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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-08-21 Transcription Page 1 Council Present: Botchway, Cole, Mims, Salih, Taylor, Thomas, Throgmorton Staff Present: Fruin, Monroe, Andrew, Dilkes, Fruehling, Kelsay, Laverman, Seydell- Johnson, Ralston, Hightshoe, Craig, Bockenstedt, Budding, Rummel, Weinard, Knoche Others Present: Stewart, Wu (UISG) Review 2016 and 2017 Police Department traffic stop data with Dr. Chris Barnum of St. Ambrose University FIP#31: Throgmorton/Troy, are you going to start? Dr. Barnum, hi! Welcome back. Good to see you again. Kelsay/Good evening. Uh, first of all, the Chief would very much like to be here. Uh,he had planned to be here. He forwarded me some opening remarks. Uh, due to a procedure that he had done last week, and the death of his father, uh, he's not able to make it tonight. He's, uh, actually ushering family back, uh, for funeral service arrangements. Uh, I'd like to reintroduce you to Dr. Christopher Barnum. He's the Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, and Director of Graduate Studies Masters in Criminal Justice, at St. Ambrose University. Uh, he has presented to the Council before. Many of you are personally familiar with him. Uh, today he's going to present on the 2016 and 2017 analysis by his group,uh, of our traffic data, or our traffic stop data, and again, the Chief had prepared some opening remarks. I apologize that I'm just going to read these, but I think it's important that you hear 'em in his words. The Iowa City Police Department's collected demographic data on traffic stops since 1999. The first analysis was in 2004 entitled `Traffic Stop Practices at the Iowa City Police Department,January 1 through December 31, 2002.' The research team was from the University of Louisville and this report was frequently referred to as the `Louisville Study.' In 2006, the ICPD hired Dr. Christopher Barnum to conduct an in-depth analysis to better understand operational trends in the department. The goal was to reduce the traffic stop disproportionality and gain the confidence and trust of our community, especially the minority community. Dr. Barnum conducted an analysis on data from 2005 to 2012 and presented the results to the Iowa City City Council on June 16t1, 2014. He presented the 2015 data analysis results on April 19th, 2016. Dr. Barnum met with some Iowa City Police Department officers in 2014 and 2016 to explain his methodology and the results, uh, of his study. According to then Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine, the officers asked concerned questions and were generally interested in the results of the analysis. Concerns nationwide about police misconduct and the perceptions of police by the entire community do weigh heavily on the minds of the officers. It is my belief that the Iowa City Police Department officers continually strive to improve the ways in which they serve. In 2015 and 2016, ongoing professional development included training specifically on race-based traffic stops, implicit bias, and to diversity. In 2006, ICPD officers received training in diversity, discrimination, and cultural competency. Titles of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 2 some of these classes were `affordable housing conference and working together in a diverse world.' All officers received training in fair and impartial policing and biased- based policing via online courses. In January 2017, Police Chief Matherly was hired and immediately implemented a strategy to address disproportionate minority contact. It consists of three components. One, education and training. Courses in cultural competency increased from 257 hours in 2016 to 1,132 hours in 2017. Additionally, a $450,000 grant was obtained to address gender bias in police work, specifically investigations. Two, community outreach. While the ICPD continues a tradition of successful community policing strategies, the department has enhanced its problem- oriented policing and increased involvement in social organizations and community groups. The goal is to educate the public and continually reassess what the community wants and expects from their police agency. Finally, number three, deployment of resources. We continue to develop robust intelligence systems so crime trends can be quickly identified and communicated to patrol officers. To simply saturate minority neighborhoods, stop drivers for minor violations, arbitrarily search vehicles for weapons and drugs does not statistically produce more results than stopping white drivers. Such tactics do nothing more than erode trust within the minority community. Instead officers are encouraged to conduct traffic enforcement in areas where high crash rates occur and address residents' traffic complaints. In late 2017, an Iowa City Police Department committee was formed to develop strategies to reduce disproportionate minority contact, increase community trust, improve internal communication and education res.... regarding disproportionate minority contact, and develop creative and supportive ways for officers to be more effective at their jobs. One of the committee's initiatives is the `bulbs program,' a partnership with local repair shops to reduce....I'm sorry, a partnership with local repair shops to help those who cannot afford to repair burnt out lights on their vehicles by replacing the bulb for free. Such a program can have positive impacts and alleviate fear that drivers may get stopped for defective equipment and have their vehicle searched. Emphasis has also been placed on the recruitment of minority candidates for police officer positions to more accurately reflect the racial demographics of the Iowa City community. Finally, there is more work to do in addressing disproportionality in traffic stops according to the St. Ambrose study results that Dr. Barnum is about to present for 2016 and 2017. However, in 2017 there was a significant reduction in the disproportionality in outcomes, such as citations and searches, which is encouraging. The Iowa City Police Department will continue to identify where disparity exists, that we have influence over, and address it in a fair and consistent manner. Again, I wish Chief Matherly was here to present that to you himself. I know that he would like to be, but with that I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Barnum to present the data analysis for 2016 and 2017. Barnum/Thank you for having me here tonight. I'm Chris Barnum from St. Ambrose. I will, uh, present the data that we've been collecting. We've actually been working with Iowa City for quite a while now. Um, and some of you have seen my presentation before. So, uh, what I....since I have two year's worth of data, instead of going through each year, piece by piece,which might be kind of time consuming, what I'll do is kind of, um, highlight the important areas,highlight our methodology so you have a good understanding of how we do our work, and then I will,um, point to the areas that I think This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 3 are probably the most important and significant in what we found in the study, and of course if you have any questions, you know, you can ask me. I....I think probably the best way to ask me is just to ask as I'm presenting the data, rather than waiting to the end, cause....that'll save some time that way. So, um, when we do....when we do work like this, uh, and we...we actually are working with several communities, so...we're starting to get quite a bit of, uh, experience and expertise in doing this. What we look for are two essential features in police data. So when you do an analysis like this what we do is we kind of divide it up into two basic processes. Uh, the decision to make a stop is the first one. An officer's decision to make a stop. That's the tricky part, and then the second part is....the outcome of the stop, what happens after the stop occurs. That part's a little more straightforward because we don't have....we have a.....we have a fixed data set that we can compare there. So the tricky part about the first part, the decision to make a stop, is what we do is we get the....we get the data from the Police Department and we'll look at percentages based on racial categories. So, uh, what percentage of the stops were African American? What percentage were white? What percentage were Asians, and so forth, and then we have to compare that to something, and that....now that's the tricky part. It's tricky in several ways. First of all, um....most communities are not homogeneous in terms of racial composition across....across the geographic area, and so if stops are made more in one section of town than in another, then you have to...you know, you have to go where the stops are being made to figure out what the percentage of the,uh,racial composition of the drivers on the roads are in those areas. So we spend a lot of time, uh, in communities we work, uh, with....going out and establishing what we call `benchmarks,' and what that is is we actually go out and watch the traffic, and....my grad students do it actually. I don't do it. (laughter) What they do is they....they look at cars and they try to determine the race and gender of the drivers, and they just keep a tally. And then we compute the percentages of, uh, different racial categories on the roads that we see in specific areas of town, based on what the grad students see. We also then try to validate that by looking at Census data and some other things, but....um, we've been....we've been doing, um, traffic observations now in Iowa City for nearly 10 years. And we're doing them right now, we're continuing this process right now. My students will be down here again this weekend, and we've...probably we're in the neighborhood of over....uh, I don't wanna give you a hard and fast figure,but I know the last time I counted we're....we're approaching 70,000 observation. So we've....we've watched a lot of traffic here. So that's sort of the methodology. So the hardest part of doing this type of work is the first part—looking at the police data on the decision to make a stop and determining does that, do the numbers differ from what we think they... they, uh, should be based on the benchmark values that we see. So....um, on the screen now is kind of, um....how we do this. So that's obviously a map of Iowa City,broken out by, uh, one-mile....one square mile areas, and what we do is....we track the stops made in each of those squares, and then we go to the ones that have the most,uh, stops made and we really focus on watching traffic, and we watch traffic both during the day and at night, on weekends, football weekends, and so on. So we try to get a...try to get a good benchmark that way. And so, um, so....I'm gonna skip to this slide right here. So each of these little squares are numbered and.....when we get the data from the Police Department, the stop will indicate which location it occurred by that number. So we can track where the stops were made. And so if I go back to the previous slide, you can see This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 4 that this slide shows, and this....this is actually from 2016, but 17's very similar to this. That most of the stops are made in one area of town, zone #21, and that's downtown. That's the downtown area. So....uh, of the....of the 12,000, almost 13,000 stops made in that year, uh, over 6,000 of those stops took place downtown. And then....uh, so zone 29, which is.....let's see if I can get this mouse to work, yep, right there....is right here. That's the second most place. That would be immediately south of downtown. Sort of like the Broadway, Cross Park area. And....then adjacent to those areas was also, uh, were also areas that had, urn, quite a....quite a few stops made. So, this map that I have on here now shows you the areas where the lion's share of the....of the stops were made by the, uh, Iowa City Police Department. Zone 21, the downtown zone,by far had the most, and that....that was true across days, nights, weekends, whatever, and then, uh, second highest was zone 29, which is immediately south of the area I just talked about. And then, uh, the other two areas also had,uh, in comparison to other areas, relatively, uh, high numbers of stops. So at this point, since I've already given you a lot of information, would you like me to go back and show you that previous slide, so you can look at that again with the....with the bars or are you....this one right here? Or are you...comfortable with me moving forward? Okay. So so what we do then, um, is... now that we know where the stops are generally being made at, that's where we really focus on doing traffic observations. So we go out and my grad students, uh.....set up different locations throughout those one-mile areas and do exactly what I said—they watch traffic and they record the race and gender of the drivers they see, according to their perceptions, and then we cross-validate what they see. So each of'em rotate through the same locations so I can check and see if pretty much all of'em are seein' the same thing. Generally we have a rather high correlation between observers in the...in the neighborhood. Uh, if you used a correlation coefficient of, uh, .8 or above, so they're all seeing....pretty similar things through the....through the, um....through the intersections that they're watching, which gives us some confidence that our benchmarks are probably stable at least, and hopefully valid. Now, urn, we're currently in the process of watching traffic again this year because there was some indication in the last two year's in the data that maybe the benchmarks were changing. So we...the analyses that I'm going to show you tonight are based on benchmarks that we've already established, but uh, keep in mind that we're watching right now to see whether those ben...benchmarks are indeed, um, valid. I have a....l have a feeling, although it's too early to tell, that maybe, uh, the benchmarks have creeped up a little bit and what that would mean is if the benchmarks have changed,then the level of disproportionality that we see might be a little bit too high, based on the old benchmarks. So that's why we're looking to see right now. So this gives you some....this was information up to 2015. At that time we'd made about 56,000 observations, but like I said, we've been watching again so we're probably.... we're probably in the neighborhood of pushing around 70,000. And you can see we're ....watching certain areas a lot more than other areas, which makes sense because that's where most of the stops are being made. So what we do essentially is....we establish a benchmark for the City in general, which is 10%. Ten percent of the drivers on the roads, we argue, are minority drivers, except in the areas we watch extensively and then we use our benchmarks in those areas. And we base our benchmark in the other areas off Census data. So....in areas that we've watched, and again these are subject to change cause we are currently updating, during the day in the downtown area, uh, this slide breaks out This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 5 actually what we saw. So our benchmark there indicates that it's 7% of the drivers were minority drivers. We usually won't go below 10%. So we used 10%in the analyses. And then at night, it changes. So we saw more minority drivers on the roads at night than during the day, which is,uh,typical for what we find when we look at this across different communities, at least in Iowa, and so in the downtown area our benchmark is about 18% at night. And so then that area just south of downtown, the Broadway, Cross Park area, during the day,uh, it depends on where you're at there. That's a very interesting area. So certain areas are higher than 25%. Certain areas are quite a bit lower than 25%,but urn, an overall average for that square mile area is, uh, about 25% of the drivers on the roads there are minority drivers. That's during the daytime hours, and then at night it bumps up to about 32%. So about a third of the drivers. So zone 30 would be the area immediately east of....the Broadway area. So if you....as you move east from there,uh,both days and nights, our benchmarks are at, uh, 17% for that location. And then 28 would be the area immediately west of,uh, the Broadway area and that, what we found there was about 14%, for both days and nights. So now it's a simple matter, um, statistically speaking what we do is we take the police data and compare the stops made in those zones,percentage wise, to our percentages that we say are on the roads, and any difference is known as disproportionality. So, uh, disproportionality just as a word of caution doesn't necessarily mean bias or that the police were doing anything wrong. It simply means that there's a difference between the percentage in their data and the percentage in what we say the benchmarks are. Uh, it's possible that there could be, uh, due to eco...socioeconomic reasons,there could be differences in driving populations in terms of, uh, equipment violations on cars and so forth, which could lead to disproportionality. So there are....there is a possibility for legitimate reasons for disproportionality to occur, but bias is also a possibility. So,the....it's the whole gamut. Y'aIl with me? Uh, and then, uh,this caveat that....one thing to really keep in mind about when you're....when you're observing traffic like this is that essentially we're taking a sample of drivers on the roads as we're watching, and like any....any sample, there's sampling error associated with that. So you know, um....our benchmarks could be off by a couple points and so that's why I don't...when I analyze data like this, I don't get too hung up on the absolute difference between percentages. What I....what I like to look at are changes in data, and then I really like to look at individual officer data and see if any individual officers are different than the others. I think that gives you a better idea of really what's going on. And so that's....those are the things I'm gonna highlight in the....in the data here. So just briefly I'm gonna run through these slides fairly quickly. Please stop me if you have any questions. This was 2016. For days you can see the same pattern occurs that I just showed you for the...for the entire department. Most of the stops are made in the downtown area, followed by the other areas. You'll notice though they make a lot fewer stops during the days than they do at night. So they make a lot of stops at night,relatively few stops during the day,but the pattern of where the stops occur is very similar. Okay, so this, uh, this slide then shows disproportionality based on the...the zones where most of the stops are being made at. So the red bar represents our benchmark, and the blue bar represents the percentage of stops made by the Police Department. Any time that the blue bar is higher than the red bar,that's disproportionality. And so when you look through this, you say well,there's a fair amount of disproportionality in a couple of these zones. So if you look, uh, at 30 for This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 6 example you can see that the....(mumbled) I have to do it this way. So you can see that the blue bar is quite a bit higher than the red bar. You'll also see that right here in,uh, zone 27,but if I go back to the previous slide, and you look, and you see zone 27, relatively few stops are made there, right? So all the....the.....the lion's share of the stops are being made in zone 21 and if we look at the disproportionality there, you can see it's much lower. So...and this is what we found for all years of the data, pretty much every time we look at Iowa City we see this. In the areas where a lot of stops are being made, it tends to have lower levels of disproportionality, which is a good thing! I mean that shows that,um, you know,the areas where they're really concentrating their....their, um, traffic enforcement, they have lower levels of disproportionality than the other areas. So zone 29 is the Broadway area, right here, and....get my mouse to work again....so... zone 29 is right there and there's relatively low disproportionality there. So in the two areas where a lot of stops are being made,the level of disproportionality's fairly low. And just to, uh....uh, give you a highlight of what's coming, same...we found the same pattern on, uh, in 2017. So 16 and 17 very similar in this way. And then nights....here's nights, so you can see they made 10,000 stops on nights. They made about 2....2,500 on days. So they make a lot more stops during the night, but the pattern of where the stops are being made is very, very similar, and again that's the same for 2017 also. And then the disproportionality, again we see....so there's disproportionality in zone 27 and 30 again, same as we saw before. Um....and you'll wanna pay attention to 21 cause that's where most of the stops are being made at. Very, uh, lower levels, comparatively lower levels of disproportionality in 21, and in 29, the two areas that we really look at closely. There's lower levels of disproportionality there. And if you go back and, so if you look at 30....you can see the bar's pretty small there on 30. So not too many traffic stops being made there. Throgmorton/Uh, Dr. Barnum, in.....just to look at the two bar charts you have there, there seems to be a pretty clear difference in pattern from day to night, in terms of disproportionality. The, you know, the difference in....in police stops versus what you're expecting by the benchmarks is much greater at night,right? Barnum/I...I would say that there is more disproportionality at night, yes. I think that's right. Um, especially in the areas that....where fewer stops are made. I....I.m really cautious about talking about disproportionality in areas where the numbers are a little bit lower because, you know, with statistics we really worry about the law of large numbers. So, um, the, you know, there might be an element of sampling error there,but we do tend to see it year after year, so yes, I...uh, so there....there tends to be more disproportionality at night, which is interesting, uh, for a couple of reasons. Uh, it's harder to tell who's driving a car at night, for one thing. But for another thing I think in the, uh, Captain can tell me if I'm wrong here,but I think the younger officers tend to work at night, and urn, there....they tend to be more aggressive and that could lead to disproportionality too, as well. Cole/Could you clarify something in terms of this data? Barnum/Uh huh. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 7 Cole/Urn, does this...do calls for service affect a stop at all, or are all of these situations where the officer makes a visual observation, if you could just(both talking) Barnum/That's a very good question. So, no, uh, so we....we pull out the calls for service, um, and those types of things. So these reflect officer-initiated stops. Thomas/One....one question I would have is...uh, what are they....what are these stops for? Do you have that information? Barnum/Yes. Um, so we track...we took, we track two broad categories of stops. Uh, moving violations versus equipment violations. I don't have a slide, but I can tell you essentially what it shows. Uh, minority drivers, particularly African American drivers, tend to be stopped more for, uh, equipment violations at a higher....rate than....than white drivers do, and....and the opposite is true then for moving violations. So...yeah. That's...that's pretty typical what we find, and actually in the other areas where we look too, in other... other communities. We tend to find the same patterns. And now again, that can be due to a number of reasons. It could be a profiling issue, right? You....you're looking for a reason to stop a car so you pick on an equipment violation or it might be differences between driving populations in terms of the quality of the car,based on socio... socioeconomic factors or other things so....that's why this is a little tricky to make,um, categorical statements that way. Uh, this just combines the data,both day and night, and it shows very similar pattern here. So this is....this....this....these next few slides that I'm going to show you I think are, um....more informative in terms of actually what's going on. And so....we not only look at the department as a whole,we look at individual officers. Now the data that I'm going to show you are de-identified so you won't be able to tell who the officers are. I'm not even sure who they are. They come to me de- identified. So....um,well actually they come to me identified and then I de-identify it, just make sure I'm crystal clear on that,but....so, but then I forget it. So the, um....what we do is now we....we compute it essentially the same way for each individual officer. So we look at where the officer's making stops and the benchmark in the area where the officer's making stops and then we compute the percentage of minority drivers stopped to the benchmark. Divided by the percentage of white drivers stopped to the white benchmark,which is simply 1 minus the....minority benchmark. That gives you a quasi- odds racial measure, right? So like that's, you know, if you wanna think about it it's like betting odds, you know, 1 to 1 means even odds, right? So that's good if you have a score of 1 that means....based on the benchmarks and....you know,the percentages that should be stopped, that means that a....a white driver and a...and a minority driver are equally likely to be stopped. As the scores increase,that's an indicator of disproportionality. So for example a score of 2 would mean that based on our benchmarks, that....minority drivers are twice as....the odds are twice as great that minority drivers will be stopped in comparison to white drivers. Gotta be careful how you say that. It can change the meaning. But that's the correct way to say it, so the odds are twice as great that a minority driver will be stopped in comparison to a white driver. Three, three times as likely, right? So larger scores are bad. And so what we do then is keeping in mind that our data, our....our benchmark data are a sample and so we worry This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 8 about sampling issues. What we look at is what's called an internal benchmark where we compare officers against each other. So officers....you know, we can compare their scores against each other and we can look at how many stops they made, and what we look for are officers who are different from the others, and that's....that's, uh, indicative of perhaps a problem. So this just gives you that formula that I just talked about. We call it disparity index. (clears throat) So this is the data from 2016. Right here. So...uh, as you look at the data, if you look on the...on the, uh, the number of stops run up the Y axis, the vertical axis there. So as you...as you move up that, that's a higher number of stops. As you look, you can see there's an officer that made 1,500 stops in that year. That's a lot of stops, by the way. And as you move on, uh, towards the right on the X axis, or the horizontal axis. That's disparity index. So that, uh,that bold red line is the median for the department, and then the little dashed line is the 9....90th percentile. So 90.....90% of all the officers are below that line or less. So what we do then is we look for officers who are to the right of that line, because they would be different, and.... again,we talk about the....the law of large numbers so that blue line that is horizontal is a, uh,benchmark of....they made at least 100 stops. So we really don't pay too much attention to any officer that is under that 100 stop....mark, because, uh, it really, especially when....if they're making stops in lots of different areas, that really could be sampling error, but once you get over 100 stops, the data become more stable, and so as you....as you look at these data....get my mouse to work here....you can see right here that we have an officer, this is an outlier, with a high score. So that....that officer has a disparity index score of 6, and based on what I said, that would mean that the odds are six times as likely that officer would stop a minority driver in comparison to a white driver and it is very different from the rest of the officers. So this is, uh,these....these are the types of things that we....we think are a little more revealing than the aggregate data, and what we like to do is track these types of data across,uh, longitudinally across, uh, a number of years. So, um....gonna show you the same graph now for 2015 and you can see there's a same pattern. There's an officer here, right here, with a higher score and that happens to be the same officer. So, uh, so....obviously....the command staff knows about this. I think they're concerned about it, you know,this was....we actually, I was brought down here for some training, uh, and talked to the officers about this and so on and so forth. We....we look closely then when we get information like this at,uh, the second half of the study, which I'll talk about in a minute, the outcomes. So the outcome of the stop, right? So what can happen as a result of a stop. You can get a ticket, you can get a warning, you could maybe,um,have your car searched, you could get arrested, right? So we....we look for then disproportionality among the officers that kind of stand out in these other areas. Uh, one thing we did find with this officer, there tended to be high levels of disproportionality in the outcomes as well. So....so, um....this is an issue that I know Chief is concerned about and, um....so I think what I'll do here real quick is I'm gonna jump ahead to the 2017 data of the individuals and show you that,rather than the aggregate stuff, which is very,very similar to 2016. But we'll go past the outcomes here and jump to it real quick. So....these are the indexed values, uh, for 2017. And, um, although there is....an officer out here....that has a, uh, a relatively high score in comparison to the rest, it's not the same officer. That's a different officer. And the score, the values I, if you look on the...on the axis,the X axis, you can see that the scores are actually lower. They're down around 4 instead of 6. So, um.....but this officer, the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 9 officer that's making a lot of stops, is constant across there,but that officer has low levels of disproportionality. So....2015 and 16 we saw an officer with a high level of disproportionality; 2017 that officer's numbers.....that officer now is one of the many dots instead of standing out amongst the others. So that's where that's at. So....um, any questions on that be....before I move on to the....to the outcomes? This is the part that really, I think, is probably the heart of the report here. Throgmorton/I'm havin' a little trouble understanding the, uh, the dotted red line, which I think you said was the median (both talking) Barnum/Yeah,that's the (both talking) Throgmorton/ ....disproportionality index, correct? Barnum/For the department. Throgmorton/For the department, and it seems to have increased from 2015 to 16 to 17. Barnum/You have a sharp eye. (both talking) Throgmorton/So that doesn't sound good,to me, so (both talking) Barnum/ ....and so.....um, and so that's why I think maybe that our benchmarks....maybe are a little low. That's why we're really looking again. Maybe....maybe the driving population has changed, which would cause that line to shift. So you notice that all the officers kind of....the groupings stayed the same, Mayor. (mumbled) I mean they're all kinda the same,but the line moved,which....which would indicate, you know, it would be kind of unusual for everybody to stay the same and increase in their disproportionality. So I think maybe that our benchmarks are a little low. So that's why I say....the takeaway isn't so much what the numbers are, the actual numbers are, but the pattern. It's the pattern that's important that you look at, but you're absolutely right,yes,that the....the median value has creeped up every year. Yep. That's correct. Cole/Are there any Department of Justice standards that can be identified that we should shoot for? Barnum/In terms of like these individual scores? Cole/Well, with disproportionality, I mean have they identified any sort of....that we can sort of link up with in terms of national standards? Barnum/Well,the....the problem, uh, with this....with this part of the work is that, uh, in the literature and....and if you....if you look at, uh, you know,the Department of Justice, the....the big problem is the benchmark issue. Everybody knows that a benchmark is problematic. I think the way we do it here is about as good as you can get, you know, actually watching the traffic, but admittedly it's not perfect. And so no, I guess to answer This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 10 your question, is....because of the benchmark is problematic,pretty much all research done in this area now is done on the outcomes, because the outcomes, you don't have to worry about a benchmark. You just, now you're....you have a closed data set, which is...which are the stops and you compare what's happening to the people who were stopped. So you don't need to worry about the benchmarks. So that's pretty much where the research at...is at now, but really the most important part of this and what, in my opinion, people....researchers should strive to do is get this front part right, because you can't get a ticket unless you're stopped, right? So,urn, so the....so the decision to make the stop is really, in my opinion,the most important part, but it's the hardest part. And so this isn't perfect. You know? That, I guess that's the takeaway that we could be wrong in our benchmarks. I don't think we're way off, but we could be a little bit off, which could explain numbers changing like that. But when I see a pattern where I....where one officer is very different than the others,that....frankly is concerning. Throgmorton/I'd say last year, if I remember correctly, Chief Matherly....uh, indicated that he was taking these results seriously and was gonna try to work with the...the police officers, uh, to get the disproportionality down, especially for the....at least one and maybe two to three officers who were pretty high, to the....far to the right on your graph. Barnum/Yep. Throgmorton/And it sounds like he's succeeded in that. Yeah, uh.....okay. Anyhow.... Barnum/No, I....I would agree with that and I....I know(laughs) he's taking it seriously, uh, based on my conversations. He's had me in to present the data. I present these...these same graphs to the officers. The officers know who these dots represent. They, you know, I think they know what this means. If you're showing up (laughs) in a spot where you shouldn't be, I mean, I hope they understand that. Pretty sure they do! So yeah, I think....uh, you know I...I really credit the Iowa City Department, and the other departments around the state, that are doing this, because they....they're really doing this on their own. They're sticking their necks out. Most...most departments won't do this, several of'em won't even talk to us, uh, they don't wanna know. And so this is really commendable by these departments that are doing it. So....I really do applaud `em, cause they....they really do care about it. Thomas/Do....do you have the, urn, you know, within these quadrants, uh, very specific information in terms of where the, uh, the stops are taking place, like the given intersection, things of that sort? Barnum/No. So, uh, I don't have access to the....so.....so the.....so the data I get doesn't have the....the X, Y coordinates are quasi, uh, longitude and latitude designation, so no, mine are grouped by these....these areas. So the best we can do is the one-mile area. So for example,the officer who was, uh....the outlier in the previous two slides....happens to work in an area of town that has.....a relatively small area of high minority concentration, but he doesn't just work in that area. Works a large geographical area, and so the officer, what that indicates to me, is probably spending time in the area where the....the minority This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 11 residency, the high minority residency is at. And, um, when I speak to the officers I always say, well, why do you do that? I mean that's the question I ask. I get a variety of answers for that. Some, you know, are....are better than others, but....uh, and....and it's a legitimate question. It's a legitimate policing question, it's a(mumbled) it's a question that the community should talk about. Do we want the officers in a certain area more than others and so on and so forth, and then the second question I always ask the officers is,urn, cause typically the response I get is well I spend the area....I spend my time in the area where there's a lot of calls and....and types of calls that are.....involve violent crime or maybe guns, stuff like that, and so I,what I ask is, and I don't know the answer to this so I'll....I'll just throw out the question is....does traffic stops reduce that type of crime? Does doing a traffic stop reduce gun crime? Uh,you know, and....and the literature isn't clear on that, to, you know, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. So it's a legitimate....it's something that I think really that's a....that's, uh, community stakeholders and the police, that's a good thing to talk about right there. That's....that's where this type of work, I really think, should lead to is that discussion. Cole/Conversely, if we get the reduction of disproportionality, is there any empirical data on the reduction of crime? In the sense of more community buy-in? Barnum/None that I'm aware of. That's...that's very interesting. No, I haven't, uh, I haven't seen where, um....lowering levels of disproportionality has lowered violent crime. I....now it may exist. I just haven't seen that literature, so I'm not aware of that. Thomas/In....in the cities you've worked, have you seen any patterns with respect to just the absolute numbers of stops go down? Barnum/Yes. Thomas/And what may be the reason for that? Barnum/ So....I....I don't think I'd be speaking out of turn to tell you that Davenport has had that issue. We work with Davenport. That's our home base. And, um....they have seen a precipitous drop in the number of stops made since we've done the study from 12,000 down to 6,000. Yeah, roughly. And,um....my personal opinion is that could be a moral issue on the police department. Uh, I think it could be, now again I'm just giving you my opinion here, right? It could be that the officers are like, well, I'm out here working and my work's being scrutinized so....just won't make any stops. Cause of that crazy professor over there at St. Ambrose, so...so and that concerns me actually. I think that's ....that's something to really be concerned about. Um, I talk a lot to the chief over there about that. And it's....it is an issue. There's no....there's no question about it. Thomas/Cause I....I mean to me I appreciate the focus of your....your research,which is...not really looking at that issue,but that's....that's, to some degree where I'm coming from is how can we just reduce the number of stops. I don't want it to be for the reason you were describing, but, you know, to the degree we can...drop the number, whether it's improving our roadway designs so that there's less likelihood that someone would be This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 12 cited for a moving violation,urn, getting all those, you know, equipment-related stops handled in some other fashion, um....so we just drop the, you know, the number of,uh, encounters by dropping the number of stops. Barnum/So when they're, urn, when their stops dropped their, and I haven't done their data for this year yet....the level of disproportionality remained relatively the same, but the absolute number of stops went down. So I...I think...one area when I....when anyone asks my advice about this, urn,the....the police should shoot for is fairness, uh, so what you....what the police departments should try to get away from are the phishing expeditions, where okay....okay,this guy looks suspicious to me. I don't really have any reason to stop him but, uh, a taillight's out so I'm gonna stop to find out who this guy is and while I'm up there maybe I'll ask him can I search your car, you know, those types of things. So, um, which.....which actually can be good police work in certain circumstances but if you're doing it disproportionately to one group at the expense of another,that's....that's bias. So that's the type of thing really that I would hope would... come out of this, getting away from that sort of thing. Throgmorton/ So I know Maz has a question she'd like to ask and then I'm very conscious of the time, uh....(several talking) Salih/ ...I'm gonna be very quick really. Uh, I just wanna, you know, you brought very good point, Rockne, too and that was all the time when you're reviewing this was like my thinking, maybe you cannot answer this question,but the Police Department can. Uh, when I saw the number of stop generally, you know, I just find out that there is a lot of like stops somewhere and lower stops somewhere else across town and I....I saw this supposed to be equally everywhere if we are....if the police are like going around town equally. That's giving me sense that the police is spending more time somewhere else, so....beside downtown, I guess as you brought the Broadway and they spending more time there, which they not supposed to be. Why they spending more time there, that my question. They supposed to be....the police supposed to be like really driving equally around the city to make sure like everywhere is okay but like just spending time in front of the minority people, that's why you getting like all this, you know, stop for minorities I guess. This is really good questions we wanna ask the Police Department, why the police is doing that and (unable to understand)bias too. Barnum/ Sure! Kelsay/Dr. Barnum can pull that map back up,but the areas where there are majority of the stops, minority population aside, are also the arterial streets, so that the downtown block, they're the block just north of downtown, so between downtown, Interstate 80, on Dubuque Street. It's the block south of downtown that you're traveling out. I....I don't disagree with what you're saying Cou...Council Member as far as certainly the Broadway area and you're talking about minority population there, but....the areas that he has pulled up here are basically the downtown area, the arterial streets approaching from the north, the interstate, the arterial streets going south from the downtown area down to Highway 6, and then Highway 6 where the highways out east and west. So it's not just This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 13 the neighborhood, and I....I would disagree with you in that each neighborhood should have the same amount of stops, because there isn't the same amount of need for....for public safety enforcement for traffic control if, you know, if there's a thousand cars that are using any particular street downtown over a course of an hour and there's two cars out on a particular outlying neighborhood that are using the streets for that same hour period. So....so it's driven also by....a bunch of other things—volume of traffic, alcohol- related offenses,things like that, and what we're trying to do is make sure that it's....what the Chief is trying to do is make sure that it is being driven by public safety concerns and traffic concerns, and that it is not being driven by...disproportionate minority contact and where he's identifying that or where he's even suspecting that, he's addressing it both on the officer level and with the redeployment of resources. In the... in the remarks that I spoke to you about at the beginning,he talked about data-driven enforcement. One of the grants we're participating in is just that, one of our officers is tasked to the Justice Department and is trying to better allocate police resources. Not just ours, but come up with a better model of allocating police resources, that is data-driven, not just....boy I....I think that this particular group of people or this particular neighborhood....is involved more in crime, so therefore I'm going to go on a phishing expedition that Dr. Barnum referred to. We are trying to move away from that, and we're trying to participate in programs that show us how to do that. Salih/ I....I don't know, but I....what I'm looking here is fairly enough, if I understand it right, 29 is south downtown, 13 is north downtown, am I right? Throgmorton/Yes. Kelsay/Yes. Salih/Okay, then....the, it is...what the different? You telling me there is more traffic on the 29 zone..... Kelsay/Correct. Salih/ ...than more traffic on the 13 zone? Kelsay/There's more traffic on 29, 13, 30, and 28 than....than many, if not most (both talking) Salih/...more traffic on the west and the...the south than anywhere else....around town (unable to understand) not talking about downtown, by the way, okay, because that's....just leave the downtown alone. I'm talking only about south side and the other side, comparing like to the other side of the city. You telling me in Iowa City the only a lot traffic at the south side of the city? Kelsay/No, I'm not telling you that. Salih/Then you have more stop here and we have to look closely why we have more stop here. My guess is that as he said earlier, if I understood him right, the police is spent more time This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 14 there, and why that's the question. What do we have there so they can spend, we have minority people, that's the only thing that I know. Throgmorton/ If I could, I...I think (both talking) interest of time,maybe it would be good if.... Uh, once Chief Matherly, uh, returns from, uh, recovering, uh, if....if he could provide us with a short report addressing this question that Maz has raised so that we can get a, you know, direct answer from the Chief on it. I think it'd be very helpful, and your response was very good, Troy, but you know, it's a good question, We need to understand the particulars involved. Dr. Barnum, you know, I....you're doin' a great job, uh, I wonder if you could just kind of give us the punch line here. Barnum/Yeah, I can. So...um....so the punch line on the outcomes, again the outcomes are... are what happened to you as a result of the stop is, uh, so citations,the....the level of disproportionality is decreasing. It's almost I...it's almost at 1 now, which means (mumbled) there is no disproportionality. Arrests, uh...so that number has come down over the years, as you can see from this graph. So the disproportionality and arrests is...is decreasing. So, that's good! Uh, search requests, there was some issues with the officers understanding of what a search request was. I could spend a lot of time on that. I won't! Uh, needless to say is now they do not mark their boxes as a search request when it really isn't one and there's practically none of those. A search request is when you ask somebody can I search your car, without any probable cause. So that's gone away, that's a good thing. So that, these are some very positive, uh, issues. And then this last slide is the hit rates, after a search those go up and down, which show there's no difference between racial groups in terms of whether you find something on a stop. So the bottom line then if I was going to sum this all up is that although the level of disproportionality looks like it might be creeping, we don't know if that's due to....uh, changes in the benchmark, that's why we're working hard to see that, and uh,what we're really focusing on then are to see if we have any officers out there that are different from the other ones. So that's....that's kinda where we focus our work. Thank you for your attention! I appreciate it. Throgmorton/Excellent! Thanks so much! Barnum/Thank you. Throgmorton/Really appreciate you doin' this good work for several years now. Barnum/Well it's my pleasure. Throgmorton/Yeah. Are....are we gonna be able to see a, uh, a version of this PowerPoint presentation, I mean you know, the full thing? Fruin/ Sure. We can place it in the info packet. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 15 Throgmorton/ I think, uh, if other Council Members agree I think that'd be helpful. I know (both talking) ....we kind of compelled Chris to skip over a whole bunch of information there and...uh, and yet....be helpful to have it in hand. Yeah. Fruin/ If I could just make a couple of quick comments. Um,the....the data that you reviewed this year, 2016, 2017 data, uh, Chief Matherly was hired in 17 and....in the beginning parts of 17,uh, took some time to assess the issue, and I think has reported back to you on his plan to address this. Urn, it...it's...it takes a while, and....and you can see the investment that's going in with officers, uh, with....with training, with just reviewing this study in more detail than we ever have before with officers so they can understand it, so they can ask questions, uh, so that they can learn from it. That is happening and there's good, open discussion. The Chief mentioned in his memo, uh, an internal committee of police officers, uh, at all levels,uh, that are working on the DMC issue and coming up with ideas like bulbs. So, uh, the discussion is...is taking place daily, uh,at....within the walls of...of the department and I really hope and expect to see that as that, uh, investment in training pays off and the investment and just focusing on this issue pays off, you're gonna continue to see improvements, not only in the numbers but you're gonna see improvements in the....in the strategies we deploy, uh, you're going to see more community policing efforts. Hopefully you already are seein' that,uh, these past, uh, this past year too but all that's gonna pay and I expect that as we continue to do this study, you're gonna see that bear fruit in these results. Throgmorton/Okie dokie. So it's 6:30 now. We can get goin' on the next topic, uh, I don't know how far we'll be able to get though. So we have a pre-budget kickoff discussion and we've already blown a hole in our time budget, so....uh, Ashley, do you wanna lead us through this? Pre-budget kick-off discussion IIP#41: Monroe/Urn....sure! Uh, essentially we're just looking for feedback from, uh, Council if there are any comments or, uh, projects,programs, services that, uh, staff should start examining or thinking about including in the upcoming budget planning process. We start our staff discussions, uh, with capital projects and then move on to operational expenses and other City budget items later in the fall, and so I just wanted to quickly summarize our, um, mid-year budget work session, I guess, or....or activity that we put on. Earlier this month, uh, Council had asked for some additional opportunities for the public to participate in our budget processes and, uh, staff took the idea from last January's, uh, `Breakfast on a Budget,' morning activity, prior to the, uh, major work session on the budget, and ran with it. So we held a chip-in event, which was, uh, a... engaged about 50 residents from Iowa City and had....gave a quick presentation on just the status of the budget and some things that we think about when we're preparing the budget, and then, uh....had them participate in a prioritization activity. Uh, they voted with chips based on strategic plan goal items and, uh, we had maps plastered on the walls so that people could, uh, circle or make comment on the maps, identifying areas that needed improvement, and we also had an area for them to submit specific comments and...and ideas. So it was a busy night and we got a lot of feedback. We also had an This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 16 online platform. We received almost 600 responses. Urn, so there were over....900 or so open-ended responses that I'm still working through, urn, as comments for....for what people would like to see. So...uh, I did give you a summary in the packet. Um, the top three though,we identify the strategic plan top goals and so what the people who have participated, um, indicated to us their top...uh, goals were advancing social justice and racial equity was number one, uh, as a ranking. We had, uh, fostering healthy neighborhoods throughout the City of Iowa City. It's our strategic goal number 3. And then number one was, um, promoting a strong and resilient local economy. That ranked third. So I'll just note those couple. We also have, um, overall our general feedback that we received from residents who participated in person and at...in the online survey, uh... top areas of focus, they'd like to see streets and infrastructure, um, really taking a focus on our....on our streets. Same with public transportation improvements. So these ranged in the comments from, urn, bus transportation to, um, bicycle facilities. Urn, we wanted to encourage equitable and sustainable economic growth. So working on exactly what areas they're....they're trying to target. Affordable housing is a big issue. Supporting education and workforce programs was in the top five. Urn, Council's been mentioning that and that continued to be something that, urn, partar...participants were interested in seeing more of. Urn,building and promoting a livable community for all people was back to our, uh, social justice item. Supporting small business and entrepreneurs, connecting to our, um, strong local economy, uh, goal. Historic preservation, supporting a reduction and consumption of goods, and minimizing solid waste spoke to our climate action and, uh, environmental goals,uh, strategic plan number six. And then supporting organizations helping those with trauma and crisis. So that was,urn,just the top 10, uh, that were submitted by people in person and online and...we've got the whole, uh, packet of information if you really wanted to dig deep into specific responses, but figured I'd give you an overall sense of what people are interested in and then we verbatim provided all comments. So you can spend hours (laughter) reading through it if you'd like. Urn, that's what I'm doing and....and pairing the locations that people identified as needing improvement with things that we can address. Urn, some of them are....are, might be quick turnaround. We might be able to just address them with staff. Urn, you know, if people say fix a pothole in this area or....or I hope we plant trees in a park that we're planning to improve already, then you know we'll be taking care of some of those things, but urn, anything major will....will come back to you or you might spot something that catches your eye and let us know. Urn, so I think the thought was to....to request any projects or ideas that you had during this time. I don't know if we have time to do that right this minute or not, but....that's the sense of our mid-year efforts. So... Throgmorton/Yeah. I'm sorry we did chew up some time there. (laughter) Mims/I was here for the chip-in and I thought it was a great event,but in hindsight, and...and looking at this voluminous report(laughs)that you've put together, one of the things that....that did occur to me, if we're really trying to get input from the public on the budget and how they want money spent, then I think any effort to get that input should somehow give them options on all the kinds of expenses we have, and so the....the in- person thing really only gave them an opportunity to comment on strategic goals. And so I think it's, I mean it listed certain things underneath those, I mean, our action items, I This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 17 think, underneath those, but...I mean if you think about any of the other services, you know, whether it's streets or police or fire, urn,just kind of the, if you will, the ordinary every day services that we're always providing but we are allocating a significant amount of money out of our general fund to provide. It's....focusing only on the strategic planning goals didn't really give them an opportunity to say, hey, maybe I don't care about any one of those strategic plans. I want you to spend all that extra money on the streets, or whatever. So that's the only particular comment I would have is just, yeah, more of an opportunity to look at the whole budget in....a digestible way, I mean some kind of major categories, obviously,urn, so they could...put their chips,because I guess what my thought is, I wouldn't want people to think that because they voted for certain strategic planning initiatives that they don't hear about those other things. They weren't given those options, on the....on the in-person, so just....I didn't think of it that night. It just kind of came to me(several talking) Fruin/Yeah, we tried to cover that with....there were three stations and there was kind of open- ended station and then there was the map and then there was the strategic priorities. Throgmorton/I think it was a great initiative and I know, uh, in a meeting we had at some other point, uh, at least one of our Council Members praised,uh, staff for inventing this chip-in idea. So it was a great initiative. But one thing I'm conscious of though is that...anything that involves voluntary participation on the part of residents automatically means there's self-selection involved. So that....bas...basically biases things in unknown directions because of that self-selection. So, I....I don't mean that as criticism. I just think it's a fact, urn, at hand. I...I was struck by, there...the.....the residents or participants' attention to basically roads, you know, and improving the....the condition of roads and...and, uh, and sidewalks I guess, but mainly roads, and boy that's not a new topic, but it...I think it clearly is somethin' we need to try to pay more attention to in the forthcoming budget. Who knows yet what's really possible, but if we could ramp up that,you know,the resurfacing budget, some more, and target the streets that are in the greatest need, that would really be helpful. Mims/Dubuque Street will be done(both talking) Throgmorton/Yeah! Yeah! Uh, you know, we're hopin' (laughter) Yeah. And another thing that comes to my mind and I....y'all surely have your own views about various things, is I...I think we need to be considering the possibility of adding staff. I know it's expensive. Each staff person costs, I don't know, $100,000, uh, approximately....per year, not in terms of salary but in terms of salary and....benefits, etc., uh, but, Geoff, you have several times in the past indicated that there're certain departments that are really feeling very stressed, um, mainly because they haven't had any...had any additions to staff or maybe they've had reductions over the years, and yet expectations in terms of workload have increased pretty substantially. So I think we need to at least consider that possibility of adding staff for a few key, uh, departments, and I'm thinking of Public Works. I'm thinking of Parks and Recreation, cause you've named them before. Maybe others. I... I'm also thinking we got recommendations from, uh, from our bicycle master plan and the climate action, uh....uh, and adaptation plan to hire half-time people for those, uh, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 18 activities. We should, at a minimum...at least consider the possibility of having,uh, of having half-time people, uh, take on key responsibilities. I'm not sayin' we gotta do it but I think we should consider those possibilities. We...we could....we could spend another three or four minutes on this, if any of you have any.... Cole/Well and I just wanted (both talking)briefly comment on the chip-in. Obviously with any public participation there's always difficulty in terms of a lot of things that the public doesn't see on a day-to-day basis in terms of the competing priorities,but that said, I'm really viewing this process as sort of our initial pilot, to try to get this process in(both talking) Throgmorton/Yeah! Cole/And all I'm really looking for is that even though there was a self-selecting process, hopefully we can do some additional outreach, that we can maybe pick one or two trend lines and then come back and say, you know, in a meaningful way, this was effected by the public participation because a lot of times people thank us for spending the money and I think why do you thank us? It's your money, right(laughs)we're just the trustees for that, and it is their money and so I think to get that input and for them to get, say hey, this...was,resulted from that process I think would be really helpful. Monroe/Thanks! Taylor/I think as Jim talked about the roads, I saw that and also with public transportation improvements, I think,uh, a lot of these responses of the 600, uh, online responses really highlighted some of the things we've talked about that...that we need to do and that we're planning to do. So I think increasing the budget for the roads and then, uh, with the transportation study and looking at that and....and hopefully, if we need to, putting more money into the different routes and...and more buses. I think that was (both talking) Throgmorton/ ...at some point,that seems to be in the works, but we'll have to see the results of the transit study to have a clear idea about that. Thomas/ It caused me to think about,um, terms of toolkits, you know,kinda this question of how there's....it's so difficult to prioritize (laughs)um, budget,but if we had, as we do with equity, an equity toolkit, if we had, um....a toolkit related to sustainability to questions of livability, which all of course would need to be defined. So it's a very broad concept, but....how do we....you know, how do we look at these things in terms of achieving these goals, uh, what would be, you know, the most cost effective way of...of implementing that. Throgmorton/Any other comments? Froin/If I could just wrap up with, if Council Members have specific projects that you want us to consider as staff, going into the budget, if you could let me know. I could always aggregate those and report back to you so you'd know what everybody is, uh, offered. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 19 Uh,but it is a lot easier for us to make those considerations in September and October than it is in January and February, and I know you....things change and somethin' gonna come up in January that you can't anticipate now, but to the extent that you can anticipate those, please forward those on to me, uh....you know, in the next couple of weeks and I'll aggregate 'em, I'll push `em back to you all, you can decide if you wanna discuss 'em more or not, but that's really helpful for us. Throgmorton/All right. We're gonna have to disband our happy crew, uh, briefly here. I gue... we're gonna have to come back to this after the formal meeting, right? So we will pick up, uh, with the possibility of increasing the hourly staff wages and then move on to the rest of the...work session agenda, after our formal meeting. Okay, so we're done for now! (BREAK FOR FORMAL) Consider elevating hourly staff wages to $15/hour or more within two years (Discussion deferred to the September 4th work session) Throgmorton/If y'all have fortitude and, uh, willing to stay for another 45 minutes to an hour, whatever, we could make it through the work session and the remainder of our executive session. Uh, but....and that sounds like a real stretch to me. So, are you....are you comfortable with deferring our discussion of the$15 an hour minimum? Cole/Yes. Clarification of Agenda Items (No discussion, after formal meeting) Information Packet Discussion [August 9,August 161 Throgmorton/To our next meeting. So we'll just have to put it on there. Uh, make sure we have time, and you know, I....I wasn't keepin' close enough track on....on the time that we were dedicating to the St. Ambrose study, cause that probably took an hour and I really should have said half hour's what ya got. Nonetheless, here we are. Okay, we don't need to clarify agenda items. So information packet discussion. Please take a look at your notes and see if there's anything....in the first agenda packet you wanna draw attention to. Uh, I....Item 5, is that 5? Yeah, Item 5 on the August 9th packet, uh, the... memo from Brad Neumann about,uh, exploring the possibility of establishing a quiet zone on the Iowa Interstate Railroad in Iowa City. I think that's a good idea. I've heard, uh, various complaints over the years about the horn. And, especially given the nearness of some residential properties, one of which is being constructed or soon will be built. Uh, I think it's a good ide...idea to look into that. Anything else on that packet? I don't wanna rush y'all but, you know....I wanna get some dinner (laughs) All right, temporarily moving on to August 6th, anything in that packet? Thomas/ Sixteenth, you mean? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 20 Throgmorton/I'm sorry, 16a'. Well I....let me start with Item 5, pending work session topics. Uh, given our vote tonight on the, uh...on 12 Court Street, I think we need to pin down a time for a work session discussion about height bonuses. Uh, I had mentioned earlier the possibility of doing that prior to the end of September. Let's find a time that we can actually do....maybe we'll have to have a, uh, special session on that, uh, given the complexity of what's involved. I think we also should just kinda get ahead of the game and put it on the pending list, uh, topic with the name kinda like this, review the downtown historic property inventory and consider how to proceed. I know it's in the works. We'll get it some time in the next....month, two, somethin' like that. (mumbled) the list. Fruin/And that'll work its way to you through the Historic Preservation Commission, but we can add it. Throgmorton/Yeah. Yeah, so I don't wanna be jumpin' the game there. Just...I know we're gonna end up discussing it. Any other items on that packet? Thomas/Well on....on IP5, the pending work session, you know, earlier tonight there was this question of,uh, you know the...on narrow streets and how to address the parking, and uh, I'm just looking at...at some of the, uh, strategic plan items requiring initial City Council direction. Uh, you know we have one where there will be review of the preliminary traffic accident analysis and a related set of recommendations, and we'll hear from, uh, Professor Jodie Plumert and I'm wondering if we might be able to fold discussion of this, um,topic into that, uh.....I mean part of the reason I...I would like to discuss it a little further is....the, one of the primary,um, reasons for that idea of kind of creating a (mumbled) effect with parking is traffic calming and, um....so I....I'd be interested in just hearing a little bit more on it. Throgmorton/I'd say if the staff thinks that's feasible,that would be a good idea but I... Fruin/We could combine it. (several responding) Cole/I'd support putting it on a work session. Throgmorton/Yeah, sounds like we have....looks like we have at least four nods. So.... Fruin/Okay. Council updates on assigned boards, commissions and committees: Throgmorton/Any other topics? All right, I'm gonna move on to the last item, Council updates on assigned boards, commissions, and committees. We could start with John and move to the left. Thomas/Um....not, I mean I had ICAD. Did I mention Ted X? I think that's....think about going to or watching one of those sites. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 21 Cole/City of Literature will be meeting soon, so I'll have an update probably next meeting. Throgmorton/There's a whole bunch of writers in town from, uh, International Writing Program. All their new fellows are here and I was talking with Chris Merrill. I know this isn't City of Literature but it's very close. I was talkin' with Chris Merrill yesterday and he was raving about this cluster of fellows and I...I had already looked at their bios and it's a really impressive group of writers. Cole/ Lot of smart people in Iowa City. Throgmorton/Uh, Maz? You have any updates on boards or commissions? Salih/ (unable to hear) I will report next time. Throgmorton/Okay. Pauline? Taylor/Uh....ECIO...ECICOG'11 be meeting August 30`1i. Unlike the rest of you I will have the opportunity to see Tracey, and (laughs) and continue to see Tracey at the meetings, which'll be great, cause I...I just love her and she's always smiling. Great person, so that'll be good! Uh, I attended, uh, last Tuesday the Iowa City Community School District board meeting. I've been just trying to keep up with them, especially when they're talking about their boundaries and...and there was some concern about their school pairing,uh, but unfortunately last, uh, Tuesday they were missing two of their members, so they had their board meeting but they didn't have their work session. So they didn't, uh,have discussion about...about that,but I know they keep saying that integration and equity's important and....and, but this, uh, school pairing's kind of a unique idea and has a lot of pros and a lot of cons, so, uh, they'll continue that and we need to keep an eye on that. Throgmorton/Yeah, that's a pretty important decision they're makin'. Whatever it...the decision ends up being. Thanks for goin' to that. I only have one thing to report. This month's, uh, Convention and Visitors Bureau board meeting was canceled because too many people reported they....they wouldn't be able to attend (laughs) So I don't know, um, Josh is kind of scratching his head and...what's he gonna do? But that's the only report I have, other than to say that I'm workin' with, uh, John Lundell and Terry Donahue to have another sort of Mayor's meeting. We try to do this once every three months. Mims/We are continuing to make progress on the Access Center. Urn, I know that actually I'm going to be in a meeting with you and Rod tomorrow. Rod asked me to come (mumbled) um....there, I think as you know there's....there's been an offer on a piece of property, urn, down on Southgate Street, that's public. Urn, they're in the process of doing the due diligence. That's part of the conversation that Rod Sullivan and I are gonna have with Geoff tomorrow, urn,just to....have some preliminary discussion about rezoning that, because that property would have to be rezoned, urn, for public use, um, in order to put the Access Center there, and so we wanna make sure before we run out of that due This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018. Page 22 diligence time, and I actually think the rezoning's a contingency even if we got past the due diligence time,but urn, so have some discussion on some issues there. Um, it is I think in the 500-year flood plain, but it's only going to take I think now where they're going to site the building it would take probably less than a foot of fill to bring it up out of the 500-year, uh, flood plain. They already have an ea...the property already has an easement across the railroad tracks so that shouldn't be a huge issue. Yeah, they didn't....yeah, they do (laughs) Just leave it at that! So that's gonna help considerably. Um, people are getting really excited (coughing, difficult to hear speaker) very, very excited about finally seeing some things, um, people are working with the State and trying to understand all the rules and regulations that are going to control the `Access Center's,' um, starting to work with architects to get...nail down some more details and things like that. So, um, trying to get some of those things. I think somebody may be contacting you, Eleanor, um....just in terms of maybe you and Janet maybe working on the 28E agreement because my sense from our meeting was really that that 28E agreement is relatively simple. Urn, I'm assuming that the County will own the facility and we will have some sort of agreement with them in exchange for handing over money to it, so that if it's not used for those purposes and/or they sold it or whatever, somehow we get our money back, so, um, there...and we're working with, um, one of the attorneys from the University Hospital, Joe Clamon, who is very knowledgeable about medical- related and healthcare issues. So he's helping with some of the initial drafting, um, of... of agreements that might be between, um, the County and whoever manages the entity and also between them and any of the local providers. So, he's got a lot of that healthcare expertise that really needs to be in those contracts. So he's kind of helping start some of that and certainly that'll be reviewed by Janet and maybe, Eleanor, you...you and your staff may be asked to help at some point with that, I'm not sure. Um, so yeah! People are getting very excited, um, starting to think about, uh....other money that we might be able to gather, grants and that sort of stuff, um, but also being very cognizant of want... not wanting to,urn,jeopardize any of the typical donors for other local non-profits. So we don't wanna be siphoning money away from them, so we're looking at other and new ways of,um, getting (mumbled) Throgmorton/ I wanna mention one other thing, uh, stimulated by what you say about the Access Center. When I'm at the Mayors Innovation Project, uh, event, I'm gonna do sort of a lightening round thing that focuses on the combination of the data-driven justice initiative, Housing First, and the Access Center. Just to report this to the other mayors that are there. Okay, so I think we're done with the work session. Uh, so we need to adjourn the work session...no,we need to....we don't have to adjourn it at all. Never mind! We're not....we're done with the work session but we need to reconvene. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 21, 2018.