MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
OCTOBER 22, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Key Issues Work Session........................................................................................................ 1
Johnson County Ag Association Regarding New Building at Fairgrounds........................ 1
Report on Progress of Arranging Meetings With Local Congressional Staff People......... 5
Project Updates.......................................................................................................... 8
Naming East Iowa Tourism Association Representative.............................................. 11
Process for Communicating with Supervisors’ Representatives on Compensation Board 11
Response to Mental Health/Disability Services Petition................................................ 12
Overspray of Cars in Administration Building Parking Lot........................................... 14
Rural Advisory Committee........................................................................................ 17
Salary Survey........................................................................................................... 18
Internal Processes, Expectations, and Other Operational Issues of the Board of Supervisors Office 19
Meeting Agenda Items.............................................................................................. 19
Chairperson Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:00 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
Greg Finger said he wanted to come in and speak with the Board. He said extension had proposed buying some of their property putting up a 12,000 square foot building. He said that the Agricultural Association Articles of Incorporation state if something happens to their association it comes back on the Board of Supervisors. He said he wanted to get their blessing on what to do about this proposal. He said Extension has proposed two possible places for the placement of the building. One site is north of the parking lot and the other site is south of the parking lot. He said if the north site is chosen Extension would be able to use the Ag Associations parking lot, if the south site is chosen they would need to redo the driveway, and build a lot. He said they have not yet done any tests so there is no idea if this property would be sufficient to place a 12,000 square foot property on it. He said at this point he wanted to get the Board’s input.
R. Sullivan thanked Finger for coming in and bringing this issue to the Board. Finger said Extension would like to explain why they are looking for a building. He said that he is trying to stress to his committee that Extension wanted to come talk to them just about their building. He said to pay for this the money is going to have to come from the taxpayers. He said these are the reasons he wanted to come and speak with the Board, he wanted their input about buying or leasing. He said the Footletters came to them one time and spoke about putting a building to the north of the parking lot, but there was an issue with the septic and there would need to be a lift station put in. He said Extension has agreed to take care of that, but he is not sure if they can handle that big of a building at that site. Stutsman asked if Extension would vacate the current building they are in and build a new one. Finger answered yes.
R. Sullivan said he knew Ag Extension Representative Gene Mohling and some other folks from Extension are present. Finger said they could come up and talk about it a little, he just wanted to give the Ag Committees stance on this proposal. R. Sullivan said that Finger was kind enough to give the Board quite a bit of information as well. He said one of the concerns he would have from a zoning perspective is if selling rather than leasing. He said if Extension builds a new building and occupies it for 10 years, then decides they want to relocate, the County would lose zoning control if a fast food restaurant or adult entertainment company then asks to occupy the empty space. Finger said the 28E would revert that space back to the Committee. R. Sullivan said they could do a right of first refusal or something of that nature.
Finger said they are still dealing with FEMA as well as the Small Business Association and the Red Cross for the floods. He said it looks like they are going to get paid for when the animal shelter was relocated to the fairgrounds, but he did not think they were going to get anything from FEMA. Harney asked if they would share the parking lot if Extension were to build the new building. Finger responded that it depends on the location. He said if it is placed on the north side they were talking about sharing the lot and having an easement. Neuzil said the other question was whether the County was going to run into zoning issues if they sell that property. He asked if it was something that the City would have to approve zoning for. Finger said he believed Extension has already spoken with the City to put City sewer down there, but if that comes into play it would have to be annexed into the City limits. He said they would probably be annexed in that area and he did not think they wanted to go that route yet.
Stutsman said Fairborn owns the property, not the County. She said she does not want to micromanage because the Board does not have a lot of say in this issue. She said she appreciated Finger coming and explaining what is happening. Finger said the reason they wanted to approach the Board is because they give the Committee money to support the fair, and this will impact it in someway on what they will be able to do on the property 10 years from now. Meyers said both of the sites will have an impact on fair parking. He asked Finger what his thinking was on this issue. Finger said the Fair Board has determined that the south is a better site for the committee, because of the wetness of the ground, and because they would lose a lot of parking if they put a building that size on their north end. Meyers asked how big the current building is. Finger responded the current building is 4,700 square feet.
Stutsman asked if the income from the sale would go to the Fair Board. Finger said yes. She asked if they have had an appraisal. Finger responded that they had not done anything yet, they were looking into a couple of realtors and they have formed a small committee. Stutsman asked Extension how they are going to pay for this. Mohling said that Extension is willing to pay for the construction, maintenance, sewer upgrades, and use of the well that is on the current location. He said that wherever zoning or the engineering report asked them to put it, would limit them. He said Extension is already using the current parking lot and the continuation of that use after a new building is put up would cut their costs. Mohling also said they are also already sharing the existing well, so to continue the use of existing utilities and access to the parking lot is a huge savings to the system. He said they are willing to pay for the property and they are looking at a situation where if they did leave the property it would revert back to the Fair Board. He asked if Extension left and tried to sell the property who the profits would go to. He said they are a Board entity, but also a local extension district so the money would go to the Fair Board or the Board of Supervisors. He said then, the zoning question comes up. He said that it is already zoned for the new fairgrounds and maybe, even if Extension bought it, not changing the zoning because if they were to vacate the facility it would go back to them anyway. He said the property to the north is zoned commercial, and if they left it zoned as is they wouldn’t have to go back and try to figure that out after they left that site.
R. Sullivan said he would like to see a right of first refusal specifically in the write up, so that if they decide to leave the building the Ag Association would have first opportunity to get it back. Mohling said the other side of that is purchasing would be a better investment for them than leasing. He said they want to protect their own financial situation. He said if they were to lease, they would want the Fair Board to give them two acres of land to protect their investment in the facility. He said there are many options but right now their main focus is finding a location. R. Sullivan said everyone is aware how crowded the Extension building is right now and that they desperately need the space. Mohling said there are about 30 staff in the current building and they are in desperate need of four or five more positions. He said they have potential for growth, about every five to eight years they add anywhere from six to ten new staff members. He said they are adding those staff with grant contract dollars, not property tax dollars. Mohling said they have the ability to levy property taxes in the amount of an additional two cents. He said between grants, contracts and some fee support, they feel they would be able to handle the construction of the building and purchasing of the grounds. He said by law they can only get an additional two pennies. He said the building would be a permanent asset to the fairgrounds, during the fair and on a year round basis to the people of the County. He said they serve over 3,500 youth on an annual basis in Johnson County with the potential to grow that number very quickly.
R. Sullivan said with 12,000 foot space Extension would have meeting space that they currently do not have. He said he would not like to see Extension competing with the Ag Association, who is trying to earn rent off of Montgomery Hall, and some of the other spaces. Mohling said they addressed that at the Association meeting on Monday. He said they do not want to compete, they want to have a site for their own meetings. He also said that Extension does not pay rent for 4H meetings on the fairgrounds, so even if the meetings were still in Montgomery Hall or the new facility there is no loss of revenue to the Fair Board. He said the Fair Board is structured differently because they have a full time employee that lives on the grounds. He said if Extension were to try to rent out the facility on a Saturday they would need to pay a staff member overtime to be there to open and lock up. It is not financially in their best interest to get into the rental business. He said they did not want to get into contracts or worrying about clean up or deposits. Mohling said their partners, the local Farm Bureau, or the local school systems would work with them for those kinds of meetings on the new property.
Stutsman clarified that Extension is at the very beginning of this process. Mohling responded yes, they are simply looking for a location at this time. He said once they have a location secured they can start to talk about building design, and an architect and those kinds of things. He said once they have that location they can get an engineer and have the soil test done, the land surveyed if it is a purchase arrangement, and see where an acre in a half to two acres works in their budget, and agree to a price. Neuzil asked if it would be cheaper to add on to the existing building. Finger said no because to the north of the current building there is a septic system that would need to be taken care of. He said if Extension wants to go for 12,000 square feet they want to keep it all level, and would have to go through the hassle to renovate. Mohling said they would have to renovate in phases, because they would have to build an office complex first and then move the staff in to that, then renovate the existing office into their meeting room area. He said they probably would have to take the roof completely off, and they can’t go up to a second floor because the footings were not designed for that. He said the current building lies in an X and if they wanted to make it rectangular they would have to fill out the corners and put all new trusses in. He said basically, they would have to take the building to the ground and start over. He said it probably would be cheaper to do that, take it all the way to the ground and rebuild on the same location. He said they would have to then put the septic to the north of the new property.
Neuzil asked why they didn’t make the location closer to where the current buildings are even with the septic there. Mohling said they talked about that but the Fair Board does not want them to the northwest because that is where the carnival is and they have more events out in the grass area to the north of those buildings. Finger said he does not think they would rule that out if that were the only place to put it. Neuzil said a carnival can be located in a lot of different areas. Finger said yes but they also have horse events down there too, and parking. Johnson County Fair Board Representative Maynard Hebl said he has been on the Extension office ever since they moved down there and this is the last time they can extend the building.
Neuzil said there is a point where it is cheaper to build new than it is to try and renovate. He said there does seem like there is value in using the existing parking lot which for the most part is empty except for a major event. He said he hopes that the Board that overseas this piece of property would think about some long term planning for buildings beyond what Extension currently has, so that they can think about where a carnival might be. Finger said they talked about that and that was one of the reasons they put up something on one corner of their fairgrounds insurance. He said it was not necessarily permanent but they put up some cattle tie off for the fairgrounds. He said it was one of the things he was opposed to because they do not know the long-term affect of putting something like this up. He said this is the same situation for the Extension building. He asked what the long-term affects are of putting up the Extension building on the north or northwest corner.
Neuzil said whatever decision is made Extension will have to go through County zoning, and also have cooperation with the City of Iowa City because it is within their growth area. He said to keep in mind they will have to have City Council support as well. Mohling asked if the Board thinks the zoning would be an issue that they would have to change zoning if they have an agreement written that it could stay as County Fairground zoning. R. Sullivan said it’s classified as P right now, so that shouldn’t have to change. Mohling asked if it could stay the same zoning even if they purchased it. Neuzil said yes because Extension is also public. Stutsman said she thinks that it is a great idea to continue to pursue, and it would be beneficial for both entities and for the community. She said she knows the role that Extension plays with 4H and Big Brothers Big Sisters. R. Sullivan said that the Board also knows that Extension could find space in a mall somewhere, and he likes the fact that they are at the fairgrounds. Mohling said their preference is to stay there and if they were on the north side it would really decrease the cost for parking, because they are so close to the well. He said they can incorporate the old septic system in the current building in with the new septic county designs so there would be only field there instead of two septic systems and they are willing to help with that if it happened. He also said by placing the new building on the north side of the lot, there would be an outlot or plaza affect. He said it would give them more of a central location feeling. He said if they were 150 yards to the south it would look like they were detached from what is going on. Harney said he would like to see the building stay down there because of the Ag services Extension provides to the County. He said it is a fit as long as they work something out with the commission.
R. Sullivan said the next scheduled Key Issues Work Session is November 12, 2008. He said they will have representatives from Senator Grassley and Senator Harkin’s office for sure and they may have a representative from Congressman Loebsack’s office as well. He said one of the things they are going to talk to the Board about is process and procedures. He said they definitely want to make sure that they have as many of the elected officials present as possible. He said one of the procedural things he wants the Board to think about is if they want department heads present or if they want to minimize the points of contact. Neuzil said in the past there were only a few departments that had specific issues related to this meeting, primarily Secondary Roads, Public Health, SEATS and the elected officials. R. Sullivan said he can see both sides. He can see where it would not be bad to have a department head understand what they need to do. He said he does not want mixed messages where the person asks what does the County really wants and he wants that to come from an elected official. Harney agreed. He would rather keep the meeting to the elected officials, and the department heads can have to opportunity to have input on something that needs to be brought to their attention to be discussed. R. Sullivan said they have been doing that for months now at the Department Head Meeting, asking for input and they have not gotten much back. Stutsman said they can act as liaisons and go over this information at the next Department Head Meeting. R. Sullivan said in terms of this issue they will keep it to elected officials, but urge everyone to think about specific issues.
Neuzil asked if Public Health or Conservation should be present because they have their own boards. He asked if this was a lobbying effort or if this was more of a get to know you meeting. R. Sullivan said he thinks that it is both. He thinks one of the things they discovered is that their lobbying efforts are not what they could be, in part because they don’t know who they should be talking to or how to do it. Stutsman asked if they earmarked that they wanted to talk about trails and funding. R. Sullivan responded that they have a list of four or five things. Stutsman then asked who is going to work up the program and address the specific issues. R. Sullivan said two of the issues have not changed since last year which are trails and the passenger rail, and the one that they added was the possibility of the 965 bridge and Hills bridge. Stutsman said maybe they should have County Engineer Greg Parker come in and address those issues. R. Sullivan said maybe Johnson County Trials Chair Janelle Rettig for that matter, if they are going to talk.
Harney asked if this was going to be the staffers and not the legislators themselves. R. Sullivan responded yes. Neuzil asked if the passenger rail was the connection from North Liberty to Iowa City, or if it was also Amtrak. R. Sullivan responded that it is both. Stutsman asked if they wanted to have a fact sheet that they can give them, or do they want to verbally address issues. R. Sullivan said it’s always better to have something in hand. Stutsman said it would be easy enough to have Parker put something together for the problems and the solutions for the road issues. R. Sullivan said one of the things they talked about with 965 is the idea that every time there is a flooding issue, I-380 closes and the links between Linn and Johnson County are lost. He said when they go to redo 965, particularly the bridge, maybe they should ask for Federal funds to build it up high so that this does not happen. Stutsman said if they do not tell them what the issues are how do they know what they are. She said that is what is important now, and who is going to present this stuff. She asked if they wanted her to talk to Parker. Neuzil said they could have some things on 965 and 500th Street. R. Sullivan told Neuzil and Stutsman to handle this issue with Parker and come up with something to give them, and have Parker do the presentation. He said he would be willing to talk to Rettig about trails and getting one page on something on that topic.
R. Sullivan said that they would have trail, passenger rail and the two bridge projects. Harney said he thinks that they are a little premature. Stutsman asked if the elected officials have issues that they want to have an opportunity to talk about. County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said he would probably talk about the Byrne-Jag Grant and there are no federal dollars coming in for bullet resistant vests, which used to be a huge program that has gone away. He said he thinks it would be good to have Parker here because the I-380 thing was water over the low spot along the road, and up on the shoulder before it got to the bridge. Harney said except the floating possibility. Pulkrabek said they closed it because water was going over the road, it wasn’t because of the bridge. Stutsman said she did not know if Johnson County Auditor Tom Slockett has information on HAVA, if that is done. County Recorder Kim Painter said they need to examine the current status because it hasn’t moved very far on certain pieces of the Real ID Act that pertain to vital records and whether they are closing them off to the public and when. R. Sullivan said he would urge the Board and other elected officials to have a five minute cut off.
R. Sullivan said the next issue is the GSA lot. He said that he sees no reason not to go ahead and line up support of the Senators and the Congressman in terms of this issue. He said there is a pretty good chance that they are going to want to get their hands on part or all of that. He said there is also a pretty good chance that they could do so in a way that guarantees them continued use, so he would like to start making that case to them that way if the Board needs to call on them at some point they know what is going on. Harney said his concern is now that they have made this contact he would like to hear what their take is. He said he talked to Congressman Loebsack about this, and he said when the County is ready, go to his staffers, because he tends to forget those things but to bring it to their attention. He said Loebsack was in the same mindset, if there is resistance then that is the time to bring it to his staff’s attention, otherwise if the County can work through it he would rather they do it that way. He said he does not have any real objections, he just doesn’t want to alienate the GSA by talking about this now. Meyers asked if he just recently made some new contact with the GSA. Harney said there is a new guy out of Des Moines who is supposedly gone out of state but has made arrangements to come to Johnson County.
R. Sullivan said his experience with any Federal government is that it doesn’t hurt to have your Senators know that you are working with them, so they can call and check in. Harney said he looks back at what happened when they wanted to put the shed up on 965 and they got undercut. R. Sullivan said he thinks that it is a positive thing to let the Federal delegation staff know that this is going to be an issue. Stutsman said maybe what they can do is give them updates about where things are at and where they are going. Neuzil said the Board can bring that up on November 12, 2008. Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan said it is also an issue that he thinks he and R. Sullivan should take to D.C. with the Chamber trip. He said they have nothing as far as location and they need to reevaluate a lot of stuff. Harney said he does not mind going there, but he thinks they need to hear what the delegation has to say. R. Sullivan said he views this as somebody has a road problem. He said he would like them to call Parker but sometimes people will call Parker and also call the Board. He said he sees this as the equivalent of someone talking to the right person but also talking to the boss just to make sure the message has been heard. He said not that he wants to send the message that they haven’t been helped but send the message to make them aware of it. Stutsman said then it wouldn’t need a statement or issue paper. R. Sullivan asked if the Board thought they needed one. M. Sullivan responded yes, he thinks they need to have something and he thought that the facilities people that sit on the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee would be the ones to draft something. Harney said the Sheriff might want to get involved in this also. Stutsman asked if Pulkrabek and Harney can work on a statement. Harney responded yes.
R. Sullivan said they have GSA, where the Facilities Committee of the CJCC is going to have a page for them. He said they have the roads issues, where Parker’s liaisons are going to work with him to get something. He said they have trails and train where he is going to work with some of the folks locally who have been working on that to get the one page. He said they will have those ready and circulating before they present them, by minimum November 10, 2008. Stutsman said they have six issues at five minutes a piece, she told R. Sullivan to tell the departments they have five minutes only.
Facilities Director David Kempf said the projects are moving forward. He said Neuzil and Stutsman did a tour of the SEATS and Secondary Roads Facility on Tuesday, and as they saw things are moving fast out there. He said they are hoping to start doing the punch list on the offices on Friday, and finish on Monday. He said then subsequently they will start setting office furniture the following Monday, given they do not have to go back and correct things. He said the offices are shaping up so they should have a minimum amount of stuff to correct. Kempf explained that a punch list is where you go into a finished room and point out all the things that are unfinished and need to be fixed. He said the main area of concern is the geothermal system. He said it still is not operational, they are getting close and are installing units, but he would feel more comfortable once those units are up and running. He said all of the City inspections have been completed, the above ceiling inspections have been completed so they are starting to drop in ceiling tiles now. He said they did do asphalt paving for the front parking lot and the drive area. They started Monday and finished yesterday afternoon. He said they are going to have to wait until spring to do a chip seal because it has gotten too late in the year to complete. He said the back half of the parking lot, behind the building will be gravel until they chip seal it next spring. Meyers asked what the ground was going to be for the area between the two buildings. Kempf responded that is going to be asphalt up to the first maintenance shed, and then it will be gravel or chip seal after the spring.
Harney asked when SEATS has to be out of Coralville. Kempf said they have until the end of November to be completely out of there. He said his hope is to have SEATS Director Tom Brase’s portion of the office moved into the new building before the end of October, if not they will wait until after his vacation. He said some of this hinges on when they can get the phone lines switched over which is a Qwest Communications scheduling deal, and then when they are going to get the radio’s relocated. R. Sullivan said that is a County service that is heavily phone dependent. He said they cannot be down for very long. Kempf said that is something they have communicated with Qwest Communications. He said they are working with Operations Supervisors Shannon Carter and Business Communications out of Coralville, who are doing their radios.
Kempf said the bus barn is further behind because he asked them to concentrate their efforts on the office building. He said overhead doors are supposed to be delivered this week, and they are closing in on completing the sprinkler systems. He said the small office area and restroom areas still need to be completed; they are just framed right now. He said they are still working on mudding and sanding the big meeting room, they are scheduled to start painting tomorrow. Kempf said he is assuming once they are done they will move on to the other building. He said the other area of concern is the hollow metal fire doors to the server room and file room are onsite, but the wooden office doors are a couple of weeks behind. He said Brase may not be able to lock his office space, but they said they are willing to find temporary doors to use if there is a security issue with not being able to lock the doors. He said S&G is very motivated to complete this project. Stutsman said she can attest to Kempf’s overseeing of this project and that he is making sure these projects turn out right. Harney noticed the building on the southeast corner looked like there was something on the roof. He asked if it was part of the tyvek not tied in yet. Kempf responded it could be part of the tyvek or the roofing material.
Kempf said it is going to be a challenge to meet the November deadline in the Health and Human Services Building, but he is optimistic they will meet their goals. He said the Tuesday construction meetings consist of the first half discussing why the deadline will not happen, and the next half in discussion about why they will meet the deadline. He said they are gaining ground. 90% of the ceiling ground is put up. He said the painters have moved to the second floor and are starting priming and base coating. He said the ceiling grid people are right behind them, then the electricians can drop light fixtures. He said then they can get the inspection and start closing it up with ceiling tiles. He said they are making progress. Kempf said the first framing for the first curtain wall, which are the big walls of glass on the north side. He said there is a learning curve in how to install these. There are metal fins that stick out from the structural steel that can only have a tolerance of a quarter inch. He said they assured him that they have the first frame done, and they are bringing in a second team and possibly a third team setting the frames and placing the glass in the windows. He said they are thinking it is going to take them three days to set the framing and two and a half days to place in the glass so those things should start to happen quickly. He said a lot of this hinges on getting the building sealed up and getting flooring put down. He said they are trying to gain time where they can, he is optimistic and in the end they will have a very nice, functional facility.
R. Sullivan asked if there was anything the Board can do to help Kempf with everything he has to do. He asked if they could start directing some of the smaller physical things to Maintenance Supervisor Sherry Butler. Kempf responded that for the most part that is already happening. He said people understand what her new role is and they are going to her for smaller problems, and she has been very proactive in helping him with those things. He said he knew it was going to be tough, he hadn’t planned on both of them being down to the wire at the same time, but it is close to being over.
Neuzil asked if they were working on the weekends. Kempf responded they are working on the weekends, different crews depending on what they need to have done. He said the ceiling grid people are working a lot of after hours and on the weekends. The painters are painting during the day because they need the light. He said they are gaining back blocks of time they lost from the weather this summer. Harney asked about Butler’s new role. Kempf said it is the role the Board approved last year. It took her from a Maintenance Worker II into a supervisory position. He said she has stepped up and done a good job. They just did her year review in October, and the staff is responding well to her new position.
Meyers asked about the area between the ramp and the building. Kempf said they are hoping to start on the site work next week in that area. He said All American Concrete is the subcontractor that will do the paving for the parking ramp and the work in between. He said now that the brick is done on the north side they can do that site work. He said the last thing that will be done is the pervious portion of the paving. Harney said that was his other question about the pervious paving. He said paving cannot be placed in high traffic areas because if it fills up then you have to power wash and clean it. He asked if that is going to be an issue with this. Kempf said no because the pervious parking is placed in the spaces themselves, not the main ally’s or driveways.
Stutsman said something was mentioned at the Conservation meeting last week about the geothermal heating system. She said she is concerned about this and has shared those concerns with Kempf. Kempf said he had to check and see if they were doing the horizontal boring or vertical boring. Stutsman asked if the vertical boring was something like five feet deep. Kempf said it is generally about two hundred feet, and that is where he has his concern. He said if they have an issue with the well field how do you access it to see what the problem is. He said generally, they use the practice of vertical boring to conserve space. He said in his opinion if you are going to cover it, it would be better to cover it with a parking lot than a building. He said he hasn’t seen any plans or knows what they are proposing. Harney said he thought they said vertical at fifteen feet which they could close one off if they leaked. Kempf said if they said fifteen feet, then what they are doing is horizontal where they go down fifteen feet then go out the one hundred fifty or two hundred feet. He said generally what they will do is put a row at fifteen feet and a row at thirty feet which is what they have done at Secondary Roads. He said that he is not sure why out there it would be vertical. He said from a facility manager stand point he always has to look at things as to what is the worst that can happen, and plan for that.
Kempf said he just received the latest floor drawings for the remodeling of the Administration Building and he has a couple of small revisions for them to make. He said hopefully next week he will have some floor plans for the Board to look at for the reconfiguring of the offices. Stutsman said when she and Neuzil were out at the SEATS building they were both surprised by how big the meeting room is, so the Board might want to revisit their policy about opening up the meeting rooms. She said she has mixed feelings about that because she does not want to compete with the Fairgrounds when they get revenue for that but at the same time that is a lot of space that could be utilized. Harney said he knows the COGS wants to meet there. Kempf said one of the requests he had from the joint communications people is they were looking for a place to have their joint construction meetings, so that is one use for out there. Harney said he still has concerns about the canteen services. He said he knows that Kirkwood Community College does it themselves. Kempf said he is not prepared to speak on that. He suggested they put that on the next Key Issues Work Session agenda.
R. Sullivan said he received an email from the person that runs the Eastern Iowa Tourism Association. Because the Board has joined the organization they get to have someone sit on that board, and an alternate. Meyers asked if they have regular meetings. R. Sullivan said he thought they meet quarterly. Stutsman asked if it had to be an elected official. R. Sullivan said they didn’t give any stipulations. Stutsman asked about having Shaner Magalhaes do it. R. Sullivan said Magalhaes is already on the board. Meyers asked where the meetings are held. R. Sullivan said he thinks that they rotate them. He said it doesn’t have to be a Board member but it makes sense since the County joined to have someone that is designated. Stutsman asked who the other counties put in. R. Sullivan said the City of Coralville put in Ellen Hobble, he saw Magalhaes was on it and he couldn’t remember who was on it from the Children’s Museum. Meyers said it sort of ties in with the RC & D, which at this point he is the representative for that. Neuzil asked how it tied in with that. Meyers said they focus on the six counties area promotion, not just the food, but the tourist areas up and down the Iowa River Valley. R. Sullivan said if he wanted to do it that is fine. Neuzil said he was actually thinking of a way to not have the Supervisors do it. Meyers said if they are only meeting quarterly then there is no problem with him going. He said he would go and figure what it is all about and then they can figure out an alternate. Neuzil asked M. Sullivan to add this to the list of January committee assignments.
R. Sullivan said as they recall at the last Elected Officials Meeting they had a lengthy discussion about what they wanted to do in terms of talking to the two representatives from that body and making recommendations on what they would like to see them make given the current situation with the economy. He said what they did not discuss was who was going to give that message, which would be the spokesperson or do they divide the duties. Harney asked who the two representatives are. R. Sullivan answered Hyman Joseph and David Stein. M. Sullivan said it is a matter of message to those individuals. R. Sullivan said he thought they decided to stick to what the unions got. M. Sullivan asked if they were talking about what a union employee makes, or just their salary, because they have run into issues in the past where the Board got the least amount. Harney said he thought they were talking about matching the percentage of pay raise. M. Sullivan said that is fine, he just wanted to point out that this means the elected officials will get less than everyone in Johnson County percentage wise. R. Sullivan said that from his perspective the general public does not know that, they do not understand that there is such a thing as longevity. He said if they hear that it is 3.5% and the Board comes in and gets 3.75%, even if that is what it would be with longevity they will question it. He said it is a perception thing that he thinks will work to their disadvantage. Neuzil said he understands that this is going to be a year, and in fact in the next several years they will see stagnant things and if that is the case it is fine. He asked which union they were picking. Stutsman said Administration. Neuzil said he didn’t think that Administration would be determined by the time the Compensation Board meets. He said it was a timing issue. R. Sullivan said in closed session they talked about going to the Compensation Board with 3.5%. Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek said they talked about what the likely parameters would be.
R. Sullivan said he would like to remind everyone that they had a conversation about strategy in a closed session and the details of that need to stay in closed session. He said he thought basically they decided on 3.5%. Stutsman asked who was going to talk to David Stein. Neuzil said he could. R. Sullivan recapped Stutsman is going to contact Hyman Joseph and Neuzil is contacting David Stein. Neuzil asked what the unions got from this year. Shramek responded 3.25% to 3.5%. She said they are asking for 3.5%. Neuzil said Social Services and SEATS got 3.5% and Ambulance got 3.25%.
R. Sullivan said he knows that he can speak for the people he spoke with on the Parking Committee and nothing in here is news to them. He said Human Services Accountant Kathy Lynch was the 911 North Governor representative on that committee and she shared everything that they mentioned here and more. He said the Parking Committee made their recommendations fully aware of the issues these folks bring up, and he thought the Board did as well. He said the Committee does not have much interest in revisiting the issue. M. Sullivan asked that every employee is charged $25. Stutsman said if they want to park a vehicle. She said it is still being discussed, for the people that do not use the ramp everyday. R. Sullivan said $25 is the maximum. He said there is a subcommittee of this committee which is County Treasurer Tom Kriz, Kempf, and Information Services Director Jean Schultz, and they think that they will be able to do it programmatically so that if someone works everyday it would be $22 or $23, if it’s a dollar a day. He said that way if you took a vacation in June and you weren’t there and your card wasn’t used you would be charged less. Harney said honestly he thought it would be a flat rate. He said the positive side is that employees can utilize the pretax dollars. R. Sullivan said they can still do that if it is not a flat rate, they can put an estimate and it the dollars carry over to future years. Harney said he thought it was worth it because he is guaranteed a spot, if he goes on vacation, so what.
R. Sullivan said it benefits the people who do not drive everyday as they can park and pay as they use it. He said actually it is an incentive for people not to use it. Neuzil said that is the whole idea, he said Stutsman pointed out in a conversation that if you can encourage three or four employees to car pool only one of them has to pay for those days. He said it is a matter of if it is a $1.25 a day or up to $25. He said if they can program it that way, where everyone is basically charged $1.25 a day, it seems like that would be a great incentive, and he mentioned making it $1.50 because that is what the cost of taking a bus would be. R. Sullivan said the only problem with that is that the board already voted on $25 a month. Neuzil said his point is keep it at $25 but charge them $1.50 up to $25 so they are not changing anything.
Harney said he likes the flat rate because it is simple and easy, otherwise someone has to track all of this and make sure they are deducting the right amount. R. Sullivan said it will all be done electronically. Stutsman said she agreed with Harney, some people will want to pay ahead, and part of the reason they decided to have fees is for the maintenance on that ramp because no matter what they do there is going to be snow and other maintenance issues whether someone is on vacation or not. R. Sullivan clarified that Stutsman only wants people to pay $25 a month. Stutsman said no, she wants people to pay $25 if they plan to drive a majority of the time. She doesn’t want to take off for vacations. R. Sullivan said there is no way to track that. Neuzil said he thinks what they are perceiving to be a hassle won’t be a hassle because it will be electronic. Shramek said this conversation is making things more difficult. She said it will be easy once it is in affect because people will swipe their card and it is done.
Neuzil said if they make it $1.25 per day up to $25 that means it is cheaper to drive than to take the bus, but he still thinks they should program it so employees can come and go and pay up to $25. Harney said to him this is accomplishing the opposite affect, it seems like they are encouraging people to drive. Stutsman agreed with Neuzil that it should be $1.50. She said she just does not want to have an incentive for people to drive everyday and not pay monthly. R. Sullivan said he thinks that they are going to see the people that want to drive are going to be willing to pay $25 a month. He said as far as their flex-benefits go he feels that everyone is going to want to take advantage of that and put $300 a year down and assume that they are going to use it. Neuzil said especially since they don’t lose it, that is a huge advantage. R. Sullivan said the one question they had on the agenda was for the individuals that do have to use their cars. Meyers said his feeling on that is that these people are represented by unions, and they have plenty of options if they want to talk to their boss. Stutsman said she is not interested in every department putting parking in their budgets. Meyers said he doesn’t want that either; he is just saying if they go to the bargaining table. Shramek said she does not think that parking is a mandatory subject of collective bargaining.
Harney said if they do the swipe at a $1.25 they need to identify that car somehow to show they are authorized to park there. He said he sees a lot of cheating going on with this. Neuzil said every time someone drives in it registers the card. He said he thinks that fraud is going to be small. Shramek said if they give someone the idea they will not have it to enter the workplace. Stutsman said they can put something in the handbook saying that IDs are non-transferable and it is fraud to use someone else’s card. Neuzil said that it already is, if someone does that they will be punished. Stutsman asked what they are going to do about the part-time employees. Neuzil said that is why the ability to pay on a daily basis is a huge advantage. He said they would either pay a $1.50 in our ramp or pay whatever.
Harney asked how they are going to decide who parks where because there will not be enough spots for everyone to park over there. Stutsman said seniority, starting with elected officials. Neuzil said the ramp is for the County vehicles and employees, and they can once it is gated, park in the armory. R. Sullivan said he was emphasizing all the state people be in the ramp first and then see what was left there. Harney asked who bills the employees. Stutsman responded that it will automatically deducted from their pay roles. R. Sullivan said the Treasurers Office volunteered to do it and the advantage there is whatever time if a person does not pay, they can push a button and the card will not work anymore. Harney asked if they can tell who filled out pretax forms. R. Sullivan said the Treasurers Office won’t be able to deal with people who pretaxed because they are only dealing with people who are not County employees. He said the County employees will go through the Auditor’s Office. Neuzil said the only thing he wanted to add, for these employees that want to carpool, do they want to have a location for them to be able to do that. He said for example a satellite parking lot where employees could meet at Secondary Roads, park there and then have one car come over here and then that one car is the only one that is charged. R. Sullivan responded saying the Parking Committee has been working really hard, and the focus has to be to get this figured out first. He said that the committee is going to meet at least a year after the buildings open because they will have other issues to talk about, but they have to prioritize and right now that is on getting this figured out, but that is still on the radar.
R. Sullivan said being on the Parking Committee he has the advantage of extra discussion, but he is not interested in giving them any kind of break. He said they got the petition and they appreciate the concerns but this is the Board’s decision. Stutsman asked if they are going to add another person to the committee from MH/DS. R. Sullivan said most people didn’t seem to care if they added somebody. Harney asked how many people are currently on the committee. R. Sullivan responded about ten. Stutsman said her only reservation is that she doesn’t want the committee to become a lobby for one issue. M. Sullivan asked about the timeline, if it was still scheduled for February or March. R. Sullivan said he can give an update on that. He said Human Resources is looking into the new flex benefits provider because they may have an issue with the County not charging until February. He said what Kempf wanted to do was let people park for free until he gets a chance to get this done. He said it will be up to the department heads and elected officials to get the information out to the employees that they are going to be charged to park, but just not yet. He said the flex benefit provider may have an issue with a benefit that does not start in January. He said if this is an issue it will probably be better for them to charge everyone starting in January. Shramek said she thinks this issue has been resolved.
R. Sullivan invited Kempf to give an update on what happened and where the situation stands with the overspray of cars in the Administration Building parking lot. Kempf said on two separate occasions, possibly a third occasion, they were spraying paint on the skywalk truss systems and when it was too windy the paint drifted into the employee parking lot and got onto their cars. He said there is no question that that is what happened. He went over on three separate occasions and asked them to stop painting because it was too windy.
Stutsman asked Kempf to tell the Board what has been done about the situation. Kempf asked M. Sullivan to jump in. He said M. Sullivan has been working with County Insurance Agent of Record Bob Saunders. M. Sullivan said Saunders was supposed to call him this morning but he has not heard anything as of yet. He said he gathered all of the information from the employees that had their cars impacted by the over spray, and submitted that information to Saunders, who then submitted it to the contractors insurance carrier. He said he believed the carrier is out of Cincinnati, and the last time he talked to Saunders, which was Friday, he made the comment that now the County has to wait to hear from their insurance agent about scheduling to get the vehicles cleaned.
Harney said he thinks that this is one of the big issues, getting that done, who gets to do it or who should do it and at what cost. Kempf said that is one of the things from Saunders response that he has issues with as well. He said he does not think they can tell anyone where to take their car to have it repaired. He said even though he thinks the cheaper route is for the painting contractors to partner with a local repair vendor and have everyone go to one place. He said that he does not think they can tell employees to do that, and that is what Saunders told him. M. Sullivan said he also does not think that the employees should be put in a position to haggle with the contractor to get the work done. He said some of the employees have had the repairs made and sent him the invoices which he sent to Saunders. He said other employees have gotten estimates and he sent those to Saunders but it was implied that the employee would have to haggle with the insurance company to get this taken care of. Harney said he would think Saunders should be helping with that. M. Sullivan agreed. He said Saunders is the insurance agent and he should be the one coordinating this for the County. He said in his opinion the employees should be able to take their cars wherever to get them fixed and the contractors pay for it. He said he did not understand why this was such a problem.
Stutsman said she thinks the first thing the Board needs to do is have Saunders come in and have a meeting with the employees. Kempf said the employees have been very understanding about this situation. He said he thinks that its time for Saunders to step up and get in contact with the employees. M. Sullivan said during his last contact with Saunders they came up with two options. He said one is for the employees to get the estimates and give them to the Kempf, or the other option is employees get the work done and haggle with the insurance contractor to get paid. Harney said one of the problems he foresees with this is that they are getting anywhere from $300 to over $1,000 to do each car. He said granted the size, make, model and age is a factor on that, but at the same time he can understand why you wouldn’t want to spend $2,000 or $3,000 on something that should be costing $300. Kempf said absolutely, but he thinks they should’ve had an adjuster here by now. He said he thinks Saunders as the County’s representative on insurance matters should be the one forcing that insurance company to get that adjuster here regardless of whether they are from Cincinnati. He said the contractor is going to have a deductible of some type just like every insurance agency does, and he is going to have to come up with that portion of it. He said he thinks that until they get an adjuster, they could say send us the estimates and we'll pay off that. He said he cannot imagine them doing that without having an adjuster come and look at the vehicles but this is taking too long. He said they were very slow in coming, but they acknowledge that it’s their fault, that they have done everything. He said he is sure they will be able to work through and get everything taken care of, but he thinks Saunders needs to pressure their insurance carrier to pay from the estimates or have an appraiser come out here.
Harney asked if the Board has specifically documented and sent to them the number of vehicles so that it is not just verbal. Kempf responded yes. M. Sullivan has complied that list and it has all been forwarded to Saunders, which has be forwarded to them so it is more than just talking. He said he met with the contractor and he wanted to go and look at the cars and verify, and they went over and looked at eight to ten cars and he admitted that it was paint overspray. Kempf said they are not denying the fact that they did this, they have the confirmation. Stutsman said they know the issue, but now how does the County solve it. She said everyone present is saying they need Saunders so how do they go to the next step to get Saunders here to deal with this to get some solution. R. Sullivan said he thinks the Board should tell M. Sullivan that this is what the County expects. He said he has a concern because he knows that Kempf has an overwhelming amount of work with the new building, and he does not want individual employees going to Kempf with this. Kempf responded that they haven’t, he said he has talked with a few of them that have come to him. R. Sullivan said he wanted to make clear that if the County needs to play a role here it needs to be somebody other than Kempf. Kempf responded that it has to be the County’s insurance carrier at this point.
Stutsman said she thinks that it is M. Sullivan’s responsibility to get Saunders in a meeting. She also asked M. Sullivan to send an email out with that list of names so everyone knows that they are on that, and nobody got left off. Meyers asked if there were any members of the public on the list. M. Sullivan responded no. Deputy Treasurer Jim Pregon said one of thing they should be aware of is after he sent the email to the Board with the list, he did receive a phone call from Saunders that evening. He said Saunders said in his initial conversation with the contractors insurance company, or with the contractor, that he did tell them they do not have the right to tell County Employees where to take their cars. Pregon said that Saunders also said that he needed to draft a letter explaining to everyone involved where he is at in the process. He said Saunders said what the County should be doing, and what has happened at this point is that he is going to send the letter to M. Sullivan to get that out to them, but thus far M. Sullivan has not received anything from Saunders.
Pregon said there are a couple of more concerns that he would like to put in for consideration. Pregon said that there are two employees from the Treasurers office that are actively employed in the masonry business. He said they explained once the masonry is completed on the bricking, the next step is some form of an acid wash, and the Board needs to be aware because this has the potential to cause more damage to the cars than there is currently. Kempf said that the Board already discussed this issue. Pregon said the Board should also have a contingency plan with the insurance agency, incase there is further damage down the road caused by more over spray. Meyers asked if Pregon relayed this concern to Saunders. Pregon said he did not at the time they last spoke, but he would be happy to pass that information along if needed but he thinks it would be better for M. Sullivan or Kempf to pass on this information since they are handling the claims.
Stutsman said that is why she would like to have a meeting with Saunders, so there is no confusion, and everyone is on the same page. Pregon said he knows there are employees who have not gone to get estimates yet because they have not been told what they are supposed to do yet. Harney said there is another side to this, a dangerous one, which is the County does not know how many people in the public have been affected by this. He asked if they have a responsibility to let the public know, but are they going to end up with everyone coming in if they put something up. Stutsman said that is the issue. Kempf said some of that is people here doing business know the construction is going on and if they had issues with their cars they would certainly go to the last place their car was parked. Stutsman said the public also didn’t have their cars sitting in the lot all day. She said her concern is that everyone in town with something on their car will show up, unless they can prove they were here. Kempf said it is pretty easy to tell whether it was caused by the over spray or not, the product will be on the car or something else. He said that is why he is surprised the contractors insurance company has not had an adjuster here looking at each and every vehicle. He said of course there are always going to be people wishing to get something for nothing, but that is the adjusters job to catch that.
R. Sullivan told M. Sullivan that they want Saunders in a meeting, and for him to communicate with the employees as soon as possible. Pregon suggested having Saunders meet with the Board. R. Sullivan said Friday afternoon. Kempf suggested having Saunders and a few Supervisors come to the meeting. Pregon said some of the employees had two cars that have been impacted by this because they drove different days. Stutsman said they could also get some direction from Saunders as far as how to notify the public. Kempf said they should set up a time for the public to bring their cars in when the adjuster is present so that he can assess them.
Meyers said tomorrow the Rural Advisory Committee is going to meet, and just recently some money became available, something like $120,000 or so and most of them will be $5,000 grants and a couple of large $10,000 grants but on the agenda for that meeting one of the items is how to allocate the two larger grants and any individual city or county concerns. He asked if there was anything in particular the Board wanted to pass on to that committee. Stutsman said housing rehab. Meyers said he was talking to Johnson County Council of Governments Human Services Representative Linda Severson the other day and she said there are different ways to go about this, maybe have one of the big grants go to the northern part of the county, the other grant to the southern half. Stutsman asked if they wanted to target flood areas. Meyers said that’s what he thought. R. Sullivan said there are income guidelines that almost eliminate River Heights. Meyers said Severson will have a lot of the details about what the requirements and restrictions are for these grants when they meet tomorrow. Stutsman asked if they really wanted to target the flood areas especially since they want them to move out, and there are other programs available to them, or does the County want to say only in the incorporated area to encourage people to live in towns. Harney said that goes beyond the Rural Advisory Committee. Meyers said it covers everything but North Liberty, Coralville, and Iowa City, so its actually some of the small towns. Stutsman asked if it was still true that they have to be owner occupied. Meyers said he thinks so, but like he said some of the details will get filled in tomorrow.
Stutsman said she wishes they could consider rentals because sometimes those are the ones that need the most work. Harney said he has issues with that if they are renting out a property they shouldn’t be subsidizing that. Stutsman said her only argument with that is that a lot of the houses are Section 8 houses in the unincorporated area. She said the people that can afford to live in those rentals are low income people, and the landlords don’t want to put a lot into those houses because they are not making a lot of revenue off of them. Meyers said he remembered something from a year back about an older women who was a renter living in a house with poor conditions. Harney said they could get the other extreme, where they have Regency down here where they are renting the trailers out, and are they going to put money into those because the landlords are reaping the benefits. Stutsman said she didn’t think they could do that for manufactured housing. Meyers said he thinks the stipulation was that if someone is paying lot rent they could fix up a trailer if it was on a permanent lot. R. Sullivan asked if there was anymore feedback for Meyers, he said he trusted the committee to figure this issue out.
Meyers said they sent out the RFPs for different companies to do the salary surveys. He said the committee of six or seven people have it narrowed down to two finalists. He said they are going to be interviewing them a week from today, with the goal of picking one finalist to present to the Board. He said they set aside $2,000 for this and the survey itself is going to cost somewhere in the $40,000 to $50,000 range with the rest of the money being used to boost salaries if necessary. He said the reason he put this on the agenda is because in light of the economic situation there is the possibility that there are going to be a lot of positions that are going to need to be boosted. He asked if they wanted to go through with this. He said there could be positions that are ahead of the curve at this point and they would be held in check. Neuzil said his point on this is that they are never obligated to do anything; at least they would have the information. Stutsman said they allocated those dollars but that does not mean they have to implement it. Neuzil said that it is going to be tough not to if someone says they are being underpaid. Meyers said that they do have some flexibility because the RFPs are a lot less that anyone anticipated as far as the cost of this project. He said they have $200,000 that is sitting in a fund and they could make some adjustments. Harney said he thinks they will look at that when the results come back. He said he thinks they need to continue the study.
Stutsman said another thing they have to remember is that whatever they agree to is continuous. She said they may have the money this year, but after that who knows. Neuzil said he thinks that it important for them to know where they are. He said they will have to start thinking beyond that survey and figuring out which departments would get first. Meyers said he is hoping that they will tell the County where they are most ahead and where they need work. He said the interviews with the two finalists will happen next Wednesday, and then the plan is after those interviews both of them have agreed they could stay the following night so whichever one gets chosen they can meet with the Board the following morning. Neuzil said so they will be in the informal one way or the other. Meyers responded yes.
Stutsman said one thing she wanted to mention is they always used to have other on the agenda and she can understand there are pitfalls with putting other on, but there are advantages too when something goes outside the parameter of discussions. R. Sullivan asked M. Sullivan to have that put on there, ahead of comments from the public.
Neuzil said Kempf had said that he might have some plans for the Board’s office. He said he is assuming November 12, 2008. He said the next Key Issues Work Session agenda should be pretty full. He said he didn’t know when they were going to have discussion whether the Board would all like that plan or not.
Adjourned at 11:06 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Nancy Tomkovicz, Recording Secretary