MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
OCTOBER 8, 2008
Chairperson Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Iowa City Public Library, Room A, 123 South Linn Street, Iowa City, Iowa, at 5:30 p.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
Durrant Group Representative Michael Lewis said his presentation will include three or four site options for the proposed Johnson County Justice Center, and will discuss the findings associated with the sites. Durrant assembled a detailed report for the Board and the Sheriff's Office which looked at the needs assessment associated with the Jails. The courts looked at programmatic and operational issues and staffing plans. Then Durrant conducted a discussion about locations for the justice complex. The bulk of this presentation centers on a few sites and some high level findings. The additional information is contained in the detailed report.
Lewis said this is the third and final public presentation before Durrant presents findings to the Board on November 5, 2008. Durrant evaluated five sites, and abandoned one of them. The first site is the existing Courthouse site. The second site is north of the County Administration Building and the new Health and Human Services Building. The third site south of the Human Services Building has been dropped out of consideration because of flooding concerns. They can raise the building up out of the flood plain, but, access for emergency and support vehicles would remain a concern. Site number four on Melrose Avenue is the County Farm site, and site number five is on Highway 218 South.
Lewis then referred to a slide show presentation. Lewis said the first site shows an aerial of the existing Courthouse. The design consists of a jail and courts project immediately to the south. The combined project was to look at reutilizing the existing Courthouse and Jail on this site. This would require acquiring property that is currently owned by the Federal Government. There are also four houses on South Capitol Street that would be affected by this. Lewis said he believes the City has had some negotiations to deal with that property. Because of the vertical change across this site, it actually adds to operation effectiveness and efficiency in this solution. Staffing efficiency in the jail side of these projects is very important because that has dramatic effects on the long-term costs associated with the operation of the jail. In this site, the more horizontal they could keep the site, the better; in terms of moving food and services horizontally throughout the building as opposed to vertically.
Lewis said on the very lowest level, entering off of South Capitol Street, would be a secured parking area underneath the building to be utilized for staff and judges parking. There is also space for mechanical and storage room areas. This takes about half of the site, and the remaining Federal site could be used for public parking or could remain as parking for the Federal Government. The next level up has on-street access in front of the Courthouse on the eastern side, on South Clinton. This particular access is beneficial because jail offenders can be brought into the booking area in the secured vehicular sally port denoted by DSP on the diagram. It also has horizontal movement into the laundry, kitchen and support spaces. The green area is the jail housing component with this option. It is diagrammatically shown the same on the other options. This represents 240 beds of housing for inmates. To complete a demographics projection and analysis, Durrant looked at the peeking calculation for the number of days offenders are in the facility and what happens at peek times on weekends. They came up with a demographic projection of the 240-bed need.
Lewis said that at times, the existing facility has as many as 150 people in it. This projection for 240 beds is designed for the 20-year period and all these solutions are thought out in terms of expansion to as much as 450 beds but that would happen beyond the 20-year period. Durrant Consultant Associate Bob Olson said that is actually showing the second level of the Sheriff's building for future expansion, and the lower level of parking would utilize the renovated first level of the Jail.
Lewis said the existing jail is about 26,000 square feet of space and the civil and patrol divisions of Sheriff's Administration would remain in the existing Jail on the lowest level and on the upper level they have the ability to expand operations over time.
Lewis said access to the courts is on the next level up. The area labeled entrance plaza ramp is a ramp and stepped plaza processional area up to the secured entry for the courts. The Jail and court entrances are separated and that is important from a perception of how the courts and the jail relate. Durrant is looking at reutilizing the existing Courthouse because about 40,000 square feet of space is saved over the projected square footage reutilizing the Courthouse and the Sheriff's Office. Remodeling activities in the Courthouse would be necessary. Olson said this design utilizes the whole existing Courthouse. Lewis said four courtrooms are planned. Off the lobby space of the courts is the County Attorney space, the Clerk of Court space, and then on the backside of all this, is the second level of the jail. The jail volume for the 240 beds is about 24 feet in height in order to get those beds stacked in that environment.
Lewis said the next level up on the courts would be the new court room level with judges and court administration and four new court rooms. There are also hearing and meeting rooms for non-juried environments on the side of those courtrooms that the public would access. Durrant projected a need of between ten and 12 court rooms with the combination of the existing building and the new building. Expansion could occur one more level up. An addition can be built onto the jail by putting the structure in place the beginning to put another level of the jail on the back to take that to the 240-beds someday. If vertical expansion was not desirable, the Federal Government land to the south may be available for purchase and the County can expand into the parking lot area now owned by the Federal Government.
Lewis said at the uppermost level there are the existing ceremonial court rooms that are happening through the renovation of those court rooms. With this conversion new security would be installed in the new link going back into the existing Courthouse and a new proper handicapped accessible circulation by converting the elevators in the existing Courthouse. In designing the outside image of the front of the Courthouse Durrant was very sensitive of the scale of this building wanting to keep it low so it doesn't detract from the historic character of the existing facility. Durrant choose to utilize natural light as much as possible and sustainable materials in the solution to promote energy efficiency in both court and jail components of the project.
Lewis said the baseline calculation of staff efficiency for the jail yielded 71 staff in this proposed design. When considering horizontal movement versus vertical movement in this building, staff projection were reduced by three positions to 68 staff when the jail is full at 240 beds. That would be 16 new staff positions over what is currently operating in the existing Jail. Lewis said the cost is $61.2 - $66.8 million and compared to the other solutions analyzed, this one is $700,000 cheaper than the other options. Again 41,000 square feet of space is being reused which contributes to why this solution becomes more economical. All of the calculations have considered structured parking scenarios as well site development costs associated with them and those are calculated in the number. Also soft cost for furniture and equipment are in the number as well as professional fees. The $61 to $66 million, it is not just building construction, but it is a total project number. The only thing excluded from that number is land acquisition. Land acquisition costs were not included in the calculations.
Lewis said if another level is build on this, just to do the exterior shell at the beginning of the project, it would be $6.8 million of additional cost to the project to build now instead of later. The parking numbers represent structured parking inside of the building. Olson said transportation issues and reusing the existing structure have a lot of positives.
Lewis said there is a very similar conceptual layout on site number two. He said this is the site immediately north of the Health and Human Services Building. The silver box on the page is actually where a new parking ramp is being built associated with the Human Services Building. An important consideration on this site is how to utilize that new ramp instead of duplicating parking on this particular site. This site has one lobby entrance off of the corner on Lafayette and Clinton Street. Visitors enter the lobby, clear security and then go to video visitation for public visitation with inmates. The courts are accessible via escalators or elevators to the upper level. On the lower level is vehicular parking and underneath that is secured parking for patrolled vehicles and judges. One deficiency noted with the existing Jail is the inadequacy of the booking process which causes time delays and other constraints. The design of the vehicular sally port to bring offenders into the facility and the intake and release processing booking area should expedite this process. An intake and release facility of the appropriate size will gain some efficiencies in terms of the number of people that ultimately stay in the jail. That was a factor in arriving at the 240-bed needs.
Lewis said there is a laundry and kitchen receiving area off of Clinton Street on the backside of the building. Kitchen, laundry, and inmates moving in intake-release area all have to move vertically up to the jail and up to the courts area for court holding. This has 73 staff compared to 68 in the first solution presented. The next level up has hearing and meeting room space for the County Attorney and Clerks. The 240-bed jail space is on the next level up. All Sheriff's operations are brought into this solution and all court's functions are brought in here. All the court rooms will be built new in this solution as opposed to utilizing the existing building. Expansion for jail and court growth on this solution would have to be vertical. The site is landlocked.
Lewis said this solution requires 73 staff members in order to operate the vertical movement. The capitol construction is $71 to $76 million, which is $8.2 million higher than the previous solution. This footprint is 71,000 square feet of space which is a little larger because it includes the jail, the Sheriff's administration, and all the courts. The shell construction is $9.2 million dollars. Because of the parking across the street, the need for secured parking is lower in this solution. Lewis said the downtown site has good accessibility to public transportation, like the first solution, and this is an important consideration.
Lewis said getting away from the downtown area to more of a field location, a horizontal solution is associated with the project. Expansion of a horizontal solution does not require shell construction costs considerations because additions are just built onto the building as needed. Lewis said the County Poor Farm is located on this property off Melrose Avenue. There are historic concerns with this site. Durrant originally looked at proposing the building closer to the Emergency Operations Center, but that would happen to be right behind the Poor Farm where there is a cemetery. There were many concerns about building in that location so the building was moved to the northwest corner of the property. This solution will have surface parking with 200 stalls in the secured area behind controlled gates and 100 spaces for the public.
Lewis said site five is the same footprint just moved to a different location. There is one public entry lobby space. Beyond security and to the right is the courts area, and in another direction is the video visitation area, and yet another direction to the Sheriff's Administration space. The intake booking area and vehicular sally port start the jail in this process which is laid out to go through linearly through intake release back into some secured areas associated with inmate processing. A locker room and support space for the staff because they interact back there into the jail in the medical areas between the two housing units to support it. In the other direction is the county attorneys and clerks space for the interaction with the public immediately off the secured point moving down to courts, hearing, meeting rooms and the judges' chambers.
Lewis said the site falls about 10 feet to the south and this solution takes advantage of this fall. This is the upper level of the jail in this first floor main entrance. As it falls away, it cuts into the ground and the lower level of the jail is in the ground with the receiving behind that. The kitchen is on that lower level. In all the solutions, proper inmate holding areas were a main consideration. In this particular solution, an elevator at the end of this corridor ascends one level to the court holding area and the courtroom space. This lower level contains the laundry and maintenance storage space necessary for the building.
Lewis said the staffing efficiency in this horizontal solution is 71 staff. With the capitol construction there is a little bit of a trade-off between structured and surface parking and how that all works associated with the complexity of site development costs. While site development costs for this is a little bit cheaper, a bigger footprint than the downtown Site One Existing Courthouse is necessary. Capitol construction costs are very close to the costs of Site One, but the staff efficiency on this site is slightly greater. There is no expansion cost because that comes at a later time. The full compliment of needed parking is available on this site throughout the life of the project.
The layout of the inmate housing area vis-à-vis program spaces, is designed to reduce recidivism. There are professional visitor rooms for medical analysis or a one-on-one room for an education person to conduct a discussion with an offender. There is one for each housing unit. There is a group program space for treatment similar to classroom space which can be utilized for treatment opportunities, religious services, or various programs. This is about 120 beds. The Professional Visitation rooms allow for private conferences between attorneys and inmates. Video visitation between the public and inmates is received well in the justice community and will increase efficiency. A contact visitation opportunity is available in the booking area.
Tom Carsner asked what the estimated value is on site one, the present jail location. Lewis said his evaluation did not calculate land value into the study. It was based on capitol construction and staffing costs. Included were costs to renovate the space, and costs to use it for its intended purpose, but not the value of the land or the physical structures themselves. Lewis said if anyone has an opinion or understanding of the assessed value of that property, that would be appreciated. Carsner asked what would be the trade off between selling the existing building and parking lot and putting that money into the proposed building. Carsner said he thinks that is a valuable piece of land and thinks it would be profitable to sell it and use the profits to build an entirely new building.
Lewis said the difference between site one and site two is about $6 million between the cost associated with building the space. So if the land is sold and someone else utilizes it for another purpose, the sheriff's space and court space will need to be reconstructed. At this point, the site one solution incorporates the existing Jail and Courthouse. More than $6 million is needed from the sale of those properties in order to make this work. Olson said the beauty of this scheme is that it will work either way, keeping the building or, if the offer is good enough, it could be incorporated into the scheme. In other words, no one is forced to do either one which is the best position to be in. Lewis said there is a maintenance building behind the existing Courthouse which will no longer be needed and so the new building could be extended on the west side. This is about 26,000 square feet of space. County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said the value of land that has been thrown around is $5 million. Anywhere from $2 to $5 million is the number Pulkrabek has heard.
Phil Hemmingway said he is old enough to remember that the maintenance building mentioned used to be the Sheriff's Office. He asked how many judges the County has because the plan shows more judge parking than Courthouse parking. Lewis says there are more stall labeled judge's stalls but those will be for staff, the County Attorney, the Clerk of Court for example. Hemmingway said the diagram gives him the impression there are 50 judges in the Iowa City Courthouse. Hemmingway asked what the soil types are on sites four and five. Lewis said he was not authorized to take it to that level. Hemmingway said all he has to do is ask the County office. Lewis said they are designing this with the expectation they have normal barring pressures that they would have on green field sites. Hemmingway said his soil question has noting to do with the soundness of the soil but with the value of the soil which would be destroyed. He said his question goes to the gentlemen's question that was asked, the value of the property destroyed to house convicts. Hemmingway asked if high-dollar property in downtown Iowa City should be used, or if valuable farm land should be destroyed, or if another area should be found where the land to it's best capability. He said he is really surprised Durrant would conduct a survey without checking on soil value. Lewis said he did check on the value of the land associated with the acreage out there, it was $6,000 per acre. Olson said 8,000 acres was calculated for site four and five. Now the County owns four so it's irrelevant. Hemmingway said site four is relevant because the County owns it, it's an asset. He said he'd like people to think in terms of destroying the smallest amount of assets. Olson agreed. Lewis said the acreage value of site five is a $300,000 impact to that process compared to four. The other value to take note of is the value associated with the cost to transport people to the city.
Hemmingway said the value of the land at the Iowa City Landfill is the lowest in the county. He asked if Lewis considered that land as a potential jail site. Lewis said he was not asked to look at that site. Hemmingway said he previously asked Pulkrabek about using the Landfill property for the jail but was told they can't pursue it because it is City property. Hemmingway said the County is now going after City and Federal Government land to build on site one. Pulkrabek said the City of Iowa City is required to sell the three houses because they were purchased with Federal parking dollars and they have decided to move their parking facility to where St. Pat's Parish Hall is. Hemmingway said he is a business man and he has to compete with the County, the schools, other people in his business field, for land in Johnson County. He asked what the cost per inmate is on any one of the structures. Lewis said it is about $80,000 per inmate. The cost includes the justice center and courts facility. Hemmingway said that falls under the criteria of affordable housing in the County. He said the Durrant report is way off and that the primary things to be considered is the value of the land destroyed because no one is producing more land in the county. This is a time where cut backs are necessary, and people are going to be required to do more with less and this looks outrageous to a taxpayer. He said this is gold-plated and is way in excess of what the County needs. A gravel parking lot for example can be used. Hemmingway asked if someone would explain why the state requirement for the ceiling height in an exercise facility is 14 feet. Pulkrabek said that is a State jail standard. Hemmingway asked if poll vaulting is part of inmate activities. Pulkrabek said those guidelines are established by the State and no one in this room can do anything to change jail standards unless he goes to higher elected officials.
Hemmingway said the County does not meet that standard now and asked what the penalty is. Pulkrabek said the Jail is criticized every year in the annual report. Hemmingway said as one tax payer, he will lower the height of the ceiling and the exercise room for the criticism. He said he does not think it is out of line, the Nautilus in town has a 12-foot ceiling and he doesn't see why criminals are provided a 14-foot ceiling. Lewis said Durrant is required to meet State code design standards. Hemmingway asked again what the penalty would be if the ceilings were not in compliance with State code. Pulkrabek said he knows the State has the ability to close down operations which they did do in Washington County. Pulkrabek said that in the past, County Jail officials have been told they will be shut down for non-compliance. He said he understands what Hemmingway is saying and said he has no problem with him contacting the State Jail inspector to ask him how to get it changed. Hemmingway said he already has, which is how he found out the ceiling height requirement was 14 feet. Pulkrabek asked if Hemmingway asked the jail inspector how to change that regulation saying that is the million dollar question.
Lewis said that at one point in time, Iowa required 120-square feet per cell for two offenders and the Federal requirement was about 93 square feet. There was some lobbying that occurred to reduce the Iowa requirement and the regulations were changed to match the Federal standards. Hemmingway asked what the square footage per inmate is in the Durrant proposal. Lewis said 93. Hemmingway said a standard 20-foot shipping container is 160 square feet and that's $4,000 dollars. That's only $1.2 million dollars for 300 inmates. Lewis said they are in compliance with the current standards. Hemmingway said the first Jail was built per standard which then changed and then it is out of compliance. Olson said everything Hemmingway has brought up is all the reasons they are strongly recommending site one. Hemmingway said that is the most expensive land in the city. Olson said the County already owns 60% of it. Hemmingway said that does not make it any cheaper than what it is.
Carol Depose asked if a library is included in any of the jail floor plans. Lewis said there are library spaces. In order to improve staff efficiency, books are taken on carts to inmates. Any library or reading material is keyed in an electronic kiosk to key in their requests and those materials are then delivered by a trustee in the facility. Depose asked if there is coordination between the Iowa City Public Library (ICPL) and the online catalogue and if prisoners will have access to those materials. ICPL staff member Kara Logsden said the Board of Supervisors currently contracts with the ICPL to provide services to Jail inmates. Materials are delivered weekly to the Jail and inmates are provided answers to reference questions. Magazines and newspapers paid for by the Board are sent to the Jail. Depose asked if there is currently a library on site in the jail. Logsden said no. Lewis said there is space for storing library materials separate from other storage and inmates will have access to that. There is room and provisions for library space in here.
Terry Dahms said the site plans are very generic. He said that from touring the current Jail, he knows the women must be separate from the men. There are also more dangerous inmates than others. Dahms asked for some specifics on these schematics, where the women will be housed, where dangerous inmates might be held, and where the overnight drunk offenders will be held. Lewis said they will get into detailed architectural design if the Board elects one of these sites and a referendum passes. That is when more design detail will occur. At this point, Durrant visited with the sheriff and the staff to identify spatial needs and break down the housing configurations to determine the classification levels, for example, segregated beds for female, segregated general population beds for females, male segregation, male dormitory, and so forth. This diagram was put together to look at how to supervise a control location, the number of housing units around a control, and help determine the number of staff needed to operate the facility on a 24-7 basis. In a detailed architectural scenario at the next level, subdivision will be identified here so it is isolated properly and sight and sound requirements are met. The plans are not that far along yet, but just far enough along for cost estimates and to determine staffing needs. Dahms said that is the next step, but he'd like to see a more detailed diagram in order to truly evaluate what will possibly be build. Lewis said Durrant was hired for their programming and planning experience, to look at it from a square footage basis and the numbers that were there. They have a detailed program which identified the rooms that are needed. It's a fairly common practice to look at it square footage and room wise and then work into the detailed design.
Caroline Dieterle asked for an idea of the increase in overall cost of operation. Lewis said 60% of the costs to operate the jail are associated with staffing costs. Of the remaining cost, about 28% are costs for inmate care such as food, laundry, and medical care. When the facility is at capacity, another 16 staff are needed at an annual cost of $1,320,400 in today's dollars. Dieterle asked if that cost is an annual cost. Lewis said yes it is. Right now the cost of housing inmates in other jurisdictions is very close to $1.3 million. Pulkrabek said this fiscal year they are poised to spend about one million dollars on rent. Lewis reminded the public that the $1.3 million is with a full 240-bed facility today.
Bob Welsh asked what the prospect is of getting the other 40% of the land. Welsh said his point is why consider these solutions if the land is not available. Lewis replied he thinks that is possible, but it is complex. Site one is the most complex scenario in terms of land acquisition. The Board is currently looking for direction from the public about which site is most favorable. R. Sullivan said right now the Board is hearing public comments and it has not made any decisions at all.
Dahms asked if it is possible to construct the project in phases, building for example the courts first and the jail later. This might be more palatable to taxpayers. Lewis said it is possible to phase the project. Four months ago the results of discussions to phase the project resulted in Durrant being told to study this as a justice complex with courts and jail.
Paula Gretter said she was surprised to hear that farm value was placed on site five, at $6,000 or $8,000. She said Washington County had a court ruling using imminent domain and the ruling was that farm value could not be used because it was going to be a commercial site. Olson said they talked to an appraiser in town. Olson said farm values seemed like the most logical way to go. In debating between $10,000 and $6,000 the figure settled on was $8,000. The bottom line is the land value is pretty minor. Gretter said that depending on how agreeable the land owners are, if imminent domain must be used to get it from them, then her understanding is that the comparable value price must be used. The land that is comparable on the county records at assessed value is $220,000 per acre. So that is over $5 million to get 25 acres if the people who own the land aren't cooperative. Lewis said the cost to bring utilities and services to the site is included in site development costs.
Melvin Dvorsky asked if the voters would approve this how long would it take to build. Lewis said approximately 24 months. Design services will take about 10 months, so it would take almost three years from the time the bond referendum is made.
Dahms asked for a timeline of the immediate next steps and when this might come before the Board. Lewis said this is the final public hearing of three and there will be time between now and November 5, 2008 to solicit additional comments but no more public meetings. On November 5, 2008, Durrant is asked to come back to the Board to give an analysis of all the comments and how Durrant thinks that impacts the information given to date. From that point forward, it is no longer Durant’s responsibility to move the project along. It will be a function of the Board's next steps, desires, and directions.
Hemmingway asked if any consideration was given to expanding Courthouse hours. For example, beginning court at 6:00 a.m. and close at 8:00 p.m. Lewis said there was dialogue about considerations of hours. The infrastructure concerns that exist with security, accessibility, the needs of lawyers in that space, and the fact that issues associated with inmate holding areas is so lacking, even expanded hours did not solve those issues and the magnitude of problems that exist there.
Carsner asked how close the Durrant design is to meeting certification. Lewis said it is a sustainable building in the concepts of the materials and principles. Whether the County chooses to have it certified is another discussion. Commissioning, energy efficiency, material choices are all thought of in this plan. Carsner asked again if the design is ready for lead certification. Lewis said that is a whole different question. He said lead certification comes at the end of construction after a building is commissioned. It isn't something that can be certified now but the costs are calculated for that potential. Sullivan said they have reached the end of their time and the meeting room is no longer available to the Board.
Adjourned at 6:30 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Nancy Tomkovicz, Recording Secretary