HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-06-18 Transcriptions Page I
Council Present: Cole, Mims,Teague,Taylor,Thomas,Throgmorton
Council Absent: Salih
Staff Present: Fruin, Monroe, Dulek, Fruehling, Matherly, Brotherton, Havel, Seydell-
Johnson, Rackis, Hall,Nagle-Gamm, Hightshoe,Andrew
Others Present:
Review 2018 Police Department traffic stop data with Dr. Chris Barnum:
Throgmorton/The first item for review is to hear from Dr. Chris Bernard. (talking in
background) Barnum, I'm sorry, excuse me, Chris, uh.....(laughter and several talking)
My bad! (several talking) Yeah, so Dr. Barnum's gonna review the 2018 Police
Department traffic stop data and I think...the Chief is going to introduce....Chief,you
gonna come up?
Matherly/ Good evening! Jody Matherly, Police Chief. Um, as you know, every year for this
(mumbled) the past several years we've, uh, critiqued ourselves and measured ourselves
and looked at data and trends on how we're doing with disproportionality and minority
contact, and uh, as it's been said before, you know, we're....we're a big critic of ourselves
and we like that. We like to make sure that we're doing what's expected with, uh, good
policing practices and what the community expects, and Dr.,uh, Barnum, from St.
Ambrose, has been a critical piece of that. Uh, the upside from having him here year
after year is he knows our city, our system,um, and so there's consistency in how this is
done, and that's key for us. It's not different every year. Uh,he sat down, uh, a few
weeks ago and walked through some of the preliminary findings. Urn, so he's ready to
present those tonight and uh, I just will let you know that, um, with the help of....of
Captain Brotherton and....and Captain Campbell and the rest of the Police Department,
we continue to work on bias-based policing. We're in the middle of training for that right
now as we speak, as a matter of fact, um, and uh....and look at other ways that we can
reduce disproportionality, uh, and I think we're making progress. So, uh, I just met with
some folks from the school today. When we talk about the high amount of suspensions
for,uh,black females in the school systems, and not just in Iowa City but nationwide,
and um, you know,my comment was, you know, things can be fixed. This is not beyond
our(laughs) control. It takes, uh, takes good leadership but it....but it takes good
training, good direction, and a change of culture in how we do things, and I think we're
achieving that at the Police Department. So, with that I'll let Dr. Barnum have the floor,
unless there's any questions, and we'll go from there!
Throgmorton/ Sounds good.
Matherly/Thank you!
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Throgmorton/Thanks, Chief. So, Dr. Barnum, uh, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to end your
presentation and our discussion by 5:45. Do you think that's (both talking)
Barnum/ ....yeah, I think that's certainly reasonable.
Throgmorton/Okay. That's what we're shootin' for, folks.
Barnum/Uh, so thank you for having me here tonight. I appreciate it. Thank you, Chief. Um,
one thing before I get started. I....I've had some computer issues, so when I get to, uh....
the slides on individual disproportionality, the slide on my screen is incorrect and I've
been working all day trying to fix it. So I'll go to the, uh, the Word document, which I
sent to you all, which is correct. Just for some reason on my PowerPoint, I don't....I don't
know what's going on there. So,just a heads up as we get goin'. So, again, this is,uh, as
the Chief said, this is the, uh....this is like, uh......almost 10 years now we've been doin'
the data here and uh, so we....we have a pretty good run going. Uh, we're able to look
longitudinally at the data so we have a feel for which direction everything's heading and
so forth. So I'll just run you through kind of what we do real briefly, uh, the background,
and then, uh, we'll get into the findings here. So.....um, so when Iowa City reports a
stop, they....the stops come up in, uh,terms of different one-mile square grids, uh,that
the City's been mapped out at, and so when I receive the data, the stop, where the stop
occurred, I can tell where it happened according to which grid it was in. So what we
essentially do then is we go into these different areas, particularly the areas where a lot of
stops are made, and we,um, we watch traffic essentially, to see the, um, racial
proportions of the drivers on the roads. So we've been doing that since 2007, so I guess
this is 12 years now, and we've made so far, which I'll show you in a second, over
100,000 observations and I'll show you where we mainly look and the reasons why, and
that establishes our benchmark that we then compare the police data to. So that's kinda
what...what we do. We get the data from the Police Department and then we compare it
to our benchmarks and....and we look to see if there's any difference between those. So
these are the number of stops by those different zones. Um....so you can see (laughs)
most of the stops are made in a particular zone and that happens to be zone 21, which is
the downtown area. So it's right here. So....uh, of the....over 12,000 stops made by the
Police Department. The vast majority, the vast, vast majority of those, were made in the
downtown area, and then there was,uh, quite a few made in zone 29, which is the
Broadway, Cross Park area, and then the surrounding zones around that. Zone 13 is, uh,
just north of downtown on Dubuque Street there. So you can see where the stops are
made. And those are the areas we....we like to really watch traffic in, to establish our
benchmarks, because that's where all the stopping's occurring at, so.... This kinda lays it
out for you where the stops are being made, um, on the map. So the area in red is where
the stops are most frequently made and then in yellow are the areas where the stops are
still higher than the rest of the town,but not as high as the downtown area. And this
breaks out the number of stops by the Police Department, uh....breaking it out by day or
night. Uh, for us a day is from 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 at night, and the opposite is night. So
that's how we split the data in terms of days and nights. And it's not really an issue, but
it....it kinda matters for our benchmarks, uh, whether it's dark or light out. (clears throat)
So this,uh, slide breaks out the total number of,uh, observations we've made, uh, since
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2007, and you can see we're up over 110,000 now, and....these are the areas we really
concentrate....on looking at, when usually my grads.....it's usually grad students come up
here and watch traffic, and we tend to do that, uh, we just finished a year of doing that.
They were up here....not every day of the year, but over the course of the year we....we
hit every day of the week. We hit pretty much every hour of the day. We hit, uh, football
weekends and so on and so forth, so we....we have a pretty good feel for,um, what the
benchmarks are in those areas. So specifically these are the zones that get watched
heavily,uh....and that discourse responds to the map. These are the benchmark values
that we have established and those are really simple. You just simply aggregate so the
people who are watching,uh, the traffic, they....they mark white male,black male, white
female, so on and so forth, and then we just count 'em, and we aggregate'em across
different observers. We use some techniques to check the validity. The validity's
generally pretty good, which means that one person's seeing pretty much the same thing
as everybody else, which we like to see. And you can see there's a little bit of difference
in the benchmarks between day and night in some of the zones,but not in all of'em.
Now in areas where we don't watch heavily we just use a standard, uh, .1 or 10%of the
drivers are minority drivers, uh, in those areas. And that's based on the Census figures.
But there's not very many stops made in those areas. It wouldn't be very cost efficient to
really watch areas where there's few stops made cause I have to....well you guys actually
have to pay our grad students for coming up here and looking at the traffic. So....(clears
throat) that's why we do that. So it's just so that...so it's clear,this....this 0.10 number
means that,uh, what we saw in zone 13 was 10% of the drivers on the roads were
minority drivers in that area. And then you can....the rest of it corresponds on the way
down there. Uh, I always give this caveat, so keep in mind with the benchmarks, they're
not absolute. They're a sample of the traffic on the roads and like any sample there's
sampling error. It's,uh, impossible to estimate the amount of error because we don't
know the sample size. It's infinite. So, um....I don't know how....how large the area is.
I can guess based on what we see from year to year that our benchmarks are probably
within.....three percentage points either direction, because we tend to see the same things,
but, um, I probably can't guarantee that. So here's the data from 2018, and this is just
from the entire department,which looks just like what I showed you in the earlier slide.
This....this just shows where the stops are being made. Again this is on 21. Twenty-
nine, 13 —those areas that I showed you on the map are where all the stops are being
made by the Police Department in general. Now this next slide is actually what you
wanna see and this is the slide that compares the percentage of police stops to our
benchmarks. So the percentage of police stops are the blue lines, and our benchmarks are
the red lines. And graphs like these are a little bit deceiving because in areas where it
looks like there's a whole lot of,uh, difference, which we call,uh, disproportionality, for
example here in zone 19 you can see that the percentage of police stops is a lot higher
than our benchmark. But if you go back to this and you look at 19 right here, you can see
that there's almost....there's very few stops made there. So although there's
disproportionality there, it's based on a small number of stops. So what we really like to
look at are the areas where there's lots and lots of stops being made, and if we find
disproportionality there, that's more of a problem. So zone 21 is where there's a lot of
stops being made. And that's, uh, these two bars right here, and you can see there's a little
bit of disproportionality,but not nearly to the extent as what we saw in, uh, zone 19. So
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what we do to try to, uh, make this a little bit more interpretable is we, um....we simply,
urn, calculate a weighted average across each of the zones. So we compare the difference
between the, uh, police stops and the benchmark, and then weight it by the number of
stops made there. And that's where we get that number. So what that means, this value
of.07 is that on average the....the percentage points, uh,that were....the police, the
percentage of police stops was seven, uh, percentage points higher than our benchmarks
weighted by the number of stops across all....all the zones. You all with me? Okay. And
then we did, we split it out by days and nights. So....here's the pattern of stops for days,
which are very similar to the Department as a whole, and nights will be similar as well.
And,uh, here's the level of disproportionality—on days it's a little bit lower....than it is
for the Department as a whole. I would say in zone, uh, 28 there's a fair amount of
disproportionality, and a fair amount of stopping there. So...that might be an area that
they might wanna look at a little more closely. And then for nights (clears throat) the
pattern again is the same. Most of the stops are made downtown, and...the level of
disproportionality is, uh, nine percentage points higher than our benchmarks. So that's
higher than the....the average. Days low....days are pulling the average down for the
whole Department and nights are pulling it up. So at night there's a little bit more
disproportionality than there is during the day is what the....the bottom line on...on these
data are. Is there any comments or questions on this so far? Okay. So now we're getting
into the officer level analysis, so the first slide I'm gonna show you is correct. The
second slide I'm gonna go to a....a Word doc to show you, so I can compare it, uh, cause
there's a problem with the....with this. So,uh, this is just the formula of how we actually
compute this index. We compare, for each officer we compare the percentage of minority
stops to the benchmarks, and divide that by the....the percentage of non-minority drivers
over that benchmark, and that...that equals a number. So any number essentially bigger
than one means some sort of disproportionality. So that's what we look for. A number
one would be you're equally likely, given the benchmarks, to stop a minority versus non-
minority driver. So numbers larger than one are what we look for. (clears throat) So
here's the slide,urn, so these are the values along here of that index which I was talking
about. Uh,this blue dashed line here is....is sort of what we consider a bare minimum for
analyzing an officer. And that's,uh, 100 stops. If they're not above 100 stops, then
sometimes the numbers can get kind of, um, messed up because the....the .....the number
of....the, it can be noise in the data that are...the law of large numbers isn't in effect if you
don't have at least 100 stops. So you might be seeing what you think is,uh, disparity or
disproportionality,but it's really just noise. So the more stops the better and kind of the
benchmark that we use pretty much everywhere we go is 100. We .....we'd like to see
100 stops before we start really analyzing the officers data. So anybody above the line
we'll look at. So this is the number of stops on the Y axis over here. So you can see this
officer,right there,made over 1,000 stops. And then, uh, this line right here....this lightly
dashed line, is the 90th percentile and this heavily dashed line, this is the medium for the
Department. So the medium in, uh, 2018 was under two. It was between one and two. I
think it's probably just look at that,probably around,uh, 1.7,urn, which is lower than it
has been.
Throgmorton/ Chris, I'm looking at the material we got in our handout. So the chart that's similar
to this one is called'figure 8 officer index values, 2018.'
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Barnum/Yeah, let me (both talking)
Throgmorton/ ...and it, what you have on the screen is very similar, but it's not identical.
Barnum/Yeah, that's what I was worried about. (both talking)
Throgmorton/The scale differs and actually some of the individual officers....blue dots are
different.
Barnum/Yeah, let's....let's, I'll just pull it up and we'll look at that one. I don't trust, um....I trust
this one. Like I said, I could not transfer that graph to the PowerPoint for some reason.
Okay. So these are the two charts I'm gonna look at. So this is the one I was just
showing you, right here. And....so this is the 2018 data.
Throgmorton/We're not seeing anything.
Barnum/Oh, you guys don't see it?
Throgmorton/We just see the....the.....the graphic you initially showed us.
Barnum/I'm getting...so now I'm getting,uh, please wait while it logs in. Sorry! (both talking)
Mims/ ...what's up here now is the same as what's in the late handouts.
Throgmorton/In the late handout?
Mims/Yeah.
Throgmorton/Okay, I didn't have a chance to go through the late handout. So I'm lookin' at what
we got initially.
Matherly/ (difficult to hear, away from mic) .....one of the charts was a little (unable to hear)
Throgmorton/(both talking) Okay, so this...this one is, that's up there right now, is accurate
(both talking)
Matherly/(difficult to hear, away from mic) .....you might have the old one (both talking)
Throgmorton/ ....is for(several talking)
Barnum/ So the old one the scales were different so I just made the scales identical, and....and
when I did that, for some reason the PowerPoint wouldn't take it. So, urn.....can you see
it now? On your screens?
Mims/Yeah, it's on our screens.
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Throgmorton/Yeah, I see what you initially put up.
Barnum/Yeah, so this is....this is correct data here. These are correct. So, urn.....so I guess the
way to look at this then is to compare it to the year before, and this was the one I couldn't
bring up on the data. Um, this chart. So you can see here is you....as we go back and
forth, we have an officer, urn, that was above....100, the 100 mark threshold, the 100 stop
mark threshold and had a....a relatively high disparity index there, over four, up around
five. Uh, and in the 2018 data that isn't the case anymore. So that....that's no longer a
problem. Uh, one other thing you'll notice is that the median has....has gone down in
2018 as compared to 2017, which is....good! That's progress! Um.....these officers here
are showing a lot of disproportionality. I'm looking at 2018, but they're not at 100 stops.
So although they count in calculating the median in the 90th percentile, urn.....some of
that could be due to noise, in conjunction with the, considering that the benchmarks a
sample too. So....the more stops the better when you're looking at this thing.
Fruin/Dr. Barnum,we can't see the mouse when you're (both talking)
Barnum/Oh, I'm sorry! So,well I'm....
Froin/Just if you could describe what you're looking at, that would help.
Barnum/You can't tell where I'm pointing either (laughter) so....it's....it's, uh, the five dots
below the blue line, right by the four there. (several talking and laughing) Uh....I would
also like to show you another graph, which is in the PowerPoint which is correct, which
is from 2016 too, so....I'll go to that unless you have some questions on this. (mumbled)
I don't think it came up, did it?
Throgmorton/No, we don't see it.
Barnum/Try again. It's thinking!
Throgmorton/Maybe it's actually meditating. (laughter)
Barnum/Mindfulness! (clears throat) So I'm gonna, uh, cause it's not coming up, I'm going to
try to reopen it, see if(mumbled) It's still not coming up.
Throgmorton/ It's just frozen I guess.
Barnum/Let me exit this one. So I can see it on my screen,but it's not coming up on that screen.
(talking in background) Okay, great! Thank you. So....this is, uh, 2016 anduh, no
this is 16 now (talking in background) This is 16 now. So, uh, this is not in your
handouts. This is....this is the year before that, and....(mumbled)this, uh, dot right here
is up around six. It was like at five in 17 and that's the same officer. So,uh one good
thing about that is that's not an issue in the 28th....2018 data, and urn, again the....the
median has gone down since 16. So that looks like progress. Any questions?
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Throgmorton/What's the median now?
Barnum/It's, um....
Throgmorton/ Or for 2018.
Barnum/Yeah,it....I'll show ya. So it's....
Throgmorton/Oh, I see.
Barnum/ ....it's there compared to.....
Throgmorton/Yeah, so it's like 1.8 versus (both talking) or something like that. (both talking)
Good!
Barnum/So that's moving in the right direction! So then the other part that we always look at are
stop out comes....stop outcomes are citations, arrests, and searches essentially. We look
at if there's, uh, disparity in those, and for these we don't need a benchmark. We can just
look at the data and we can compare how drivers are treated once they're stopped
(mumbled) it's a lot more straightforward. You don't have to worry about the benchmarks
and so forth. Uh, we....we compute an odds ratio to do this, which is simply a
comparison of two odds. It gives you a....an idea of effect size and the difference
between how one group is treated in comparison to the other. And so here's the raw data
and then the odd ratio. I'm sorry about that. The odd ratio is, uh.....(mumbled) right
there. So that's....that's one, essentially, which is good, uh, cause a number one means
the odds are equally likely that after a traffic stop occurs, a minority driver will receive
the citation, as compared to a non-minority driver, and uh, that's been pretty stable the
last couple years, and so that's a good thing. So there's no....no really difference in terms
of who gets a ticket once they're stopped....in Iowa City. So this is a summary of arrests
and...in....in this slide all arrests are grouped together. I'm gonna break it out here in a
minute, but um....when an arrest is made on the traffic stop, the odds are twice as likely
that a black driver will be arrested in comparison to a white driver, or a minority
compared to a non-minority. And so, um.....so, urn.....sort of a.....a way to look at that is
that there....minority drivers are twice as likely to get arrested as a non-minority driver
on a traffic stop. But as you're gonna see, it's a little more complicated when you think
about it because some stops are discretionary in nature, which means the officer has a
choice whether or not to make the arrest, and other stops are....arrests are non-
discretionary. So the officer doesn't really have a choice on those. So we look at....we
compare those. And so what we hope to see in terms of good numbers are for
discretionary stops, the ones where the officers have a choice, the number is lower than
for non-discretionary stops. And it is! So for discretionary stops, that number is, uh, 1.3
instead of 1.9. So it's much closer to 1 than it was before. Now you can see there's not
that many of them. There's only 74 of those that occurred, and....out of....out of 712
arrests that were made on traffic stops, 74 of those were non-discretionary,but when they
did occur, there really wasn't much disproportionality between minority and non-minority
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drivers being stopped. And then this last, uh, slide is the non-discretionary arrests, and
this is where the officer really doesn't have much of a choice. They pretty much, it's like
a warrant. They pretty much have to make an arrest, and in....and we see, urn, we see
disparity there. The odds ratio is up over two, but again, urn....can't really call that bias
because the officer has stopped the car, maybe there's a warrant on the driver,maybe the
driver's under suspension. The officer doesn't really have a choice, and the numbers are
showing up the way they are because that's differential in...in offending there. That's
what that is showing. Any questions on that?
Thomas/What would be the....there's still the reason why the stop, right?
Barnum/Right! So they, yeah, and that's the first part,right? So that's why we look to see....
that's why we have to divide it out. We look to see if there's disparity or....or are blacks
getting stopped more than whites, and we saw for the Department about seven percentage
points higher than the benchmarks. But once the stop occurs, then the officer has a lot of
choices,how that stop's gonna turn out. And....uh, when the officer has a great deal of
choice, we find much lower levels of....disproportionality than when the officer doesn't
have a choice. Urn, for arrests.
Throgmorton/Chris, what's an example of a non-discretionary arrest and discretionary arrests?
Can you give examples (both talking)
Barnum/Yeah, so, um....a good example of a non-discretionary arrest would be a warrant, right?
You stop a car, you go up to the driver and you get the driver's license, you run a warrant
check, and this person has a warrant that's...that's essentially an order from a judge telling
the officer to go ahead and make an arrest. The non-discretionary arrest might be, uh, a
situation where the officer has some judgment, for example if the, um....if, um....the
officer's looking at a, um.....perhaps, uh, whether or not....trying to think of a good
example here of non-discretionary, cause they don't happen all that often. So it would be
maybe,um.....so the....the driver is creating a loud disturbance, let's say, and gets
arrested for, uh, disturbing the peace or something like that. The officer doesn't have to
make an arrest there,but the officer decides to make an arrest. So those would be an
example of discretionary arrests. The officer has a choice. OWIs, driving while barred,
those types of things—the officer really doesn't have much of a choice. You can't....you
can't really let a drunk driver go, I mean you could,but you shouldn't do that. So they
don't do that. And....warrants,you can't do that. Uh, driving while barred, you can't just
turn a blind eye to that. So you pretty much have to make an arrest in those situations. I
hope that cleared it up.
Throgmorton/Yeah, thanks.
Barnum/ So, um....we also track consent searches, but the Iowa City Police Department has,
doesn't make consent searches, since....since the last two years, and last year they only
made one in 2018. So a consent search is when they don't have probably cause to search
a car, and so they ask the driver'can we search your car.' Urn, there were some issues, I
think officers were....fillin gout their forms incorrectly when, sayin' they were,uh,
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consent searches when they really weren't, when they were probably cause searches, and
so, urn, once.....we talked with the officers at length about what the differences were and
how they should fill out the forms, then pretty much the Police Department doesn't make
those. So we can't....we can't analyze those data anymore. What we have started though
is probable cause searches. So probably cause search would be if you go up to a car and
say....you smell marijuana in the car, which gives you probable cause to search. If you're
sure it's marijuana, you have probable cause at that point. You can search the inside of
the car, and (mumbled) do find some,uh, disparity there. The odds ratio for that is 2.45,
and what we track in conjunction with that is the hit rates, and what I mean by that is....
when those types of searches occur, do you find anything? Do you find evidence? Do
you find contraband? And so we track it, so we track to see is there....so we see there's
disproportionality in the probable cause search. Urn, minority drivers are two and a half
times more like to have a....a probable cause search conducted on their car, and now this
next slide shows the, uh, hit rates, and actually when probably cause searches occur, this
number is below one, so you have to take the reciprocal of it, which means that when
those, um, searches occur.....officers actually find contraband or evidence from the white
drivers of....of a probable cause search, twice as often as they do from the black drivers.
So even though the, uh, probable cause searching,black drivers more likely to be
searched based on probable cause, hit rates are higher for white drivers than black
drivers. So that's something to keep an eye on as we go forward. And this final slide
shows you, um....some of the outcomes over time. So you can see for citations, for
example, that number, since 2015, has hovered around one, which is good. Arrests,urn,
is around two,but keep in mind that those are mainly non-discretionary. Uh, this search
category here is for,um, voluntary searches. And those numbers were traditionally
around two. The last two years we haven't been able to track those, and then the hit rates
you can see. So what we found,uh, and this is consistent with this year's finding is that
there are not higher hit rates for minority drivers than white drivers, than non-minority
drivers. And then I have a couple of summary slides,but I just pretty much summarized
it for you. So....I'11 entertain your questions!
Throgmorton/Great, thanks! (mumbled) do any of you have questions for Dr. Barnum?
Cole/I know it's extremely hard to coin....not a lot of other communities do this, right? It's only
Davenport, is that correct?
Barnum/Uh huh, so um...we've done Davenport, the City of Dubuque. We have done Ames and
the Iowa State Police Department.
Cole/Okay. And is it possible, I know each community is of course different,but how are we
comparing in terms of the other communities, in terms of disproportionality. I know a lot
of times we look at that, the top 10 metro areas, and other factors. Roughly how do we
compare with(mumbled)
Barnum/ So do you mean in the stops or the outcomes?
Cole/Both.
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Barnum/Both. Urn....Dubuque had a very low level of disproportionality. The...in fact they
were almost at zero levels of disproportionalityDavenport traditionally has around nine
percentage points, above our benchmarks. And I'm not....I haven't presented Ames yet,
so I'm not at liberty to say theirs. Ur....but urn, so you're a little bit better than
Davenport, but you're not as good as Dubuque....if you wanna use the vernacular.
Cole/And to follow up on that, were you able to gather any information from Dubu...Dubuque as
to how they were able to achieve that? Or was that sort of beyond the scope of the study?
You're primarily looking at the data, not....cause that's spectacular. It's great work with
Dubuque. We've had a positive trend lines,but were you able to gather, you know, cause
it seems to me that just wouldn't happen. That would be the result of a targeted activity
on the part of the City of Dubuque.
Barnum/ So it was interesting up there because, urn, the officers....I....I'm pretty sure the officers
didn't know. We looked backwards at their data. They didn't know during the study
period that they were being examined. So I'm not sure what....what's being done up
there. I will say this, that, uh, there's a lower level of,uh, there's a low percentage of
minority drivers on the road in Dubuque. That might play into it. Um, the city's different
in terms of its dynamics, where the stops occur, and so forth. There's more stops made
away from the city center in Dubuque than there is here.
Cole/Uh huh.
Barnum/Um, so....it's.....it's a little bit(both talking)
Cole/Apples to oranges.
Barnum/Yeah,it really is.
Cole/Okay.
Thomas/I...I have a couple of questions. One....one would be, you know, we have these areas...
the city's broken down into these squares. Within those areas do you map...which
corridors or which streets....uh, the....the stops are made?
Barnum/Uh, no we don't get that information. So what....what I receive from the Police
Department is....I don't get an address whereI don't get a lat or lon or an address
where the stop occurred. I just get....observation zone 32 or whatever. But what we do
do is within those zones we watch a lot of different intersections when we're watching
traffic. But I don't know exactly where within that mile the stops are being made.
Thomas/Would it be difficult to obtain that information?
Barnum/I think it's difficult for the police to get that. I think the way they're set up now...in....in
fact I know that that's the case cause, urn,prior to the one-mile square units, we didn't
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have anything. We just had the beat where it occurred, which is a huge area, and so they
went to a lot of effort to get this. Ideally what we'd like to see is a latitude and longitude
of the stop, and then...or, uh, UTM coordinate is another thing, and then,uh, we can
actually compare that to Census data directly and so on and so forth. That's done in some
other communities, but, um....it's....it's based on the system you have in place a lot, and
so to....to change that would probably be a major and costly undertaking.
Thomas/Okay. And then the other question I had is have you done any studies in cities which
employ traffic cameras?
Barnum/Davenport does.
Thomas/And what, if any, effect that has on disproportional stops?
Barnum/ So, what we've wanted to do, and I haven't been able to do yet is look....at....the actual
stops from the traffic cameras and compare it to what we find. Uh, we haven't done that
yet. So I don't know what effect that has,but that would be a very interesting question.
Teague/ So there's 7%, um, higher the benchmark for minorities, uh, when they're stopped?
Barnum/Across the city, yes.
Teague/Across the city? Do you know....give us some examples of, uh, reasons why they were
stopped?
Barnum/Yeah. So we do have that information. I didn't present it. We can track whether it was
for like an equipment violation or a moving violation. What's not presented in here are
say calls for service. So these are all officer-initiated stops, where the officer makes a
decision to stop the car. Um....when I do look at the data that way, minorities tend to be
stopped in higher numbers for equipment violations, and....and whites tend to be stopped
more for moving violations.
Teague/ So back taillight out or....
Barnum/Yeah,or maybe even a license plate out, if you're getting really....down to brass tacks.
Teague/Have you done any communities where within the state marijuana is legal?
Barnum/No.
Teague/ Okay.
Cole/I'm curious about crime trends. Have you been able to do any analysis, or look at least
more a....a broader cross-section in terms of as communities have less disproportionate
minority contact, we see positive crime trend reductions. Can you make that case? (both
talking)
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Barnum/ ...what's interesting is Davenport. Urn, we've been doing Davenport since the
beginning of 2005, and Davenport is....I don't know if you follow the news in Davenport
very closely, but they have a pretty substantial problem with neighborhood shootings in
Davenport, particularly right around St.Ambrose (laughs) actually. Just,uh, south of the
campus, and....um.....we find....police response to the shootings increases
disproportionality. Okay? What we haven't found though is whether dispropor....
whether that police response lowers the number of shootings. So that's a very interesting
question in which we really are looking at, um, and that's something that actually(clears
throat) should be talked about at a community level. So what do you want the police to
do? They have a lot of shootings say on Gaines Street in Davenport. Gaines and say
17th Street, and if you live in that neighborhood, you get pretty tired of your cars being
shot up all the time. So, you know, we want the police to do something and so when the
police go in there, and they have special enforcement teams which they call NETS. What
happens is those NETS officers generally have very disparate numbers. So in other
words, minorities are being stopped at higher rates, but what we haven't been able to
establish is whether that has any effect on the shootings or not. So it's...the open question
is does a traffic stop lower shootings? You know, I don't know.
Throguiorton/ I'd like to ask a couple questions that maybe Jody could answer, uh, better than
you, Chris, but I....Jody, the first question I'd like to ask is whether the Community
Police Relations Board members have been provided with a copy of Dr. Barnum's report,
and given a chance to interpret it from their perspective?
Matherly/ (mumbled) (laughing) but certainly it's always on our web site, it's always available.
Urn, and this is something that we can have put on the agenda now that's he's presented
the 2018 results to you folks. Uh, and talked to CPRB about that.
Throgmorton/Yeah, I think it's the kind of thing that would be of considerable interest to the
board members. The other thing has to do with your own perspective, basically. We see
really good trends here in the data that Dr. Barnum's provided us, but they still show
disproportionality in...in a worrisome way. So, what's your thoughts about now? Havin'
been on the job for, what, two and a half years or thereabouts. What....what are your
thoughts now about how to improve the situation?
Matherly/Yeah, so I stood here two and a half years ago and....and told you folks that, um, you
know there'd be some low-hanging fruit that we needed to take care of right away, and
that was the consent searches. I viewed it as a fishing expedition and the stats showed
that we weren't finding any more in a black driver's car than we were a white. So what
are we doing? Why is it so disproportionate? Coupled with me tellin' 'em quit just
ripping cars apart cause you're not finding anything and they listened (laughs) as you can
see. Um, the courts have also started to rule that, you know, dog searches and waiting for
canines to arrive at a....a traffic stop, and this happened in Illinois too, and some at the
federal level is not prohibited by law. So we can't just hold a motorist up and wait to do
these....these dog sniffs and searches. So the courts have directed us, I've directed 'em,
and so you've seen it kind of go to ground zero, which is a good thing. We're not holdin'
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motorists up and you can see where the disproportionality started to...to dip there. Um,
now we deal with the PC side of it, what's the probable cause, okay? Yeah, you can
legally search it,but if there's disproportionality, which these are the first times we've
measured those numbers, and....and so I'm....this is new to me too, within the last few
weeks. Urn,but that gives us somethin' to sink our teeth into and know that that's a
problem and let's correct it and start dissecting why is that happening, what are the
searches for, how do we build a probable cause, and....and take a look at that and address
that as well. So, urn, this is just another piece of the puzzle to get things corrected. Urn,
but overall the way we've tried to change the culture in the Police Department, we're
startin'to see success and...and I fully expect this to be a gradual change. This isn't gonna
go from a....a number two, uh, disparity down to the one, which is our parody,which is
our target. Um, but it's trending down, so we had some successes last year with the
outcomes in citations and we continue in that mode. So I think we're good there. We get
it! But the stops themselves, I was glad to see the extremes come down. We had a guy
out in left field, uh, and then we had'em kind of center right and....and now he's more
toward center field, and that's where, you know, we need to keep pulling that back. But
that moved the median back too. So as a group, we're improving, and....and I'd love to
see those. That's what I expected to see. Geoff stood here last year and said (laughs)
we're gonna make progress, and we have. So I'm encouraged by those numbers. The
officers are doing better. We did some distinct things like do monthly checks of this.
Instead of waiting....cause it was kinda like a surprise party for me. He would step up
and I'm like, 'How'd we do?' And we shouldn't be surprised by these numbers. We need
to manage our folks. And supervise them properly. So each month we look at these
numbers and say, 'Hey, whatdaya got goin' on? Where ya patrolling? Are you patrolling
and....and this came right from his training, uh,when I came here, cause a lot of the
folks, lot of our officers had not been trained by Dr. Barnum, to say, 'Here's probably
some issues you need to correct. Are you patrolling your whole zone, are you just going
to one neighborhood and stopping cars,um, where there's a high percentage of black
drivers for a taillight out, and we need to improve in that area.' So, um, yes....it, and I
don't even know what those numbers are, but if there's a higher number of defective
equipment in one neighborhood, in general what we tell 'ern is, knock it off. It's...you're
not finding anything there. That's not good for business. You're not (laughs) savin' lives.
You're not reducing violent crime. Patrol your whole zone. Go to those areas where
there's hazardous violations, where traffic crashes are occurring, where neighbors are
complaining about speed and do your traffic enforcement in those areas and make a
difference! Uh, so we continue to do that. Mostly what I find too is the folks I have out
in right field are my new officers. Big hearts,but they're....they're full of energy and
they really....they....they have to be shown how to police smarter and better. The...the
academy's teachin' the basics about bias-based policing and...but they don't teach 'ern the
mechanics. That's up to us and that's up to maturity and experience. Every one of our
officers wants to do a good job,they wanna please the community, they wanna be fair,
they wanna be consistent. We train, train, train, train. We lead, lead, lead. They get
feedback from community members all the time. Uh, we just have to show 'em how to
do that. These numbers show they're responding. So I'm very pleased with that outcome.
Urn, so we have more work to do, but we're going in the right direction, and I think this
....these numbers show it.
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Cole/Chief, marijuana has always been a huge source of disproportionality. What efforts, if any,
has the Department made related to marijuana enforcement specifically, to get those
numbers down?
Matherly/ So the pure volume of marijuana that we're taking in has been reduced, uh....I don't
know, fifty fold, I mean we just don't take in weed like we used to, cause it's not our
priority. Um...certainly, you know, if you walk around, or drive around, with 30 pounds
of weed and we come across it, we're gonna deal with that. Um, but we....you know I've
been a proponent of....of, you know, making possession of marijuana a simple
misdemeanor. Maybe make it into a civil infraction so we....so we quit fillin'the jails
with folks that....that have a joint on 'em, cause 10 hours away you can smoke weed in
Colorado, but yet (laughs) you know we're lodging people in jail for it. Um, so that....
but that's where we sit legally. Uh, so the officers, and I tell the community this, it's
against the law. When we run across it we'll deal with it, but the officers have been told
to think outside the box. You have discretion. Make good decisions out there. Uh, you
know, police, enforce the laws, but do it fairly and consistently and know that you have
the latitude and the discretion to take care of business, uh, the way you see fit, within our
guidelines and within acceptable practices, and I think they're doing that. They're
exercising better judgment and um, you know, we....we'd rather get the folks that are...
that are shooting guns in the neighborhoods and....and committing robberies and
breaking into folks' homes, and pick less on...on the joint in the ashtray. We'll deal with
the joint in the ashtray, but we're not likely to put someone in jail as often these days, um,
and I let the officers make that decision by leading them. We don't order 'em not to.
They have discretion, but we're teaching them better. That's my take on it. When we run
across it in a car, if....if you're driving around smoking weed, that's a problem. Studies
are really clear that whether you're drunk or high (laughs) intoxicated, you can't operate
while impaired. I'll never condone that. So if you're gonna smoke the weed, you better
find a good spot to do it, and don't operate a car. So those are some of the probable cause
searches he talked about and we have to deal with those when we come across it,just as
we would a can of beer between someone's legs, uh, while they're operating.
Throgmorton/Okay. Y'all remember I said I was hopeful we would end this discussion by 5:45.
Uh, is there anybody else who really needs to ask a question?
Mims/I'll just make a quick comment. Having listened to this report now for...I'm not sure how
many years we've sat here and had this, or every other year,but I'm just pleased to see the
continued improvement. Um, and I think we owe a lot to you, Jody, as well as Dr.
Barnum in terms of, you know, having the data and, um, and your impact on the police
force since you've been here. So, glad to see it improve (both talking)
Matherly/Thank you so much! Appreciate it! Thanks for the officers, they're the ones doin' the
job, so....
Throgmorton/Yeah, and Dr. Barnum, thanks for your good....really good work. Uh, it's great to
see you again. Thanks so much for doin' it, comin' in and guidin'us through it. Sure.
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Okay. We could move on to our next item, which is questions about agenda items. Does
anybody have any questions, clarification of agenda items that is.
Clarification of Agenda Items:
Taylor/ I had a,just a quick question on Item 8a about the separation distance for the fuel
dispensing equipment. I mean that's gonna come before us again at some point in time,
uh, for a resolution of some sort or change. When that comes before us again with more
information could we have something maybe from the Fire Department, as far as their
opinion on what a safe distance is? Would that be possible?
Fruin/Sure! It is addressed in the Fire Code as well,but we can provide somethin' from the Fire
Department.
Taylor/Okay. Thank you.
Throgmorton/I have a question about Item 8c, which is establishing an urban renewal area for
the Forest View, uh, situation. Uh, when I looked at the map showing the boundaries of
the urban renewal area, I saw that it extended....uh, well to the east of....North Dubuque
Street and I was surprised to see that, and so I'm just wondering why the proposed urban
renewal area includes that property.
Froin/Yeah, um, I can bring it up real quick. I think the answer is it extends east to capture the
four legs of the intersection. The new intersection will actually punch through to that
frontage road and then we'll be able to close the access down on Foster Road. If you can
picture that, um, access drive that comes up from Foster, it's really close to the Dubuque
intersection. So that separation distance is really tight.
Throgmorton/On the east side of Dubuque?
Fruin/Oh, I'm sorry! Um, no on the east side, yes. There's that frontage road there.
Throgmorton/Yeah.
Fruin/ So the new intersection with Forest View Drive will be a four-way intersection...and we're
gonna connect into that frontage drive so that we can close that (both talking)
Throgmorton/ Okay, so there's no intention whatsoever of using any of that property for some
kind of development(both talking)
Fruin/No! No, it's solely for the intersection and on the west side for the trail, up to the
interstate.
Throgmorton/Okay! Any other agenda items needing clarification?
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Taylor/9g, the letter from the person, uh, the tenant about,uh, landlord scam. I was gonna check
with the, urn, Legal Department, if...if....I'm not familiar. I guess I've never had to have a
background check by an employer, if it's typical for the employer and/or a landlord to
charge a fee to do the background check on the person?
Dulek/I think most landlords do charge that fee. Um, the City in its programs, Section 8 and
public housing, does not. We....we pay that. Um, but it's something that the City
can't....can't legislate. It's a matter between the landlord and the....and the applicant or
the landlord and the tenant.
Taylor/Thank you.
Throgmorton/ On one piece of correspondence, Item 9e, which is a email from Ann Christianson.
Uh,Ann, who's very active in 100 Grannies and we've seen her here before suggests
several climate-related actions we can take. One of'em caught my eye and I just wanna
mention it to you. It's a document that she references titled'Game Changers,' and I
skimmed through that and saw some material, some information, about what other cities
are doing with regard to...uh, improving, increa...reducing the carbon emissions from...
new buildings and existing buildings, and I...I was really struck by how....that report
seemed to be pretty helpful with regard to the kind of situations we face, especially with
regard to what happens if your state legislature has basically preempted your ability to do
anything about energy efficiency, and of course we don't know what that situation is yet
now cause of what we've learned, uh,but still I thought the report looked like it had
some,uh, considerable value. Surely we should say something about Item 9h, which is a
proposed amendment to.....uh,the.....the CPRB's ordinance and bylaws, and inviting us
to appoint a liaison. I see Orville is out there in the audience. I know Orville intends to
comment during the formal meeting, so I'm not gonna ask Orville to come up, but....I
....I have spoken with one of the CPRB members and he told me that....it's their
understanding that the liaison would not be expected to attend meetings of the CPRB,
though the propos....proposed amendment does not say that. But...so that's the
expectation, that they would not have to attend. And also that the...that particular board is
unique in that it details, it deals with topics that are very emotionally charged, and....
some of the other boards deal with emotionally charged issues too,but I think the CPRB
is unique in that sense. So,uh, I think we should probably take that into account when
we're getting to the ordinance. We don't have the ordinance before us as a proposed
ordinance yet, so we don't really need to discuss it right now,but...I just wanted to share
that,uh, little bit of insight I got from talking with a CPRB board member.
Teague/(mumbled) essentially it'd be a point of contact for....that entire board. So they know,
um, which individual, you know, they can always go to.
Throgmorton/That...that's what's being recommended. Yeah. I'm not sure, I just....I don't know,
can we talk about this more now? I don't know how deeply we want...can go into it
legally.
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Dulek/Well it is an item not, I mean (mumbled) time for agenda items, so you can if you'd like,
unless you wanna wait and...the other option would be to pull it off the consent and have
the presentation by Mr. Townsend. Then you could speak with it then too. However you
wanna do it.
Throgmorton/What do you (both talking)
Mims/Is there anything.....I guess my question is, this is a recommendation from them, a
proposed amendment, so is this automatically gonna show up on a formal agenda,
regardless of any discussion that we have at this point?
Fruin/Yeah, unless you are completely against it, we wouldn't go through that exercise. This is
just....this is an opportunity for you to provide direction but...
Throgmorton/Yeah, so we should...probably should discuss it some more now. So one of the
things that I'm concerned about is that...I don't fully understand why the board members
cannot already, on their own initiative, contact any one of the Council Members to
convey concerns and, uh, perhaps when Orville speaks later on he can address that and
....but I don't quite understand what would inhibit anybody from doing that, in terms of
contacting any individual Council Member.
Mims/I agree, Jim, and I....I think it sets a....while there....while you can argue that there's a
difference in the kind of material and....and topics that they cover and the emotional
aspect of things, I guess if we had a lot of history of strong disagreements between the
CPRB and the Police Chief, um, you know, over these internal investigations, etc., with
our officers, uh, situations, then I can understand the need for more communication,but I
still don't think a single liaison. I don't....for something like this, I....as you just said, I
think any member of that commission should feel free to talk to anybody on Council, and
different members of that group may feel more comfortable with different members of
Council! I mean...you know, Orville might feel more comfortable talking to, you know,
Bruce than me, or you know, vice versa and the same thing with other people, and so to
appoint a liaison...I think can almost make it feel to people on there that this really is the
person that I'm supposed to go to if I wanna have any communication, and I...I certainly
feel that all of us in any discussions we've had are very open and willing to have any
conversations with members of the commission about, you know, any kinds of issues or
topics that, um, are coming up. So I....and I am, even though it's different in many ways,
I am also concerned about this setting a precedent of other commissions then wanting in
the feeling of importance of their commissions, well if they have one we should have
one, and I just.....I....I don't see the necessity of it.
Throgmorton/I wanna ask Sue a question, cause it really has to do with legal matters, my
question does anyhow. Have....do you know, Sue, whether the....the.....the members of
the CPRB are advised not to speak individually with Council Members, or conversely,
whether they are advised that if they have any particular concerns that they wanna discuss
privately with individual Council Members, they are free to do that?
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Dulek/The board has independent counsel. Pat Ford is an attorney that represents the board. So
our office does not advise the board or board members. But....but certainly they are free
to speak with you, absolutely!
Throgmorton/Well I....but what I'm askin' is what the board members understand they are free,
or not free, to do. That's what I'm wonderin' about.
Dulek/And that I don't know because like I said, Pat Ford represents the board. I....we don't.
Throgmorton/Could you find out?
Dulek/Sure! Absolutely! Absolutely can talk to Pat.
Teague/I think from my perspective, when we're lookin' at....we're on several committees here,
we're assigned, and um, one of the things, um, when I was assigned to the, um, the
committee where we do...you're askin' me if I knew about taxes and all that other stuff
and I actually did, but I....but I did respect, urn,you cautioning, to put me on a board that
I knew nothin' about, you know, put me....so I do think that when we're talkin' about, urn,
maybe the, you know, this particular, uh, you know, board,the CPRB, if....if amongst us,
you know, there was someone who really could relate, not, um, we're talkin' about
individuals that may have difficulties processing, someone that's a good listener. I'm not
tryin' to say we're counselors to them or somethin' like that,but, um, maybe there is
someone here that has more of a, um, that's their...they love, you know, bein' a part of the
CPRB on whatever level, urn, maybe givin' them guidance on who to go to next or if
they're havin' concern. I'm not sure exactly what all their reasons are, and hopefully we'll
get that tonight, but....although I do hear the hesitancy to appoint one and I would agree,
urn, that that is concerning. But I also would agree that we should probably look at this,
uh, from a different angle,just to see if it somethin' that we'd be willin' to do. Uh, to
appoint someone that, um, really can be a....a.....a point of contact person, not limiting
them to any of the Councilors,but urn, if I was on one of the boards, urn,knowing the
Council Members,urn, many of them don't know who we are. Some of them don't.
Some of them do, uh, very well, um, so....maybe.....you know, havin' a little more
relationship with our boards, and this could be somethin'that we may decide, you know,
for other boards,that....get Council more involved on some level, urn, although I know
it's a slippery slope when you have one members represented or talking. Urn, but I do see
that it could be a benefit. We're on other boards and commissions, and we're representin',
you know, all seven of us.
Cole/To me what it comes down to is accountability and communication, and I had talked to
Orville a little bit about this, and I would not support this if this were a requirement that
we have another board opportunity, cause frankly I think we have to be very cautious
about expanding our own, uh, emotional and capital in terms of being able to sit on
another commission. But as I understand what the recommendation is, it is not that. It's
not going to be sitting there. It will be to have level of accountability in terms of having
someone that is designated to be the liaison to the Citizens Review Board and I think,
Jim, you at one point had floated the opportunity of the committee concept in terms of
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urban planning, streets, and ultimately we decided not to do that, in part because to have
a quorum of three, like if you had a Social Justice Committee, that would have been very
complex in terms of...and I think in terms of staffing, we ultimately concluded it was not
a good use of our time, uh, to have so many committees the Council was involved with,
but I think this is much simpler. Um, I think what they're just talking about is just the
liaison, maybe because they're liaison they may....they may listen in on a meeting, um,
once a year, although they wouldn't have to. And they would basically be able to receive
the information, and I think as long as it's made clear that we're not to be the sole conduit
of information I think it could be very favorable, and one of the other things that I'd like
to see,just in general, and I think this is a positive step forward towards that is I think it's
important that when we sit up here as a....as a council we get communication through
traditional channels. I think it's good to have direct communication and figure out other
avenues of communication in terms of bein' able to get information, especially since
we're talking about at most, you know, mainly a listening role, urn, and if we do it for a
year and determine that it does not set a favorable precedent, or maybe (mumbled) more
wattage or it turns out that maybe they are relying too much on one particular councilor,
um, we can certainly reevaluate, urn, but I....I think this is a....a sensible proposal, uh,
that we should explore. So I would support that, urn, and then of course we'll be able to
hear what Orville has to say during the formal (both talking)
Throgmorton/What do the rest of you think?
Thomas/Well I'd like to hear the story behind....you know,the request. So, um....l don't really
have a strong opinion one way or the other at this point. I'd just like to know....you
know, where this came from.
Taylor/ I'm anxious to hear too also from Orville cause it...it talks about, uh, if there...the member
doesn't feel comfortable airing concerns related to the inner-workings of the CPRB
openly during CPRB meetings. So, you know, what exactly....clarify exactly what does
that (mumbled) like the members amongst themselves or the actual decisions that are
being made, that's what my thought initially, like, uh, the police versus the board and
their decisions,but this makes it sounds like it's kind of amongst the members
themselves, some disagreements. So I....I'd like to know more about that.
Throgmorton/ Okay. Do y'all want me to have this pulled from the, uh, consent calendar and
deal with it separately?
Cole/Yeah. I do.
Throgmorton/ Can do! Okay. I'll make a note of that. I wanna note one other thing that really
has to do with....if we proceed on this, I note that the, uh, the....the CPRB is
recommending that this liaison be appointed at the beginning of each fiscal year, and
that's out of sync with all the other appointments we make, I mean, in terms of who on
the Council serves in what kind of capacity. I would think it'd be better to have that done
at the start of the calendar year.
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Cole/Yeah!
Throgmorton/Or, you know, when we do the other appointments. The other Council
appointments that is. Okay, so let me make a note of this. What....does anybody have
other, um....questions about other agenda items? Okay, I'm not hearing anybody. So
how bout the information packet for the June 6th packet.
Information Packet Discussion (June 6,June 13):
Mims/IP4,just thank the staff for the strategic plan update. If anybody thinks our staff isn't
doing anything, they need to read this (laughs) It's a lot going on! And a lot of progress
being made.
Teague/ I wanted to thank the Mayor for IP2, uh, for sendin' this information. I thought it was
very, urn, intriguing, urn, how....just(mumbled) addressin' affordable housing and that
type stuff. Um (mumbled) conference in, urn,New Orleans,uh, relatin'to this and so,
urn, itit.....that is somethin' that, you know, of great interest on what other cities are
doin' to combat housing shortages nationwide and, um, I....would love to, as a Council,
if, you know, um, and....people within the community just to continue to,urn, look at
solutions for our community, to create affordable housing opportunities.
Cole/Yeah, to that end, Bruce, there was a really good, um, piece on NPR this morning where
they were talking about the affordable housing issue is really starting to become part of
the national campaigns and that was very good to see (both talking)
Throgmorton/ it has.
Cole/ ....um
Throgmorton/ I'd like to mention Item 3, the Iowa City'automated vehicles (mumbled)
adaptation and equity plan' done by the University of Iowa's School of Urban and
Regional Planning students. I was really thrilled to see this, uh, very pleased with the
product that they came up with, and when Simon and I were drivin'back and forth from
Des Moines I mentioned that, uh, it's the quality of......that report is so much higher than
what I used to see as a professor 25 years ago (laughs) or 20 years ago. It is very well
done! And....does exactly what I personally hoped it would do, which is to let us see the
possible ways in which we could influence how autonomous vehicles get used in our city
by showing us points of possible action, and also to think in terms of incremental steps
between now and whatever that future date is (laughs)when we're flooded with
autonomous vehicles. So, I think they just did a great job!
Thomas/That was an incredibly dense report (laughs)
Throgmorton/Yeah, it was! (laughter) Yeah and I think, you know, the....I think two professors
were actively involved. Scott and, uh, and Jerry. Uh, so they....they must have helped a
lot.
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Taylor/I was also very impressed with that, cause as everybody knows I'm technically
challenged and really had difficulty with my iPhone even, so I've always had trouble
wrapping my head around the idea of automated vehicles and how they would operate
and function and where they would drive and,uh, this cleared up a lot of the questions on
that and even gave timeframe of perhaps even between now and 20, even 20 years from
now. Uh, also as you mentioned, the incremental steps, I was wondering as I was reading
all of it,uh,how it could be incorporated into our transit study and it evened answered
some of those questions and how they can go hand-in-hand, which is good.
Throgmorton/Yeah,really good connections.
Mims/I was gonna ask, and I assume this'll be presented to the consultant who's doing the, so
they can at least see this? (unable to hear response) Thanks (mumbled)
Throgmorton/We need to come up with some possible topics for the Joint Entities meeting
agenda, so that's IP#5. Y'all have any suggestions about possible items to put on that
agenda?
Taylor/I didn't know if we'd wanna talk about our, the deer management plan? Urn....or maybe
the hate crimes ordinance also. I don't know if either of those.....
Throgmorton/Well let's see if there are any other topics that we wanna, uh, possibly put on the
agenda. So,hate crimes, deer management. Others?
Teague/ I know we're gonna be talkin' about climate action, you know. I don't know if it's
premature to see what people, you know,just kinda,uh, even mention that we're gonna be
havin'that conversation, um....
Throgmorton/Yeah, I was thinkin' about that also because we will have just held a work session
discussion about the climate action plan, and the School Board has also been discussing
what to do. I don't know how that, their discussion's goin'but there's some overlap there
as well.
Cole/To that end, I know typically those meetings are for lack of better terms sort of show and
tell. Uh, we usually don't convene for purposes of deciding something, and maybe we
don't want to break that precedent now,but that would be something. I think the climate
action regardless of whatever the cli...uh, the Council decides, um, I....I guess I would
like to see to some degree that we at some point do that with the other entities...and that
may just not be feasible given quorum issues and those sorts of things,but I...I would like
to see that in the future.
Throgmorton/Well if we wanted to, we could at a minimum simply present....a very brief
overview of our climate action plan and then....any specific actions that come out of our
discussion on the 14th. Or, yeah, is that the right date? No, uh....
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Fruin/It's the second....second of July.
Throgmorton/ Second of July,thank you. And that's....that's doable, isn't it, Geoff, from the staff
point of view? Yeah. Well I'd suggest we do that, uh, so.....do y'all wanna put deer
management? (several responding)
Teague/Why not....why not clear on what we're doing? (laughter) I mean we have (several
talking) Yeah, that's true.
Throgmorton/ ....I, yeah....I.....I, it(laughs) So I'm not hearing excitement about putting that on
the(both talking)
Teague/ I think it's worth mentioning, um, what we decide tonight as well as what we plan to do
on July 11th. Um....with the three Councilors going,just have a discussion I'm....I'm
assuming with staff.
Throgmorton/A mention of it, yeah.
Teague/Just a mention.
Throgmorton/How bout hate crimes? Which is another thing that Bruce mentioned.
Thomas/That's a possibility. That might be of interest to them. I'm not sure what's going on,
you know, on a more regional level but uh, I think it's...would be good for them to know
what's happening here. (several talking)
Throgmorton/ Okay, all right, sounds like there's enough interest in that. How bout any topic
that,uh, concerning what other governmental entities are doin'? Got anything on your
minds?
Cole/Well one topic is this is not a super-urgent topic,but we are entering biking season, and I
think sometimes updates in terms of improvements—the County, Coralville has done in
terms of biking infrastructure, um, I think it'd be interesting to hear updates on that, and
we can update what we've done. Maybe that's beyond the scope of what we wanna do,
but I was thinking(both talking)
Throgmorton/Well we could ask the County to update, to provide us with an update. That'd be a
good thing.
Cole/I like hittin'the trails!
Ruin/You could....we could just ask the MPO staff member, you know, they work with each of
the communities on the bike improvements, to give a overview kinda from a regional
perspective of all the improvements happening this year and maybe next.
Cole/ I'd like to hear that.
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Throgmorton/Okay.
Teague/I do think we received that, the last meeting though. Updates on the bike, on the bike
trails. We received that.
Taylor/At the MPO?
Teague/Uh huh. At the MPOJC.
Frain/ ...at the MPO meeting?
Throgmorton/(mumbled) that'd be duplicating what you've already just(several talking) Well I
didn't know that. So....it does sound like it would be redundant. We don't have to come
up with anything else. So if we are silent at this point, that's okay with everybody
probably. IP7, update on the climate action grant awards. I was glad to see that. Nice
mix of projects. Thanks to Ashley for providing that memo and summary. Can we move
on to the June 13th packet? With regard to IP4, I just wanna emphasize with regard to
July the 2nd that we will be discussing the climate action plan. We'll get an update
concerning it and surely take into account what we've been hearing from climate strikers
and their allies about.....more aggressive actions we should be taking.
Thomas/I guess I had a couple of questions on the....the update on the Emerald Ash Borer. Um,
so (both talking) Pardon me?
Throgmorton/IP6.
Thomas/ IP6, uh, the....the report states that we are, it started with an estimated 400 that were
potential candidates, uh....out of 3,500 trees. So that's roughly 11.5% of the overall ash
population. So the rest are kind of beyond treatment, is that...is that how I am to interpret
that?
Hall/ So in the RFP that we put out for the EAB treatment, uh, we....we stated 400-plus, um, and
so we left room at Council's, uh, direction last fall to expand, uh, into that marginal
category that we had talked about last fall. Um, the original 400 set, uh, was...with a....a
diameter range of eight-inch...or excuse me, 12-inch in diameter to 30-inch in diameter.
So we....we leave that plus category to expand that out, uh, to eight-inch on the small
end, up to 40-inch on the larger end. Um....a couple kind of caveats with our inventory,
the boundary data that we have, uh, is based on the County parcel data. So, um, we know
and we've known this since we took the inventory that there are some trees collected in
our inventory or that show up in our inventory that may be actual private trees, until we
do, um, lot line,uh, inspections, and so that 3,500 number—yes, we showed 3,500 ash
trees, but there's some....there's some variance in there, as far as the data. Um, secondly
with, uh, Council's direction as far as targeting neighborhoods,um, especially Northside
neighborhoods for treatment, the 3,500 also includes, um, areas of....of creek bank, river
bank, urn, that...that have ash on them. So we don't consider those, um, as high value
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areas for treatment, urn, so the 400-plus is....is our starting point and expanding off of
that, depending on, uh, inspections by our contractor and....and how the....the treatment
process goes.
Thomas/And the, so it sounds like the inspections are still ongoing? We don't....
Hall/Yes!
Thomas/We don't, at this particular point in time know how many ash will actually be treated.
Hall/The....the inspections are ongoing. They will be, uh, throughout the whole treatment
process. So the contractor is, I believe they completed 60, urn, treatments as of today, as
of this afternoon, um, which started at the end of May. Urn, and we have right now, urn,
amendment three to the contract we have 100....approximately 170, um, for them to... to
work through. With more being inspected as they're working through...as they're working
through those. So yes.
Thomas/And then the....you know, that appendix H I included for reference because first of all
I...I don't know if anyone on Council had seen it,urn, you know, in fact I hadn't seen it
until just recently, and it...it talked about citizen engagement in the treatment, is....is that
still part of the plan, uh, how....how does that factor into what we're (both talking)
Hall/We have a....a, that was one of the directions that we had from last fall,urn, and one of the
areas that we identified in the forest management plan that you reference,urn, is public
engagement, and so written into the RFP the contractor, we have them, um, send out
notification to the adjacent property owner, and then the property owners on either side
that this particular tree is being injected. Urn, we mark that in the inventory. Um, once it
gets treated it's tagged on the tree, um, and....and so we....we've taken those steps with
the notification process. For those individual trees and those individual property owners.
Thomas/ So how would that then translate into the....the citizens, or I guess in the instance
you're describing, the neighbors I guess,becoming involved in the cost-sharing on the,
um, the treatment?
Hall/We....we don't have any cost-sharing, uh, program in place.
Thomas/Cause that's what....that's what I was, it's....it's in appendix H, it talks about that as part
of the EAB program or response, but I wasn't aware of any....that, anything along those
lines was....was actually in place.
Hall/We don't have a cost-share in place, and I....I think the timing of when the urban forest
management plan was finalized and the direction that we received last fall,um,
essentially....we.....we took the stance that any trees, any ash trees that are treatable, the
City will treat them with City funds. Those that are not, will be removed.
Mims/But those are the ones that are on City property.
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Hall/ Correct.
Froin/Zac, quick question along those lines, urn, the 400-plus that you identified were partly
done by neighborhood, as you said. Um, how do you handle a call from a resident that
may not have, may not be in one of those neighborhoods but has an ash tree that they
may wanna preserve. Do we have the ability to work with the homeowner, um, to....to
add that tree, even though it maybe didn't get in that first, uh.....
Ha1U We do. So the...that's a great question. So we have had a couple calls, urn, outside of the
Northside neighborhood area where we did our initial inspections last fall. Urn, and....
And we've worked with those property owners, uh, as far as adding those to the list for
treatment, and that's actually one thing that we've proactively started to do in our
inspections,um,just so we're not focusing in one area of town, because we have seen,
um, a concentration of infestation within the Northside neighborhood. We would like to
get ahead of it and working with our contractor, that's what they've expressed as well is
that in other areas of the city where the infestation may have not spread as quickly, those
are great candidates for treatment, long-term treatment, and saving those trees.
Thomas/Yeah, I....for clarification I don't recall putting that kind of emphasis on a particular
area. I had always viewed it as something that applied to the city as a whole.
Froin/I think the emphasis was placed on streets with large amounts of ash canopy(both talking)
relates to those older neighborhoods.
Thomas/Right. That...that's in appendix H. It does emphasize avoiding...you know (both
talking)
Hall/ ...we are following that recommendation.
Thomas/Yeah.
Throgmorton/Any other questions for Zac? Thanks! Okay, any other items on that information
packet?
Teague/ I think IP9 was interesting. Urn, everyone deserves a park within 10 minutes (laughs) of
walkin' from their home and so, um, Iowa City has 49 parks, and 83% of our residents
have parks within 10....10 minutes of their home. So, I thought that was pretty
impressive. Uh....yeah!
Thomas/Yeah, that same report did identify Trust Republic Land is a good source of
information, uh, where the gaps were in Iowa City. They actually have a map showing, I
think it was five areas that, um....you know, if....if you plugged in a park there it would
fill the...in this general area, it would fill that gap. So....so (both talking)
Teague/ ...talk about any plans for fillin' the gap though.
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Thomas/No, it just identified (both talking) where they....where they would go.
Taylor/Do you know if that....data was collected prior to Riverfront Crossings Park? As far as
the percentage of our land that's utilized in parks? Cause that seems like a large mass
of....of land that might have bumped the numbers up.
Teague/ (both talking) 2019.
Taylor/2019 (both talking)
Fruin/Yeah, I'm not sure if that was captured or not. We....we have a number of, uh, future park
sites, so oftentimes a residential subdivision'll dedicate land. It may not become a park
and we may not accept it for several years after you approve the subdivision. So some of
those may fall into these areas. I haven't gone through with that level of detail to check.
Throgmorton/Any other items?
Thomas/Oh,just, urn, 1P7, which I included, uh....I.....I included it in, well one I....I think it's
really aligns very well with what,how I perceived the problem or challenge with parking,
in that we are in kind of a transition period, you know, where, yeah, we would all love to
say let's just do away with the minimums and, you know, so on and so forth,but we're not
there yet. We're especially not there yet in Iowa City(laughs) so, you know, we do have
to pay attention to the, urn, the fact that we are as of now,uh, and more or less an auto-
dependent community and we need to accommodate and account for that, um...I thought
it was especially interesting as it related to any, you know, our future conversation on
Northside Market Place. Uh,but I think it had relevance to Riverfront Crossings as well.
Basically, you know, the core, the greater core, of Iowa City, I think it had relevance to
that.
Teague/Parkin' is definitely a challenge,but I do think we need to be a little creative and think
outside of the box and be a little, um....adventurous (laughs) in the solutions that we
create for our city.
Thomas/Yeah, I thought he had really excellent strategies and gave a,kind of a case study of
what had been done in,urn, Savannah, Georgia, uh, that I could see being applied here
very easily.
Throgmorton/Certainly seemed to apply to the Northside Market Place discussion, what we've
asked Opticos to do in terms of visioning.
Thomas/Uh huh.
Council Updates on Assigned Boards, Commissions, and Committees:
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Throgmorton/Okay, we could move on to Council updates, if you are willing. All right, Council
updates on assigned boards, commissions, and committees. Let's start with John and
move to the left.
Thomas/ I don't have anything to report. (laughs)
Throgmorton/ Fair enough! Rockne?
Cole/City of Literature, we're just sort of doing an evaluation process at this point. Uh, it's sort
of the year-end review. Not a lot of other things are happening. Sort of gearing up for
the fall.
Throgmorton/ I just had to sign some kind of letter on John Kenyon's behalf, or upon his request
I should say. I can't remember what it was about. Geoff, do you remember? I
don't....well I guess I'm the one that saw it (laughs) it had something to do...oh, it had to
do with, uh.....urn, yeah, it had something to do with the fact that we know, our country
no longer.....contributes funds to UNESCO, is that right?
Cole/But it doesn't effect the designation.
Throgmorton/Yeah, it's....it had some bearing on some process that, uh, had to do with I think
reviewing applicants for new....(both talking) UNESCO City of Literature designations.
I think that's what it was. Yeah. Okay! Bruce?
Teague/Um, there are no updates on committees.
Cole/Called summer schedule!
Taylor/Uh, Rockne had asked the last meeting about the mobile task force. Did get a
announcement that, uh, the first meeting of that mobile home task force committee will
be on Tuesday the 25th at 1:00 and it's in correlation with the Affordable Homes
Coalition. I'll have more information later.
Cole/Will that, I assume, not be a public meeting or it will be a public meeting?
Taylor/I...I would assume it's public.
Cole/Okay.
Taylor/I....it was invitation because I was (mumbled) but it's part of the Iowa City,
uh....Coalition.
Cole/Okay(both talking)
Taylor/ ...so I would think you could.
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Fruin/ It was on my list as well. Urn, Mazahir will not be here for that meeting presumably, and
Sara emailed to see if somebody else from Council would like to sit in on that first
meeting in her spot.
Taylor/So....so if you wanted to.
Cole/Which date is it?
Taylor/Tuesday the 25th, at 1:00.
Cole/ Of June?
Taylor/Uh, of June.
Cole/Yeah, I can do it!
Throgmorton/Okay. (several talking) Why don't ya do it! Is that it?
Taylor/For me!
Throgmorton/ Susan?
Mims/Urn,Access Center continues to move along. We had a two-hour meeting with the Board
of Supervisors at their work session last week, um, getting a presentation from MELD,
which is the company that's doing all the branding. So really trying to identify
everything that's related to this project to come up with a brand, come up with a name,
urn, and I mean it's....it's, I'm impressed. I'm just really impressed with the details. Not
being a marketing person, I never would of thought to ask all the different kinds of
questions. We did a four-hour session a couple weeks prior to that, and then they came
back with a two-hour presentation, um, and a few question and answer, uh, little bit of
question and answer time, but really excited about the work they're doing and how they're
really condensing all this into what will be a good, consistent vision and brand, um and a
way to communicate to, um, lots of stakeholders—the general public, law enforcement,
governmental entities, etc. - what....this project is, what this place is, and you know, how
it can and should be used and who it will serve. So do lot....they're doin' a lot of really
good work for us. So looking forward to seeing more.
Cole/ Susan, are there any web sites up yet or web sites explaining the concept in general?
Mims/One of the things they will be doing is developing a web site.
Cole/Yeah.
Mims/Um, they'll be kind of a pre-open web site and then a post-opening web site.
Cole/Yeah.
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Mims/But....they've just really been engaged in the last couple of months, so they don't...I mean
they go through everything. They're gonna....they don't have a name yet,they'll develop
colors, I mean just all kinds of detail, so....no, there is no web site (both talking)
Cole/Yeah, cause one of the things that came up on Facebook the other night was someone was
saying, 'Oh, it'd be really nice if we had this sort of center and we would lower the
intakes in jails and we would have crisis funding and there'd be a place where people
could go,' and I said well it's interesting you should say that because that is in the works,
and so it's I suppose you just need to work out more of those details before they can
really project exactly what we're going to be doing,but it's great to see that progress.
Mims/Yep!
Throgmorton/ Okay, great! Looks like I'm the last person and this is the, will be the last item for
our work session. So, the Convention and Visitors Bureau Board will be meeting on the
20th of this month, two days from now. Uh, I don't wanna talk any more about it though.
I do wanna mention the Metro Coalition, which for those who don't know is a coalition of
the 10 largest cities in Iowa, and it meets....periodically in....certainly annually, and has a
shared legislative agenda each year. So we met today. Simon and I drove up there
together and so, Simon, I want you to feel free to elaborate on anything I say. I'm gonna
provide sort of a broad summary of what we heard. So.....we, uh, we members of the
Metro Coalition reviewed the 2019 legislative session, how that affected our various
cities and what we thought about it. We also discussed the Coalition's strategic goals and
strategies for the 2020 session, and that was pretty enlightening because I think, uh,
David Adelman and others with Cornerstone, which is the firm that helps the Metro
Coalition,provided us with some pretty good insight into the Republican leadership in
the House and Senate, about what their priorities are, and how they might,what they are
likely to be moving on in the next legislative session. So that led us to, um....uh....probe
that a little bit more and to think more strategically about how we and other members of
the Metro Coalition could usefully spend our time over the next six months tryin'to get
ahead of the game, if you will, and try to.....have better connections with the Republican
leadership, uh, to the extend that that would be helpful, and otherwise have ways of....
framing certain issues in a way that would be fruitful from a Metro Coalition point of
view. I thought that was very helpful. Yeah, and then,uh, David Adelman with
Cornerstone drew our attention to the relationship between property tax reform, which is
likely to be a hot topic for the, uh, for the legislature, again,but the property tax reform,
the mental health levy, and funding for IWILL, which is the water pollution-related
initiative that made, has been approved,but there's no funding for it yet. So there....
apparently the leadership is thinking about ways to tie these together and nothing's
clarified at all, but they're....tryin'to figure out how to get property tax reform, but also
provide some funds for these other two things that matter to them. He even also drew our
attention to how the leadership is....uh....likely to act with regard to TIF and state tax
credits. And a key part of what he said with regard to TIF is that the,hm, the chairman of
which committee, the Senate Committee? Chairman of the Senate Committee?
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Andrew/Yeah, Senate Ways and Means (both talking)
Throgmorton/ ....been a proponent of doing anything about TIF, but now that's been changed.
That person is no longer the chair of the, that particular committee. So it seems likely
they might take some action with regard to TIF. At which...probably would not be good
from a City point of view. I....and details, I can't....fill in. Uh,Adelman also discussed
backfill, what the leadership might do with regard to that, and Home Rule and how they,
the leadership, thinks about Home Rule with regard to many of these key issues that
we've been facing. Simon, do you wanna...elaborate on any of that?
Andrew/ I think on a number of these issues what came out of today is how important it's gonna
be to work with other stakeholders throughout the session. Urn, you know the
relationship between backfill and mental health,uh, levy funding that goes to the County,
uh, will be very important, and those are going to be related. So making sure that we're
reaching out to the County and working with them,urn, throughout the session will be
important. Uh, the TIF conversation,uh, largely will focus on, uh, today largely focused
on the, uh, School District, uh, Foundation levy, uh, so that's the piece of the School
District levy that we capture through TIF that the State backfills, uh, so, uh, the State has
an interest in that it affects their budget as well. So we'll need to make sure that we're
reaching out to the School District, uh, throughout that process as well. Urn, the other
thing that was noted today was, uh, the Alcohol and Beverages Division is unlikely to
propose specific language, uh, based on their stakeholder, uh, interviews. So we're
gonna, uh, wanna work with other cities to craft some language ourselves that hopefully
we can get in front of the legislature and maybe see some movement on next year.
Throgmorton/ I guess I should mention one other thing. Uh, note that I said that the Metro
Coalition consists of the 10 largest cities, and they all are 50,000 or above in population.
Well Ankeny is now more than, has more than 50,000 people, so the question was should
we invite Ankeny to join the Metro Coalition, and the answer was....despite the fact that
Ankeny's city council seems to be considerably different from ours in particular, but
many of the other cities as well, in terms of....its own political leanings that, uh, in the
end we decided that it would be good to invite Ankeny to join the Metro Coalition and be
the 11th member. Yeah. Okay, I think that's about all I had to say and about all we had...
have to say for this work session. So thanks. We'll reconvene at 7:00!
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