MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
AUGUST 6, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Discussion: Utilization of the Vernon Research Group............................................................... 1
Report From Alternatives and Treatment Opportunities SubCommittee...................................... 5
Report From Public Awareness and Information SubCommittee................................................ 6
Report From Facilities Planning SubCommittee......................................................................... 6
Additional Comments From Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee Members......................... 7
Chairperson Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 4:07 p.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee members present were: County Attorney Janet Lyness, John Stratton, and County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek.
Harney said he hasn't had any contact with the Vernon Research Group (VRG) lately and doesn't know if anyone else has. Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee (CJCC) Member John Stratton said the committee has some decisions to make before they negotiate with VRG. Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan said he thinks she was trying to pair things up with the Durrant report. Neuzil said it will be helpful for the Board to know the threshold of what people would be willing to spend. He said he is trying to look at it in a similar light to what the Conservation Department did with their consultant before they put the up the bond issue. Stutsman asked if the Board can get a quote to review. Harney asked if the Board should move on its own since it has had no feedback from Durrant. County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said they met with Durrant Representative Mike Lewis to look at some things. He said Lewis said he is partly done with the staffing patterns for the different options and that it is Lewis' understanding he will be back for the September CJCC meeting. Pulkrabek said he is uncertain whether the VRG survey or the Durrant report should be completed first. He asked if Durrant recommends their work should be finalized before working with VRG.
R. Sullivan said that once the Durrant report is complete, the CJCC and the Board may be able to make more decisions or at least narrow things down to a few choices. He said then VRG will have something they can take to the public. Pulkrabek said there is a small window of opportunity for action from the time they use the VRG and before going forward with the bond issue. He said in their informal talks, they agree to get debt paid off before tackling a large project. Pulkrabek said that is the other timing issue; whether to hold off on using the VRG until the County is willing to move forward. He asked if the Board is on a two year schedule to pay off the debt from the new Human Services Building.
Stutsman said that for the VRG results to be timely and relevant, she thinks there needs to be a relatively short period of time between their research and the work getting done. She said there might be a couple years before they are ready to do so. R. Sullivan said he thought the VRG results would be good for only so many months and then the results will become less and less accurate. Stutsman said she was still confused about what the Board wants the community to do. Neuzil said the issue would be what the Board would put on the ballot. Stutsman added it would be what the community would tolerate.
Neuzil said they were looking at the potential cost associated with the project. He said most communities that have success with their bonds have used those types of services to see what it will take to get 60% of the people to vote for something. He said it is going to take some time for people to accept the tax increase that was primarily the result of the Joint Communications and Dispatch Center. Neuzil said he is convinced of that, particularly when they saw jumps up to 20% higher in City taxes for county government. He said he isn't sure if that matters or not. He said he thinks the word is out that a new jail is needed, it’s just a matter of how big, how much, and where. Lyness said the Board needs to think about which election cycle a bond issue would be on. She said there is a much bigger likelihood that there will be more success if the project is in conjunction with a major election rather than during a specialized election. Lyness said it will depend on if the public wants to spend the money. R. Sullivan said some of that depends on the results they will get from Vernon. He said if a survey reveals that 80% of the people say they need a new Jail, then the CJCC needs to do that as soon as possible. However, if only 35% vote in favor, that would indicate a lot of work needs to be done before going to the public.
Harney said the Board talked to the Vernon group thinking it would be part of the public input session, but that has not transpired. He said the Board must wait to get the report back from the study before making decisions. Neuzil said that if they get the report in the fall he wants to know if the Board would then go with a location and hire VRG. Harney said that is possible but he is tired of blaming all the tax increases on the Joint Communications Center. He said the Center is a big portion, but the increases are a result of a number of things. Harney said that as soon as they get the Durrant Group report back, and have a report to decide what would be the best place to put it, the decision could be determined by the support of the public. Harney said they need to decide how they are going to finance the project. He said he is not sold on the bond issue, and that he prefers a sales tax because he believes it will go a lot faster than the bond issue. Harney said that is something the Board needs to decide on. Stutsman agreed, saying it was very appropriate.
An audience member said that originally, there was going to be some very clear public interest before the site was chosen, as it had been a problem before. She said it seems to her there are some interest groups, like Durrant, that should have done something and they didn't. She said there needs to be clear public input on the site location.
Pulkrabek said he thought M. Sullivan knew that. He said M. Sullivan wanted to have this plan in September, and then when Durrant Group Representative Mike Lewis said that at the last meeting that he was at, everyone reminded Lewis that he had public meetings that needed to be held yet. Pulkrabek said the group could come to a consensus once they look at the project Lewis brings to them, but that he doesn't think the Board needs to say where it needs to go until he gets public input. R. Sullivan said it would be nice for Lewis to present to the Board and committee first, so the Board could ask questions before he goes to the public.
John Stratton said the location issue may not be much of an issue since they have started out with six possible sites and are now down to three. He said it may be that people come in with one or two realistic sites, and the Board may decide there is only one realistic site. Stratton said the site issue is up in the air until the Board gets a report but on the other hand the financing is an issue that the Board wants public input on because while they all may agree that there is going to be a new jail, they may not agree that the jail is needed now, or that the County can afford it. He said the public might decide it is better to live the law. Stratton said if a financing plan is proposed which makes option A better than option B, or that the public is willing to support, that is something worth looking into. Neuzil added they could do the plan in phases. Stratton said that is something they could sell because a sales tax will be taxing more than just the County and Iowa City. Neuzil said there are so many different scenarios they can imagine; phasing, for example, with phase one being paid for by a bond, and phase two by a sales tax. He said there are so many things that are yet to be explored, especially on the financial side.
Stratton said one of the things which concerns him is that there is a size level below which they do not want to go. Stratton said they could wind up like they did on the last jail. He said it may be better to wait two or three years until they get something they could live with rather than something that is just a new jail. Harney said that cost-wise, the sooner they can build a new jail, the better.
Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee Member Larry Kerr said there are two types of public input the Board is going to want. He said one is to help design the facility itself because designing a public facility without general public input is not going to be well received. Kerr said he presumes the Vernon Research Group will give some options. He said it will be the Boards challenge to narrow the options down to several options the Board is willing to accept, and then present them to the public. He said that then the Board will take public input and hone it into a more refined proposal and then develop a finance plan. Then at that point the Board can sell it to the public. R. Sullivan said Kerr brings up a good point. He said even if the Board has narrowed down the options to two, it isn't a bad idea to inform the public of the pros and cons so they will know what the Board is considering. An audience member said that the public buy-in at the very earliest stage is absolutely crucial. M. Sullivan said that in his opinion, VRG’s role, if the Board decides to use them, is to obtain public opinion and perception of the project and the financing packages. M. Sullivan said, to him, input and opinions are different, but the taxpayers will vote based on their opinions and perceptions of how it is presented to them. He said input on a site could just be personal preferences or community preferences.
Neuzil said there are some outside factors to consider, particularly on the location part. He said there is a fairly active organization of attorneys who clearly indicated what their preference was, and that could be an incredible resource or an incredible problem. He said they automatically start out with opposition. Stutsman said the community has to have the information about why one site is better than another site. She said there are other things to consider, such as land costs versus moving it out somewhere else. Stutsman said she thought they needed that type of data that she hoped Durrant would lay out and share.
R. Sullivan said there is another issue that he thinks is brand new, given what has happened over the last few months. He said that when the Linn County Jail was destroyed he heard a little scuttle about why there isn't one jail for Linn and Johnson Counties. R. Sullivan said Sheriff’s Major Steve Dolezal has talked about the potential negatives of having that situation, listing ten reasons why it would be difficult. He said the fact remains that people will ask that question, so the Board must be able to share those ten points with people. Stutsman replied the community may say they don't care about those ten points and that if it’s going to save money, they want a regional jail. She added they won't know anything until they start asking.
R. Sullivan said it sounds like there is general agreement that they can't do a whole lot with the plan until they hear from Lewis. Neuzil said if Lewis is coming in September, 2008, that they probably need to hold an official Board meeting with him. Pulkrabek said he told Lewis that the Board had decided that because the issue is a hot issue, there would be a joint meeting every month. Harney said they talked about it but had decided they didn't want to do anything until the Board got his report back. Neuzil said the other three Board members need to know of at least the September, 2008 meeting. Harney said the meeting is scheduled September 3, 2008 at 4:00 p.m.
Harney said before they schedule this, he’d like to know if they will have a report. Neuzil said he remembers having the conversation that he was saying that the next time he was going to be in was yesterday. Kerr said Lewis was in yesterday. Neuzil said that Lewis said last month that was the day he had scheduled. He said it was when Lewis was in the hallway. M. Sullivan said that might have been a discussion in the hall, but it wasn’t in the Board meeting. Stutsman asked if they could tell Lewis that they want the report by the next meeting. M. Sullivan said yes. She said they need to tell him that the Board is having a meeting in September and they want the report by then. M. Sullivan said he will tell Lewis. Pulkrabek said Lewis has some plans that are fairly well developed and just needed some input on the staffing. He said he can't imagine why it wouldn't be ready next month. Pulkrabek said Lewis said he planned on presenting it to the group next month. R. Sullivan said he would like to get the report a couple of days before the meeting so he could have a chance to read it and have questions ready for Lewis. He said he’d like to request copies of the report be distributed a couple days before the meeting so the Board will have a much better dialogue with Lewis. R. Sullivan said if Lewis was going to come September 3, 2008, they could get stuff to them much sooner. Lyness said they should even suggest to Lewis they would like the report a week in advance so that even if they don’t get it a week in advance, they’d have it by that Friday.
Kerr said one thought included the Board hiring Durrant to be the third party arm’s length expert to advise the Supervisors. He said he thought he’d be able to come in and rank the sites according to how they’d work. He said the Board ought to take each site and give some cost options to make it work. Kerr said that if Lewis doesn’t say definitely the Board will have the report by the next meeting, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask him to show up, face the Board and say why he doesn’t have it and when he will have it.
Neuzil said the process with Vernon Research Group won't take place until some time in the winter. He said it isn't unrealistic to think they could have something on the ballot next November. Neuzil said that in an off year they have City Council, so they would have to expand the ballot as far as locations. R. Sullivan added there is an election. Neuzil said there is an election, but obviously they would have to get out into the rural areas where there is not usually a City Council election. He said it would be more cost effective to do it during the election, but the question is, is it the most popular time to do it. R. Sullivan said that perhaps Vernon could help with that process. Lyness said Vernon may have an opinion if the Board asks them that. Neuzil said communities would ask where the high success rates would be. R. Sullivan added that, again, if one sees a high success rate, then the idea is to do so as soon as possible. Neuzil said the Board could do a quick survey of the ten last ballot issues around eastern Iowa to see when it was held.
Lyness said that MECCA is meeting with inmates on weekends starting on July 1, 2008. Another member of the audience said the preliminary results from the month of July were 45 assessments requested. One person was already with MECCA and there were 43 evaluations total. Lyness added that on Friday, August 22, 2008, a group would be meeting to look at the Jail population. She said Sheriff’s Captain Dave Wagner, Jessica, herself, and another individual from correctional services would be looking at the Jail population list. Lyness said the ideas from Blackhawk County would be an inspiration for them. Neuzil asked about the mental health diversion. The audience member said that last time they had everyone there, they hired new staff member Emily Hearst who started on July 1, 2008. She said as of the current time, it is her understanding that the Coordinator position is not being filled indefinitely while they are waiting to see what will happen with the emergency mental health funds for mobile crisis. She said that right now the mobile crisis side of the title is on hold. She said they are still going on committals with the County deputy.
The audience member said, as of today, they have assisted with over 19 committals. She said they are also involved with drug treatment court and the Community Accountability Board (CAB). She said they worked with ten drug treatment court clients and six CAB clients. R. Sullivan asked when the numbers were from. The member of the public replied the 338 clients were from the beginning and ongoing. She said drug treatment court started in February and the Community Accountability Board may have started at the same time in February. The woman said commitments started last summer, and then was off and on during so much transition. The woman said right now they have two staff and she thought it was going to be that way for a while.
Neuzil said he thought the Public Awareness and Information Subcommittee should reconvene after September 4, 2008. R. Sullivan asked if anyone else was part of that committee. He said obviously that group hasn't had much to share with anyone because there haven't been any decisions.
M. Sullivan said there was no report from the Facilities Planning Subcommittee. R. Sullivan said there were overhead photos of the houses and asked Lyness to give background. Lyness replied the City owns three houses at 504 South Capital, 510 South Capital, and 7 East Harrison Street. The City contacted them as well as the University to see if they were interested in purchasing the properties. She said the price for the 7 East Harrison Street and 504 South Capital is $180,000 each, and 510 South Capital is $124,000. She said that is the current appraised value. Lyness said it is actually on the Board's agenda tomorrow to discuss making a purchase offer and signing a purchase agreement with the City. She said these properties are directly across the street from the Jail. Lyness said on the corner of Harrison Street, and across from the street is the Courthouse. She said across from Capital Street is the Jail, so this is one of the potential sites that would be in conjunction if they were to get the Federal lot or do something in conjunction with the back of the Courthouse. She said there would be the possibility to purchase some land. Neuzil said it is a good investment, and they know that the University would have some interest if the County did not choose the site. He said when there are opportunities they have to jump on them. Neuzil said it sounds like the dollars would come from the General Fund and potentially be paid back with the bond issue.
Harney said there are three or four other privately owned residences. He said they should tie those down just in case. Neuzil asked what everyone thinks about the idea. He asked if that was the wise thing to do. Neuzil said that though the Board has already made a decision he thought they could at least tell people they would be able to resell if that was not the chosen place. Lyness said one of the requests of the City was that they have the right of first refusal if the County were to purchase, so they may be interested themselves in purchasing it. Neuzil said that would make it even easier. R. Sullivan said he assumes that area is zoned residential. Lyness said she believes so but she will check. Neuzil asked if the City was paying taxes on that. Stutsman said yes the City is renting them so they have to pay taxes. R. Sullivan said he didn't know if it is a condition they would have to consider, but, obviously, if they did end up purchasing them they would expect the City would go along with any zoning plans. Lyness said once they buy the land they can make it public. She said she didn't think it would be a problem.
Neuzil said other than the comments that Kerr had suggested as far as what the report should look like, he wondered if facilities could relay that to Durrant or M. Sullivan could communicate with Durrant or somebody, in terms of laying everything out. He said he didn't know if that was the format it would be in or not. Harney said the Board could contact him and that it was not what he planned in the process of putting together for the Board. He said he was going to provide the pros and cons and leave it up to the Board to decide. Harney said they could call him and talk to him. Neuzil said perhaps it is the Facilities Committee that will take the report and do that part of it.
Neuzil asked for an update on the potential for hiring someone to help organize the efforts of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee and its subcommittees. Stutsman thought everything was on hold until the Durrant report. Neuzil asked if it was still out there. Harney asked Lyness if anything had been done with the job description. Lyness said they were going to get together back in June of 2008 and then it was cancelled. She said they could reconvene in the small subcommittee and look at that. Neuzil said that could be a way to get back on track. M. Sullivan said once they have the report from Durrant, they would give the position something to actually focus on and coordinate. Neuzil asked if there was any funding for that. Stutsman said she thought funding was coming from someplace. M. Sullivan said they would just use general fund reserves. He added that maybe this position would be on six-month review, saying they wouldn’t want to make a long term commitment if it’s not going to go anywhere. Stutsman said it shouldn't be a long term commitment, that it would be just to move the project along. M. Sullivan said that after this project he thinks there is still a role for this coordinator.
M. Sullivan said that when they set out the expectations, they need to look at the project in six months to see if it needs to be revised. M. Sullivan said they would use general fund reserves for that, and if they decide they want to go farther than that, they would program it in to the regular budget coming into FY10. Kerr said there was some discussion of it being a consultant position rather than a permanent line. M. Sullivan replied that the Board had discussed it and agreed that the position would not be higher than a County employee, they’d use a consultant and have an agreement. He said that it was his recommendation that they have a six month evaluation, and then after that determine if they need to extend it another six months. He said a consultant who would take on a job like this would be willing to have that considered in the first agreement. M. Sullivan said that would all be presented to the Board for approval.
Lyness suggested that the subcommittee could get back together to review it and present something at the next meeting. Stutsman said perhaps they should tell people to be prepared for a long meeting. Pulkrabek added that as of today they are housing 53 inmates out of County and that last month, the month of July 2008, they spent in excess of $80,000. He said the Iowa City Press-Citizen is doing an article that may show up in about a week. He said their spin is on the Linn County Jail being closed and how Johnson County is now competing with them for space. Pulkrabek added that one of the things he threw out was that $80,000 a month will be $160,000 in the hole on this budget year. He said he remembered their budget discussions where they raised it up to $80,000 and thought that it would cover it. Pulkrabek said it doesn't look like that is what will happen now, but it is very early in the year. Stutsman asked where they are taking the inmates. Pulkrabek said Marshall, Jasper, Cedar, Washington, and Iowa counties.
Lyness asked Pulkrabek if that cost was for what the County is paying the other jails, and not transportation costs. Pulkrabek said with fuel prices the way they are, they are getting clobbered the farther north they go. He said the current year they are looking at purchasing a minivan with good gas mileage to haul more inmates than a car can. Pulkrabek said they have been in contact with another Sheriff's Office to gather ideas on what to do. He said their transport costs continue to accelerate. Harney asked if he was saying $80,000 was from July 1, 2008. Pulkrabek said yes, for the month of July housing expenses were in excess of $80,000. He said it was probably closer to $83,000 but he didn't have the exact figure.
R. Sullivan said it sounded like September would be a very important meeting. He asked M. Sullivan to make sure they, very early in the process, let all the committee members know so they get full attendance. Stratton said he didn't know if they were going to get representation from the public defender since Public Defender Richard Klausner retired. Stratton said they are still struggling to get DCS to attend, with Steve Street leaving and that change over, they are in transition themselves. He said everyone is in transition. R. Sullivan said that if they could make a point to get someone from each of the offices to attend the September meeting, that would be very important. He said, in addition, the Press-Citizen and Gazette are pretty important as well. Stutsman said she’ll talk to Public Defender Peter Persaud.
Adjourned at 4:48 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By John Deeth, Recording Secretary