Stutsman: Business from the County Auditor. Discussion Action Needed Regarding the January Expense and Revenue Report. We have Dan Stolze from the Auditor’s Office. Good morning Dan.
Deputy Auditor Dan Stolze: Good morning. How are you?
Stutsman: I’m fine. How are you?
Stolze: I’m doing great.
Stutsman: Good. Always like to hear that from an auditor.
Stolze: Just real briefly, I’m just going to give you a couple of totals and percentages here through the month of January, which is just a little bit over 58% through our budget year, our total expenditures are at 53.7%, so I think we’re in good shape there. Our total revenues are right at 54%, so our revenue collections are just a little bit ahead of our expenditures as far as the percentage of budget. You have to remember on the revenue side, that a big part of our revenues are tax collections and for the next month or so, the month’s move ahead of what we collect in taxes because we won’t collect again until late March. I think our revenues are really sitting in pretty good shape. The expenditures are sitting pretty good as well.
Thompson: Do we still have the effect of the extra pay period that you mentioned last month?
Stolze: Yes. We’ve already had one of those.
Thompson: So, if we see this creeping up, a percentage of that’s going to be OK.
Stolze: Yes. Right now we have had 16 of our 27 payrolls through the month of January. The payrolls are a little over 59% of the total payrolls for the year, so it looks like we’re sitting pretty good right now.
Duffy: Well, that’s a good report. I think this is very important for the taxpayers of Johnson County and county government. It’s easy to read and usually it’s the expenditures that might create a problem, because they’re not really set in stone, and so this is a real fine report. Almost hit it right on the nose for both of the expenditures in this first one.
Stutsman: This is something that we had the Auditor do on a monthly basis, to just keep the Board informed about where we’re at, so that we don’t have any surprises and know what to expect as far as budget amendments.
Stolze: That’s what we’re here for.
Jordahl: To what do you attribute this accuracy, Dan?
Stolze: Dumb luck.
Stutsman: Well, now’s your chance to say my skill and expertise.
Stolze: I don’t want to say that. I may look like a dummy next month. I don’t want to go into that.
Stutsman: Well, it’s a good report and, and it’s…
Lehman: It kind of shows our department heads are sticking to their budgets.
Stutsman: Yes. I agree, too, Mike.
Lehman: Also, the tough part is that’s expenditures. The tough part is revenues. Some of them have to predict their revenues. They don’t know how many people are going to walk to their counter, projects they do and stuff, they don’t know what type of funds may come in that they are trying to generate. So, it in this sense it is a real business for them trying to predict, stick to what they predicted almost 18 month ahead of time in many cases.
Jordahl: Yes. So, it makes it even more impressive that it’s this close.
Stutsman: Any other questions, comments? OK. Thank you Dan.
Stolze: Thanks.
Stutsman: Nothing else then from the County Auditor this morning? OK. Business from the County Attorney? Nothing this morning.
Lyness: And no engineering reports either.
Stutsman: OK. All right.
Stutsman: Business from the Board of Supervisors. Item A. Letter from Rod Kampman, Chief Jail Inspector for Department of Corrections, and this is regarding the Johnson County Jail. This letter is included in your packet and I think at this time I’m going to read the letter. I think it’s good for the public to understand the role that the Chief Jail Inspector has concerning our Jail needs. This letter was received by the Board of Supervisors on February 3rd. It says, dear Chairperson Stutsman. On January 26, 2000, I had the opportunity to visit with Sheriff Carpenter during the annual Jail inspection. Sheriff Carpenter conveyed to me that the Johnson County Supervisors are very actively pursuing options to seek a remedy to solve the problems of the current Jail. Although the current facility is structurally sound, it is no longer functionally efficient or safe. The facility has outgrown and passed its design capacity, which presents other issues that need to be addressed. Once a facility has extended it’s design capacity, classification of inmates then becomes an issue. This in turn will increase the liability to the County. The increased risk affects the safety of the staff, as well as the inmates. Due to design, we are unable to increase bed capacity to accommodate population growth in this facility. This is a project that needs to be pursued in an aggressive manner. Our office will be monitoring the progress of Johnson County to find a solution to the current crowded conditions. If this office can provide any technical assistance, offer any suggestions or recommendation, please feel free to contact me. Sincerely, Rod Kampman, Chief Jail Inspector. This is a letter that will be placed on file and a letter that we certainly will be discussing at our joint meeting this afternoon with the Jail Study Committee, the Board of Supervisors and the Space Needs Committee. That’s scheduled for 3:30 in this office. I don’t know if anybody else has any comments concerning that letter or…
Thompson: Well, I think we should look at this as our first warning. The Jail Inspector has the right to tell us that we have to move prisoners. We know it’ll be extremely costly to do that and he’s telling us here that we’re under scrutiny and we need to be moving along.
Jordahl: Sheriff Carpenter gave us some numbers, as the Board Members will recall, a couple of months ago, suggesting that the next step or a coming step from this Jail Inspector as part of the Department of Corrections, might be to order us to knock down the prison population by some increment. He suggested something like 30 prisoners would have to be relocated to some other site in order to provide us with a little bit of leeway to have additional prisoners come in. And the Sheriff’s estimate of the cost of that, just for housing those prisoners in other facilities, averaged at $65 a day, was in the neighborhood of $700,000 a year. So, we have got to keep moving on the question of providing a new Jail facility, because that’s what they mean down here when they say, our office will be monitoring the progress of Johnson County, to find a solution. As long as we keep making good progress toward building a new jail, then we’re OK. But, if they see that we stop doing that and the Jail isn’t going to be built, then we’re going to get another letter that’s going to say, well, time to spend money folks. So, whether we build a jail or not, we’re looking at a whopping bill to deal with this problem.
Stutsman: This Jail inspection is done on a yearly basis and they monitor regularly what’s happening and what progress. So, we do have to assure them that we are trying to address this situation as best we can. Any other comments?
Thompson: I don’t want to make it seem like this is just an onerous thing that’s coming down on us from above, because having the Jail be within capacity is an important thing, both for the staff in the Jail, and for the safety of the prisoners who are housed there. We have to take this seriously.
Stutsman: All right.
Stutsman: Item B. Discussion Action Needed Regarding Letter of Support for Emergency Housing Project. I put this on the agenda. I was contacted by Tim Ducket, of the Emergency Housing Project. They are wanting to put a packet of information together for a fund raising effort to address needs at Emergency Housing Project concerning a new facility. They wanted a letter of support from the Board of Supervisors concerning our interest in the Emergency Housing Project; how do we utilize that, the County funds that we put into the project. Mr. Docket and I have been playing phone tag. I had hoped that he would have had a draft of a letter for us this morning and I just have not been able to connect with him. So, I guess I would like to put this on for consideration and hopefully have a draft by next Thursday, that we could have a Chairperson sign, if that would be OK? Is that all right? No problems with that. OK. Then, we’ll, I’ll continue to try to connect with Mr. Docket, and we’ll get that to the Board so that you can look that over before next Thursday.
The Board scheduled a progress report on SEATS for February 29th at 10:00 a.m., and Planning and Zoning at 11:00 a.m. The Board scheduled a pre-evaluation for MH/DD Director Elaine Sweet on March 28th at 9:00 a.m., and the evaluation on April 4th at 10:00 a.m. The Board scheduled a progress report for General assistance on March 30th at 1:30 p.m. The Board scheduled a work session on the County Road Management Plan at 1:30 on March 29th.
Stutsman: Discussion/action needed regarding the proposed building code for Johnson County. We have Rick Dvorak and R.J. Moore with us from Planning and Zoning. We have had a lot of discussion and a lot of input about the proposed building code for Johnson County and I think we’re to the point where the Board needs to make a decision as to where we go with this. I think that there’s basically 3 options. We adopt what the Committee has suggested. We make modifications to the recommendations from the Study Committee or we don’t consider it and drop it right now. Rick, if you would like to add anything to that.
Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak: Just briefly, earlier in the week I’d been reading and hearing quite a bit of information I thought wasn’t correct. So, I did send you each a memo trying to explain some of the things I’d been hearing. Of course, I can’t explain all of them. But, hopefully that memo will help the Board in their deliberation.
Stutsman: Rick, I think it might be a good idea for you to go over that memo. I thought it was very clarifying. So, do you have a copy of it?
Dvorak: Yes.
Stutsman: OK.
Dvorak: I have copies. I don’t have a copy, but we can make copies for anybody that would like them, too. Again, I’m just going to be brief and to the point I think. The Study Committee had worked for over a year on trying to make a recommendation on the building code. They did do that. We have had one public hearing. We’ve had other informal meetings on this discussion. I agree with Sally. I would like to see this put on the Board agenda for action as soon as possible to get this done. The other options that Sally had mentioned I think are very appropriate. What we’re looking at adopting would be the Uniform Building Code, National Electrical Code, Uniform Mechanical Code and Uniform Plumbing Code, which is pretty simplimatic with everything that is being done in the State of Iowa and throughout most of the United States. Some of the concerns that I have heard about, not in any order, of course, but, in talking with the state Fire Marshall’s Office and Building Code Division, it’s also, not only our opinion, but their opinion that this does not affect farmers. Farm buildings, out buildings, anything, any structures associated with a farmer. Whatever our definition of a farm is we follow through with that. There has been some miscommunications on interior work. Remodeling, roofing, new windows, new doors, minor repairs, upgrades, things like that associated with the existing structure. It’s never been on the table that we would enforce a building code on those. The only time that may come into play would be, one example would be, if an addition were put on in the plumbing or the electrical was not adequate to support that addition, that that would have to be upgraded. Not a structural. Nothing like that. I believe that’s, that’s been (inaudible) in the past, also. The exception to that, and I think very appropriately would be if a commercial business or an industrial business would do a remodeling job, we do feel that that should be inspected because of the structural integrity of the structure, much different than a residence. There has also been, some of the hearings and discussions, or even some debate regarding people not being able to do their own work. I don’t know where that’s ever came from. Anybody can do their own work. It would be just inspected would be the only difference. The one thing to qualify that, in Uniform Electrical and Plumbing is that a licensed person should do that or be on site when that is being done. But, if you wanted to change some of these requirements, and I think that’s the bottom line on a lot of this stuff, the Board can make amendments to these documents, as every community has, to do whatever you think is necessary. One example would be, if I wanted to do the electrical work in my house, I should probably know a little bit about that. To do that I would probably recommend that the individual doing their own work, on their residence, take a minimal test. I think the one Iowa City offers is 14 questions. Some counties even allow that or cities allow that to be an open book test. So, it’s just a basic type of knowledge so you don’t fry yourself basically is what they’re trying to say. And the same would be with plumbing because there are some things in plumbing that people don’t understand about back pressure valves and ventilation and so on. There’s nothing in here that would ever outlaw or disallow anybody from doing their own work. Get that on the table. Another thing is, we used some examples of the fee schedules that were out there. For quantitative purposes, we used the example of Iowa City. It doesn’t have to be used. There’s private sectors that are doing some of the work and they have different fee schedules all together. That would be your decision. The only thing I did want to make clear though, for one example, was that my budget currently is around $270,000. If we did it ourselves or even contracted, it would cost us say $80-100,000 to manage the system to enforce this program. Whatever it left, would be put in my budget, hopefully, to defray the cost. In other words, my tax askings would obviously go down. It’s not like we’re just taking the money and putting it some place itself. It would go back in. My tax askings for this example, would be about $190,000 that I have in tax askings. Whatever we generate over a budgeted item, we go back to defray that to reduce taxes. A lot of people don’t see it that way. But, for clarity I did want to explain, it’s not just thrown into the general. It would hopefully be put back into my budget and that would be your decision. I think that’s a pretty good overview.
Jordahl: Up to the point where it’d covered your entire budget it would seem like an obvious thing to do, to offset the cost of your department. But, if it became profitable beyond, then there’s another question.
Dvorak: Well, yes. And I think that would be reviewed annually. Again, I think the only reason a recommendation to use, and again I want to make this clear is, and there is a lot of misconceptions, too. We discussed this with Iowa City at the recommendation study committee, only to help my department to get started for like 3 years. And that was the only thing that was ever on the table. As you know, the space problems in this building are a mess. What it would do is allow me to reduce and eliminate through our…
Jordahl: Document management.
Dvorak: …document management, to give myself some room in there until this building were expanded, if it were to be expanded. Also, it would allow whoever would be the inspectors to actually have some training for 2 or 3 years and then they would become County employees. This was only for discussion purposes. I think I’ve investigated the possibility there are other communities that would be willing to do this for a short period of time. There’s a company in Iowa City that would be willing to do this currently. A private sector company who currently is doing Solon. They would love to do this. Or we could do it ourselves. Iowa City was just used for an example. I think there has been a lot of discussion about implementation. We’ve tried not to bring that as the main issue. The main issue I think for the Board is, do you want us to adopt a building code and if you do, then we’ll discuss, in another form, discuss how to implement that.
Stutsman: On what fashion we adopt one, do we adopt what was put on the table by the Study Committee or do we make modifications to that?
Dvorak: That’s correct.
Stutsman: Charlie?
Duffy: Rick, who’s idea was this? People have been asking me where did it surface again after it was buried for 20 years and I couldn’t tell them.
Dvorak: Sure. Well, as you remember, the 3 year process we went through the Land Use Plan.
Duffy: Oh. It was on account of the Land Use Plan?
Dvorak: It was discussed frequently in the Land Use Plan. The Board chose to put that as one of the implementation strategies that you wanted this department to bring before you folks. That’s where it came from.
Duffy: Some of the Board passed the Land Use.
Jordahl: The Board chose.
Dvorak: That’s correct.
Jordahl: The way we pass anything Charlie, by voting on it.
Stutsman: But, I want to clarify that that recommendation did not come from the Board Members. It came from input from the public that was part of the process in updating the Land Use Plan.
Dvorak: It was my recommendation to do this, not by the Board and not by our office, but a Board appointed study committee to make this recommendation. It was the public sector. Now how those people were chosen, that was by volunteers. You went through a list of people that volunteered, you chose from that list, and they did it. I think we should move on, get away from that point that was recommended and now you have to make a decision. But, it was part of the Land Use Plan and 3 year process we went through that brought this onto your table.
Duffy: What we’re saying here then Sally, really the Supervisors wasn’t original all through this that somebody else, or some group, put this or are trying to…
Jordahl: No.
Duffy: I’m just trying to get down to the… Somebody had this idea that presented it, whether it was to the committee or to the Supervisors. I’d just like to know what group it was or who it was.
Jordahl: Does that matter? The Board discussed it.
Duffy: Yes. Yes it does.
Jordahl: If it was thought up by Mickey Mouse, the Board discussed, if it were… The Board discussed it at great length, like we did everything else in the Land Use Plan, and decided that it should be part of the ordinances to be proposed, developed and studied out of the Land Use Plan. It was put on the implementation schedule. The majority of the elected Board of Supervisors of Johnson County decided that this was something to look into. This is not some fly by night group that stuck this in here on a whim.
Duffy: Well, I just wondered who it was. I don’t think Mickey Mouse would do something like this.
Stutsman: Well, R.J., in my recollection, how many focus groups did we have when we were working on the Land Use Plan?
Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator R.J. Moore: I held meetings in 5 different communities during the Land Use Plan planning process. As part of those meetings, the people that attended were asked to identify strengths and weaknesses of the County. And a lack of a building code came up in 4 of the 5. The one that it didn’t come up in was one of our cities where nobody showed up basically, like one or 2 people. Yes, at Hills.
Stutsman: I was there. But, I didn’t bring it up.
Moore: Otherwise, it came up in and (inaudible). Then, we created goals and objectives and we had those ranked by those that participated and therefore, we then put it into the Land Use Plan and eventually it became part of the implementation schedule of the Land Use Plan. That’s where it first came up for us.
Stutsman: And that’s what I want to stress. It came from constituents. It came from people in the community. It wasn’t an idea that Board of Supervisor Member came up with, or staff came up with. This was in response to input from the public as part of that Land Use review.
Duffy: Did we have a lot of people who went around the County? I went to a couple of them. There’s hardly anybody there and the ones who were left early.
Dvorak: Well, the unfortunate thing Charlie, is that, in most planning endeavors, a lot of people espouse an interest that we should be doing planning, but participation is sometimes minimal. But, some of them were very well attended. The ones in Solon and Swisher, Coralville.
Duffy: Well, I’m not so sure about Solon because they didn’t hang around to vote and I counted myself about 22 people who were there at the end and I counted Sally and I and probably you and R.J. if you were still there.
Jordahl: Charlie, you’re looking back at a process a couple of years ago here, that was only kind of the beginnings of the process. And we chewed on this plan, as a Board. I think it’s time to get over how we got to the point of starting the process and recognize that we as a Board decided on this and stand behind it and get on with business of running the County.
Duffy: Yes. Thanks R.J. for telling me just who first started it that we should…
Moore: That’s the first time our office was… I knew it was…
Duffy: That’s what I was trying to get at.
Dvorak: And that, remember, that was ECICOG doing all that work. They held all those meetings.
Duffy: ECICOG. Yes. That’s the plan that we threw away.
Dvorak: Yes.
Thompson: Well, we’ve certainly got beyond the point of public apathy in this process about the building code. I thought that our public hearing was very good and I’ve had more phone calls on and other contacts about this than I think anything else since I’ve been on the Board. I think it’s been a healthy dialogue and I’ve really appreciated the comments that people made. To me it’s a question of not whether, but when. Most of the comments that I’ve heard, that people have said, we know that Johnson County is growing and that at some point we have to have a building code. So, I am trying to consider this in the light of is this the point or is the point sometime in the future. That’s where I’m at in terms of making my decision right now.
Stutsman: R.J., do you have a comment?
Moore: I just wanted to, I guess, reinforce something Rick said at the beginning is, it’s really confusing to the public, is the exemption of agricultural, our farms from the building code requirement. I know my spouse came to me recently and said a number of people where she works at is wondering, why is that so, why do we have a double standard for that. And I’m not sure that the public understands that relationship is that, the State Code prohibits local governments from enforcing zoning regulations or building codes on farms. It’s not like you have a choice that you’re creating a double standard for farmers versus other citizens in the County. It’s that State Code prohibits that, that you don’t have a choice on it. You cannot overrule State Code concerning farms.
Stutsman: And the legislature has made that decision. That’s basically out of our hands.
Dvorak: That was done in 1960 or so, 58 I think, maybe.
Stutsman: Well, and to clarify, too, I think the legislature doing that is a statement that they put a great deal of importance on farms and farming in the community and feel that they are exempt from certain laws because of that. They don’t want to hinder their ability to farm or put as few restrictions on that industry as, as they can.
Jordahl: Another point that was made in that same vein. People have complained about the idea that, if you can buy 40 acres, then you are exempt from these codes. That in some way that favor is, well, not in some way, just simply that that favors people who are wealthy enough to afford to buy 40 acres of farmland in order to put a residential home on it. I would suggest that that is an artifact of our County definition of a farm. And the definition of a farm is something that is again, as the building codes are included in the Land Use Plan, as one of the things that we should be doing to implement that plan. So, we are to review, according to the Land Use Plan, what our definition of a farm is. Is that 40 acre definition appropriate? Should it be larger, should it be smaller? Should there be some sort of a definition of what kinds of activities or what percentage of income constitutes farming? Something that would perhaps capture this problem of someone buying a 40 acre yard and calling it a farm.
Dvorak: We’re finding, through our discussions with people, it’s almost less expensive to buy a 40 acre farm than it is to go out an d buy a lot in town or a lot out by the reservoir. So, there’s some merit to that question and again we have the 29th set for my progress report. I think that’s the time hopefully that you folks would give me some direction on what things you want to see us do in the next year. That may be one of the things you bring up that you want us to address sooner than later.
Lehman: In conjunction with what Jonathan has said, Rick has pointed out that farms are not that critical now, because they are limited to the number of dwellings that are on a farm. Where a non-farm we’re looking into subdivisions closer to proximity of houses, densities, where there could be a problem of one house could, in case of a fire, could spread to another dwelling. And that’s why our concern is more for non-farm in this situation.
Dvorak: And I also have been hearing now from insurance companies, too, that this is something that they support because there is nothing now and it does have impact. It is minor, but there is an impact on your insurance rates if there is a certificate of occupancy issued for a building permit issued on residencies.
Stutsman: Well, I’m going to weigh in on my feelings about the Building Code. I agree with Carol. Sooner or later we’re going to have to have a Building Code in Johnson County, and when is that time? I’ve heard loud and clear people’s thoughts on this, their feelings about it. Like Carol, I’ve probably gotten more… I’ve been here a little bit longer than Carol has, but this has been one of those issues that really has gotten a lot of people involved. It’s been healthy discussion, and I have certainly gotten a lot of input from people. But every once in a while you’ve got a lot of input from people. You have to step up at the plate and make a decision that you feel is for the good of the County. I think that’s where I’m at on this decision. I fully understand where these people are coming from that are opposed to this. I just don’t think they’re opposed to the Building Code, I think they’re opposed to any additional government regulation or rules or whatnot. But then I look at where we’re at in this County. This County has changed a lot. I just don’t see this as being a rural County that has low density in the unincorporated areas. There’s lots and lots of houses out there. I also look at how the housing stock has changed. We’re no longer building houses that are replacement for century farms, where the original owner will pass this house down to their family members or whatnot. I see people moving out in the country and building homes that are investment properties. They’re building these homes for resale. The size of the homes, the complexity of the homes tells me that. For that reason, I think we need some form of building code. I think the County is to that point where we just can’t… We need to provide some kind of assurance for people that are going to be buying these homes. They say, well, you have an inspection done when you sell the home. Well, the inspection is done after the walls are put up and you don’t see what went into those walls. If you’re going to have a building inspection, it has to be done before the drywall is put on so you can see what kind of wiring is being put in and what kind of plumbing is put in. I guess at this point, am in favor of some kind of building code if it would be strictly according to what is recommended by the Committee. I’d have to think that through a little bit more. I’m not interested in something that’s stringent, something that’s onerous, something that stops people from moving along in their process of building a home. But I think we do have to give some kind of minimal assurance to people that are building homes in the County, that their homes are up to minimum standards.
Duffy: Who’s liable? Would it be the inspector? You say inspects the house, (inaudible) doing a job here, the wiring’s great and all that and it burns down. Then who’s liable?
Dvorak: Talking with Pat White and talking with our local insurance agent Bob Saunders, their insurance, obviously is. There’s a whole harmless clause in the State code the same as, if I go out and do something today or you go out and tell somebody to do something today, the liability is the same. There’s no additional cost to the County for additional insurance to do this. No insurance costs. The only thing that would impact the County is if you were to hire… I would hire new staff in my office to do it, the same as you hire Mike to take over in another department. I meant Mike, meaning our new Facility Manager. You have no new additional cost other than a normal cost. Who’s held liable? That’s a question for the County Attorney. There’s a whole harmless clause that I think I gave you copies of in the State code, as is with everything from Secondary Roads to the Ambulance and the County Attorney’s office. How good that is, I don’t know, Charlie.
Duffy: I thought it was right in the Code.
Dvorak: It is.
Duffy: And I thought I’d read 2,640 pages, and I have to (inaudible) on that. I don’t think you’ve read it all, did you?
Dvorak: Oh no. I won’t actually read it until you make a decision.
Duffy: But still, it looks to me like any inspector that does this work is not held liable, or the division of County Government isn’t either, so what’s the big problem?
Dvorak: It’s like, you’ve got food inspectors now, you’ve got sewer inspectors. You’ve got inspectors out there all over the place.
Duffy: I know that. We have a lot of them. We’re going to get more.
Dvorak: I think the principle’s the same, and again, I think that would be a technical question for Pat White. I don’t know of any community that’s been sued. That doesn’t mean anything.
Duffy: I just wonder. If somebody inspects somebody and says that house is all right, and evidently it isn’t…
Jordahl: We’re kind of wandering around the edges of the implementation phase there, talking about what type of liability goes to who’s doing the inspections and who’s doing the building. The question of licensure has been raised. I think there are a number of interesting things to discuss about what form the codes would take in terms of how they are either written, how detailed they are, or implemented, that we could fruitfully discuss in a work session. It gives it a lot of topics to have an additional work session about this, but I do also support the idea of having some form of guarantee of the safety of a home. I think our role here as government is to provide for the health, safety and welfare particularly of those least able to care for themselves. That is to say the children, but also to make sure that we’re doing our part to, it’s kind of like prevention in the realm of fires. That you get out there and make sure that the electrical, in particular, is safe where it is inside the walls of a home.
Duffy: When we got some real fine people in the building trade here in Johnson County, just by the looks of the homes and everything. When you build a new home, you would ask the person that is building it just what the price is. Say $150,000 house, then this contractor will subcontract for the electricity, plumbing and other things. I put my faith in the people that are in that business, and again, we’re just lucky to have these viable contractors, and I think they’ve done a good job. I think they probably know a lot of things about electricity themselves, and they know the people that do a good job in that regard, same for the plumbing. As it stands now, I don’t see any reason why to change the thing. How about some of the people like the Amish in south Johnson County. Some of them don’t even have electricity. Maybe woodburning stoves, things like that. But I just don’t see any need for this thing right now.
Dvorak: I think Charlie brought up a good point. We do have some excellent contractors, very reputable contractors. But what we’re saying is those people that want us to adopt this building code.
Duffy: I put my faith in them. Evidentially, there probably could be some other contractors in the County that don’t have the experience and expertise like the other ones. What you want to do is to get good contractors, if you’re going to build a home, start off that way, instead of… What’d you say, you’re talking revenues to be about $190,000 or did I hear that wrong?
Dvorak: That was a rough estimate using 1998 building permits issued through my office. We’ve just made an estimate that it would probably be about $250 to $270,000 that we could cut if you chose to adopt a similar type of fees that Iowa City was using. Actually, it was Coralville was using that time, I’m sorry.
Duffy: It’s going to cost people that build a home, part of that $270,000, is that what I’m hearing?
Dvorak: It’s less than a half of 1%.
Duffy: Yes, but you’re talking about $270,000.
Dvorak: Well, they’re paying…no, $270,000 is what my budget is right now. It was about $200, $250,000 that we could generate from fees. Those moneys that we…
Duffy: That’s still a lot of money. That’s a quarter of a million dollars, and I’ll bet it’ll go up.
Dvorak: Those fees would defray the cost of office.
Jordahl: We could set the fees anywhere we want them, Charlie. We can make them higher or lower.
Thompson: That’s really part of the implementation phase. We should stick to the question at hand.
Jordahl: We could make it free, we could double the price. Do anything we want.
Duffy: Well, I think (inaudible) your office, any extra dollars should go back in the general fund.
Dvorak: Right.
Duffy: Instead of in the… I mean, every department head can say I’m ahead this year on the budget. I got extra dollars, I’d like to keep it in my budget. That shouldn’t be, the next year they might be behind and maybe not get the grants that they’re getting, things like that, so that’s why we have a general fund.
Jordahl: Yes, we’d still have to authorize any additional expenditures beyond what it was originally budgeted at. I agree with you, Charlie, it might go to the general fund, it’d just be…
Stutsman: Let’s talk about whether we even want to put the Building Code on the table or move forward with that.
Thompson: What’s the next step?
Stutsman: Well, I haven’t heard from Mike. I guess I was interested in what…
Lehman: I spoke so long ago you probably (inaudible). I can see the points that everybody’s mentioned. I guess my problem is also the timing. I also see what Jonathan is saying about the people out there that maybe feel they’re doing a good job but need some time of protection above and beyond what they think they can supply themselves. I don’t see this as something that’s going to affect people very many times in their lifetime. I don’t know how often people would go out and build a house unless it was for an investment. The fees are not that absorbent. I don’t build houses every day, never built a new house, but I think it’s part of the construction cost and security that people would have knowing that things were done right. Some of the comments we’ve heard (inaudible) people have built their own house, how do they know they’ve done a good job. No one has come out and given them a 2nd opinion on that. I’d hate to get in a situation where someone did something themselves and felt it was OK and come back to haunt them in the case of some type of catastrophe.
Dvorak: I think I gave you a letter that I received last week from a person up by Swisher that bought a house, it was 3 years old, from a contractor, have not tried to sell the house. I believe they’ve been in it for 4 years. The Planning Institution required inspection since we did not have a building code, and I think you saw the figures that were used by their engineering firm. It was going to cost them basically more to fix this up and sell it than what they could list it for because of the substandard quality of the construction, but they didn’t know when they bought the house. That’s what’s been kind of talked about, people not knowing what they’re getting is some of the mistakes that people make when they build houses. This was a contractor that built the house for himself.
Lehman: General rule of thumb, you get what you pay for, but some people out there are going to take the less expensive way out and it may come back to haunt them. I would hate to have to hear about that scenario when we could have possibly done something on our part. Sally basically summed it up, an adoption, modification or dismissal. I’m not quite ready to dismiss, I’m not quite ready to adopt the way it is. If it’s some type of modification, like Carol had said, what’s the timetable and implementation of this thing? I’m not quite established on when we want to possibly adopt this, and how we want to do it. That’s another section. Adoption is the first step. How do we want to administer, or do you want to put that into one package? We need to get something established.
Stutsman: Today, I think we need to make a decision. If we’re not interested in pursuing this, then give that direction to Planning and Zoning. If we’re interested in continuing to discuss this, see what modifications we can make, because I think there were different options available as far even implementing this from hiring a contractor to a very simplified form of it, or whatever.
Jordahl: It would be possible to require inspection without having a department of inspections, wouldn’t it? The implementation questions is wide open, with people we could hire private inspectors.
Dvorak: That’s kind of in place now. I think you got a memo from Chamber from homebuilders that the State Building Code applies for all structures in the State of Iowa now. It’s just that there’s no enforcement program. There is an enforcement program for such things, I think, as schools and government buildings and for handicapped facilities. But other than that, the State Building Code is in place. It’s just that there’s no enforcement mechanism in rural Johnson County.
Stutsman: Well, let’s decide. How many straw poll people want to drop it right now and not pursue it. OK, Charlie. Carol? No?
Thompson: I’d pursue it.
Stutsman: I’d want to continue to pursue it. Jonathan.
Jordahl: Continue.
Lehman: Continue.
Stutsman: OK, so it looks like there’s…
Duffy: The reason why I voted no was you just said it’s already here. We have a State Building Code, so why have another one. Maybe we’re paying 2 different departments here.
Lehman: That ought to be easy for people to accept and they need to know what the guidelines are now.
Duffy: If you want to come up with some alternative, I mean, as it states here, no, no way. Maybe be it should be (inaudible) and maybe it shouldn’t be, and I’m sure it isn’t going to be like this, because I’m going to vote against it. I don’t run the whole County. But if you want to go halfway or midway, then lets talk about it.
Stutsman: OK. It sounds like we have decided to continue this. Now the next step is where do we go from here? Any ideas, Rick? Do we have a work session?
Dvorak: Yes, I was going to recommend a work session with the Board. If it was the Board’s opinion, we could have an inspector from community to answer any technical questions about maybe changing, like Mike was saying. Do we have to do this and have to do this? Probably, if you agree, maybe a member of the Homebuilder’s Association, or the Study Committee, I should say. It would be a very small group and obviously I would like to have Pat available, or representatives from his office.
Jordahl: Of course, a work session is a public meeting, so if people are interested in attending…
Dvorak: But I meant as far as us trying to… Having the right people here to try to answer your questions. Obviously, anybody can come.
Thompson: I’d be interested in their opinions about how the surrounding communities have… How they compare, how their building codes compare to each other and the importance of ours being consistent with theirs. I don’t understand that part very well yet.
Dvorak: I’ll try to have that question answered.
Thompson: Coralville, Iowa City and the surrounding counties.
Duffy: Well, if you go with surrounding counties, there are at least 2 that don’t even have Zoning.
Stutsman: Do we want to set up that work session? Maybe it would be better if Carol checked with the County Attorney’s Office and see what kind of dates there are. I’m thinking probably not within the next month or so. I think we’ve got a number of other issues, but within the next 3 months to have some kind of work session.
Dvorak: It’s to your convenience.
Jordahl: March is looking good so far. Pat’s open in March. What would be wrong with continuing the momentum?
Thompson: Pat wants April.
Jordahl: April? This is April nodding over here. OK.
Stutsman: Carol, if you could check that, and maybe next week we could firm up a date for our work session.
Dvorak: Sounds great. Thank you again.
Stutsman: Thank you.
Stutsman: Next item is discussion/action needed regarding Sycamore Mall. I don’t know if the Board wants to take a short break?
Jordahl: Break.
Stutsman: OK, 5 minutes, 25 of. We are recessed for just a short break. Or, 20 of. I got that wrong.
Recessed at 11:35 a.m.; reconvened at 11:42 a.m.