HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-06-04 TranscriptionJune 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 1
Council Present: Champion, Dickens (arrived at 5:10), Dobyns, Hayek, Mims, Payne,
Throgmorton
Staff Present: Markus, Fruin, Dilkes, Karr, Fosse, Nations, Bentley, O'Brien, Moran,
Rummel, Havel, Davidson, Bockenstedt
Others Present: Bramel (UISG)
Council Time:
Hayek/ Okay, well why don't we, uh... get started with our work session. I want to welcome
everyone. And uh ... (noises on mic, a lot of background noise and the speakers sound
like they're in a tunnel) um ... Terry's going to be here a little late, so what I thought we'd
do on Council appointments is maybe just put that back on our agenda and wait for him
to show up. If that's okay. Um, but we'll start out with questions regarding agenda
items. (noises on mic)
Champion/ (mumbled)
ITEM 10. PARKING FEE CHANGES - AMENDING TITLE 3, "CITY FINANCES,
TAXATION AND FEES," CHAPTER 4, "SCHEDULE OF FEES, RATES,
CHARGES, BONDS, FINES AND PENALTIES" OF THE CITY CODE,
TO ADJUST OFF - STREET HOURLY PARKING FEES INCREASE ON-
STREET HOURLY PARKING FEES AND CHANGE EXPIRED METER
FINE STRUCTURE. (SECOND CONSIDERATION)
Bramel/ Um, Item 10 (difficult to hear) that uh... (unable to hear) if there was, uh, you know
moving (mumbled) parking ramps to 24 hours charging or if it was just ... just, uh (unable
to hear) maybe later.
O'Brien/ Yeah, right now 24/7 isn't a part of this proposal, and I ... I don't have a timeline for
when that will be. It's ... it's in the future a ways.
Bramel/ (mumbled)
O'Brien/ So we'll bring that up again when it's (both talking) (difficult to hear)
ITEM 3f(9) Debbie & Mike Hartley: Rebuilding of The Dental Lab
Throgmorton/ Matt, I think ... I'd like to ask a question about Item 3f(9). Letter from Brian and
Debbie Harley about their building on 1515 Jackson Street in the Longfellow
Neighborhood.
Champion/ Yes.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 2
Throgmorton/ Uh, I wonder if somebody in the staff could explain, provide a little more detail
about what's going on with that building and whether anything reasonable could be done.
Davidson/ Yeah, we're ... we're working with the ... the folks who wrote the letter — it's a family.
Um, this was a property (noises on mic) burnt completely to the ground, uh, on Jackson
Street, which is the continuation of F Street between 7th Avenue and uh ... uh, Dear, uh,
Rundell Street, uh, two -block long street. Uh, it was (noises on mic, difficult to hear) that
for ... when I was a little kid it was an egg hatchery (noises on mic, difficult to hear) many
years it's been a place that I think manufacturers, uh, dentures. Um, kind of a family
cottage business and then they had either one or two apartments, and it was actually one
of the apartment tenants that started the fire. Under the current City code, uh, if
something is destroyed to, I believe we've changed it from 75 % ... from ... from 100% to
75% with our last code change, the notion being that if something is out of compliance
and it's destroyed to a certain point that, um, it shouldn't be allowed to be reconstructed;
if it's just only slightly damaged then you're allowed to construct it (noises on mic) and
so these people are falling under that regulation where their property was destroyed to the
point. It's a non - conforming use. Uh ... (noises on mic) a use that you would probably
more likely find in the commercial intensive zone or you know probably a commercial
intensive zone. Um, this ... this is zoned RS -8, which is ... just single - family residential.
Um, after discussing it with `em and ... and certainly we have sympathy for the situation
they find themselves in, we are going to consider — it'll ultimately be up to you — but we
are going to consider possibly changing the City code, uh, we're going to take it through
Joint Staff next week, I believe, um, which'11 start the legislative process to basically
offer through the special exception process the opportunity to allow a non - conforming,
uh, use that's destroyed, basically, to be, uh, scrutinized through the special exception
process on a case -by -case basis, and something that it was felt that even though it's non-
conforming that a particular situation should be allowed to be rebuilt, that through that it
would be allowed to be rebuilt.
Throgmorton/ Great! I'm glad to hear you're ... (both talking)
Davidson/ ...this is basically the only remedy right now, Jim, that we can offer the folks.
Champion/ And I think they've already filed the papers for (both talking)
Davidson/ (noises on mic, difficult to hear) (both talking) They've applied for us to develop that.
Champion/ Right, right, right (both talking)
Davidson/ (mumbled)
Throgmorton/ ...thanks.
Hayek/ Is...is there a ... a deadline or..or some period of time after which ... under a circumstance
like this you ... you wouldn't even be eligible for that, if we go in that direction?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 3
Davidson/ Well I guess that would all depend on how we set the code provision up, Matt, um,
which'll ... which'11 be scrutinized by the staff person...
Hayek/ Okay.
Davidson/ ...develops the opportunities, but nothing's been developed yet.
Hayek/ (mumbled)
Davidson/ And, you know, obviously there's going to be cases where you don't want to see
something... necessarily, um, rebuilt that's non - conforming, but ... there may be
circumstances, uh ... where it should be allowed, and this would ... this would at least
allow that, if.. if you decide that that's some... something we should have in the code.
Hayek/ Okay.
ITEM 9. PARATRANSIT SERVICE CONTRACT - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR
TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE 28E AGREEMENT
BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND JOHNSON COUNTY FOR
THE CONTRACTING OF PARATRANSIT SERVICE.
Throgmorton/ Thanks, Jeff! Are ... are we going to talk about SEATS any at this moment?
Hayek/ Want to lead us on this, Tom, and tell us what...
Markus/ Well we're going to have this on the regular agenda. That's when the presentation
(mumbled) Do you have a specific question?
Throgmorton/ Uh, well, let me see.
Markus/ We thought we'd ask the Council for some consensus in terms of direction. It's likely
the agreement will come back on the 18th for, uh, formal approval.
Throgmorton/ Well, there are some things I will want to bring up, and so I was just wondering
whether we should do that in this context or in the formal meeting context.
Markus/ Not knowing what you're going to bring up, it's hard for me to say which context to
bring `em up in! (laughter)
Throgmorton/ Yeah, uh ... well, would ... Matt, what do you want to do?
Hayek/ Well I ... I don't ... I mean, if you want to get into some things now that ... that's fine. We
will have the, uh, I presume the SEATS audience here at 7:00 and the formal presentation
from staff at 7:00 (both talking)
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 4
Throgmorton/ (mumbled)
Markus/ If you want to ask the question I can tell you whether I would advise (both talking)
Throgmorton/ Well it's ... it's not really so much a question as it ... as it is kind of probing
possibilities, you know, trying to, um, invent some transitional measure that is ... is not
fully compliant with the recommendation that ... that Chris is giving us, uh, but instead is
some ... some sort of intermediate thing. But ... maybe be better to wait for the...
Markus / And you ... and you recognize that the staff recommendation is to implement these
changes, I think it's September... first part of September.
Throgmorton/ Right. I do understand that.
Dobyns/ Are you looking for something like between... B, C, and D? I think there were like
four. Is that what you're...
Throgmorton/ Uh, yeah (both talking) yeah, basically, I mean, that's a real shorthand version of
it, yes. Uh, but instead of immediately and completely, uh, phasing out those two, uh,
services — the Sunday service and the half -fare. Instead doing something more
transitional, maybe, uh, for example, instead of doing a... getting rid of the half fare,
maybe shifting, uh, to three- quarters fare for the first year. That kind of thing and, you
know, I guess I could elaborate but...
Markus/ At the end of the day, Jim, it's all about money. (several talking) ... and ... and it's all
about, um ... you know, the shift in where these payments come from at some point.
Throgmorton/ Right.
Markus/ ...who's paying for what service.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, but ... yeah, and I guess I don't think in the end it's really all about money.
It ... it's about, urn ... um ... providing a service to the least well off people of our
community, and doing so in a way that would cost us...us a little bit more money, but not
much. (noises on mic) So ... that's the general topic (both talking)
Markus/ ... talking about.
Hayek/ You know, maybe we should take it up this evening. We'll have the ... data on the screen
and the presentation, and the input from the audience, and in any event, we don't have a
final 28E for passage this evening, as I understand it.
Markus/ That's correct.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 5
Hayek/ So it...it has to come back. But ... but I think staff is looking for us to give a (noises on
mic) yea or nay to the recommendation, uh, or modification (noises on mic) (both
talking)
Throgmorton/ ...you know I ask, uh, Chris a couple questions that he responded to, and his
responses are in the, uh, extra packet we got late this afternoon. (noises on mic)
Hayek/ That sounds good? Other agenda... items? Going once, going twice ... okay! Since, uh,
Terry's here, why don't we do Council appointments.
Council Appointments:
Hayek/ We have ... couple of `em to make here. Um ... I think ... what is it, Airport ... my little
thing got messed up here. Here we go! These bubbles! (laughter) (several talking)
Yeah, Airport Zoning Commission, anybody know Matthew, uh, Wolford? Looks
qualified to me.
Mims/ Yeah!
Throgmorton/ Looks qualified for sure.
Hayek/ ... way around an airport.
Dobyns/ He flies and he doesn't crash! (laughter)
Dickens/ Well so far!
Dobyns/ You can assume! (laughter)
Dickens/ He's still alive!
Hayek/ Okay, so uh, let's put him on (laughter) and then Human Rights Commission.
Champion/ (mumbled)
Throgmorton/ So we have, what, four applicants for one position, right?
Hayek/ Uh, yes. (noises on mic)
Dobyns/ Does anybody know any of these candidates?
Champion/ (mumbled) difficult decision cause there's always so many good candidates applying
for that position.
Throgmorton/ I ... I don't know any of `em personally that ... at least that I recall.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 6
Payne/ I don't either, but a couple of `em don't even live in the city.
Mims/ (several talking) ...one didn't so I ... took that one out immediately even if they're
planning to move, they're not here now so...
Payne / Right!
Dobyns/ Does City staff have any, I mean ... know of any of these people? Tom?
Markus/ No.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Throgmorton/ I wonder if...(several talking)
Markus/ ... staff that want to comment?
Dobyns/ Well...
Hayek/ Has ... has anyone had interaction with anybody? I don't ... I don't know these names,
um...
Throgmorton/ I've not, no. (several responding) You know, ideally ... at least some of us would
know somebody (several talking) or ... or had some conversation with some of the
applicants.
Dobyns/ Rachel (mumbled)
Dickens/ (mumbled)
Hayek/ I might throw out a pitch for the Amos candidate, if for no other reason than, um... that
we, there's a ... a blue collar tie. I mean, it was a very short application. I'm not going to
give it a high grade for in- depth, uh, filling out of the questionnaire, but ... I don't know if
we have someone from the industrial, blue collar side on that commission.
Champion/ I'm going to shove that... application out the door, because of that, but I think you
make a valid point. So I'm willing to consider it.
Mims/ Uh huh. Yeah.
Hayek/ I, again, I don't know any (several talking)
Dobyns/ ...can be better or worse.
Hayek/ Sorry?
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 7
Dobyns/ I, yeah, I think ... what do you all think about, um ... and I have the same interest that
Matt does, but ... um ... not so much that I'm willing to just do it in hand, um ... I talked
with Matt earlier about what's the tradition of like, I guess vetting if for no other word,
um, someone is probably meeting with them or ... I mean, I'd be willing to call this
person, meet with them briefly, and just get a sense, um...
Champion/ You know, I think that might be a good idea, before we thrust somebody on this
X601011M31"
Hayek/ Yeah, I don't ... we don't have to take action tonight.
Champion/ No.
Karr/ No, you can...
Dobyns/ And I can report back...
Champion/ I mean, I think (both talking)
Dobyns/ Any of us can do it in theory, I'll just volunteer (several talking)
Karr / And just to note that each applicant is, uh, encouraged to contact Council Members
individually and is provided their phone numbers, as well.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, a couple other thoughts come to mind. I think we've seen an application
from Rachel Graber, more than once.
Hayek/ Have we?
Throgmorton/ Over the past several months. Is that... does that... is the name familiar to the rest
of ya?
Dobyns/ I know her parents. I don't know her... myself.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, and ... so this, just an observation. The other is ... I don't know, I was pretty
impressed with Andrea Cohen's on ... on paper, I mean, her application on paper.
Hayek/ Yep.
Throgmorton/ But...
Hayek/ Well let's ... let's follow your recommendation, Rick, and not take action and ... and uh
(both talking)
Dobyns/ Bring it up again on the 18th9
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 8
Hayek/ Yeah!
Karr/ Defer till June 18`"?
Hayek/ Sure! And I...
Champion/ We could all contact one of them... and get a feel (both talking)
Karr/ Would you like us ... we will be sending out a letter to them indicating you have deferred.
Did you wish us to put in that application, um, an interest to have `em call you?
Payne/ Sure (several responding)
Karr/ We can do it again, if you'd like. We'll be sending a letter anyway. And it doesn't
preclude anyone from con... from any, for any Council Member to contact them, as well,
but as long as we're sending the letter.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, I...
Karr/ If you'd like...
Throgmorton/ I think it's a good idea!
Dobyns/ So is that in lieu of us calling them (several talking)
Karr/ ...no, not at all!
Dobyns/ Okay.
Hayek/ I'd be interested in your feedback, Rick.
Dobyns/ (mumbled)
Hayek/ So do we need a motion on the Human Rights one?
Karr/ To defer till June 18`"
Dobyns/ Move to de ... oh, no! (laughter)
Mims/ Let's see, you're about ... (several talking) two hours early! (laughter)
Champion/ No, I don't think four hours!
Hayek/ All right, so we'll just put Mr. Wolford on Airport Zoning and...
Dobyns/ Jim, you're supposed to throw something at me before I do that (laughter)
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 9
Hayek/ No! Motion, discussion, roll call — cheat sheet! All right. Flood update!
Flooding Update:
Fosse/ Thank you!
Hayek/ Fosse, you've been a busy man, as have many others on staff these last few days!
Fosse/ Yes, we've had a lot of...lot of busy people lately (several talking) Uh, let me get this
cued up for you. (several talking)
Hayek/ Sorry. Wait a second, Rick. Did I miss...
Dickens/ Public Art. We just had one applicant. (both talking)
Throgmorton/ Bill Nusser (several talking)
Hayek/ Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! I didn't even mark `em cause he (several talking)
Champion/ ...be okay, don't you?
Hayek/ Yeah, he's (several talking)
Dobyns/ I'm not willing to call him (several talking)
Dickens/ ...business background. (laughter) No, he'd be good.
Hayek/ Ok, Rick!
Fosse/ Thank you! Go ahead and do the ... thank you, Marian! Urn ... what I want to do tonight
is ... is just give you an overview of what's been going on for the past week or so and, uh,
talk a little bit about how it's different from 08 and ... and some ways 93. Uh, talk about
what we've accomplished and ... and where we're going. Uh, this picture right here is, it
was taken, it's centered on Lower City Park, and you see Dubuque Street on the right
and, uh, the Park Road bridge over on the left, over here. It's kinda a panoramic view of
it all. Uh, it seems that we ... we should have known this was coming with all the crazy
rains we were getting this spring, as well as throughout the whole Iowa River watershed,
uh, it... it seemed to reach a climax last weekend as far as urgency and... and surge on the
Iowa River. Um, what we're seeing here is the primary, uh, conduit for the reservoir
flowing full, uh, what you're seeing there is about 18,400 cubic feet per second of flow
coming out of there. Um, they expect it to stay roughly at this level, um, through
Thursday, and if we don't get significant additional rainfall it should peak at that point,
uh, about three feet below the spillway. It'll begin to work its way back down. Now the
flow we're experiencing here in Iowa City's been teetering today between 19,800 and
19,900 cfs, and that's from contributions at Clear Creak and Rapid Creek downstream, as
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 10
well as other ... other local drainage ways. Uh, which at the present time is ... is somewhat
of a manageable flow for us, and we hope ... hope that we don't exceed that. Um, all the
usual places are flooding. As we'd expect, we've got Dubuque Street here, uh, this is
taken over along Taft Speedway. The pond in Idyllwild is now one with the Iowa River.
They're joined on the surface now.
Throgmorton/ Rick, could I... could I ask you a question?
Fosse/ Sure!
Throgmorton/ With regard to Dubuque Street, do you have any idea how ... how deep the water is
at its deepest point? On the ... on the road?
Fosse/ I can't tell you off the top of my head. (both talking) There are ways we can figure that
out and... and follow up with you though. (several talking) ... on the depth there.
Dickens/ It's four to six feet, roughly, on the pole.
Payne/ ...pole sticking out of the ground.
Fosse/ Yeah!
Mims/ (both talking)
Fosse/ Question is is the deepest spot in ... in view right here. Uh, but we hope that, if things go
well and we don't get additional significant rain, we'll begin to see Dubuque Street again
by the middle of the month. Or second half of the month, and we'll get that cleaned up
and ... and back in operation. Um ... our sandbagging operations were going this weekend.
We had a lot of volunteers down in helping out, and what we're doing this year is we
have a... a centralized location where we're preparing sandbags. We're palletizing them,
and then delivering them out to the businesses and homes and individuals as they need
them, palletized, and then they can put them in place and that operation just works a lot
better rather than trying to have the bagging doing on at the locations here. Uh, it's
something we learned in 08. Um, the ... the west side levee has been built, but not
constructed, so we put in place some temporary protection for that neighborhood down
there using HESCO barriers, and we've got the first layer in, and if necessary we're
prepared to go another layer on top of this. Um, down on Stevens Drive we are ... are
putting in place, or we're operating with something that we put in place after the 93
flood, and that is, uh, some backflow prevention valves and then using, uh, just the
natural landscape to keep the water out. What you see in the upper corner here is the way
it looked in 08 down along south Gilbert Street. This will work okay up to a point. It
... it will work fine for us until the river gets about another half foot higher, and at that
point it'll begin to come out of the intakes at the low point near the whitecap on south
Gilbert Street, and we'll probably lose those outside two lanes, uh, hopefully that will be
the most that we lose, but it's possible we could end up closing that again. The other
vulnerability we have here is if there's a local rainfall that exceeds this pump's capacity,
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 11
then we begin to have street flooding because those storm sewer valves are shut. Uh, so
Hills Bank has wisely put in place HESCO barriers around their facility, urn ... prepared
for ... for things to get deeper. Uh, another thing that we put in place after the ... the 93
flood was the backflow prevention gates, um, by the intersection of Rocky Shore Drive
and Highway 6. This is the old Reilly Law Firm building, and we have three pumps in
place. You can see two here. There's a third on the backside. Again, this works okay
for an event like this. You can see in the upper -right hand corner how it looked in 08.
Um, again, our vulnerability is is we have a heavy local rain, these three pumps may not
be able to keep up and that's ... that has a lot to do with the ... the reason for the ... the
project that we're close to bidding. We ... we should bid later this summer, the project for
the flood gates, and uh, and pumps for this location. Uh, this is Riverside Drive. Uh,
again there ... there are protections that we put in after 93, are working fine right now, uh,
but, uh, here's... here's the way it looked in 08. The University fully understands the
vulnerability of that location. They've put in their temporary flood protection for the
Arts Campus West Building there.
Mims/ What kind of a wall is that, Rick?
Fosse/ They ... they call it `invisible' wall. It's one that's... that's disassembled. The foundation
system stays in place, and the side ... always, and then they ... it's stored on site and then
they ... they (both talking)
Mims/ Is it just like ... pieces of metal that interlock with each other?
Fosse/ Yes, yeah it's aluminum and then there are little rubber gaskets in between each of these
pieces that goes (several talking)
Dickens/ ...when they were building it they were drilling those things in and setting up out
temporarily when they first built that.
Fosse/ Oh, getting it all...
Dickens/ A couple years ago or a year ago.
Fosse/ Yeah (mumbled) all just right.
Champion/ What keeps water from just going under those things, or are they actually into the
ground?
Fosse/ They've got a ... a gasket along the bottom there.
Champion/ Oh, I see.
Fosse/ Where it interfaces with the sidewalk. Uh, we are about at the capacity for that lift station
that serves that area now. You can see it startin' to boil out of the ... the manhole, and you
can also see it coming up between the sidewalk and the curb in a location down there. So
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 12
we're not far off from exceeding the capacity of that protection system that's in place. If
you recall, that's one of the, uh, the projects, a joint project, with the University of Iowa
to upgrade that ... that lift station, but it's kind of far out on our priorities right now
because of the secondary means of protections that the University has in place down
there. Um, this is down at the intersection of Normandy and Manor Drive, and it's
currently below the river level right now. We're able to keep that dry, uh, and access to
this area by putting in place this, uh, this blockage of the ... the main intake down there,
and we've got a couple pumps. We've got this small one that just deals with the seepage
coming through the ground from being below the river level, and then we have the larger
pump there for if we get rains, uh, to pump that out of there.
Champion/ What is it ... where does it pump the water to?
Fosse/ Out to the river. You can see the pipes going out there. The hoses (both talking)
Champion/ Oh, yeah, okay. All right.
Fosse/ Now if you work your way on around Normandy Drive, you ... you'll get to the other end
and there's another set of intakes down there. We are making no attempt to block those
and pump those because it ... it's more difficult to do and there's very little return on
doing that, uh, so that's just being allowed to flood down there. Um, over on the other
side of the river on Taft Speedway, when ... when the boats appear in the driveways and
ducks are swimming past the homes, that's... that's one of our trigger points for, uh,
recommended evacuations, and that's what we've done. We've issued recommended
evacuations for the nine homes along Taft Speedwel ... St ... Taft Speedway, as well as
three homes along Normandy Drive, those that are between ... in that far end where you
saw flooding between the street and the river. Uh, Rocky Shore Drive is about one -half
inch from water coming out on the road at this time. It's ... it's up inside the intakes and
just about to come out. Uh, so if we see the river come up much more, we'll either be
driving through some shallow water there or ... or if it comes up significantly more, we'll
need to close that at this time.
Dobyns/ Hey, Rick, while we're here the, um, Coralville mitigation efforts with that levee behind
those properties along the strip, where it turns into, uh, Iowa City at Wig and Pen, so the
water goes up and then there's that, um, space under the trestle.
Fosse/ Yes.
Dobyns/ Uh ... that's kind of like a hole in the levee, isn't it, I mean...
Fosse/ Exactly!
Dobyns/ What happens with ... with that in ... I know we're having a lift station...
Fosse/ Yep!
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 13
Dobyns/ I don't think a lift station's going to take care of that. What happens to that? Does that
get plugged?
Fosse/ In ... in the long -term, the ... there'll be a large flood gate there, and that's what is ... will be
a part of the project that we'll bid later this summer. In the short-term, if we need to
activate that this summer, we'll put jersey barriers right in that crossing and then we'll fill
the sandbags around that to plug it the best we can.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Fosse/ So, we're just ... an inch away from getting water onto ... on the Rocky Shore Drive there.
Uh, at the wastewater plant we're over half way into our $55 million project of expanding
the south waste water treatment plant so we don't need to worry about the north plant
going under water like this. That one is well under way. Uh, continuing on on public
infrastructure, uh, if you recall in 08 we put a significant amount of effort in protecting
our well houses and their power supply. We don't need to worry about that anymore.
The power supplies have been elevated. The well houses have been flood - proofed, and
the electrical gear inside the buildings has been located in the top part of the buildings.
Um, we've just put plastic on here as a precautionary measure, if there's ... if there's
prolonged contact with water we just don't want the limestone soaking that up over the
long -term. If we need to get in, we'll go through the top half of the Mr. Ed door here.
(several talking and laughing) The Park Road bridge is ... is doing well. For now we've
got ... we still have some room between the water surface and the, uh, and the bottom of
the beams. We talk about backwater, uh, cre ... created by these things. I want to show
you what it is when we're talking about it. We've got five piers out there and you can
see ... see the water surface the way it...it comes up here, uh, from contact with that. This
in itself is minor, uh, when it gets up to a point where it makes contact with the beams is
when the backwater really begins to get significant up in the ... the 14 -inch range
and ... and better. Uh, the University is ... is just done a remarkable job of implementing
their ... their flood response plan, uh, putting in place HESCO barriers, uh, from north end
of the campus, all the way to the south end of the campus. This is down by the railroad
tracks at the end of Madison Street. They've got a number of pumps to deal with that
internal drainage along the way. Uh, this also might be a good test for the flood resilient
building that they put in there at... at the boat house, which I think really is a very good
idea, uh, for that location.
Mims / Rick, did they ... did the University buy all those HESCO barriers and just keeping them...
for every five, 20 years that we need `em? (laughs)
Fosse/ I think that they do own most of those. I don't know if there was a portion of them that
they're renting, but they ... they have a lot of them in place and ... and stored.
Mims/ That they own. Okay.
Fosse/ Yep, so that they can deploy them as needed.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 14
Mims / Where'd they get all the sand so fast? I mean, you talk about an event like this and
there's just tons and tons and tons of sand that have been moved to fill these barriers
and ... and down around Park ... or Parkview Church and all that. Where... where's
everybody getting all the sand?
Fosse/ Well the sand is ... is coming from the local sand pits, and ... and where this is different in
08, the ... the flooding is not so widespread yet that the sand pits are flooded out. Um, as
those flood, then we need to drive further and further to get sand, and it takes more trucks
and it takes more time.
Dickens/ They've been rolling through downtown. I think they're coming from the River
Products out there on north Dubuque is where most of `em came from. (several talking)
Fosse/ Yeah, moving a lot of sand. (several responding) Um, and... and that sand by the way
costs about half the price of the regular sand that we buy because of the gradation of it.
It's not as ... uh, well graded. It's got some more fines in it, and that sort of thing. Um,
there's some great online tools that are available now that were not available the last
flood (both talking)
Throgmorton/ Very impressive!
Fosse/ ...and that ... that's a fantastic thing, and uh, the ... the USDS, uh, the National Weather
Service, and University of Iowa Flood Center have all worked together and ... and City of
Iowa City, we chipped on this, in as well financially, to put these things in place, uh, so
that people can get on and get the same real -time information that the City is working
with, and we've got these links on our web site, so you can look at what the river forecast
is, you can go over and click here and drill down and ... and look at inundation, uh,
mapping, and you have the choice of either just clicking here for the current forecast or,
uh, you can go down further on this side and ... and dial in different levels of flood that
you might expect, and then you can also zoom in and look at specific areas to see where
the inundation might be. Uh, you can also go to the Corps of Engineers' web site and
look at what their projections are for release from the reservoir. You can superimpose
past year's, as I've done here. This is 2008 we put on so you can begin to compare
things. How does this stack up against past years, and that really allows individuals,
organizations, and businesses to make decisions about what they're going to do from
pack up and leave to take protective measures. Uh, out at Parkview Church they've
basically put a levee in place, uh, about of the scale that we were talking about last
winter. It just is not as long; it does not go around the Idyllwild area. They can do this
because they've got very little external drainage to deal with in that location. You can
implement that, uh, without worrying about the ... the runoff there. Uh, City Carton has
moved a number of their trucks out of the flood plain. These are out in our industrial
park right now. Uh, that was a good move on their part. Uh, I want to show you the
hydrographs from the 2008 and ... and 1993 floods. Uh, and talk about them in the
context of this year. Uh, the red is the 2008 flood that we had. It was a single -peak,
significant storm, and then 1993 we had a very protracted, uh, flood with a number of
peaks along the way. What we do not know yet, uh, for this flood is how it's going to
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 15
play out. Is it going to be like either one of these, or ... or something different. We do
hope that ... that however that hydrograph is ultimately shaped, that it doesn't go any
higher than it is right now. This is about where we're at, and it's shaping up to be the...
the third worst flood of record, uh, for the Iowa City area. So ... hopefully we won't have
a series of false peaks in there like we had in 93. Um, I want to talk for a moment about
the ... the impact on other projects in town. You know, there's just the wet weather itself
is impacting our projects. This is Lower Muscatine, and when they ... when they get a
chance with dry weather they really go to work. If you count carefully you'll see four
backhoes working in here. Um, I'll point out that you round the corner back here by the
church, you're on Kirkwood Avenue and that was paved 20 years ago this summer during
the 93 flood, and we had 63 inches of rain that summer and that pushed a project that
should have been built in one summer into a two -year project. Uh, we hope we don't
have a similar outcome here, but that's certainly possible, so it impacts the schedule of
things. The other thing to keep in mind is that floods, uh, defer work, just because of
the ... the time you spend dealing with `em, cleaning up and ... and then subsequent
projects. So if we had not had the 08 flood you ... you could expect that this project
probably would have been done a couple years ago and we'd be close to being finished
with the First Avenue grade separation project. So it...it delays all sorts of things that we
do as ... as a city, all the way from construction to implementing things like GIS. Um, so
what have we done, what's in the works and where are we going as far as projects. Uh,
we have about $28.4 million of projects complete since the 08 flood, with the buyouts.
100% effective. That really works. Uh, water and sewer river crossings are replaced.
We've got protection for our flood, or excuse me, our well houses, various flood recovery
projects, and we've revised our flood plain management ordinance. We're one of two
cities in the state to do that. Under contract, uh, we had the relocation of the wastewater
treatment plant. As I said that's about 50% complete. The west side levee is under
contract, but not started yet. Uh, under design, we have just shy of $50 million of
projects remaining, and that includes the Gateway project, which we just learned
yesterday, uh, the environmental assessment process is going to take at least another
month, uh, so what we are hoping to take to you later this month, uh, for discussion of
various design options is more than likely going to be in August. We just found that out
yesterday with the conference call with the, uh, DOT and uh, the federal agencies that
we're working with. Uh, Rocky Shore Drive lift station and floodgate, as I said, should
be bid later this year and the Animal Shelter is still on track for construction next year.
So with that, I'll open it up to any questions you may have.
Throgmorton/ (mumbled) (laughter)
Hayek/ Wishing I had one of those Hawkeye (several talking and laughing)
Champion/ Where's your yellow jacket?
Dickens/ I did hear the radio say that they thought it was going to peak now at 2 ... or 709 instead
of 10, so they said it dropped another foot today.
Fosse/ Yes!
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 16
Dickens/ So it's ... it's a little better but ... still too close (laughs)
Fosse/ It is! It is, and ... and what they'll do is they'll leave that ... that main pipe completely wide
open, um, as long as they can, and when the rate of drop of the pool exceeds one foot per
day, they'll start to throttle that back, because if it drops faster than that, it begins to cause
the banks to cave in.
Throgmorton/ So, Rick, I understand that, uh, you're one of the speakers in the Public Policy
Center's "Living With Floods" event that's, uh, coming up later this week, is that right?
Fosse/ Yes, it's timed very well, isn't it?
Throgmorton/ Yeah, yeah, it's pretty amazing on Pete Domiano's part to schedule it, uh, for this
weekend. I wonder how he knew! (laughs)
Fosse/ Yes, and I'll talk about many of the same things that I shared tonight, as well as some of
the things that we're doing with the Riverfront Crossings' area. Uh, and then also on the
15th, we have the Preservation Hall Jazz Band that'll be playing on the Pentacrest, and
you don't want to miss that. That's on Saturday afternoon about, I think 4:00. That
should be very good. They were on the Grammys this year if you missed that. Any other
questions?
Dobyns/ Um, Lower City Park in terms of, you know, assuming we don't ... as far as the waters
recede and when the park gets back into operation, I mean, what's ... I guess it depends on
how much sand is...
Fosse/ Mike, you want to field that?
Moran/ We've currently moved everything out of the park through the end of June. Uh, just
based on some of the predictions that got in our flood meetings, and we'll just play it by
ear after that point in time. We'll know a lot more after Thursday's meeting ... with what
the Corps tells us.
Dobyns/ (mumbled) some years, Mike, there was like sand everywhere (mumbled)
Moran/ Well it was part of that backwater that Rick was talking about on the ... on the west side
of Park Road bridge where it was swirling around. It created quite a sand dune over
there, but that was in 08 when the water came up, went down, and was real fast acting.
So it depends on how long the water stays up, but I wouldn't anticipate as much as we
had before.
Dobyns/ Okay. All right.
Champion/ What do you do with the rides? I mean...
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 17
Moran/ The rides are currently up above by City Park Pool, inside of containers.
Champion/ Great! I worry about those.
Moran/ Right now the theater is the one that's worried the most. They were supposed to open on
June 14th and I think they're still holding out hope that... everything's going to be okay by
then but ... best case scenario, they'll be a week late. If...if everything goes down like
Rick had mentioned, it'll take us about a week to get that ready to actually have people
back into the park again.
Champion/ Could you just elevate the whole park? (laughter)
Moran/ You give me enough money I can (laughter) about anything!
Throgmorton/ ...the idea is to let it flood.
Dobyns/ Yeah, I guess it's a...
Throgmorton/ Looks like a... (several talking) impressive work.
Hayek/ Yeah! I ... our compliments to staff on this, I mean...
Mims/ Very much so.
Fosse/ They are ... they're doing a terrific job.
Hayek/ They are, you are, City Manager's office — all the departments that are involved in this
very coordinated response.
Mims/ Great communications too!
Hayek/ Yep!
Mims/ I would ... you know, the once a day email and just pointing people in directions for other
information if they want more stuff, I think, has been very effective.
Fosse/ Things are going well for staff. So far we only have, uh, five stitches to show for their
work so far (laughter)
Throgmorton/ Well bravo!
Hayek/ And, you know, some of these investments we've made with the buyouts along
Normandy, the protection of the public infrastructure with well heads and whatnot, you
know, those are ... you know, those are no longer stress points for us because we can...
we can let the flood come and ... and we're protected, um, and obviously (both talking)
we're not in the same situation as 2008 but...
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 18
Fosse / Right!
Champion/ When will we close that waste water plant on the river?
Fosse/ It would be the ... the summer, next summer, summer of 14. Yep.
Champion/ It's not flooding now is it?
Fosse/ No, it's not.
Champion/ Okay.
Fosse/ We're fine there at this time. Shall we move on to sustainability?
Sustainability Assessment Report 2013 (IP #3):
Hayek/ Sure.
Throgmorton/ Off we go!
Champion/ Yes, so ... that wild report. Good heavens! I can't believe how you got that together!
Fosse/ Well let me invite up, uh, Brenda Nations. Brenda's our, uh, sus ... our Environmental
Coordinator and she spearheads a lot of our sustainability efforts, as well as the
maintenance of our natural areas, and the timing of this is unfortunate because I don't
want the flood to overshadow this report and ... in getting this out. It's ... it's a gem.
There's a lot of good information in here. I think a lot of important information and, uh,
good stuff that's going to help us with our next step down the sustainability path. So with
that I'll turn it over to Brenda!
Nations/ Hi. (several responding) Uh, I'm excited to talk about this because it was a labor of
love, and it was the final, uh, task of our EECBG, or energy efficiency and conservation
block grant that just ended. So it was funded by that, and uh we hired an intern to help
work on this and gather some of the details. So, it's very data -rich. I'm going to ... I'm
not going to go through the 100 pages and the 60 indicators bit -by -bit, but I'm going to
talk about some of the high... highlights of this report and some of the findings. So, um
...uh, every sustainability report always starts with this definition of sustainability as
...as the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to ... to meet their needs. So, um, but for a city really what it means is
combining the three, uh, the three focus areas of sustainability, um ... uh, environmental,
economic, and social, and a combining those together kind of overarching theme of...of
how to think of things in the future, and Iowa City has been doing a lot of efforts in
sustainability, uh, way before they even called sustainability that, and had that definition.
Um, an example is, um, you know, we capture and flare our landfill gas, uh, we built
Sycamore green space that's a really nice, uh, flood management, uh, green
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 19
infrastructure, and we changed out our LED lights and we've been doing this all along,
but now it's kind of got this trendy term that, uh, is, um, is something that we've actually
been working toward but never really been, um, kind of claiming that name. So what this
report does is, um, we chose 60 indicators to actually measure our sustainability. So tried
...we tried to put, um, these things in numbers. So we tried to put our city in numbers as
far as, um ... sustainability, uh ... um, means. So, um, the beginning of the report just has a
profile data so if other cities read it, it kind of tells some background about our
population and what it's like, and um, I'm pointing out a few of these things because, um,
it made our ... our sustainability assessment look different than some other cities, and one
of the big things is our college student population. We have, uh, 41 % of people in town
are 20...20 to 34 years old, which really skewed some of our indicators to be quite
different than, uh, some, and I'll point those out when I'll ... when I get to those. Um, also
as you know, we're, um, we're very highly educated. We have a high ... high high school
graduation rate and we have extremely high, um, educated population who have college
and graduate degrees and I think that really brings to our town a lot of arts and culture,
and a lot of, uh, different things. So, um, being a college town, um, makes us different
than other cities and some... some of the census data, um, didn't accurately reflect, um,
our ... the true, um, value of some of these indicators. So um, I'll talk about that in a
second. So ... in the three areas we have nine focus areas. Um, and I also might start...
before we chose what indicators, um, there's no standard, uh, procedure at t his time for
cities to do this, and a lot of cities want to kind of standardize, um, sustainability and
have measurements, and um, they're working on a national, um, standardization and it'll
be sort of like LEED. You get so many points for, uh, like building ... uh, LEED building
and the Green Building Council. Um, a city would get so many points, so this will
hopefully, if we chose to do that down the road, um; we can do that, but um ... we did look
at other cities, and looked at other indicators for other cities, and kind of chose what
information we had and what applied to Iowa City. So we looked at economic and
community design and transportation. Wrong button... and uh, one of the things we
looked at was our unemployment rate. So for all the indicators we tried to look at five -
year trends and since we're in 2012 when we were ... began writing this, uh, we looked at
the most recent five years. So when we could we ... we compared to the State of Iowa and
to the United States, to kind of get a idea of how... how we compare to, um, our... our
state and our country. And so, um, this... unemployment shows that Iowa City in green;
we have much lower unemployment rates than the state and the United States. Um, we
have several, uh, local policies. We have ... the Chamber has `buy here' and uh, we have
'buy ... um, `buy fresh, buy local' chapter, and we also have a ... the City has a policy that
encourages, uh, local contractors also. So I'm not going to show you each of these
ratings, but what we did was we had to kind of rank and rate, uh, the... some of the
indicators, all of the indicators that we had to kind of decide, um, how we're doing. Is it
within or exceeding acceptable levels or if it was something that we needed to work on,
or some of the data was really, uh, difficult to classify or was too complex, or we didn't
have enough comparison data. Uh, this is a ... this is an example of economic and
community deci ... design indicators and you can see the full circles there are within or
exceeding acceptable led ... levels. So, um, all of those except for urban density, um,
ranked high. So the public transit ridership, um, the graph below shows you, um, our
City bus ridership, as well as Cambus ridership. Another indicator, this one was quite
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 20
amazing I thought was vehicle miles traveled per capita, which we're in green again, uh,
compared to Johnson County, uh, the State of Iowa, and average for the United States.
We're about half, and I think that's really... amazing, and um, that again has to do with
college students, a lot of them not having cars, riding buses, uh, riding bikes, and um,
also having a dense downtown and having everything within walkable distance for many
people. So, um, in the environmental section, um, environmental resource management,
we looked at energy, water, waste reduction, and the natural eco- system. And uh, one
thing we started talking, um, in 2008 is we did a baseline, uh, community, uh, greenhouse
gas inventory with 2000 as a baseline and the most recent year of the time was 2008, and
we had to do a projection of business as usual, um, that projected growth for Iowa City,
and the good news is, uh, we haven't reached the top line there. So we haven't, um, we
haven't gone up as expected as community -wide greenhouse gases, but we also haven't
done, uh, the reduction that, uh, to make it to the project levels that we should. So we've
just been hanging right about at our baseline. So that's something that we could, uh,
definitely work on, and um, I'd like to point out that a lot of these indicators are
community -wide. They're not just, um, specific to the city operations, but this is
something that includes, um, in... industry, commercial, residential, uh, the U of I Power
Plant, uh, our transportation and um, the Iowa City portion of the landfill. Uh, so this is
something that would have to be, um, a community -wide goal if we were to work on it.
And most cities are, by the way. Um, as far as our city goes with energy, this is our of
course new platinum LEED East Side Recycling building and ... my Prius! (laughter)
Um, so urn ... we also, um, have been with this grant we've been working on energy
efficiency and I think that this graph, uh, really shows the ... the gains that we got from
this grant. Uh, we used money at the wastewater treatment plant on lighting and an
aeration blower, and you can see, uh, orange ... this is in energy usage, so it's not
greenhouse gas or (coughing, unable to hear speaker) but it's actual energy... energy
usage. So we've reduced there, which is an area that we worked on with the grant. Uh,
we worked on some buildings and also this includes, uh, parking ramp LE ... LED lights
and you can see that's reduced. Um, we worked, uh, we had a project at the, uh, water
plant and that's reduced, but we had no projects, energy project... projects on our fleet or
our transit. And, uh, those went up. We are working on some, uh, street light LEDs and
um, the Airport and Landfill buildings are ... are really small, but it shows you the ... the...
the money used for this grant really did, uh, save energy, and so it was nice to be able to
report that to the DOE. Another really interesting thing about our community is that our,
um, electricity from Mid American Energy is 33% comes from renewable energy use,
which is very high compared to, uh, most places in the country. So, um, I would think
that this alone would be a reason that if you were really a green business and wanted to,
um, have your business here, um, we're ... Mid America's the number, uh, one producer
of wind energy and this is not just, uh, wind energy but other renewable too. So um, this
is a really good thing. A lot of cities I've talked to, most of their energy comes from coal
for their electricity. So this is ... this is a good thing as well. Um, as far as natural eco-
systems go, this is one of our prairies. We have over 800 acres of, uh, prairie, uh, urban
forest, and uh, wetlands, and that includes a wetland mitigation projects, and so we have
quite, um, quite a significant amount of...of land, which is restoring... has been restored
back to our, uh, native Iowa eco- systems, which, um, is very beneficial for many ways.
Um, one problem though is, uh, we haven't had the extra staff to work on these, and
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 21
some of these have issues with, uh, invasive species and need, uh, management, and so,
uh, that ... they can get a lot of, um ... uh, they can get overrun by species that aren't
supposed to be there. So...
Dobyns/ Do we measure those, uh, green areas, because that's sort of a negative carbon
footprint.
Nations/ You know, that's a really interesting question because I looked into that when we did
the greenhouse gas inventory and um, I couldn't... it's not in the software to get carbon
credits for that, but I have seen things that when you plant prairie, like that prairie was
the, um, if I can go back ... this is a 22 -acre prairie by the wastewater treatment plant and
I've read that like... statistics that, like per acre, had this been planted in, um, just grass, it
saves so much greenhouse gases by just not mowing it and not, you know, and it filtrates
better and there's a lot of benefits, but it ... I don't know the calculation how to count in
the carbon sequestration. And the same would go for our trees too, in our urban forest
like at water... waterworks and stuff like that.
Dobyns/ So we don't get credit for it, but it's just, you know, a sustainability, uh, calculation.
Nations/ I gave us credit for it! (laughter) I think ... not carbon -wise, but as far as having natural
eco- systems, I think that we have an amazing amount of, um, prairie and wetlands and...
and native forests compared to cities of our size. So again, I don't have comparison
numbers but um ... we have a lot of prairie! Um, another portion of the ... uh, assessment
had to do with water. Our water plant had no, uh, violations with the EPA. We have
very good drinking water. We have, um ... uh, very good monitoring of our, uh,
wastewater plant. We had no violations for that, um, either. Um, we have a storm water
program, as you know, and um ... we (mumbled) our bio- solids, which is good instead of,
um, incinerating them. And so as far as like, um, municipal water supplies, we're um,
doing really well in those categories. Um, the river is as you know one of our wonderful
features and uh, our bane, and um, the thing about our river that in the sustainability, uh,
indicator is on the impaired EPA, uh, `impaired waters list' so um, this is something that
we don't have a lot of control of the entire watershed, since a lot of it is in agriculture, but
we do have control over, uh, what happens as it passes through town. And so that's
important to remember because of our, uh, streams and our, uh, storm water and
everything like this. So, uh, our input into the river does affect, um ... uh, people
downstream and also the Gulf of Mexico. So ... the (mumbled) so urn ... one thing that,
uh, is being worked on which is a really great project in conjunction with the University
of Iowa is, um, they are currently, uh, doing a bank ... they're doing a stream assessment
with, um, measuring 14 different things on each of our, the finished Willow Creek here,
but they're going to continue to work on all of our streams and uh, Ralston Creek'll be a
really good stream to know and um, this is just one thing that, uh, is being assessed is
bank stability and this affects our infrastructure, our storm drains, and a lot of things that
the City owns, but also um, property, uh, erosion and erosion when it rains, uh, adds
sediment to the river, and so, um once these are all assessed, um, perhaps we can do some
more work in our stream areas. Um, we also, uh, measure, uh, we've been measuring for,
since 2008, uh, nutrient levels in two of our ... two of our three streams, four streams, and
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 22
um, they did, phosphorous did go up when it was a dry year. You can see in 2012 in
real ... in Willow Creek, but nitrate is blue and the, uh, level of concern is 20 up there, and
you can see we don't even reach, uh, 2 for that, and uh, phosphorous, the level of concern
is .6, and usually we're under that level too. So that's good. So in social we focused on
housing, community wellness, and arts and culture. And uh, this is one of the University
housing projects. We have very, um ... uh, several housing projects, I mean, housing
programs, uh, with the City to also help refer... refurbish existing homes, um, and this
...this particular project is, um, with the University. This is my friend's house so I added
that so ... (laughter) Um, and uh, as far as health and wellness, this is an example of our
obesity, um, and this data was available only for Johnson County, and um, look how low
we are compared to Iowa and the United States, but if you remember, this is one of the
indicators is, uh, okay, we don't need to suck in our guts because (laughter) if you
remember, we have a very large, young population (laughter) so this ... this may have to
do with them cause uh, some of us tend to put on a little weight as we get older but uh
still, um, we've got the ... we've got low, uh, obesity, but still if you look at it though still
20 ... and this is over 30 BMI, so um, still we have like 20% percentile, so, uh, you know
maybe with the addition of the Blue Zones, maybe this ... we can affect, uh, this as well.
So we have very high attendance at our Farmers Market, very popular. Uh, we got, um,
lot of awards for that, as well as other things, uh, City of Literature, we're very rich in
...in the arts just really high off the charts. Um, with all sorts of things. Um, one... one
interesting problem that we do have is with rado ... radon and um ... radon is a ... a odorless,
uh, gas that comes from the radioactive decay of, uh, glacial deposits and it's very high in
Iowa in general because of that, and um, you can see 37% of households in Iowa City
have levels above what they should be. And um, but radon isn't just in Iowa. It's also in
other areas of the country, and so we're not alone, but um, this perhaps, uh, could be
something that we have an awareness campaign on or work with a ... um, with other
partners on ... on something, but um, it can be ... you can get a testing kit at the hardware
store, and if you have high levels in your basement and spend a lot of time there, um, you
can remediate with this venting, this ... this is my neighbor's house and they don't know I
took that picture but uh (laughs) that's how you can deal with it so it can be dealt with,
and otherwise, um, you can end up with, uh, some people end up with lung cancer
because of uh, having radon in their homes. So ... uh, we, as I said, we have lots of
festivals and lots of arts opportunities, and I think that's what makes Iowa City one of the
great places that it is. So ... uh, so this is my last slide. I think that, uh, what we found,
uh, we didn't pick our indicators to make ourselves look good.
Champion/ Well you should! (laughter)
Nations/ We, uh, picked uh ... picked ones that, uh, we wanted to know. Some we didn't have,
like uh, percent tree (mumbled) that a lot of other cities have so, but we do rank really
high compared to, um, to ... compared to the state and the nation in a lot of things. Um,
having numerical benchmarks are a real, uh, asset I think to start with. A lot of cities
have sustainability plans without really have known where to start and I think this shows
us where we have areas we can improve in and where we're already good and want to
keep, uh, keep maintaining. So these, uh, focus areas, uh, I noted some that we probably
need to, uh, for most of them we already are, uh, working on in some way or the other
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 23
and ... and there're things that are, uh, beyond the municipality to work on. It's more a
community effort on some things, and uh, the assessment was supposed to be sort of a
launch pad for further... further sustainability work and also kind of to, uh, publicize the
good work that we have done in Iowa City as a community and ... and give us some PR
for that, so ... are there any questions?
Champion/ Good report!
Hayek/ How about the-the messaging and the ... the public information side of this?
What ... what's in the works for that?
Nations/ We should do it and do it big (laughs) that's what I think. I think that, um, I think that,
um, we should really use this as, uh, I think it would be really good for economic
development. I think businesses would come to town because if they, a lot of green
businesses would look at this. I think also um, you could uh, I think just the average
citizen would, you know, after looking at this report, when it moved to town, and I think
that um ... uh, not just to get people here, I also think that the people that already live here,
especially being highly educated want, uh, want sustainability and want to know that they
live in a sustainable town. So I think that um, a ... we should, uh, get as much publicity as
we can for ... who we are.
Markus/ Brenda, the, uh, City of Dubuque does a pretty amazing job of promoting themselves as
this great sustainable community. How do we compare? Any idea?
Nations/ Yes! (laughs) I do have an idea! Um, we compare very well. We compare very well.
Markus/ And I think you're right about economic development. They've used that to their
advantage.
Nations/ Yes!
Markus/ ...in marketing their community, so ... I think it's a real opportunity for us.
Nations/ Yes it is, and in fact the place that we don't compare as well as ... as Dubuque is their
economic development has really gone up since they've been promoting their
sustainability. So ... and some of the indicators, I checked with, um, kind of compared
with Dubuque's, uh, kind of a ... and uh, and ... some of them, I mean, we're... since we're
a college town we're different, we're ... than they are, and some of the things are different
that way, and um, but as far as arts and culture, we're very ... much more rich in arts and
culture, and um, I think our unemployment rate might be lower. And uh, some things
like that. Lower debt rate and things like that, or... (both talking)
Markus/ ...we need to link up this report and the ... and your efforts with our Economic
Development staffing and ... and figure out how to get that into our marketing, and
communications.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 24
Dickens/ ICAD and Chamber and (several talking)
Payne/ Like doing a presentation like she just did at ICAD or Chamber, or even recording it, and
putting it ... playing it on...
Markus/ Yeah. Well we'll get it into our communications wheelhouse and start promoting it that
way, but I think getting the message out to ICAD and the Chamber are not bad next steps.
I think that would be a good approach. So we'll work on that.
Throgmorton/ With regard to this, I'd like to offer some suggestions, but before I do it I want to
congratulate you, Brenda, for... doing some brilliant work on this. You know I've been
tracking it and paying close attention to what you've been doing so you've done
absolutely brilliantly. Thank you and Tom, you know, for assigning Brenda to it and
getting the work done! Uh, and I hope the reporters present pick up on this. It's an
important report (laughs) that really deserves some attention from the public. But, you
know this is not a simple issue. It's ... it's something that uh, can be ... sustainability can
be... sustainability is a topic that can be interpreted in different ways by different people.
So as Brenda knows at least as well as anybody ... you got a whole bunch of measures.
The question becomes are we measuring the right things? That's first. Secondly, are we
giving, um, putting enough weight on the right things? And you know people do that
differently so some people'd pick up on one indicator and say this is a perfect measure of
how sustainable we are and somebody else'd pick up on some other measure. So ... I ... I
think we, Tom, I think we ... it would really be good for us to organize some public
discussions about this report so that diverse groups have an opportunity to kind of weigh
in, you know, are we measuring the right things. Are we weighing the right things, or
you know, counting them properly and ... uh, and that kind of thing. Uh ... do some
indicators deserve more attention than others, uh ... so ... and then I think it would be really
good if we could ... do this annually, or bi-annally ... bi-annually, every two years!
(laughs) Whatever that word is. Uh, and I don't know if you've put any thought into that
or not, Tom. I know we can't just kind of dedicate a huge amount of staff to it all the
time but ... keeping track of these indicators would be a very good thing.
Nations / What a lot of cities do is they chose some key indicators and do a dashboard of those
every year, and figure out what, like you know, greenhouse gases and they report on that
every year and say they have 10 instead of 60 and the key ones are the public's interested
in and that they're interested in proving or they're interested in showing they're still
doing well in, and uh, I would hope that this would not be every year, because it took a
year to do! (laughter) So I think, uh, choosing... choosing some key ones and some
are... some are also tied to the census and so some of those would be hard to do every
year. So some things change every year and some things don't and so some things take
longer to calculate and some don't, but I think keeping track of these, continue to keep
track of these like we do with our energy, I think would be important, and there may be
some that we ... we missed, you know. And there may be other ones that, uh, you know,
and I try to think of what the public interest groups are and I know there are a lot of
people interested in water and the river and water quality, and there are a lot of people
interested in recycling and people interested in energy and, uh, greenhouse gas and... you
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 25
know, I know there's a of of interest in this community in those topics, but there might be
(both talking)
Throgmorton/ ...yeah, and as Tom and Terry were saying, there obviously are a lot of people
interested in economic development, so there's indicators in here about economic
development...
Nations/ Yep.
Throgmorton/ ...they give us a sense of how well we're doing, but there're also social groups.
Nations/ Yep!
Throgmorton/ ...like the Coalition for Racial Justice, for example. Or the Center for Worker
Justice and others like that who are interested in those kinds of issues, which for them are
key indicators of...
Nations/ Yep.
Throgmorton/ ...how sustainable this city is for them.
Nations/ Uh huh.
Throgmorton/ You know, so ... that ... that's why I'm suggesting some public discussions (both
talking)
Markus/ Yeah, and while you're talking about that I'm kind of thinking to myself that our budget
document is that annual document where we don't just report out numbers, we report out
what we're trying to accomplish with the dollars and it seems like leading indicators
related to sustainability, uh, could certainly be plugged into the document itself and
connected to how we're investing our money and making that tie -in. We try to do
leading indicators, uh, in financial reporting, as well, and monitor those to see how we
progress from year to year. You know, if you do, um, if...and you can overwhelm
yourself... with just keeping reports and not having any meaningful improvement by not
selecting critical ones and measuring what that impact is, and trying to influence the
result of those leading indicators. So I think what we'd want to do is prioritize what our
leading indicators are, not just in sustainability but in financial reporting and other areas
as well, and then connect them back to the budget document to show where we're
investing our money and what kind of return we expect.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, I think that's right.
Dobyns/ Tom, when I read this I went back to Jeff's last discussion of the strategic plan, um,
trying to go back and forth. There is some overlapping elements...
Markus/ Yes.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 26
Dobyns/ But uh... similar to that, I mean, strategic plan we try and attach that with some
budgetary policies and decisions as well.
Markus/ Yes.
Dobyns/ Uh, possibly um ... there's some elements of this that might be able to be merged into
the strategic plan, and modified in terms of deciding what we need to track.
Markus/ Yes, and in speaking of that, we intend to revisit the strategic plan right after this next
election again. We are going to be doing some surveying and we're going to give you a
brief report on that coming up, just so you know where we stand with that. So that we'll
be revisiting that, um ... right off the bat obviously one of our strategic plan elements is
economic development, and we've already vocally made the connection here with
sustainability and how we plan into that. I also think neighborhood stabilization ties
directly into this issue, and so...
Throgmorton/ Oh for sure!
Markus/ And so I think we have the strategic plan connection that we can drive the sustainability
elements with this as well.
Hayek/ Nice work!
Mims/ Thank you very much (several talking)
Nations/ And I'd also like to say I didn't do it all by myself. I had help from fellow staff
members who provided information too, so thanks to them too!
Hayek/ Appreciate it!
Markus/ Thanks!
Information Packets:
Hayek/ Okay, we have, uh, Info Packets next. First one is the May 16th packet. Any questions?
(several talking)
Mims/ No, I'd just like to mention a couple of the things in there, IP3 and IP4, um ... the article
that Tom put in on, uh, "Time For Iowa to Adjust... Address Racial Justice... Racial
Issues," and then also, I don't have the whole thing here, and then the article that came
from Iowa, uh, National League of Cities on, uh, city leadership to promote black male
achievement and couple things, um, I actually saw this National League of Cities thing
and sent it to Tom and asked him to include it in the packet, and then I don't know if any
of the rest of you have seen even just in the last week in the Gazette, uh, Diversity Focus
has done some of their annual, urn ... surveying, and uh, some unfortunate trends that they
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 27
are finding in a lot of their surveying is an increase in people identifying with
discrim ... identifying discrimination taking place, schools, work place, etc., you know
throughout the Johnson County area, and so I think, you know, it brings this whole thing
back and we've, you know, we've been talking about this for, you know, two or three
years in terms of issues within the community, uh, we've had our Ac H ... Ad Hoc
Diversity Committee and what I would like to see us do is ... is take the next step from
having this Ad Hoc Diversity Committee and take a look at these documents. Obviously
we can't do it in detail tonight, but maybe devote some time at a work session or do some
brainstorming with staff on ... I know Tom has talked about, and talked with, uh, Chief
Hargadine and Chief Rocca about, um, I'm losing the words I want. What I want (both
talking)
Markus/ Well they're both approaching it a little differently but kind the student involvement in
their departments and (both talking) and you know they, there's ranger programs, there's
cadet programs, there's all sorts of programs to evolve, but connecting into, uh, our
minority communities and exposing them to a profession that maybe otherwise they
wouldn't have been.
Mims/ Right, but looking at those kinds of issues and other things that we can do but ... but
particularly taking a look at this National League of Cities document which I ... read three
or four weeks ago when I first saw and ... and found very thought - provoking in terms of
what other cities across the country have been doing and what they've seen as successful,
some of the pitfalls that you have to look at because you're talking about using
government money, um, how we can look at partnering with other organizations, um, to
maybe accomplish some things that, um, we need to be really looking at, and we should
be looking at trying to be a leader, um, in this area. We are ... we're a diverse community.
We pride ourselves on that diversity, not only ethnicity but socioeconomically,
educationally, etc., um, and I'd like to see us take a real ... a real strong leadership
position trying to ... to accomplish some things.
Hayek/ When we gonna get the Ad Hoc staff...
Markus/ That'll be at the next, uh, work session we'll be presenting that out. We've kind of, uh,
developed it along the strategic plan kind of outline approach. We expect to report out on
it, um, on an annualized basis on the ... on the progress that we make towards it. It'll also
be loaded on the web site. Uh, once we get it, um, approved through Council. Uh, I can
tell you at this point the bulk of the items I think will be recommended by the staff. I
think there's one item that we just felt that there's maybe a conflict with that, urn ... we
took, uh, concerns with, but the bulk of the items, uh, clearly are going to be
recommended. Uh, one of the staffers recommended that we give it a little bit more meat
in terms of actual items that, because some of the recommendations were yes you should
do this, but it didn't say ... it didn't give specifics. So we're trying to give some examples
of where we may go in terms of implementing different parts of those recommendations.
So we'll report out on that at the next work session.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 28
Throgmorton/ Yeah, great! I'd certainly like to echo what Susan just said. I completely agree
with every word, um, she expressed and it made me think that, um, as I read the report
anyhow I was sensing that it implied a need to create a countywide collaborative
initiative and I don't know if that's feasible here, I ... I'm not sure, but that was the sense I
was getting out of it, and I was wondering whether ... I don't know if you can do
everything at once, but whether you were thinking about incorporating any of these
suggestions into, uh, what you'll present to us in two weeks.
Markus/ Uh, some of the ideas I think have been picked up, not necessarily from those
documents, but that's where we're talking about some of the suggested, you know, items
that we may pursue, um, go there but even as we're reporting out on that, if the Council
sees things that they would like us roll into that, we're open to that discussion during that
work session. And then we'd expect at some point, uh, hopefully that same evening
having the Council pass a resolution supporting the ... the direction that they're giving. I
think ... I think the one, uh, exception that we kind of generally took was the reporting,
um, recommendation got to be, in my opinion, overly specific and it talked about
reporting out on a lot of different factors that didn't necessarily relate specifically to the
recommendations the Ad Hoc Committee and we're trying to focus our attention on
reporting out what happens with the Ad Hoc Committee recommendations and how those
get implemented, again trying to keep our focus, you know, tight enough so that we
actually accomplish something by the time this thing is ... is finished. So...
Throgmorton/ With regard to reporting, there might be a link between ... the suggestions that Ad
Hoc Committee people made and the sustainability report that Brenda just presented us.
Cause that's within the social component of...of that part.
Champion/ Jim, I don't know if we can do a county -wide committee or group, but I think any
time we talk about minority youth we've got to think about the School District. I mean,
they're very important, I mean...
Throgmorton/ Yeah.
Champion/ ...just some of the ideas in there about in- school suspension rather than send ya
home where you just get in trouble, I mean, there was a lot of great stuff. I think it was in
that report.
Mims/ Yeah.
Champion/ But I mean I think as we get down the line here we've got to involve the School
District. It's ... we can't help minority youth without the School District's involvement.
Throgmorton/ Yeah. Agreed.
Mims/ Good point.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 29
Dobyns/ That might be a little bit hard, I mean, there are some communities that aren't even
looking at affordable housing, um ... so I'm not sure...
Champion/ Well, not Coralville!
Dobyns/ (laughter) (mumbled)
Markus/ Well and I would say to you we kinda got into this discussion a little bit with the school
liaison issue and I think, um ... the Chief and some of the department took the position
that that was a logical extension of the Ad Hoc Committee. Some of the Ad Hoc
Committee Members certainly didn't have that specific discussion, but I think, you know,
a casual observer might have said, well, there was a connection. There ... that's an issue
that was addressed here previously. Um, school liaison officers, um ... in some segments
of our community are not viewed as a... a good idea. Um, quite frankly there's a rather
complex or, uh, very detailed report on the whole issue of school ... I refer to them as
school liaison. I think they call `em SROs here. Um, but that has been reported out
across the nation and some of the exact concerns and fears that I was hearing were
specifically addressed in this report. That's not unique to us. As a matter of fact, there's
17,000 of these officers that are located in schools across the country. It's since, I think,
been kind of resolved that we're not going to pursue the COPS grant.
Champion/ Right.
Markus/ Uh, you know, there's ... to a minor degree I think there was a financial issue, but I think
the larger ... um, issue was the school had a lot on their plate right now. They were
getting some push -back from the community that they wanted to know how this was all
going to roll out, and I don't think we really felt we had the time to really, um, vet this to
a point where the community would find this acceptable, but I can tell you one of our
goals, if in fact we would have gone that direction, would have been to reduce
disproportionate minority contact. And that was going to be stated in the relationship be
...if I had anything to say about it, between the City and the School District. We just
never got there, so...
Champion/ You know, it... it came upon us quickly without any real kind of presentations or
people knowing what was going on with this. I mean, I have a son who's a policeman
and they have this police liaison, they've had it for 12 years in the Bettendorf School
District, and he says they can't believe how successful it is. That the kids relate to this
police officer, they know him, he knows their neighborhoods, um ... it ... Andrew said it's
been incredibly successful in Bettendorf.
Markus/ And as Eleanor and Marian will tell you, sitting through the Ad Hoc Committee
discussions, uh, we repeatedly were told of how highly people thought of Jorey Bailey
and what he was doing (several talking) and ... and quite frankly that is the model that we
were looking to deploy to the two high schools. So, you know, sometimes what happens
is the issue gets out there and gets a bit ahead of us and we don't really have the
opportunity to really have a meaningful discussion about, you know, what the fears are
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 30
and how we would deal with those fears and how we'd actually roll it out but I think next
time that comes around we'll have a better capability to ... to discuss that. I think overall
thought the real message that I heard coming out of the Diversity Committee is we ... we
quite frankly have to build, uh, the trust levels, uh, in the minority community with our
Police Department. I think that's critical for all of us, and so our efforts are going to be
directed in that fashion.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, that community discussion part of it is really crucial, partly for the reasons
that Brenda outlined in her report about this being a well educated community (noises on
mic) and ... and also because that creates certain tensions within the community because
some people are more educated than others and... but... the tradition here is ... is
discussion, you know, kinda working things out beforehand, instead of having them kind
of plopped down on... on us.
Hayek/ Good points. Any other questions on the May 16th Info Packet?
Champion/ (mumbled) ... including that article (mumbled)
Mims/ Oh, you're welcome. (several responding)
Hayek/ May 23rd Info Packet. Want to thank staff for preparing that response on the fluoridation
question.
Champion/ Right!
Mims/ Yes!
Hayek/ It was a very good, very well ... very informative, well - written and informative piece.
Mims/ And we've been there before so it was especially nice.
Throgmorton/ From May 30th I wonder if Marian wants us to talk about appointees evaluation
times.
Champion/ Dates ... right.
Throgmorton/ (mumbled)
Karr/ Talk about it now or you can talk about it under your schedule, whichever you prefer.
Hayek/ Uh, why don't we ... let's just save it for scheduling, since (mumbled)
Mims/ One of the packets, I don't remember which one it was now, just want to thank Dennis
and staff for the update on ... a very negative outlook I'm afraid on finances in terms of
what the State legislature did, but thank you very much for that information. We're
going to need it.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 31
Markus / And we're going to do that publicly, um, at the end of the meeting tonight so that we get
that ... we wanted to be able to convey that out over the television, uh, so that's going to
be under my report. Dennis is going to go through a PowerPoint on that issue.
Mims/ Okay. Good, thank you.
Hayek/ Yeah, that certainly casts a pall on many budgets to come.
Mims/ Yes!
Hayek/ We need to gird ourselves for it. Okay. Uh, Council time. Anything going on?
Council Time:
Dickens/ Just Arts Fest this weekend, starting Friday (several talking)
Mims/ I can't believe it! Where'd the time go? May just kind of disappeared! (several talking)
Dickens/ I listened to KXIC talking about the ... they're going to have the `kids street' again from
10:00 to 3:00 on Saturday, so that's kind of a... good place for the kids to paint and do all
kinds of fun projects, so...
Throgmorton/ Matt, I think I'd like to mention a few things. Uh ... Matt appointed me to this
downtown streetscape, um, design committee that just started up. Geoff is, uh,
coordinating that for us. Uh, so we held our first meeting in the room, we're underway,
you know, so ... I ... I'll keep you posted on that. Uh, and Michelle and Rick and I, uh, had
a really interesting meeting with, um, Dave Loebsack about the Riverfront Crossings
project and Steve Long and Karen Howard, especially Steve, did a superb job talking
with ... uh, with Dave. Uh, and Tom and I met with Downing Thomas, uh, Dean of
International Programs over at the University and by phone with Swallow Yan to talk
about setting up the forum this coming September, I guess, early September, uh, with
regard to Chinese residents and connect... building stronger connections between Chinese
residents and the Iowa City community.
Markus/ A non -home game. (both talking)
Throgmorton/ Right, a non -home game, exactly. So I wanted to let you all know about those
things.
Dickens/ We did have another meeting last night at the Gilbert Street ... or Gilbert Court and
Kirkwood, and it went very well, uh, there's already progress. The railroad did come in
and clean up the track area, uh, the I- Americorps cleaned this area and... and a bunch of
the youth have been down there cleaning up, uh, trash, uh, they've got a graffiti project
going with Mayor's Youth that they'll paint it for you if you provide the brushes and the
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 32
paint. So it seems to be moving in the right direction. So it just...we're going to meet,
uh, not until August now, but things have been going in the right direction (mumbled)
Mims/ Thanks for your participation with that.
Champion/ Good for you!
Mims/ Appreciate that!
Dickens/ It's been enjoyable!
Hayek/ Anything else? All right. I ... I want to thank Michelle, uh, for her work on ... on the
School District facilities issues, and Rick has been, uh, providing an assist from time to
time as well. There's a lot flying around right now. And ... we're watching it very closely
and...
Payne/ And the last ... um, public, community public meeting is tomorrow night. From 6:00 to
9:00 at hotel Vetro. And I'll say it during the other session too so...
Hayek/ Okay. Meeting schedule. Marian!
Meeting Schedule:
Karr/ Um, at your direction I contacted, um, all of you regarding summer schedule and the one
thing that became apparent was that ... that many of you were still up in the air as far as
confirming plans, and many of you were looking at Tuesday evenings, um... so what I did
is prepared an option for you of whether you'd like to consider a Tuesday evening
because, uh, it seemed to be the time that you had set aside and many of you were taking
either vacations or long weekends on either end of the week... work week. So I suggested
some options to you (clears throat) Um ... it could start at 5:00; it could start at 7:00.
Typically, um ... obviously the duration, uh, is entirely up to you, but typically two hours
usually.
Champion/ A total of two hours.
Karr/ Uh huh. Yes, a total of two (laughter and several talking)
Payne/ So what were the dates?
Champion/ The 9th
Karr/ The 91h, 16th, and 30th seemed to be the ones that were open at the time.
Throgmorton/ And I can ... cannot be here on the 301h
Mims/ I was going to say, I would prefer the 9th or 16th.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 33
Payne/ The 9th is the School Board meeting when the, um ... steering committee's going to...
Mims/ Oh! (several talking)
Payne/ ...present.
Mims/ So how does the 10h work for folks?
Karr/ Shall we tentatively say July 16th, 5:00? 5:30? Which?
Champion/ Well if it's only going to take us two hours could we have dinner first?
Karr/ Yes, you can start at 7:00. It doesn't matter. (several talking)
Throgmorton/ Are you sure?
Champion/ I don't care.
Hayek/ I'd kinda rather do late afternoon if we could.
Champion/ That'd be fine with (several responding)
Payne/ You can bring sandwiches! (several talking)
Hayek/ I'll do it. Either that or my kids! (several talking)
Karr/ 3:00 on the 16th? (several talking) 4:00?
Throgmorton/ Talk to your boss, Terry!
Dickens/ Yeah!
Payne/ I can do whatever time. (mumbled)
Champion/ That's a great idea.
Hayek/ I doubt we'll go two hours. I'd suggest we start at 4 -ish?
Karr/ 4:00 the 16th? (several talking)
Hayek/ I'm bringing dinner for everybody!
Karr/ 4:00 the 16th l
Champion/ I don't want dinner at 3:00! (several talking)
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.
June 4, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 34
Karr/ No; in July your meeting schedule, you only have one scheduled the 23rd
Champion/ So the 16th at 4:00.
Karr/ 4:00 P.M. is the tentative schedule.
Hayek/ (mumbled) so July 16...
Mims/ 4:00 P.M.
Hayek/ Okay!
Mims/ Matt's bringing dinner!
Hayek/ Yes! (several talking and laughing)
Champion/ Raspberry sundaes would be great!
Throgmorton/ That was easy!
Hayek/ Uh, anything else meeting wise you need? Uh, who's on ... uh, you're on KXIC
tomorrow?
Payne/ I'm on tomorrow.
Hayek/ Okay. Pending work session topics?
Pending Work Session Topics:
Payne/ Lot of `em!
Hayek/ Yeah, plenty going on right now. Uh, upcoming events, Council invites. I think we
already covered some of those things. Okay! (mumbled) ...back at 7:00.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work
session of June 4, 2013.