you do when you do a
project. Supervise it. Whatever! (several talking)
Dickens/ Are there any projects that we keep pushing out?
Fosse/ Mormon Trek is ... is one of `em that ... that consistently gets ... gets slid out. Um, prior to
that, uh, Sycamore Street was one that we ... we'd pushed out a number of times before
we finally did that. Am I missing any?
Throgmorton/ I think...
O'Malley/ I was going to say some of the projects get pushed out because of floods and tornados,
and other issues. (laughter)
Fosse/ You guys want to come on up and... and... Mike...
Throgmorton/ Be ... before they start talkin' about that I want to make sure I get something out
here. Uh, in the ... I guess it was on Saturday at least, um, there was some conversation
about possibly using some additional City funds to support an expansion of the
UniverCity program. Uh, so, uh, I ... I want to pose that as a possible use of some
additional funds, some additional CIP funds. And, uh, I know it's not something that was
mentioned by, uh, our ... our good staff in making their presentation. Uh, but it seems to
me it'd be something that we should consider, so I want to get that point out on the table,
but the second point I'd like to make is, uh, it does seem to me that we have a really, uh,
timely opportunity to borrow some additional funds for projects that we think are really
meritorious, and I do not mean particular re .... or, uh, rebuilding the traffic signaling at
particular intersections unless they're really tremendously serious. 1, but instead I think
we would need to, uh, pay some ... as a Council, pay some focused attention on some
projects that we think really deserve priority and could be moved up uh and action could
be taken, if we borrowed some additional funds at this moment in time. I think it's worth
considering.
Markus/ I think the line is getting longer to sit on Santa Clause's lap (laughter) as you keep
talking about these issues (several talking)
Mims/ Didn't mean to open a can of worms, but I just had to...
Markus/ Well, but I think the premise ... I think your premise is based on, uh, the current status of
interest rates. And ... and I'm not sure that that's the right premise to be going off of. I
mean, I think we're trying to, you know, one of the major emphasis going back to
strategic plan is to control your property tax rates.
Mims/ Right.
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Markus/ I mean, is there some compelling project that you all ... look! (laughter) Your
department heads'll come up here and tell you exactly, you know, they want this or they
want this other project to move forward.
Champion/ They want the pedestrian bridge across the river.
Markus/ Go back to your strategic plan. What is your strategic plan call for? What do you wish
to accomplish with your strategic plan?
Throgmorton/ Yeah, neighborhood stabilization (both talking)
Markus/ ...that we haven't listed.
Champion/ And I think we have a real opportunity this year to kind of keep taxes level, even
though the levy is going up ... mainly because...
Markus/ Levy's going down.
Champion/ Down, but ... I mean the ... you know what I'm saying.
Markus/ The property values (several talking)
Hayek/ What's the tax levy by the way, everyone? (laughter)
Champion/ The other ... the other thing is ... because we're making the transit an enterprise fund
now, that is going to pull all those benefits out of our benefit levy. Isn't that correct?
Markus/ That's correct.
Mims/ Correct.
Champion/ So that's going to reduce that portion of the property tax. Isn't that correct?
Markus/ But we've already computed that in what our proposed (both talking)
Champion/ Oh! That's too bad! (laughter) You're way ahead of me!
Markus/ That's what we gave you.
Champion/ But ... I mean, I'm not willing to add anything unless there's some real compelling
reason to do it. And... and I can't think of anything that would compel me to do that at
this point.
Hayek/ I mean, typically what we do when we get to this point is..is people say well, you know,
this ... this project that's... that's proposed to be funded in year 1 is fine, but this project
over here which costs about the same as in year 3, why don't we switch them? And...
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and take the second first and the first second. That kind of thing. Not, uh, hey let's do all
of these things, you know, plus, uh ... grab some ... some unfunded things, which is going
to create a line of departments who, you know, want to make the pitch as to why we
should or should not do that, and we can do that, but we haven't even really looked at
what's proposed right now to say we, uh ... uh, we basically like this proposal in the
aggregate or ... or we don't and want to cherry pick. Or straight... whatever you call it.
Markus/ Each project carries corresponding operational cost increases with it, as well.
Champion/ I have to admit that this is the first year I don't have anything I want to throw out.
Mims/ No, I mean when I look at ... what we've gone through...
Champion/ ...unusual!
Mims/ ...(laughter) I mean, if you look at what's closest, if you look at fiscal year 13 GO bonds,
on page C38, um ... no, there's nothing there that I'm interested in ... throwing out I don't
think.
Hayek/ The UniverCity program, that ... that's General Fund.
Davidson/ That's in the operating (both talking)
Markus/ GO bonds!
Hayek/ That's GO bonds.
O'Malley/ No. No, that's... that's our General Fund this time.
Hayek/ Yeah.
O'Malley/ We're going to do it out of cash.
Hayek/ That's what I thought.
Champion/ And it was $150,000 was it or...
O'Malley/ Yes.
Champion/ Yeah.
Davidson/ Sixty wasn't it ... 160.
O'Malley/ Hundred and sixty.
Markus/ How much?
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O'Malley/ $160,000.
Davidson/ From us.
Markus/ Which gets how many houses?
Davidson/ Five or six, hopefully.
Markus/ How many would you like to do?
Throgmorton/ You want a number? (laughter)
Dickens/ What'd did we do this past year with the...
Davidson/ Twenty -six.
Dickens/ Twenty -six. So we're...
Davidson/ That was a lot! (laughter and several talking) We had $2.1 million from the State to
do that.
Throgmorton/ I ... I don't know, I mean, you're looking for a number. I ... I can't give a number
because I don't know what the cost would be for any given number, so it might be helpful
to have some information from the staff about that, you know, uh, I don't know, ten
houses would cost whatever. Fifteen would cost whatever.
Davidson/ We ... we think, Jim about $40,000 per house. $35 to $40,000 per house. We ... we've
budgeted $50,000 this year, and we think, you know, we're ex ... experienced enough in it
now to know what we're buying, how much it's going to take to renovate it. So we think
$35 to $40,000 per house, so ten would be $350 to $400,000.
Throgmorton/ And ... and then, then we'd have to have some sense of, uh ... how feasible it would
be to do X number of houses, you know, I don't want to put excess pressure (both
talking)
Davidson/ ...Tom makes a good point in that there is operational costs of doing it, so we've
basically been borrowing one person, one full -time person from the rehab program, not
doing the re ... regular rehab program and doing this instead, and so that ... that would all
have to be considered if you ratcheted that up. We believe the ... the project that's in there
now, the $160,000 plus the University's money and the bank revolving loan fund, you
know, four to six houses and we think we can do that with the existing staff without any
problem.
Hayek/ So, what I would suggest Council do is look at those three GO lists, 13, 14 and 15, and
...and decide whether... those items, uh, you think should be on the list, uh, whether any
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of those items should be switched to different years, urn ... whether there's something on
the unfunded list that ought to be moved in ... either displace what's there now or be there
in addition to what's there now.
Champion/ I mean, I think one of the projects that could be moved up quickly if we need to is the
...if the Governor would finally decide to go ahead with that railroad. So I want to keep
a little cushion for that.
Mims/ Are there things that we could do, I realize there's a lot involved in the transit facility
relocation, that whole corner down there. Are there ... with more money, are there certain
things that we could do faster ... to get that corner ready for development?
Fosse/ We could look at projects that might move the ... the solid waste and traffic engineering
facilities off that intersection. Basically take it back to that remaining large building
that's there for equipment maintenance. Um, currently we've ... we've not advanced the
relocation of ... of solid waste and traffic engineering to a preliminary design phase. We
only have concepts on that.
Mims/ Okay. In doing that, is that really going to get us much further ahead time -wise, I mean,
do you consider that a very big piece in terms of time and effort and design, compared
with the other two pieces that are left, I mean, would that really help us all that much?
Davidson/ In terms of the amount of work to get the RFP ready and work with developers and all
that is just ... it's just a matter of having more ground to work with. It's really not any
more or less work to add, for example, if we were able to add the (mumbled) of the
property where the equipment building is, it wouldn't be that much more work for us.
It's just the ... the main work is in getting the equipment building out of there.
Mims/ Right. So until we do the equipment building, which is the $5 million piece, right?
Fosse/ Yes.
Mims/ We're probably not really going to do anything with the property. Is that what I'm
hearing or...
Davidson/ No. We ... we believe, I don't know if Rick can put the slide up ... that showed that,
but ... but we believe there's, in talking with some developers, there's some interest in
the... basically the corner.
Mims/ The very corner.
Davidson/ And ... and the corner is, that's the most visible part that 33,000 vehicles a day are
going by. We believe we can carve that out ... you know, basically (mumbled) I'll show
you.
Fosse/ Having a little mouse trouble here!
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Mims/ So what you're saying, Jeff, is if we ... if...(several talking)
Davidson/' Okay, it's uh ... it's basically... this area right here. Would use the existing access
point, k, that kind of becomes the south boundary.
Mims/ Right.
Davidson/ And then the east boundary would go right along the west side of the equipment
division, and then basically the road here and the road here. We believe that's a realistic
redevelopment parcel if that's all we can do at the present time, but ... we would try and
plan it with a cut ... with a master plan for the area that took everything into consideration.
Payne/ At the same time when we did that, would we do something with the intersection? It's a
lousy intersection. (laughter)
Davidson/ Uh, we would ... we would, yeah, to be perfectly honest with you, Michelle, the next
intersection down at Gilbert Street has more of the traffic issues (several talking) than this
one does.
Payne/ I'm just thinking going northbound, the right turn lane is awful.
Davidson/ Northbound right turn lane ... okay. I know the one you're talking about. That... that
south approach has much less traffic volume than the other three do and that makes that
intersection work a little bit better, but we do have to split phase the north and the south
approaches, which is less efficient, um ... certainly we can take a look at that intersection,
but if you're going to take a look at that intersection, we deliberately showed you Gilbert
and Highway 6 (several talking) that one has ... I know just from personal experience you
can ... you can wait ... it's possible even in the middle of the day to wait through more than
one cycle of the traffic signal.
Payne/ Right. I'm just thinking from a redevelopment standpoint, if we're talking about, you
know, the whole thing, I mean, traffic flow is part of that.
Davidson/ That's... that's true.
Hayek/ Uh, that slide shows, uh, the um, College Street, Gilbert Street corner, you know,
the ... the Greyhound and Wilson Building. I don't see that ... I don't see a number on the
GO list.
Davidson/ Uh -huh.
Hayek/ Um ... is there anything associated with that corner and our...
Davidson/ There's a big item associated with that corner, and that's the MidAmerican (both
talking)
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Hayek/ ... substation, right.
Davidson/ That's got about a million dollar price tag on it, and the way we've left it right now,
cause we've had a lot of expressions of interest in that property, is that that's... that's an
expense that's going to have to be incurred with any redevelopment project that we
eventually intend to do. There's a million dollar expense to get that property. Now,
everybody who calls asks when's the City going to get that property, and what I've told
them is we'll get it at the time we have a redevelopment project and we have a financing
mechanism for getting it, and we don't have one right now.
Markus/ And it ... and it's all part of the trade -off in the sale of the property to provide the
developer.
Mims/ Right, sure.
Markus/ ...committing to do that in advance of that. I ... I don't know what your gain is. You
can still finance these things later on in the process.
Mims/ Sure.
Davidson/ And MidAmerican's told us that it is possible to get them out of there, but there's an
expense and a timeline to doing it.
Fosse/ And the other option is to leave that to whoever redevelops that corner. That subsequent
acquisition or work around it.
Throgmorton/ I'd like to ask about the ... the buyouts, unless we're still... still need to process this
point a little bit. So, I'm still on the CIP of course, but uh, with regard to the, uh,
Parkview estates buyouts. Uh, it wasn't entirely clear to me, uh, how much, how many
...how much fund ... how many dollars are available for those buyouts, uh, in the area
north of Park Road. Uh, south of the river. Uh, and whether that amount if sufficient,
to ... to take care of the remaining properties (both talking) people who are likely to want
to be bought out.
Davidson/ Everything you see there in red, Jim, could be, uh, bought out with the CDBG funds.
We have ... we have plenty of CDBG's funds statewide, available to buyout of those
properties. The ones that are not eligible are the ten or so that I showed you up at the
ends of the cul -de -sac, and then the three right at the intersection with Park Road. Those,
plus the ones that have been transacted to another person since the 2008 flood. Now, for
example, we have two properties and ... and kind of key ones over on the side by City
Park. I don't know exactly which ones they are, but in this vicinity here, there are two
people that if you were to approve those funds, we could make offers to immediately.
They're ... they want to be bought out. But they are not eligible because they were
purchased from the owner since the 2008 flood.
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Champion/ And I'm not willing to spend taxpayer dollars to buy those properties.
Mims /I'm not either.
Champion/ I'm just not willing to do it, period. Those people bought those houses at very low
prices and now they want to sell `em very high. And I'm not going to use taxpayers'
dollars.
Hayek/ I think it's tough...
Markus/ Realistically how many of these properties, even if we were successful, you're still
going to have properties that were never eligible to actually be purchased through any of
the flood buyout programs.
Davidson/ The ten or so, yes.
Markus/ The ten or so properties, and so ... if it gets back into this Normandy question, seems to
me ... the other thing is you have some people that have built... rebuilt on the river.
Mims/ Right.
Markus/ They aren't going anywhere.
Davidson/ Yeah, there's a couple...
Markus/ ...no intention of moving off that (both talking)
Davidson/ ...certainly this property right here's had substantial investment to it.
Markus/ There's two of `em that have raised. I think Rick and I spent the better part of an
afternoon ... one guy's dock, talkin' to him about it, so ... I mean, there... they're just not
goin' away!
Mims/ Right.
Markus/ So I don't know what you gain by taking funds and using them from the (mumbled)
They're still going to argue that they want the roadway elevated to the last person that's
in that neighborhood.
Mims/ Right.
Davidson/ Yeah, I remember talking to one flood recovery coordinator ... I think it might have
been Charles City, Iowa, and it took `em three floods. It took `em three floods to get all
the property in their buyout area. So...
Payne/ So does 93 count as one or does 2008 count as one?
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Davidson/ Um ... in, you know, I can't remember just exactly the...
Markus/ There were no buyouts made.
Davidson/ Yeah, I don't recall there being at least substantial buyouts in 93, if there were any
so ... this is essentially our first flood. And ... and again, as I said to you Saturday,
remember this area will be inundated during the next flood because we have to allow
those properties that we've purchased to be used as floodwater capacity.
Mims/ Right.
Hayek/ The, uh ... $200,000 a year for Towncrest that's... that's in here, I mean, that's a ... that's
just a ball ... well, it's not a ballpark number. It's an actual number, but we're ... we're
banking that money as I understand it for ... for projects we really aren't at a point of
needing to roll out.
Davidson/ But we do have the one project, Matt, and I ... I think, as I recall the proposal is we're
going to use $300,000 of those funds, we're proposing ... to use $300,000 of those funds.
Over the four -year period it's $1.4 million. I believe it was $400/600/200/200.
Hayek/ Okay.
Davidson/ ... uh ... so we've got roughly a million dollars available to us right now, and we do
intend to use, um, 300,000 of it, and you know, we're trying... the... the other, don't
forget, we also have the ability to use that money for our own public sector projects, as
well, in the area.
Mims/ From my perspective if we were going to switch anything and I guess I'm still not quite
sure of the answer to this is, if we were to move any funding earlier in the scheme of
things, it would be to get some of that stuff off the corner of 6 and Riverside, where our
engineering and transit and all that is, if we could ... from an economic development
standpoint, if that would speed up getting some of that on the market. That's ... and I
don't know if that makes sense.
Markus/ (both talking) ... if...if we get there after the RFP, we can come back with a proposed
amendment. We can issue additional GO capacity.
Mims/ Okay.
Markus/ Do just that.
Mims/ Okay. I'm comfortable with that, I mean, I'm not pushing to try and add to our debt or
anything, but those are certain things that I guess just to make ... from my perspective. I
don't know if the rest of the Council agrees or four of us do that I'd like to see us move
as expeditiously as we can from ... from, uh, development and tax revenue standpoint of
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increasing those values. I realize we've only got certain capacity within staff to get
projects done, etc., but to me that's an important one to...
Champion/ Well, if it came up, if somebody came up and said, we want to develop this whole
area.
Mims/ Well sounds like they've had some interest, I mean, I don't know how...
Champion/ Right.
Davidson/ Well, you start getting into some soils issues which Rick and Ron are trying to get a
handle on right now. Up in ... up in the corner we know there's fewer issues. As you
move towards the river, then there get to be ... let me tell you, by the time you get down to
transit, there are some significant issues. (laughter)
Mims/ I understand that. (laughter) And otherwise I'm comfortable with what we've got CIP-
wise.
Hayek/ Yeah, I mean, again, I ... I want to reiterate that ... that we can pass a budget, and then in
one month, uh, come up with a grand idea that had not been contemplated and come back
and amend the budget as needed. So ... we're not stuck with these projects. We're not
limited from pursuing other projects, at any point during the year if new ideas come
across our table.
Payne/ And we still approve each project individually. We fund it individually as it happens,
right.
Hayek/ Uh...
Mims/ Depends on the funding.
O'Malley/ Yes. In essence you do (several talking). You ... we have to take the plans and specs
to you and we get engineer's bid, uh, we award the projects. In fact, I don't sell the
bonds unless I can ... I see the plans and specs are going out. So something that's in 12,1
might move to 13, or if something in 13 is ready, I move to 12. So ... we have that kind of
flexibility (both talking)
Hayek/ ...throughout the year ... as circumstances change.
Payne/ It isn't like because we approve this we're never going to see it again. We're going to see
every one of these projects again.
Hayek/ Well, yeah, I mean, when ... when the (both talking)
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Markus/ ...enter into contracts, the contracts come back before the City Council for approval.
As you issue bonds, the bonds have to come back before Council. There's a lot of
thresholds that have to be met before you come back through.
O'Malley/ There are some maintenance projects that are $200,000 that may ... may not (both
talking)
Champion/ There is a problem with raising the budget, isn't there?
Dilkes/ Michelle, I don't think it's accurate to say that you will see every single thing on these
projects, because there are different thresholds where the City Manager has authority and
can delegate that authority but most of the bigger item things will come to the Council.
Payne/ Thank you.
Throgmorton/ I want to express some support for what ... what Susan said, uh, about, uh, with
regard to that transit, uh, that intersection of Highway 6 and ... and Riverside Drive, um,
so we could be possibly looking at that, uh ... uh, in the way that she, uh, articulated. Uh,
I think also we don't want to completely kick the can down the road so I ... I would just
like to reiterate one point, and that is I ... I think I would encourage, uh, staff to consider,
uh, coming back to us later on with some ideas about how some CIP funds could be used
to facilitate neighborhood stabilization. Uh, and secondly, a point I haven't brought up
yet, uh, to facilitate, uh, ways of enabling businesses and residences to reduce their
consumption of coal -fired electricity. And ... you know, we don't have time to talk about
that in great detail right now, but I'm trying to express it in sort of policy terms instead of
with regard to specific projects, you know.
Markus/ I ... I think the one thing that, in terms of neighborhood stabilization is the UniverCity
program is a very positive influence on stabilizing those neighborhoods, and so ... not to
pick on one ... any one particular program, but I think, and I'll ask Jeff this question, if we
increase the amount to $300,000, could we handle that within our staff?
Davidson/ I'll need to check with Steve on that.
Markus/ I think that would be worth doing.
Hayek/ Yeah, I agree. I ... I think, uh, and I'm glad you brought that up, Jim. I mean, that ... that
may be one ... one area where we could, uh, do more than what's proposed here. Given
the successful track record. Contingent on staff availability to handle that.
Dickens/ Cause it really does come back to us. I mean, once ... with higher property value
and... (several talking)
Markus/ And you can designate it and if we can't get there with our existing staff we can kick it
to the next fiscal year.
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Champion/ What are we talking about, just ... I probably ... I don't know if I should bring this up
now. I probably should wait til Council time sometime. But, talking about neighborhood
stabilization, I still would like the City to sell more of their low - income owned houses
and find other places in town to put them. I know we have to maintain a certain number
in order to qualify for federal funds. But I would like to use some money to move those
City owned houses to other parts of the city, since most of `em are congregated in the
southeast part of Iowa City. And six or seven of `em, I think, are on one street. So that's
just something I want us to look at.
Hayek/ Well ... well I'm sympathetic to your ... your position on that. I would say let's, we've
been down this road (both talking) we maybe need to go down it again, but why don't
you wait and throw it out there during Council time and see what (both talking)
Champion/ I just made my own Council time! (laughter)
Hayek/ Okay, so let's ... let's decide on ... on what's before us, in terms of the CIP here.
Champion/ I'm fine!
Hayek/ Um ... is there ... (mumbled) horse-trading ... is there horse - trading people want to engage
in to prioritize projects over how they're stated in this document?
Mims /I'm comfortable.
Champion/ I'm very comfortable.
Hayek/ Yeah. Okay.
Dickens/ You did good!
Fosse/ Sounds good! (several talking) You're welcome! We'll move on.
Throgmorton/ Thanks for the superb presentation!
Hayek/ Okay, so should we move on to Public Works now? Uh...
Fosse/ I'm ready!
Hayek/ ...take a quick break? Or you guys doing okay?
Fosse/ Want a break? (several talking)
Hayek/ Okay! Five minutes! We'll come back!
PW (Dept/Div /Operations)
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Hayek/ Okay, we're back up and running. So now we'll start the Public Works.
Fosse/ Yes!
Hayek/ With Rick! Somebody new, oh! (laughter)
Fosse/ Well we're shifting back to operations now for your final component of the operations
section. Let me tell you what I'm prepared to talk about and then I'll tell you what I'm
actually going to talk about, because of the late hour here, and ... and we'll get through the
stuff and ... and I'm happy to provide you guys additional information later individually if
you'd like (mumbled). Um, what I've prepared to cover today is what do, who we serve.
I wanted to include that because you all as elected officials hear a lot about why can't we
do more things regionally, and a lot of that is happening at staff levels that ... that is below
the radar screen, and it's just good to make you aware of that. Um, what we outsource,
uh, what our... interdependencies between divisions are, and uh, changes this year. I
wanted to include what we outsource and our interdependencies because to really
understand the efficiencies within an organization you need to have a handle on those
things. If we treach ... treat each division and department as an island, we're going to
have a lot larger staff than if we rely on each other for ... for different functions, different
pieces of equipment, and that sort of thing. Um, so the ... the outsourcing,
interdependencies I'll save for another day. Hopefully next year we'll have some time to
go in that more detail. So what I'll do is briefly cover what we do, um, I will cover who
we serve cause that won't take long, and then talk about any changes that are proposed in
the budget for this year, and we should be able to move through that relatively quickly. I
will point out that in the Public Works Department we only have five divisions, but there
are a lot more cost centers than that. And ... and the reason for that is because of some
consolidations that ... that we did in the 1990s to compress the Public Works Department
into fewer divisions. So we have more going on within each division. And again, I
won't go into those details tonight, but I'm happy to share those with you, if you'd like,
any other time. Um, so let's lead off with engineering. Uh, what it is we do is ... is design
and construction administration and inspection of public projects.
Karr/ Rick, do you have a page number?
Fosse/ Um, yes, uh, engineering begins on page 117.
Karr/ So they can refer to it as you go through it.
Fosse/ Thank you, Marian. 117, uh, engineering, uh, design, construction administration,
inspection of capital projects. Also, uh, we do design review and inspection of public
infrastructure associated with private development, and I want to point that out because
what a lot of people don't realize is the majority of our infrastructure is not built by
public contract. It's built as part of the development process. So the ... the future of our
operations and maintenance expenses is determined by the outcome of these private
projects. So that's where our regulatory role in that process is so important, as well as the
inspection during the construction of that. So we don't contract the contractors, the... the
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private sector does there. Uh, we also have some regulatory responsibilities within the
engineering division for managing the right -of -way, and we also assist the, uh, Housing
Department with their, uh, regulation of the flood plain. Uh, changes for this year are
none. So we'll move on to streets, traffic engineering and solid waste, uh, that is on...
page 217 of the budget ... 217. Uh, there's... there's really three components in the streets
department. There's... there's streets, traffic engineering, and then solid waste, and ... and
I'll take each of those separately. Uh, beginning with the streets, we of course take care
of pavement maintenance, uh, snow and ice control, street sweeping, and then we also
assist with, uh, first response to natural disasters. And ... and that sounds, might sound
like an out of the blue type of thing, but when you look back to the last five years, we've
lost two construction seasons to that. So that is 40% of our time has been spent on ... on
response to natural disasters, and I think our streets are showing that a little bit. It, uh, it
has cut into our opportunity to do the patching and the maintenance work that we
normally do. The upside to that is FEMA has been financing our streets department for
40% of the last five years and it's helped us keep our heads above water, financially, with
the road use tax funds that are ... that are declining on us. And, uh, when we look at fund
balances, that is the area where I have the most concern is our road use tax fund. So...
any opportunity you get to plug the ... the uh, increase in the gas tax in Iowa, it has not
changed since 1989. There's no inflation adjustment. What we're working with now is
what we worked with in 1989, and ... and it's killin' us! So ... there are no changes
proposed within the streets department there. Or streets division. Uh, within traffic
engineering, we install and maintain traffic signals, signs, and pavement markings. And
we also take care of the non - standard streetlight systems. That is, if it's on a wood pole,
the more likely that's part of the MidAmerican system and we pay a monthly rent on that.
If it's on a aluminum pole or a decorative pole, that is a City system that we maintain out
there. Um, there are no changes proposed for that, as well, but I will point out that, uh,
for our service area, our clients, uh, we also do all the work for the University of Iowa
traffic signals and uh, University Heights traffic signals, as well, so we have some...
some uh, collaboration there. Uh, moving on to wastewater... on page 262, and this
division, uh, we operate both the wastewater plant and the landfill. Those have been
lumped together because of similar regulatory requirements, and technical challenges that
exist for both of them. A lot of them to do with the lab work and the chemistry of it all.
We'll talk about wastewater first right now. Uh, what ... what we do there is we operate
our two wastewater treatment facilities, uh, we maintain hundreds of miles of sanitary
sewer and storm sewer pipes, and then we also manage the natural areas that are
controlled by the Public Works department. And some of those, or a good share of those
natural areas are, um, areas that ... that are used as wetland mitigation, for instance, for
public projects that are in public ownership and those do need to be maintained and that
falls within the wastewater department. Um ... we have no changes proposed in that
budget for this year. Moving on to water, page 266. What we do there is ... is, uh, oh, I'm
sorry. I want to back up to the wastewater for just a second. We ... we serve all of Iowa
City and all of University Heights, and all of the University of Iowa for wastewater. So
we have ... we have three entities there. On water, um, our ... our clients include Iowa
City, all of University Heights, and part of the University of Iowa. They do have their
own water plant, which is kind of nice. It provides a little bit of redundancy in an
extreme situation, uh, but we supply some of the campus, and they supply the rest. Uh,
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the main thing that we do there is we manufacture and distribute water, uh, for
residential, uh, commercial, industrial uses, as well as firefighting. Uh, we ... we pump
out an average of six million gallons per day. I wanted to go through, uh, a visual...
visualization of how many tankers that would be, uh, oil tankers. It'd be interesting to
see how much that would be a year. Um, in the budget we included a 10% rate increase
that was proposed to offset the declining fund balance, um, since then we've had some
discussions and believe we want to back away from that and take more of a wait and see
on the fund balances and ... and see if that stabilizes at a point at which we are
comfortable with. Am I accurate there, Kevin? Okay. So the 10% that was proposed in
here, we want to back away from. Refuse collections and operations. Uh, page 270. Uh,
what we do there is we collect solid waste, yard waste, and recycling from residential
customers up to and including four - plexes, and we regulate the dumpsters in the
downtown area. Uh, we only serve Iowa City in that regard. And we have no changes
proposed for this year. Uh, moving...
Champion/ (mumbled) have the uh ... big trash cans now, does the whole city, is that...
Fosse/ Yes, we have ... we have distributed those to the ... the, all parts of the city. And for the
most part, we ... we get positive feedback on that. Lot ... lot of positive feedback. What
that has really done is reduced our injury rates. For our employees. And that's... that's
the reason we got into the business of doing that.
Throgmorton/ Could I say something about that? You know I ... I guess uh, we received a letter
from Jim Walters, uh, pertaining to that, uh, and you know, Jim's in his 60s so he's
saying it's kind of hard to move this thing around, this big trash container around, move it
down the steps and all of that. And someone from the staff responded. I don't remember
who. Good response, uh, but what it ... what the response made me think is that, um, the,
uh, the possibilities are available for elderly or more infirmed people to have assistance.
It probably is not really well known. Now, maybe all know better than I do from your
own past experience, but ... I'm kind of...kind of elderly, you know, and not all that
physically able as I, not as much so as I used to be. So I didn't know that there was
...that assistance was available. I wouldn't use it, but I still didn't know that it was
available. So, I ... I'm just wondering if there might be a ways to make that more obvious,
uh, to the residents, the users of our system, and then secondly, I wonder if...if all the
residents really knew about the opportunity, whether it would create difficulties for the
staff.
Fosse/ That is ... that is one of the concerns. Uh, certainly we..we let people know when they
call in on the phone. The other aspect of that is ... is our ... our folks that do the garbage
picking are out there and they see the folks when they're... especially the elderly when
they're taking it out to the curb and back, and they'll talk to those folks and let them
know that that service is available, and I think that's where most of our users of that
service come from. It's just one -on -one contact.
Payne/ So it's nothing that's ever been sent out on a bill insert or anything like that. Call if you
need help!
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Fosse/ Right, right! But that is available. If...if you get a ... a note from your doctor uh we'll go
up to the house and ... and uh, carry it out, dump it, and return it to the house. And we'll
do that both for the refuse as well as the recycling. Anything else before we move on?
Okay. Onto the landfill and recycling center. Uh, what we do there is we of course the
landfill's solid waste, but we have a rather odd business plan out there and that is to put
ourselves out of business. We really don't want to be in the landfill business so
we ... create a lot of opportunities for people to do things other than landfill it. So we
have a composting operations out there for both yard waste and food. We did get our
permit altered in the last year so we can accept food waste on a larger scale out there.
And we're working with the dormitories to get food waste out there, as well as some of
the larger restaurant customers. We're working to expand that. Uh, we have recycling
services out there, uh, we provide responsible disposal for household hazardous waste,
sharps, brown goods, which are electronics and uh, waste oil, batteries, that sort of thing.
And we also employ a... a recycling coordinator out there so I guess you would look at
that as the anti - salesman for our landfill. To help people find ways to ... to get rid of their
waste in other ways than ... than landfilling it. Uh, the clients that we serve are Iowa City,
uh, University of Iowa, Coralville, University Heights, North Liberty, Tiffin, Lone Tree,
Hills, unincorporated Johnson County, and then our service area does extend outside of
Johnson County to the communities of Riverside and Kalona. So that truly is a regional
facility and all of those... all of those opportunities are available to those customers. In
the budget this year we've proposed a 5% rate increase, again, to help offset the ... the
reduction in our ... in our fund balances there, and again, upon further study we think
that ... that, uh, we want to take more of a wait and see attitude on that one.
Hayek/ On the landfill, uh, proposed increase, is that applicable to residents and non - residents
alike?
Fosse/ It would be, although what ... what we're recommending is ... is that we do not do the
increase now.
Hayek/ That's right.
Fosse/ Yes.
Hayek/ Like the water, I mean...
Fosse/ Correct.
Hayek/ Yeah, okay.
Fosse/ Correct.
Markus/ The tipping fee did not translate into a rate increase for residents.
Fosse/ It...
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O'Malley/ Correct.
Fosse/ Yes.
O'Malley/ (several talking) That's correct. Curbside did ... was not going to go up. But the...
Dickens/ ...have to keep a certain amount you said as back...
Fosse/ That's right, cause we...
Dickens/ ... $20 million or...
Fosse/ ...we need to maintain our ... our closure and post - closure funds.
Dickens/ (mumbled)
Payne/ So that tipping fee, you're taking that ... that proposed increase in the tipping fee is going
away?
Fosse/ That is correct.
Payne/ Okay.
Fosse/ That is correct, uh, we'll take a wait and see attitude on that one. That has been fixed ... I
want to say 1994 ... and in 2000 we actually lowered the tipping fee, and ... and what it is,
within Iowa, if you produce waste in one county you need to dump in that county, with
the exception of if you take it out of state, and what we found is ... is our clients were
actually trucking to Illinois, uh, to get rid of the garbage, and uh, the rates were lowered
at that point. On to storm water management, page 285. What we do there is we ... we
manage a couple things, both the conveyance of storm water and the quality of storm
water, and it is the onset of the requirements and the regulations regarding the quality of
storm sewer is really what is ... was the catalyst for storm water to become its own utility.
And it's not a bricks and mortar utility like water or waste water, uh, it's... it takes a
different approach, that is that you ... you tend to focus more on keeping the storm water
from getting dirty in the first place, uh, through best management practices of the
watershed versus waste water, where you take it after it's already dirty and you clean it
up before it's discharged to the river. That make sense? They're kind of opposite
approaches but it's ... it's the only practical way to go after the storm water thing. Cause
that involves a ... a lot of community education and ... and uh, best management practices
up within the water shed, um ... the ... the storm water utility does include a fee increase
for this year, which is an extension of what we talked about last year, and that was a
series of four consecutive years of 50 -cent per month increases in storm water fees. And
...and what that does is helps, uh, create enough fund balance in there that we can pay for
more of the storm water projects from storm water fees, versus General Fund. Uh, and
this is ... this is also tied to our reduced buying power of road use tax money, cause back
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in the ... the 80s and 90s, we included many of the storm water expenses for our roadway
projects in ... in the, uh, road use tax fund, and we paid for `em that way. That money is
not available to us now, so we're funding them with GO bonds. This helps reduce our
dependence on GO bonds for storm water related projects. So there is a ... a rate increase
there that we do recommend including in the budget. 50 -cents per month. Uh, our final
section is equipment, and that's on page 295. What we do there is ... is we ... we specify
and purchase vehicles and equipment for all of the City operations, except for Transit.
They are ... they are separate because of that federal funding source there. Uh, we do
repairs and provide preventative maintenance and we do, uh, resale, and we also supply
the fuel for the vehicles, and that's another area where we are ... are regional, in that we
...we supply the fuel for Iowa City's vehicles, as well as Johnson County's, Sheriff s
office, ambulance, hazmat, the administrative vehicles, and we supply fuel for the Iowa
City Community School District, including their busing subcontractor. They all fuel at
our facility. So it's a significant regional facility there. Um, our change in the budget
this year is that in FYI we had a half -time clerk position that was not filled and that, uh,
half -time clerk position goes away in the proposed budget for FYI 3. So with that I'll
open it up to questions ... in Public Works operations.
Discussion:
Hayek/ Can you quantify, uh, the drop of road ... road use taxes, uh, revenues to Iowa City over
the last 10, 20 years? Just ballpark. Or conversely how much more we're borrowing as a
result.
Fosse/ Yes, yes I can. There ... there was, uh, a time when we would routinely use probably $1 tc
2 million of road use tax per year for capital projects, for roadway projects, including
storm sewer and that sort of thing. As well as our traffic signals, pavement markings, uh,
curb ramps, brick street repairs, things like that all came out of road use tax funds. Now,
almost everything except for operations is ... is paid for, uh, with ... with GO debt,
including our, um, our asphalt overlay as well. We...
O'Malley/ Not the asphalt.
Fosse /Okay! Okay. Um ... so the ... the road use tax now only covers our operational expenses,
and if you look at the fund balances, you'll see that those are declining down to ... pretty
small amounts.
O'Malley/ To about $38,000.
Fosse/ That's cuttin' it close! Um, you know, to put that in perspective, uh, this good weather
just in the last month, uh, has put us about $100,000 ahead of what we normally would be
at this time of year. Uh, $38,000 fund balance is ... is basically one bad snowstorm. That
would consume $38,000 of materials and overtime.
Hayek/ Okay.
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Champion/ It might be coming! (laughter)
Markus/ Yeah, it's just a cash flow kind of statement, cause you know that it's ... it's a matter of
time and you're going to spend that money. The newspaper wanted to do a big story on
that and I just said... Midwest, it's, you know, you're going to get your snow and you're
going to get there (several talking) dropping salt. So...
Hayek/ Look forward to June! (laughter)
Throgmorton/ So, Rick, I'd like to ask a hypothetical question, which is not something I'm
advocating, I'm just curious, and you can help me know the answer. Uh, if the City
wanted to adopt a, uh, say a 1 -cent per gallon tax on gasoline sold within the city limits,
could it do it. Now, Eleanor's not here, she probably knows the answer better than
anybody else but...
Fosse/ I don't think we have the legislative ability (both talking)
Markus/ I don't think we have the Home Rule ability to do that.
Throgmorton/ Yeah...
Markus/ ...probably even if we did, it's probably preempted. I can't imagine they'd allow us to
do that. This is ... this is a problem though across the country, the whole gas tax issue.
You go from state to state and you're going to find that this is very similar. We dealt
with it in Michigan. I imagine you dealt with it in Illinois. So...
Hayek/ Cedar Rapids is really impacted. They've got unbelievable amount of road ... length, uh,
relative to population. The geographic scope is massive.
Fosse/ Yep.
Hayek/ Um...
Fosse/ Oh, I'm sorry.
Hayek/ Go ahead.
Fosse/ Oh, I was going to say, that's one of the things that works in Iowa City's favor for road
use tax in that we are relatively compact and contiguous community. So when you look
at ... first of all, road use tax is distributed on a per capita basis. Not per lane mile, not uh,
not ... length of streets and that sort of thing. And ... and that's one of the things that we
keep a close eye on at the state level, because when they look at increasing the ... the road
use tax they also look at different ways of distributing it. And any other way you cut the
pie, Iowa City loses because of our compact and contiguous nature of our community.
Dickens/ So what is the hold -up at the state level to increase it? Is it the gas lobby or...
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Fosse/ Uh, no, no, the ... the lobbies are actually behind the, um, the gas tax increase. The
Governor would like to, uh, spend at least a year trying to cut back, uh, $50 million out of
the transportation budget on a, uh, state, county, and local level. So Ron Knoche and I
are serving on a DOT committee to help examine, uh, ways that efficiencies can be
brought into the system.
Markus/ I think your legislators explained it best when they talked about signing pledges not to
increase taxes. That's (mumbled)
Hayek/ Always part of the ... (mumbled) ... Rick Fosse slide show is another discussion of the
road use tax! (laughter) Okay.
Fosse/ Anything else?
Hayek/ Any questions for Rick on the Public Works operations side? Okay, if not we'll let Rick
go.
Fosse/ Thank you!
Champion/ Good job!
Mims/ Thank you.
Fosse/ Thanks. (several talking)
Hayek/ And urn ... are we at a discussion point generally on ... on ... the whole budget (both
talking)
Markus/ ...whole budget's up for discussion.
Hayek/ Spent some time talking CIP, but this brings us back to ... operations.
Markus/ I think one of the things too that ... Jeff whispered in my ear, we'll ... we'll be doing trend
analysis in the future. You'll see gas tax trends, revenue trends, things like that. So you
have a better understanding of that.
Throgmorton/ I guess what I'd like to know, is ... is ... lots of questions have been asked, various
suggestions have been offered, and ... with regard to the suggestions, it's not at all clear to
me how many of `em had majority support among the Council, cause they were just kind
of processed a little bit. Uh, but ... what I wonder about is what you heard, you know, not
to put too much weight on you, Tom, but ... but all this kind of processing, you know,
makes me wonder what ... whether you heard particular suggestions that you thought had
merit, and that you'd like to support as well, uh ... or questions that you clearly think staff
needs to look into and provide answers, uh, for, with regard to the budget mainly, not
with regard to the CIP.
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Markus/ Well I, you know, I look at all aspects of it, whether it's operations or CIP, and I didn't
hear any real, um... strong views about additions or necessary cuts. That doesn't mean I
didn't sense that maybe there were some questions about some of the issues, you know,
surrounding some of those recommendations, uh... so I would need to hear more from
you folks if you had specific concerns with any of the recommendations.
Dobyns/ Well I had a specific concern about, um, a peripheral item, not necessarily in the
budget, but um...
Hayek/ Is your mic on?
Dobyns/ Oh, I'm sorry! Thank you. (noise on mic) Um, regarding the Mormon Trek
intersection with (mumbled) we're going to be discussing public safety, uh, traffic
intersection, um, issues coming up, I think it would be helpful for me, um, to ask
members of the Council if it would be okay to spend City staff time in researching
specifically why the Mormon Trek, Benton intersection, you know, in terms of, you
know, whatever public safety issues it has had, um ... and that would help inform me not
only for that specific issue but for other issues about intersection traffic safety, and uh,
not that I would, you know, try and change our budget, uh, based on what I hear, but I... it
would be okay to actually have City staff spend a little bit of time, bring it to a future
work session. Uh...
Champion/ (mumbled) ... be done at the metro group, wouldn't it? Don't they do intersections,
or...
Hayek/ Well, no this ... this was on the unfunded list today.
Dobyns/ This is the unfunded list.
Hayek/ Those are kind of two separate but related issues. One is whether to try to move that
particular project up on the budget...
Dobyns/ And that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking for a, uh, City staff to spend research time
to take a look at it. Now if it's compelling, and if this new Council should want to, you
know, be (mumbled) budgetary consideration, um ... but mainly my ... my request is to
spend City staff time and, you know, going looking back at the data regarding that
intersection, as compared to other intersections in the City, and bring that back to us at a
work session.
Markus/ That's ... I don't think that's a major effort on our part to at least look at that and come
back with a report analysis of that sort, so that you can have that kind of infor ... I mean,
what ... I think what Rick's asking is that (several talking)
Dobyns/ Yeah.
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Mims/ Yeah, that's fine if it's not... (several talking)
Markus/ We'll take care of that.
Throgmorton/ So ... so with regard to the overall process, uh, I guess I'd want to say, just because
of the way I work, I cannot and will not make sort of firm decisions without hearing from
members of the public, you know, in the public hearing process associated with the ... the
budget and so on. So I find all this to be tremendously enlightening and really powerful
and important, uh, information to receive, certainly influenced my thinking, uh, and am
certainly on board with virtually all of the budget, but there are particulars, uh, that I
might want to, um ... uh, well, let's use the word tweak, uh, depending on what I hear
from the public, you know, and I ... cause I take what ... what they say at public hearings
completely seriously and I believe we ... and I'm sure you all agree with this, we ... we
need to be open to hearing what they say and being influenced by it.
Mims/ Just a point of information. I think last year when we did this, zero people from the
public came to the public hearings.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, yeah, and maybe nobody'll show up, but ... but I believe in the process and
(both talking)
Mims/ Oh, I do too!
Throgmorton/ ... (mumbled)
Markus/ In fact I think you're obligated to all do that, but I think what we're asking at this point
is there some ... some overriding concern or something that you wish ... to add, um...
Mims/ No! (laughter)
Markus/ ...I won't get defensive about that, uh (laughter)
Mims/ I'm not worried!
Markus/ ...too defensive, uh, you know, if there's something in there that you'd suggest that we
change before we bring it back at the public hearing. The other thing that's going to
happen, in fact it's already... it's already happening, that is, um, our tax rates are
changing, so maybe you want to comment on that.
O'Malley/ Yeah, I...
Markus/ ...clear my throat (coughing)
O'Malley/ ...just last night, or the other night, I got an email from the County Auditor, and there
was a change in valuations, uh, due to the co -op decisions for this year.
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Markus / Krupp decision.
O'Malley/ And...
Hayek/ To the good or to the bad?
O'Malley/ To the bad. And then we also ... then today I got, well, change on one of the, uh, TIF
areas had to be recalculated to the bad, uh, for the tax rates, so instead of being 17.27 it's
now 17.31. So, uh ... we have to come ... we have to prepare the budget, uh, notice of
public hearing and after that point, you can ... you can't raise the tax levy anymore, and so
we're looking at ... what I'm looking for you is ... is there anything that's going to be a tax
consequence to go up ... cause you can always go down at the public hearing, or you can
switch things around, but you cannot raise the taxes at that public hearing.
Markus/ Well, I ... and I think the other thing that probably is deserving of conversation amongst
the group and staff is the whole issue of what happens if commercial property values, um,
change post- adoption and what does that do. Is our only option to cut at that point? Can
we not raise the levy at that point?
O'Malley/ No, we cannot raise the levy. It's ... it's, and that's happened in the past ... where we
had to cut...
Dobyns/ So if we're really pessimistic that, um, some information we can't control regarding
commercial property taxes is going to go down, it doesn't ... it isn't a good idea to
anticipate that and perhaps raise the levy that we do have control of? Because...
O'Malley/ Well...
Dobyns/ ...we just don't know.
O'Malley/ ...just don't know, and that's one of the reasons we keep fund balances in case
something happens that we can't control, at least we can mitigate it til we have time next
year to decide how we're going to address it.
Hayek/ And realistically, we'd be mitigating a portion of the year.
O'Malley/ That's correct.
Hayek/ ...you know... politically nothing would happen if it happens ... til some, at some point in
the 2013 ... 2012.
O'Malley/ Yeah.
Hayek/ ...the effects of that wouldn't be felt until later (both talking)
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O'Malley/ ...that's correct, I think they phase it in, or the proposal last year was to phase it in, so
that, uh, fiscal 13 would not have a tax impact. It'd be fiscal 14 that, uh, commercial
property issue would come ... come through.
Markus/ You're absolutely certain of that?
O'Malley/ That's how it was phased last year. That we had ... that they, uh, that's how they
planned on doing it. Now that's a proposal that was done, but they also had some
onerous, urn ... tax... levy, tax rate ratchets, which is pretty draconian. You can only grow
so much based on CPI or something like that and ... so, it would ... it would actually
encourage you to have a higher tax levy.
Mims/ To start with...
O'Malley/ To start with.
Markus/ Yeah... the... they create the base year, and then you get your ... because post the base
year you can only go up so much so what everybody does is load up their base year, at
least those that are paying attention (several talking) some places like when I was in
Minnesota hadn't paid attention and they kept their base year too low and ... so, those
things happen but ... but so much of this ... gets repeated from one state to the other. Now
that I've been in four different states in the Midwest, I can tell you there's very few new
ideas. Most of `em have come from someplace else and, you know, whatever the ... the
objective is in terms of taxes they'll... they'll try it someplace else. So...
Hayek/ To circle back to Jim's, uh, initial question, um, is there anything you've heard, uh,
whether Saturday or today, uh, out ... aside from the UniverCity, uh, issue that causes you
or staff generally to suggest, well, maybe we ought to tweak what's been proposed?
Markus/ Look, when I ... when I present, um, what we present, and all the staff goes through it,
we all sit down, we go through each one of these departments, item by item, laboriously,
and so at the time I make the recommendation, I'm pretty comfortable with those
numbers, and I think that's the only way I can approach these things. You can then get
into different strategies after that as to, you know, protecting the city if you expect more,
um, tax value to fall, like from the Krupp decision or from maybe a potential decision of
the State Legislature, but as Kevin says, the State Legislative decisions probably are
delayed, um ... and aren't likely to cause us an issue right now. So, I would say, you
know, no, I haven't really heard anything that ... that concerns me. Um ... I apologize if I
overreacted earlier to the, uh, question of, you know, raising, uh, more bonds to, uh,
spend more money in that regard. Um ... that's happened to me before when we present
budgets. I think from my perspective as a manger, I always present the budget, you
know, that I expect, you know, Council can live with and ... and that staff can live with.
Hayek/ And conversely... in light of the new information on .... on co -op properties, etc., should
we be taking a more conservative approach to FYI 3?
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O'Malley/ I think it's too early to say. I think we've built in enough ... these are estimates when
it comes down to it. Uh, we have good reserves. We use them judiciously. Uh, we can't
predict the future, and whatever happens we all have to ride it out.
Dickens/ (both talking)
O'Malley/ And we're in a good spot to be riding it out.
Dickens/ You feel comfortable with the 17.31?
O'Malley/ Yes. I'd like to see it 17.20, but ... I am comfortable with that.
Markus/ You know operationally ... I have to tell you, I've been here a year. Jeff's been here,
you know, less than two months, and Adam's, you know, working on these things.
We ... we have a very short tenured management team, and as we evaluate operations, um,
I'm very cautious about just jumping in and saying, well, you can do it this way or that
way. There's customs, there's history here. You have t kind of work your way through
some of those issues before you can really change operations too drastically so ... while
personally I had hoped maybe that I would be further along in understanding this, it's a
big operation and we've had a lot to do, even in this last year (mumbled) that I've been
here so ... I would say given us ... giving us some time. You're going to probably see us
making some pretty strong recommendations for directional changes and uh, maybe
operational changes going forward, but ... uh, we will be considerate of who's here and...
and how things have operated and the culture of the City in terms of how those things
have been done in the past, and maybe in the future.
Hayek/ Thank you for that.
Payne/ I ... I have a question that's probably... it's more on how accounting works probably. But,
I asked one of the questions of one of the departments, I don't even remember who it
was, about line items that they had that were less than $5,000, the capital items. So, op
...I mean, does your accounting system even allow that to be capitalized, or will they
have to be taken out and...
O'Malley/ No, those'll be taken out.
Payne/ Okay.
O'Malley/ Our accounting system will not allow that, and that gentleman's been here several
years (laughter)
Payne/ I wasn't pointing fingers! I was just trying to understand how the accounting system ... it
will not allow you to capitalize something that doesn't meet the threshold. Okay.
Mims/ Kevin's still trying to train them! (laughter)
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Champion/ We're lucky to have Kevin! He's ... he's a great resource, but I think you've already
made some tough decisions in this budget, and ... and I think that shows really strong
leadership, and I thank you for that, cause it's only going to get worse.
Markus/ Actually as we, um, have to tell you, for as bad as I thought it was, had to, um ... our
review of the indicators suggests that it's getting close to bottom and ... and while they say
that real estate isn't going to come back in a ... in a "V" curve, meaning it went down real
hard and it comes back real strong. It's probably gone down pretty hard, but it's going to
come back pretty gradually, so ... and as real estate is our biggest concern in terms of our
revenue source, in terms of (coughing) taxes, it's ... I think Iowa City's been very
fortunate!
Mims/ Very fortunate!
Markus/ You look around this country. You even look around this state, I mean, read the stories
coming out of Des Moines. Des Moines has gone through significant cutbacks. Uh, we
haven't experienced that (mumbled). So, having come from Michigan, sometimes it's
...it's a little different for me to be looking at a situation, quite frankly, that's as healthy
as Iowa City is ... in the state of Iowa (mumbled) just I'm not used to that, for the past ten
years. So ... you stand in pretty good stead generally. And I think Iowa does in terms of
the country as well, but that doesn't mean this is over by any (mumbled) (noise on mic)
Hayek/ Okay. Um ... well, does ... are there (several talking and laughing) um, are there specific
changes, uh, or concerns people want to express before we go home tonight, that we
haven't already gone over?
Markus/ And ... and I would say that we understand that once you go through the public hearing,
if you get some big push back or some concern that ... that arises between now and then,
we fully expect that we're going to have to address those types of issues through the
public hearing process. That is part of our process. That's our expectation that, you
know, you're still going to have issues if you get a lot of pushback, so...
Hayek/ Right. Okay then ... I think we'll stop while we're ahead and uh ... thank everyone for
their hard work and staff for covering (several talking) and uh, we'll see you tomorrow!
(laughter)
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