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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-09-05 Transcription Page 1 Council Present: Botchway(via phone), Cole (arrived 5:05), Dickens, Mims, Taylor, Thomas, Throgmorton Staff Present: Fruin, Monroe, Andrew, Grier, Greer, Bockenstedt, Havel, Hightshoe, Knoche, Matherly, Dulek, Fruehling, Boothroy, Ford, Yapp, Laverman Others Present: Nelson, Stewart (UISG) Council budget priorities FIP3 of 8/31 Info Packet]: Throgmorton/Okay, let's begin our work session. Iowa City City Council work session for the evening of September the 5th, 2017. Uh, I'd like to note that Kingsley will not be with us either....at either of our meetings tonight, due to a work conference in Indianapolis. So, Kingsley is up in the sky. Hi, Kingsley! Botchway/Hey, how's it goin'? Throgmorton/All right! Okay, so the first item is Council budget priorities for fiscal year, uh, 18/19, is that right? Okay. So....we received a memo on August 31 st....dated August 31s`, from Simon, restructuring an earlier memo so that it would show the relationship between the indicated priorities and our strategic plan, and also provide rough cost estimates and provide similar estimates of staffing requirements. So I'd like to thank Simon for doing that. Somebody else helped! (laughs) Thanks, Ashley, for doing that. Never mind, Simon! (laughter) Monroe/You're very welcome! Throgmorton/Yeah, so....just to be clear, I don't think this needs to be a long, drawn out affair. What I believe we need to do is eliminate duplication and determine which of the remaining items have majority support from the Council so that we can...convey our Council, uh, preferences to the....or advice or whatever to,uh, the City Manager. In general what I'd suggest we'd do is move through the new list item by item,just....go down from the top. But before we do this, I'd like to begin with one recommendation concerning investments in major strategic plan initiatives. Uh, namely....I think several items could be consolidated into the following. So let me read it, and if you agree, um, we'll go with that. So.....language I suggest is: include sufficient funds to begin or continue implementing the affordable housing action plan, the parks and bicycle master plans, and the climate action plan, and for finishing the form based code work. So the... what I think that does is just consolidate several specific items in the list, and....certainly provides the City Manager with ample discretion about, uh, what to recommend to us in the....in the, uh, preliminary budget. Would you all agree with (several talking) Thomas/ Could you just repeat (both talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 2 Throgmorton/ Sure! Include sufficient funds.....to begin or continue implementing.....the affordable housing action plan, the parks and bicycle master plans, and the climate action plan.....and for finishing the form based code work. You know, I know this is just comin' to ya right now, so I'd be happy to read it again if that would be helpful. Mims/My initial reaction, Jim, is....is I think I agree. But....(laughs) in a meeting I was in this morning, the devil's in the details. Urn.....I guess so for me knowing.....knowing what this really means in terms of dollars and particularly increases in dollars. Now, for like the affordable housing, we budgeted for this year 650? Fruin/Correct. Mims/I'm fine with continuing 650. I mean that's already a budget, a line item, that we have, so I think.....but again it also comes back to me of....where do we end up with a final dollar amount and the ability to actually reduce our tax levy. Um....and I hate to put you on the spot, Geoff,but like I mean can you, for example can you tell me, I happen to know the affordable housing one. Do we have any....do we already have anything budgeted or did we this year like for the bike master plan? Fruin/We did. We had a complete streets line in the capital, uh, budget. Um....I'm thinkin' that was about 200 or 250, somewhere in there, urn Mims/Okay. Fruin/250,000 that would be, and that was just kind of a placeholder for what might come of that plan. Um, I don't think that's sufficient to do everything on the schedule that it was proposed, um, but it certainly gives us a good start and we know going in to the next budget what additional dollars may be needed. Um, the parks master plan, you know, if we were to look at the CIP as approved today, does not have the resources to....to carry that out. Again, it's not saying that we can't prioritize those, but some other...uh,projects would have to fall or be delayed in order to speed those other ones up. Urn, what we plan to do with the recently adopted,uh,plans and something we haven't.....we haven't done in....in recent past at least is when we prepare the budget, um, this year, we will show you, `Here's the recommended list of projects in the parks master plan, or the bike plan, and here's what's funded, and here's what's not funded,' uh, so you know clearly how much we were able to squeeze in and you can look at the....the larger set of projects and....and, uh, re-prioritize as you see fit. The other point I would make,just so everybody's clear, the affordable housing funds, um, those aren't, um, necessarily....I wouldn't.....I wouldn't go so far as to call those a....a line item in the budget yet. Mims/Yeah,that's right! Fruin/(both talking) We've....we've really developed a mechanism to fund those for two years —the current year and next year, and without gettin' into too much details, it's really some....some TIF refunding, uh, which freed up some extra general fund dollars, and we This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 3 just earmarked those general fund dollars,but those had about a two-year life on `em, so we still need to find the more permanent affordable housing, um, solution in our budget. Mims/But those funds would take us through fiscal year 19 (both talking) talking about right now. Fruin/ ....should get us through the current year we're in and the budget we're about to start preparing. Mims/Okay! Okay, and then....climate action plan, what did we have in the budget this year for that? Do you remember or.....again, my concern is trying to figure out.... Fruin/(both talking) We did (both talking) Mims/ ...what you're saying, Jim, where we talked about huge increases in money that we budgeted this year versus next year, that's kinda what I'm trying to get at. Fruin/Yeah, I think we're....we're between 100 and 150. I've got the budget....I'm bringin' up now, so I'll be able to answer some, uh....questions more specifically. Mims/While you're lookin' for that I got a question for Jim then. When you say finish the form based code, are you referring....just to the southeast and the northside, that we're (both talking) Throgmorton/Yes. Mims/And not down....cause downtown was a separate item in here. Okay. Okay. Throgmorton/Yeah, definitely meant just the two areas (both talking) already been doing work on. Mims/Okay! Yeah,the....based on that, I think I'm pretty much in agreement with your suggestion. Throgmorton/But it's a lot of discretion that would go to Geoff. I would expect him to present his recommend....recommendations in the draft budget, and then we should exercise our own policy judgment about what to do, but.....uh, Rockne, what we're doin' is discussing, uh, consolidating a few items into one. All right? So here's what I read to people: include sufficient funds to begin or continue implementing the affordable housing action plan, the parks and bicycle master plans, and the climate action plan, and for finishing the form based code work. Just consolidating elements, so we were just discussing(both talking) Dickens/ So where is the climate action at right now? Mims/Geoff was looking that up (both talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 4 Fruin/Yeah, the, uh, climate action funding is 150,000 per year in each of the five years, and then the complete streets improvement, um, is 300,000, this....this current fiscal year that we're in and then it goes to 150,000 per year fop the remainder of the five. So that was a....pretty much a placeholder that we stuck in there, not knowing where the bike plan was going at the time and we'll recalibrate that now that we have those, um, those projects. Again, it may not be recalibrating so that every project is funded, but, um,we'll suggest a.....a prioritization of those projects and....and make it very clear to you what's ....what's funded, what's not, so that you can retool that. Throgmorton/All right, uh, are we good to go on that recommendation? Thomas/Yeah. Throgmorton/Kingsley, okay with you? Botchway/Yeah I mean I'm just sittin' here mullin' over timeline piece, but....um, we can continue. It's more...it's more kind of....(mumbled) Throgmorton/Okay so....I think you have guidance on that particular point. Rockne, one other thing I said right at the start is I don't think this needs to be a long, drawn out affair. What we need to do is eliminate duplication, and determine which of the remaining items have majority support from the Council. So we're just gonna move through 'em item by item now. Okay, so....moving on! Uh, the first item is support economic development opportunities for persons of color and women, perhaps as forgivable loans. Fruin/This is one, there's several in here, where you see we provide a range of impact,because without more specificity on exactly what you're lookin' for we're not really sure what the impact would be. We have loan programs that exist—we have a micro-loan program that's, uh, that's had some success this past year. We've, uh, done the, uh, education courses with...with Kirkwood. Those are fairly low dollar, um....and low staff, um, impact items. Clearly there's other strategies that are much more aggressive that would lean towards the medium or the higher ranges though. Botchway/I guess for....that....that was the one that I put in there, and for me I was, you know, obviously supportive of continuing on what we're currently doing, because if I remember correctly, and maybe I'm wrong, at the last, uh, strategic planning, um, session, um, you know, this wasn't a continuance, and so I wanted to make sure that we at least continued in that way because I think that not only(mumbled)has mentioned the micro-loan program has been successful, but I think the educational pieces have been successful as well, and so continuing that was my first course of action, and I think secondly, it's kind of highlighting those aggressive strategies that Geoff is talking about. Or looking into those aggressive strategies that Geoff is talking about. Throgmorton/Well I...I, this is Jim, I....I certainly support the idea of continuing what we've already been doing in that area. I think it's been very, uh, productive. Uh, I don't know This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 5 what it really means to pursue more aggressive, uh....uh, policies or initiatives. So, anyhow. Your thoughts, guys? People? Mims/Yeah, I'm comfortable continuing. I....I was at the program at Kirkwood that we did, 'You Want to Start Your Own Business,' and I mean I thought it was...Tracy and the rest of'em did a fantastic job with that, and there was....I think we had like 80 people there, and I think they had a lot of good information. I think those are kind of the grassroots kind of things that we need to start and maybe try and continue and then maybe we get to that point where you....you've got enough people who've been through those and are looking for some assistance and can figure out ways through, you know, through the Chamber, through other....I don't think everything we do has to be the City doing it either. I think we've got to look for strategic partners in doing some of these things as well, so....for now, for this coming year I'd like to continue what we're doing. Cole/And I think Kingsley made a (both talking) Oh, go ahead....Kingsley. Botchway/ Susan, to that point, I mean that's....that's, I mean obviously as a city, I mean I'm not....I don't wanna say that...I'll say this! As a city, I think that, you know, there's some things that obviously some other organizations have some expertise on. I mean I think you threw out the Chamber, I think you, um, ICAD, so (mumbled) increasing overall... um, kind of be more aggressive, it's, you know, how do we....how do we aggressively work with those organizations to ensure that it's not.....we're not doing this kind of.... this....at our current level, and really kind of stretching out and seeing what that looks like leveraging. Maybe it's just starting those conversations, but I at least wanted it kind of codified somewhere that we're doing something in some way, shape, or form with these organizations. That we give substantial amount of funding to! Cole/No, and I think Susan made a really good point there. What I really view this as is more green-lighting what we're already doing, and then as these programs develop, like our mont....micro-entrenuership program, which I think now we've gone from 5,000, correct me, to up to 10,000 you can get in a low-interest loan that the City would guarantee or is it.... Fruin/I'm gonna look to Tracy. Cole/Is that about where we are with that program? So that's (unable to hear response, away from mic) Okay, which I think that we've increased recently that limit is my understanding. So I would view that as....that's a good thing we're already doing, and then to Susan's point, as that program blossoms, we would....and even to Kingsley's point, we'd then receive the feedback from the other communities about if we do need to tweak the budgeting process, but I'm comfortable with setting this as a goal to commu...or signal to the community, um, but I'm comfortable in terms of where we are, in terms of what we've done. Thomas/ Seems good to me! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 6 Throgmorton/I.....I think you hear a majority support for that. Fruin/Understood! Throgmorton/Okay, uh, next item, address transit routes to ensure better and equal access, appropriate timing, and safe shelters. Mims/Yes. (laughs) Thomas/Hard to argue with that one! (several talking) Mims/ Well, and it's one that we kind of were starting when Chris was still here and I'm...I think some other things came up and we maybe got off track time-wise with this from our original goal. Um, and when I see low-cost and low to medium-impact on staffing, and it's an important issue, it's one I kind of jump on. Um, because we talked about the different approaches that different cities take in terms of...ours is kind of a shot-gun approach of we hit every part of the city every so often and some routes are running almost empty, and then other routes really need more frequent headways and....so trying to adjust those I think makes sense. Thomas/Sounds....sounds (both talking) Sony, go ahead! Taylor/Oh I was going to say I think this was one I had brought up because I....I've been hearing from the community issues about this and the transit, and then continually, uh, each of our meetings we continue to see more and more development further on the east and further on the west side of our town and I think it is time, uh, I think perhaps some of our transit routes, as Susan had mentioned, some are empty, some are full, uh, need to be, uh, seriously looked at and....and reconsidered and perhaps even funding more, uh, more buses and more staff. Botchway/ Geoff, do we have anything....do we have anything in the budget that speaks to that survey that Chris had talked about before he left? Fruin/Um, I don't recall, urn.....any type of survey, Kingsley, and we do not have anything in the budget for, uh, kind of a comprehensive route analysis. Um.....so unless I'm missing something, I....I don't think there's anything in there. We have had preliminary discussions at the staff level, uh, with the....the Transit staff, uh, contemplating some route changes. I think we probably need to take a step back from that and....and do some more,uh, data analytics before we....before we get into the....the actual decision-making on route reconfigurations. Throgmorton/I....I understand there've been some conversations involving changing passes, the....the, you know, what people can get passes for. Fruin/Uh huh. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 7 Throgmorton/And that would be virtually no cost, as I understand it, uh,but it seems to me that this particular topic is, uh, pretty crucial for our lower income residents being able to get to work,being able to get to school, etc., uh, so I think it's appropriate to see what we can do on this and....I....I don't think we want to, you know, buy five new buses and hire all the staff needed to operate and maintain 'em, but.... Dickens/ I just want to thank the City for para-transit. They just received their, I think what...four new buses and we have two more coming. They really appreciate the City's efforts there, because....some of those buses were in really sad shape (laughs) and had way too many miles to be on the road, so they really appreciate getting the new buses and continued, uh, support of the City, so I think that's very important too that we don't forget that. We don't see it all the time, but we do support the para-transit very heavily and.... so..... Fruin/ I can make one....one comment on this item, and I think it'll help with the other items too. We have a low impact on the budget. This could be a situation where we bring in an outside firm to help us go through this process. Um, the impact on the budget is low because the parking fund itself, uh, or sorry, the Transit funds itself is pretty healthy. It's not....it's not competing with general fund dollars, and so it may be a higher cost item than....than other things on this list that are listed as high, uh, because it's....it's not as, um, a dire situation and the Transit fund is a.....is a, it could be in the general fund, and certainly from a....a staff impact, it's a....it's a big project to take on. Urn, but I think we have the capacity to do that, uh, right now. The other piece of it that's not commented on here. This is a big community. There's a lot of community outreach that comes with a project like this and so, um,there's that bandwidth too that we have to measure as we're doing planning studies as, uh, how much....how much is healthy for the community, urn, and certainly I think it's time and, um....uh, we're....we're well-suited to....to tackle this one in the coming year. Cole/I'd also like to give a shout-out to the work that Jeremy Endsley's group'd on. I think you terms...in terms of the non-profits that have really worked on so they can really build on a lot of the recommendations that they have been making. Thomas/Cedar Rapids too, I believe, is recently(several talking) it seems....the timing seems right to do this. Throgmorton/Okay, so I think we have support for this particular topic. Jumping ahead, the next item is begin the process for creating a form based code for the downtown. I see that the budget and staffing impact is estimated to be high. I don't know if that's really high or high(laughs) but anyhow, high! So.....I.....I guess a lot depends on what begin the process means. Fruin/Well, I think, uh, when Dan was here, Dan Parolek was here, urn, he estimated the next phase of the, urn, the two form based code studies that are underway to be 18 months. Um, and so that's what we're lookin' at. Urn, it's probably realistic to think we could start that next phase this winter. Uh, we have to go through a procurement cro...process This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 8 and the consultant, uh, has to build in time to their schedule to....to get that started. So, I would guess we're starting that around January. So you take another 18 months off of that and. um uh and I....and I think it's going to be difficult for us to overlap, to...to do those two while we're starting the new one. Urn, so I'd say the impact on staffing is the highest. The impact on the budget, urn.....you know I think our first contract on thethe two form based codes was 180 or 190,000, if I'm recallin' it correctly. That's not a, certainly not an insurmountable budget, urn, request that...that we could fund, but again it is in the general fund and, urn, that's where things are the tightest right now. Mims/I think we need to wait on this one till we get further down the road on the other two form based (both talking) Cole/Isn't this more of a strategic plan thing that,you know, that we would focus on, um....as opposed to doing it in the budget process? So I guess I would agree with Susan on that. Throgmorton/Well, uh, I think it probably should come up during the shate...strategic plan discussion. I'm okay with, urn, because of the....the time table, 18 months to finish the second phase of what we're already doing, so I'm okay. I was (mumbled) okay too withdraw it, knowing that I want to move in that direction eventually, but(several talking) Cole/And I was always pleased to see too that there's a Historic Preservation meeting relatively quickly talking about the downtown, so I think there's gonna be a lot of future conversations. Yeah, the 12th, um....so it seemed like to me this discussion would come after all that process. Throgmorton/Okay, so we don't need this particular thing in the....uh, our budget advice. But we have it in the back of our minds! (laughs) All right, so the next item is establish a creative space downtown. Is that a semi-colon? ArtiFactory. Mims/Again, I would say no on this one. I mean I think it's something....and I didn't make it to the meeting they had last week on Art Downtown, the various things. I think it's a good goal. I think it's a lofty goal. I think....given....the medium to high impact on the budget, and....and staffing, and all the other projects we have going, I think it's the kind of thing that we need to keep our eye out for the right opportunity to join with community partners on something. Again, it's....it's not the sort of thing that I think the City should be doing all on its own. I think that this should be with strategic partners. Um, so I think....my sense is with our budget we typically have flexibility, and lots of times things don't always move that fast anyway in this, you know, in terms of doing a project this big,that....we just, again, kind of keep it in the back of our mind, keep a placeholder for the right opportunity with partners or the right property or something to come along. Thomas/Well I agree with what you're saying. I think it's kind of an opportunistic situation that we're....we're talking about. Uh, but I don't....that to me does not mean.....setting it aside or delaying it in any way so I.....it seems to me that it's something that is ongoing. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 9 I know staff, Geoff has....it's in the back of your mind, Geoff, right? As things move forward in the downtown. So I don't know that we...we keep it in the back of our mind and if an opportunity presents itself Mims/ Oh yeah, I agree! (several talking) Thomas/Yeah, uh.....(several talking) Throgmorton/What's that, Kingsley? Botchway/ Can we move it actually? What I was thinking though, can we move it up to supporting economic development opportunities, urn, up to that section? Because one of the things (mumbled) were talking about like supporting the economic development opportunities, it makes me also think of space. It's not always just about, you know, having just cash on hand or capital. Throgmorton/Sounds like a reasonable suggestion to me. Uh, be easily done, so....yeah. Fruin/ Yeah, I don't....I mean, this memo won't live on past this meeting(laughter) Throgmorton/What? (laughs) (several talking) Mims/ I mean it says it's related to area number one anyways in here so (several talking) Fruin/I guess from a staff standpoint, um...you know, we....we do look at this as one of those things that if we keep in the back of our mind, we can be opportunistic, hopefully when the time comes, and I know that's hard for the supporters of this because they've been trying for 20 years to....to fmd this space. Um...but if we don't want to wait until there's a opportunity in front of us, that's what these costs re....refiect, cause we're gonna be, you know, someone's gonna have to pay the high rents, um, downtown to lease the space or to build the space downtown, and from a staffing standpoint, we just have really no concept of what's....what's needed, um, at....at this point, but.....we've had good conversations. Wendy Ford, I know, keeps in touch with them. We are looking for, urn, solutions to try to help them. I know they're doing the same and I think we're getting closer to the point where you....you could hopefully see something come up in the next year or two. Cole/Again, seems more like a strategic plan point rather than a budget. I might be wrong on (both talking) Throgmorton/Yeah, cause we don't have any specific dollars or any (several talking) Thomas/ ...cost to this at this point (several talking) Throgmorton/Okay, so (several talking) probably should pull that out,but I think the sense is we want you to explore opportunities as they arise to actually pursue this, you know. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 10 Fruin/And I'd make one final mention. The EDC policies that are working their way through the Committee and ultimately to the full Council, urn, as currently drafted, um, allow for the use of district-wide TIF to support arts and cultural types of opportunities, so even if there's, urn, nothing in the budget that's a line item, if we have the flexibility and if they....if they want to be downtown, that's in an urban renewal area. There may be a possibility, depending on their needs, to....to use TIF and not have to wait for a new budget cycle or....to...to meet their needs. Throgmorton/Okay, I think you have....our assessment now. Let's move to the next item, make street tree plantings a priority, including better prioritiz....better, sorry, better prioritizing the existing budget. Thomas/Just as a....introductory thought on that, I....in looking at the impact on staffing, uh, which is noted as high, it's always been my hope with...with the street tree planting that it be something....that is a, kind of a.....a partnership of the City with non-profits, with volunteer groups. Uh, I could see a strong, um, kind of'tree corps youth' component in this, uh,different ways in which we try to leverage the staff, um, similar in a way to what Thomas Agren was talking about at that arts meeting where he mentioned that this...extra-ordinary mural program in Cincinnati is a program where the artists develop the concept for the mural and it's implemented by youth, and these are....extraordinary murals (laughs) I mean there's nothing lost in that translation, and....and in my experience in other cities, uh,tree planting is often approached this way. Uh, it's not simply relying on staff. So I...I would just simply say as a prelude to talking about this, that I....I would hope we could ..um come up with a strategy, that staff could come up with a strategy where we're not expecting staff to plant all these trees. There's a....so much better benefit in terms of social capital when you have the community involved in the process. Dickens/There's a lot of Boy Scouts that are looking for Eagle projects. (laughter and several talking) Thomas/There you go! (several talking) Dickens/They're corrin' to me and ask me, or you know, Hickory Hill Park or something like that. I know we did one out at Kent Park when I was a kid, and we planted most of the pine trees that are on the left side, and they're....now they're full mature trees 40 years later so...there's a lot of projects, and they're always looking. So...you know, they....that's a great place for them to do a project. They could pick an area and do the whole area and....they'd be willing to do it. They would get their own volunteers and follow through, so.... Thomas/ So my hope is the high....the high rating, in terms of impact, urn, with that approach would....would be significantly reduced. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 11 Throgmorton/ So I...I want to be clear about somethin'. So we do have currently have in the budget money for tree plantings, right? So are you suggesting....you're not suggesting increasing the budget for tree plantings, right? You are suggesting a different pathway (both talking) Thomas/I'm suggesting....what I was (both talking) Another point I would make is, I don't know what the status of the tree inventory is, but I would suggest once we have that, and I think it's coming in this fiscal year, uh, that we could apply the same kind of analysis to the urban forest that I was suggesting with the....the parks' facilities. In other words, uh, look at it from an equity standpoint, so where we have these high identified, these areas with high need with respect to equity, that we could focus our attention in those areas. Cole/Well I guess I would echo what John talked about, you know, the use of the word `preliminary.' Um, really as I view this process, what we're trying to do is give direction to staff and then come back with essentially the budget proposal in....in January. And so it'd be my hope that along the lines of what John said, is that, you know, that we reach out to the relevant non-profits, engage in that conversation, and see if there could be some sort of joint recommendation, and I....I'm hopeful that at least that procs of it...part of it, will not be super-time intensive, um, would be my thought,uh, to come back, and it may be more dollars that they end up recommending, or they may sort of stay the line in terms of where we're at at this point. Throgmorton/What are you hearing, Geoff? Fruin/Urn, I....I think I....I think I hear, urn,what....what you're talking about, uh, John, and we can certainly explore those types of partnerships. There is a staff time component to managing those types of partnerships too. Um, but we can certainly explore and look at models in other cities. You've....you've, uh, mentioned to me before that you've seen some other models. So, we're....we're happy to look into that and,urn, I agree that the tree inventory,urn, is gonna give us the foundation to be much more data-driven with our investments, and that's what we plan to do. Thomas/The other thing I would mention, and it's not so much strategic plan or....well maybe it's strategic plan oriented, but not budget oriented, and that is....the.....the idea that I'd suggested a while back of a tree advisory committee or board. I think that would help on the....at the planning phase, to not have staff....burdened with that. It could be a sub- committee of the Parks Commission, uh, where citizens, kind of like our Citizen Action Plan, where we.... Fruin/ Sure! Thomas/ ....uh, we have that...the....that committee look into the, um.....coming up with a...a strategy for street tree planting. Uh,the....my......my experience working with staff is they are....they're so focused on the day-to-day that it can be hard to get ahead, and plus this may be a....a, um, you know, inter-de....inter-agency effort, so it could cross over This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 12 between different....different entities and I think a committee would be helpful in that regard as well. Throgmorton/Uh, Parks and Rec Committee sounds like a reasonable possibility to me. I'm seeing noddings. (several responding) Fruin/I've had those conversations with Juli already. Throgmorton/Yeah! Okay, can we move on to the next topic? All right, so the next one is....eh ....fund community gardens, edible landscapes, and low-cost growing opportunities for the community. Cole/Well that's my (both talking) Botchway/ Oh, go ahead! Cole/ Yeah, so, urn, I've already had conver....and I think Fred has reached out to all of you in terms of discussing this proposal, and I think....and I've talked with Geoff a little bit about it as well, urn what we're really talking about hopefully is one or two projects at most, um, and at least I think in my conversations with Geoff, uh, it...it seemed to be a pretty reasonable goal. Uh, and so we're hopeful that, you know, we can do....I'm sure all of you have seen the...the type of facility we have,just south of Robert A. Lee. It's just incredible what they were able to do, and it's hoped...he's intending to bring that sort of concept, urn, to other parts of the community, on a, you know, maybe one or two locations, urn, and so he....there's a little bit more detail there in terms of what the proposal would look like,but I think it's an incredibly exciting opportunity. Staff is an issue. Um, I think that it seems like based upon past relationships they've had and past projects, they'll be much clearer about what the expectations are, about the respective parties in terms of maintenance and those sorts of things. I'm very confident, um, it will be a really exciting project, but it'll be very limited in scope. Throgmorton/Kingsley, did you want to say something(both talking) Go ahead! Botchway/Well, I was going to say is that the reason why, Geoff, it says medium to high? Fruin/Yeah,the, urn.....uh, the medium to high(clears throat) excuse me,just reflects that these types of landscapes require higher level maintenance than your.....your traditional, urn, park trees and grasses, um, and....I think you all know cause we've had that conversation before. We brought on a lot of new acreage into our park system the last five to 10 years, and we have not increased our maintenance staffing. So it's....that's really just reflecting that, urn....uh,they're bein' stretched thin and these are higher maintenance, uh, amenities in the parks. If we're lookin' at a small number, and what we've initially talked about is...is focusing on Creekside Park, because we, uh,just completed a...are in the process of completing a master plan, and that'll likely be suggested as a....a 2018 project that we can fold that in there. Um, I think that there's support in that neighborhood to help with some some volunteer efforts to care for, uh, a community This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 13 garden type of facility. Um, so I....I think there are some opportunities in which we can...we can get this done and, um....not have that high impact on staff. If we were to look at doing this at four or five, six different parks, then I would probably have more caution for ya. Mims/ I think that brings up a point though is, I mean as we move forward on some of these and we talk about equity across the community in different locations, I think we have to really try to move forward with these, with...partnerships with the neighborhood associations or whatever, to really kind of off-load some of that maintenance onto the people in those neighborhoods that are benefiting. If they really want these things in the neighborhood, we need to find a way to partner with them and engage them to the extent that they will take on a lot of that. Otherwise I think we put ourselves in an unsustainable situation in terms of where our staff is putting in their time, and for the benefit of who and how many, urn, across the community. The other...the other piece of it, and I know this is not necessarily cheap also and it's probably mostly at the beginning of the season, but if we can continue to expand our garden space, I mean, I think we're up to 200 and I think they sold out within hours of....or went up for rent or whatever, within hours this spring. So, that's one area that I would like to see us work on if we can. Fruin/Yeah, and so Creekside has a....a community garden component. Um, we've had some conversations with the Peninsula Homeowner's Association. They'd like to, uh, consider one in their neighborhood. Not in the park there, but in some, uh, additional property that the City owns. So I think there's some.....some good possibilities. Taylor/Rockne and I saw the Kiwanis one when we were there for our listening post and it was coming up very nicely and beautifully, and....and we saw people actually maintaining it, getting the water from the park and taking it over and....and it was doing....thriving quite well. Uh, but I know the maintenance is an issue cause, uh, some folks on the edible garden in Wetherby have approached me, and particularly the Master Gardeners had taken on a project to go and clean that up, and they were concerned, but could be just an education thing. You mentioned, uh, Susan, the neighborhood associations. Perhaps those folks in that neighborhood aren't really aware that they should be keeping an eye on that and....and keepin' it up and that it's usable to them. Thomas/I....I (both talking) Botchway/I would agree. I think that, you know, um.....I'm very supportive of this, and I think to Rockne's point about where there needs to be kind of a greater direction that revolves around staffmg, um, you know, I...I would....I would be supportive of this with that I guess `caveat,' making sure that we are looking at how we're building capacity to support maintenance, and again, that can be a community....community/non-profit/City partnership, I mean as much as we're able to do where that doesn't turn to kind of a high impact on staffing, um, but I'm very supportive of moving forward on this. Um....for the community gardens. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 14 Throgmorton/Kingsley pretty much expresses my view. I....I toss in one, uh, additional item, uh, and I've talked with Fred Meyer about this as well. Uh, one thing that would be very valuable I think is for Fred and Backyard Abundance and whoever else is involved in...in these particular, uh, activities, uh, to find a way to reach out to our immigrant and refugee populations, and link up with them and enable them to take advantage of these kinds of gardens. Not a, I mean, not just them, of course, but, uh....you know, French speaking Congolese. Well it'd be good to find some way to actually connect with them, maybe even grow....help them grow some food that they would like to consume. So anyhow.... Fred's aware (both talking) Botchway/That's an awesome idea! So what....however we can articulate that in the plan I think is great! Thomas/Yeah, I would just add the....I think the, what I saw of the plan at Creekside and Robert A. Lee, I would.....I would say in my view is a better model than, uh, Wetherby, simply because I think it's....it's understood by the community better as to what it is they're dealing with. I think Wetherby, because it's a different concept, you know, it's the edible forest concept, permaculture, and kind of a more....naturalistic conception, uh, I....I don't know that it's, um....got sufficient support from the neighborhood in terms of taking on the responsibility to maintain it, whereas it seems to me...Robert A. Lee and the, that concept that I see drawn up for Creekside, is usually what I kind of associate with a community garden, um....and it has...it has a little bit more rigorous structure to it. I think.....just seems better adapted to community support. Throgmorton/Okay, Geoff, I think you've gotten pretty clear guidance from on.....from us on this. The next item is fund the park master plan implementation. We've already discussed this in....in terms of that first,um, item I brought up. The next one is ensuring equity across the city and park facilities, complete neighborhood concept, and there are a couple elements associated with this; working with the Iowa City Community School District to use grounds and facilities to diversify and expand access across the city; and providing parks that have a range of activities in each area and gathering places. Thomas/Well that was one that I introduced, and I....I think my....my thought on this at this point would be to....um.....if we can factor in the....the equity analysis into our park master plan implementation so that it's....it's sort of part of that discussion and we....we could see where....where opportunities may develop for, urn, that kind of partnership. But it....it, my overall sense in terms of our strategic planning is....I....I really feel it would...it's useful and, um, appropriate to try to put a little bit more emphasis on this notion of equity and justice, which is kind of the overarching aspect to our strategic plan, and I don't know that we've always been able to kind of....make sure that it's been factored into our prioritization process. So I...I thought the parks master plan did a great job, you know, identifying this....this need, which.....you know, I....I don't know had been articulated before. So it seems to me very appropriate at....at this time to, as we move forward in terms of our budgeting, to acknowledge what....what they achieved and...and implemen....factor it into our....our budgeting process. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 15 Cole/(mumbled) Go ahead! Throgmorton/ Go ahead! Cole/This reminds me of the economic development piece, in the sense that we're already doing really well and I like the vision staff has already articulated, so it's more sort of keep up the good work. Taylor/I think also important to that is...and that's the accessibility and the park master plan did an excellent job, uh, Juli, uh, with the accessibility part, the ADA compliant type, um, parts of that plan, which I think is important also. Throgmorton/ Okay. Uh....is that reasonable clarity (both talking) Fruin/Yeah, I guess, you know, the one piece of this that I really focused on when....when I was reviewing it was the partnerships with the School District, and...that's....that's a whole other layer, um, and I guess my concern there is we've got a pretty progressive parks' plan on our own property right now. I recognize that the....the school's yards serve as parks in neighborhood I live in, you know, our elementary school's our closest park, if you will. So, but....I guess I'll need direction, clear direction from the Council, if that's somethin' you want us to pursue. And we can pick out those elementary schools that serve as those parks and see if the School District would be amenable to, uh, partnering with us on improvements there, but....that's just gonna compete for funds in our own park system too. Throgmorton/So I'd like to suggest that we revisit this when we have our strategic plan discussion, uh, especially the concept of complete neighborhoods. John,uh, you could perhaps articulate that more fully. We'll hash it out and see where we want to go? Cole/I agree with Jim. Throgmorton/Okay! Movin' ahead! Continue progress on affordable housing action plan projects. We already discussed that. So the next one is reimagine the UniverCity program to use funding more effectively. Rockne, I know you (both talking) Cole/Yeah, I brought this up, and this may or may not have a budget increase associated with it. Um, you know, in the past two years, you know, that I've really been an advocate for adding,uh, additional houses in the budget for UniverCity program, cause it's been...I don't know(mumbled)program, but it's one of my favorite programs, but it did occur to me are we using all of those dollars in an optimal way,um, and that really was not a rhetorical question, actual question, um, and so for this one, at least what I would like to see is maybe if we could reach out to some of the previous UniverCity owners,um, and....and see if they would want to engage in a committee or....or to give us feedback on that,because this has been such a critical part of our neighborhood stabilization efforts. It just makes me wonder whether we can....more, use more imagination in terms of how we're using those dollars, whether it's less per household, um, different types of, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 16 um, houses that we would maybe invest in, a duplex, a triplex, um I think we could effect....and I think in terms of the staff piece of it, you know, I think it'd just be reaching out to, you know, former UniverCity owners, and they may say we don't wanna do it. We don't wanna participate it. Then....then so be it, but I just think we need to...sort of more effectively use those dollars, especially when neighborhood stabilization is going to be such a critical part, uh, of what we're going to be facing the next six months, and um, this has been one of the key aspects of neighborhood stabilization. Mims/I guess I'm not really sure what.....the purchasers of those homes.....necessarily are going to bring to the table in terms of having better ideas of how to use that money than anybody else in the community. I mean, they.....simply saw an opportunity to buy a house in an area they wanted, in a price range, you know, that....that had been fixed up and, you know, gotten back into decent shape. So.....um....I....I guess before we start putting a lot of staff time into this, I guess I would encourage you, Rockne, to come back maybe with some more specific ideas. I...I guess....I mean, we used a model of, you know, getting rid of rental....buying properties that were rental properties,rehabbing them, getting them back on the market for people who fit the, you know, the income criteria, etc.,below 120% I think of the median income, and so....1 don't know. I....I guess I can't (both talking) any....and that's my own limitations maybe on my thinking outside the box (both talking) on this particular thing. Cole/Yeah. Mims/Ur....so I'm having (both talking) Cole/Well I....I think that's actually a good point. I don't think they should necessarily be the only one,but I think this would be the type of thing that, you know, I would be willing, with Council's approval,just to reach out to people and get some ideas and maybe come back with a more concrete proposal. Um, but it does.....I do think that we do need to think about whether this particular model is the best way to use our resources. Dickens/You might wanna talk to realtors and....contractors (both talking) Cole/Yeah! (both talking) ....participated in it, um....yeah. So I....I'd be happy to do that. Throgmorton/I'd like to make a suggestion. Cole/Yeah. Throgmorton/Terry, you and Susan tell me if I'm wrong about this, but my recollection is that we haven't really had, um.....uh, an opportunity to revisit the program and ask ourselves well, why was it created. It had....it was changed midstream when the University of Iowa pulled out, uh, and it's achieved certain objectives and, uh, 62 or whatever houses have been purchased through this program. But we haven't had a chance to sort of revisit it and...assess how it's done and whether we want to change in any way. So I wonder, it might just be helpful to get a report from maybe Tracy(laughs) uh (laughter) about, uh, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 17 you know, accomplish....providing the kind of information I just described. We...we, you...we, you haven't given us a report like that up till now, have you, I mean, you've reported about new houses that have gone into the program and so on. Hightshoe/When we purchased our 50th home, we did an update about the homes and the purchasing, but are you talking about an update about.....like the neighborhood, how much we've....like each neighborhood....that was 60/40% owner/rental or what type of.....what do you want us to report about? Throgmorton/Yeah, good question. What I had in mind was sort of...basically revisiting the initial purpose of the Un....UniverCity program. The historical fact that the University pulled out, and we've been funding homes since then, so we know how many were.... were purchased over time, per year, and then the question becomes do we want to change the goal somehow. I think that's (both talking) Cole/Yeah (both talking) Throgmorton/That's pretty much what you're askin', Rockne, I mean do we want to expand it from purchasing single-family homes, renovating them and reselling them, or do we want to...altered in some fashion. Hightshoe/Okay. I mean I know from the beginning the primary purpose throughout the.... since 2011 has been neighborhood stabilization, I mean we applied for I-job....State I- jobs grant and we listed neigh....neighborhood stabilization. Now along the way, we've had different goals for different houses. For affordability or historic preservation,but the underlying theme for the program has been neighborhood stabilization, to bring neighbors appropriate balance of renter and owner-occupied. Now how we do that....we can....we can do that in many ways, and we can look at changing UniverCity program, we can look at affordable rental or just stable rental, um, for families downtown, in addition to owner-occupied, so we can think of different options. Um, we have thought about duplexes. Throgmorton/And I think that's what Rockne (several talking) Cole/Yeah, that's what I'm getting at it, you know, for example with the owner-occupied, as I understand it it's been owner-occupied to a full single-family. We may evaluate whether we'd have a triplex and have owner in one of those units and rent out the other two. Um, so I think that may allow us to approach greater in....or different income levels, urn, but that'd be the type of thing that'd....didn't really necessarily have all the answers on that, but I think if we go to the people that either participated in the program or at least have feedback on the program, construction people, uh, I think we could maybe more effectively utilize the dollars. Hightshoe/Yeah, realtors. We've thought about that for the duplexes or those owner-occupied, I mean how much would a homeowner pay for the house if they could rent out, and how This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 18 many buyers would we have,because no matter what we do we still have to sell that house at the end. Cole/Yes! Hightshoe/ So do we have the market if we do those things? Cole/Yep! Mims/The other time to look at this maybe is also in conjunction when we get the final report back from staff on....the familial problems that we have in terms of what we're going to do and.....as we get to the end of the moratorium on the rentals, because it all kind of fits into that same thing of that neighborhood stabilization. Thomas/ Yeah I mean...I agree. I (clears throat) often wanted to see the.....my reimagining would be this....to move from what I think we've often referred to as the `neighborhood stabilization' to `neighborhood revitalization,' you know, that we,uh, and....which may mean a more proactive approach and more comprehensive approach toward....you know, how to address the question of bringing life and vitality....uh, into these neighborhoods, beyond just trying to (laughs) you know(laughs) sort of having the....the boat overturn, urn, and you know I'm.....I'm optimistic, more so than I have been in the past,that we're moving in that direction. So I'm....that's how I imagine the reimagining is....is trying... trying to go with a more comprehensive strategy. Throgmorton/ So it seems to me we need a report of the type we've just been discussing,before we can.....make further judgments about budget and the like. Thank you, Tracy. Move to the next item.....which is....respond to the potential loss of State property tax reform backfill payments. Gosh, why would we want to do that? (laughter) So, do we need to talk about that at all? Mims/I would hope not! I mean, I would hope all these under number four are just blanket yeses. If we want to keep this city in strong financial shape so that we can continue to provide the services that residents want and expect, we have to do all of these. Otherwise we're gonna find ourselves falling off a cliff some way, some place down the road. Throgmorton/Yeah, I think....seems to me this is a given. We....we need to do this. I mean staff needs to...Geoff needs to do it, I mean he knows that. We talked about it for now... several years so (laughs) Botchway/I would agree. I guess my only....(mumbled) Throgmorton/Yeah! Go ahead! Botchway/Okay. Sorry! Um, I guess my only, um....uh.....I guess comment to it is just you know...when you, I guess, Geoff, when you give us the budget proposal in December or whenever, you know, it incorporates that, I mean and obviously you know that,but I just This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 19 wanted to make sure that's clear, I mean...I think that it's important for us to (mumbled) but I do think that, I mean, from a Council perspective, there is gonna come a time, and maybe(mumbled) come a time where I think some tough choices are gonna have to be made as far as what type of social programs or other things we need to continue or not continue, and I just want to make sure that...we're not....not making those kind of policy decisions, like those'll come back before us, and I'm sure (mumbled) kind of speak out my....my comments or my thoughts. Throgmorton/Okay! Next item, continue the City's strong financial position and continue building fund reserves. Sounds reasonable to me. Cole/Yes. Mims/Yeah, I was speaking yes to all three(both talking) Throgmorton/I know. I was just seein' (laughter) if anybody else was (several talking and laughing) Botchway/Yeah, I thought we were consolidating all of these and saying yes. Throgmorton/Well Susan was (laughter) Botchway/Oh! I...I will agree with that. Mims/Thank you, Kingsley! (laughs) Botchway/(mumbled) (laughter) Throgmorton/All right, the next item is continue the reduction in the City's property tax levy. I definitely want to do that. Dickens/ (mumbled) Botchway/Yes! Dickens/ ....where the budget ends up. Throgmorton/Yeah, so...you know,we'll see! Okay, we'll move on to the next item, work with the Metro Coalition to tell the....to better tell the story of Iowa City to others in the state, specifically rural areas, small communities, and legislators that represent them. So this was my suggestion, let me see if I can find this. Um....what....I don't know that there's any budgetary impact to this whatsoever, uh,but I can tell ya I've had conversations with several,uh, people recently about trying to find ways to engage in dialogue with the people,uh, indicated above, people who live in rural areas, small communities, and their legislators and so on. I think we've....we have, um...I think it's a major and very important task, and it's something we should pursue, but I don't think it has any This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 20 budgetary impacts. I can tell ya I talked with one State legislator yesterday, uh, at the Labor Day picnic about precisely this topic, and this particular legislator, uh, is very conscious of the political pressures that the legislator faces and....gave me a very clear sense of how people in his district think about Iowa City, by which they mean Johnson County and just....the big thing, not just what we do in City government, and uh, dialogue is...is really necessary. But.... Mims/ I would agree. Throgmorton/ ....no budgetary impact. Fruin/We're goin' through the process right now, selecting,uh, hopefully selecting a, um...new lobbyist for the....for our efforts at the State House. And that'll, you know, that's a key relationship there, obviously, because while the, um....State is in session,they're there every day, day in, day out. They're not just talkin' with our delegation. Matter of fact they spend more time with the other delegations. So, that'll be a key selection for us and a key relationship, and hopefully whoever we select has, um, already established relations with some of those, um, other districts, uh, throughout the state and we can rely on them to help, um, tell our story as well. Throgmorton/Okay,moving on! The next item is establish a participatory budgeting framework. Rockne, I know this was your idea. Cole/Yeah, this was my idea. Um....you know, we are stewards of the people's money and I think sort of the conventional wisdom sometimes is maybe we wouldn't have residents that would be interested in participating in a pilot budgeting process. Urn, the League of Cities has a wealth of information about different possible models, um, on this particular issue. Urn, I think we need to engage our residents more, and this would not just be, um, essentially a PIN grant type phenomena. I think to take a....a small portion of the budget, um, and to evaluate, and...and have the residents come up with a concept based upon that particular budget. It's not something we've done in the past. Urn, but for this I think what I would envision is is that we have staff look at League of Cities or some other possible models, and come back with a proposal, urn, so we can give sort of some very wide parameters, urn, and then come back with us, urn, and maybe either recommend to do it or not to do it, but I just think we need to get our public more engaged, um, we have a process now where we obviously have terrific professional staff people that engage in a lot of complicated, urn,budgeting, um, that we wouldn't necessarily need to get the public, uh, feedback on, but I think certainly from now until January, urn, each year it'd be nice to have the public have an open participation in this process. So there's no particular price tag associated with this,but if we get the support for this,urn, essentially it would come back with a,urn,with essentially recommended budget for this type of process. Other cities do it. We're not the only one, um, so this is not just sort of cutting it out of whole cloth, as far as that goes. So what do people think about that? Thomas/What did you say about it with respect to the PIN grant,that it would be.... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 21 Cole/I'm saying it's not necessarily a PIN grant. Throgmorton/ So let me follow up. Right now we do have the neighborhood PIN grant program. Cole/Yes. Yes. Throgmorton/We do have the social justice and racial equity grants. We do have a climate action small grants program. So there are all these mechanisms out there,but I...I am, personally intrigued by a participatory, budgetary(mumbled) I wouldn't want to just kind of leap into it,uh, so I think we need, uh, to find a way to explore new ways of engaging the public through some kind of participatory process. So I'd really like to receive from somebody, and I don't know if staff is the right source of this, but I'd like to have somebody present us with a possible framework, uh, defining its objectives and constraints and that kind of thing. That'd be pretty interesting. I'd be curious about it. Dickens/But I'd like to see if there's interest, because I know we sat through seven or eight budgets and one or two people show up, but I....I think there is a way out there, but right now I don't know how much interest there is. It'd be interesting toto find out... whether it's a survey or something `would you be interested,' and Throgmorton/Well I...I personally would....and I take the point, cause we've sat through a whole bunch of these hearings and nobody appears but....I.....I'd be very interested to see what would happen if....if we had a trial, uh, participatory budgetary....budget process, which would not(laughs) wouldn't do the whole thing but would provide a framework for people to be involved, if they wanted to. We'd try it. Cole/And I would say the one different with the grant process, there the Council's sort of directing `here's what we'd like to see and you make the application.' I think with a participatory budgeting process, the....the public would come up with the proposals as to that portion, that tiny portion of the budget. Urn, so I think it's a way that we could increase the public engagement on this process. Um,because it ultimately is their money that we're administering. And I think participation is key to...to allowing them to see how that works. (several talking) Botchway/ Is there any reason why...oh, go ahead, Rockne. (mumbled) Fruin/I'm sorry, it's....it's Geoff, Kingsley. Botchway/ Okay. Fruin/Um, I guess what....what'd be helpful from our point of view as staff is defining what is participatory budgeting because there are plenty of cities that go out and,uh,have, um, townhall meetings, surveys on what you want to see in the budget. They take that information and they....they include it as they do department input into the budget. Um, and then there's what I thought that you were, uh, going after originally, uh, Rockne, which was here's a pot of money and each neighborhood association gets it, gets it and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 22 you tell us how tohow you want it spent. Which is essentially like our PIN grant program, urn....uh, except it's a competitive process and sometimes we don't fund all the requests, but you know, the PIN grant, we've spent on everything from sidewalk repairs to park improvements to alley repairs to police overtime patrols, urn...we've really let the neighborhood direct those. Um....so defining what that is would be helpful and then we could....we're happy to report back to you on what some other cities are doing, urn...once we better understand exactly where you're goin'. Cole/Okay. Botchway/ I guess, thank you, Geoff, cause that was kind of my question/comment as well. I...I don't necessarily, I mean obviously I'm excited about having anybody participate in the budget process more so than we have now, but I guess I'm more...when I saw this, I was thinking the PIN grant posces....process and saying, 'no,' not because....I don't think I was in Council at the time,but watching some of the meetings and seeing what transpired, I just thought that it was a lot, and I think that for me I think if it's....if it's really you're talking about community engagement and having people participate, is there any reason why we couldn't do something, um, kind of what Geoff had just talked about, where we have some type of forum or some type of townhall to really engage and...and do that. And if it doesn't work, I mean we do it for a couple.....I mean do it a couple times and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work and we revisit this, but I think it's an opportunity. Throgmorton/Geoff, uh if....if you think staff can put together a....um....a brief report about what some other cities are doing and....and then suggested framework that...that we could consider,umuh, following on a exploratory kind of basis or, you know, test... testing kind of basisI'd be interested in that. Fruin/Okay. Throgmorton/I don't want to create a, you know....multi-million dollar(laughs)participatory budgetary process from the get-go. Fruin/Yeah, again as long as we're....we're clear. I think based on your comments, that we're talking about getting public input into the budget process, not carving out another pot of money for.... Cole/ Well I....I think for me it's getting the feedback in terms of what other cities have done with the participatory budgeting model, urn, and it could include whether they're doing those sort of more grant-based model, or you know, if they're crafting out a little portion of it, and then having the....the community give the feedback on that, and I know that the,urn, the League of Cities I think does have some,urn,participatory budget, at least models, urn, so we can at least maybe get some feedback on that. And I'm thinking, you know, if we could get that back in like six months or something like that, urn, so we're not....nothing urgent about that, as far as that goes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 23 Fruin/Well we'll need to move a little quicker than that if you want it into the next budget. Cole/Yeah. Fruin/But we....we've got examples from other cities (both talking) Throgmorton/All right, that sounds reasonable to me, if it's all right with you. (several responding) Okay! Plenty of noddings. Um, I'm conscious of the time. I'd kinda like to move through the other items a little more quickly if we can. (laughs) It's a challenge! (laughter) All right, so the next item, bicycle master plan implementation. We've already addressed that. Moving on! Uh, provide capital funds for the City's proportional share of a County behavioral access center. This is something I suggested. Let me try to clarify it just a little bit, as soon as I find my note about it, uh....uh.....where is it? Um, what I would say is really set aside some capital and/or operating funds for the City's proportional share. You know, we don't know what it's gonna be, uh...hopefully we'll be able to participate, so we gotta be thinkin' about some money somehow. That's....that's all I meant. Mims/Yeah, I would definitely agree, and I think we're at the point where we're really, um, at the point of some decision making and I think some things could happen here, urn, within the next few weeks or months and we'd start to see some real action on this. So.... Throgmorton/Yeah, so.... Botchway/Yes! Throgmorton/Yeah, so....okay, think we're hearin' support for that one. Okay, next one, address gaps in mental health services, noting the decline of State funding. Kingsley, I think that was yours, wasn't it? Botchway/Yeah and so....I....I'm gonna actually remove this one and....um....I need to do a little more...it's more kind of a conversation with the County and I don't know if everybody here's aware....was aware that Rod had gone to the State and talked about, you know, the loss of State funding as it pertains to their,um, their kind of mental health services,um,through Johnson County and it's....it's impacting our community in ways that, and I don't necessarily know is kind of readily apparent, kind of in the newspaper or the media, um,but I think this is kind of one of those things where it's somewhat nebulous and I want to kind of get more clarification as far as specific gaps that I'm interested in, so...I'm taking it off. Throgmorton/Anybody object to.... Mims/Nope! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 24 Throgmorton/ ...having it removed for the moment? Okay! We'll do that. Uh, next item, diversify City staff using recent ICPD overhires as an example. I don't see this as being budget, uh, an element that has budgetary impact as such. Mims/And I'm not really sure how this works (laughs) Froin/Clearly there was a budget im....uh, implication for the overhires. Mims/Right! Fruin/Um...you know, we had off-setting salary reductions in the same department that kind of made that budget neutral. Um....it's....it works well for police when you have a list and you know who's next on your hiring list, but the vast majority of positions in the City, we don't have a list, you know, we put out applications, we see who we get and so.....um, I know the Council's overall goal, and we've talked about that. I'm just not sure that it really has much im...impact on the budget. If another opportunity arises with a, um, an overhire type of situation, I think we clearly had success with this past one and I won't hesitate to bring it back to ya. Throgmorton/Yeah. Yeah, I....I think it's correct to say the....the Council wants us to continue diversifying the City staff, but I agree. It doesn't seem to have a budgetary impact. Okay. Uh, next item investments in major strategic plan initiatives. Well we can skip that cause it's already been addressed. Next one, develop return on investment metrics for strategic plan initiatives. Terry, I think you suggested this. Do you want to say anything about it? Dickens/What was that again? (laughter) Throgmorton/Develop return on investment metrics for strategic plan initiatives. Botchway/Was that me? Throgmorton/Well maybe it was! I thought it was Terry so..... Mims/I think (both talking) Botchway/ Yeah I just want to make sure.....I....I just want to make sure that we're measuring what we say we're doing. It goes back to a comment that, uh, I think John had made, when we were talking about affor....affordable housing, in that, you know, we're obviously putting more resources in affordable housing and we had a great presentation by....Tracey Achenbach as far as what was....what's happening kind of in affordable housing in the Johnson County area, but again, what is the...are we making a dent, like are we just moving like the affordable housing ratio 1% or is that 25% or 30%, and so I guess for me, and maybe this ties into, I can't remember the exact model we were talking about a year or maybe a year or two ago, but I just want to make....be more concrete as far as what we're....what we're doing, like what is the tangible effort or measurement or This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 25 outcome that we're getting from, um, these dollars or initiatives or strategies that we're putting in place. Mims/I think calculating an actual return on investment's gonna be pretty difficult, if not impossible, on a lot of these things. I....I think what we can do, and I think...and then I think that's what our update for the strategic plan does for us, and we'll get to that, and kudos to staff who did that. Urn.....you know, it....it puts back in front of us, and the community if they read it, I mean a really nice synopsis and summary of all these things that we've been doing, not just in the last year and a half to two years, but some of'em which actually started prior to that, and I found that really helpful in terms of consolidating a lot of different activities that....that we've done as a Council and...and our staff particularly has done, but I don't.....I just don't think that there's a lot of these items that you can actually calculate a return on investment. I think we just have to keep reporting out what we've done, so we can keep reminding the community and ourselves the progress that we have made. I think it's hard with some of these to know how much of a dent you've made because I think the goal posts keep moving with a lot of these things also. Thomas/I think it's a useful conversation. I....I don't know if it's always as easy to translate, urn depending on what aspect of the stra....strategic plan we're discussing, but for example with, um....traffic safety. I would really like to see a reduction in the number of collisions we see on our city streets. I think that is a....would be a really, it's very concrete measure, which I think would resonate with the community. Urn, so that's just one example, but I think....you know, how....how....I think trying to come up with a.... you know, some data points, um....that....that I think we might all agree on as a community are valid measures of progress, urn....is worth talking about(laughs) but, you know, I think it's going to vary as to....what aspects of our strategic plan it's going to be successful with. Throgmorton/Yeah, so I definitely think we need to have outcome measures....that we can compare to what our goals were. Uh, and Geoff and I have had conversations related to this, havin' to do with key indicators, if you will, that will help us track...whatever (mumbled) (laughs) whatever the key indicators might be, so we have a sense of.... whether we feel we're on track or not. Uh, and.... Mims/I agree with that. Return on investment's a very different thing. Throgmorton/Yeah, very different thing. Taylor/Right, and I think that goes along with kind of our whole,um, environmental plan too, as far as it's....you can't.....we don't measure it monetarily, but by our greenhouse gas emissions we're....we're able to see the numbers and....and that's very factual, and I think so that's one way we can measure that and....and not, uh, look at, uh, money aspect of it. Throgmorton/Right. So staff is workin' on that already so....we're....we're makin' progress. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 26 Botchway/And I'm good. That works! Throgmorton/Okay. Good deal. All right, we have two more items. Uh, and maybe Susan could talk about both of'em cause I think they both came from Susan. Uh, be conscious of staff capacity and demands placed on the City's workforce as new initiatives are undertaken and accumulate over time, and promote a healthy staff culture in which employees understand their work is valued. Mims/Well I guess the only comment I would make to this has nothing to do with the budget or what Geoff and staff need to be doing in preparation for that. It's more for the seven of us sitting up here to kind of always keep those things in the front of our mind as, you know, as we're looking at adding things to the budget or as we look at strategic planning this fall, that we added a lot of things over the last couple of years, a lot of those things are not off from staffs plate yet, and so....you know, making sure that we just keep that, again, in the front of our mind as to what kind of a load we're putting on staff. Urn, as Geoff said, you know,they were.....they were already busy with full-time jobs before we started adding all these things (laughs) and so as they've had to, you know, reprioritize what they're doing, but still trying to get through their day-to-day work that didn't necessarily go away just because we came up with new projects. I think we've really got to be, uh, conscious of that and I think we, uh, we need to make them know that we are concerned about that and we need to keep that in mind as we make those decisions. Dickens/We've had quite a turnover too, with the staff, and so we're losing a lot of history, and we continue losing a lot of history, so....it does put more on the people that are taking over. If they're not from....coming up through the ranks here, they're starting over. There'll be a learning curve there so.... Throgmorton/Okay, uh....I, you know, I clearly agree. There's no budgetary impact (several talking) we're aware of, so.... All right! Think we made it through it. Thank you everybody for a stimulating conversation. I hope it was helpful for the staff in terms of providing majority Council guidance. All right. We can turn to....let me find out where we are here. I closed the wrong thing(mumbled) Bear with me, please! Mims/Clarification of agenda items. Clarification of Agenda Items: Throgmorton/Yeah, I just closed the wrong document. I had two documents open at the same time. All right, yeah. So, yeah, clarification of agenda items. All right so...does anybody want any agenda items (laughs) clarified? Item 3f(9) Deer population: Judy Atkins,Rebecca Bergus Mims/Well actually it's not a clarification (laughs) if you will. Um, but it has to do with some of the, uh, communication we had and it goes actually back to the budget a little bit, and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 27 that's the deer population. Do we have money, or can we make sure we have money, if we have snow this winter to do a deer survey? It's been a number of years since we've done one, and I would agree with the many people who are expressing concern about the increase in the deer population in the city. Throgmorton/Well we got a petition signed by many dozens of people who live probably in your general area and Terry's general area.... Mims/Yeah! Little bit further east than I am but.... Fruin/Um, we do budget$50,000 every year, urn, for the....for a deer program. The deer count, I don't believe, actually....I don't think we're charged for that. That's coordinated through the DNR. Urn, Liz Ford with the, um, Animal Center is in constant contact with the DNR, and I can tell ya, although they can't do the....the deer count in the snow, or they haven't been able to the last few years, urn, they are able to....to try to measure the size of the population in Iowa City and other communities through other measures, and they're,they're being the DNR's take, is that the deer population in Iowa City's not growing, that it's moving around and perhaps becoming more concentrated, um, as development occurs. But they're....they're not seein'....indicators that show growth, so whether that's traffic accidents or any number of other things they may look at, um, ultimately if we go through a, um....a....some sort of deer, um, plan, mi....mitigation plan, it has to be approved by the DNR. Urn, if we know it's a Council priority, I think the sooner we know that the better, and we can work with the DNR to see what it'll take to get that done. Um....but as of right now,just the feedback we're gettin' from the DNR, they don't see a great need to pursue that. It's not to mean that they wouldn't.... Taylor/I....I was wondering about that because it seems like recently we've gotten more emails, and I got a phone call right before I carne to the meeting from someone who said the petition was coming. Uh, the people in the neighborhood seemed to think they're seeing more deer, and I know we've questioned before as far as the number of accidents and seemed like from police reports there....there weren't as many as people were saying there might be. Uh,but I think we also could look at the DOT, because these deer would be crossing the interstate from one part of the town to the...to the other part of the town, so that would be....looking at the accidents there along the interstate as...as well as in that general area, if...if we could have that kind of data too, uh, cause it sounds from the, um, emails and phone calls we're getting that people believe there is a problem. Throgmorton/ Well I think it's very clear that people see more deer, so I don't disagree or challenge....disagree with that or challenge it or anything. I guess the question really is, are there more deer, and do they need to be culled in...in, through that kind of management plan that was....has been pursued before and I...I don't feel like I personally have enough information to make that kind of judgment yet. Mims/I guess I'm just curious how the DNR makes that determination when they can't do the winter count. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 28 Thomas/My sense is....as Geoff just.....just said, it's....I'm not sure it matters if the population overall is increasing. It may be their concentrating, uh, it may be their behavior is changing and they're becoming more present in the neighborhoods. And....you know, I think it....it does run counter in my view to some of our initiatives, such as, um...you know, community gardens (laughs) being one, you know, that uh (laughs) yeah, good luck with that if you have a deer population coming through, because....you have to protect your plants. (laughter) Dickens/There is no such thing as deer resistant! (laughter) Fruin/What we could do is we could have Liz put together a, um, a, kind of an overview on how she works with the DNR, uh, what the program would look like if we were to move forward. Um, to kind of give you a comprehensive overview of what this may look like and then you can decide from there where to go. Throgmorton/Yeah, I think that'd be helpful. Mims/Yeah, I think we need to. I think we have a lot of people who are, certainly are seeing a lot more,they're having the damage from the deer, um, I know in our area it's ebbed and flowed over the years. I'm on the north side, um, near Interstate 80, and....a month ago, driving home on the new part of Oakes Drive, there were 12 buck out there. There were some big ones if anybody can find 'em outside of the City limits (laughter) but...you just don't...I've never in the 30 years we've lived there have seen that many together in that concentrated location. So, there's a lot of'em! Throgmorton/Okay. Fruin/ Okay! Item 3f(6) Martha and Bob Kirby: Forest View Development and Water Issues Throgmorton/Uh, I'd like to bring up a couple, uh,probably quick things. Uh, Item 3f(6) is an email from Bob and Martha Kirby about storm water run-off, and they referred to an email that's over a year old. I don't remember seein' the previous email and the Kirbys are kinda mad cause we didn't respond to it. Uh, I wonder if a staff person could take a look at that and....provide a reasonable response to them? Fruin/Yeah,urn, Ron and I have talked after that email, uh, came in, and I know his staff has had multiple conversations with the Kirbys, but um....we're happy to follow up. Throgmorton/Good deal! The other thing I wanted to ask about is Item 3d(9), it's on the Consent Calendar, personnel policies amendment. Item 3d(9) Personnel Policies Amendment-Resolution amending the 2017 Personnel Policies Employment of Relatives provision to clarify that it shall be a This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 29 violation of the policy when a Management Conflict is created by the hire of an external candidate. Fruin/Yep! Throgmorton/ Yeah so I guess I'm a little bit confused and I would have communicated with you about it during the day but I just....didn't, couldn't do it. The....the text of the resolution seems to differ from the text of the....of the Council action report, at least as I read it. Fruin/Okay! Throgmorton/Uh, so what....what are you tryin' to do with this? Fruin/ So, urn....this would change our, urn, employment of relatives component of the,uh, personnel policies. Um, and what it would change is we.....we have, um, a management conflict which would stay in effect, which means, um, you cannot manage or supervise anybody in your family and the specific, um, relationships are called out in that policy. Um, we also, urn, have a, urn, a provision that, um, prevents, um....anybody from, uh, being promoted or transferred within the organization if there's a familial relationship there, no matter what department, urn, that....that they, that those individuals may work in. Um,what I'm asking, uh, for....from you tonight is to change that, urn, and...and limit it in a....in a small but significant way. First the....the management conflict would stay the same—nobody would be permitted to manage, supervise, urn, any....anybody within their family. That second piece though, what I'm asking is....for the department heads and supervisors, division heads that we would not hire anybody new into the organization if there's a familial relationship. So any of the, again, department heads or myself, our children,brothers, sisters could not be hired into the organization. The reality of it is though there are a number of relationships that exist within our organization, urn, that were brought in before we had that policy established, and at times there...at times I believe that there could be people put into higher roles in the organization, um, that wouldn't, uh, wouldn't cause a conflict. So you could have, urn, a supervisor in, uh...uh, you could have a, say an employee in Parks currently would not be eligible for a promotion in Parks if, urn, he has a sister that works in our IT division. May not be a conflict. There's no management conflict,but neither of those individuals could move within their current positions because of the existing conditions. So this gives me as City Manager the flexibility to hire existing people within our organization or transfer them or, uh, promote them, urn, to new positions, so long as there's not that management conflict. It still would prevent us from bringing on basically making the problem worse by bringing on family members, urn.... Throgmorton/Okay! Thanks! Fruin/ Sorry it's confusing but...it's good to clarify it. Throgmorton/Any other questions about the agenda? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 30 Item 3f(3) Carol deProsse: Explosion of larch beetles in warming climate is transforming Minn forests Thomas/I just had a small one, one of the letters or correspondence, 3f(3), which was kind of focused on the larch beetles in Minnesota,but it also mentioned,urn, the mountain pine bark beetle, uh....I don't think the larch beetle....affects us, but I was concerned whether the mountain pine bark beetle was one that may possibly, like the emerald ash borer,be of a threat. So I...it was just a question I have as far as is that yet another.... Fruin/I'll have to follow up with ya on that one. Throgmorton/What,you don't know the answer to that? (laughs) Fruin/I don't know the answer to that. (laughter) I'll catch up on my beetles! (laughter) Throgmorton/Yeah,have somebody check into maybe; get back to us. (laughter) Anything else? Item 3f(4) Joey Braverman: Dogs in the Ped Mall downtown Taylor/I wanted to comment on 3f(4), the dogs in the park, cause I know this has been brought up before and we talked about it and it was decided that,uh, we'd be sure we have the relief stations and I....I don't know that there's much more we could do. I know we certainly don't want to go to the point of prohibiting dogs in the ped mall at all, uh, because as we've talked about, some of the,uh, folks that live in the townhouses and condos there in the area, uh,need some place for their dogs to go as far as a green space. Uh, I think....just reaching out to the public and...and, uh, asking them to be more respectful if they, you know, dog owners, dog walkers out there, you know, to....to use the relief stations and not be using these planter areas, I mean, that's just ridiculous. That's all! Information Packet Discussion !August 17,August 24,August 311: Throgmorton/Yep. I mean, yeah, I agree! (laughs) So, all right. Info Packet discussion. August 17a'. Mims/IP2,I thought the, uh....the essay that was in there, Geoff put in from the, I forget the name,but the professor(mumbled) University of Miami, Ohio, is talking about 'town gown issues.' Throgmorton/Yeah,that was pretty interesting. Mims/Uh, really hit.... Cole/Very familiar! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 31 Mims/Yeah, very familiar, hit a lot of things on the head, urn,just an interesting....whose responsibility certain things are. Um, if we can, urn, establish an income tax on our employees of the University, uh (laughs) like they do, I'm just joking! (laughter) Uh, quite....quite the revenue stream for them, I'm assuming. Throgmorton/Yeah, it was interesting and um... Mims/Not a lot of solutions (several talking) Taylor/Yeah, I also enjoyed that article cause I thought it made us feel like we weren't alone in...in, uh, some of the challenges that we're facing. Throgmorton/Indeed we're not! Anything else on that Information Packet? Okay, se...hearing none, uh, August 24`h. Uh...with regard to IP2, uh, the August, uh, 2017 strategic plan update. Yeah, I asked for a hard copy of it, and in fact got one, thank you, Kellie. And like Susan said earlier, it's, uh, pretty impressive compilation of work that's been done by the staff, so bravo to the staff and bravo to Ashley and whoever else helped with putting it together. Uh, I wanted to have a copy with me so I could refer to it in various meetings. Uh, I noticed, I think though, one error. I'm gonna do a....a Michelle..... Mims/Michelle Payne! (laughs) There's a couple little errors. Throgmorton/Yeah, at the top of page 27, I think I see an error with regard to property tax reductions. It refers to.... Mims/Already been corrected she said! (several talking) Throgmorton/ ...two consecutive 25-cent per(several talking) Mims/I saw that one too! Throgmorton/There might be a few other mistakes, I don't know, but..... Monroe/The online version was the...didn't mean to interrupt, uh the online version has been corrected and it's from this point on is correct. Throgmorton/All right, good deal! Uh...yeah....so, any other items..... Mims/Just ditto on that. I, yeah, it was...it's fantastic, and I....I'm gonna print out a copy too, Jim, cause it's nice to actually have that so you can refer to it. Uh, the other one, IP4, Kellie had asked about the meeting schedule. Typically we do not meet on election day. So I don't know if people are available to do Monday the 6th or what your thoughts are, but.... Throgmorton/ I was going to suggest that we move it to October the 3151,which is, I don't know, Halloween or whatever(laughter) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 32 Mims/Terry choked on that one! (laughs) Throgmorton/Cause that would be a....a two-week(several talking) read the calendar correctly. Uh, so...that's a possibility anyhow. Dickens/I have a board meeting, bringing all of our....buying group into Iowa City, the 30th and 31st, but we'll be done by noon so...that'll work. Mims/I thought you were gonna bring 'em to the Council meeting! (laughs) Dickens/They'd love to come! (laughter) I already tricked one of'em to sending his daughter here. So.... Throgmorton/Kellie, do you see any problems with the 31st of October? Fruehling/Not that I'm aware of. Mims/ Geoff says he wants to be home with his kids (laughter and several talking) No, we can't do October 31s`! We have too many staff members who want to be home with their kids. We just talked about how much we care about our staff(several talking) We're not bringing them in here on October 31st! (laughter) Cole/How bout the 30th? Mims/Well if we're going to do the 30th, why not do the 6th, cause you're goin' to a Monday. Taylor/Yeah! Botchway/ I would agree. Throgmorton/Well, let's....people need to check calendars. Mims/I'm good on the 6th. Botchway/ (mumbled) 6`h. Taylor/I'm good on the 6th. Dickens/Check my airline flights! (laughter) Coming back from Philadelphia..... Throgmorton/Monday, right? Mims/Yes! Throgmorton/Uh, I'd be fine with that, personally. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 33 Dickens/ Start without me. Throgmorton/Well we...it's gonna be one of your last meetings. (several talking and laughing) All right, going, uh, I mean it's like an auction (several talking) November the 6th, once...twice....done! November 6th. (several talking) All right! Uh, we also have a...oh, I wanted to mention somethin' else, what was it, um.....I...I....IP3, it's a memo from Brenda Nations, uh, conveying the Municipal Greenhouse Gas Inventory. I want to thank Brenda for putting, uh, for putting that together. Apparently we face a significant challenge trying to achieve....our......our overall goal for the municipalities itself So, I don't know what to say about that. Uh,but I see it as being a challenge. But the key thing we want to do for sure is achieve the overall goals for the City as a whole. And, uh, the more the City....the municipality, City government itself can do that'd be great, but we....we comprise, what, 4.5% or whatever of the total. So, I just want to acknowledge the challenge. And thank Brenda. Thomas/One thing I was just noting was under next steps, and I counted 23, uh, and they....they seem to focus, and....and maybe this is appropriate, on....CO2 emissions,um, you know, mitigating CO2 emissions.....as opposed to.....an action item which....or a next step that would be pointed at the question of adaptation, and I'm kinda thinking of Houston when I think of this, you know,that.....uh, there really, there's always those two factors. It's one of mitigation, it's one of adaptation, and it seemed to me that the next steps were,uh, I....if I read them correctly, kind of focused on mitigation, um, so it was kind of just a question that I had and....and I would imagine as we move forward, the question of adaptation will factor in, uh, but I wasn't seeing it. Throgmorton/It certainly factored in to the climate action plan itself Nations/That's correct. This....this greenhouse gas inventory was very specific in terms of identifying the emissions that have been created by the City and what we can mitigate. So you're right, the adaptation wasn't really incorporated within the analysis, um,that will be part of the climate action and the adaptation planning process. So, um, they're going to be presenting us, the consultant is going to be presenting us with strategic options,uh, they're bringing that to the next steering committee meeting, and then, um, the committee'll talk those over and...and also be putting forward strategies for the community to deliberate and bring them to you as well. So, um....and parts of those strategies will also focus on adaptation. Throgmorton/Okay. Okay, we're kinda running out of time and I want to....hope....I want to finish this work session if we can before the formal meeting, so....in the August 31st packet, IP #5, pending work session topics. I want to note that we have scheduled November the 215`, uh, for discussion, for a review of the code in light of the Lusk Avenue project. So I just want people to know that that's going to be coming up,uh, on a particular date. And....yeah, anybody else have other topics they want to touch on? Mims/1P7, fireworks. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 34 Throgmorton/Yep! Mims/I'm in favor of what staff has recommended. Urn, one quick question. Can we...not give, uh, temporary use permits for the tents, can we restrict it just to bricks and mortar in the industrial? Dulek/No, there were some communities in and around Des Moines that tried to do that and at least that judge denied, urn, that argument, urn, they said industrial is fine,but some of the...having a special use permit just for, uh....the selling of fireworks in tents, the court found that that likely was, uh,preempting. So.... Mims/Okay. Thought I'd try! (laughs) But otherwise I'm very supportive. More signage, restricted to industrial areas,be as restrictive as we can within the law would be my goal. Throgmorton/Yeah, I'm supportive of what's proposed in this memo as well. Taylor/IP9, I....I was impressed by...the memo, uh, about the bookmobile services, uh, if you'll recall that was somewhat controversial when we initially talked about, uh, funding for bookmobile, but I think there's some very impressive numbers here as far as the, uh, number of members of the community that were served and also the fact that they did work very well together with Antelope, as far as, uh, locations, and it just seems like it turned out to be a very good thing for, uh, all ages of our....our community, which is...was good, very good, very positive. Throgmorton/Yeah, I agree. There was an excellent report from Susan Craig and Kara Logsden, and terrific outreach, very good collaboration with Antelope. Yeah,really pleased with it. Cole/I have a question about IP8, urn, the one issue that came up is this question of hoods on the meters. Urn, it wasn't clear to me, is staff going to continue to have a role in putting hoods on the meters, or are they just going to try to jostle for a spot. Urn,my understanding is that some of the trucks have had some concerns with that, and I guess my preference would be to have the hoods on the meters so they wouldn't have to jostle for a spot. Andrew/ Sure, the uh, the...the reason why we deviated from that, from the pilot,was that it was hard to picture how that would work going forward. You know we reserved, uh, four, um, spots for four trucks throughout the pilot. Uh, some nights one would show up, some nights four, some nights none would show up and so hooding all those meters without a set schedule of who would be there or how many trucks would vendor during those hours was sort of the....the crux of the problem, of trying to figure out what to do with those, and it...got to the point where we thought it would be more restrictive for the vendors to say, okay, we need four trucks at this location at these hours and we'll have those meters hooded,um, if foot traffic happens to be in a different place on that night, you can't go over there, um, or, you know, you're just kinda on your own again. Um, so it seemed This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017. Page 35 like that was antithetical to the direction we were moving with it. To give them more flexibility and be able to come and go as they please, uh, but Kyle did raise that, uh, concern, um, with not hooding the meters. So at this point there wouldn't,uh, necessarily be spots reserved for them, um, most of our meters end at 6:00 P.M. so, urn, you know, assuming they were able to get there within lead time to....to find a spot, then, urn, then that would be okay and they wouldn't have to be plugging the meters all night, but, urn, but that was the....the crux of the issue was providing that flexibility. Cole/ Okay. I guess we just need to monitor that closely, cause we don't want a situation where they can't find a spot. Andrew/Right! Right! Cole/We'll just monitor that (several talking) Fruin/Yeah, certainly something we can do now is taking staff away from their maintenance duties, cause it's parking maintenance staff that....that would do that. Urn, the other thing is,you know, they're competing for spaces with customers to the other businesses down there and you'll probably get pushback from the brick and mortar restaurants, urn, and...and I don't think they're pushin' back on the expanded hours. I think the pilot worked, but if they're gonna continue to reserve parking spaces, that may compete with their customers,then I would expect you'll hear from 'ern. Mims/1P10, I just quickly wanted to say great work by the Housing Trust Fund of Johnson County. Just....fantastic what they do. Throgmorton/Okay, I wanted to bring up one last point, which has to do with the late handout, the....the written material we....we received late this afternoon. It contains a...a memo that I circulated to all of you by email,uh, earlier, but I want to state it very quickly, not the whole memo, but uh, it's about my participation in the Mayors Innovation Projects Conference in Burlington,Vermont, and as that...the memo indicates, this is probably the best conference I've ever attended, and I've attended hundreds of them over the years. It was very intimate and very focused on topics of direct contemporary interests to mayors and cities, including the opioid epidemic, the relationship between land use and inequality, 21't century policing, eight months under President Trump, and net zero cities, which refers to climate action. And I had, uh,many face-to-face conversations with mayors from all those cities I mentioned in the....in the memo, and it's really a treat to do so....terrific conference! I wanted to make sure you all had a sense of what I learned there and....and hope the memo is of some benefit. Yeah. Okay, uh, we've pretty much run out of time and we finished the work session! Bravo! Good for all of you. Thank you and we'll reconvene at 7:00. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 5, 2017.