HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-12-15 TranscriptionPage 1
Council Present: Bergus, Mims, Teague, Taylor, Thomas, Weiner
Staff Absent: Salih
Staff Present: Fruin, Monroe, Kilburg, Dilkes, Fruehling, Sitzman, Knoche, Sovers, Hightshoe,
Bockenstedt
Others Present: Craig, Elliott, Hensch, Martin, Nolte, Signs, Townsend (P&Z Commission)
Joint Meetin¢ with Planning & Zoning Commission (Carson Farms Annexation and Rezoning:
Teague/ Welcome, everyone, to the Iowa City, um, work session for December 15, 2020 and our first
item is going to be talking about, uh, it's a joint meetin' with the Plannin' and Zoning
Commission, and on ... our ...at our last meeting, which was, uh, December 1', we ... Item No.
10.b. was the Carson Farm rezoning, and we did not have a unanimous or a majority vote in
favor of the Commission, and so we've asked them to attend the meeting today so that we can
have a discussion with the Commissioners. I did wanna acknowledge our Commissioners from
P&Z and wanted to go around and just do a ... an acknowledgment. Uh, so if you can raise your
hand, that would be great or in ... like that! All right! All right, so I'm gonna, um, ask that
Maggie Elliott, if you can wave your hand. Great, thank you. And then Mark Signs. Welcome,
and then Phoebe Martin. I'm assuming not present ... but potentially could get on. All right,
Mark Nolte, Billie Townsend, Mike Hensch, and Susan Craig. Welcome to all of you! We're
happy to be able to meet virtually. This isn't how we normally do it. We have you in the
Council, uh, chambers and have a conversation in person, um, but wanted to, uh, maybe just go
ahead and get started with this. Uh, Geoff, I'm gonna ask you kinda, um, jump in and just give
us a ... a brief summary of, um, of this project and then we will, uh, engage in some conversation.
Fruin: Thanks, Mayor, and, uh, good to see everybody tonight. Um, I'm actually, uh, would ... would
hand this off to Danielle Sitzman in our Neighborhood and Development Services Division, and
she can just quickly go over the ... the annexation, the rezoning item, give you just a reminder on
what that's all about and answer any questions that you have. Um, if you didn't see it, we
submitted a ... a memo with some supplemental information that ... that hopefully you'll find, uh,
helpful for your deliberations today. That dealt with kind of the supply of housing and the
demand of housing that we've seen in ... in recent years here. So, Danielle, do you wanna give a
quick overview of the two items?
Sitzman: Sure, I can do that real quick. Um, so the applications that were on the last agenda were
twofold. One was the annexation of approximately, um, 196 acres of land, uh, on the southwest
area of the city and the growth boundary area, and then accompanying rezoning of that land to
an Interim Development Zone. Uh, that's a typical process we go to because land comes into
the city, presumably zoned something else by some other jurisdiction, in this case the County,
and we need to assign it a City zoning use designation. We have a set of interim development
zoning designations that we use that are basically keeping in place the density, which is very
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rural at the time it comes in. With the intention that land eventually gets re ... rezoned one more
time before development happens to a zoning district that's more specific to the future use
proposed. Um, I can do more than that if you need me to, Mayor, but I really didn't have a
whole bunch of remarks prepared for that.
Teague: Yep! No, thank you. Just wanted to get kind of a brief overview of the project, and you did an
excellent job of givin' us that. Um, so, Commission and Councilors, I also wanted to ensure,
um, I do ... I don't see our Mayor Pro Tem, but I see all of our other Councilors, is that correct?
All right. Um, if we can have someone reach out to our Mayor Pro Tem.
Fruin: Mayor, she—she did just, uh, reach out to me a little bit before the meeting. She's feeling ill and
will not be able to make either meeting tonight.
Teague: Okay. All right. Thank you for lettin' me know. Um, I think I may have gotten a ..missed, a
missed electronic somethin' from her, uh (laughs) right before the meetin' as well. So, all right,
thank you for lettin' me know. All right, so we are going to just open up the floor for discussion
on this item, um, by both a Councilor.. Councilors and our Commissioners. So ... feel free to
jump in!
Hensch: Okay, Mr. Mayor, I'll go ahead and start. This is Mike Hensch. I'm the Chairperson of the
Planning and Zoning Commission. I'm on to my second term for the P&Z Commission. Um,
I ... when we look at these applications, the first thing ... our responsibility is to see ... look for
compliance with the comprehensive plan, in compliance with the various development
ordinances of the City, and so when ... in the vote for this, I can't remember if it was 5-2 or...6,
uh, I just can't remember. I know there's two in the negative and the rest were in the
affirmative, and so when I looked at this, I just want to very quickly go through this for you.
First thing I did is looked at the comprehensive plan and interestingly on the comprehensive
plan on page 22, the, uh, the concept design was in ... of...of this particular development, similar
to it, was right in the comprehensive plan. And then the second thing I looked at was the future
land use map and the future land (mumbled) use map clearly shows this area as residential, with
a two to eight dwelling units per acre. And also, then I looked at the fringe area agreement. I'm
just sort of walking through how this is analyzed, and on ... on page 55 of the comprehensive
plan, it was talkin' about fringe area C, and I believe this is in fringe area C, and this is in the,
uh, the City s growth areas. So that was identified for that, and in particular for fringe area C, it
states that as applications are received to develop land contiguous to Iowa City and within this
portion of the City s growth area, the City will give favorable consideration to voluntary
annexation of this land, and then it goes on. And then the last thing I looked at, well actually
it's two more things, but I looked at the Southwest District plan in this area in particular, which
is identified as the Rohret South subarea, and everything that was in this annexation application
is consistent with the concepts discussed, uh, within this sub area. And then lastly, since this is
farmland, ag land currently, I was interested, what is the CSR rating of the corn suitability
rating. That's an index from 0 to 100, 100 being highly productive land and 0 being poorly
productive land in an agricultural sense. In just the four parcels in and around this area, the
ratings were upper 40s, low 50s ... with a high of 67. So they're all sort of like in the 50s. So
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this is just the productivity of this land is just pretty average. So that's always the consideration
when people are looking at using ag land for the development. So I think that's an important
consideration that needs to be discussed. So ... in all that I just ... from a P& Z point of view, this
application is very consistent with all the City s planning documents and the board, I mean, the
City Council's, um, previous determinations about how these things should be considered. So, I
think it's a very strong argument, and, um, I feel that we did our duty. Now it's in your ...and
your focus is, uh, bailiwick for ...to look at it at a policy view, and I understand the concern
about, um, any City services to the area and in all the documents it talked about the need for
City utilities, particularly sewer lines. Well that's already in the plan to be done in 2023. And
through zoning, because this is just an interim development. So as this gets rezoned in the
future, that's where the City can control the cost by the density and the layout of that area and
the walkability and the commercial, um, residential, commercial development, and then very
lastly, you know, the City needs all housing types, and so I just, that's how I viewed it and I
presume most Members of the Commission viewed it as we analyzed that application. So,
thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Nolte: Mr. Mayor, if I could, uh, cause I feel like responsible for why were here tonight. I, uh, being a
new P&Z member, I agree with everything Mike said there. I should have stuck to the merits of
the annexation specifically. The ... the way we did the roll call vote that night, it...it had passed.
It had enough votes to pass. So I decided to editorialize on the next phase, which was the
development phase, and that wasn't the right place to do that. So, um, I apologize to the ... to the
Councilors and the Mayor and the staff for ...for this added layer, and for the developer. Um, I
do hope as things move forward ... I ... I lived out there for many years. I lived both off Kitty Lee
Road, uh, and then we lived over near, uh, Weber Elementary. So I know that that area has
some challenges already, um, and so just as it moves through the process, I hope that you
continue to explore ways to alleviate congestion and ... and try to create more of a neighborhood
feel. Uh, one of the other things that Maier Avenue, which is the north -south road that is further
to the west, uh, kind of runs parallel to the interstate. That's something that you'll wanna work
with the County on. That'll be the next main road. The ... the challenge right now with
that ... with that area is Rohret is the only way in and out, and a lot of folks use, um, I can't ... I
don't even know the name of the road that kind of snakes up by West High, and there's a bunch
of traffic calming that have been put on there. So it's ... it's already kind of a ... a difficult place to
get in and out of, and those are some of my comments, uh, but again they were in the wrong
place in the sequence, and so I apologize.
Weiner: (mumbled) this is, uh, Janice. That ... that's Shannon that turns into something else, that goes...
that goes over by West High and by the, um, Church of the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Um, I use it often (laughs)
Signs: Um, this is Mark Signs here. Um, I'll step in and say that I ... I agree, um, you know, Mike, with
what Mike said. I mean, that's how we, you know, we try very hard to ... to use the ... the existing
plans. Um, we under (clears throat) you know, we understand that over time, you know, plans
morph and change a little bit. Um, I think in this, you know, for example, with the
comprehensive plan, I think we're coming up on the end of the anticipated lifespan of this
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particular comprehensive plan. Um, but, you know, one of the things that I think, and ... and this
is something, you know, for ...for Council going forward is to, you know, if...as the new
comprehensive plan is developed, you know, coming up with a ... with a firm statement as to, uh,
the intentions as far as growth, um, and where that growth is. Uh, I know there's a ... there's a,
you know, an interest in ... in continuing to grow around the core of the city, and we do see, um, I
think a lot of development in that regard. Um, not everyone wants to live in the core of the city
and I think that's something that has to ... we have to remember, and if...if you look beyond that,
then you're pretty much in any direction you go, you're getting into ... into, uh, raw land, um,
because it is so, uh, because we're pretty well full up (laughs) until them. Uh, and ... and so I
think that as, you know, as we look forward, um, I would encourage, um, Council to, you know,
kind of lay out some desires or expectations or guidelines as to what you're looking for in
growth, if it's significantly different than what, uh, the current documents say. Um, I was in
supportive of this particular annexation, and the comment I would agree, and, Mark, thank you
for ...for noting that, um, there's a whole lot of opportunities down the road to ... to refine what
this ... what any development on this land would look like ... and what it would be. Um, I think at
this point, they're simply asking to become part of the City. Uh, and, you know, and I
personally feel like if...if a ... if a conting ... uh, contiguous piece of land, uh, wants to become part
of the City and ... and hopefully become a ... a productive part of the City, that it would be looked
upon favorably. Uh, that's kind of my...my bias. Um, so that's where I'm coming from. I'm
happy to answer any questions.
Townsend: And I ... I'd also like to add that the fact that there's 10%, uh, affordable housing that they've,
uh, written into that plan is a ... another good reason. There's not a lot of affordable housing on
that end of the City, and, uh, it would be nice to have that ... that piece as part of it.
Craig: And I just add that I support what the other Commissioners have said. Um, I'm pretty new to
P&Z, but this, you know, and what, six meetings ... I mean six months, maybe. I don't know how
many meetings, but ... this seemed like one of the most straightforward things that we've seen. I
mean it...it just fit into everything that was going on. There were some preliminary outlines of
what a development might look like, and ... that were done years ago, and I asked a couple
questions about that, and ... and the point which has been made already is that gets taken care of
later, that this is the annexation. And ... I ... I just ... I don't know why you wouldn't annex it. So,
that's my comment.
Teague: All right. Um ... I wanna allow for any other co ... um, comments by the Commissioners, of
course. This is a conversation. So just jump in, um, at any point. Because I was in the dissent,
at least, uh, thinkin' that I would not vote in favor of the P&Z, I think that I'll go ahead and
jump in, um, and give my comments. First, I wanna say thanks to all of our Commissioners.
Um, I know that the work that you do is great, and I can tell just from the comments that this
was given great, great thought. The comp plan, you're exactly right. This is a part of the comp
plan, the fringe agreement. Exactly. This is a part of the fringe agreement. Um, it's right there,
um, with what we will want to annex within the City. Um, it has affordable housing, 10%.
That is awesome. Um, it also, um, it provides for and, sorry I have to ... I'm in, uh, automatic
lights. You have to move around a little bit (laughs) um ... it also, um, provides for different
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types of housing options, as Mike had mentioned, um, throughout our city, which we need. For
me, this wasn't about the comp .... this wasn't about it bein' compliant with the comp plan and
with, um, and providin' an affordable housing. Um, some type of affordable housin'. For me
this was more about... Councilors (laughs) maybe we need to hold ... hold off a little bit, and
we're... we're... we've been workin' on the ... the South, uh, District, um, form based code, and
we're talkin' about makin' that kind of the, um, throughout the city. Uh, we've been talkin'
about the affordable housing plan that we wanna do here in the near future. And so with this
bein'...I believe it's 196 acres. I thought, wait a minute! (laughs) We continue to allow
development that is already within the city. I do personally, uh, continue to allow it to operate.
Um, we have ambitious goals for our climate action plan, um, and we continue to push, you
know, these projects through, knowing that we're ... we're sayin' down the road we're gonna
change. Um, our, you know, we're gonna change what ... how we ... what we require of our
developers. And so because this wasn't in the City, personally I wanted to make a statement. I
wanted to make a statement to our Councilors that we really need to prioritize. If we're saying
we wanna do all these great things with affordable housin', makin' sure that everyone has an
opportunity to live in Iowa City that want to be here. We want to make this, uh, the... the ... our
community, our environment better ...through our climate action plan. And that was the reason
I ... I was going to be in the dissent. And so ... I will say that when I ... when I first came on
Council, I ... I went through several tutorials about what is P&Z and other ...other commissions,
and I learned that a part of your role is to look at what exist, and if it falls in what exist, then
you are supposed to approve it. I believe you've done your job, and I thank you for doing your
job. Um, according to your ...what you interpreted it to be. Um, and so my...my...my dissent
vote potential had nothing really to do with all of these approvals and unfortunately, we have
people that come to our city and I've heard it, you know, sometimes Iowa City is hard to, you
know, develop in (laughs) I've heard that. Um, we want our developers to know what they re
getting, and so if we are on the brink of doin' a new affordable housing plan. We're on the brink
of, you know, maybe recreatin' our ...ouc..to a form based code. Then I personally with this
amount of acreage and what this can really bring to our city, I would love for this to have those
new standards, including our (mumbled) includin' the climate action, uh, protocols ... to have
those standards in place. And so that was the reason for my, um, leaning towards not, um,
supporting this project.
Mims: If I could, I supported the annexation. And I think it's really important for all of us, and again, I
appreciate all the work that P &Z has put in. Mike, I think you did a great job of kind of
summarizing your analysis of it, and I think ... I think your fellow Commissioners looked at it the
same. Um, Mark, don't blame yourself for being here ... for us being here. (laughs) It's ... that's
not on you. Um, we, you know, we discussed this. And I ... I think these projects are complex,
and I think oftentimes it is, um, its difficult for people to ... to kind of break apart the different
pieces that need to occur before the final development happens. And that's what I think is ... is
really, really important here is we saw ... we saw the old district plans, and I think as Danielle,
you know, made clear in that meeting, those ... those are gonna be redrawn. Those are gonna be
done. They're... they're... redone. They're 10 -plus years old, maybe. and certainly we've done a
lot in that time in terms of, um, our affordable housing that has to go with annexation, um, our
form based code that we're doing throughout the city, etc. And so for me when I look at this,
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um, I look at this as being a natural annexation, um, to the community. Um, I appreciate staff's,
um, extra information that was in the late packet, in terms of really giving us information on
what limited land there is for any kind of significant infill left in the community. We obviously
have, um, challenges in this community in terms of affordable housing, and if the supply is
further restricted based on, um, in relation to the expected growth of our community, which was
explained in that memo, that is just going to drive up housing costs even more. We have to
have supply available. So for me this was just the first step of a many, many, many -step
process, and the idea that the sewage line ... sewer line isn't even gonna be out there fill 2023
gives the City ample time to get our new affordable housing plan in place, to look at how, um,
our climate action items might be changed, um, in regarding to housing. I would certainly
hope. I won't be here, but I would certainly hope that future Councils, um, would require a
much different district plan. I mentioned this last time. With much diverse ... much more diverse
housing stock than just 196 acres of single-family home. Um, I thought the developer's memo
regarding discussions they're already having with the School District on space for an ... and ... and
these aren't commitments, but obviously they re having discussions on an elementary school, a
middle school, a fire station, park area. These are all decisions that the City Council will have
authority to weigh in on. And so to stop the process or delay the process now risks it going
forward at all, and these ... these things take years. I mean, I look at one of the last kind of big
ones we did with the extension of Tamarack and that was probably at least an 18 -month process
from the time those developers started until they broke ground to actually build houses. And
this one is much, much bigger and much, much more complex, and so to me by doing the
annexation at single ... it signals to the developer that, yes, this is an area that we want as a part
of the City. We wanna have control of it. We want ... we will then provide the infrastructure.
Yes, we will have to provide services like mass transit, etc. I totally get that, but we want it and
we're willing to work with you over the next three years, uh, prior to the sewer being in there, to
make sure that this is a ... a wonderful neighborhood. It's an inclusive, diverse neighborhood,
different price points and types of housing, and all the other public amenities. I think to delay
this now, um, simply delays the ... the whole implementation of it and maybe the developer
decides not to go this route. And I think that would be really unfortunate. We need more
housing in the community.
Townsend: Yes, I just wanna go on record for as far as I'm concerned, when we talk about affordable
housing, the way I've come to ... come to understand, it's just for a certain period of time, but
there's no, um, amount put on what that affordable housing is. What is affordable housing and
why is it only for a certain amount of years? Um, when a person goes into a unit, if they've
only got 10 years, uh, of affordable housing, what is ... what is there to say that ... that in 10 years
they can afford the regular price of that unit. So I think somethin' needs to be ... you ne... need to
talk about what exactly this affordable housing is and for what period of time we're talking
about, because just to have it for a few years, we're gonna be in the same boat 10 years from
now that we're in today. So, when you start writing those, uh, new, uh, requirements, those are
the kinds of things that I hope you take into consideration, that it ... that ...it...it shouldn't be a
time limit on how long a person can be in those units.
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Teague: I'm going to refrain from makin' a comment (laughs) because I think you just point ... you
just ... you just touched on a .... a ... a point that ... really disturbs me, because we have all of these
affordable units (mumbled) I'm gonna touch on it. We have all of these affordable units that are
comin' up, and then in 10 years, what leverage do the City have to ... to have them ma ... uh, be
remaining, and that is the challenge that I believe we can address if we change, you know, some
of our, you know, whether it's a new comp plan or do, um, some type of a new plan. So, I'll
leave it at that.
Dilkes: Mayor, I wanna make a couple ... this is Eleanor. Oh (mumbled) turn on my...I just wanna make
a couple comments that might not be obvious and that ... that come to me, partly from working,
um, with the Planning staff on the form ba ... form based code in the South District, which I think
has presented a number of challenges, partly because we've got diverse property owners, and
we have some land there that is not already within the city. Um, this annexation would be one
property owner that the City could work with, with the ... on the comprehensive plans and
the ... the subsequent rezoning, and I think that would be very beneficial and would avoid some
of the issues we've had. Um, secondly, when it comes to providing affordable housing from a
regulatory perspective, as opposed to an incentive perspective or some other mechanism,
annexation is your best point at which to secure affordable housing from a regulatory
perspective. Inclusionary zoning, as we did in Riverfront Crossings, is very difficult under
Iowa law. We could do it in Riverfront Crossings because of the significant up -zoning
that ... that we were doing, and I ... you should not assume that that will be available otherwise.
Um, and then I think just to mirror, um ... uh, a comment that was made earlier, it's... it's... it's very
likely that this developer has a purchase agreement with the owner that is contingent on the
annexation. Rezoning that would be very common. So you can't assume that this opportunity
will present itself down the road.
Bergus: Um, I was just hoping that staff could maybe articulate for us what is the affordable housing
component that is tied specifically with the annexation, just so we can have a little clarity on
that.
Sitzman: Eleanor, you can correct me if I go astray. But there's an annexation agreement that basically
ties them to our current policy. They acknowledge our current policy and commit to fulfilling it
in the future, at the steps at which they actually execute an affordable housing agreement, which
is much farther down the line in the development process. It's actually just prior to building
permits. So they get through the subdivision, uh, approval process, continuing to commit to
doing it. The actual execution of the agreement is at the very end.
Dilkes: I would just add that that's correct. With it, um, we would add a condition to the conditional
zoning agreement for the, um, for the interim development rezoning that required that
affordable housing agreement at the time the building permit was issued.
Mims: (several talking) Could you remind us, I believe it's 10%
Townsend: It is 10%.
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Mims: And what's the year ...what is the year, how many years is that for with the annexation?
Townsend: It does (mumbled) well it doesn't say in the, uh, proposal that we had, other than it was a ... a
resolution 18-211, related to affordable housing is ... how they had it listed in the, uh, in the
actual, uh (both talking, garbled)
Hightshoe: Tracy Hightshoe with the Neighborhood Development Services. In our annexation policy,
it's lookin' at a 20 -year time frame, encourages the 20 years. Um, now when we look at that
steering committee for housing, your new action plan, we can address that. We can talk about
that. It could be if you want permanent affordability, it might be we give the option, you know,
for the City or affordable housing provider to ... to buy certain units. Otherwise you're looking at
a cost analysis and you're looking at how many years ... does this requirement, permanent
affordability requires ongoing subsidy. So unless the City's owning it or we're selling it to a
non-profit, somebody with a mission of affordable housing, it's hard to hit that permanent
affordability, unless you're doing that. But we do have time. Like ... like I ... I think we've said,
the sewer doesn't come until 2023. We will start those, the steering committee, conversations
for housing this January, and I think, Geoff, one of those recommendations by October, um, of
2021. So we will be picking up and discussing that.
Weiner: So I guess, I mean, one of the things, one of my questions is, and is ... it doesn't ... it or let me
phrase it in a different way. It doesn't sound to me as if we're locking in necessarily whatever
our current affordable housing, um, plans are for the future. Do ... or...or am I wrong? Would we
have the... would we have the op ... the ability post -annexation when we start discussing what we
want in terms of devel ... development there. Um, a ... different standards for affordable housing
than currently exist in terms of the length or durability of it.
Dilkes: No, I think you're stuck with the current annexation policy. But again, that provides a lot more,
um, flexibility on the part of the City than does, um, the inclusionary housing ordinance that
you71 see in Riverfront Crossings.
Thomas: I'll just, uh, say a few words on ... on my thinking about this and that ... that was really, uh, my.
my comments are really based on the three criteria which apply to whether we annex property
or not. And the ... the one that concerned me the most was this ... and I don't have the language in
front of me, but the... whether.. whether the annexation would place any undue burden on the
City in meeting... whatever opportunities, uh, the ... the annexation provided and, you know, as
we've been noting there... there really isn't much ... there for me to be able to evaluate, uh, the
question of the undue burden, you know, the ... the comp plan, uh, and the scenario that was
developed for this piece of that area, uh, is outdated. So it...it really doesn't...I think we all
acknowledge that we ... we don't really have a compri ... a comp plan in place at the moment that
helps, um, anyone understand what future development of this pretty large piece of property
would be. It's, you know, roughly the size of the Northside neighborhood, from my estimates.
So it's, you know, it's a big piece of land. Um, and it's contiguous to other large tracts of land
that I suspect will be developed as well. Um, and, you know, we are, I think, increasingly
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aware, uh, that particularly when we develop on the edge, uh, there is the question of whether
the cost of the infrastructure, um, long-term can be sustained by the ... the value of the property
as it is developed, and really the only way of...of being able to assess that is to have some level
of planning, which gives you a ... a document by which you can then apply that kind of
evaluation. So it seemed to me there... there's a process here that I ... I feel I would be much more
comfortable if at least I understood what kind of process we're talking about, uh, and right now,
you know, I ... I can't say that I really have any clarity as to what that process would be. You
know, we've talked for years about compact, diverse, you know, compact neighborhoods,
diverse housing, and so forth, and I'd have to say that we haven't been as successful as perhaps
our planning documents have... have... have aspired to achieve. And so I'm ... perhaps, you know,
as ... as Bruce might say, a ... applying, um, sort of just...I...I would like to pause. I'm not saying
that I don't support development in this area. But I ... I would feel more comfortable signing off
on this question of undue burden if I had a much better idea of where the project might be
going. That ... that sort of speaks to if, you know, if we don't have a plan in place, uh, you know,
I've often tried to emphasize, well, show me something out there in this vast world of ours that
begins to at least capture some of the qualities that we're talking about. Um, because otherwise
it's just words, and, um, you know, I think it's hard to evaluate issues such as, you know,
the ... the fiscal component without having a better idea of what it is we're talking about. Um, so
I'm certainly not interested in saying no to this annexation. Um, but I do feel we ... we really
have a ... a real serious gap in terms of our understanding of how we move forward. There just
isn't any vision statement in the comp plan, um, currently in place, and it seems to me with a
project of this complexity, uh, based on the sort of comparables, benchmarks, if you will, uh,
typically successful projects require, uh, consulting services, especially if were going to, um,
make that evaluation in terms of, uh, whether the project fiscally, if we do the math and ... and
make sure that it will in fact, um, not be an undue burden on Iowa City. So what I'm interested
in seeing is a more kind of detailed road map of...of the steps involved, um, that we will be
undertaking, uh, once ... once we approve the annexation.
Teague: I do wanna acknowledge Commissioner Phoebe Martin has joined us. Welcome!
Bergus: I just wanna speak a little bit on this as a ... as a new Councilor, since I've only been exposed to,
you know, projects in a decision making and policy context for this ... this year. And I think, you
know, when I saw this annexation in our packet, you know, I recall seeing or I recall talking
about our....our capital improvement project and the ... I think the first time I heard Carson
Farms was in an explanation of the trunk sewer extension to that area, and we had an
understanding in those meetings that that would be, you know, an area of expansion for the
City. And we have our ...our growth boundaries, which I know we've revisited very recently. I
recall, you know, those meetings and having staff kind of step us through and having us say yes,
that's what we're looking for. Um, and I think as far as the ... I really appreciate this additional
conversation and ... and kind of sharpening the focus for me. Um, because I think what we're
talking about is our ...our values, right? Were ... the concerns that I'm hearing are can we make
sure that at the point in time this property is developed, it will reflect the values... because this is
a big project. It's a big deal to one landowner many, many acres, right, and so it's...
there's... there's a lot at stake in terms of what we wanna see for our community. And I think
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with this time frame and with our very public conversation and our engagement with the
developer on what our expectations are, we can say the comp plan is outdated. At the last
meeting Danielle indicated how the plans would be revised in this process. And I think what we
have is start at the end, as the Mayor likes to do. We have our vision. We know that climate
action, equity, and financial feasibility, sustainability, as Councilor Thomas is pegging, those
things are ... are really what we know have to happen in order for this to be successful. And I
don't want our fear or our, you know, distrust of ourselves in being able to cant' that out and the
City being able to carry that out, to make us miss an opportunity that I think is tremendous.
When we're talking about, you know, form based code and what we already have in ... in
development and how that could be applied here. When we're talking about the revisions to the
plan and the developer already indicating that they're, you know, understanding of that
and ... and not wanting to do large lot single-family. I just think this is a tremendous opportunity
where we can use the time frame that we know that's in front of us to ... to move forward. So
again, I ... I don't mean to ramble and, uh, you know, on my soapbox, but I appreciate the
conversation. That's ... that's kind of where I'm at.
Signs: If I could pick up on that and ... and ... and tie it into something John said, and I think, uh... John,
one of the things that we struggle with, um, a lot is that idea that sometimes we wish we had
more of a picture of what was coming, um, as we make decisions and in, you know, and we've
learned that we have to be cautious about that because, again, ultimately it comes back to ... we
look primarily at the plan, uh, at the plans, multiple types of plans we look at, uh, to determine
if it fits the criteria or not. Um, the other challenge with a ... and I'm looking at it from the
developer and from a ... with the realtor hat, with my realtor hat on. The ... the challenge you have
with ... with projects of this size is is what people want today, what the market wants today, all
those things are probably gonna be significantly different before these folks ever get close to
filling this ... this large piece of land, and so it's ... it's very hard, um, very hard for a developer to
sit here and say, well, this is what it's gonna ... this is what the whole 197 acres or whatever it is
is gonna look like, uh, down the road. And so I think that's a, it's a challenge. I mean, we ... we
talked about this at Commission level all the time. You know, we ... we'd like to see, um, you
know, we'd like to see a full plan or something like that. Well, in addition to the cost burden
that puts on developer, the reality is they just don't know sometimes what's gonna ... what it's
gonna pan out to be by the time it gets to the end of the project. The thing I really encourage
you to ... to think about with ... with this one is you have a developer who came to us saying they
would do affordable housing. They came to us saying they were interested in talking about a
form based pode... code and predictability about development. Um, they talked about, you
know, the economic viability and the need to ... they ...they said it can't just be single-family
homes cause it won't be viable for them either. It's got to have some more density. It's got to
have multi -family. They talked about a ... a ... a neighborhood commercial area where they would,
you know, uh, meet the ... meet the needs of the neighbors that live in this community, which gets
a bit to the ... I know the walkability issue is something that the Council talked about in your
discussions, and ... and I ... and ... and they said, you know, I think the developer acknowledges that
they've gotta provide some services and accessibility for things right there in the development,
and they're interested in doing that. So I think, um, you know, I ... I really feel comfortable
personally that, uh, it's a huge piece of land and the ... kind of the reality is no matter where we
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grow, it's gonna be a big piece of land cause that's... that's what's left. Um, but in this case,
you've got people including some local partners who ... who really have just come ... with a
seemingly very willingness to ... to cooperate with the City and to come up with a great plan for
this... this development, and as was said before, there's a lot ... gonna be a lot of opportunities
along the way for the ... for the, both the Commission and the Council to ... to weigh in on some of
the specifics that get down. Um, but I, you know, those are the things that I really ...I did
appreciate that they came right to the table with some of those key issues that I know we all talk
about all the time. Um, so that's why I was ... I was pretty excited about the opportunity to get
this ... to lock this piece of land into the City of Iowa City.
Teague: I wanna, uh (both talking) Oh, go right ahead.
Hench: Oh, excuse me, Mr. Mayor. Just to follow up on one Mark said and ... and several other
speakers have said it, and I know we need to wind down here, but this is a large parcel of land,
but I think we have a large opportunity. It's not usual that we have one developer who's able to
put together an assemblage of multiple parcels, and has shown willingness to work, um, with
the City. (mumbled) has a vision, um, for this to be something other than just cookie -cutter
development. So I know you have a difficult job and I won't tell you how to think, but I ... I
would encourage you to think of the opportunity this gives us to put some of these concepts that
have been articulated into practice cause we're... we're many years away from this happening.
And so through the rezoning process and the development process, this is a great opportunity to
get many of the things that several of the Councilors have talked about, and I'd hate to see it get
passed. So I just encourage you to think about the huge opportunity we have in front of us.
Thank you.
Teague: (both talking)
Taylor: Mayor ...Mayor this Pauline. I hadn't ... I hadn't chimed in, yet. Uh, I just wanted to say that, uh,
(garbled) this, I ... I was a little uneasy about it and I think it kind of related to, uh, some of the,
um, undue burdens that, uh... uh, John was talking about, uh, in particular I thought of our ...our
transit, which we've just worked really hard to get that study done and remap some of our
routes. Uh, fire, uh, law enforcement, and then on the issue of the schools. We all know how
difficult it is for the School District to, uh, build new schools to ... I mean, we recently saw them
go with the bond vote and ... and that was a struggle, uh, to get people to approve that to build
new schools and to rebuild the ones we have, cause that takes a lot of money for them. Uh, and
I just have some concerns about that, and then as far as, um, Laura had mentioned about just
what do we see for our, uh, community or what we see for the needs and ... and as we've been
talking all along is ... is true (garbled) affordable housing and just to ... and I do appreciate our
annexation, uh, language, uh, having that affordable housing requirement in it, but just
including just this small piece of a 200 -something acre bit of property. Uh, I just can't see folks
who can afford housing living that far out on the edge... outskirts of town, uh, and ... and are we
talking a $299,000 house versus a $300,000 house is affordable? You ... you realtors there that
are on the P&Z maybe can explain that to me because I just can't see how the folks that we're
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talking about that truly need affordable housing would be able to live out there. That's just my
point.
Teague: Great. Um, I did wanna just, uh, certainly thank all of the Commissioners for being a part
today. Um, our ...our Councilors who will be having this discussion.... again, it's on our formal
agenda tonight at 7:00 P.M. It's Item No. 10.a. Um, but if there is any other further comments,
um, and I know that Councilor Weiner, we want ... we welcome you to definitely chime in.
Weiner: I just wanna say that I'm also in the ... the same category as Councilor Bergus as being relatively
new on Council. But when I ... when I look at some of the things that we've done this year, some
of the things that we've either bitten off and said, yes, we can do it, um, and we are committed
to doing this, such as the Black Lives Matter project. And we've made... we've... we've
committed ourselves and ... and we've made substantial progress, and we're gonna continue to
work on that, um, every single month as far ...as far as I can tell. That wasn't originally on our
plan. We decided to do it. We challenged ourselves to do it. And we're continuing to work at it.
On the other hand, we ... we decided not to do the big solar project. That's something I
personally reject... regret, because I now see it as it was a huge opportunity, um, that we decided
for a variety of reasons not to take. I'm right now seeing this more as an opportunity and an
opportunity to also, um, hold our own feet to the fire to make sure that we get the type of
community and development that we want, three or four or five years from now, so that it really
does answer to the community. Um, and then ... and then the ... the opportunity is there. I think
it's it ... I think it is. I see it right now as a major opportunity for us to, um, help shape and
develop, um, as opposed to one of which we should really, uh, one that we should fear or really
be concerned about. Because this is ... either our community is gonna grow, um, or the
communities next door are gonna grow, and I'd rather, to be honest, I live on the west side. I'd
love to see more ... more development on the west side, that as Billie Townsend mentioned, has
different price points and different opportunities, um, with more park and more, um,
opportunity for shopping, all ... none of which we really have right now or we ... that we have in
substantial ... in ... in substantial amount. So that's sort of where I'm coming from. Thanks, Mr.
Mayor.
Teague: Any other comments by anyone before we close our time here with our Commissioners?
Hensch: One last thing. Just take the opportunity. We've had on the P&Z, we've had a ... multiple
occasions the last several years of struggling with outdated fringe area agreements. (mumbled)
just one area, one thing that really needs to be updated. I know it's being worked on, but the
faster the better because it's been a problem for us. Thank you.
Teague: All right, well thanks everybody for ...the Commissioners for bein' a part, and, uh, we'll be back
at 7:00 P.M. talking about this very topic at our formal meeting. Thank you.
Hensch: Thank you, take care.
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Cite A1ana2er presentation of the Preliminary Plan to Restructure the Iowa City Police
Department toward community policing:
Teague: All right, the next item we're going to talk about is our City Manager's presentation of the long
awaited preliminary plan to restructure the Iowa City Police Department toward community
policing. So I'm gonna hand it over to our City Manager Geoff Fruin.
Fruin: Okay, uh, thank you, Mayor and Council. I'm going to, um, do my best to move through this,
uh, quickly. Um, hopefully we can at least wrap it up before the start of your formal meeting,
um, and we can revisit it as ... as needed, uh, going forward. So, um, I thank you for this
opportunity. Uh, it's my pleasure to present to you an overview of the preliminary plan that you
requested as part of your June 2020 resolution addressing Black Lives Matter and systemic
racism. Now the past seven months I've spent a significant portion of my time gaining a deeper
understanding of our police operations, policies, and practices. I've looked to where we've been
and where we stand today, and one thing I'm very certain of is that we have a very good police
department. They are leaders in many areas and have set high expectations for themselves
when it comes to excellence in public service, and when I say we have a good department, I'm
not so much focused on our policing skills, although we have extremely talented staff. I'm more
talking about the people behind the uniforms and the civilians that service too. They are good,
caring people and want nothing more than to serve this community to the best of their abilities,
and this is what our foundation is. It's strong and it's ready to pursue whatever future lies ahead,
and if any group of employees can rise to the challenges of new expectations that this final plan
will eventually contain, it's our police staff. This ... we know we're not perfect. No City
department is perfect. Um, we know that we make mistakes and ... and ... and this year has
certainly given us a deeper appreciation for the consequences of those mistakes. I think what
we need now is a renewed opportunity to lead. We need City Council support. We need
community support. We need your trust that we can execute on wherever th... this plan
ultimately lands. I'm not presenting this preliminary plan as a blueprint. It's...it's rather ...it's
presented as a ... as a start. It has 36 recommendations that change the way we operate, the way
we communicate, and that reinforce the community and community policing. It's designed to
be scalable in many ways, and perhaps most importantly, it's de ... designed to keep the
conversation going, and ... and not, uh, just be a simple check -the -box type of plan. So I strongly
encourage anybody who's interested in this topic, uh, not to solely rely on my overview tonight.
The written plan contains much more detail than I can cover in our limited time tonight. So
please say ..uh, take some time to read ... read it and, uh, provide some feedback. We'll talk
about those opportunities at the end. The document itself is available online at
icgov.org/preliminary plan. Um, you can also access, uh, public feedback opportunities there,
including a survey where you can, uh, voice support, uh, or, uh, provide comments on ... on any
or all of the 36 recommendations contained in the plan. The structure of the plan or the
organization is listed on the screen. Um, it reviews some recent history of the department
before jumping into those 36 recommendations, and I'll cover each of these, uh, sections tonight
in varying levels of detail. So here's our mission statement. Uh, it was revised in March of
2019, so it's very new. Uh, it is to work in partnership with the community; enhance trust;
protect with courage and compassion; and empower victims of crime through excellence in
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service. And this is what we work towards every day. Uh, we have just under 110 permanent
positions in the department, almost 25% of which are civilian staff, and in the interest of time
tonight, I'm not gonna go through our org chart in detail, but it is available in the plan, along
with brief descriptions of each of our, uh, positions. So the chart that you're seeing on the
screen now, uh, denotes the change in PD staff, uh, and budgets since 2010, and I'll walk you
through some of the highlights here. So from 2010 to 2020, the department added just 5.26
positions, uh, 2.26 of those positions were civilian positions and three were sworn police officer
positions. The table, uh, at the bottom gives you details on those staffing changes. The three
new sworn positions actually resulted in one less traditional patrol position, uh, as one patrol
position was eliminated and the new sworn positions were three community policing positions
and one supervisory position. Uh, those new positions included the, uh, community policing
positions of downtown liaison officer and neighborhood response officer. There was also
another supervisor in the investigations area added. And those downtown officer and
neighborhood response positions, again, are not your typical patrol positions, as their day-to-
day duties aren't, uh, completely driven by dispatched calls for service. They're intended to be
proactive, problem -solving positions that utilize community relationships to help prevent crime,
to help those in need, and improve outcomes for residents and ... and neighborhoods. The
civilian positions that were added over this, uh, period of time included our community
outreach assistant, our victim services coordinator, and 1.26, uh, positions in our Animal
Services division. Our sworn staffing per 1,000 population has decreased over this time from
1.19 to 1. 12, and I'm gonna talk through those numbers now and then I'll circle back to the
budget. Uh, so this is the most common measuring stick for department staffing, um, and the
U.S. Department of Justice reports on these figures annually. It's, again, it's number of sworn
positions, those are your officer positions, uh, by 1,000 residents. Uh, the, uh, Iowa City has a
number of 1.12 per 1,000 residents. The United States average is 2.3 positions per 1,000. Now
that number is a bit inflated by the very large cities, uh, typically. So you can break it down by
Midwestern cities with a population that's similar to ours, and their average would be 1.5. The
difference between 1.12 and 1.5 may not seem like a lot, but it actually would translate to 29
positions. That's to say if we wanted to be at that average number, we would have to add 29
sworn positions. So you can look at the other larger cities in Iowa. There's four larger cities
than Iowa City, and they range from 1.52 to 1.66, and if you wanna focus on college towns.
Uh, if you look at the ... across the Big 10 college towns, their average would be 1.48, um, and
there's only three of those, uh, communities that have a lower number than Iowa City. So
there's no right or wrong number here and you're never gonna hear me advocate for staffing
based on a metric like this. Your staffing needs'll be determined by your operational demands
and ... and your community expectations. But what this does say is that we're not a staff -heavy
police department. We're comparatively lean and efficient. From a budget standpoint over that
10 -year period, the average annual growth of the police department budget is 3.6%. We've
consistently been between 23.88 and 25.65% of the general fund budget since 2012, and that
level of increase is very consistent with what we see in other departments, and it's largely
attributable to wages, health insurance, state pension payments, and inflationary growth and
supplies. From year to year budgets will fluctuate based on one-time items, such as in the
police budget, deer sharpshooting like we did last year, vehicle purchases, and consulting
studies. Now in the police department, 86% of the budget is related to personnel. It's very
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Page 15
labor intensive. About 15% is going to non -personnel expenses, like training, vehicle, uh,
vehicles, fuel, IT services, pet supplies at the Animal Shelter, those types of things. When
you're that heavy on personnel, you're going to probably ...in a typical year have 3 to 4% growth
that's needed. You think about bargained wages with the unions. You think about health
insurance premiums. And again, state pension payments that are mandated that ... that we make.
Thafs... 3 to 4% is gonna be pretty typical. So when you see an average growth of 3.6% over a
10 -year period, that is very much a status -quo budget. I'm gonna get into calls for service a
little bit. Uh, in 2009, uh, 19, that breaks down to about 200 calls for service per day. Now just
over half of our calls are initiated by the public. That means they're based on 9-1-1 calls, uh,
non -emergency calls, uh, or some of them might flag down an officer while they're on duty.
The 46% that are officer initiated, uh, most of these would fall into the categories like traffic
stops. If the officer observes you speeding or running a red light. Um, we do a lot of bar
checks at night. Those would all be calls for services when we're evaluating those
establishments. Even attendance at community events would be, uh, counted as a call for
service that's initiated by an officer. Uh, nearly half of our responses as officers result in no
action, and only about 10% of our calls for service end in arrest or citation. So I wanna, uh,
kind of pivot over to crime stats right now. Um, Iowa City's a very safe community, uh, but
we ... we can't be naive. We have serious crime that takes place nearly every day, and all these
crimes have victims. We average multiple thefts, defenses per day; multiple assault offenses per
day; and daily occurrences of fraud, drug violations, and vandalism. The most concerning is the
rapid growth in weapon violations. 2009 was up 97% over the previous four-year average, and
I really wanna call your attention to the right side of the screen there and just looking at the
shots fired incidents that we've had from 2019 to this year. In 2019 we had 15 shot fired
incidents. This year we're up to 56. In 2019 those incidents had about 56 rounds that were
fired, we're over 300 in 2020. Five individuals were injured in those shot fired incidents last
year. We have 16 individuals that have been injured this year, uh, with several weeks left in the
year. This should concern all of us greatly. Let's look at, uh, violent crime rates. Uh, this takes
you back all the way to 1995. Uh, what you'll see here is the blue line is the national average.
The green line is the State of Iowa, and the bars are Iowa City. So again, were a comparatively
safe community that is consistently below those national and state averages. Going from
violent crime to ... to property crime rates, uh, you can see that we're again well below those state
and national, um, numbers there indicated in the ... in the lines. So my takeaways from all this
information so far, I think the crime statistics illustrate that we're a relatively safe community,
uh, and we operate kind of below those state and national figures, and this is really despite some
status -quo staffing levels that we have, um, that are well below our national and peer
community staffing averages. But make no mistake, we have concerning crim ... criminal
activity that occurs on a daily basis, and there's great consequences to the victims of those
crimes and the residents in the neighborhoods that experience trauma from nearby criminal
activity. For good reason, we need to be hyper -focused on use of force, and first, it needs to be
clear that in every incident, we should aim to use no force or the minimal amount necessary to
protect everybody's safety. So here's some data on our use of force. Less than one half of I%
of calls for service result in use of force. Those numbers can overstate force a bit because we
define use of force in a way that may include no physical altercation with an individual. So, for
example, these numbers include situations where an officer displays a Taser, but does not use
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Page 16
that taser. It also involves use of force needed to euthanize an animal, such as an injured deer,
uh, after a vehicle accident. So this fall we reramp... we, excuse me, revamped our public use of
force reports that we submit to the Community Police Review Board. We now include much
more information on the individual cases, as well as aggregated demographics, such as race,
mental impairment, and drug or alcohol usage, and the number of officers involved. I'm
certainly not aware of any other, uh, agency here in Iowa that now provides more, ub, public
information on our use of force incidents. The preliminary plan also recaps the October report
we issued on the 23 -year history of Iowa City's CPRB, that's the Community Police Review
Board. That report detailed the 119 complaints we've received since 1997, and it's important to
note that the CPRB has agreed with the police chiefs findings in 93% of those complaints. That
full report is a ... a part of this plan, um, and, uh, you can look through that if you wanna see the
details on those complaints. There's a chapter in the report that deals with recent community
policing initiatives. I'm going to breeze through this section of the plan. Uh, but it includes,
um, some analysis of additional positions that are focused on community policing, our diversion
efforts, our supportive services efforts, and our targeted outreach. I really encourage you to
spend the time to read this information. I think you71 be very proud of the progress that we've
made. One community police, uh, policing case study that I would like to highlight is our
effectiveness in working with community partners to improve outcomes for our homeless
population, and I wanna be careful here not to appear to take full credit for these results, but it's
absolutely fair to say that Iowa City Police Department has played a big role in these efforts.
Our data -driven justice program helped pave the way for the Cross Park Place project. This
was Iowa's first Housing First program and you can see how effective it's been. The residents
living in this facility previously spent an average of 170 days per year in jail. After just one
year, that number averaged 28 and is expected to drop even more in the second year. Similarly,
because in large part due to ... due in large part to our downtown liaison, uh, community policing
position, we saw cause... calls for service pertaining to the homeless populations drop from 450
to 300 in three years, and the number of associated arrests or citation, dropped to about I% of
those calls for service. This should make you proud and hopefully give you confidence that we
can continue to be part of the solution for some of our community's most complex problems.
So now we're gonna get into the recommendations section, um, and really focus on how we
become the leader. As cities across the country are looking at police reform, how does Iowa
City lead the way? Each of the following recommendations are described in more detail in the
report, and I again urge everybody to read, uh, the written report so that you can understand the
hope and intent behind each one. So here's the 36 ways to get us started down this path. Want
to start with analyzing how we respond to calls involving someone in crisis, and it's really
important to recognize that no two calls are the same. As such, there's no singular response
structure that's going to be a match for all crisis calls. The easy thing to do here is to say that
the CAHOOTS model will solve all our problems. And sure, that would help ... for some calls,
but if that was our only focus, we'd be failing our community. We need to be prepared for
crises of many different shapes, and frankly, individual calls regarding people in crisis can
change dramatically during that call. A seemingly safe call can tum violent and a seemingly
violent situation can be effectively de-escalated. The fluidity of the calls underscores the need
for focus, preparation, and coordination at all points along this continuum. Now I'm really
stressing that we think of crisis calls across this continuum and we take steps to improve our
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community's response at all points along it. And notice I said community's response. This
shouldn't be all on the shoulders of our police department. So let's walk through each of these
points, from prevent to divert to co -respond, and to stabilize and connect. So
prevention... best.... this is the best outcome possible. This is we prevent the need for any call
for service to ever take place. And this emphasizes that the community should do all it can to
create a safe, supportive, and accessible network of resources to keep people from entering the
stage of crisis. So the way you do it is you have to invest more in our social service network,
and Council, you've done that in recent years. You've increased our Aid to Agencies program
by well over 50% in the last two years. You provided $2.5 million for the new GuideLink
Center. You invest in affordable housing and services like the winter shelter. But if we wanna
get serious about being effective in preventing calls for service, you have to think on a different
scale. Uh, I'm suggesting that it's time to give the local option sales tax a serious conversation
in 2021. with, uh, at least 15 to 25% of those proceeds going to our non-profit community. So
that's recommendation number one. Um, and we just talked about, um, our, uh, interaction with
the homeless population. I told you how proud I am of the work that we've done there. Uh, we
should be proud, but we shouldn't be content, and we need to, uh, think about
civili... civilianizing, uh, this effort, and thus I'm recogni... uh, recommending that we partner
with the Shelter House to jointly fund the new street outreach and engagement specialist, that
would be employed by the Shelter House and that would work in close cooperation with the
police department to proactively connect individuals to services and prevent police calls for
service from being generated by the public. Lastly, we need to do more to proactively support
our immigrant and refugee population. We need to hire someone from within this community
to help perform outreach and help those that are new to our country and our community. This
person would work both ways, educating our residents and educating our officers. We need to
build these bridges, and in my mind, we need to hire from within the community in order to do
so effectively. So the third recommendation is to create a half-time permanent civilian
community outreach assistant position that focuses solely on outreach and engagement with
Iowa City's growing immigrant and refugee population. As we move along the spectrum now,
I'm gonna talk about diversion... recognizing that we can't prevent all calls for crisis. Our next
priority should be to safely divert as many as possible, many calls as possible away from law
enforcement. If an officer doesn't need to respond, then let's not respond. Uh, we are blessed in
Johnson County to already have a 24/7, 365 mobile crisis response team that operates as part of
CommUnity Crisis Services. It's fully accredited operation and in 2019 they responded to 551
calls in Iowa City alone. The mobile crisis is staffed by full-time employees in a central office,
Monday through Friday from 8:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. Outside of these hours, the service is
staffed by on-call counselors who are dispatched from a decentralized location and then
mobilize with the teammate before responding. Thus response times during on-call, uh, hours
lag behind those during staffed office hour ...uh, staffed office hours. The mobile crisis team
averaged 38 minutes for a response time within Johnson County and 27 minutes inside of Iowa
City. The program has a very impressive 85% diversion rate. Uh, that means those are the
clients that are diverted, um, if...if the counselors are able to stabilize them at home or connect
them with resources without having to rely on an emergency room or jail. So while we're
blessed with this service, I ... I think it's safe to say that 90 plus percent of our population doesn't
even know it exists. Thus the recommendation for really gets at the City taking an active role in
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promoting the mobile crisis service. We have a platform as a city government and we need to
use it to promote the service that exists to the community. So promoting it is important, but we
have to plan for expanding it as well, especially if we warm see them take on a higher
percentage of calls. This is a bit more complex as it's currently a countywide service. Thus
we're gonna need some regional cooperation in order to do this right. The good news is there's
a blueprint for that type of collaboration. It's the GuideLink Center. In that case, the County
took the lead and made it happen with contributions from local governments. Uh, in this case I
think it's our tum to take the lead and see if we can work with CommUnity to get this expanded,
uh, throughout Johnson County. The sixth recommendation is to convene stakeholders from the
Mental Health Region, CommUnity Mobile Crisis Team, and the Joint Emergency
Communication Center staff and Board to discuss integration of mobile crisis services into the
dispatch process. Uh, mobile crisis is currently dispatched by mental health—by the Mental
Health Region. It's not integrated into our 9-1-1 system. So why is this important? Nearly
every single person at a very young age knows how to dial 9-1-1, but how many of us can recite
the 1-800 crisis number? How many people are gonna take time to End that number in a crisis?
Now in July of 2022 we expect the recently approved national 9-8-8 crisis line will take effect
and that will help, but we should still pursue 9-1-1 integration and train our dispatchers to be
able to determine if calls can be safely diverted, uh, to mobile crisis. This is again as a regional
question and not one that Iowa City can unilaterally answer. Thus we need to be conveners and
facilitate this action. Outside of mobile crisis, we have a few other options to consider under the
divert category. Iowa City Police Department has three civilian community service officers.
Most recognize them by the white pickup trucks that they drive. These individuals perform a
variety of tasks both internal to the PD and external to the community. Externally they help
with traffic control, removing road hazards, enforcing parking, and a whole lot more. In 2009
they responded to more than 4,400 calls for service. While their capacity is maxed out now, we
should really look at, uh, whether this model can be exta... expanded. And that's the
recommendation seven. Lastly, uh, Councilors have suggested revisiting the topic of automated
traffic enforcement desi... uh, devices. This was actually recommended by the police
department back in 2011 and was approved by the Council in 2012. However, before
implementation, there was a citizen initiative opposing ATEs, and in 2013 the Council reversed
course and explicitly banned such devices in our code. These traffic enforcement devices are a
significant point of contention in the cities that use them and can be very polarizing. This is
candidly not something I'm very excited about, but if the Council wants to go down this path,
you should have some in-depth conversations and make sure that there's a political will to do so.
So number eight is that the City Council should determine if you wish to revisit the concept of
ATEs, and if the technology is something that you want to explore, you need to provide staff
direction so that we can gather the information that will be helpful to you as you make your, uh,
decisions. While prevention and diversion of calls should be a priority for the community, there
will continue to be a large volume of calls for service for which a civilian response team is not
comfortable or safe responding to. These instances could incur situations involving weapons,
persons with a known history of violence, or other similar factors that become apparent through
the dispatch process. For some of these calls it'll be possible to respond with a co -responding
pair, which would include one law enforcement officer and one civilian mental health
professional. The role of the officer, often in plainclothes, is to ensure safety, while maximizing
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opportunities for the crisis preven ... professional to interact with the individual. This fall City
staff joined Johnson County Jail Alternative staff and CommUnity Crisis Services in
successfully applying for a grant from the East Central Mental Health Region. With this grant,
the Mental Health Region will fund a civilian co -responder position to be employed by
CommUnity, um ... there ... within their mobile crisis unit, and this funding commitment includes
100% of the personnel costs in year one, and that steps down to 75% in year two, 50% in year
three, and 25% in years four and beyond, and while the position will be employed outside of the
department with CommUnity, the police department will pay a portion of the salary that is not
covered under the grant. The City s in discussion with, uh, the Mental Health Region,
CommUnity Crisis Services, and Foundation 2, which is a well respected crisis response non-
profit in Linn County, about how the program will be structured. Foundation 2 brings great
expertise to the table as they have a similar successful program with the Cedar Rapids Police
Department. Their guidance, training, and expertise will help ensure the co -responding
partnership finds success here in Iowa City. So once we have some of the memorandums of
understanding established, the City Council will be presented with more information and asked
to formally commit to this program. The benefits of a co -responding program go far beyond the
outcomes of individual calls for service. Other law enforcement agencies who have adopted
this model have found that the positions presence within the department increases overall
awareness of mobile crisis, uh, services and increases the number of referrals made by law
enforcement. Uh, the presence of the program can also positively influence officer discretion
over time. That civilian position can play a role in training officers de-escalation techniques,
and educating the community about prevention resources and diversion opportunities. Uh,
lastly, this model is very easy to expand if it's desired in the future, and such expansion will be
needed if we wanna ensure that there's a co -responder team available at all times, uh, around the
clock. Despite all the efforts to prevent, divert, and even co -respond, there's gonna be calls for
service that require law enforcement to assume control of the scene. Uh, such calls include
volatile situations when public safety is clearly a concern, or when a co -responder team or
mobile crisis unit isn't available to handle a call in a timely manner. In these situations the City
needs to continue to ensure that officers have proper training and are focused on securing, uh, a
safe scene and de-escalating the immediate threat or crisis. After the scene is stabilized, the
officers need to have resources available, other than the jail and the emergency rooms to
connect individuals to receive the proper follow up care. Um, item 10, uh, then, uh,
recommendation 10, is that the PD should continue to ensure that all officers receive the,
um ... uh, initial crisis intervention training and subsequent continuing education, uh, in de-
escalation techniques, and the department shall continue to encourage personnel to obtain CIT
instructor certification. And this is an important commitment. The investment in CIT has
absolutely elevated the service that we provide to the community. Our investments in CIT have
brought, uh, great state and national recognition, and our CIT certified trainers have been asked
to present at statewide and national conferences about the positive experiences that we've seen
here in Iowa City. Recommendation number 11 is that the, uh, police department should
partner with the Iowa Department of Public Health to begin carrying NARCAN to better assist
those experiencing an op ... opid... opioid overdose, when no medical professional's on scene to
assume such care. We're oftentimes the first on scene, uh, for a call for services and officers do
everything they can to stabilize situations and provide care for those victims that may be in
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crisis. Um, NARCAN is an opioid antagonist that can quickly counter the effects of an
overdose. It was designed for use by first responders and caregivers, and requires no formal
medical training to dispense. Timely use of NARCAN can save lives and allow medical
professionals who may arrive to the scene later than the police more time to properly care for a
person in crisis. Recommendation 12 involves a new online reporting tool called CARE. The
Iowa City Police Department through, uh, the work of the data -driven ... data -driven justice
initiative has helped provide feedback, uh, informing the development of this tool, and it will
allow the department to better understand the number and types of calls for service, uh, crisis
calls for service, the disposition of those calls, effective techniques to resolve those calls, and
determine if the training that we receive is consistent with the types of calls that we're actually
receiving. In addition, the system can automate the referral process. So local service providers
can quickly and easily make connections with individuals who may benefit from their services.
We've talked a lot about the GuideLink Center in recent months, uh, but for the public's sake,
this is a huge benefit that it's gonna be opening its doors in February of 2021. It will provide
law enforcement a much needed third option beyond the jail and emergency room for people
who may need some type of proa ... professional assistance with a crisis or substance abuse issue.
The facility will enhance services to those in need in a non -punitive manner and provide the
best opportunity for someone in crisis, um, to access those services, uh, both in the short and
long-term. Uh, we have to maximize the use of this facility and we have to make sure that
we're actively engaged in sharing feedback and helping shape future planning. So 13 is that the
police chief should designate a command staff team to analyze the department's usage of
GuideLink Center, and actively participate in ongoing intergovernmental evaluation and
planning efforts to explore how the facility can best meet the changing needs of our community
over time. Council was gracious enough to approve our first permanent full-time victim
services coordinator position a few months ago. This position will play a critical role in helping
victims navigate the criminal justice system and connecting them with community partners who
can help them recover from the trauma that they've experienced. This position is a huge key in
making sure that the entire department maintains strong relationships with those non-profit
service providers. So 14 is that that victim service coordinator position should engage in
regular meetings with those local service providers for the purpose of continuing... continually
evaluating how our police department can best utilize the professionals in those organizations to
support victims experiencing trauma in crisis. So we're gonna shift gears now from a focus on
those crisis calls, uh, to a deeper focused on unbiased policing. I wanna start by talking about
training. The Iowa Law Enforcement Academy provides the training foundation for all officers
in the state of Iowa. Uh, there, uh, has ... there's several functional areas of basic training that
total over 600 hours for each officer. Well ILEA trains in topics such as unbiased policing, race
relations, ethics and professionalism, verbal defense and influence, and a whole lot more,
overall it's a small percentage of a training that a ... that a new officer receives. The City of Iowa
City does not have control over the basic training curriculum, but it does have control over our
local field training program. The field training program is designed to take, um, our
probationary officers out of the academy and help them make the transition from kind of a
classroom environment to the application of learned skills in field situations. It's a minimum of
six weeks, but could be longer if it's determined that more training is needed. The current field
training program requires probationary officers to review departmental policies, such as those
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on racial profiling and unbiased policing. However, the process should be modified moving
forward to dedicate intentional and meaningful training time and resources towards ensuring all
officers, uh, have an understanding of the history of policing, past and ongoing disproportionate
impacts on minority communities, and steps that they can take in their daily duties to be
unbiased and anti -racist. Additionally, the field training program should provide additional
training on crisis intervention, de-escalation, and the availability of mobile crisis and other
prevention and diversion options in the community. So item 15 gets at that comprehensive
review of our field training program, figuring out who we can partner with to really drive home
those ... those core values that this plan speaks to. The focus on duty to intervene has been
elevated this year. We created a new general order and we signed a memorandum of
understanding with other law enforcement agencies. But creating policy and creating culture
are two different tasks. We have to make sure our officers are comfortable and non- hesitant
when it comes to intervening to stop unacceptable behavior from law enforcement peers. One
of the premier bystander intervention programs in the country is run through Georgetown
University, and thus, uh, recommendation 16 is that we should actively pursue the Georgetown
Innovative Policing Program's Active Bystander for Law Enforcement, or ABLE training, with
the goal of preparing officers to intervene to prevent harm and create a culture of peer
intervention. While, uh, training with statewide and national subject matter experts will always
be important, it's increasingly important that the police department seek local training through
partnerships with community organizations and groups. In the past, the police department has
done a good job partnering with social service agencies and groups like the NAACP on
community -led trainings. However, these efforts can and should be expanded in the coming
years. These locally -led training opportunities can be incredibly impactful as a community, uh,
as a community can describe lived experiences and facilitate open, respectful dialogue with
officers in a way that builds understanding, humanizes issues, and quickly influences change.
From training we're gonna look at department policy and city code. Iowa City is one of 10
police agencies in Iowa and only 4% nationwide that are accredited. This process requires that
you are constantly reviewing policies and monitoring compliance on a daily basis. Currently
accreditation efforts are managed by a sworn sergeant within the police department. Long-term,
I think these duties may be best suited for a civilian position that would bring a law ...a non -aw
enforcement perspective to policy development and compliance review efforts, and that's
recommendation 18. As part of the CALEA process, we're gonna be updating 36 general orders
in the next 12 months. It's been a long- standing practice that all general order changes get
routed to the Community Police Review Board for comment. As we move forward with that
this, uh, next year, we need to apply the tools that we have learned with our racial equity efforts
and include some type of racial impact statement with every policy update that we perform, and
this will help facilitate more conversation with the CPRB and community, and make sure that
we're intentionally giving this thought with each policy update. Recommendation 20, uh, can
happen later tonight. That, uh, is the final adoption of your unbiased policing ordinance that is
on your agenda tonight. In October of 2020, our interim police chief issued new guidelines to
all officers for traffic stops. The new measure acknowledges disparities in stops and outcomes,
and notes the societal cost of such disparities. These costs ultimately inhibit our ability to
achieve our mission to partner with the entire community. The new guidelines provide clear
direction to officers to focus traffic enforcement solely on issues of driver and public safety.
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The desired outcome is for the public to view traffic enforcement solely as an effort to help
ensure the safety of the public and not as a punitive action for non -safety related issues. The
intent to follow in the traffic stop guideline is also consistent with the overall goal of
eliminating any occurrence of bias -based policing practices. These guidelines were issued with
the scheduled review by the police chief after 60 days, and recommendation 21 is that we make
those, um ... uh, new policies permanent, uh, after that, uh, after that, uh, review period. In the
fiscal year 2019 budget, the City set aside funds to expand public safety cameras into the
pedestrian mall. The infrastructure portion of this project was completed with the ped mall
rehabilitation project that took place in 2019. The City now needs to install the cameras and
adopt the policy that's gonna govern their use. The City has circulated an initial draft policy to
the American Civil Liberties Union and is working through the comments that they, uh,
provided for us before we finalize the document. The public safety camera network is intended
for investigations of serious crimes. It is not intended for use as a surveillance tool. Over the
years the department has seen a number of significant public safety issues downtown that has
required hundreds and hundreds of hours of investigator ...investigatory work. Such incidents
include shootings, hate crimes, sexual assaults, and seriously injured persons. Without a camera
system the department utilizes investigators to try to identify witnesses and provide, uh,
private ... and identify private video sources. This limits the department's success rate in quickly
resolving the crines and bringing the answers and justice to the victims. It also heightens the
risk that a criminal may repeat an offense and further victimize additional people. The City
appreciates that there'll be public sensitivity to the cameras that cover public spaces. The
development of a strict usage policy will help ensure that the cameras are not used for live
monitoring, unless there is an active public safety emergency, such as a fire or an active shooter
situation. The policy will be presented to Council and the court ... so the corresponding intent,
uh, is ... is known, and the use is transparent and speaks to the goals of solving crimes and
assisting victims. And that's, uh, recommendation 22. Twenty-three and 24, um ... uh, speak to,
um, our working relationship with the Community Police Review Board and the Human Rights
Commission. I see a lot of opportunity here. In the case of the CPRB it's important that they
remain independent, but its also important that they feel supported by the department. This can
be done through regular communication and enhanced transparency. The recommendation
reads that the police department should renew its commitment to the Community Police Review
Board through regular police chief updates, staff introductions, frequent policy reviews,
enhanced use of force reporting, body cam compliance reporting, and a more extensive board
member orientation and internal investigations training. The Iowa City Police Department
historically has not been involved with the Human Rights Commission. The Commission not
only consists of very diverse Iowa Citians, but their mission focuses on ensuring that all
residents know their rights and have equitable opportunities. A closer relationship with the
HRC, uh, will provide unique opportunities for the police department to build a better
understanding and build relationships with the diverse subsets of our community. Uh, item 24
is that the police department should assign a liaison to the Human Rights Commission and
actively participate in community education, recognition, and outreach events in order to build,
uh, more understanding and connections with the diverse populations in our community.
Council recently adopted its 2021 legislative priorities. Those included items such as
decriminalization of marijuana, support for the Governor's Focus Committee, uh, support for
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specialty courts, and more. And it's imperative that we work with our partners, including other
cities and groups like the NAACP, to advocate for change and lead by example when possible.
That's item, uh, 25. One, uh, one thing that's not included in our priorities, but was something,
uh, something that needs statewide attention is the topic of race -based calls to law enforcement.
This topic was discussed at length at your last City Council listening posts. It involves the all
too frequent occurrence of the public calling 9-1-1 to report suspicious behavior of minority
individuals. These calls often prove to be baseless with race playing a (mumbled) a motivating
factor. An example can be someone recording suspicious behavior of three unknown black
males walking down their street or hanging out in a neighborhood park. These calls put our
officers in difficult positions as they must respond, but the report that they, uh, receive lacks
any, uh, note of illegal behavior to warrant making contact with those individuals. A lawful
prohibition on race -based calls would need to occur at the State government level. Thus we
need to explore this concept more and at a minimum, uh, undertake a public awareness
campaign in our community to bring more attention to this issue. Earlier I mentioned a few
ways the police department can bolster the Community Police Review Board. In a few weeks,
the ... the Board members themselves will present you with recommendations. However, one
concept that I think is very worthy of exploration is a countywide community police review
board. Currently Iowa City and, uh, University Heights are the only two communities in the
state of Iowa with a ... with a Community Police Review Board. In the ... in the wake of renewed
national focus on policing, it's expected that other communities, both locally and across the
state, will adopt, uh, similar civilian oversight boards, and while this is encouraging, it could
also prove to be confusing and inefficient for our residents, who often do not know the
jurisdictional boundaries of the communities or understand the difference in governance
structures. In Johnson County alone, there's four municipal law enforcement agencies, in
addition to the University of Iowa Department and the Johnson County Sheriffs Office. One
can begin to imagine that if there were similar number of oversight boards, all with unique
policies and procedures, it could make navigating the complaint process more confusing and
difficult. In addition to removing barriers for the public, a regional civilian oversight board
could help achieve many other goals. A regional board could allow external law enforcement
agencies to conduct additional investigations, as opposed to having the department that is the
subject of the complaint complete that initial investigation. Um, for an affordable cost, uh, to
ea ... each agency an independent staff person could be hired and assist the complainants and
monitor the investigatory, uh, processes. The same person could also effectively lead public
education efforts. And so I believe this is something, uh, that ... that requires further review and
that ... and the recommendation is for the Council to take the lead on that discussion with your
elected peers to see if there's mutual interest. Recruitment, shifting gears to recruitment. Uh,
it's ... it's been a huge focus of the department for the last several years. Uh, we've made
measurable progress on increasing the diversity of our department, but only so much progress
can be made with traditional approaches. And I'm personally interested in exploring an Iowa
City based public safety apprenticeship program that could ... help remove more barriers to
successful application. This recommendation reads that the City shall explore the creation of a
local public safety apprenticeship program to bolster efforts to increase the number and
diversity of applicants for a wide variety of public safety positions, including police officers,
firefighters, and even some public works positions. The program would pay a stipend to
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participants who would learn critical skills and perform limited duties and community service.
Now there are some State requirements that are fairly rigid and we've seen the disproportionate,
uh, we ... we've seen a disproportionate portion of our minority applicants fall off during, uh, the
written exam and the physical testing components of the police hiring process. So we need to
be more aggressive with our support programs, such as study sessions and physical training
programs, and that's recommendation 29, is to really build support systems that can help our
applicants through those stages of the hiring process. We have high expectations for our
officers and the community's expectations are gonna continue to grow, and that can be healthy
and help us improve our service levels. However, if you wanna set the bar at its highest point,
you have to show strong support and invest in the people performing the work. In my view, a
police officer is the most difficult job in local government. Officers have to be on top of their
game at all times. Officers experiencing their own trauma and crisis from work-related
experiences are not able to perform at their peak and may be more prone to making poor
decisions in the field. Making sure all officers get the support they need to work through stress
will translate to higher performance and better decision making on the streets. In recent years,
the department created a peer support team. This team of sworn and civilian employees
provides confidential assistance and outreach to personnel, as well as their families, who may
be experiencing personal or professional crisis. If these problems are identified at an early
stage, they're more likely to be successfully treated or resolved. There are times when
professional help is needed, and we need to remove barriers and encourage use of professional
assistance when we can. One increasingly popular therapy with first responders is eye -
movement desensitili... desensitization, uh, reprocessing or EMDR, and that's a ... a therapeutic
approach for dealing with distressing memories. Uh, and those certified professionals can help
officers process negative memories associated with their work and help them move forward
with comfort in continuing to serve the public in their policing role. So number, uh, 30 is to
seek partnerships with EMDR-certified professionals and cover the expense for the initial
officer consultations in order to reduce barriers to this service and ensure officers have needed,
uh, resources to process distressing memories and perform, uh, to the best of their abilities.
Iowa City police officers have a strong ethic towards community service. As a group, they
collectively support local charities throughout the year. Individually officers have been known
to personally assist the people that they come across in their ...in their daily duties. Many also
volunteer and contribute to the community through service on non-profit boards, local schools,
and extracurricular youth activities. The benefits of community service go well beyond the
individual active volunteering. In high stress work, such as a police officer, that volunteer... that
volunteerism can help keep officers grounded and relieve anxiety, while simultaneously
building important connections in the community. And 31 is ... is an encouragement that the City
explore a pilot program that requires officers to spend a portion of their shift time volunteering
with an Iowa City based non-profit, um, or working towards a community service project at all
time ... uh.... uh... throughout the... throughout the year. I think a program like this, uh, if
structured correctly, could have a significant positive impact on individual job performance,
while also helping build important bridges, uh, in our community. The last five
recommendations fall into a public data and communications heading. Uh, it's clear to me that
we need, uh, more time dedicated to preparing timely, uh, information about our operations and
trends in the community. We currently rely on ... on sworn positions to handle that work, and I
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think we would benefit tremendously from a, uh, professionally trained communications
position. I suggest that this civilian ... that this be a civilian position outside of the department,
within the City Manager's office. This position could also assist the fire department, which has
a similar lack of dedicated resources to public communications. So 32 is that a public safety
communications position be created in the City Manager's office, with a focus on improving
transparency, responsiveness, and proactive messaging with the community, and it's clear to me
that we got a lotta work to do on our ...on our, uh, department website. We do share quite a bit
of information. All of our general orders are on the website. We have other good information
on the site, but it's not always well organized or clearly communicated in a way that the public
can easily understand. So 33 gets at that ... is ... is, uh, with the adoption of the final plan is to
really restructure and rebuild that website around the content of the plan and make sure that we
are very clear and very transparent about, uh, the work that we do and, uh, the impact that we
have on the community. In addition to ensuring the website has up to date operations, the
department should explore participation in public data portals that are aimed to enhance a
greater understanding and accountability of law enforcement. One such portal is the Police
Data Initiative. This is a national effort that n ... right now has over 130 law enforcement
agencies participating. There are no participating agencies in the state of Iowa. How these
public portals, uh, not only promote transparency and accountability, but they can also assist
critical research in the industry and facilitate the sharing of best practices that improve, uh,
operations for all the participating agencies. As I mentioned in my introduction, I wanted to
make sure that this preliminary plan did not close the doors on ... on conversations about
policing, and my last two recommendations are designed to keep these conversations alive, past
the final adoption of the plan. Thirty-five is that beginning in 2021 the department should begin
quarterly town hall style listening posts with the public at alternating locations throughout the
community. So it was really inspired by your listening posts that you conducted this fall and I
think that should continue. And I think the department can take the lead on that. Thirty-six is
that we reconvene the City Managers round table in 2021. It's been on hiatus since the
pandemic and initiate a review of the leadership conference on civil and human rights 2019
report entitled A New Era of Public Safety, a Guide to Fair, Safe and Effective Community
Policing. This report was shared to me by the Iowa Nebraska NAACP and really helped
my...shape my thinking on ... on this plan and in our department. I would urge you all to read the
document and anyone in the public that cares about this issue at all to ... to read this document. I
think it could be an excellent conversation facilitator with our ...our City Managers round table
group and likely lead to more ideas on things that we can do to constantly improve our services.
With those 36 recommendations of mine, I wanna give you a preview of what to expect with the
department budget submittal for ...for next year. As I previously noted the department budget
hasn't grown considerably in the last decade. The average annual increase was 3.6%. Um, next
year's budget proposal will come in below that average annual amount. It will be less than
3.6%, but it's also going to invest in some key areas of this plan, and those include that
homeless outreach position partnership with the Shelter House, the co -responder position, uh,
partnership with CommUnity and Foundation 2, the civilian outreach staff focused on
immigrant and refugee populations, and the civilian public safety communications specialist
position that'll be located outside of the police department. There's also dollars to continue
investment in the data -driven Justice Initiative, even though that that grant has now closed. Uh,
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and, uh, importantly, I think, in the time that we're in, there's also no new fees or taxes proposed
to support those elements of the plan. I've looked at our staffing levels and service capabilities
and I really strongly advocate for keeping the sworn, uh, the same number of sworn employees.
If you can't have that full complement of 84 positions, I think you will see us fail to keep up
with some of the criminal activity we've seen in recent years. We'll see the department struggle
to maintain community policing roles, because our officers are gonna be tied to calls from
service from the public. We're not gonna have that time for that proactive work that's done so
well for us these last few years. Our overtime numbers are going to increase, and I think we're
gonna bum out our ...our staff, our officers, and this leads to a higher risk of poor decision
making on the streets and an inability to maintain our very best and most experienced staff. I'm
gonna end by saying, again, we have a great department. I firmly believe we have a strong
foundation that sits well ahead of most other departments in this country. We're poised to be
leaders, but that leadership requires trust from the top and permission to purzo... permission to
pursue whatever vision that you set forward with the final plan. So it's now in the City
Council's hands to establish that vision and the expectations, and once you do, uh, so I ask that
you give us strong support and ample resources needed to execute the plan. It's important that
you dive deep into this plan, don't just focus on the recommendations or my overview tonight.
Read the intent behind them, understand our history and where we've been, pursue community
feedback, uh, take as much time as you need to get this view... feedback. We will support this
effort. Listed on the slide are some of the avenues we'll pursue to garner feedback, um, but you
should, uh, do everything you can, uh, to get folks to provide you input on this. For the public,
you can check out icgov.org/preliminaryplan. There's a survey on that site that covers all 36
recommendations and you can also send comments to policeplan@Iowa-City.org. We'll
compile all that information that we get electronically and present that to Council when it
comes time for final deliberations on this document. So thank you for the extra time. I realize
I'm a little bit, uh, little bit long, uh, but I appreciate the opportunity that you've afforded me to
present you with these recommendations.
Teague: City Manager, Geoff, thank you for that, um, walking us through a ... a ... actually a very brief
overview of what has been ... what is bein' suggested for a preliminary plan. Councilors, of
course, we don't have enough, uh, enough time before our formal meeting to deliberate or to
even talk about this item, and I ... I feel it does need due justice. Um, we shouldn't fly through
comments just to, um, kind of end our time here today. What ,... what I wanted to get
some ... maybe some feedback on what Councilors are thinkin'. Do we wanna come back after
the formal meeting and just touch base and, uh, about... cause this is pretty important, or do we
wanna wait until our next agenda in our work session..., uh, to discuss, um, after we have spent
considerable... considerable amount of time digesting the information, thinkin' about the
information. Um .... so I wanted to get people thoughts there. We can certainly come back, you
know, after this time together and reconvene the work session.
Mims: I would suggest that if we do anything tonight it is just very, very brief limited comments, um,
and (mumbled) work session. I know we've got our budget meetings in January, but give
us ... give ourselves more time, as you said, Mayor, and as the City Manager did, to make sure
we really go through it in detail and ... and have the opportunity for more detailed discussion.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of
December 15, 2020.
Page 27
Teague: I think for me personally, um, I know this has been a long awaited thing for the ... for not only
us, but the community. Um, so I know there is some act ... you know, there ... there were some
hopes and expectation that actually Council would speak, but given the breadth of all of this, I
believe that it is, um, for me personally, wise to walk away ...and digest, understand, ass
questions, um, have conversations with people in the community, uh, that has been fully on
board or, uh, you know, indulged in conversations relatin' to this. So that would be my
recommendation personally. All right, it seemed that we have a, um, a majority saying yes,
we're going to wait and put this on our next work session, and well have a line item on the next
work session so that we can be sure to carve our time to talk about this item. Since we are, um,
really at the end of our time here today. Um, is there anything that anyone wants to mention
before we end and reconvene at 7:00 P.M. for our formal meeting? Yes. All right, so we're
gonna convene and I think you know, Geoff, one to say thank you for all the work that you put
into this. Um, I know I ... over ...I've been a Councilor since 2018, and I've come to know you
very well, in my opinion, and I know that this was somethin' that you really put, uh, great
thought and intent into. Not sayin' that it's, um, gonna all be gravy and accepted, and you
already know that. But I wanna say thank you for your efforts. It means a lot to me. So thank
you. And I know it means a lot to all of our Councilors and to the people in Iowa City. So
thank you for that. We're gonna convene, we're gonna be back at 7:00 P.M. Remember that
there is a formal meeting agenda Zoom link that we have to sign back into. We'll see you at
7:00!
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session
December 15, 2020.