Stutsman: Let’s move on to D. Minutes received. Johnson County DECAT Project Joint Executive and Planning Committee for January 24th, 2000.

Reports. Charlie, why don’t we start with you. Andy’s going to switch tapes, so just hang on just a second.

Duffy: OK. Thanks Andy. It’s been busy up here to say the least with the budget. The meeting about the building code, a lot of folks have shown up and they probably will the next time down at the fairgrounds. I got other meetings that I’ve been to, but I would like to talk a little bit about U.S. Census coming up. We had a meeting in Solon last Monday night and had a representative that works for the U.S. Census Department and people don’t really realize how important it really is. It is very confidential and if we don’t count all of our people here in Johnson County and surrounding counties, there’s a lot the count hinges on things. Including some of our money that we get for our roads and the cities get for their streets. I think Iowa City right now, per capita, is about $85 a person. So, that is very important. But, he had a long list of things that amounted to, if we don’t get the count right, we underestimate the count. Then, there’s not a federal funding that we just don’t get. Here a few years back, we even lost a person representing part of this county on account of the Census. It was not high enough. This was an official that represented us in Washington D.C. So, it’s very important. They’re looking for volunteers and I think the hourly wage will be somewhere between $10 and $12 per hour, $.36 a mile if you use your own car. But, it is more important than people think it is and it’s very confidential. No way some of these questions are confidential questions, but that is a federal law. That’s the way it is. I just thought I’d say that because it’s really important.

Jordahl: Glad you brought that up.

Duffy: Yes.

Stutsman: That it Charlie?

Duffy: I guess.

Stutsman: OK. Carol, you have some things?

Thompson: Yes. I have several things. I attended the HACAP Board of Directors last week and we received a letter from (inaudible) that more clearly describes the reorganization that they are going to be doing. So, I am going to put a circulation note on here and pass it around to the Board. Some of the decisions that will have to be made are the exact relationship of our local HACAP agencies to the parent agency in Cedar Rapids and also what the name will be. So, those will be things that you’ll be hearing about in the next few months and I’ll pass this around for everybody to read. I also went to the Mental Health Center Board Meeting and learned, even without the contract with the County being upgraded… They had enough money in their carry over balance from last year and in their operating budget this year to give a one and a half percent raise to the employees. Actually, it’s a 3% raise beginning in January. So, by the end of the year it’ll amount to 1 1/2% over the year. We had quite a lot of discussion about that and felt that it was really important that the staff be remunerated fairly even though the contract hasn’t been negotiated. There was also some discussion of the Mental Health Center beginning to offer an employee assistant program, sort of like Synchrony as part of what they do there. In the managed care system, this is something that a mental health center can do and it’s a good source of income for them. Then, coming up there’s a meeting to have a strategic planning meeting with the whole board. We also talked about the Family Service Grant that used to be under that wasn’t able to be funded this year, which they’ve now discovered that they can reallocate other funds and put together other grants to continue that program, at least until the end of this Fiscal Year. It’s going to be called pace and it will serve both Department of Human Services Families and other families whose parents experience mental illness. That’s that. Then, I also attended the Strategic Planning Retreat for the Senior Center Commission and I wanted to talk a little bit about the goals that we set. I just want to read these because I was proud of the work that we did that day. The first goal is to build critical partnerships with the City, County and University and make stronger relationships with decision makers. A second goal was to create an inclusive spirit and respect for the diversity of reasons that people might be using the Senior Center. The third one was define the center and the center’s goals, rather than having them defined by others. The fourth was recognize that there is a continuum of different needs, choices and experiences in the aging process. Another one was enter into a continuous and regular dialogue with City government, University of Iowa and the County Board, in order to better understand their goals and concerns. Make the Senior Center a higher priority and demonstrate our commitment to specific issues. The fourth was to go ahead with the accreditation of the Senior Center, which has been, I guess, a long standing goal. So, that was a very interesting day and I was happy to have the chance to participate.

Stutsman: Who facilitated that?

Thompson: A man named Jerry Howell.

Stutsman: Oh sure.

Jordahl: He’s from West Branch.

Thompson: Yes. It was very good.

Stutsman: He’s humorous, too, isn’t he?

Thompson: Yes. It was a very pleasant day.

Stutsman: That must have been a good day. Jonathan, do you have anything?

Jordahl: Yes. A couple of things. We met with the County Computer Committee yesterday, Mike and I. We have their appointed, say the committee appointed from itself, a subcommittee to look at this question of financial and human resources software that would meet the needs of payroll and HR benefits tracking. Initially with the goal of the subcommittee to make sure that this would fit with software that might grow or be related to it in the future that would meet other related financial needs in the County. For example, case management tracking that we had talked about and budget reporting that we would like to have for the Board. Also, I think an overdue thing, we set up a regular schedule of meetings for the Computer Committee and it’s various subcommittees so that we will be prepared to articulate well with the budget process and have things considered in a timely way. I think streamlined a little bit the process of bringing new ideas for approval, rather than having things go to the whole committee first, then down to the subcommittee and then back up and then to the Board. If someone has an idea that relates to the tasks of a subcommittee, they would just go directly to the subcommittee. Then the idea would be funneled from the subcommittee up through the whole committee to the Board with some sense of how it fits into the priorities of the County as a whole. Other item of course, the building code meeting was very interesting and we were appreciative of the input there. My favorite thing about that, I wanted to say and share with you was that I talked to a couple of people afterwards who had come thinking one way and left thinking there are points on both sides of the issue. I think that’s usually where the truth is.

Stutsman: Yes. Well, that’s the whole purpose of a public hearing, isn’t it, to get that input in.

Jordahl: I think it worked. I’m not sure everybody’s opinion was changed, but I talked to a couple who were and that was good. There is a ground breaking ceremony tomorrow morning at 9:00 for the Iowa City Water Plant. I don’t know how many of us are planning on attending that, whether we need to hush up or whatever. We can’t have more than 3 Supervisors at the same place and talk at the same time. Let me see here. There was one other thing. Working with department heads. I guess if I can’t find it, it must not be that important. I’ll defer.

Stutsman: Mike, do you have anything?

Lehman: I attended most of the same meetings as the other Board Members and the public is not aware of a lot of the things we do on an ongoing basis. But, we had been working hard on the budget here. We’ve had employee evaluations, department heads, building code hearing, of course. Many of us attended the City and County Assessor Conference Boards, where we heard their budget proposal. The attendees there are the people in the school boards and municipalities that fall under the jurisdictions of those assessors. So, the planning council, we all attended that, hearing some developments there and some challenges. Also, a new representative to some of the local and area organizations, I attended JCCOG, the Urban and the Rural. I heard some details there on the Waste Management where Brad Neumann had mentioned about the Tire Disposal program had been almost too successful and they’re going to have to maybe cut back. Where last year it was not open to tire retail businesses and we were still getting businesses bringing in tires. Instead of paying a deposit to the tire retailer, they’d keep them themselves and bring them out under the (inaudible). Get rid of those and that increased our numbers quite a bit and we ran over budget there. Also, there is some discussion about some of the waste haulers for the communities now changing ownership. These businesses are now taking things out of the County, out of State and looking at the effect it has on our local Landfill here, just even trying to cash flow it. Also, concerns that maybe some of these larger organizations are not recycling even though the individual residents are setting out items that are sorted. They’re getting tossed onto a truck altogether. A lot of concern about that. We’re kind of defeating the purpose of what our residents are trying to accomplish. Also went to the Pork Producers of Johnson County on Monday. As everyone knows, it’s kind of nice to get and you get to visit with the public and informed with their views are on a lot of things such as the building code and other items that we discuss and have to set policy on. Last Friday I went to, sponsored by the Iowa City Chamber of Commerce, the Ag Committee. It was a presentation and also a breakfast at the 4H Fairgrounds. They had Carol Hunt of the Johnson County Soil and Water Conservation spoke on Iowa produced foods, challenges and opportunities presented here trying to market and prepare those. I guess the lab part of it was the breakfast and that was egg and cheddar cheese casserole, made with free range organic eggs. The cheeses, the breads, the meats, all homegrown. The apples, the cider and jam, sorghum, baked apples, it kind of opens your eyes of what is available out here locally. It tastes very good and there were seconds if you wanted them but it was very good the first time through. It kind of opened your eyes of what’s available here in the local economy. That’s all I have.

Stutsman: Good report. Thank you. Well, I think everything has pretty well been covered that I would have addressed. I did want to mention that on Monday, Carol, we have strategic planning with the Board at the Radisson and that starts at 8:30.

Peters: 8:30.

Stutsman: OK. So, we want to make sure that Board Members remember that. I don’t know if one thing was mentioned by everybody’s report is that the Board pretty much has finished the budget process. That took a lot of time in January. I think we’ll have one more go through and hopefully then, that will be ready to put on the agenda for next Thursday to direct the Auditor to publish that budget and set the public hearing. I guess we set the public hearing for the budget for March. No, it’s February 29th at 5:30 here in the Board Room. So, we just need to direct the Auditor to publish that budget and then set that public hearing. I think that’s everything that I have to report on. So, discussion from the public? Anybody that would like to speak?

Berkowitz: I’m Holly Berkowitz. I live in Iowa City and last night I attended the meeting with the Superintendent of Public Schools in Iowa City regarding the overcrowding in the Northwest section of the school district. He mostly wanted to talk about moving kids from place to place as a reaction to that. But, I said, let’s go deeper than that. Let’s look at the cause. What’s causing this? Some people don’t want to look past the obvious. What is causing it is the extra and uncontrolled development of the land in northwest Coralville. Because we had too many students in the northwest section, we built another school, Wickham School, and that is now crowded. The projections are that they are going to be far beyond capacity in a couple of years and that they are going to have to ship students to the southeast side. Now, this seems likes reactionary crisis mismanagement to me. I come to you to ask you and JCCOG and Coralville and Iowa City and anybody else to help sit back, take us out of the crisis mismanagement mode, put us into prevention pays mode. OK. Now, to do that, we need to look farther beyond the immediate, the private cash flow, the obvious cash flow and the short term cash flow and the reactionary knee jerk reactions that are very inappropriate for public services and government to engage in. Point number one. Vision to look ahead and to say, if the planners are building for private profit without having to at least plan for the needed services for those people in those houses and only needing to only count the cash flow that comes through their own pocket book when they build the house. I think that’s very ill planned and a disservice to the people that are buying the houses. Because every cause, every action causes an equal and opposite reaction. Positive actions for positive actions and positive growth for positive actions. Negative tailspins into negative consequences caused by negative actions. So, the negative action here is not planning ahead enough and the government, as in Coralville’s northwest section, not placing an impact fee on developers for even planning for. I don’t even know if they have impact fees for emergency services, Pat. I think there was a debate for the Coral Ridge Mall, that the City or some other District was going to pick up the tab for the public safety and emergency services. Now, this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me or logic. But, then logic doesn’t drive human history. Emotions drive history and the emotions of the short term private cash flow into private pocket books. If we want to get out of crisis mismanagement mode and back into a more productive and positive and profitable mode of long-term planning, then we need to make an objective of long term planning. By the way, Sally, I commend the Board for sticking with the long-term plan for Johnson County and when people say we want our freedom and we want freedom from taxes and we want freedom from restrictions in government, there is always a balance. There is always a balance between private worlds and public worlds and the life term, the life world that produces the flows that everybody needs to eat every day. Toddlers, when they are babies, say give this to me, give this to me. I want this and you’re going to do this because the world is suppose to revolve around me. But, when the toddler grows older, the toddler or the child learns that rights need responsibilities and responsibilities needs rights. It’s always a 2-way flow to balance the flows of information and resources enough to produce a successful society. A society that can function long-term for everybody, which is a goal that we set out in the Constitution many years ago. We can’t just limit our public organizations or governing bodies or balancing bodies I call them, to just counting private cash flow floods. That’s what I hear in budget processes a lot is just considering the cash flow in the budget.

Stutsman: Holly, we’re going to have to have you limit your comments to 5 minutes.

Holly Berkowitz: OK. So, I’m proposing a major shift in public policies accounting methods. What are we counting? Are we counting only the cash in private pocket books now of only some or are we counting the long-term outcomes many years in decades from private pocket books now, which are impossible to count in cash now. You cannot measure public outcome decades from now, a century from now, in strictly cash flow right now. So, I say to the public, the school district, to you, to every City Council, that is construct a public budget that validates the qualitative as well as the quantitative counts. In any kind of research project, you have to weigh qualitative with quantitative. Entrepreneurs do this all the time. They say, if I do this to the cause, what will happen to this outcome. It’s always a flux. So, in qualitative we use words and thoughts and so we need to balance those as much as the other end. When we’re talking about the school district we need us all to work together as a whole and our system fractures the whole and says we’re going to move this person over here because the boundary is here. But, lets think more about the whole and work for a system that helps kids learn that the home is the most important. Your neighborhood can be a nurturing home and can be safe and the schools can be safe.

Stutsman: Holly, you’re going to have to wind up.

Berkowitz: OK. Thank you.

Stutsman: Thank you.

Lehman: Thank you.

Stutsman: Anybody else to speak from the public? Marianne?

Marianne Milkman: Yes. I’m speaking for myself right now.

Stutsman: Marianne, do you want to identify yourself first of all for the Auditor’s Office?

Milkman: It’s really, in reference to the letter you’re going to send to the City Development Board, I would urge you to send a somewhat stronger letter than the one that you have put together. I know a general outline was in that letter for annexations. But, I think this is a considerably bigger project. It seems to me that maybe if you could publish a little bit on how many miles of gravel roads are going to be effected, where the water is going to come from and some of the issues about the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department to supply security. Just maybe some examples of the things you already mentioned in the school district and so on. What potential impact on the school district. That’s all. Just a suggestion maybe a little stronger because I think the City Development Board needs to get something more than your standard letter on this one.

Stutsman: Thank you.

Milkman: The other, I do speak as a member of League of Women Voters, we’d rather just to commend you on videotaping the informal meetings, because as I think many people know who go to work sessions or informal sessions, that’s where the issues really get discussed and you never hear about them. What really is giving rise to the votes that you are casting.

Stutsman: Thank you.

Jordahl: Thank you.

Stutsman: Bob, you have comments.

Welsh: Two things.

Stutsman: All right.

Welsh: One, I’d like to give to the Board of Supervisors a copy of the Governor’s Child Care Rehabilitation task force.

Stutsman: Great. Thank you.

Welsh: This is a letter to the lieutenant governor on Tuesday of this week and it lists the (inaudible) being Iowa established a high quality early education and care system for all children and partner with parents in fulfilling their responsibilities. As Jesse Rasmussen said, there are really 3 key words and they are quality, involvement and parents. That report contains 3 years of action steps. The Cluster Board will be arranging a public meeting to talk with providers. Dan Riley, who is with Handicare, and myself, along with Susan Salter serve on this task force. Dan and I had a meeting with some of the providers. We’re going to be able to tell the providers things which they requested are in these actions right now.

Stutsman: Pass this around.

Welsh: Second thing (inaudible) is that I would hope that you would proceed on a fast track in relation to exploring the possibility of Sycamore Mall. Now, I know that some of you feel that that is a poorly kept building and would need a lot of repair. I gather that, for example, just the Sears building alone would house your need for Department of Human Services and Health. In addition to that, it was mentioned there are facilities there which would help to meet your SEATS needs, your Ambulance needs. All I’m saying to you is you got a window of opportunity and you can’t sit around and discuss a long time. But, I think that you need to designate some person who will act on your behalf to explore all of these possibilities. I am totally sympathetic with the fact that renovation costs a lot of money. But, so does new construction. In that particular facility, you’ve got a lot of square footage. You’ve got a lot of land. You’ve got a lot parking facilities. The site that you would have tentatively reserved to hold for possible Human Service Health Program does have limits on it in terms of square footage. This would provide a real opportunity for a Human Services complex. It would meet a lot of your needs. I attend enough of your meetings to know the real pressing needs you have, and just for one department after another department, and to a person like myself that sounds like one heck of a good possibility, and I guess I would hope you would designate someone like Mr. White or somebody else to really look into that and with Dwight Dobberstein, with all of your needs at that point, as county, that you would explore private public partnerships. Because, ironically, that may be more space than the County needs. But, I do think it would be a shame to let that opportunity pass and so I would urge you really to explore that, and I think, I know there’s a possible tour of the building on the 9th of February. I know the Space Needs Committee has their next regular meeting on the 18th, although you now have a meeting for them to be invited to on the 17th. But it seems to me like that meeting needs to be moved up so that you have some opportunity to have some discussion as a Board. I guess I defer to the County Attorney to determine whether or not that would have to be an Executive Session or not, to discuss such things as potential bid or how you would proceed. But to just sit by and not do anything and say hey that’s a building that’s in poor repair and it would cost a lot to repair, I personally don’t think that’s a sufficient response. I don’t know how you want to go about it, but I just would urge you to not let this window of opportunity pass, because time is clicking.

Stutsman: Thank you, Bob. One thing I forgot to mention under my report is that I did attend the League of Women Voters legislative session last Saturday morning where the legislators were there. I did bring up the issue with them about the proposal in the legislature about a property tax freeze and to get their input about what was happening with that. Supposedly a Bill was supposed to come out this week, and Dick Myers was going to get me a copy of that Bill and I have not seen it yet. But I guess I just expressed my concern about the continual talk about a property tax freeze for cities and counties and basically said what’s broken. When we get information from ISAC saying that property taxes over the last 10 years have risen on the average of 4%, which is half a percent a year, I question where they think the problem is. But anyway, I expressed my concern there and I think it’s going to be important for us to monitor that piece of legislation and certainly be in touch with our legislators concerning the progress of that. If there are no other comments from the public…

Berkowitz: Can someone yield time?

Stutsman: How does the Board feel about that? What do you mean by yield time?

Berkowitz: So they can have 2 minutes more?

Stutsman: 2 minutes more, then I think there are other thing.

Duffy: I’ve got another meeting that I have to go to this afternoon and I’ve got to talk to our Auditor and he’s going to lunch there pretty soon.

Berkowitz: How about one minute?

Stutsman: One minute.

Berkowitz: Again in talking about the whole of Johnson County, and the typical pattern is is that the population is shifting to the northwest from the southeast. Even though the southeast is a very desirable place to be, and even though the potential is there for a great, for developing a great world there. Why? Maybe because the pollutants from the northwest are blowing down into the southeast. Who knows. But I’d encourage Johnson County, Iowa City and any other organizations or bodies that want to take this on. I was at the Englert session the other night and there is so, I don’t think cash is worth…

Stutsman: Holly, you’re going to have to make your point. We need to move on.

Berkowitz: Dreams fulfill and cash just makes us dissatisfied, so let’s focus our dreams on what we would like to see in southeast Iowa City and that part of the County and develop a plan for a park…

Stutsman: Carol tells me your minute is up, Holly.

Berkowitz: OK. Thank you.

Duffy: The southeast part of Iowa City, if you head that, is probably the best farmland we’ve got in the County.

Stutsman: We need to move on. If that concludes public discussion, we’re adjourned.

Adjourned at 11:44 a.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary