MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
JANUARY 22, 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
The Workplace Learning Connection Director Mary Lou Erlacher: Annual Report to the Board of Supervisors 1
Iowa City Area Development Group President Joe Raso: Annual Report to the Board of Supervisors 4
Human Resources Coordinator Dana Winkowitsch: Revised Performance Evaluation for Johnson County Non-Bargaining Employees...................................................................................................................... 12
Assistant County Attorney Scott Finlayson: Resolution Accepting Use of Section 453A.22(3) Affirmative Defense to Tobacco Civil Penalty by 380 BP, for Selling or Providing Tobacco to a Minor.................... 19
Reports and Inquiries from Executive Assistant Andy Johnson................................................. 21
Reports and Inquiries from the Board of Supervisors............................................................... 22
Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Health and Human Services Building at 9:11 a.m. Members present were: Terrence Neuzil, Janelle Rettig, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan; absent: Pat Harney.
Workplace Learning Connection Director Mary Lou Erlacher thanked the Board for allowing her the time to present. Erlacher said that she could talk the Board through the report that she has given them. She said that this report is a little bit different than what The Workplace Learning Connection (WLC) has usually given the Board. She said that on the inside of the front page, the services that the WLC provided to Johnson County schools in October and November are listed.
Erlacher said that the WLC does a lot of placements early in the year but they’re not done so there will be additional placements and additional services throughout the school year. She said that the pages with the pictures are group job shadow days, and it lists the schools that participated. She said on the back is the story that was written and tailored for each school district that’s represented. She said for example the story for this particular report was tailored for a Tate student, and WLC employee Nancy Young puts together those stories and sends them to each school for their newspaper, their website, and also to any newspapers in the area as well. Erlacher said that it’s the Solon newspaper as well as the Press Citizen in this area. She said that those are some samples, and she hopes that the Board takes the time to read the stories because they really share what a nice job the local employers do, giving students exemplary experiences. She said that the next to last page is what the WLC calls Awesome Uniforms and some of the WLC elementary programs.
Erlacher said that she will jump into what the WLC services are. Erlacher said that she knows that Rettig is new to who Erlacher is, and what the WLC does, so she will give Rettig a brief overview and hopefully a nice refresher for the rest. Erlacher asked who these young people are (referring to the presentation). She answered they are the faces of the future, and they represent some of the WLC student interns. Erlacher said that these are unpaid internships. She said that these were students who were at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids. She said the reason she chose Saint Luke’s is because their Human Resources Department had been keeping data on what happened to WLC interns after they went through the unpaid internship at Saint Luke’s. St. Luke’s tracked which interns were ultimately hired when they completed post secondary education, either a two year program at Kirkwood or a four year programs or beyond at the universities and other colleges. She clarified that they completed post-secondary education and they became fulltime Saint Luke’s employees.
Erlacher said bottom line, 29% returned to Saint Luke’s as post-secondary trained adult workers. She said the situation is that educators are asked to improve student achievement, employers are asked to solve the looming unemployment crisis, that will continue to come back, and civic leaders are asked to develop vibrant, diverse and welcoming communities. She said so the bottom line is to retain and attract the young people. Erlacher said employers and educators wanted to work together and expose students to their work sites. She said its confusing and time consuming. She said that the solution was to create a matchmaker and intermediary, which is the WLC. She said bottom line the WLC is a tool for career development in the schools, future workforce development for employers, and economic development for the region.
Erlacher said that intermediaries set up workforce opportunities between students and employers to help keep students better informed and better prepared to make postsecondary and career decisions. She said that this allows the people in the schools to do their main thing, which is teaching kids, and allows employers to do their main thing which is providing services and creating goods. She said that what the WLC does is prepare those connections. She said that the bottom line is each participant does their main thing, whether it’s education, business or making the connection.
Erlacher said they do job shadows and unpaid internships. The job shadows are one day and the students select a career field that they would like to explore and the WLC finds the employer host. She said the students apply for internships, and if one would go to the WLC website they can see by county where the internships are, and how kids can apply for those. Erlacher said that they are 90 hours in the worksite.
Erlacher addressed the topic of classroom speakers. She said they bring in speakers for grades Kindergarten through 12 and also for teachers in service. Erlacher said they arrange worksite tours, for example there is one in downtown Iowa City. Erlacher said it’s an architectural walking tour during which the student finds out what the job of being an architect is like, how much schooling it takes and what the outlook is in this area for those kinds of jobs. Erlacher said that for the elementary grades they have the programs Careers on Wheels and Awesome Uniforms. Erlacher said that the WLC is not trying to direct kids into careers, but kids love to look at exciting vehicles, they like to see people in uniform. She said what they have the employees do is just talk about how they use the vehicle, how they use the uniform, how they use the protective gear that they have, whether it’s fire or nurse, and whatever kind of uniform. She said it’s really kindergarten skills, how do the coworkers get along together, do they follow directions, or how do they use school skills everyday. The speaker would tell how he is a fireman, but he needs to follow directions. A fireman needs to use masks. He needs to know how much water to put on the fire. They need to get along together as fireman or someone’s house is going to burn down. She said those are the kinds of things that they use to reinforce that being a good student also makes them a good fireman, or a good ambulance driver, or a good soldier.
Erlacher said they serve Kindergarten through 12 grade schools in seven counties served by Kirkwood and Grant Wood. She said the WLC is a partnership of those institutions. Erlacher said that the WLC meets community requests, for example the Coe College Upward Bound Program or the University of Iowa Belin Blank Center for Gifted and Talented Students, the WLC has done programs for them as well. She said that the WLC has done employer requests, General Mills asked the WLC to get industrial technology teachers connected to General Mills, so they could showcase what kinds of opportunities that they have, straight out of high school. Erlacher said that the teachers were amazed that students leaving high school, going through a Kirkwood program sanctioned by General Mills could walk into their Industrial Maintenance department at $80,000. She said that General Mills has less than a one percent turnover rate for their employees. She said being able to help teachers understand what the opportunities are, is important to what the WLC does too.
Erlacher addressed the positive return on investment. She said on the brochures that the Board got, the same data is on there. She said the WLC is positively impacting the decision to live and work in Iowa. After a one day job shadow almost 50% of the kids say that they think that they could live in Iowa and have a job here. She said that the number climbs to 66% when the students complete an internship. Erlacher said because of local career opportunities, 70-77% kids now know what happens inside that door when they go past a business building. She said the WLC helps in influencing choice of high school classes by connecting high school and the world of work. Students often asks why do have to learn a particular subject and when they will ever use it. She said getting into a local business the students can see the reason and it helps them select a career field. She said so bottom line, they feel that the WLC works. Erlacher said the real bottom line can be summarized by the following quote, “You ask, what if I train them and they leave? I say what if you don’t, and they stay?”. Erlacher said they want the best for all of their kids for all of the communities, and with the Board’s help they have been able to do that. Erlacher said that she would be happy to answer any questions that the Board might have.
Sullivan said he knows that the Board has funded the WLC previously on a per capita type basis. Erlacher said correct. Sullivan asked if Erlacher could explain that for anybody who’s interested. Erlacher said when they went off a grant that started the program 12 years ago, she thought that anyone who potentially benefited from this work of connecting kids to local employers could help pay for it. Erlacher said that the schools do pay the WLC at a per student rate, at five dollars for every high school student and three dollars for every middle school student. Erlacher said that they get whatever services in whatever number that the want. Erlacher said that businesses also help support the WLC with a contribution because the WLC is a non-profit. Erlacher said she also thought, if businesses and education are working well together, hopefully that has an economic development benefit so when someone like Iowa City Area Development Group President Joe Raso is trying to lure a new company to this area they can say that they have a ready and available workforce that the community is building within the schools by keeping the kids connected to the needs of employers as well as the skills that they need to be successful. Erlacher said she thought that maybe it had an impact on the County Boards of Supervisors in terms of economic development or community development dollars. Erlacher said that she began talking to the various Boards of Supervisors, and six of the seven, over the last several years have generously supported the WLC at a rate of four cents per capita based on the population of the County of the time of the 2000 census. Erlacher said that in Johnson County’s case that comes to about $4,400.
Stutsman said she didn’t think that Erlacher identified where she was from. Erlacher said that she is from the Workplace Learning Connection, it’s a partnership of Kirkwood and Grant Wood and they serve all the Kindergarten through grade 12 schools in Benton, Cedar, Iowa, Johnson, Jones, Linn, and Washington Counties. She said that the WLC touches about 20,000 students a year in some capacity, and there’s about 60,000 in the region, so the WLC touches about a third.
Erlacher said she knows that it’s a tough budget time, but she would ask if the Board would consider funding the WLC for the next year. Erlacher said that Kirkwood has asked that she leave pledge cards just so she has a record of who has pledged what. Erlacher asked if the Board has a chance to do that again she would appreciate it. She instructed the Board to fill out the pledge card and return it to her and then she will invoice the Board after July 1st, in the next fiscal year. Stutsman asked her to leave the pledge cards with Executive Assistant Andy Johnson. Rettig asked Erlacher to repeat whether it was four cents per capita. Erlacher said based on the count of the 2000 census. Rettig asked what that ended up to be. Erlacher said $4,400. Retting repeated $4,400. Sullivan said, for what it’s worth, the Board is not done with their budget. Erlacher said okay. Sullivan said that they tentatively have that budgeted right now. Erlacher said she appreciates that very much and thanked the Board.
Iowa City Area Deveopment (ICAD) Group Jo Raso thanked the Board for the opportunity to provide them with an update. Raso said before he jumps into his presentation he thinks it’s important to recognize the importance of Erlacher’s organization. He said that he has served on the WLC Board, and actually served as Chair of the Advisory Board for the WLC and one of his staff people currently serves in an advisory capacity with the Board. He said it’s been a pleasure working with Erlacher over the years and to give the Board a sense of the uniqueness of the program, they worked diligently locally and at the State level to get this model passed by the legislator several years ago. He said it’s the only piece of legislation that passed 150 to 0 across the two Houses of State Government and signed by the Governor. He said it’s a great model, not just for this region but for the entire state.
Raso said that he wants to take a few minutes this morning, especially for Supervisor Rettig who may be not all that familiar with the details of the Iowa City Area Development Group. He said that he knows that the rest of the Board, or a couple of them may have served on the ICAD Board, since he’s been there. . Raso said that he knows that Harney is currently the Board member from the County Board of Supervisors. Raso said that he wants to cover five items.
Raso said one, he wants to give a background on the ICAD, for those who are new to what they do. Raso said that as far as a little statistics on the market, he always thinks it's good to get a sense of what’s going on as it relates to the economy here. He said he wants to talk very briefly about some project activity that they have had in the past 12 months, and just recently. Raso said lastly he wants to highlight some of the programming that the ICAD does in their core areas of work, which are existing industry workforce, business services and business recruitment.
Raso began with a little background. He said that the ICAD client, and ICAD serves the broader Johnson County area or Iowa City MSA, is interstate commerce business. He said what that means is, that if a company produces a product or has a service that they sell outside of the state of Iowa, they are ICAD’s client. Whether it’s a one person shop, or a 10,000 people operation, that company would be considered a client of the ICAD. Raso said that it has been noted that the Board has been an investor for 24 of the 25 years of ICAD’s existence, and he appreciates that investment very much. He added that he has enjoyed working with the Board in the ten years that he has been in Iowa City. He said that the ICAD serves ten communities, and surprisingly, four of the communities, are not in Johnson County, but they are part of the metropolitan area. Raso said that communities like Tipton, 30 miles away see the importance of what this economy means to their community.
Raso said that the ICAD Board consists of 31 people and a staff of five, which includes him. He said again they do focus on primarily three areas: serving the existing interstate clients, attracting new interstate commerce clients and providing workforce services to them. He provided the Board with some statistics. He thinks that it is important to note that the only research that they have seen from the Chicago Federal Reserve in the past decade on workforce growth in the Midwest highlighted this area as being the top in terms of workforce growth. Raso said that’s of the 57 metropolitan areas that the Chicago Federal Reserve serves. He said he thinks that it’s pretty impressive to be ranked in that number. He said, going back and looking at data from Iowa Workforce Development, they just did this last week, he went back to January 2006 and looked at the numbers from that point in time, up until the last reported numbers which were November 2009. Raso said that they saw a gain of almost 11% in terms of the workforce. He said that it doesn’t mean that, as they know, that there aren’t certain companies who are laying off people, and they have had some closures in their market in the last couple of years. He said that they are seeing the stability and the growth balance out across to other sectors of the economy. Raso said that the average wage, and he thinks it is really important, and benefits for ICAD clients, those employees that work for interstate commerce companies, is over $24.50 an hour with benefits anywhere from the low 20’s up to the low 30’s in terms of the percentage of total benefits compared to their base salary. He said when looking at economic impact, it’s the interstate commerce companies, it’s the businesses that are bringing dollars in from outside of their market that are creating a bigger bucket of economic opportunity for all the other businesses that support them here in the area and regional economy.
Raso said in the past year or so, ICAD has had the opportunity to do work with a number of companies, one in particular is Cedar Ridge Vineyards, located in Johnson County. He said that he doesn’t know if anyone has been over to their facility, but he thinks that they have done a really nice job with their operations there working very closely with owner Jeff Quint. He said as many of them know, ICAD has come to staff and the Board in the past to talk about their operations. Raso said also Edlink, which is based in Coralville, provides management of employee educational benefit services. He said it’s the joining together of a relationship between a Chicago based company called CAEL (the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning) and ACT. He said instead of doing this in Chicago or San Antonio, they wanted to do it right here in Johnson County and build their business. He said Alliance Rock Tenn, which is a provider to P&G and Acciona the wind energy, a wind turbine company in West Branch. Raso said that all are projects that they have worked on in the last 12 months, and he also wanted to let the Board know about recent activity, when they got past the new year, it’s been very busy in the ICAD office in terms of companies coming in with an interest in what’s going on in the Johnson County market, and looking at this market, and considering it as a place that they may want to locate their business. Raso said that this is just a listing of some of the sectors that ICAD has been dealing with. He said companies in these industry sectors have been interested in the area. He said as he mentioned, a lot of ICAD’s time is focused on ICAD's existing companies, and not a lot of people see this in the paper, because it’s not celebrated as much, but when existing companies grow at 2, 4, 5 or 10 employees at a time at the end of the day they represent over 70% of the growth of a regional economy and so ICAD wants to spend a lot of time and attention focused on what their needs are. Raso said in doing so, they go out and interview on an annual basis, their clients within their service territory. He said ICAD does this in conjunction with other development groups across the country and actually up into Canada.
Raso said on an annual basis, they can compare what executives are saying about this market, about legislation, about product development, about the workforce, about their satisfaction with state and local and county governments and can compare that to, interviews that are being conducted all over the United States. He said they do this on an annual basis and they’ve done this for over eight years and it has provided ICAD a great opportunity to identify areas where there are strengths, but also where there are areas for improvement. He added that fortunately, for this marketplace, by and large things continue to look very positively in the eyes of ICAD’s executives within interstate commerce companies and their ranking of satisfaction with County services has been very high, since the first day that they did these surveys.
Raso said in the past year ICAD interviewed 60 executives within the service territory. He provided the Board with a list of the communities in which they are located, and the types of operations that they are involved in. He said the Board can see that there are a variety of industry sectors and a number of companies across the different communities that they serve.
Raso said that he will give the Board the bad news first and the good news second. He said bad news, and it’s not surprising, is they actually saw a drop in total employment by their clients from the time that ICAD interviewed them late last spring through the summer. He said fortunately ICAD has seen an uptick in growth within the client base, but one thing to note is that three companies alone comprised 1,500 of the job losses within this sector. He said so the other one’s had a net gain. Raso said those companies are located not just in Johnson County. He said they are located in a couple of other counties as well. He said across all of ICAD’s industries, even with the downturn in this economy, they still see expected job growth within their businesses over the next three years. He said of course there are a number of unfilled positions where they just haven’t been able to match up the job requirements with the skills that are needed to do that business.
Raso said one other thing that he’ll note, and is really important for ICAD in this market, what they tend to hear a lot when companies come in is they have concern about the size of ICAD’s market, in terms of the availability of workforce. He said that the companies want ICAD to prove to them the quality and the productivity of this workforce. He said fortunately because they are a part of this national system, they can take ICAD data and compare it to national data and present that to the client. Raso said here’s just a few items related to workforce development, whether it’s employee availability, whether it’s stability of people, he thinks it was mentioned, not a lot of turnover with many of the companies, or productivity of the workforce. He said ICAD can now show that, it’s not just guesswork on ICADG’s part, or talk to one or two of the executives. ICADG has the data to prove that to those clients.
Raso said that he put the current slide up, because it’s one of the more interesting facts about this area's economy. He said back in 1990, one of every two people on the street worked in the public sector. He said now the average for most metropolitan regional economies is probably in the 12 to 15% range so ICAD was four times as much, and of course that is because of the University and the hospital, which are the two biggest drivers within this market, in terms of workforce. Raso said one can see that over the past 20 years that there has been growth in the private sector, ICAD hasn’t seen loss of jobs in the public sector. There has been considerable growth in the private sector that today has this area economy employing two-thirds of the employees in the private sector, where just 20 years ago it was about half. He said that’s a good thing for all of involved because it provides diversity. Raso said some people don’t look at times of government funded operations, whether it’s the University or the hospital or the schools, as business but they are businesses, so having diversity across both the public and the private sector and multiple private sector industries is a good thing for this economy and he think will help support the community, as they see, and as the Board knows, looking at the budgets looking at the budgets year over year becomes more difficult. Raso said it is going be more difficult for the schools and for city government, so helping to grow the private sector here in a diverse way is going to be beneficial for everyone.
Raso said they do a number of things in workforce development. Talking about their existing industry, as it relates to workforce, outside of having a physical place to locate, it is the most important need that any company has, and that’s why ICAD has had somebody in that position since he has been at ICAD, almost ten years. Raso said that ICAD works in conjunction with regional partners like their development group in Cedar Rapids, Priority One, to create programming and tools. He said whether it’s a career fair, which will be coming up in a couple of months or updated labor statistics to help ICAD’s companies determine that they can do business here, that they can grow here or going and reaching out to people who used to go to school here, or grew up here, or grew up in the Midwest, and ICAD wants them to come back to this market. Raso said that ICAD needs to inform them of the opportunities for them to come back to their market, and so a lot of products and tools are created, because of the Board’s investment and the investments of over a 160 private companies that invest in their organization.
Raso referred to a list in the slide presentation saying it is a couple of things that were done recently. ICAD did a quarter greetings, kind of a come home, that they had stickers in the Press Citizen and in the Gazette, the one that has to be peeled off in order to read the article in the paper. He said they did that over the holidays to inform people, friends, and loved ones as to why they should come back to this area. He said they have a unique program in place, the Board may not be aware of this but, annually 220,000 people leave the military and come out of the military and ICAD feels that the market is a pretty good place that they may want to consider settling down with their families, and getting involved in a business or growing a business here. Raso said that they have been marketing to G.I. Jobs magazine, through the internet, and communicating with area employees of why it’s important for them to look at this segment of the population. Raso said unlike himself, getting up before sunrise is usually not an issue for people in the military, so there are good work ethics and a variety of skills across many different fields.
Raso said in terms of business recruitment, they do target five or six industries and sectors, and those are listed. He said he wanted to spend just a couple of minutes on the Shovel Ready Sites Program. He said that ICAD is developing the first such program in the State of Iowa. Raso said that right now ICAD competes. He said imagine being a consultant and a company comes and said they are willing to pay $500 an hour for the next two weeks to find a place to invest $80 million in a manufacturing facility. The consultant would have to pick the right location for the company, and if they can do it in that amount of time and get the company in the right location, there is a sizable bonus for doing that. He said a consultant is going to want to narrow their focus down to places that they think can act quickly, have the data, can move, have the workforce, can show the company the land, and make it ready for that company to build on as soon as possible. He said that’s what ICAD is trying to do here, they’re trying to create available places within ICAD’s market so if a company comes, or ICAD informs them about the area, they can come in and know that the lands platted, all the engineering studies have been done, it’s zoned and it’s ready to go for development, for their company.
Raso said because this is not done throughout the State of Iowa, ICAD felt that it was necessary to do this, since there are over a dozen states across around the United States that do this. He said that ICADG is in the process right now of rolling this program out. He said that they have two pilot projects in Johnson County; one is the new Iowa City Wind Energy Industrial Supply Chain campus on the southeast side, and the other is the University of Iowa Research Park in Coralville. Raso said that the hope is that those, in addition to a couple others that are being talked about, can get certified, and be marketed and hopefully improve the opportunities to drive more business development within Johnson County.
Raso said the third pilot is actually in Tipton over in Cedar County. He said ICAD is also doing a lot in the way of website marketing; where people go right off the bat to find what it’s like to do business here, the size of the market, and who’s already here. He said anyone is more than to go to that site and get a lot of information about ICAD’s market; information on the County, all of the cities, the workforce, incentives, buildings and sites, pretty much all the categories that companies or consultants look for when they’re trying to get information about the area.
Raso said lastly, ICAD has to be very targeted when they do marketing. Raso said a company in plastics may not care that ICAD has big logistics companies that can provide the company with the movement of wind energy cells. He said what ICAD tries to do, is try to create micro sites, and this is a wind site that’s very specific to the industry, it touches on the things that’s most important to them and ICAD markets that today to about 700 companies globally that are in the wind energy market. Raso said when that site becomes shovel ready the wind energy supply chain campus will be again communicating that out to the marketplace. Raso said that he wants to thank the Board for their investment in ICAD. Raso said that he knows that it’s a major commitment on the part of the County to fund ICAD year over year He said he also hopes that the Board feels that the return on investment, back in tax dollars because of the interstate commerce companies, their employees and the commerce that it creates here in Johnson County, is beneficial to all of the citizens here. He said that he can answer any questions that they have.
Rettig asked Raso, if he had said that 24 of 25 years, she wondered if the Board missed one. He said no the Board didn’t miss it, the organization was started by the Iowa City Chamber, the City of Iowa City and the University of Iowa in 1984. Raso said that the community felt that there was a need to have a separate organization that just focused on interstate commerce business, so it took about a year for the ICAD to be formulated and built, and then realizing that this isn’t just about supporting University spinout technology, within the community and not just market one city. Raso said even 20 or 25 years ago that didn’t make sense, it made more sense to market a region. He said today, the work that ICAD does, their success is not just going to based on what they do in their service territory, it has to be done regionally. He said, in the business world, people don’t look at the national economies, they don’t look at State, they look at regional clusters of business, and enterprise. Raso said different states have different laws and business policies, as do countries, but things are driven at a regional level. He said a lot of times, the conversations that they have with private companies are about what are ICAD is doing regionally to support the company, how is ICAD working with the other developing groups and the other governments to make sure that the policies are in place, to support the workforce, to support the transportation needs. He said a lot of what he has reported today is within the world of ICADG. He said that they are working day in and day out with a lot of other partners.
Rettig said that there was a slide that showed that productivity on the survey was actually down. She asked Raso if that was an anomaly or something he is concerned about. Raso said that he is not concerned about that. He said that the numbers are higher than what are seen nationally within some of the industry sectors. He said, what they tend to see happen as they do these surveys, and there may be a few handful of companies that are in the survey one year and their not in it the next, and that may impact a little bit. Raso said what ICAD also finds out is that they are doing more work today, and are adding more communication with smaller startup companies, especially those that are spinning out of the University Research Park. Raso said that they may have a harder time measuring some of those things like P&G would do. He said if they don’t have operations in other places, ICAD is asking the companies to give ICAD, on a one to seven scale compared to other operations, how ICAD ranks. He said sometimes, a company doesn’t know what other operations are doing, so they don’t have that viewpoint to make a decision from. He said that he is not concerned about that at all.
Rettig asked if ICAD pays for the platting and the zoning changes for the Shovel Ready areas or if the landowner does and the ICAD just helps them through the process. Raso said there’s no process in place right now that will guide a property owner through all of the due diligence that’s needed to get a site ready, so that when these national consulting firms or these companies come in. Raso said this market is what he would consider an immature real estate market, meaning that the development community has historically, and the businesses historically, have served the local market place. Raso said when there are national and international firms coming in, they have an expectation that the market should have certain things ready to go and certain services in place.
Raso said, a lot of times in ICAD’s market, developers won’t build on spec, they won’t put in the $10,000 to $50,000 of upfront costs to do all of the due diligence, unless they know they have a client in hand. He said that throws ICAD out of many opportunities, because those companies aren’t wanting to serve only the Iowa City market, rather they want to serve the world. The question becomes whether they want to do that from Iowa City, or Peoria, or St. Louis, or Hong Kong or wherever. He said so they have many more options in terms of their development projects that they could choose. Raso said ICAD wants to provide the data of what’s required. He said ICAD’s hope is that this program goes state wide. He said if it goes state wide, what that will mean is that the state will see the value, because they’ve got money that they’re going to generate if a business locates here, because they are going to have income and sales tax. He said they can put some money towards the due diligence, up front work, and maybe even money towards some of the long term hard infrastructure costs like the roads, the water, and the sewer.
Raso said the communities should be investing in this, both on the front end, to get the properties ready, and then the infrastructure. He said utilities should be engaged in this and of course the property owner themselves. He said all four of those bodies are going to end up seeing revenue, in one form or another, come out the back end of doing this. He said ICADG believes this is the right way to go. Raso said, he’s talking with Iowa Department of Economic Development Director Bret Mills about seeing if this could be a state program. He said until that time ICADG will have the advantage once they get in place. He said, then working with the utilities, working with the cities, working with property owners, and hopefully everybody can put some skin in the game, to get the ICADG to that point, where they have certified sites. Raso said, ICADG doesn’t certify the sites, ICADG has a third party international consulting firm, that helped build this program. He said they’re the ones who will come in and say the area meets all of the criteria that they would feel comfortable telling their clients that it is shovel ready.
Rettig said it’s interesting, and thanked Raso. Sullivan said that he had a couple of quick things. Sullivan complimented Raso on ICAD’s use of data. Sullivan said that it sounds like some of the customers appreciate data as well, that ICAD is able to provide hard data. He added that one of the things that is a challenge for the Board, is the Board is often asked to fund something, and they say it’ll be good. Sullivan said for many the Board doesn’t get a lot of data in terms of what is the result, and what’s the outcome. Sullivan said that he thinks that ICADG does a great job of providing that. Sullivan said that it makes it much easier for him to sit there and make a decision in terms of whether this a good investment of tax dollars. Raso told the Board of a business executive in Boston that told him “In God we trust, everybody else needs to provide data”. Sullivan said he certainly appreciates it, it does really help.
Sullivan said that he wanted to talk a bit about the shovel ready stuff too. Sullivan said the Board was involved in the development of the Eastside of Iowa City project, because that was County land needed to be rezoned. Sullivan said that he would encourage Raso to continue to touch base in the future. He told Raso of a situation in which everything worked out fine, but they did have a neighbor who was unhappy. Sullivan said that the Board heard from the neighbor, and the Board didn’t really hear enough from all the folks that would have said how important this is. Sullivan said if the only input that the Board is getting on a zoning decision is that the neighbor doesn’t like it, if that’s all he hears, he needs to hear from Raso. He said that this is really important to have this available for an international company, that makes a huge difference. Sullivan said if the Board doesn’t hear that, they don’t have that feedback, so Sullivan said, if the Board is ever presented with that again, please touch base. Raso said he will do that.
Stutsman said along that same line, Raso talked that he surveys people for their satisfaction in dealing with governments and things. Stutsman asked if the Board gets feedback from ICAD, if there are some issues, or if somebody is developing, what they see as a problem. He said if there are issues ICDA is definitely going to communicate that, but it shouldn’t be just that, it should be also, this is how the interstate commerce companies feel about the county. Sullivan said that he knows the Board gets the aggregate data, but he thinks that if there was a specific thing the Board would want to hear. Raso said most definitely, and the best thing is that ICAD doesn’t call the Board unless it’s to present them with the aggregate information. Raso confirmed that if there are any kind of issues, ICAD is always raising those. He said as the Board can imagine, because these companies that ICAD serves, 90% of them are located within an incorporated city, a lot of the conversation goes back to what the city is doing or not doing to serve there needs. Rasp said, that it is very rare that he has had a situation, and in fact he can’t think of an interview that he was in, where they go down the list of services and stated a particular issue they have the county. He said that he can’t remember a single one. Stutsman said that’s good. Raso agreed. Stutsman thanked Raso for coming in and providing a great report.
Recessed to Formal Meeting at 9:52 a.m.; reconvened at 9:55 a.m.
Winkowitsch said as Stutsman mentioned, Winkowitsch is there to present the revised non-bargaining performance evaluation form. Winkowitsch said that she was given the task of leading a Committee. Winkowitsch said that other members of the Committee included Assistant Ambulance Director Dave Dvorsky, Assistant County Attorney Scott Finlayson, Secondary Roads Administrative Assistant Amanda Jacobsen, Public Health Business Manager Becky Mills, Information Technology Director Jean Schultz and Supervisor Stutsman.
Winkowitsch said that she is going to touch on part of the process of how the Committee went about revising the form, and then turn it over to the Board for comments. She said when the Committee started the project, they basically sat down to discuss what they disliked about the current evaluation. She said that they also reviewed a number of sample performance evaluations from other entities. Winkowitsch said that some of the main dislikes about the current form were that it was completely a narrative based evaluation. She said under each section that the employee was evaluated on, the evaluator had to write basically a paragraph form of their comments. She said that was one of the main dislikes. Winkowitsch said another, people weren’t sure exactly where to discuss certain items of performance, such as under what section should they include budget discussions or those sorts of things. She said another complaint was the form being used inconsistently. She said in the directions it says to use, whole or half numbers when evaluating an employee, but found out that people were also using quarter numbers, and others were sticking to the directions and only using whole and half numbers. She said the Committee wanted to address that as well.
Winkowitsch said that one of the major changes of the revision is the form is now in Excel format versus a Word format. She said the main reason the Committee decided to do this was for the evaluator to not have to add up the employees performance score, for it to automatically add up that score for the evaluator. She said that the Committee thought that was going to be a handy aspect. Winkowitsch thanked Jean and Scott for their help, they were the Excel gurus and she couldn’t have done it without them.
Winkowitsch said when it comes to the ratings standards, on this revised form, the Committee used the same one to five scale as on the current form. She said that did not change. She said another major revision was moving away from the narrative format, and going to more numerical based ratings. Winkowitsch said the Committee has six sections that employees are rated under, and the Committee broke each section down into rating factors. She said so instead of having to write out that paragraph of comments, the Committee created rating factors that employees are scored on. She said that is averaged together to give a summary, a score for, each category is then totaled together for their overall score.
Winkowitsch said that the Committee added a safety section, another change from the previous format that was a recommendation from IMWCA, the County’s workman’s compensation insurance carrier. She said the Committee felt that they’re emphasizing, not only for employees and supervisors, the importance of safety, but just to get them in the habit of thinking about those safe behaviors and making it part of their job. Winkowitsch said they also, of course, include a goal section where employee and supervisors, can go over what past goals have been, the kind of the status of where those goals are at currently and them setting goals for the next evaluation period. She said after the Committee came up with what they felt was getting close to a final draft, they did email that out to the Board members earlier this fall, along with ten other County employees, that the employees on the Committee chose. Winkowitsch said pretty much it was people from the departments that the Committee represents. She said that was sent out for feedback, they met again to discuss that feedback, made some changes, and here it what is in front of the Board today. She said they can discuss the comments and feedback of the Board. She said that she will open it up to the Board, or if any of the Committee members have any comments, she will welcome those as well.
Sullivan said that he has a question, or a series of questions. Sullivan said that he thinks that it’s great that the Committee added the safety portion because he thinks that is a missing portion. Sullivan said the question he has is, in a lot of cases, it seems to be essentially not applicable. Sullivan said he looks at Winkowitsch’s job for example, yes she could trip over an extension cord, or something like that, but he wouldn’t say that safety is a huge part of her job. Sullivan said is that an N/A for her, or is that something that she will be rated on and if so, does that skew ratings toward office workers and away from folks that have more field jobs. Winkowitsch said that was something that the Committee did discuss a lot. She said that she personally disagrees with that, just because safety is a part of her responsibility. She said that it is just as important that office workers be rated on safety, as a Secondary Roads or Conservation employee who might be exposed to more of those hazards than someone sitting behind a desk. She said that she thinks that it’s still her responsibility to make sure that her work area is cleaned up, and that it’s not presenting a safety hazard to other members of the public who might come in and slip on the coffee that she spilled earlier that morning on the floor. Winkowitsch said, just as Sullivan said trip over extension cords or filing cabinets, drawers that may be open.
Sullivan said he can accept that argument, but then will the scores automatically be skewed toward somebody who works in a safer environment. He said for him, it’s much easier to behave safely because the most difficult thing that he uses is a stapler. Sullivan said if he is an ambulance driver and he has to not only drive that truck, but then he has to use medical equipment, there are so many opportunities to make a mistake that he is not presented with. Sullivan said it seems as though a lot of employees have an advantage of almost an automatic higher score when compared to their peers who do other types of work.
Winkowitsch said she thinks it’s especially important in those jobs where they are exposed to more hazards. Every job is different and for them and safety might be more a part of their job then for her, but when it comes to some other factors in the evaluation, it may be more important for her to be rated on her communication skills, where for a Conservation worker, that’s not as important so they might get a higher score in that area because it’s not as big of a part of their job as it might be for her. Winkowitsch said that was one thing that the Committee did discuss. Is it fair for someone who might be more exposed to those hazards, but then she thinks that it is really important that they are rated on their safety behaviors because they have a greater risk of being injured.
Sullivan said a follow up question would be, since they never had N/A available before as an option, will there be fairly strict rules in terms of when something is N/A because they don’t want for example some manager saying, “safety is N/A for all my office people” so they don’t rate that at all. Sullivan said they will have to have some consistency in terms of training how to use the forms. Winkowitsch agreed. Stutsman said there is going to be training on this form. She added that as a member of the Committee, she thinks awareness is an excellent part of the safety part, because she bets that a lot of people are thinking at their desk that they don’t have to deal with safety but yet when they look at the question, follows safe work procedures, or keeps work place safe and clean, it can be seen that they do have a role in safety and it’s just not totally geared to people who work in Secondary Roads, Conservation, or Ambulance.
Winkowitsch said the truth is that they do have office employees that are injured, due to unsafe behaviors or just tripping over things. Sullivan said they shouldn’t have many cases then where N/A can be applied. Winkowitsch said she doesn’t think so, but it will be something that will need to be addressed when the form is rolled out in training.
Neuzil said that he agrees with Sullivan. He thinks that there is going to be an opportunity where those who are in more of a dangerous profession are going to be scored lower than those who work in the office, so he thinks that’s just going to happen. Neuzil said none-the-less they have committed that, for their employees, that safety is a top priority and it’s going to be one of those that is scored. Neuzil said one of the things that doesn’t like about this is that it’s very thorough and a lot of it will make it easier to be able to do evaluations. He said for those on the Board they have the liaison process where they all collectively score the department heads. Neuzil asked if that was discussed in the Committee at all in regards to how they will be doing that in the future. Neuzil said he thinks that for all of the Board members to score a department head, where they weren’t part of the liaison process could be very different, particularly because of all the details throughout this, so was that discussed at all, is that an expectation. Winkowitsch said that the Committee tried to discuss not only employees doing self evaluations and supervisors, but department heads are evaluating their employees. Winkowitsch said that the Committee tried to think about the Board process as well. Stutsman said that she thinks that’s something that the Board needs to talk about, how they want to do this. Stutsman said if liaisons just do the evaluation with feedback from other Board members as they have done in the past, or if everybody wants to fill out their evaluation, she thinks that’s something the Board has to work out, how they want to approach that.
Neuzil said since this isn’t an informal meeting, and not done in a work session, that’s why he brought it up. Neuzil said it’s something that has to be discussed, because for him to go and score through this entire process for an employee that he is not the liaison for would make it difficult, other than him going and actually meeting with an employee once a month, which then flies in the face of the whole liaison process in the first place. Neuzil said at some point that does need to be worked out, or otherwise all five Supervisors will be consistently meeting with staff probably on a biweekly or a monthly basis to go through the evaluation which is something that they have tried to avoid to do.
Rettig asked why it would be any different from the current scoring in place. Currently all these things are taken into consideration and given a number. In this case it just leads the scorer through breaking it down to more minute points. Neuzil said that right now how the liaison process works is that two Supervisors meet on a consistent basis with a department head and then report back to the other members of the Board, and throughout that process they go through the evaluation. Neuzil said these are so specific in nature that the only way to really do this on a specific scale would mean for the Board members to go individually and go to do the evaluation with each of those department heads. He said likely the way that these are so detailed, his guess is that the Board would have to do that on a monthly basis. He thinks that it would be very difficult to score if the Board member is not a liaison.
Stutsman suggested putting this item on a Key Issues Work Session. Stutsman said she thinks, and she is almost inclined to agree with Rettig, that she’s not sure if this would be different. Stutsman said she thinks that Neuzil talks about the detail, and that is what she thinks the Committees really tried to get at. Stutsman said one of the complaints that they all had with the other form is that determining where certain job aspects fit. It can go in one category and then it can go over in another, and so they really worked hard to try to say this is where safety goes, and this is where management or communication goes, so there’s no overlap, it’s very clear and very concise. Neuzil said the Board will definitely talk about it, and that’s fine if they want to get in a situation where Supervisors are meeting two weeks with each department head, and if they want to do that, then that’s fine, but they are just trying to get away with that.
Winkowitsch said to Neuzil that maybe it’s something that if the Board does decide the process of how they want to handle it, they can have some training for the Board, on how they would go about handling that or working through that. She said that she’s not sure if Neuzil is open to that, but it’s just a thought.
Sullivan said in the specific duties part, he thinks this is getting towards something that he always thought would be good but he’s not sure how he would do it. Sullivan said it almost looks like someone would cut and paste the entire job description in there. Winkowitsch said they were looking at the specific duties of the job description. Sullivan said not the experience, requirements and that sort of thing. Winkowitsch said correct, there’s actually a specific duties portion, that is more detailed, duties that the employees perform. Sullivan said so the idea would be to cut and paste that right into this form, and that would give the Committee an opportunity to decide if that’s up to date each time they do an evaluation. Winkowitsch said exactly, making sure that at review time, those duties are being reviewed to make sure that it’s still a large aspect of the employees job that it’s accurate and having that in front of the evaluator to remind the evaluator that this is part of their job to help evaluate them.
Sullivan said another thought would just be rather than putting that much information into that electronic document would just be to have a check box that says, job duties are attached, and check it off, so that the evaluator wouldn’t have to cut and paste such a large amount of information into the Form. Stutsman said however, people can adapt this to their own preference, and she thinks that it’s a great idea, is that this would force the evaluator when doing the evaluation to look at those job descriptions. She added because everyone forgets to look and remind themselves what this is, what this person is supposed to be doing, and isn’t doing, or this is what they’re doing but it’s not included in the job duties. Stutsman said she thinks it will be a good improvement in that respect.
Sullivan said he didn’t see where Winkowitsch mentioned a review of past goals and putting in future goals but he doesn’t see where that goes. Winkowitsch said it should have been included. She asked if the Board did not get those pages. She said in Excel, the Committee has it in different tabs so she apologized, she though that was included. Winkowitsch said she will have to email that to the Board Sullivan said this is like tab one, and the evaluator would go to tab two and it has that portion. Winkowitsch said yes, there’s a separate goals tab, which looks kind of like what the Board has now, the top portion has five areas where the evaluator can review past goals and then there’s a column for the status, so whether it’s been met if it’s in progress if it hasn’t been met, an area to discuss or to list why it hasn’t been met, maybe the individual waiting on something, or there’s some additional resources that are needed before it can be met. She said and then a bottom section to set goals for the next evaluation period and then also includes an area for additional Supervisor comments and employee comments and then the space to sign off on the evaluations. Sullivan asked if Winkowitsch could forward that to the Board. Winkowitsch said she will definitely do that and she apologizes, she thought that was included.
Rettig said that she and Harney had a liaison meeting with Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek on January 21, 2010 and she hesitates to bring up Harney’s point when he’s not here, but she will. Rettig said that Harney expressed concerns about the distance between effective and very good and that was a big jump. Rettig said and maybe it’s literally in the titles, but it goes from effective to very good quickly and she was concerned about that. Rettig said that she happened to agree with him, if one reads the descriptions, starting at the bottom and moving up, the other ones kind of transition, it goes from mediocre to okay to very good, quickly, so that was her point and she thinks that’s a good point about the scale. Rettig said the scale itself, and this is another topic, but one she just wants on the radar, is put in the context of the recommended merit pay increases scale and then took this, if the Board accepted that merit increase scale that was recommended, an individual would actually be getting a merit increase of 1.25% for just being effective, and she is not sure if that is what she would be interested in doing.
Winkowitsch apologized for not going into that a little bit more in depth earlier. She said, when they looked at this they were keeping the same merit scale that they currently have, so they didn’t take into consideration the new scale that was proposed, with the compensation and classification study. She said the Committee went by what they had, they didn’t know during the process what would be approved. Winkowitsch said currently if someone got a three rating, effectively they get no increase, so that is what they were looking at when they did this. Rettig asked if, in light of this, there will be a new recommendation on the merit scale. Winkowitsch said she doesn’t think that the Board has voted on exactly what the new merit scale will be, so they will have to take that into consideration. Stutsman said those adjustment will be made. Sullivan said whatever the Board decides, this will have to adjust to it.
Neuzil asked Winkowitsch, what the timeline is for getting all these things worked out. Winkowitsch asked if Neuzil is referring to the form or compensation and classification study. Neuzil said as far as the Committee’s process, once this get’s passed to the draft form, what the process is in regards to a timeline for implementation, when would these begin to be used, or what’s the goal. Winkowitsch said as soon as the Committee comes to a decision and approves this, they had talked about getting that training set up within a couple of weeks after it’s approved. They will then roll it out as soon as possible, as soon as everyone is trained on it. Neuzil said it looks like the Board has a few discussions to take place in a Key Issues Work Session, and then also getting the other things lined up. Stutsman said that she thinks that the Board can approve the form, but she thinks that internally the Board needs to decide how they as a Board want to do it. She said that the Board said that with the other departments too, because other departments have different supervisors and managers so they will have to work that out within their department. Stutsman said that she thought the plan was that basically the Committee would bring this to the Board and approve it and then move on, and get this in place and get started using it, and get started with the training.
Sullivan said it does seem like it is important that there’s a start date that goes across all county departments so that there isn’t somebody still using an old form when everybody else has migrated. Winkowitsch said that she thinks once they give people that period of time to be trained, the Committee will have to hold a number of sessions to get everyone in, and then probably effective March 1, 2010, this is the form, and they will get it distributed. Rettig said March 1, 2010 is sooner. Winkowitsch said that she is just throwing it out as an example. Stutsman she would just hate to continue to delay this because she thinks that the Board wanted this in place for some time because they all complained about the old form. Now they have something new to use and shouldn’t keep delaying. Neuzil asked if all of the department heads have looked at it. He said that would be helpful to at least have all the department heads look at it before the Board votes for it. Winkowitsch said the Committee had sent it to the Board and then about ten other people, so not all the department heads have seen it. Neuzil said that he would be comfortable having all the department heads that are going to have to use it to at least take a look. Stutsman asked if that’s what the Board wants to do. Stutsman asked how many meetings the Committee has to do this. Winkowitsch said a lot, she doesn’t have the exact number. Neuzil said he’s just saying that a department head that’s being required to fill this out might just want to take a gander at it before it is implemented. They may have a comment on it.
Sullivan said that he thinks that the Board can do that probably relatively quickly, sending it out and saying they need feedback within two weeks, and if the feedback isn’t returned to Winkowitsch in two weeks then the Board will assume that they don’t have any. Rettig said that would pretty much then put the Committee on an April 1, 2010 starting date with a couple of weeks of training. Winkowitsch said ideally, the Committee would want to get back together and discuss the comments in case there are things that they wants to change. Stutsman said it sounds like the Board wants this to go out to department heads and get their feedback. She said that would be department heads and managers too, and elected officials. Sullivan said elected officials, he thinks certainly as well. Winkowitsch said the Committee could email it to department heads and elected officials and ask them to share it with other supervisors that are evaluating in their department. Neuzil asked to get the form out as soon as possible. Winkowitsch said that she could do that today. Rettig said give them two weeks to get their comments back. Sullivan said that he thinks that’s enough time. They need to make it a priority, or not comment.
Johnson said if the comments are received and the Committee met right away, there is a Department Head Meeting on February 16, 2010 that might be a place to discuss. Stutsman asked if the Board should put it on the agenda for February 16, 2010 then. Neuzil said and then just debut it and if there’s any additional changes they’ll get things worked out with the Board. Sullivan said they could put it on the next Board meeting after that or the Committee might want to meet right after the comments. Winkowitsch agreed. Winkowitsch thanked the Board for their time. Stutsman thanked Winkowitsch and the Committee for their work. Stutsman said that she didn’t know if any of the other Committee members had comments or thoughts. Sullivan said they all came. Rettig said that she really likes the one under initiative, the last one, “considers use of green initiatives where appropriate”. Winkowitsch said the Committee discussed that knowing that Johnson County is a cool county. Rettig said in more ways than one. Winkowitsch agreed. Stutsman said the Board has a plan where they are going to go from here, so the Board will get that feedback from department heads and talk about it at the Department Head Meeting and the Committee can meet.
Finlayson gave some background, though those who have been on the Board for a while have probably been through this before, seeing this as an administrative thing. He said that under 453.A local law enforcement does compliance checks with local businesses that sell tobacco. Finlayson said they’ll send in someone under the age of 18 to see if they can buy tobacco. If an employee sells it to them, for example at a convenience store or someone place like that, two things happen if it is sold, first the employee gets a citation, so they get a simple misdemeanor citation, if he’s correct. Finlayson said once that citation goes through, the second portion of what happens, is that there’s a civil penalty under 453.A to the employer. Finlayson said the penalty will be affected by how many times they have had a violation within two years. He said the first violation is a $300 penalty, the second violation within two years is a $300 fine, or a $1,500 penalty and if it’s a third violation within two years, then it’s both a $1,500 fine and a suspension of the license for 30 days. Finlayson said the second one he wanted to correct if he was wrong on that is a suspension of 30 days or a $1,500 fine.
Finlayson said the last compliance check was done in the winter of 2009, November and December. Finlayson said two local businesses locally had violations. Finlayson said 380 BP, which used to be 380 Citgo had a violation, but under 453A, if the employee who sold the tobacco went to a class and had a certificate saying they went to a class regarding the sale of tobacco then they have an affirmative defense to the penalty. Finlayson said that the employee had that certificate, so they will have an affirmative defense for next week, this is on the form, where they will actually sign the resolution. Finlayson said there won’t be a penalty for that company, because the employee went through that training process.
Finlayson said that the other entity is the Sutliff store, and that is their second violation within two years. He said that the owner of the Sutliff store opted for the 30 day suspension of his license, so he’s turned that in, so they will have a resolution signed, adopting the 30 day suspension for the Board to sign. Stutsman clarified that his suspension is that he can’t sell cigarettes during that 30 days. Finlayson said that is correct, and he would say that both entities as he has worked with them have been cordial and cooperative. He said that they have a right to a hearing which would be next week, they’ve both signed a waiver for the hearing, so they won’t have a hearing, more than likely, unless they change their minds, which if they want to have a hearing that’s more than fine. Finlayson said but they probably won’t have a hearing, all things considered and they’ll just have a resolution. Mostly it’s going to be an administrative thing. Finlayson said on the 380BP Resolution he and Johnson noticed some typos, but he’ll get those fixed and it should be relatively smooth.
Rettig said she’s curious on the 380 one because it references Coral Ridge Amaco. Finlayson said that’s one of the typos, and he’ll fix it. Sullivan said that his memory may not be serving him correctly here, but he seems to remember that this BP when it was Citgo had quite a few problems with this, and it sounds like maybe’s there’s some kind of class, that they are putting employees through, because Finlayson said the employee had some kind of certificate that protected the employer. Finlayson said the State offers a class in which the employee can get a certificate, and if the employee holds that certificate when they sell the tobacco product then the employer has an affirmative defense to the civil penalty. Sullivan said that it seems like that may make sense to their other violator, if they know that, that’s an option and that that’s available to them. Finlayson said he can let them know and he would be more than happy to do that. Sullivan said it seems like maybe they need to take that step. Finlayson said sure. County Attorney Janet Lyness asked if it is only an option for a first offense. Finlayson said it’s an option, as long as they have it, it negates an offense. Sullivan said if there’s training available, it looks like they must need it, and so he hopes they know what’s out there. Finlayson said that he brought the papers with him, and that particular section says specifically, if an employee of a retailer violates 453.A. 2.1, that would be the violations that he went through, the retailer shall not be assessed a penalty under subsection 2, that would be what the employer pays, and the violation shall be deemed not a violation of 453A.2.1 for the purposes of determining the number of violations, first the penalty must be assessed. He said it knocks off one level of the violations if they have the certificate. He asked if that make sense. Sullivan said yes. He’s just thinking that it sounds like if there’s training available it would be good that all the retailers avail themselves of that.
Stutsman said the employee might not be working for them any longer. Sullivan agreed. Finlayson said there’s a potential fact bases for this. Stutsman said the possibility of doing this class should have been explained to them. Sullivan said that’s what he’s getting at. Stutsman asked if this is their second offense. Finlayson said, for the Sutliff store, correct. Stutsman said maybe on a second offense, they can’t go to class. Sullivan said if people can get a proactive training to help them not violate the law, that’s good. Stutsman said maybe they could get that clarified for next week. She said the resolutions should be put on the Board’s agenda for next week to get them taken care of.
Johnson said at least week’s meeting he highlighted the free clinics that the Department of Public Health was doing at that point. He said since that, he thinks that the next day they issued a press release that they are now offering daily clinics during the week. He said that the demand for the H1N1 vaccine has been low and the Public Health Department has been encouraging people to continue to get them, and is trying to remove as many barriers regarding cost, location, or hours of service. Johnson said that the vaccines are available and people would need to contact the Public Health Department and that number is (319)-356-6040. He said that on Mondays and Wednesday’s they go until 6:00 p.m. and once a month there is a Saturday morning clinic, and so those are free vaccines, so that opportunity has been expanded.
Stutsman asked if Johnson said which Saturday. Johnson said it’s February 13, 2010, March 13, 2010 and April 10, 2010. Johnson said the hours on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays are 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and then 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Johnson said Mondays and Wednesdays are from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Stutsman said do they need to call and make an appointment. Johnson said they need to call to make an appointment. It is also available through various pharmacies and medical providers as well, but sometimes there’s a nominal cost, if one chooses to go that route, and so these are free vaccines. He said there is information on the Johnson County website: www.johnson-county.com, and the number again for the Health Department is (319)-356-6040.
Johnson said that the Board has a Budget Work Session at 11:00 a.m. January 22, 2010. There are tentative budget work sessions scheduled for next week on January 25, 2010 and January 27, 2010. Johnson said that he thinks that they will know after their session today, if either one is necessary. He said that there is a Canvass of Votes from the special election that is scheduled for January 26, 2020 at 2:00 p.m., a Key Issues Work Session on January 27, 2010 and a Board meeting for January 28, 2010 at 9:00 a.m.
Sullivan attended the Iowa City Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, he was appointed to the Job Evaluation Committee, and is a member of the Senior Friendly Communities Action Team at the Livable Communities Program. Sullivan also attended a liaison meeting with Stutsman and Dvorak. Sullivan announced the start of the Johnson County “You Earned It Now Keep It” free tax help clinics that will take place between February 1, 2010 and April 15, 2010. Sullivan stated that he attended the Egg Breakfast Series, the Iowa City Federation of Labor Meeting and the Annual Chili Supper. Sullivan also said that he attended an interfaith service at the Saint Thomas Moore Church for a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. Sullivan congratulated Rettig on her election and thanked all people who put their hat in the ring for that election.
Rettig attended the Martin Luther King Jr. Opening Ceremony on January 21, 2010. She praised the community that is making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a day of service. Rettig had a liaison meeting with Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek. Rettig announced a new job opening within the Human Resources Department. Rettig stated that she requested to meet with the Coralville City Management. Rettig announced that the Iowa Bicycle Summit will take place in Des Moines on January 29, 2010 and January 30, 2010.
Neuzil said that he and Johnson completed the FEMA Advanced Professional Series Course. Neuzil said that he attended an Empowerment Committee meeting at Mercy Hospital. Neuzil will hold a listening post at the Iowa City Johnson County Senior Center on January 26, 2010 at noon. Neuzil will also be teaching a series of classes on County government at the Senior Center, every Friday in the month of February at 1:00 p.m. On February 26, 2010 Neuzil will also be giving residents a tour of the Johnson County Jail.
Stutsman attended the first Linn-Johnson Urban Caucus. Stutsman said that she will attend another meeting in Linn County that is scheduled for February 26, 2010 at 11:30 a.m. Stutsman also mentioned that she and Sullivan attended a meeting where they discussed the International Property Maintenance Code. Stutsman also attended the Egg Breakfast Series.
Adjourned at 10:49 a.m.
______________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2010
By Nancy Tomkovicz, Recording Secretary
Sent to the Board of Supervisors on March 17, 2010 at 12:30 p.m.