MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE COORDINATING COMMITTEE:
OCTOBER 1, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Contract with Vernon Research Group.................................................................................... 1
Discussion: Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee Coordinator Position................................. 6
Discussion: Durrant Study and Site Locations........................................................................... 7
Discussion: Status of Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee Future........................................ 8
Alternatives and Treatment Opportunities Subcommittee........................................................... 9
Public Awareness and Information Subcommittee..................................................................... 9
Facilities Planning Subcommittee............................................................................................ 10
Chairperson Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 4:00 a.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, Facilities Manager David Kempf, Sixth Judicial District Court Judge Douglas Russell, MECCA Out-patient Clinical Manager Megan LaVelle, Temporary Mobile Crisis Coordinator Jessica Peckover, University of Iowa Facilities Representative Larry Wilson, Dorothy Whiston, Mental Health/Disability Services Director Kris Artley, John Stratton, and County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek.
Vernon Research Group Development and Customer Relations Manager Susan Todd said they can provide important information about location, price and funding for the proposed Criminal Justice Center. Stutsman asked Todd to fill her in since she was not in attendance at the previous Durrant Group meeting. Todd said they discussed the sorts of things Vernon Research can study. She said they discussed how they can help the Board make a decision based upon what the public is interested in supporting. R. Sullivan said they had discussed amount and method of funding; location; and what would be included in the facility. He said there are probably ten to 15 questions they could ask. Todd said that within the allotted ten minutes for each phone survey, as many as 20 to 25 questions can be asked. Stutsman asked who determines what questions to include in the survey. Todd said they would hold a Project Definition Meeting with the Criminal Justice Committee and any interested Board members. Ideas will be discussed and they formulate sample questions to present to the Board. The Board can then review and edit the questions and send the questions back to Vernon Research. Todd said a Project Definition Meeting is usually a finding mission where everyone is thinking out loud together.
Todd said there is a 4% cost increase over last year in program fees for research. She said what the Board will have to determine is the sample size and time length of the survey, a ten-minute or 15-minute survey. She said the margin of error is lower with a larger sample population. R. Sullivan said the Board has solicited public feedback through public meetings with Durrant. He said the meetings were poorly attended by the public. Stutsman asked how long the survey is considered relevant and she also asked how far ahead of a bond issue a survey should be conducted. Todd recommended two to six months because that would allow time for public education and marketing if needed. She said there is a lot of background work and six months is ideal. Todd said she could provide an exact date when more information on the bond issue is available.
Harney said he sees two different contracts here: one pertaining to what and where a facility would be and the other pertaining to financing. Todd said these issues are packaged together in the survey. The public will respond to a bundle proposal: a certain location at a certain price point funded in a particular way. She said the location and funding come in the same research project. Harney said he views some of these questions surrounding the jail, court facilities, and judges’ chambers as separate issues that the public may support differently. Todd said the Vernon Research Group can do a qualitative survey but she did not understand that from previous discussions and so she did not bring that information. R. Sullivan said the Board has ideas but no feedback yet. Todd said VRG can easily take what Durrant has put forth so far and ask for public opinion. And then all the qualitative responses will be included in the quantitative research with the 400 to 500 person sample.
CJCC member Dorothy Whiston asked how the qualitative part works. Todd said it would be more of a focus group or possible in depth interviews. It depends on what the group wants to look at. For example, they would look at if the Sheriff's Department feels like all their needs are addressed, or if the Bar Association feels that their issues are included. Todd said VRG would seek feedback from people who have critical buy in or expert opinions in that area. R. Sullivan asked if that is included in the quote. Todd said no. The qualitative and quantitative phases have two different parts in the second proposal and she offered to send the Board that part again. R. Sullivan said he is getting confused between the Project Definition Meeting and the focus group type meetings. He said he feels the Board can handle those types of meetings because the Board regularly communicates with those folks. He said the Board needs to know how the public feels. Todd asked if R. Sullivan is saying he'd like to know the public's opinion on how many courtrooms are necessary and if the facility looks like the public wants it to look. Stutsman replied she thinks the public does not know how many courtrooms they want, and that the cost will be the bottom line. County Attorney Janet Lyness said the whole point of having the Durrant group for the last year was to give the County that information. Whether the County thinks it received that information from Durrant or not, is another issue. She said she thinks the County does not need to spend more money asking another professional to look at the cost issue. The Board and CJCC need to either look at what the Durrant Group submitted or they need to figure it out on their own. Todd agreed with Lyness. R. Sullivan said the public opinion is necessary since the proposal is for a 250-bed jail with expansion possibilities to 450 beds.
Stutsman said what bothers her about the whole process is that she can almost tell the Board right now what the community will say about the jail without going through a survey. What concerns her is what to do when the survey returns with no public support. She asked if the Board will keep scaling the project back until they hit a magic cost figure. She said she is afraid the Board may get what they ask for and they may not like what they get back. Todd replied that maybe the Board wants to ask Vernon to help define how the Board can get what it needs and how the Board talks to the public about getting the jail. She said it seems to her that Johnson County really needs to move this facility forward. Harney said that the Durrant study has told the Board what it needs and what should be included. He said from this point forward, the Board should make a decision on how the CJCC and the Board is going to present this for development. Harney said the big question is where to put the jail, and if the County will be successful in obtaining the property downtown. Then the Board will have to decide if they can get the property and if that is where they want it to be. He said that is a necessary discussion between the CJCC and the Board. Harney said then the Board can look to a professional to help find out how the public will support the jail. Todd said it might be as simple as uncovering the perceptions. If perceptions are clear, the Board will learn what needs to be changed and that may be more in line with what they want to go after. Harney agreed. M. Sullivan said he agrees that the biggest fear everybody has is what the real perception is. R. Sullivan said he just doesn't know what the public thinks.
Richard Twohy said that though he is not a member of the committee, he thinks what the public will be interested in is if the County will be spending a lot of money on something that is only a guess that it even matches 21st century technology and research. He said the key question he asked is had they included any talks with experts to understand how quickly the landscape has changed. He said the County should be doing things based on the experience and research of experts and he fells that is not being done.
Todd said Durrant’s focus was to recommend a facility space and size based on their expertise. She said the County’s specific needs should be put forward by the County’s experts for Durrant to incorporate in their recommendation. Harney said he thinks Durrant has already completed that. R. Sullivan said the first draft was not specifically labeled and the County asked for Durrant to relabel space. Twohy said yes, but added that Durrant also side-stepped questions. He said he thinks Durrant can not answer some basic questions about how substantial the changes are. Stutsman said she would like to get the discussion back to the Vernon Research Group. She said she understands Twohy has concerns but that this is not the time for this discussion. R. Sullivan said he is a proponent of doing something with Vernon because he feels the Board needs some public opinion input. Todd said she can provide examples from what their group did in Linn County.
Stutsman said she has some concerns with the timeline. She referred to a timeline created by Whiston and said if the County follows that then the Board should have gone to the community with a bond issue in July, 2008. Whiston said the timeline she proposed included two different surveys. The first survey would help design what to put on a ballot and when. A follow-up survey in the four to six months range would let them know if they’re on target with the public needs and opinions. Todd said that would be a great way to go after it because they want to find out if education is needed, and in what area. Whiston said it sounds like the cost of this survey would be twice as much as what's in the contract on the table. Todd said possibly, but that it depends on if in the second part, knowing what is known, what's the likelihood that they are going to vote for this. With five questions to 400 people, that is likely a different sort of pricing all together, whereas they may want to go on a perception-seeking mission and that would hit the first group. She cautioned going too far out at this point because once the research is completed, if something major happens to impact the area, it might change peoples’ perceptions altogether.
CJCC Member Larry Wilson said the experts should be trusted to design the court and justice facility. He said there are four options and a focus group run by Durrant to help the Board decide which option is best for the County. Then it would be important to know if the public will support the cost. He said that if four elements are proposed on the bond issue, it will be chaos. There should be a unified proposal and the Durrant focus group could help the Board decide on the best option. R. Sullivan said the advantage of conjoined analysis is that multiple things can be tested. Todd said it's like trail mix, there are 20 different things that can be put in it, but which ones are the ones the people of Johnson County prefer. She said that they have to narrow it down to what it is and get it down to which one, two, or three packages people are willing to accept.
Wilson said what if the public decides the trial mix is what they want but it doesn't provide assistance with what they need. R. Sullivan said that's the challenge but it is a piece of information they need to know. Todd said if you've decided that marshmallows are completely unhealthy, you don't put them in as an option because that’s not something people are going to be choosing. Wilson said that is the kind of narrowing down he is talking about. R. Sullivan said that is the purpose of Project Definition. A 50-bed jail would not be put out as a possibility because it makes no sense and it's not an option. Wilson said on the other hand, if 30 beds are needed, 25 wouldn’t be offered as an option. Harney said he thinks this discussion is premature. He said first, the property location should be secured, and then the size of the facility should be determined, which he said is almost predetermined by the Durrant Group study. He said once this is in place, this is the time to use the Vernon Research Group. Todd agreed.
Twohy said the Vernon Research document in front of him ends without a finished sentence and asked if there is more on page two. Todd said she apologized and added that the entire proposal is available and that the only thing that should have been changed is the 4% increase. The Board can make modifications as they wish. There are a variety of approaches. R. Sullivan said the Government Service Area Property (GSA) is the one big question to seek an answer to but that's probably the only one. Stutsman said she believes the Board should wait for Durrant to return, and the Board needs to make a decision on which site to pursue. She said after this decision is made, then the Board can discuss bringing in the Vernon Group. Stutsman added that her priority is to get the Coordinator on board.
Harney asked Todd if survey subjects lose interest after ten minutes. Todd replied it depends on how complicated the questions are and that ten or 15 minutes surveys are not that different in terms of subjects completing the survey. She said she should probably send the Board an updated one-page proposal that includes more clear options that includes some of the things expressed at today's meeting. Todd said a web survey is recommended as the best choice if they have contact information and email addresses. She said originally they talked about a list of contacts coming from registered voters but said she needs clarification on what the Board wants at this stage. Meyers asked if the ten-minute web survey contains the same questions. Todd said yes, but that won't really change the amount of questions in either one of them. Meyers clarified if questions on a web survey would be the same questions as on the phone survey. Todd said yes. Meyers asked if there is any way to restrict the public to completing the survey only once. Todd said the survey would be password protected so respondents could only take the survey one time. Todd said if a good contact list is available and the Board chooses to conduct only a web survey, the price would change.
Todd said she is now looking at a couple of options. She either writes a new one-page proposal or considers the proposal in front of the Board today and asked them to weigh in on their level of interest at this time. R. Sullivan said he thinks an initial survey to find out where the public stands on the issue is important to him. He said that once the Board has decided to put something forward to the voters, they should be doing everything possible to educate anyway. He said that checking two weeks or two months out, won't change behaviors. He said once something is going forward, it's a done deal. Sullivan said he would like to know what people think first before presenting something that looks like a done deal.
Harney said he thinks the Board needs to first determine the site location before going to the public. CJCC Member John Stratton said if they put out options that ultimately must be dropped, the public will be disappointed. He said he thinks it will be a waste of everyone's time to go to the public before a site is selected. He said he thinks the County should have realistic options before seeking public input because if the public selects a site and then the County can't deliver, that won't look good. He said the public can't tell the County what it needs.
R. Sullivan said he said he is not making any assumptions but that there may be four members who don't want to work with VRG. He said the Board would need to know whether or not it can do something with the GSA. Harney said he really believes that when the Board selects a site it can move forward from there. He said it will tie everything together and they can go forward from there to determine the level of public interest. Stutsman agreed and said the Board needs to make a decision on a viable site. Meyers said that was the point of the public hearings, to propose the four sites to the public for comment, but so far the quantity of public comment has been pretty dismal. Stutsman said that is the way it always is, until somebody's ox is gored they are not going to show up. R. Sullivan said the next public meeting is Monday, October 8, 2008 at the Iowa City Public Library, and the next joint meeting with the Board and the CJCC is Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. Todd asked if the Board needs anything new from her at this time. The Board responded no.
R. Sullivan announced Lyness had previously passed out draft job descriptions and made those available to members of the audience. Lyness said the original drafting committee included M. Sullivan and County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek and a few others. She apologized to the Board because she misunderstood whether this was going to be a joint meeting or just CJCC, and she thinks that at the last CJCC Joint Board of Supervisors meeting they would have future meetings together. Lyness said she thinks people on the CJCC thought they should have a meeting to discuss the job description before it was brought to the Board, but she did not realize that. She asked folks to keep in mind that the CJCC has not had the opportunity to discuss the draft of the position description or to provide input. The draft is the original draft and the CJCC is seeing it for the first time.
Lyness said the draft is broken down into a quick job summary, essential job functions, minimum requirements, and required abilities. She said the idea is to find someone who can help coordinate activities. For the CJCC a big thing is conducting public outreach through the use of press releases and other media tools, to include public presentations to a wide variety of public and civic groups in Johnson County. Lyness said this will be someone who is the go-to person who will make sure the subcommittees are meeting and helping with research needs of the subcommittees, coordinating monthly meetings, sending out notices and making sure everyone who needs to be there knows about the meetings, someone who would work with Vernon Research Group, setting up the meetings where Vernon is getting all the information they need to do the public opinion research. She said it seems like what they’ve been talking about is that they don't have one person as a contact making sure everything is moving forward and this coordinator position will be that person.
Stutsman said the committee has done a good job listing everything the Board has discussed. She asked if this is a full-time position. Lyness said it is a contract position. She has talked to people who are interested in volunteering or doing it for a minimal amount of time; there are others she knows are interested in working for a fee. Lyness said they can determine the number of hours and the schedule can be adjusted. Harney said he favors moving forward with the coordinator position. He cautioned against going outside and hiring someone unfamiliar with the committee. Stutsman said she thinks the Board should start the process to hire someone. R. Sullivan said he can't imagine this being a 40 hour position at this point. He said he thinks the person should be paid because volunteers are hard to manage and hard to fire. He said he favors a contract arrangement. Stutsman agreed. Lyness asked for comments from the committee. Whiston said the CJCC has repeatedly said they want a coordinator. Stratton said he is in favor of the coordinator position. He said it's important the person have some background and exposure to this issue. He said he agrees it should be someone involved with the process and knows what is going on. Lyness said the Board needs to decide how much they are interested in spending on this position and a timeline for hiring.
Facilities Manager David Kempf asked if Human Resources should take a look at the position description to determine what classification it will fall into to get an idea of the pay range before the CJCC sets the amount. Lyness said yes, but since this is a contract, the Board can decide how much they are willing to spend and those who are willing to accept the contract salary price will apply. Stutsman asked if the Board has ever discussed a salary figure for this position. M. Sullivan said no. Harney said it should be based on the number of expected work hours. M. Sullivan said he thinks it should be negotiated with the applicant. R. Sullivan said the person may need to be on the job before anyone can know how many hours are sufficient to get the job done. Stutsman asked if anyone knows how much a project manager earns. M. Sullivan said he will try to get the information. R. Sullivan suggested if the position paid $20 per hour for 15 hours per week, that is just over $15,000 annually. Twohy said to consider less than a year. Stratton said it could be useful to consider the maximum contract amount and understand that the weekly hours and salary are flexible. R. Sullivan said that whatever agreement the Board reaches, it must have the right to give a 30 day notice to terminate the contract. Stutsman asked it there is any interest in setting an hourly amount. R. Sullivan said it should be hourly and Stutsman clarified she wants to know if the employee will be asked to keep track of their hours. R. Sullivan said yes.
Stratton suggested asking the applicant to outline salary and time requirements. Whiston said she supports an hourly rate with flexibility on the number of hours, but not to exceed a total contract amount. Harney asked if M. Sullivan can pull this information together for the Board. Stutsman said she does not wish to wait another month before hiring and asked how the job will be advertised. Lyness said the Board should put the contract hire information on the agenda for next week, October 9, 2008, as a request for proposals. R. Sullivan said an aggressive time line will be to have a coordinator hired by the November 5, 2008 Board meeting. He said M. Sullivan will write up a contract agreement for the Board to review at the October 9, 2008 meeting. Lyness said the Board needs to figure out what salary it is able to pay so that when the advertisement is written the salary can be included. Meyers said that the contract price should be included in any proposal.
Kempf asked if anyone has any ideas on how to get more members of the public to the next meeting. M. Sullivan said a press release will be issued ahead of time. He said geographically, the Iowa City Public Library is a location that will draw more people. M. Sullivan said he thinks the Daily Iowan will publish a meeting notice.
Harney said he requested this agenda item after the last Key Issues Meeting to discuss if the committee will be used as a resource or what is expected of the CJCC. He said some of this became clear in the conversation today. Lyness said she feels the committee is necessary and useful. R. Sullivan said he would hate to see the CJCC go away. Harney said he agrees and he asked how all the activities and responsibilities will be structured. R. Sullivan said he thinks the Board has decided it needs to take ownership of the CJCC. He said it does not make sense to him to have separate meetings with the CJCC and the Board. Lyness said the CJCC can meet all they want, but they are limited in their ability to move forward without the Boards authority. R. Sullivan said he wants the public in the room during these discussions. Harney said that he expects a lot of input from the CJCC which will have a lot of effect on how this moves forward. Harney said there is the legal side pushing for this, it all needs to be coordinated and continue to move forward. He said he does not think the Board can successfully move forward without their assistance.
Stutsman asked if the Board and the CJCC is now required to meet together every time there is a meeting. Harney said what had happened was there was discussion about every meeting being a joint meeting which was to happen in November. Stratton had asked him to have a meeting this month to talk about the coordinator position, but the meeting got changed to a combined Board/CJCC meeting. Harney said his understanding from here out is that it is managed by the Board, but he still thinks the coordinator position should preside over the CJCC as the organizer. Lyness said that what happened at the last joint meeting was the group talked about having joint meetings because until decisions on the site and coordinator are made, there wasn't a point in the CJCC meeting to talk about alternatives again. However, once a decision is made, there are other things the CJCC can do. Whiston said that her sense is the joint meetings will continue until the project is finalized and brought before the public. R. Sullivan said his vision is to play it by ear. He said he thought that they could reevaluate it if at some point people felt as though they were not contributing. Kempf said there may be a time when a subcommittee needs to work on things on its own and then report back to the group. He said the subcommittees could still convene if they need to but he agrees a lot more can happen a lot quicker with everyone in the same room at the same time.
Stutsman asked if it is necessary to meet monthly. Lyness said she thinks the Board will want to hire the CJCC coordinator. Stutsman asked if hiring the coordinator is going to be a committee discussion. Lyness asked if, after the final public meeting next week and the final report from Durrant is complete, the Board wants to select a site or leave that up to the Vernon Research Group. She said the Board will need to make decisions at that point and set a time frame. She said the time to look at that is after the election. Furthermore, if the Board needs to put something on the ballot that has to be scheduled as Vernon Research Group said, they need six months lead time before something is on the ballot. R. Sullivan said Vernon Research Group will not survey the public over the holidays. Lyness asked if a final report from Durrant is expected at the November meeting. The Board said that is what it is expecting since that is what is in the agreement. Lyness said they should meet in November and then not again until January, 2009. R. Sullivan asked if the Board wants to meet in November after the Durrant report is in to select a site. Stutsman said she thought the Board has to make that final decision. R. Sullivan agreed with Stutsman and asked if the discussion should take place while the public is present.
Stratton said the Board clearly has to make the final decision but most of the CJCC members are all stakeholders. Stratton said the Board will want the support of the stakeholders. Stutsman confirmed the Board will talk about the final Durrant report at the November 2008 Board meeting. Harney said he thinks the Bar Association, the Judiciary, and the CJCC committee has a lot of influence in what happens and where it goes from here. R. Sullivan said if the joint group meets again as a joint group in December, they should be able to make a final decision on what to put forth in a survey. R. Sullivan said the status of the committee's future has not changed. Stratton said the subcommittee has lost a lot of people and asked if there have been any formal reappointments. Lyness said she believes Iowa City City Council Member Connie Champion has been reappointed. R. Sullivan said he thinks the Public Defender is appointing John Roberts. Stratton asked if a regular representative from the Judiciary has been reappointed. Stutsman asked how the Board is going to move ahead with the coordinator job search. R. Sullivan said he thinks M. Sullivan will write up a contract for the Board to look at and he is talking about having a coordinator in place by the next meeting so this group won't meet.
Sixth Judicial District Court Judge Douglas Russell said he would like to have an updated rooster of the committee members distributed with their contact information. R. Sullivan said he will have one mailed to Judge Russell.
MECCA Out-patient Clinical Manager Megan LaVelle said referrals were down this month. They had about 19 referrals, 17 completed and 2 refused. Temporary Mobile Crisis Coordinator Jessica Peckover said they have had 357 over the course of the program.
Harney left at 5:15 p.m.
R. Sullivan said a frequently asked questions flyer was made available at the Durrant community meetings. Stratton asked if there is a way to more broadly distribute the flyers like putting them in the lobby. Meyers asked if the flyer could be posted on the website. R. Sullivan said he would like more feedback before making them available to the general public. An audience member asked if the Board knew the breakdown of crime types because she has the number of how many people are in jail. She asked if the comments about public intox not being what is taking up the jail space were true. She said she wants to know what is taking up the jail space.
Kempf said they are waiting for the final Durrant report.
Adjourned at 5:19 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By John Deeth, Recording Secretary