MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
AGENDA
JULY 12, 2006
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Key Issues Work Session........................................................................................................ 1
Temporary Relocation of Medical Examiner Vehicle..................................................... 1
Health and Human Services Building........................................................................... 2
SEATS Building......................................................................................................... 3
Law Enforcement Center............................................................................................ 4
Johnson County’s Plan For Use of SILO Revenue........................................................ 8
Meetings Between Supervisors and Cities To Discuss Issues....................................... 10
Keg Ordinance......................................................................................................... 11
Animal Control Shelter Agreement............................................................................. 11
Internal Processes.................................................................................................... 13
Chairperson Lehman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:00 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
Lehman said that the Medical Examiner Administrator Mike Hensch wants to relocate his vehicle to the former Community Motors Building. Stutsman said that the Medical Examiner needs to make sure that the car isn’t frozen when they need it in emergency situations. Facilities Director David Kempf said the Examiner needs to have 24-hour access to the vehicle but that the location isn’t that important. Kempf said the Examiner would prefer the vehicle to be indoors but it wouldn’t have to be. The two places that Kempf comes to are Secondary Roads and Capitol Street at the storage building. Harney said that the vehicle is higher than most vehicles and so needs a higher location. Kempf said that the ceiling in the Fisher Building isn’t high enough. Stutsman said that Hensch has done some investigation and has located some space at the Juvenile Court Offices. She said that the issue is renting that space. She was wondering why they would rent the space when they might have some already available. She noted that Hensch also needs a little storage space. R. Sullivan said that Secondary Roads shuts the gates at a certain time and wondered if this would be a problem. Kempf said that the Medical Examiner would need to have 24-hour access to the vehicle. R. Sullivan said the storage building on Capitol Street also has limited access because of all the documents. Kempf said that the building has a keypad on it.
Harney asked if all the investigators need to have access or just Hensch. M. Sullivan said that during the evenings, whoever is on call would need to have access. Lehman asked if space can made on Capitol Street. Kempf thought that maybe space could be made, but they also have boats and bomb squad vehicles to store. Stutsman said that they should give Kempf some direction about storing this vehicle in this space. Stutsman said that there had been some confusion about the building and who has jurisdiction over it. She said she checked with County Attorney J. Patrick White who said that the Board of Supervisors has jurisdiction over it. Lehman said that County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek might say that he needs space somewhere else if the Examiner uses space at Capitol Street. R. Sullivan said that there might be a vehicle that doesn’t get used often that they could move. Kempf said that when vehicles are impounded, that is where they go. Lehman said that they could check what property they own at Capital Street to see if they can do an add-on. Stutsman said that according to White, they have used their last storage space there, so they will need more space in the near future for storing records. Kempf said he wasn’t aware of that.
Kempf said that he would look at the Carquest building and also speak with the Sheriff. Stutsman explained that from the taxpayer’s point of view, it doesn’t make sense that they are renting space when there is space available already. Harney asked about the Fisher Building and if the clerk’s records can be discarded. Kempf said he isn’t sure. Lehman and R. Sullivan suggested that they give Kempf a month to look at options, and then he could report back to the Board of Supervisors at the next Key Issues Meeting. Kempf said that in the meantime, the Examiner can park outside of the Administration Building.
Kempf asked if the Board wanted to know more about the lease-to-own funding option for the Health and Human Services Building. He said that cities have used this, and they are still investigating if any counties have used this. Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan said they have a working group on this, and has asked all the auditors in the County to see if they know anything about this. He said that Coralville did the same thing with the hotel, and Johnson County has a copy of that lease for Assistant County Attorney Andy Chappell to look at. He figured there is nothing that would prohibit the County from pursuing this option. M. Sullivan said he thought this is a viable option for the County budget, but they do not want to continue to pursue this option if the Board is not interested. Lehman suggested they talk about this at the work session on July 14, 2006. M. Sullivan said they did a space assessment study, but need to talk about this more at length, regarding who is going to be moved and how much space they need.
Stutsman asked Kempf if he had been contacted by the historical group about the house. Kempf said no, not other than the initial contact. R. Sullivan asked if they wanted to invite Public Health Director Ralph Wilmoth, Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Elaine Sweet and others to attend the Health and Human Services Building work session on July 14, 2006. M. Sullivan said that would be nice. The Board agreed that they could. Lehman said that the goal is to develop a timeline. Kempf said the Needs Assessment has already been done. Kempf thought the big questions are about the lease-to-own option, and the allocation of the building space, that is, whom they want to be included in the building. Stutsman said that she is worried about traffic flow problems not only with vehicles but with individuals. Kempf said that is something that would be addressed with the programming of the building. There are several functions within this building that need to stay within close proximity of each other, while there are others like Information Services that could be relocated into a new facility, explained Kempf. R. Sullivan said that the new building will have to have a good-sized conference room and wondered if that should be a place where they have Board meetings. Many times the current Boardroom is overflowing and people cannot hear or see. This could be an opportunity to use the new space for a Board room, said R. Sullivan. He thought that might change the way they design it. Kempf said he has taken for granted the 60,000 square-foot building envelope that will allow them to have some fairly substantial meeting space that could be divided up into several meeting spaces. He said if they wanted to use the space for the regular Board meetings, they could design it for that. Or, if they wanted to have the space available for meetings that are going to have the potential for large attendance, they can do that as well.
Harney noted that they need to look at if they are going to put walkway between the buildings and the obvious place would be by the elevator. Kempf said that one of the things that they batted around is a skywalk coming into the City Assessor’s area lining up with the hallway outside the boardroom. The vision is one large, common break room space in the new building that would allow them to take the break room space at the Administration Building and convert it into a more usable space. Stutsman suggested that if they are going to talk about this on Friday morning, they should perhaps move on. She thought that the first thing they need to decide is about the lease. She would like a fairly detailed explanation of this. Neuzil said that what is going to be in that building should be a decision made by Kempf and a small group of people. Kempf said that the programming group will decide how everything will interrelate within the building. They just need to know whom to include in that mix. If the Board wants him to look at relocating people out of the Administration Building to free up space, he needs to know that. M. Sullivan explained that the original Space Needs Assessment was based on the departments that were going into the new building, but since that time, there has been discussion about adding more people to that. M. Sullivan was thinking that they need to add to the program. R. Sullivan asked if those are the only two things that M. Sullivan and Kempf wants the Board to consider before Friday: what departments are going in the new building and the funding. Kempf said that the lease-to-own option is a main focus. M. Sullivan said that they are ready to move with that idea if the Board wants.
Stutsman said that they are waiting to hear back from Coralville’s Bonding Attorney to work out the details of the SEATS Building agreement. She said that White and Chappell are on board. Kempf said that as soon as they know for sure, then they can do an RFP to get a facility. Harney said he thinks that White’s concerns have been cleared up, so they are just waiting for the other attorney to get the right paper work for the Johnson County Attorneys to review. Neuzil said that they were looking into getting Federal dollars. Kempf said that it is very possible that they can take the Federal dollars and use them toward the garage facility, which will be the structure that will actually house the SEATS vehicles. They can use a combination of the other monies to go toward the office structure and possibly the garage structure. Neuzil said that the office structure would include SEATS, Secondary Roads, and possibly Planning and Zoning. Kempf said there will also be a space for Information Services back-up servers. R. Sullivan asked where the extra storage will be. Kempf responded that it will be incorporated into the garage facility. He envisioned the garage facility as being very similar to what they have down on Capitol Street, where they have the parking storage and the rotunda storage up above. Neuzil said that they talked a little about Planning and Zoning, but if there is enough room in this building, then moving them wouldn’t be necessary. They need to think about where they might want Planning and Zoning in 25 years. Kempf said that goes back to the question of the Board thinking about whom they want where. Neuzil stated that they should be thinking that the building should last for at least 25 years minimum. Lehman noted that he and Neuzil, as liaisons to County Engineer Greg Parker, looked around at possible locations. Parker has a wash building there now that would need to be relocated. He would need the wash station, as would SEATS, said Lehman. Harney said that the realistically, Planning and Zoning isn’t really a fit out at Secondary Roads because of their interaction with the Auditor and the Assessor. They would be spending a lot of time driving back and forth. Neuzil said it comes back to the 25-year question. Kempf said that is a discussion for the Board to have about the functioning of the County. Lehman said that the current SEATS facility lease will run through October 2007. Kempf said that this is the type of project that once they start, they can move with very quickly. He noted that SEATS Director Tom Brase and Parker feel the same way.
Lehman said that they have a Facilities Subcommittee Meeting at 4:00 p.m. M. Sullivan said that he has a draft RFQ for the site study of the GSA lots for the committee to review. Once they review it, M. Sullivan said he would finish it and bring it to the Board for approval. M. Sullivan said that the subcommittee is ready to meet, and the only site that is going to be evaluated is the one that is next to the Courthouse. R. Sullivan said he was under the impression that they were going to do two evaluations. Neuzil said that one of the sites dropped out. Harney said it didn’t drop out; it was that White didn’t think it was feasible at this time. R. Sullivan expressed frustration that they shouldn’t just say that other sites are not feasible just because White says that they aren’t. R. Sullivan said he thinks they need to look at a couple of spots. He noted that maybe White knows something that he doesn’t know, but he would like to see a study. Lehman said that the public is going to ask that same question. Stutsman agreed.
Neuzil said that the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee (CJCC) had an extensive discussion of this as well. At this point, all of the committee members said that they wanted to eliminate a location if it needed to be eliminated. M. Sullivan added that they knew the GSA site itself was the preferred site early on. Since that time, there are other options they are looking at. One of those properties was investigated, but there is no interest on the part of the owners to sell that property now or in the future. So, explained M. Sullivan, the CJCC met again recently and went back to the original discussion. R. Sullivan said that the assessment obviously needs to be done, but thinks it is important to assess more than one site, otherwise the public will feel like the location is being shoved down their throat. And this is part of why the public rejected the idea earlier. Neuzil said that no one is shoving anything; all they are doing is determining if this is a good site. Stutsman said that there should maybe be an assessment of two or three sites so that they have something to compare. They can say that these factors are the positives and these are the negatives of each location.
Kempf said that they had a list of 14 locations that they had identified around the County. He explained that he and Pulkabrek drove to each one of them and assessed the good and bad point of each one. The Facilities Subcommittee looked at all of those and narrowed the list down to three with the GSA lot rising to the surface each time. Kempf said that the owners of one location said that they have no interest in selling the property. That property has some aspects that would make it astronomically expensive and politically difficult for the County to entertain any condemnation opinions. R. Sullivan said that he would like to have a piece of paper that says the locations and then why each one won’t work. Lehman said that this is really important to put together for the public. R. Sullivan added that White saying no is not a good enough reason in his opinion. Neuzil said that if there are three members of the Board of Supervisors that think that this is not enough, M. Sullivan needs to know because he is going to be putting together an assessment. Harney said that the bottom line on that was that the Facilities Subcommittee and others have chosen this as their primary site, so they are moving ahead with this location.
R. Sullivan said that they really need to explain to people what else they looked at and why those locations worked or didn’t work. He noted that he is not saying that the committees are wrong; he is just saying that he doesn’t have enough information. Stutsman agreed. She said that the focus has always been the GSA location. They haven’t looked at the Secondary Roads location again where they had originally discussed building the jail. That is not anywhere on the table, she said. Lehman said that what R. Sullivan and Neuzil are going be expected to do is communicate chronologically how they came to this decision. Neuzil said that what the subcommittee needs to do is to make a report for the Board to give the pros and cons of the top three or four locations.
Stutsman asked about the costs for maintaining the current Courthouse. Neuzil said that the feedback from the judges and attorneys is that they would like to keep the facility local, preferably downtown. Stutsman said that they aren’t the ones who are paying the bills though. Harney said that they looked at locations by the Fairground, and Pulkabrek thinks it is great. R. Sullivan said that he only heard in passing that location would be looked at and never heard another word until right now. So, that is one of those things that he would like to see on paper. Stutsman said that they do have to take into account the opinion of judges and police, but, as a taxpayer, she wants to ask what they looked at financially and long-term. Neuzil said that if the Board wants the Courthouse to remain a courthouse, then, clearly the Criminal Justice Center needs to be located next to it. If they believe that the Courthouse is not going to be a courthouse in the next 25 years, then they should look into moving. Harney said he is for a full center because so many entities like Juvenile Justice and MECCA work with the Courthouse daily. If the Courthouse moves away, then they will all have to travel, said Harney. R. Sullivan said that Polk County just built a huge new jail and didn’t build a courthouse with it. Neuzil said that is right; they kept it separate. But, they have said all along that for Johnson County, they want this to be a combination center that would include court services and services for rehabilitation and services for holding prisoners.
Kempf said he thought that the Facilities Subcommittee was under the charge to make a recommendation of one or two sites and take that to the Board of Supervisors for consideration. At that time, the committee would explain why certain locations were dropped off the list and so on, thought Kempf. R. Sullivan said that several people have asked him about the property the County already owns near Chatham Oaks. He said he doesn’t know and would like to be able to say more than that. Kempf said that he has brought this up at the Jail Facilities Meeting and thinks that it should be considered, but there are people that have strong feelings against it. Stutsman said that isn’t enough to not look at the site.
Neuzil added that it comes back to if they want a Criminal Justice Center, then the only place that allows for continued use of the Courthouse and the Criminal Justice Center is to have it next to the original Courthouse. Or, he said, they could just build a separate jail instead of an all-encompassing facility. A jail could be in a lot of different places, Neuzil said. If they want to build a jail and Criminal Justice Center and not use the existing Courthouse, it could be in all kinds of places. Harney said that is what all the Criminal Justice Committees have gone through and they all want to keep the Center near the Courthouse. Stutsman said that seems like a subjective determination. That is, because it is convenient for “my” office, “I” want the facility to stay here by the Courthouse. Harney said that isn’t it. He said it is what is convenient for the public. He said if three members want to go out and move the facility to the County home, then that is fine. He said he doesn’t care; he just thinks they need to do something. R. Sullivan said the big thing is that it isn’t really their decision. It is the decision of whoever turns up at the polls. Harney suggested putting a ballot out there asking if people want a new courthouse, a new jail, or both. Harney said that they need to have something to present. R. Sullivan agreed that they need to have something to present but that it needs to be something that will fly. He said he doesn’t feel like enough discussion has happened with the other alternatives for people to say yes. Harney said that he was in favor of doing more than one site assessment, but it was voted down. Kempf said that they haven’t had another facilities meeting to discuss whether they want to add another place.
Stutsman suggested that the Board give direction that they want at least three sites evaluated. Harney asked if they want it evaluated as a simple jail or as a full justice center. Stutsman said that maybe they need to consider the first question of what are they going to do with the Courthouse. Are they going to continue to use a 150-year-old building as their main court facility? Or, are they going to seriously update what they have, asked Stutsman. Harney said that is part of what the study is. R. Sullivan said that the study of that site does not mean that that site has been chosen. Harney said exactly. If they feel it is costly, then they go elsewhere. Neuzil said that he has always believed that the Courthouse should remain the Courthouse. Lehman wondered if that is enough to give future voters enough positives about the Courthouse to sell them to the idea that other sites weren’t viable. Neuzil said no, and he thinks they should do apples to apples. If they are talking about a Criminal Justice Center, that is what they should look at. He imagined that the Facilities Committee would need to look at the Courthouse location and come to the Board of Supervisors and eliminate any of the other 14 potential locations. Or, if there are others that are reasonable, then they should look into them. For example, according to Neuzil, Pulkrabek has indicated to him that the County Fairgrounds could work. Lehman said that they need to either have a final report that considers all of this or have smaller reports along the way. Neuzil said exactly. He thought that the Facilities Committee needs to do that before they move forward on RFP’s. M. Sullivan said that the committee itself needs to make the determination; he won’t be able to. Kempf said that maybe the RFP needs to take those three sites and have them compared for a Criminal Justice Center. Or, if they choose to look at more than three, that is fine. They would all need to be compared as possible sites for a complete center. M. Sullivan said that it is imperative that they have all the information that they need to make a decision because once it comes down to the project beginning, it is absolutely imperative that the consensus of the Board is to go with it. Stutsman agreed.
Lehman said that the public needs to know what was considered along the way to make the decision. He explained that their community wants to know if the Board considered a certain location and why they didn’t choose it. Harney said then they have to evaluate all five sites. Kempf said that he thinks they can identify three main ones fairly easily. Harney said there might be four. Lehman said they can say that certain ones of the 14 weren’t looked at because they didn’t qualify on a certain point or two. Kempf said that one of the considerations needs to be what is the probability of acquiring the property. Is it a matter of writing a small check or having to go through the relocation of towers and so on. Lehman said then they have to make the difficult decision of weighing the size of a check to something like the convenience of location. He said that they really need to document for the public why some of the locations were eliminated. Kempf said that some of the eliminations were pretty obvious. Neuzil said again that it is going to come down to the courthouse issue and whether or not they what to have a center or a single building for a jail. M. Sullivan said that they can start that discussion at the Facilities Meeting at 4:00 p.m. He said that the Board has concern that the public needs to know more about how the Board decided to investigate the one site and thinks that perhaps they need to look into several sites. M. Sullivan said that the first goal of this project is to get the Board to have a consensus as to the site location.
R. Sullivan said that in order for him to agree to the original courthouse location, he would have to have a better explanation of why Chatham Oaks, a property that the County already owns, isn’t being considered. Stutsman said that right now, the only reason she knows of is that the judges and lawyers don’t like it. Harney said that most of the public that he talks with want the center at the current courthouse location. Neuzil agreed. Lehman said that they are kind of putting the pressure on Harney as the head of the Facilities Subcommittee. Neuzil said that clearly the CJCC identified that it wanted the one site, and according to the discussion at this meeting today, that is not what the Board of Supervisors wants. He thought it should go back to the Facilities Committee even if it delays the process a couple of months. M. Sullivan said that they do have time. He repeated that they need to have a consensus on this. Stutsman said that she agrees and this was the case in Story County. They had a united front. Neuzil said that he isn’t sure that they will reach consensus. Stutsman said that if she has information that keeping the court facility where it is is a good use of tax dollars, then she could go with it. But, she stated that she doesn’t have that information yet. Kempf said that none of them has that.
Harney said that one of the factors in this is GSA. He wondered if they should now cut off talks with them until they figure out what they are going to do. M. Sullivan said that he will keep talking to them. R. Sullivan said that he thinks they can look at Mall Drive. He doesn’t think there is a problem with the County being proactive in acquiring something knowing that they will use it. If the County buys it and needs to sit on it for three years, Jim Clark will still buy it. Harney thought that wasn’t the issue. He said that GSA wants to do some upgrading to that parking lot, and they feel they need to do it pretty soon. M. Sullivan said he thinks they need to just keep communicating with them. Harney said that basically they are saying that the County should make up their mind and get back to them. Neuzil said that there is still a possibility of designing a facility not using the GSA, but using the GSA as potential expansion 20 years from now.
Lehman said the Iowa City Community School District (ICSD) will be meeting this month to discuss SILO revenue. Lehman asked what type of sharing the other counties are doing other than Linn County and Johnson County. Neuzil said there are three Counties that have done sharing, but he isn’t sure what they shared. R. Sullivan said that one did sharing but they shared buildings as well. Lehman said that their situation could be much different than Johnson County’s. He said that the bottom line driving this tax is limitation on property tax dollars. They are limited by the levy. He said that they are looking at whether they can help fund something that would benefit either the County or the schools that can be funded through this tax. He wondered if they want to keep something in mind like a joint venture with the schools such as roads leading to schools. Neuzil said that anything that they ask for from the school district should benefit the kids because it is their school tax. He said that it is frustrating that the County was asked to build new sidewalks for the new school that was built after the 12th Avenue extension. He doesn’t think the County should be asked to fund those things. He thought that those things should be part of the school tax. Lehman wondered how they ask them to do that as a new school is being built. Neuzil said that they could say that they know that there are two new elementary schools in the works and that they need to be sure that the roads and the sidewalks that lead to that school are paid for with that tax.
Harney said that with roads, other people use them too so it’s not just about schools. He said that in Clear Creek, Amana, there is a new school, and they are going to have to do something with Kansas Avenue from Highway 6 to the new school. He thought that the County might have to do the upgrade. R. Sullivan said that they are also considering sharing with Iowa City, and thought that they should think about Solon and other cities. Harney said again that the others benefited from the roads to the schools, not just the students and teachers. Stutsman said that they wouldn’t be building that road if it weren’t for the school. Harney said he doesn’t think they have an option when it comes to schools because that is about serving the community and the kids. Neuzil said that the perfect example is Solon. When Solon built their brand new school, they put in that they are going to be upgrading their roads in that tax. Harney said that the County paid for the road, and Solon paid for the upgrade for the lights. Lehman said the money for improvement came out of the Rural Fund and not the General Fund.
Stutsman said that the funding that the County gives to the Family Resource Centers comes out of the General Fund. R. Sullivan asked how much money is being talked about. Neuzil said that they did not put dollar amounts down. He said that there is some gray area about whether they can set up a fund where a certain amount of money goes towards children’s services. He said that they spent at least $250,000 in their discretionary funding toward children’s services. Stutsman said it is closer to a million. Neuzil mentioned UAY, Youth Centers, and Big Brother/Big Sister. Neuzil wondered if there are ways to be sure that money continues to go toward kids because he thinks that in five years, they may not have discretionary funding. Stutsman agreed. Neuzil said that he isn’t sure if the State would allow them to do that.
Harney said at the end of five years, the State will step in and take a third of the money. Lehman said that the bottom line is that if you support the school doing this, you don’t want to jeopardize the passing of it. He said he liked the idea of asking the schools to focus on things that have an impact on kids. Harney said that the sales tax should go back and offset costs that teachers are paying for school supplies and such. Harney said he wanted to know if they would have extra money. R. Sullivan said that the schools could easily say they didn’t have anything to share. Harney said the reason that he voted to send the letter is because if the schools were going to share, they would like to share and utilize appropriately. Neuzil said it doesn’t hurt to ask. Lehman said that what the School Board and public want to know are suggestions from the Board even if it means the schools handling this instead of the Board. Neuzil said there are things that they could do, such as committing to no bonding while the sales tax is in place. He said that if this passes and they have $90 million it would be a good gesture to the community to say they won’t bond for 10 years.
Lehman said it is important to think about who funds the Resource Centers after 10 years. R. Sullivan said that some would say that using tax dollars for operating costs is bad management. Harney said it is. Lehman thought they should ask Budget Coordinator Rich Claiborne to give some numbers and descriptions. R. Sullivan said he voted against this in the first place but asked how the Board feels if the ICCSD says they don’t have anything to share. He said there is a very real possibility the schools just won’t be interested in sharing. He wondered if the Board wants to continue supporting the project one way or another. Lehman said that the letter from Plugge said that they didn’t want other communities to distract from getting this passed. Stutsman asked what the unintended consequences were if it passes. She wondered if they would then be committing to not funding these agencies. Neuzil said that school dollars cannot be used for Family Resource Centers, but they can share the dollars to be used for infrastructure, technology, and so on. Stutsman said that the Public Health Department provides a lot of services for the schools, like during the mumps outbreak. Stutsman asked if they do vaccination records. Wilmoth replied that they do an audit of the vaccination records as required by the State. Stutsman asked if the School District pays for that. Wilmoth responded that the State provides some grant funds.
Neuzil said that there seems to be some consensus in the community that the schools would help at least pay off the current bonding. It doesn’t mean that they would completely pay it off. He wondered if that seems reasonable based on the fact that they know that some time in the future, they will be asking for a bond. R. Sullivan said that the idea of them saying that they will not ask for a bond issue as long as this is in place is fairly reasonable. Neuzil said that one School Board member had a concern about making a decision like that for future boards. Stutsman said it seems reasonable to have some responsibility to the taxpayers. Neuzil said that ICCSD should at least have on their radar screen that the County may want the building in the next ten years, and if that is the case, can they put something in their future plans to find a new home. Lehman said he would talk to Plugge to get clarification on the details. He said that at least the Board has consensus that the shared money should be used for children. He said that he would draft a document and circulate it to the Board before the meeting.
The item was put on by R. Sullivan. Lehman said that this should be a reminder to keep communication open with cities. R. Sullivan said that the idea for this came up when the County had Johnson County Council of Governments (JCCOG) at the Administration Building to discuss Forevergreen Road. He said that some people from Coralville and from North Liberty said that the plan was this and then that. He and Stutsman sat there and thought that they had never heard this before. He said that there are a lot of communities where they have joint issues, and they should keep a list and then meet if the list gets long enough or important enough. Lehman said that they haven’t really been having the small town meetings. Stutsman said that she would be willing to go to City Council Meetings with other Supervisors to discuss issues they may have in common. R. Sullivan said that Linn County does that and it works well. Stutsman said that she would be willing to go to City Council meetings to talk about common issues like the casino in Riverside. Neuzil suggested that the process might be for everyone to look over the list R. Sullivan generated and then give feedback. Neuzil said that they could enhance the existing list, bring it to the next issues meeting, and then liaisons could put issues meetings together, perhaps a couple per quarter. R. Sullivan said that Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak does quite a bit of this, and he would like to know what these discussions were like. Neuzil said that this could even expand into other counties. Neuzil said that the other cities could bring representatives to Johnson County.
Stutsman said that White will put discussion of the proposed Keg Ordinance on a future agenda, so they could wait for further discussion. Harney said that he doesn’t think the keg ordinance will have as big of an impact as people hope. Lehman said that it will help because someone has to put their name on the line. Neuzil said that it comes down to if they want to ask Iowa City to do this. R. Sullivan said that the requirement is that if someone brings a keg in from another County, they have to get the sticker fixed. Wilmoth discussed the three ways that they could address kegs brought from another county. They could not address it; they could require each keg in the County to have a sticker to avoid a $500 fine; or they can get the sticker fixed. Harney asked if the keg ordinance would be enforceable on Federal property. Wilmoth said that all State laws are enforceable on State property. Neuzil said it comes back to the issue of if the County has that authority. R. Sullivan said that there are areas of State Code that say that certain things are a County issue. In that case, the cities don’t have any say. The issue of human rights is not addressed in the Code as clearly city or county. Lehman said that White will be able to give them more information on this.
Lehman asked Claiborne if he knows how much the County has spent on animal control. Claiborne said that it went from $40,000 to $50,000 and up at $10,000 increments until they have now reached nearly $100,000. He said that for 2007, the County under-budgeted. He said that Deputy Auditor Dana Aschenbrenner is very interested in getting together on this. Lehman asked if that is from the rural portion of the budget. M. Sullivan said yes. Harney said that he has some real concerns about this. They had asked for some numbers from the City and never received a follow up on that. He said that he got a call last week from a lady who got bit three times by a cat. People are dumping animals out in the residential rural areas. He said that at one time, they were talking about doing something with Coralville. He thought they need to get a better grasp on how much they are spending and how they can better address this issue. Neuzil said they need a matrix regarding the budget so that once they’ve reached a certain capacity of the budget, then they have different standards, potentially.
Harney said one issue is releasing wild animals in the rural parts of the County. Stutsman asked what you do with a raccoon if you trap it in town. He said that they take it and release it in the rural areas. Stutsman asked what the other options are. He said they could dispose of it. Neuzil said that they can’t shoot it in the City. Stutsman said that it is just the consequences of a lot of development; the animals don’t have anywhere to go. R. Sullivan asked what the shelter does if they get a raccoon. Harney said they release it into the rural areas. Stutsman said she would like to have a reduced cost for spay and neutering programs because the issue is too many cats and dogs being born. Neuzil said he thinks this budget is out of control. Stutsman agreed. Lehman said that Coralville is in the same situation, and maybe they would be wiling to do something jointly. R. Sullivan said this is out of the rural budget, but the Iowa City Shelter has high standards of humane treatment. He said that a lot of people in the rural area would want to shoot the animals. R. Sullivan said they could discuss how long animals should be kept, and what the standard is because all of this adds to the cost. R. Sullivan said that rural people would probably want to kill the animals. He said he isn’t saying that one is right or wrong; he is just saying it is worth discussing. Stutsman said they have had to deal with unintended consequences like the Stemm brothers with the wild dogs. She wondered if they should refer this to the Finance Committee.
Lehman said that it might help to have Iowa City/Coralville Animal Shelter Director Misha Goodman come in because they never got the numbers they had asked for. Claiborne said that Aschenbrenner has asked for financial statements for many years running but hasn’t received them. Neuzil said they should find out what the mandatory requirement is. Lehman asked if they can get another copy of the actual agreement.
R. Sullivan said that Pulkabrek has had conversations with other sheriffs, and there are a lot of other places where the policy is to shoot strays. Stutsman said that is what the Code says. People have every right to destroy an animal that is on their property. Claiborne added only if it doesn’t have a tag. Stutsman said that there seems to be some connection with the veterinarian offices. R. Sullivan said they could talk about registering dogs and cats in order to pay for the care. Harney asked how they would track it. R. Sullivan said they will have strays just as they do now, but if a Sheriff comes to your home and the animals aren’t tagged, then the people will be fined. Harney said that many farmers won’t put a collar with a tag on it because they get caught on fences and the animals hang themselves. R. Sullivan said that his in-laws work in rural Polk County, where dogs are required to have tags. Lehman said that if a City person’s dog walks into the County, and a County person brings the dog into the shelter, the County is charged without being reimbursed. Harney asked what is a fair price for the County to keep an animal.
M. Sullivan said that this is something that he and Claiborne can look into. They can review the 28E agreement, look at the budgets, and so on. Stutsman asked if they can also contact Coralville. M. Sullivan said he would look into that. Neuzil asked if Johnson County pays for other cities. M. Sullivan said they do. Stutsman said that is something that the Board was asking the shelter, where were the animals coming from. R. Sullivan said that if it is in the City of Solon, then it is Johnson County’s responsibility. Harney said that should be billed back to the City. R. Sullivan said that North Liberty has been getting a free ride because they have a Police Department of their own. Harney said the way that should be worded is that the Sheriff can provide the services, but the cost of that should be billed back to the right person. M. Sullivan said that they can break the agreement down and figure out the answers to these questions. Neuzil said that he has the feeling that Johnson County’s rural tax dollars should not be paying for a service for North Liberty or Swisher. M. Sullivan said that it may mean amending Pulkrabek’s police agreements. R. Sullivan said they will meet with the Sheriff later and can talk about it. Stutsman said they need more information. M. Sullivan said that they were just waiting for information from the City. Neuzil said that these are good things to bring up to the Board, if spikes are seen in the budget. Stutsman said that she is still interested in working on this issue.
R. Sullivan asked if they can talk about NACo. Neuzil said he is going. Stutsman said she is going and would like to come back on August 8, 2006. The Board discussed the dates they would be going and returning. R. Sullivan said he would be gone when the Board does strategic planning. They decided to keep the Key Issues meeting on August 9, 2006 even if not everyone can be there.
Stutsman suggested changing the bylaws for the Roadside Vegetation Committee. M. Sullivan said he would look into that. R. Sullivan said he thought that sounded like a good idea. She said it is important to have the utility people on that committee.
Stutsman asked about the new Obstruction Law and how stringent they want to be. Harney said maybe White could come in to discuss it. Neuzil said that Parker had wanted some direction on some of the roads, particularly the trail stuff. They decided to have a work session with Secondary Roads to discuss Five Year Road Plan, trails, Obstruction Law, Chip Seal Policy, road designs, Fringe Area Agreements, Oakdale Boulevard, and Dubuque Street. M. Sullivan said he would schedule a meeting around mid-August and get back to the Board.
Adjourned at 11:12 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary