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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-07-20 TranscriptionJoint Entities Meeting Page 1 Entities Present: Coralville: Mayor John Lundell, Councilors Megan Foster, Laurie Goodrich. Hills/Sharon Center: Absent. Iowa City: Mayor Bruce Teague, Mayor Pro Tem Mazahir Salih, Councilors Laura Bergus, . Susan Mims, Pauline Taylor, Thomas, Janice Weiner. Lone Tree: Absent. North Liberty: Mayor Terry Donahue, Councilor RaQuishia Harrington. Oxford: Absent. Solon: Mayor Pro Tem Lauren Whitehead. Shueyville: Absent. Swisher: Mayor Chris Taylor. Tiffin: Councilor Chris Olney. University Heights: Mayor Louise From. Johnson County: Vice Chair Pat Heiden, Supervisors Lisa Green Douglass, Janelle Rettig, Royceann Porter. Clear Creek Community School District: Absent. Iowa City Community School District: Board President Shawn Eyestone, Board Directors Charlie Eastham, Janet Godwin, Ruthina Malone, Paul Roesler, Lisa Williams. University of Iowa: Absent. Others Present: Dave Koch, Johnson County Public Health Director - Dr. Dan Diekema, Chief of Infectious Diseases at UICCOM - Sam Jarvis, Johnson County Public Health, Operations COVID-19 in Johnson County and safety precautions including wearing of face coverings: From/ I invited, uh, Dave Koch, who's the Director of the Johnson County Public Health, and we also have Sar .... Sam Jarvis, who's in charge of Operations, and so .... Dave, why don't you give us the current numbers and things you wanna say to the board. Koch/ Sure. Thank you, Louise, and .... and I wanna just thank everybody for the opportunity to visit with you this afternoon and to answer any questions you might have. As you all This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 2 know for the last several months we've been in unprecedented times here with COVID- 19, and really being able to adjust and pivot and to meet the emerging needs that we, um, are faced with almost daily, certainly weekly, with changes in guidance and changes in research. We're learning so much more about this virus, um, consistently as the researchers are really coming up with additional information. So, uh, I can appreciate the challenges that each of you have had, uh, certainly in Public Health we've had challenges as well with, uh, some of the communication pivots that we've had to make, um, and uh, just wanna take this opportunity to, again, kinda share where we're coming from from the Public Health standpoint. The numbers, um ... the numbers change daily, even the numbers that were posted yesterday change a little bit as we move forward, but locally here we always look at the open cases that we have, and typically, um, those are anywhere between 300 and 350. I don't have the exact open case numbers today, um, Sam may have that. I don't know if it's super important at this point, but typically 3 to 350 open cases that we've been having for the last several weeks. We did see a little spike here several weeks ago. Um, those numbers have started to come back down again. We obviously are very, um, aware of, uh, move -in day August 15"' with the University and ... and really preparing for that internally. We've, as many of you know, have built up our capacity. Sam's done a fantastic job with his staff. Looking forward to having enough capacity as the numbers increase. So we've done a lot of work internally. Sam has, uh, reassigned all of his staff in Community health. Typically we have two full-time disease prevention specialists that do this work throughout the year. We've trained an additional eight individuals internally and then hired a number of, I think it's 27 or 28, contracted, uh, staff, typically students from the University, as contact tracers. So that's kind of, uh, our capacity that we've stood up and are really preparing, uh, for the future. We, um, obviously with a lack of, uh, vaccine right now, there are certainly proven methods that we all can, uh, implement in our own personal lives and in our businesses to help slow, uh, the spread down. Uh, those ... those, uh, implementation methods are not new to anybody. You've been hearing us talk about this in the national and local news forever, it seems like. So those are, uh, you know, staying home when we're not feeling well or...or showing symptoms, um, proper hand hygiene, uh, physically distancing, and uh, wearing of a face covering. So that's really I think what we wanted to talk about today, and uh, from a public health standpoint, trying to be as firm and strong with this message as we can. I think that we've seen varying levels of compliance, um, certainly some businesses in the community have, uh, initiated their own mandates for face coverings, uh, but that's just a small percentage of the community and with the lack ... or with the inability, um, really to be able to have that local control, uh, we're .... we're asking and really trying to, um, put an emphasis on the need for everybody to wear a face covering, whether that's a ace mask or a face shield, or both. Um .... it really is very effective at this point. Um, you know there's some recent studies coming out now, um, as far as the six-foot distancing, and we're keeping a close eye on the research that is being published in that area. Um, we may have to pivot our messaging again, uh, hopefully not, but we may have to. So, uh, we're just here to talk about the ... the importance of wearing a face covering, asking, uh, all of the local county entities to consider local resolutions, um, to, uh, really require and mandate face coverings. Um, Sam generated, uh... um, largely the .... the, urn .... uh, document that was sent out last week, um, from our office, uh, really encouraging and kind of laying out some definitions and ... and, uh, some This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 3 of our recommendations and suggestions for face coverings. So, I think everybody received that. If not we can certainly make that available to everybody again. Uh, we also talked with the Board of Health last week at our regularly, uh, scheduled monthly Board of Health meeting, shared this information with them, and they are also extremely supportive of local resolutions. So that will be on the agenda this Wednesday at the work session with the Board of Supervisors. Sam and I will be there to talk again about masks and, um, discussing a resolution for the County. Urn ... there's also other options that we can look at potentially with the Board of Health that are being really investigated and looked at a little bit closer from our, uh, County Attorney's office, and ..... and Janet's staff. So those are, uh, that's just kind of the background, um (clears throat) and Sam, I'll .... I'll let you add anything to that or we can ... we can open it up for discussion and any questions that you guys may have. Jarvis/ Thanks, Dave. Nothing else to add, but again, uh, as always we are (mumbled) to try to do our best to plan ahead and forecast, uh, all the different events that we'll experience (mumbled) then COVID fits into that. So, the resolution that I think many of you have received, or will receive, is to address, um, we can think of as pockets of areas where public health measures may not be being implemented, and so we'd like to address those as much as possible so that there's a wide net cast on different... all the different strategies that one can do to reduce transmission. So, thank you. From/ Are there any questions for Dave or Sam? Green -Douglass/ Yeah, this is Lisa Green -Douglass. I have a couple questions. Um, Dave, when you say about the six -feet distance and that you hope you don't have to do a pivot, um, by pivot do you mean like changing that distance to a shorter distance or what exactly did you mean by that? Koch/ Yeah, that's a good question, Lisa. So, uh, you know, what we tried to do early, early on that I'll admit I didn't do a good enough job at some of the press conferences was to indicate that this is a novel virus and that we're learning more every day and every week about that. And that what I say today is accurate as of what we know, and tomorrow that message may change. I think that was hard for people to hear us come out one week with guidelines, either the CDC or IDPH, and then, uh, the following week make changes that, uh, the science, you know, determined a .... a different course of action was required. So when I said pivoting I meant the messaging that the research, uh, may lend itself, um, to a further distance than six -feet. So that may change, uh, to a greater distance. Certainly not a lesser distance. From/ That's a perfect, uh, segue into my next question then. When you, uh, talked about, you know, learning new things every day and that changes then what the recommendations are from your office, I'm kind of interested in knowing, um, I think this resolution is a good one. I, urn .... am supportive of it at this point, unless I learn something new also in the next, uh, couple of days, but I wonder is this .... urn, resolution being recommended by your board because something new, I mean because (mumbled) what we were doing This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 4 wasn't working, and ... and I mean, well it was when we were doing it, but we were never told we had to do it. Koch/ Yeah. From/ Or because, urn ... they felt this all along and now they think it's finally time. Koch/ Yeah, I think there was varying degrees of -of, um, initiation from the board members, and I think we've gotten to the point now where they all five recognized the need to really be a little more aggressive and assertive, and strong in the messaging, just because we are, um, seeing, like Sam said, various pockets of cases arise, um, oftentimes linked back to not physically distancing and not wearing a mask, and certainly with, um, the addition of the students coming, uh, this fall, we felt like it was the time to move forward with this and really, um, put a much stronger emphasis on this. From/ Thank you. Any other questions (both talking) Okay, I'm sorry, Charlie! Eastham/ Hey, this is Charlie Eastham with the School Board. Uh, I believe you said you have 34, 35 contact tracers on staff now. Do you think that's enough contact tracers to support the School District if we are, uh, if...if we're, uh, if we are to comply with the, uh, current, uh, Governor's directives? Koch/ So that's a good question, Charlie. I'm gonna start this and I'm gonna turn it right over to Sam. I ... I do know that we have staff, uh, Sam included, that are in, uh, discussions constantly with the University on small work groups, as well as a couple of our other staff that meet regularly with all of the School District officials, um, and so there has been discussions on, uh, training maybe school nurses, um, training other individuals at the University to help with contact tracing. Right now, as you mentioned, we do have 27 on contract plus our eight internal. Um, we ... likely would probably look to onboard more students, uh, this fall and train additional contact tracers. Those initial contracts that we signed with the 27 run through, um, August and so, uh, we'll .... we'll have to reissue those contracts or, um, obviously find additional students, but, Sam, I'll turn it over to you for any other additional details as far as the number of tracers that we feel, um, are needed. Jarvis/ Yeah, thank you, Dan, and thank you for the question. Um, we are certainly, uh, beginning the process of, uh, recruiting and onboarding a second cohort. Um, our strategy has been such that, uh, we want a pool of capacity of trained individuals who are very familiar with our processes and all of our systems because they're largely electronic based, so uh, it goes beyond just the disease investigation knowledge, uh, and the ability to, uh, for those soft skills, either on phone or email or text or however. So, uh, we will be looking at, uh, adding more .... more capacity, because we feel it's going to be needed. So what that number is, um, you know, I would say weekly we look at different ways to streamline processes, either through, um, kind of electronic means or...or coordination with the State, uh, and their .... their (mumbled) surveillance system and everything. So, um, but I ... I would comfortably say we can anticipate onboarding more contact tracers. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 5 Uh, if we can have a pool of. ... we'll say 50 -plus, I think that would be good. Now that's not 50 working at any given time, but the idea is that, you know, seven days a week, at different various hours and shifts, we would have persons ready and available to help us, uh, investigate diseases. Eastham/ Thank you. Koch/ I'll jump in here and just give some kudos and, um, I guess share what we've done here locally. So Iowa Department of Public Health, as the cases really jumped up here a couple months ago, um, put out a survey to all the local public health departments asking if they wanted to take all of the cases, um, or turn all of those cases back to Iowa Department of Public Health for investigations and contact tracing. We felt it was extremely important that we kept that control at the local public health level, that we did not want the National Guard doing contact tracing and investigations in Johnson County, and so we really appreciate the support from the Board of Supervisors and the Board of Health, both to allow us to expand our capacity internally and thanks to Sam for readjusting and reassigning his staff internally. This literally is all we've been doing for four months internally here, um, preparing for this, and I think .... I think it just .... I think it's important to mention that, that there are some large counties in Iowa, um, larger than Johnson County, that have decided to turn over all of those cases to Iowa Department of Public Health and, uh, I'm very proud of the fact that we, um, are able to keep that control locally and that we have, uh, that information and really developed that relationship with the individuals that we're communicating with. So again, that kind of, uh, just piggybacks on .... on your question, Charlie, but just wanted everybody to know here that that was a decision that we consciously made. Rettig/ This is Janelle, Dave and Sam. Um, as you alluded to earlier about move -in day, somewhere between 25 and 30,000 new residents are coming to our county, many of which like to congregate inside. With more and more leading scientists believing this is airborne, I'm all for a resolution, a joint resolution of all the entities willing, about face coverings, but .... if this is true and the scientists are correct, that this is more airborne, then indoor spaces where people are eating and drinking cannot be safe, and so it...it appears to me that we need to do more messaging in that regard. Um, I ... I know that you guys believe that a lot of this latest, um, increase came with congregation of people downtown, um, and you know, the timing of all the bars being opened, or many of them. So ... I .... I just think we're headed towards another big wave of this first phase, and somehow we need to do more messaging. If not, we need to test the local control theory, um, I ... I believe that the Board of Public Health has more power than they're exerting. Um, and you said you're looking into it, but I've been sayin' that for months. So I ... I just think we're in trouble, um, with all these students coming back, and I think we should get out in front of it. Koch/ Yeah, thank you, Janelle, for your comments. Um, one of the things that our public information offices are doing, and ... and Susan (can't hear) is kind of leading the charge on this as to, um, we're .... we're going to be hosting two focus groups towards the end of this month, uh, specifically targeting the 18 to 24 -year-olds, uh, to find out a little bit This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 6 more about their habits, their beliefs, their philosophies, along with COVID but with face coverings and physically distancing and... and gathering in groups, specifically so that we can target that messaging and .... and do more of that. So thank you for your comments. Teague/ I appreciate, um, the ... the resolution request to all of the municipalities here locally. I ... I think that'd be helpful, except I .... I have to agree with, um ... um, Supervisor Rettig on this. When it comes down to needin' to do more, we have a lot of students that are gonna come back, and the numbers are goin' up. We're not even sure, and I think this is probably, um, true even from Johnson County Public Health, the real accurate numbers. Um, people are having false negatives, you know, so they're, um, I have staff that was told that, you know, they're positive, but it's not showin' up. So one of the things that I am convinced, and I know the City Councilors from Iowa City on here as well, is that cities, um, have to consider for themselves what ... what do they wanna do during this time of a public health crises. And so we've heard from the Governor, and the AG, Attorney General, saying that we don't have the power. Correct? That's what they've told us. But I believe that, um, under ...and it's the Iowa Code Section 364.2 where it talks about ... it goes into explain' Home rules and then when we talk about Section 37, uh, 372.14, where it gives authority to the mayor to govem by proclamation during health crises, I will tell you that tomorrow, at 12:30 Iowa City Mayor, myself, I'm gonna do an order for masks, because it is critical that we do what we can to protect our citizens within Iowa City. I would urge any other mayors that are on this call to do the same thing for their city. Koch/ Thank you, Mayor Teague, I .... I appreciate your support and your, uh, leadership in this as well. (several talking) Lundell/ Mayor John from Coralville, um .... last Tuesday night, a week ago tomorrow night, um, Coralville, or I ... at the request of the Council, I issued a very strongly worded proclamation, uh, requesting mask use, um ... uh, throughout the community, both in private businesses, as well as public spaces. And it was actually very well received. Uh, the procla... proclamation itself went viral on the City website, but more important than that, uh, it resulted in a call the next day from the Coral Ridge Mall indicating that they were putting signs up on all the doors of their ...of the mall, requesting mask use. So, um, I ... I think it is an effective way, um, of...of getting the word out, and it seems, you know, I ... I .... it's .... I agree! I support it. I don't know if we'll do another resolution, but we'll certainly do, um, this proclamation was very helpful. Taylor/ (several talking) Sorry I just.... (both talking) Uh, I ... I .... thank you, Mayor Lundell, and thank you, Mayor Teague, uh, cause (mumbled) healthcare professional, I ... I think.... these communities have to prioritize the health, safety, and well being of our community, and be motivated to do the right thing and know that it is the right thing, and that the right thing is mandating masks, no matter what the consequences might be. So I say here, here, rah, rah! From/ Thank you. Before we have further discussion, I'd like to bring in Dr. Dan Diekema. He's the Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases and I know he has to leave, and I think we should continue discussion, but uh.... Dr. Diekema, can you speak now? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 7 Diekema/ Uh, sure. Can you hear me? From/ Yes! Diekema/ Yeah, I ... I don't think I'll have to speak very long because I haven't really heard anyone on the call that I, um, disagree with (laughs) at this point. Um .... I mean I really warm thank you for the opportunity to ... to sort of be here and tell you why I think that, um, doing whatever we can do to increase the use of face coverings is going to be critical to reduce COVID-19 spread, um, and thereby sort of reduce the ... the impact on our healthcare system, reduce illness and death, uh, and allow us to also open up sooner and get students back into schools, uh, etc., and I would say there's pretty much uniformity now within, um, not just the infectious disease community, but public health, uh, and urn, as was just pointed out earlier by, uh, our Public Health, Johnson County Public Health colleagues, we're now starting to see larger epidemiologic studies being performed that, uh, look at, uh, the policies around face coverings and mandates, uh, for those, um, in different countries around the world, and then also in different states, uh, and these, you know, there are limitations to any study design, but um, these studies do their best to take into account other factors that are associated with the spread of COVID-19, and they find very strong signals that mandating the use of face coverings does result in a, uh, increase ....or a decrease or a decline in the daily, uh, COVID-19 case rates, that begins about five days, you know, after these mandates go into effect, which is very consistent with, uh... uh, the incubation period, or the mean incubation period, uh, the virus that causes COVID-19, uh, and that that decline increases over time, uh, after the mandate, um, is put into place. Uh, actually one of those studies was just published in the Journal of Health Affairs by a couple of epidemiologists in the College of Public Health here, uh, at the University of Iowa. So, um, I ... I just think that, um, you know, the .... the, uh, at least the scientific and public health and epidemiological question about face coverance has been settled. Um, there are just a couple of things about the virus that causes COVID-19, um, that makes it very hard to control, uh, it spread, and the two major ones are ... the amount of virus that is shed from the upper respiratory tract and the fact that the virus is shed by people who have no symptoms. So strategies of identifying people with symptoms early and isolating them as our public hea... health colleagues will tell you, uh, is going to fail, uh, and has failed to control COVID-19. We only can... can control the spread by assuming anyone can be shedding the virus. That -that's very straightforward. It means putting a barrier in front of the nose and mouth — cloth face mask, a face shield — anything that reduces the number of droplets and small aerosols that are projected forward from the wearer to, um, the individual that they are, uh, in contact with. Um, so I ... I think those... that debate is pretty much over, um, I think now it is more of, um, a question of policy and... and how we can, um, maximize (laughs) face covering use and I ... I don't know that our public health colleagues know the exact date (mumbled) My understanding is that, um, even in areas that have very good adherence to face covering use, the rate of face covering use goes up, um, by 20 to 30% in absolute terns when a mandate is put in place. Um, so I think, um, that is ... is really, you know, the reason that I feel very strongly that ... that one ought to be, um, instituted. And then just one last comment about the issue of, urn ... uh, airborne transmission or aerosol transmission. Um, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Z= I think, uh, increasingly we are understanding that respiratory viruses, um, cannot be divided simply into viruses that are spread only by large droplets and those that are spread over long distances in the air. Um, there's a continuum, and there are aerosols produced when you breathe, when you cough, um, when you sing (laughs) all those respiratory efforts can cause small particle aerosols. Um, in general those, uh, small particle aerosols dissipate very quickly, uh, and are not a danger to people outside of a relatively narrow radius in the six-foot ... feet physical distancing is effective in preventing spread. However, there are environments, in my opinion, um, specifically, um, crowded indoor spaces that are poorly ventilated, where those small particle aerosols can be a greater risk and so when people are crowded together in bars, in indoor restaurants, in crowded conference rooms, uh, that definitely increases the risk for, um, what I would call aerosol spread, um, and I seek a different term than airborne, only because as our public health and other medical professionals on this call will tell you, when you use the term airborne, people think about tuberculosis or measles, and that's not the kind of transmission we see with Sars-COV 2. We still see the vast majority of transmission due to close contact, consistent with droplet and contact spread. But ... we are seeing more of these situations where when people are gathered together in closed spaces, um, you have a risk that may extend beyond six -feet and may result in a much higher number of cases, these so-called super -spreader events that occur, um, when, uh, when people don't adhere to public health advice, to avoid those kinds of, um, crowded indoor settings. Urn, so I do think that's important from a, you know, as you think about approaches to opening up, and when you're welcoming back, um, as someone said, 20 to 30,000 (laughs) citizens, uh, to this ... to the city, urn ... uh, we do have to keep, um, that in mind. So I'm glad that was brought up on the call. I think it's a very important point. From/ Are there any questions for Dr. Diekema? Weiner/ I just wanted to ask what sort of both the County and Dr. Diekema, um, what your view is of our testing capacity and if it is sufficient to keep pace with, um, what we have now and what we probably are going to have going forward? Diekema/ Um, I can speak, you know, just to University of Iowa, um, Clinical Lab and then I'll let Sam or others, uh, speak to the, um .... to the, uh.... Hygienic Lab. Um, so we're, um, we haven't reached our capacity at the Hospital, but we bump against it regularly, and um, it varies from week to week, based upon the supply chain. One week it might be an issue with, um, the transport media. The next week it might be an issue with, uh, swab availability. Uh, and then, uh, we get a request, uh, from usually (laughs) I mean from ....from our epidemiology group, which I'm part of. Okay, we're gonna test this other large group of people and then we hit our capacity and we have to hold on any consideration to expand testing beyond that. So I think our testing capacity is still wanting, uh, and I believe that's the case, um, really around the country. Um, and one of the major, major issues is not, um, is ... is the fact that when you reach the capacity nationally, as we have, the turnaround times start to increase. So many of the labs that are doing the testing now, the turnaround times are getting to, uh, in some cases, uh, not just four or five days, but seven to 10 days, uh, and that's not because the test (laughs) takes that long. That's because there's such a backlog. And when that happens, um, it This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 9 really cripples your ability to do good contact tracing, uh, and, urn... and do those on the ground, uh, preventions, or implement those prevention strategies that are so important. Jarvis/ I ... I think we would agree. Certainly, uh, do not wanna talk for the State Hygienic Lab, but certainly, um, as things open up and we see schools coming back online, potentially universities and colleges and things, um, the need will be increased and just knowing that this is kind of a ... we'll say a global event or a nationwide event, um, that certainly draws on the supply chain and as, uh, Dr. Diekema mentioned, you know, that backlog occurs, um, you know, a test from 10 to 14 days ago is pretty much, uh, I wouldn't say useless, but you know it really doesn't help ... because it misses that window of opportunity to ... to do good contact tracing, as well as you know, at some point, um, might want to consider retesting to get, you know, the snapshot for currently, uh, in some cases. So I think right now, uh, as far as we know and what we've been told, things are .... are, we're in a good situation with capacity, but um, you know, that certainly could change, uh, in the future. From/ Some of the cities have already shared what they're doing currently and what they've done. Are there any other cities or entities that wanna share what they ..done? Donahue/ Well basically North Liberty has tried to keep the message flowing the best that we can. (clears throat) The proclamation idea is a good idea, but sometimes you have to hit people between the eyes in order to have `em take notice. Um, I'm wondering about, you know, not wearin' a mask today, who will you possibly infect today? From/ And I wanna say University Heights has encouraged face coverings and social distancing, but nothing has been done yet as far as resolution or proclamation, but I'm gonna bring all this back to the Council and have them consider these things. I think the sharing is very helpful, especially to us and I appreciate it. Thank you. Does anyone else wanna share? I know Iowa City Community School District has a lot on their plate and... and I'm sure you're, um, as Shawn Eyestone stated earlier, gonna go through more discussions too. And we'll keep an eye on that too. (both talking) Weiner/ One other question, if I might, which is largely for Johnson County Public Health. Ex... expanded Public Health Board... authority has been mentioned a couple of times. Can you give us a sense of the type of things that you're looking at, even if you don't yet know what your powers are? Koch/ Uh, that's a very good question, Janice. So, uh, just a very, very quick conversation today, uh, with Lynn over at the County Attorney's office, uh, really (clears throat) mentioned the fact that the Board of Health does potentially have that ability. However, it's a much longer process to go through a countywide ordinance than it would be for cities to adopt resolutions. But, uh, that's... that's kind of the ... the direction that we'll continue to investigate if that's something that the Board of Health would be, um, supportive of, which I believe they would be. It's just a matter of...of understanding that process and the timeline for that. I think one other thing that I did wanna mention that we haven't really talked about is ... is enforcement, and that's always a question that comes up and ... and we're really sensitive to that, understanding that that is a huge challenge, um, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 10 for municipalities, for law enforcement, and uh, you know, some other communities have, uh, utilized the ... the, um, authority that they have over liquor licenses, um, to pull those liquor licenses from bars that are not being compliant with a mandate, uh, mask resolution. So that's something that, um, may or may not be an option for, uh, the municipalities here in Johnson County, but at least it's something to maybe investigate with your, uh, legal departments to see if that's something that's in our control here or if that's State. I'm not an expert on ... on the, uh, liquor license permits. From a food permit standpoint, the Department of Inspection appeals at the State level have .... have just really superficially discussed the possibility. It doesn't look like it really falls under food code, um, but they're investigating that as an option as well. So just wanted to put that out there for individuals to at least think about or discuss. Williams/ I have, uh, one quick question. Lisa Williams with the School District, and it's for Johnson County Public Health. Um, I've been seeing some of the best practices for opening schools to include working with your public health department in doing some random, regular random testing of students and teachers in the school buildings. I wanted to know based on our current testing capabilities, do you foresee that that is a partnership that we would be able to work together towards, or are we not ... in a situation that would allow us to do that? Koch/ Good question, Lisa. Um, I'm gonna probably just turn that over to Sam because I ... I think there's.... there is certainly opportunities, but I don't know what our limitations are, and uh, as we ... as we discussed a little bit ago, just the capacity of the labs and how effective that randomized testing may be with students and staff. Jarvis/ (mumbled) the question. You know, certainly I think those things are a possibility. Um, logistically, you know, I think it boils down to staff being able to collect a sample, uh, then have that relationship with the lab to get there, uh, pretty quickly, uh, standing orders and other things like that. Um, I think the other thing would be that currently right now, um, the statewide testing framework does not have, um, anyone outside of contacts, uh, whether they're symptomatic or asymptomatic. So I think that would... that might be the approach to take with the State, to ask them to consider that, uh, I ... I can imagine it has been. They're looking at that. I know (mumbled) college and universities, community colleges, but the school districts as well, um, because as soon as they open that up, you know, again that .... that increases the volume of persons wanting to be tested. And so, um .... but no, that's a great question. Certainly though, uh, as positive cases come up in schools, uh, and contacts are traced, they would then be eligible for the statewide testing framework. So... Heiden/This ... this is Spat Heiden. I just have a comment listening to all this discussion and, um, I appreciate, uh, what, uh, some municipalities have done. I really would advocate for, uh, consistency across jurisdictions, um, so that, you know, we stand united, and ... and Dave Koch is a point of. ... uh, clarity for me. I think, uh, you had said the Department of Public Health or...or the Public Health Board is really advocating that also? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 11 Koch/ Yeah, I think you're right, Pat ... Pat, uh, I think the Board of Health would like to see that consistent messaging, uh, as much as possible, and I think it just .... it just puts a stronger message out there to the entire community. Heiden/ Yes! Thank you. From/ Would anyone else like to make comments? Okay. I wanna thank Dave Koch and Sam Jarvis and... Daniel .... Diekema for, uh, joining us tonight and thank you very much for your expertise. Koch/ Thank you, Louise, and thank you everybody on the call for your, uh, support in this and, uh... uh, just wish you well and stay safe! And ... and don't ever hesitate to reach out to us as well. I just wanna make that comment as well, because we've stood up an internal call bank and uh, assigned specific individuals to specific sectors, whether that's for schools, long-term care facilities, or businesses. So don't ever hesitate to reach out to us. Somebody here will be able to, um, talk to you and work through specific scenarios you have as a business, as a school, as a (mumbled) so, uh, just, again, don't hesitate. That's what we're here for. From/ Thanks again. Thank you. Diekema/ Thank you very much for having me. And thanks for all the work you all are doing! From/ Thank you. Uh, we'll go on to sustaining support for undocumented residents in crisis during COVID and beyond, and this is an Iowa City agenda item. Um .... who's going to speak on that? Sustaining support for undocumented residents in crisis during COVID and beyond (Iowa City): (female)/ I'm here to speak on it. Mazahir, did you wanna say anything first? Salih/ The Mayor is not here. I always like to defer to the Mayor first. (garbled) leave this. (female)/ Oh, of course! Salih/ And introduce, uh, the ... the speaker. Teague/ Uh, Mayor Pro Tem, please feel free to. (laughs) Salih/ Sorry! Uh... yeah, this is Mazahir Salih, uh, I'm the Mayor Pro Tem of Iowa City. You know, we ... we put this on the agenda after we, you know, as my..as a community organizer at Center for Worker Justice, I deal with a lot of people in the community who are not eligible for, um, you know, the ... the fund, any local or maybe, uh, not local, I mean like federal fund during this COVID-19. You know there is many fund out there, uh, like by the federal, but those individual are not eligible for that and those individual This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 12 are really have a lot of (mumbled) uh, that's why they are not eligible. So (garbled) was, uh, presenting, uh, you know, a request for fund to Johnson County, uh, this is come up from, uh (mumbled) and Supervisor (mumbled) about how can we make those people, like how we can sustain this program and of course me as the CWJ I cannot sustain this things and I ... I don't know how to ensure the sustainability of the program that we have at CWJ. It call From my Home (garbled) people will ... will donate their stimulus check and donate money and we give it to the individual who needs, uh, in the community. So far CWJ raise around like $128,000 from just (mumbled) community who care about those people and they know that this people are not eligible. So, you know, it, uh, we... we said that, you know, we need to talk about this as elected official. I told them, okay, let me wear my City Council hat and so we can .... we can talk about this, and Rod Sullivan suggest that to put this on the agenda so we can talk about it. And today I, uh, have, uh, you know (mumbled) and I guess Elizabeth here also, Bernal. Uh, they are here just to present about the (unable to understand) undocumented immigrant this community face. So you have an idea so we can (unable to understand) conversation about how we can help those people in our community. And now I turn it to them! Novak/ Thank you for the invitation to speak with all of you today. Um, my name's Nicole Novak and I'm an Assistant Research Scientist in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa. Um, I focus on inequalities in health, and I've spent a large part of the last five to seven years working with immigrant communities, especially throughout Iowa, um, and thinking about the ways that the circumstances of their life matter to their health! Um, so I'm gonna share just a bit of evidence about what's going on with economic impacts of COVID for especially undocumented immigrants. Um, wherever possible I'm gonna try to draw on numbers that help us get a sense of what might be happening in Johnson County. Um, I should say too, I'm from Iowa City, born and raised and so very happy to be, um, sharing this with my local government! Um, I have some slides, but it says the host disabled, um, screen sharing. Would it be possible to enable that for me? Fruehling/ Yep! Let me .... see if I can figure that out. Novak/ Okay, and I can continue with the, what's going to be on the intro slide. I'm going to be co -presenting with Elizabeth Bernal who is, um, gonna speak after I show the slides. Elizabeth is a board member with the Center for Worker Justice. So ... (mumbled) Fruehling/ It says that .... you should be able to share. Novak/ Hm.... it still says it's, um, disabled. Fruehling/ Let me.... Novak/ I'm on the panelist list. Fruehling/ Yep! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 13 Novak/ Oh okay (mumbled) There we go! Okay! So I'm just gonna share some of the evidence that's coming together. Obviously it's early to have really good data on what's happening, but I think we can draw on what we know about Johnson County and then what we know from national data, to kind of piece together what's... what we know from people who are experiencing it is happening in Johnson County. So, um, yep, again I'll be co -presenting with Elizabeth Bernal. Um, I'm from the College of Public Health and for full disclosure, I'm a former board member of the Center for Worker Justice of Iowa City, which is where I got to know a lot of undocumented folks in Johnson County and... and learn a lot about their experience and their stories. Um, so first I just wanted to be clear about what we're talking about when we say undocumented. Um, sometimes people use the word unauthorized. I really discourage people from using the word illegal to describe this status. Um, undocumented means lacking current immigration status. There's basically two ways that someone could end up being undocumented in the United States. It either comes from entering the country without authorization, or a really large proportion of folks often become undocumented by overstaying a visa. So at some point they did have status and then stayed after that status expired. Um, what we know about undocumented folks in Johnson County, I think we can infer from really good data about the State of Iowa. So this is data from .... the Migration Policy Institute, and they made a profile of the unauthorized or undocumented population in Iowa. What we know is that it's actually a pretty diverse group of folks. We ... we have stereotypes that it's mostly Hispanic or Latino folks, but um, in reality that's about two-thirds of the undocumented population in this state. Another 19% of undocumented Iowans were born in Asia; 6% are from Europe, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand; and then another remaining 9% are from the rest of the world, so the Caribbean, South American, Africa. So this is a diverse group of folks, and I expect that's true for Johnson County specifically as well. This is more data from the State of Iowa as well. The main thing I wanna say with this years of U.S. residence thing is that these are not recently arrived folks, um, most folks have been here at least 10 years (laughs) um, and so you can see there's a really wide range of residence. The largest group is folks who have been here 10 to 14 years in the U.S. It's pretty evenly split between men and women, and I think it's really important to emphasize too that undocumented people don't live in isolation from the rest of the community. So 48% reside with children and the vast majority of those children who live with an undocumented immigrant are U.S. citizens. So one way we start to talk about that is the idea of mixed -status households, where you're gonna have a single household where you have one person who's undocumented, but then other people who might be U.S.-born citizens, permanent residents, naturalized citizens, or hold DACA, visas, other statuses. Um ... in terms of economic impacts of COVID for undocumented immigrants, I've drawn mostly on national data, um, but the main thing we know, this study focused on Hispanic or Latino undocumented immigrants. The main thing we know is that families with an undocumented person have suffered far more economically than the rest of the population. So this graph shows the percentage of adults whose families lost either a job, work hours, or work related income because of the pandemic. And what you can really see here is that adults from mixed -status, Hispanic and Latino families, so adults with any non -citizen in the family are far more likely to have lost jobs, work hours, or work related income due to the pandemic. Sixty-nine percent of Hispanic families with any immigrant non -citizen have had some sort of economic loss because of the pandemic. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 14 And it's less than half for all other groups. Um, and there's relief available for people who have had economic impacts, but we have this sort of double whammy, which is really disheartening. Um, which is that the very people who are most affected are also facing a lot of barriers to the relief available. So, um, a really important thing to know is that stimulus checks ..... not only are stimulus checks not available to people who are undocumented themselves. Stimulus checks are not available to any household with an undocumented resident. So even if all the residents were citizens, except for one person, then no stimulus check goes to that entire household. And then another important thing to emphasize is that undocumented workers cannot collect unemployment. So those are two big safety nets for the pandemic, and these families that are an important part of our community are not eligible for either, and then we have other like incredible resources that have come together to support people. Elizabeth Bernal can speak a little bit more about what's going on locally in Iowa City, but people have come together to support immigrant families, and I think the From My Home to Yours program at CWJ is a good example of that. There's also just been informal distribution of food. Um, but we also see barriers with that, um, so I think, you know, and I'll talk more about the history of this and then why it's really intense right now, but there's a lot of mistrust of government or even kind of formal institutions, um, for example food pantries and things like that. People have because of the last few years and a lot of the anti -immigrant sentiment and events, um, a .... a reasonable fear of some of these formal institutions that might offer them support. Um, and that can be because there are actually eligibility barriers. Um, or fear that there might be barriers. Um, and then also a really important thing is the fear of repercussions for someone's immigration process. Um, so I'll talk a little bit more about the public charge rule, but that's something that's really exaggerated people's fear, that if they seek help they will be penalized for it or their family members will be penalized for it down the road. Um, I wanted to just share a little data from Johnson County about that idea of mistrust or fear of accessing services. This data comes from before the pandemic, but I think it gives you a good baseline, that you know, even before the most recent federal administration, which has implemented a lot of anti -immigration policies, even before the pandemic we already saw a lot of this fear and mistrust. So this data is from, um ,the summer of 2015. Um, I collected it through a partnership between the Center for Worker Justice, the University of Iowa, and the University of Michigan. Um, what we did is we did surveys with people who are applying for the community I.D., which is available regardless of your immigration status. Um, and for this I'm gonna present data from a subset of survey participants, which are almost all undocumented immigrants. What we found is that, um, almost everyone who is undocumented in Iowa City had had services denied to them, due to a lack of I.D. In some cases that's because lacking I.D. meant they were undocumented. In other cases it's because of the I.D. itself. And then even more people, 92%, had avoided seeking services, and we saw this across a really wide range of different sectors. So this ... I'm going to show you some bar graphs here, but I ... what I want you to see is that the gray graph was people saying they'd ever been denied services for not having I.D. or not ... or being undocumented. And then the orange means they avoided seeking services. What you can see here is basically that there were a lot of different, uh, sectors including talking to police, cashing checks, getting bank accounts, getting housing, seeking healthcare, getting medication — all these sectors people reported having trouble accessing services or being afraid, or avoiding accessing This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 15 services, and in almost every case more people are avoiding it than have actually experienced it, which speaks to some of that fear and mistrust that people aren't even trying to access some of these services because of their status as someone who doesn't have I.D., someone who's undocumented. So we know that that fear existed in our county. This is all Johnson County data. Five years ago, and then unfortunately things have gotten a lot worse since then. So the public charge rule is something that was sort of bandied around for several years. Um, it actually went into effect just a few months ago, uh, February 2020, right before the pandemic now that I think about it. Um, and I'm not gonna get into all the legal intricacies of this rule, because it's really complicated. Um, and the important thing to know is that it doesn't actually apply to all immigrants, um, and there's a lot of fear and confusion because different versions of the rule were leaked, proposed, revised over multiple years, but the main thing to know is that the losses of people who are likely to become public charges are inadmissible. The ... the way it played out is that people just got very, very scared of accessing any government resources, sometimes even for their U.S. citizen children because there were so many different rumors and mistrust about what it meant, and that it could hurt your eventual ability to gain status in the U.S., to become a legal permanent resident or a citizen if you used government support. Um, so the result of this last few years, combined with all the increases in immigration enforcement is, there's just even more fear of accessing public services. Um, and you can see this. This is just another graph to show, um, this is data from 2018 to 2019, so actually just during the time when public charge was being debated, um, and what you can see is that among... these two chunks on the right side are people with, um, non -citizen family members, um, and what you can see is that in both groups, and especially for the group that had an undocumented family members, there's an increase, uh, in the percentage of folks who are avoiding government benefits. Um, so basically the fear has gone up nationwide for accessing services. Um, yeah, fear of (mumbled) benefits is going up for mixed -status families, especially families with undocumented members. So I think it's clear that mixed -status families in Johnson County are suffering right now, and are doing their best to get by. People sometimes are, you know, selling their tools, selling things that they don't need, sharing money, pooling money, trying to get by, but they're missing out on a lot of the support that other people are getting and support that they arguably really need, um, and their children need it. Stuff that affects their whole community. Um, but we also have this barrier where people are going to be afraid to access support when it is available. Um, so what do people need to get the support? I think it's really important that there be trust, um, we know this from lots of research in public health that, um, trust is really essential for people sharing information, for accessing resources. Um, and unfortunately the less people trust an institution and agency, or even just another person, the less information they're gonna be willing to share. Um, so one thing that we know works is to, you know, because there's a lot of reasons people have for mistrusting government agencies, working with non- governmental agencies can be an important strategy. Um, an example, so California has a statewide relief fund for undocumented immigrants. That's supposed to be part of this COVID safety net, and they distributed their funds through non-profit agencies rather than through the state itself. Um ... and .... there was one other ..... oh, I think just .... just thinking about how much information you need to request of people, um, when ... when they're accessing it. Obviously wanna validate identity, but um, people are gonna be This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 16 hesitant to share information about themselves. I have a few other resources where people have pulled together information, um, I can share those here. Um, and I'm gonna go ahead and put up my email address, and um, this is Elizabeth's email address, but I also wanna make sure that I hand it over to Elizabeth to speak, so I'm gonna stop sharing so that she can be (mumbled) screen. From/ Welcome, Elizabeth. (both talking) Bernal/ Thank you for having me today, this afternoon, for taking your time and having us to speak about, uh, this really important, because it's part of the .... our community. We try to be together in the community, and I think this is one of the ways to help people hearing us who doesn't have, uh, the voice to speak with, uh, people who has the power, so thank you so much for your time. Urn .... as you (mumbled) Nicole, we have a lot of barriers, even some people (mumbled) We say we provide the ... the money, the resources (mumbled) it's open, but I think the biggest issue in the community is the trust. Trust to, if you cannot go and ask social security number, I.D. numbers, how many in your household, it's (mumbled) so, uh.... (unable to understand) Latino community. It's a more people who.... it's really affecting about this, because if the, uh, the trust is not there (unable to understand) They are not going to share anything with nobody, even if they need it. So they prefer to be just ... be quiet and (unable to understand) ask for those items or get the help that they need. They prefer to serve instead (unable to understand) so they can get in trouble or they (unable to understand) somebody can put some, uh, trouble for them trouble it's different than other people. Trouble is being here working in United States and try to get a different, uh (mumbled) to keep my fam... the family together. Uh, so that's, uh, starting a family, which affecting the community. So it's a change. So we need to make sure like, uh, first start building trust, which is gonna be hard, especially in those ... in these (mumbled) times is really, really hard to ... to build the trust, but I think if we can ... put a little less, um .... things in the rules asking for social security number or you need to give a paystub check, some .... they don't do any legal. They .... they have their own business so they don't have pay ...paystub. They, uh, they get paid by cash. So there's no way to prove that it's affecting, uh, the COVID-19 right now because I never get cash, I mean I never get check paystub, so how I can prove those stuff, when somebody's gonna ask. So I need the money, and some people they really, really feel ashamed because they say, well I'm trying to follow the rules, I'm trying to do as I can as much, I'm working but seems like every time that I do things (mumbled) me ... it seems really, make more hard for that people to going ... and going, especially right now. The people who lost a job, the cleaning people, they get paid most the time with check, and right now they don't have any money. So we have the crisis food, uh, which is food, urn, resources, but uh, for paying, not only rent, water bills, electricity bills. If they ..if they have childs, they need clothes. If they need to go to Goodwill, they need money, even at Second Act, uh, store. If they need, uh, whatever extra things they need, the basic probably they have it, which is food, but sometimes not enough only, so they probably we need to work more a little bit in the, um, to build, um, more trust with the community, and I think, uh, people like you guys have the potential to work more, and maybe if we put some ideas together, and some people they don't know ...they don't have the money for a mask or they don't know if that's okay to use or the right way to use a mask. So up This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 17 there we need a lot ... I know it's a lot to ask, but we need to educate people about the COVID-19 so they be aware what is the ... what is the issue, because Latino population also it's a, the high percent who has been ... not only affecting economically, but healthy. It's more (mumbled) to get COVID-19 and that ... it's because a lack of education. Every information that we get it's in English. We never have any... in our language, and sometimes the language that getted, it's really high educated. It's the level, no matter what the word you using, but some people they have a education very low, so they cannot understand a big words like doctors' words, uh, a teacher word. Sometime you have to check it out the level of education with people, which is really, really hard, and I understand like we probably asking for a lot, but I think it's not only Latino community. We have Sudanese, Congolese, so we have a lot of people out there that they probably struggle with the misunderstood of information. Probably they get some, but they don't get a lot. So I think, urn .... kinda like asking just for if we can consider it to get less rules in the application, be really great and grateful, and we can touch people who really, they have like struggle for need to pay the rent. For people who cannot pay, they have to choose even, we have to do, uh (mumbled) if I have a few hours, or buying a gallon of milk for my kids. So those (mumbled) it's in your hand basically sometimes and it's really hard. Thank you for your time. From/ Are there any questions for Nicole or Elizabeth? Urn ... thank you very much, Nicole and Elizabeth. I did get, uh, your email address, Nicole, so if we have follow up questions, we'll follow up with you, cause I think it's important to, uh, send out your ...you, uh, presentation too. I'd like a copy of it, but I'll email you if..(both talking) Novak/ ...I'll be sending her the slides, so they'll be part of the meeting minutes. (mumbled) also just got, urn ... uh, Friday it looks like there's a report that came up from the Affordable Housing Coalition that has some good evidence on housing impacts of COVID-19, so, um, I'm not sure if everyone received that already, but looks like another great resource. Teague/ I wanted to say thanks to Nicole and Elizabeth for sharing the challenges from the undocumented perspective, because I think as elected officials we really don't totally understand, um, that population, and so this is, um, an opportunity that I receive very well, just the knowledge and the information that you shared, so really appreciate it! From/ Thank you both. Thank you! So we'll go on to agenda... item #5, return to learn plan, and this is the Iowa City Community School District was wanting to talk about this. Return -to -Learn Plan (ICCSD): Eyestone/ That'll be me, uh, Shawn Eyestone, uh, I know it's kind of running on a little late, so we'll try and be fast, and on that note I'm going to rewind about a month and, uh, bring you from there here. Um, but it will be fast. So as most of you are probably aware, we got, uh, sort of directed, um, from the State to come up with, uh, various plans, or basically three different plans on how we were going to return to school in the fall and there was a ... a, several teams created by the District Administration, uh, broken up into all sorts of different categories. So we were, uh, as you can imagine, there are, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page IS urn... questions to be answered in a lot of areas. Uh, whether it's health and safety or academics or childcare or all sorts of different, uh, issues that ... that arise with however we decide to go back to school. Um, so that work was done with, uh, a deadline of July I' of giving plans to the State, uh, which happened and were approved, and uh, as we kinda went through some iterations of what those look like, uh, we ended up with, um... I'm .... I'm already up to a week ago, uh, there was.... basically a continuum, right? So if you ... on one end of it, right, is no kids are in school and on the other end every single kid's in school, and there's a few different steps in between there, and what we were really working through, uh, last week was where did we wanna start the year in that continuum, and looking at what our numbers look like in the county, uh, cases kind of on the rise, uh, and, you know, discussing this with our teacher's unions and families and, uh, a lot of input, the decision was made to start the year online, and I think part of that, uh, importance was to give families and more importantly enough advance warning so they could then start to prepare what that was going to look like. So we've had a lot of thank yous from teaching staff in order... knowing that, uh, we were taking their health and safety into consideration. And then as you know, uh, three days later, um, the Governor changed those goal posts on us to a certain degree. Um, and so there's obviously been a scramble. So the reason I'm talking to you today instead of, uh, our Interim Superintendent is that he's been in all sorts of meetings, uh, both on Friday and today, um, trying to get some more guidance. Um, I did ask him for some thoughts, um, you know, sort of updated after that came out on Friday. So I wanted to share those thoughts with you to kind of give you an idea of where we're currently sitting. Um, and so some of those thoughts are is that we, you know, we're affirming our plan and we still believe that it is the best approach. One of the things that the Governor has put in that proclamation is (mumbled) seek a waiver, and we will seek it. Um, I don't think.... hopefully today they were getting some more guidance as to what that, uh, what the likelihood of actually being granted a waiver was or what the stipulations were to receive one. I don't know that any of us, uh, have real strong hope that it will, uh, be met, but uh, we are going to seek the waiver regardless. Um, and then the other thing, uh, and I think there's some confusion here too is there was a 50% of instruction in core or instruction in general that was kinda put out there as part of the proclamation. There was not a lot of definition as to what that means, and so, um, one of those, uh... pieces on our continuum was a ... a hybrid model where we had, uh, two days on-site for everybody, um, Monday and Tuesday for half the students, and Thursday and Friday for the other half, and Wednesday would be a day off in between, both for deep cleaning of the schools, as well as PD for, um, staff, uh, who are trying to work on that hybrid model to make sure that we're meeting whatever that 50% threshold is, cause we're not ... not clear if that actually meets it or not. Um, and another piece that we are trying to react to is meeting, um, the flexibility to decide locally, uh, when we need to close our buildings or classrooms, or the whole district, and the, uh, sort of that recent guidance, you know, has you kinda go through some steps that might be overly burdensome in order to do that in a timely manner, uh, so we wanna snake sure that, uh, we can do that quickly and, uh, responsively as we need to. Um, we do need to, uh, kinda reach out again, uh, to our parents and staff. Uh, we, uh, a lot of other comments have come in, uh, didn't you guys do a survey and everybody wanted to go back to school and ... that's sort of true. Uh, the bottom line on that is, you know, we sent a survey out when Johnson County's numbers This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page 19 were looking very good, uh, and then they did rise, quite a bit, and we did start to receive a whole lot of communication saying, you know, if you sent that survey out two weeks later, we probably wouldn't have answered the same way. Um, but we do need to know both from the family side and from the staff side, if we do in fact open what is everybody's intention, because if the, um, willingness and intention from those two groups don't match each other, um, we're kind of in a tough spot there (laughs) so we really need to get a handle on, uh, what everybody's intention is. Plus we want everybody to have an idea of what we're going to do as early as possible, which is why we tried to make a decision this past week. Um, so as we get farther and farther along we're getting closer and closer to the start of school. We don't want to, um, muddy the waters any more than we already have, that's already been done to us. Um, the other question that has been a little more consistent lately has been what about extracurriculars, sports and things like that. So we have not yet had that discussion. Um, I think the intention was we were going to have that discussion tomorrow night because we had already landed on what our, uh, Return -to -Learn plan was going to look like, um, but I think we may have to delay that a little bit as we try and work through any of these other issues that have now arisen since Friday. So we are still .... trying to work through those. I think the important part is that we still feel like our local decision is what's best for our local school district, and we want to hold to that, um, and so we are actively trying to gather information as to how we can keep going with that plan, or if we need to slightly modify it or how much we would need to modify it to meet any sort of directives. So without going into real detail on those plans, because it may be a little too early at this point, um, that kinda tells you where we're at right now, which is .... an uncomfortable spot I guess is the way to sum that up, so ... uh, I'll let ... I don't know if any other board members want to weigh in there or (mumbled) open it up for questions. Green -Douglass/ (garbled) Green -Douglass. I just can't imagine, um, all of the...the emotion, the work, the ... the hours of not sleeping that you all put into this decision (garbled) none of you came to it lightly. You had to weigh so many things, urn ... you may agree with it or disagree with it, but you were doing it for all the right reasons in terms of, you know, giving people advance notice of what was to be expected, so your teachers could get prepared, etc. Urn ... I'm just so sorry that you got the rug pulled out from under you. It must feel just like that, and urn .... I .... I'm impressed with, um, the calm with which you delivered your well, um, worded message just now, Shawn, and uh, I wish you luck. I'm really glad I don't have to make the decision, um, but ... your community knows that you've got kids' and teachers' interest at heart, and thanks for all that work. Eyestone/ Thanks, Lisa. I had all weekend to get the rage out, so ... I'm ... I'm feeling a little calmer today. I will say, to bring it back to the very ...the first agenda item (mumbled) as we discussed on Tuesday night, um, you know, I don't think any one of the board members here will tell you or any of the administration will tell you that learning on line is the best way to learn, right? We all want our kids to be learning in person, um, but we discussed over and over, it's going to take changes from our whole community, um, to make things better so we can actually do that and so going back to all the municipalities kinda working together to ... to work on some of the things. I fully support, uh, every one of you putting out any sort of mandates you can to, uh, require masks out in public. I This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page20 know, uh, my wife, who generally, uh, kinda shies away from any public spotlight has been actively campaigning, uh, businesses, like HyVee and Fareway, places that have not put in their requirements, and um, I think that's kind of the group effort that we need from all of our communities is, you know, really having everyone that can, you k now, make that message public do it, and then everybody can try to follow through with it too, uh, that's really going to be, uh, what's needed for us as a school district, and other businesses, elsewhere, right, to feel comfortable, um, starting to return to that normalcy that we're all craving. From/ Any other comments? Thank you (both talking) Weiner/ I would just add, if it's okay, it's really an everything issue. You know, it's ... um, people can pick any piece they want. If they want to focus on business, they can focus on business. If they wanna focus on jobs, they can focus on that. They can focus on schools. They can focus on public health, on social justice. It's an everything issue, and the only way we get there is through face coverings, in my opinion. From/ Thank you so much and, uh.... you know, I'm thinking of all these entities and how much they're struggling through all this, but ... I do think back, we're all in this together and let's, uh, remember that, and uh... work towards that, and we'll get through this. Thank you very much, Shawn. Rettig/ Louise? From/ Yes? Rettig/ Janelle. If you look at my picture, public health just put out a decal ... (both talking) From/ Oh that's a decal? Rettig/ Yes, you can get these decals for your buildings and businesses. So contact Public Health. Ulr, they just sent out a press release, so pick these up and spread `em around, please! Public Comment: From/ Thank you! Okay, uh.... let's see, we have, uh, time here for public comment. Uh, are there any members of the public here that would like to speak? We wanna hold it to three minutes or less, uh, is there anyone from the public who wants to speak to this group? Teague/ It appears there is a hand raised. From/ There is? Teague/ Yes. Um... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page21 (female)/ It's Sara Barron. Teague/ Sara Barron, yeah. Barron/ Hi, can you hear me (both talking) From/ Oh! Barron/ Hello? From/ Sara ... I'm havin' a little trouble hearing you. Barron/ Okay, let's see here. From/ You're very faint. Barron/ ON Can you hear me? (noises on mic) (both talking) From/ ...I mean .... I think.... Barron/ All right, well shall we try this (both talking) From/ Okay, that's better! Barron/ Okay, great! Um, thanks everyone, I'm Sara Barron from the Affordable Housing Coalition. Um, I just wanted to speak to you very briefly today as you're considering your COVID response. This morning, uh, the Affordable Housing Coalition issued a report, um, that summarizes the findings of a survey we conducted with households and non -profits about the housing needs and possible solutions related to COVID-19. Um, as I think, um, Nicole and Elizabeth did a great job of illustrating, um, we had a lot of struggles for many residents before, and COVID has really deepened those inequalities, um, and also, urn ... made families that were doing okay before, urn .... greatly more, uh, unstable in the face of the economic uncertainty. Um, so what we did was talk to households and non -profits about, um, their housing, how they fared so well, what they're anticipating in the future, and what we found is that a ... a really large segment of our population, much more, um, than you might expect, um, is going to be negatively impacted by COVID-19. Um, that housing insecurity is rising, and that without some really sustained and collective action on the part of our governments and non -profits, um, we are likely to see a really troubling wave of evictions and foreclosures. Um, as we've known from the very start of this pandemic, um, housing is a key, um, to surviving this, and being able to shelter in place, staying at home, means that you have a home to stay in. This is absolutely the worst time for people to be losing their homes. Um, and so, um, we issued that report this morning. I've got a chance already to email it to many of you. Um, there are a few recommendations in there, I won't highlight all of them, um, but one is, um, to consider some sort of longer-term monthly rental assistance for people who cannot pay their housing bills. This provides some .... a much needed stability, um, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020. Joint Entities Meeting Page22 for houses, and doesn't require that they get really far behind before they can qualify for assistance. Um, another is utility forgiveness for families that are unable to pay their utility bills, and also we're looking for a much ore coordinated process for people to apply for assistance. So, um, right now there might be four or five doors that someone needs to knock on if they're looking for help. We would really like to streamline that so that households can go to the organization that they feel most comfortable with, um, fill out all the relevant paperwork and application there, and then have that considered jointly by all the different places offering assistance, to get help where it needs to go as quickly and as simply as possible. Um, we'd really love to talk with you more about this and I hope you will follow up with me if you wanna find out more about, um, getting your city or county engaged in this. Thanks very much! From/ Thank you, Sara. Would anyone else like to speak to the ... uh, Joint Entities group? Okay, I don't see anybody else, I don't believe. Future Joint Entity Meeting: From/ Um, so future joint entity meeting. So really Iowa City did this meeting, the work of it, and so I see maybe the School Board, the Board of Supervisors, or Coralville could do one maybe in October and then we'll be back on schedule in January. I mean I'm assuming Zoom, all of these'll be Zoom, but ... uh.... are there any volunteers for the next, uh, Joint Entities meeting? Janelle, you volunteered me. How bout I volunteer you? (laughter) Um.... Rettig/ As long as it's Zoom, because, uh, with the election, all of our meeting rooms' ll be completely full at that time. From/ Our meetings are gonna be Zoom, at least until the end of the year. Rettig/ Yeah. My colleagues are here, if they'll nod their heads. I don't think that's a problem. (laughter) (garbled) be the 19th then, October 19th. From/ Yeah, it's usually the third. Okay, yes. Very good, thank you. October 19" at 4:30. Rettig/ All right! Thank you for volunteering us! From/ So if, uh, so I warm thank everyone for attending today and, uh, so, uh, if there's no objection I'm going to adjourn the meeting. Thanks again everyone. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Joint Entities Meeting of July 20, 2020.