MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
AUGUST 9, 2006
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Discussion: Key Issues........................................................................................................... 1
Temporary Relocation of Medical Examiner Vehicle..................................................... 1
Health and Human Services Building........................................................................... 1
Meetings Between County and Cities........................................................................... 2
Shared Trails Plan Committee Structure....................................................................... 3
Law Enforcement Center............................................................................................ 4
SEATS Building......................................................................................................... 4
Animal Control Agreement Update.............................................................................. 5
Internal Processes, Expectations, and Other Operational Issues of the Board of Supervisors Office 6
Chairperson Lehman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:04 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan; absent: Terrence Neuzil.
Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan said that the plan for now until there is snow is to have the Medical Examiner Vehicle parked at the Fisher building. The Sheriff said that there is no room in the Capital Street building to park, and that they won’t move anything out. Stutsman said that is unacceptable. She said that the building is under the jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors, and they need to make room. She said that they have assumed that building belongs to them for too long. R. Sullivan said that they should have the Sheriff present to talk about it. Stutsman said they have given them enough opportunities to make the decision, and they haven’t done so, so maybe they should go over and move things themselves. M. Sullivan said that they don’t know if it will fit in the Capital Street building, but they are not sure. Stutsman said that the Board should take a field trip to these different facilities to figure out what is stored there. She indicated that she was very disappointed with the Sheriff and his lack of cooperation. The Board agreed to schedule a time to do that.
M. Sullivan said that Facilities Director David Kempf had the auction last week. The Larson building was sold, and everything has been cleared out of the building. The unfinished concrete building sold for $500. The lumber yard sold for about $100 to the Amish families. Once they get the roof off, the rest will come down pretty quick. The Carquest building is going to be taken apart and moved. Nobody wanted the Hesser house. The people from ReStore came in and looked at it, but there is nothing worth salvaging. The next thing will be to have an auction for RTs and YaYas.
M. Sullivan said that the next thing would be for the County to pay the tipping fees at the landfill for the things that they did not take. Stutsman said that she thought they had agreed that the buyers would pay the tipping fees. M. Sullivan said that the purchasers signed purchase agreements which said that if they didn’t have it out in 30 days they have to return the money. Stutsman said that this will really cost the taxpayers. M. Sullivan said that they would have the lot cleared out this fall.
Lehman asked about the Health and Human Services Building. M. Sullivan said they have made the determination that the lease to purchase option is a feasible option. He said that right now they don’t have the financial resources in the budget to pay as they go. With the lease to purchase option, it can be done. He spoke with County Attorney J. Patrick White about it, who agreed. White’s concern would be what if it’s forced to a referendum during the thirty day window time after the public hearing, and enough signatures are on a petition to come in and say that the citizens don’t want it financed that way. The only other option they would have would be to delay the project, start setting aside a considerable amount of money to pay as they go, or bond for it. Stutsman asked if a referendum would stop the project. M. Sullivan said that it would not, but it would say that citizens did not support a lease to purchase arrangement. R. Sullivan said he doesn’t see this happening. M. Sullivan said he didn’t either. He said that there are plenty of investors in the community that are willing to invest in it and to build a building for the County to lease back and own when it's paid off. Lehman said that this shows how it is important to educate the people. He asked if they are still on course for this project. He said it was important to inform the public about this. M. Sullivan said that they would be required to have a public hearing.
Harney said that he wanted to be sure that they could make the payments. M. Sullivan said there would be three different options to finance this. R. Sullivan said that if you tried to do a Criminal Justice Center without a vote, the public will be upset, and the public will have to vote on this one way or another. Lehman said they needed to start limiting their options and to move forward on this. He said that for the next Key Issues meeting they need to have Budget Coordinator Rich Claiborne come with some numbers. Stutsman said that for years she has thought that they need to have some regional planning information sessions. She said that they needed to know that Coralville was planning to annex land, for example. She suggested that this be a regular item on the joint cities agenda planning update.
The Board discussed various planning goals for various Johnson County cities. Stutsman said that if they have these meetings they need to do a better job of having a clear agenda. Stutsman said she saw these things as internal things, and the public doesn’t need to be present.
The Board then discussed some specific roads and the problems they may cause. Stutsman noted if these cities keep annexing roads, that the County will have difficulty getting tax dollars.
M. Sullivan noted that they had tried to schedule a meet and greet with various city councils in order to discuss these issues. Stutsman said she thought this would be a great idea. M. Sullivan said they didn’t need to have an agenda. Stutsman said that there has been poor attendance at previous meet and greets.
Lehman said that the County adopted the Trails Plan which called for a supervisory committee. They had different criteria and sectors that they wanted to appoint people from. He asked how they would proceed. M. Sullivan said that his recommendation would be to advertise and take applications like they do for other committees. R. Sullivan said that there were a few spots that were so specific that it seems like they would need to appoint some staff.
M. Sullivan said that the recommendation from the Trail Plan is a ten member committee made up of the following: the Planning and Zoning commissioner or staff, a Conservation Board member or staff, Secondary Roads department staff, ECICOG staff, JCCOG staff, the Bicyclists of Iowa City, a representative from the Friends of the Iowa River Scenic Trail, Linn County Trails Association representative, two rotating representatives from Johnson County cities and towns, one representative from a local snowmobile club, and two at large Johnson County residents, at least one of them from
unincorporated Johnson County.
Conservation Director Harry Graves said that the Conservation Board needs to take a position on how members are recruited. He said that he suggested that the staff from Planning and Zoning should do the scheduling of meetings since they have more staff. Harney asked if the Board of Supervisors needs to meet with the Commission. Graves said he thought that would be a good idea, since they have not had a joint meeting for a long time.
Harney said that they are grading now for the trail into Ely, and they are actually in the ditch for part of that where they have it graded back, and he is curious to see what happens. Harney asked about the commission, and asked how that would tie in with the leadership group and the North Corridor group who were tied in and given the task of making the priority recommendations for the trails linking the communities together, and that’s about to come to the Board in a week. He asked if this commission would override what they are recommending. Stutsman said she thought this would just be part of the input of making the decision.
M. Sullivan suggested that in that meeting the Board could present what they have, and talk to the group about the advisory board and see if they think this commission would be more effective, and isolate it to this group. Stutsman said she thinks they need to have this input. Harney said that their task was to make recommendations to communities, and maybe it would end there. M. Sullivan and Stutsman agreed. M. Sullivan said he would prepare an announcement seeking commission members. He said he will advertise at least for the at large County residents, and then send applications and information to each of these other entities to have them appoint somebody as a representative and fill out an application, that way they would have the applications on file. It would be an ongoing committee which would be added to the committee structure that the whole Board would belong to.
Harney asked if someone should get in contact with Senator Joe Bolkcom because he said there may be some money available for trails. Graves recommended that they have Bolkcom be at the legislative liaison. The Board agreed that this was a good idea. Lehman asked if there were enough guidelines on the responsibilities of this committee. M. Sullivan said he had enough, and recommended that the Board stick to what’s in the plan. He said that if Bolkcom wanted to do this as an ex-officio, once they find know who the members will be, he will put an email list together and add Bolkcom to it. Stutsman said that Bolkcom has some very specific ideas about where the trails should go. She said she thinks it should be made clear that the Board is interested in his role as funding, not as the planning part of it. R. Sullivan said it may make sense for the liaison to be Senatory Dvorsky, since he is representing Linn and Johnson County, whereas Senator Bolkcom is just Iowa City.
Lehman said that they would be having a joint CJCC meeting this afternoon where some of the law enforcement center issues. M. Sullivan said that at that meeting he will have the draft RFQ which is a three page document for everybody to look at. It is for the site suitability study and the location study. He said that he will ask this afternoon for a timeline about when the RFQ should go out. He said that the last time they talked about it, Pulkrabek seemed to think they could wait until the end of the year to do it. He said that the RFQ is ready to go in draft form. County Attorney J. Patrick White will try to make it to the meeting as well. Harney said they needed to choose a name for the Justice Center and stick to it. R. Sullivan recommended that they choose a name that plays well with the public.
R. Sullivan said that at NACo somebody had a scale model of the Community Corrections Center that was built in Boulder, Colorado which seemed like a good idea. The Board agreed to try to come up with a name for the project that everyone agrees on.
Lehman said that it is on the agenda to sign on for another 18 months for the current building. He asked if there was any update on the new facility. Stutsman said she hadn’t talked to anybody from Coralville, but had read the email that came back from Coralville City Councilor John Lundell in response to Sullivan’s Salvos, and asked if they needed to touch base about this. She said she didn’t like to be threatened by Coralville, but didn’t think it was good for one of the Board members to constantly be talking about this TIF issue. R. Sullivan said that he sat with them at the joint meeting, and agreed that they had some things to talk about. He said that Lundell said he wrote the email when he was mad, and that he couldn’t speak for the whole City Council. Lehman said there hasn’t been any movement on this issue, and the last they heard there was an attorney in Des Moines who was talking about how to transfer money. R. Sullivan said they have $100,000 that gets to go toward equipment for this. He said he keeps hearing of the possibility of more Federal money. Harney said they got notification of another $250,000, but was not sure of the restrictions. M. Sullivan said it would be the same restrictions as any of the grant money. Stutsman said they would need to check what strings are attached to that. She said that had told County Engineer Greg Parker and SEATS Director Tom Brase to get together and draw up a plan.
Lehman said that Brase and Parker talked about location and the liaison with Secondary Roads said they had a wash space which could be relocated. He said they don’t have anything staked out, but do have some ideas of how it will lay out. M. Sullivan said he would talk to Parker, indicating that the Board would like to see more of a preliminary site plan.
M. Sullivan said he talked to Iowa City Animal Center Director Misha Goodman, and asked her to contact Tom Widmer to schedule a meeting so that M. Sullivan could sit down with them, two Board members, Claiborne and Deputy Auditor Dana Aschenbrenner from the Auditor’s Office to go over the agreement that was initially discussed a year ago. He said that there are a lot of questions that the Board needs to have answered about how it’s being funded. Once those questions are answered, then the 28E agreement needs to be rewritten to reflect those changes. Right now it’s open-ended. He said that Johnson County continues to take a hit without having any auditing numbers from the City. Lehman said they asked for data but never received any. R. Sullivan said that Coralville renegotiated with them, and asked M. Sullivan to get a copy of whatever they renegotiated because it sounds like they had a long battle and got something they felt was a little more favorable to them. M. Sullivan asked whether a Board member would be willing to sit in on the meeting. M. Sullivan said he would let the Board know about Captain Widmere’s availability.
Stutsman said she would love to see some kind of incentive for people to neuter their pets. M. Sullivan said it could be an enforceable ordinance for the rural areas. M. Sullivan said the other thing is the Rural Fund, and how much of the Rural Fund could be used for this. Stutsman agreed. Stutsman said that she feels strongly that there are too many pets being born and they should try to alleviate this. M. Sullivan said they already have the budget set for this year, so there’s no hurry this year, but he would like to have it wrapped up before next fiscal year. R. Sullivan said that Solon just re-instituted a tag for pets requirement. He said that the local vet will do a free spay or neuter.
Administrative Secretary Casie Kadlec said that the Auditor’s office all through the state used to do dog tags, but they stopped doing so in the 1980s. R. Sullivan said that Polk has required registration for dogs in rural areas. Stutsman suggested an exotic animal ordinance. M. Sullivan said that right now the State controls exotic animals.
M. Sullivan said there is a backdoor phone number to call that people can use to bypass the phone system. Stutsman said they should give the number out to regular business contacts. R. Sullivan said that Operations Supervisor Shannon Chambers has actual statistics, which might not hurt to have that available. Stutsman said the Board is in the business of customer service, so Secretary II Jo Hogarty needs to transfer the calls and M. Sullivan can make a book of numbers. Stutsman asked if the book could be made available for the Board as well. R. Sullivan said that one thing he was thinking was that not all departments are listed in the phone book properly. The Board agreed to have Chambers work with the phone companies to make Johnson County government listings in the phone book easier to use. Stutsman suggested that they get volunteers to come in and answer the phone.
Adjourned at 10:48 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary