MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
APRIL 27, 2000
TABLE OF CONTENTS
County Attorney J. Patrick White: Possible Purchase of 821 South Clinton Street
Discussion: Possible Changes to the Nutrition Contract with Heritage Area Agency on Aging
Report (Lehman): Absentee Voting at Auditor’s Office; and Attended Joint Meeting
Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 10:25 a.m. Members present were: Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
Stutsman: Informal Meeting of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors for Thursday, April 27, 2000. Second item on the agenda is business from Dwight Dobberstein, Project Architect for Neumann Monson architects, and this is approval of hiring a jail consultant and discussion/action needed. Good morning, Dwight.
Neumann Monson PC Architects Project Architect Dwight Dobberstein: Good morning. Just here to update you, since the last time I was here, on the Jail project. We did send out the RFP, request for proposal, for a Jail Consultant. We received 8 proposals back. They’re all very good. We had an interview team, or committee. It included Jonathan and Carol and 3 from the Jail Overcrowding Committee, which would be Pete Hayek, Norm Osland, Tim Ruth and me. We interviewed these 3, and we were unanimous in our selection of Venture Architects of Milwaukee. I thought it was amazing that we all agreed, first time, that they were clearly the stand out. Part of the reasons were that they were already working in Iowa, they were working on the county jail in Scott County. They’ve been working with the state on correctional facilities in Newton and Fort Dodge. They had excellent references we checked them out. They’ve had a lot of national awards, and they’re just prominent in this type of design. I think the biggest single item was that they had a number of county jails and very similar in size to the one that we’re talking about. The one in particular was in the Oneida County in Wisconsin and Rhinelander, is the city. We’re hoping to go up to visit that one May 9th, I think is what we’re trying to put a schedule together. Sheriff Carpenter is trying to get a van or a bus for anybody who’s interested in going, I think, is welcome to come along.
Jordahl: Long trip.
Dobberstein: That looks like a really nice facility, but it is a long trip.
Thompson: Forever.
Jordahl: Way north.
Dobberstein: It’s about a 6 hour drive.
Stutsman: Oh, one way?
Dobberstein: One way. Yes, it’s going to be a long day. Bob wanted, is thinking we want to go up and come back the same day.
Jordahl: I’m not.
Dobberstein: That’s in the works of trying to get that put together. At any rate, we have a brochure from this firm that I gave to Pat White. He’s been looking at it. If anybody else wants to look at it further they can get additional information on this company. They look very good, and I think we’re all very impressed. What we hope that they will do, or their charge would be, if they’re hired, is to first evaluate the program that we have and update it for a new jail, on a new site someplace. To do that, they’ll have to meet with the Sheriff and his staff for 2 or 3 days, some intense meetings to go over the program again and classify inmates and determine what type of housing that’ll be required in the new jail. From that they can reestablish the size for a new jail, and then they will help us look at sites. Those haven’t been determined yet, but we need to identify whatever number of sites that we think are possible. They will help us select a site that’ll work. Once a site is selected, they can do a schematic design for that site and a cost estimate. Really, that’s what we’re after, is enough information to put together a cost estimate that’ll hold up so we can go for a bond referendum or whatever the recommendation’s going to be from a financial consultant. Part of their charge will be to make presentations to the Board or the public on that design. We’re hoping that this all could be completed by August so that we can be ready for it in November, referendum date. Our fee for that, we’re calling this kind of phase one up to the referendum, and then the rest of the work after will be traditional services, really. For this phase one fee, $66,500, and $18,500 of that would apply to our basic percentage fee for the remainder of the product, because there is some design work there that they’re doing. That’s not determined what would cover that and apply towards phase 2, if you will. That amount includes 6 trips on their part from Milwaukee to here to meet with the Sheriff and make presentations, whatever is required. That number also breaks down in 2 parts. Included in that is $16,500 of our time that we’ve already put in since this contract started. We were held to a $10,000 limit, so I’m requesting that we could extend that to an additional $16,500 that would cover the time we put in to date. That’s why I’m here today, in a nutshell, is to ask for that authorization to contract with them under our agreement and keep the ball rolling on the jail. I’m here to answer any questions that you have about that.
Stutsman: Thank you, Dwight. Questions?
Jordahl: That $16,500 additional for Neumann Monson that you were talking about there, is that covered under this budget amendment that we’ve just been talking about here?
Stutsman: Looks like Deana’s shaking her head no.
Jordahl: Deana’s shaking here head. How does this relate to the budget amendment, Deana?
Deputy Administrative Assistant Deana Pillard: For this year?
Jordahl: Yes. We’d be paying that this year, I assume. We don’t know?
Stutsman: No, because it’s too late…
Pillard: We would not be able to pay that until July 1.
Lehman: Give them a check and you can hold that until then? If it comes out of Capital space, we will need authorization to spend it.
Stutsman: The money is there, it’s just that we haven’t authorized the expenditure of that money.
Dobberstein: I don’t think we have any problem waiting until July 1. This contract we’ve had has been going on for 2 years or so. Another few months is not going to be a problem for us.
Thompson: We should perhaps add that Sheriff Carpenter and some of his staff were participants in the interviewing and also participated in the unanimous agreement that this was the outfit to choose.
Jordahl: Yes. I would think that we could go as far as to say Sheriff Carpenter’s agreement was enthusiastic.
Thompson: Yes.
Jordahl: This particular architect was focused on the question of are we designing the jail for prisoners who are going to be there for a relatively short time, or for staff who are going to be there 12 hours a day for their working career in the Johnson County jail. The focus on making it functional, comfortable, convenient for the staff was something that, I think, really got Sheriff Carpenter’s attention, and I think rightly so.
Dobberstein: Yes, I forgot to mention that they were part of that, thanks.
Stutsman: OK. Are we comfortable with this and with the amount and putting this on for formal action next week?
Jordahl: Do we need formal action? For the money, we need formal action, but when, how? Are we talking budget amendment for the first amendment of 2001? What is the action that we need? As far as approving the hiring, this is under your contract, and yet we would be paying some of the cost of this consultant’s work prior to phase 2.
Dobberstein: Right.
Jordahl: We’re talking about a budget amendment both to pay you and to pay them, but coming out of next year’s budget. Am I close?
Thompson: Well, coming out of next year’s budget, but from money that we have already saved for Capital Projects.
Jordahl: Right, but I’m just talking about the mechanics of a budget amendment here. To pay them with that money, we do not currently have authority to spend that money.
County Attorney J. Patrick White: That’s one of the reasons why formal action is recommended. Another reason is, 2 months ago in trying to staff and figure out the logistics, we made a recommendation to Dwight and to the Board that at this point, once the screening and evaluation of jail consultants was done, that it would come back to the Board as a formal public recommendation. You would approve it so that it was clear to everybody that you were in accord with the decision, the choice, and the use of a consultant. Primarily a policy reason to put it back on your agenda and recommend that you vote to approve it.
Jordahl: OK. But then when it comes time to gaining the authority, assembling whatever, operationalizing the authority to pay, that is going to be a budget amendment in the first go-round of the following fiscal year.
White: Right, Fiscal 2001. We’d roll it into the…
Jordahl: October or whatever.
White: We’ve fairly consistently been doing 2 budget amendments each fiscal year, one early and one late. My assumption is we’d roll this into the early amendment of the next fiscal year.
Jordahl: All right. That’s my question.
Stutsman: OK, so we’ll put this on for formal action next Thursday during our formal meeting.
Dobberstein: OK.
Thompson: Thanks, Dwight.
Dobberstein: Do you know offhand, is that a night meeting?
Stutsman: No, that’ll be in the morning.
Dobberstein: Oh, OK. Great.
Stutsman: May 4. Thank you, Dwight.
ASSISTANT COUNTY ENGINEER AL MILLER: RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION FOR REINFORCED CONCRETE BOX CULVERT PROJECT ON NAPLES AVENUE NE BETWEEN 120TH STREET NE AND HOOSIER CREEK ROAD NE (JOHNSON COUNTY PROJECT L-B-5-2); RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION FOR REINFORCED CONCRETE BOX CULVERTS PROJECT ON BLACK HAWK AVENUE NW BETWEEN 340TH STREET NW AND 360TH STREET NW (JOHNSON COUNTY PROJECT L-O-5-3); RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION FOR GRADE, DRAIN, AND PAVE PROJECT ON SAND ROAD SE BETWEEN 480TH STREET SE AND 520TH STREET SE (JOHNSON COUNTY PROJECT STP-S-C052(52)--5E-52); RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION FOR BRIDGE REPLACEMENT PROJECT ON WAPELLO AVENUE AND JOHNSON LOUISA ROAD. (JOHNSON COUNTY PROJECT L-U-36-1); BID LETTING FOR JOHNSON COUNTY REINFORCED CONCRETE BOX CULVERT PROJECTS L-B-5-2 & L-O 5-3 RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION FOR REINFORCED CONCRETE BOX CULVERT PROJECT ON NAPLES AVENUE NE BETWEEN 120TH STREET NE AND HOOSIER CREEK ROAD NE (JOHNSON COUNTY PROJECT L-B-5-2); RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION FOR REINFORCED CONCRETE BOX CULVERTS PROJECT ON BLACK HAWK AVENUE NW BETWEEN 340TH STREET NW AND 360TH STREET NW (JOHNSON COUNTY PROJECT L-O-5-3); RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION FOR GRADE, DRAIN, AND PAVE PROJECT ON SAND ROAD SE BETWEEN 480TH STREET SE AND 520TH STREET SE (JOHNSON COUNTY PROJECT STP-S-C052(52)--5E-52); RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION FOR BRIDGE REPLACEMENT PROJECT ON WAPELLO AVENUE AND JOHNSON LOUISA ROAD. (JOHNSON COUNTY PROJECT L-U-36-1); BID LETTING FOR JOHNSON COUNTY REINFORCED CONCRETE BOX CULVERT PROJECTS L-B-5-2 & L-O 5-3
Stutsman: Business from the County Engineer. Discussion/action needed regarding right-of-way acquisition for reinforced concrete box culvert project on Naples Avenue NE between 120th Street and Hoosier Creek NE. Good morning, Al.
Assistant County Engineer Al Miller: Good morning.
Stutsman: Al Miller, Assistant County Engineer, is with us.
Jordahl: Hey, nice map.
Stutsman: We’ve got a couple of items for right-of-way acquisition. It looks like Al’s giving us a map for both of those projects. Do you want to walk us through them?
Miller: There are 3 projects. All 3 of these listed on your map are bridge replacement projects that we are hoping to start construction on fairly soon. We’ve got the right-of-way contract signed, the tenant contract signed, except for one tenant on the L-O-5-3 project. I can go through them fairly quickly. The L-0-5-3 is on Black Hawk Avenue between the IWV and the Interstate, on the pavement. L-B-5-2 is up in the northern part of the County on Naples Avenue. L-U-36-1 is in the opposite end of the County down on the Johnson County Louisa Road in Wapello. Basically, all these next 3 items are right-of-way contracts and tenant contracts for right-of-way purchase for the construction work to be done.
Jordahl: Can I ask, Al? Obviously, these are on the periphery of the County here, it seems like there’s some sort of a pattern here. Does this reflect kind of taking care of the major construction projects in the middle first, make sure everything’s lined up, and then going out for the things that really take only just a few contacts?
Miller: Well, the project down in the south part of the County is one that our County forces are going to build. Basically, these structures come into our priority list of structures to be replaced, and they’re all in our 5 Year Construction Plan. Basically, it’s the structures that come to the top, how we’ve prioritized our bridges and structure replacement throughout the County.
Jordahl: Tempting to ask if priority has anything to do with proximity to the population center, but I think that’s probably a hot potato I don’t want to really fry right now.
Miller: Yes, we went over that in our 5 Year Construction Plan. What things we look at as far as prioritizing the structures, it has to do with the disposition of the structure itself and traffic count, those types of things, and cost of the whole project.
Jordahl: Yes, that was one of my questions. Surely the objective nature of this as opposed to how close is it to the population center?
Miller: Yes, we could just as easily have had 3 right around the same mile somewhere in the County.
Jordahl: Just coincidence that they’re peripheral.
Miller: Yes.
Stutsman: OK. This will be for right-of-way contract with Milo Machacek.
Miller: Machacek.
Stutsman: Carol tried to help me with that pronunciation. That would be for $1,090. This would also be for just an easement for public road and consent to easement structures with the Army Corps of Engineers.
Miller: Yes, I could explain that really quick. The Corps of Engineers has controlled the property on the east side of the road for the L-B-5-2 project. Basically, what we got from them, we sent them a plat, and they’ve given us an easement. It’s no cost to the County. It’s been through their process and sent back and it’s ready to be signed. They also have flowage easements on the other side of the road. This is an area that gets flooded when the reservoir’s up. That’s what the second part of that, the consent to easement structures is. They give us the consent to build the structure and do the ditch work that we need to do, where they have a flowage easement. Machacek’s actually own the property, but they have a flowage easement over it. This takes care of all the core concerns up there.
Stutsman: With these in place then you’re ready to go ahead with that project. All right.
Miller: Yes. It become County property and they’ve given us consent to build the project.
Stutsman: Is it OK if we put those 2…
Miller: I’m sorry, I should say it doesn’t become County property. We have an easement over it for our roadwork.
Stutsman: Is it OK to put those contracts, or easements on for next Thursday’s formal agenda for that Naples Avenue project? All right. We can move on to the projects on Black Hawk Avenue. That’s right-of-way contract with John Stratton for $1,500, and a right-of-way contract with William Harney and Janice Harney for $310, and a tenant contract for Tom Quinlan for $25 and tenant contract for Eric Stewart for $25. Are we OK with putting those on for Thursday then? OK, the final set has to do with right-of-way acquisition for grade drain and pave project on Sand Road. This would be the tenant contract with Virgil Saltzman, and a tenant contract with Tom Nauman and a tenant contract for Gary Swanson and a tenant contract for Greg Dahlen. Those are all for $25, which is the standard tenant contract amount.
Miller: This is the end of Sand Road. I’ve been kind of telling you that’s coming. But this is the very end.
Stutsman: You told me earlier that the bid has been let?
Miller: Yes, I’m going to talk about that under other.
Stutsman: OK, very good. We’ll just wait and hold off on that. All right. We’re OK putting all those on for Thursday? The next item is discussion/action with the Wapello Avenue and Johnson County Louisa Road. This is a right-of-way contract with Duber Farms, Inc., for $2,475. We’ll put that on for Thursday.
Lehman: I wanted to ask Al, when you get to a county line road, you have maintenance agreements where take care of a section and this and that?
Miller: That’s one of the miles we take care of.
Lehman: OK, so that’s a tradeoff, you’ll find another mile that the other county will take care of, if this happened to fall on your (inaudible).
Miller: The structure itself is in Johnson County. It’s on Wapello. We’re actually relocating in a little bit, but it’s going to exist, and does now and will the future be in Johnson County.
Stutsman: Ready to move on to Item E? That’s discussion/action needed regarding bid letting for Johnson County Reinforced Concrete Box Culvert Projects for L-B-5-2 and for L-O-5-3.
Miller: Yes, as I stated before, the project down south is one that our County forces are going to do. We’re going to let a contract to bids for the L-O-5-3 project and the L-B-5-2 project. We’re looking at a letting, hopefully, the first week of June. What we’re trying to do here, we’ve got one parcel that we have to purchase yet, and I’m hoping that it gets signed this week. We’re trying to move this ahead so that as soon as we get that signed, that we can hop on the formal agenda and get approval for our bid letting so we can get it advertised and get a bid, or set a bid letting date. That’s basically what I have on that. It’s hopefully going to be the first week of June. If something happens with that last parcel, we may move it back a little bit. We’re required by law to advertise for a certain period of time. If we didn’t have it on today, would be another week there trying to get it on the informal, and coming back for the formal sessions. It hopefully will be on next Thursday, but it may not. It may be pushed back a week.
Stutsman: OK. We’re OK with putting that on, then we’ll just let you decide when it works out best for you. OK. Other.
Miller: Under other, we let 2 projects, the Sand Road grading and paving project and the Kansas Avenue bridge construction project over Old Man’s Creek to bids on Tuesday up in Ames. There’s a number of bidders, and actually, the bids came in pretty well. The apparent low bid on the Kansas Avenue project is with Schmidt Construction Company, Inc. The Sand Road project, Metro Pavers, Inc., is apparent low bid on those. Metro’s the outfit that did Prairie du Chien last fall. We’ll be hopefully working with them again. Here again, I just wanted to get it on, talked about it at the informal session, so if we get the contracts back from the DOT, we can go ahead and hop on the formal.
Stutsman: For the formal? OK, sure.
Miller: For the formal, and get those approved, so we can get moving on, and get approval and sign those contracts. Both projects came in under my estimates.
Stutsman: That’s always good news.
Miller: Quite a bit, actually. I was high on both those, which is a good thing.
Jordahl: You were right on it, and you got a good deal.
Miller: Yes, I think we got a good deal.
Stutsman: I don’t want to have a whole lot of discussion on this, because it’s just listed under other on the agenda.
Jordahl: I just want to ask an informational question about Prairie du Chien. How’s the planting and the roadsides coming?
Miller: I guess I’d answer that by saying you ought to go out there and take a drive up there and take a look at it. The seeding’s coming in really well. I’ve been very impressed with our new Roadside Vegetation Manager and the work he’s put in out there to get the plantings, the seed in the ground and get things growing. I’m very happy with it.
Jordahl: Great.
Thompson: I was out there Tuesday, it looks great.
Miller: We were out there, Mike and I were out there earlier this week, and things are coming really well.
Duffy: I can’t see how that seed grew without any rain for quite a while.
Miller: Yes.
Jordahl: A special seed.
Thompson: It’s prairie seed. It can survive.
Jordahl: Adapted.
Thompson: West Overlook is really looking nice too, now. It’s its second year, and it’s really growing in good.
Miller: Yes, I guess I’d reiterate the fact that Chris is doing an excellent job and it’s been a pleasure working with him. He’s one of those guys that you ask him, can I give you an update, and he’s usually got it done already.
Stutsman: That’s terrific. Anything else, Al?
Miller: I don’t believe so.
Stutsman: Thank you very much. Put those on for next week and see you then.
Jordahl: Good work.
Stutsman: Item 4. Business from Brad Neumann, Solid Waste Management Planner for Johnson County Council of Governments. This is regarding the Waste Tire Collection Program. Discussion/action. Good morning, Brad.
Johnson County Council of Government Solid Waste Management Planner Brad Neumann: Good morning.
Stutsman: Thank you for being patient with us.
Neumann: No, it was good see you guys in action. I haven’t been down here in a while. Here to talk about the tire program again, the Waste Tire Collection Program. Just to remind you that it’s a state program that was in place for 6 years, and I believe this is our 4th year in, so we have 2 years left. We have, the Board of Supervisors have applied through ECICOG, through the regional comprehensive planning area, 6 county area, for this grant. We are eligible to apply for $140,000 a year. We don’t always get $140,000, and, of course, this year we got less than the $140,000. We divide that up pretty much based on population. I think in your letter you’ve got, you can see we have a little over $12,000 to spend for this year. $12,219 to spend on the actual collection and disposal of the tires. The collection site has always been the Iowa City landfill. They are happy to do that again, but they would like to see it done in mid-May, the 13th through the 20th. You can see that’s only one week’s worth compared to last year, which was a month, but of course last year we spent $26,000 over that month period. We only have $12,000 to spend. In the past, the landfill has picked up the added cost of the program. Usually we double the amount of money we get from the State. You can see we only had, I’m not sure if it says in here, we had about $15,725 last year from the DNR, and the program cost us $29,000 with all the advertising. The landfill picks that up. They would like to start cutting back on that a little bit and not spending so much of the landfill money. That’s why they’re proposing just the one week. They would also suggest that we don’t take business tires. We’ve done that in the past. That’s usually come out to 15 to 20 percent of our tires. We’d like to start kind of getting away from that, especially in the next couple years. We don’t want to keep spending so much money on waste tire collection and all of the sudden, the money’s gone, the programs are gone. We want to kind of start cutting back a little bit. They wanted to do it mid-May rather than in this month because they’re doing a lot of earth moving out there and getting ready for a new household hazardous waste facility in the scale house, and some paving and some drop sites for recycling and things like that. That’s been going on now, and so they’ll have a little time to do that. We contract with a company out of Des Moines that will come in and collect those tires for us. They do it in all 6 counties in our planning region. We’ll set up a time where they can bring a trailer out and drop it, and we can just fill that up and they can take those away. You can see last year we still had over 10,000 tires collected in that one month. It would be interesting to see what we get in a week. Any questions on that?
Jordahl: Where do the tires go, Brad?
Neumann: Most of them are ground down. They remove the steel belts and they recycle the steel. They grind it down and their main market, probably 95% of what they market goes to incineration. They usually, similar to what the University of Iowa’s doing here with their coal burner. They mix in a certain percentage of waste tires that they market throughout the Midwest and Iowa.
Jordahl: Of course, when you burn a tire, it’s a smoky business, so what do you do with the smoke?
Neumann: Well, they claim it’s a hotter burn than just coal. It increases the BTUs, therefore it’s a cleaner burn. Now, the scrubbers and everything on the stacks, they have to retrofit those. The University had to do that to handle some of those emissions as well as the other stacks. It’s usually in power plants or cement kilns that are burning these tires. They are equipped. It all falls under state and federal regulations for the scrubbers.
Stutsman: I had a couple things. I’m a little concerned about stopping it for businesses so abruptly when it was 15 to 20% of the tires we collected last year. Could we do anything about requiring a lesser fee for tires, or for business tires? I don’t know what they charge to take them out to the landfill.
Neumann: Well, through this amnesty program, we can’t… It has to be an amnesty program. You have to bring them in for free. We can’t just, we’ll pay for 50% and the State will pay for 50%. They don’t let it happen like that. It’s got to be a complete amnesty. It’s a matter of how long do we want to take in free tires and how much money are we going to have? We’re the only county in the 6 county area that even thinks about taking business tires. We thought that would be a good place to start. That doesn’t include farms. Of course, the majority of what we get in this program comes from the rural area. Well over 50%. A lot of those are farms. We didn’t want to suggest that no farm tires or anything like that. That’s just not feasible. We felt that, let’s just start with the business tires, cut it down to a week and see where it goes from there. If there’s money left over, we can continue.
Stutsman: The other thing I wanted to mention is that last year I think we coincided this with our County Cleanup to kind of (inaudible).
Neumann: I think that was coincidental at the time.
Stutsman: All right.
Jordahl: But it’s a good idea. If you’re out there digging around in your waterways or whatever, pulling out old muck tires, you might have metal and whatnot with them, and it makes sense that, you’re bringing a load in, you’d…
Stutsman: That’s not possible to work that out this year?
Neumann: Well, I talked to Dave Alias, the Superintendent with the land fill, and he was pretty clear he wanted to do it in the middle of May and not wait until June. I don’t know if that had anything to do with their construction plans out there or not. I guess we would like to get the tires in separate rather than when everything else is coming out. It’s easier just to set it up that way, I think, for them.
Stutsman: Well, easier for you but not as easy for the taxpayers who are paying for this.
Neumann: I can talk to Dave again, and see if he wants to move it back and coincide with that week. I can do that.
Stutsman: Well, or maybe coordinate this a little better in future years, if we could let you know when… We always have our cleanup the same time, don’t we, the first full week in May?
Neumann: Full week in June.
Stutsman: In June.
Jordahl: I think what I’m hearing Brad say is that this year, because of the construction, we want to offset it.
Neumann: Actually, yes, mid-May is actually later than we’ve done in the past.
Jordahl: Yes. But didn’t we coordinate last year with County Cleanup?
Stutsman: I was thinking we did.
Lehman: But last year’s May 15 through June 12, and our cleanup was the first full week.
Neumann: So it did fall under that same time, but it started a few weeks before your cleanup did.
Jordahl: But I mean, the point of, having done this stuff, when you’re de-junking, you’re kind of in the de-junking mode, and it just makes sense to do everything.
Neumann: OK. Well, like I said, I can go talk to Dave again, see if he wants to move it back. I don’t have a problem with that. We have to have the money spent by the end of June, by the end of the fiscal year, so that’s not a problem.
Stutsman: That’d be good, if you could check with him and see if that could be worked out.
Neumann: I’ll see if he wants to move it back, unless there’s construction reasons he doesn’t want to. There’s a lot of tires. 10,000 tires is a lot of tires to deal with when you don’t have the space for it.
Jordahl: I’m sure we’re willing to work around construction problems. It’s just, in terms of making (inaudible) in general in future years, as Sally said.
Neumann: Let me check. OK.
Jordahl: The other thing about business tires, businesses operate with the assumption that they’re going to have to pay to recycle their tires, and there’s a system of doing that, and this is just sort of a little freebie we throw into…
Neumann: Well, I guess I don’t see it as being a whole lot different than the person that gets new tires on the car has an opportunity to leave them there at the dealer, and takes them home. That should be one of their expenses also, same as a business.
Duffy: I believe if you leave them at the business, that you do have to pay one or 2 dollars for tires.
Neumann: It’s a couple dollar fee. It’ll cost you about $2.50 to get rid of a car tire out at the landfill, so it’s pretty similar.
Duffy: Brad, you’ve done a real good job for getting rid of these tires. How many years has it been, about 5 or 6?
Neumann: I think this is our 4th one. That was another question I had, was if you’re interested in applying for next fiscal year, that grant will be going in soon and I can provide you with a letter stating that you would like to participate in that application again.
Stutsman: I think it’s been a very successful program. So, I guess I certainly would be supportive of applying again.
Jordahl: Yes. It’s grant money. I think people enjoy the sense that we’re doing something. This is something government can offer.
Neumann: One of the things we’re doing in the program through ECICOG is, we’re offering a grant to anyone that wants to purchase material made from recycled tires. So, it’s not all going towards disposal. We’re trying to promote the use, the other end with that. Last year we used some of that money and we gave to the Iowa Children’s Museum at the Coral Ridge Mall for flooring, which they haven’t installed yet. But, some rubber flooring from recycled tires. So, that will get a lot of promotion and a lot of people seeing that.
Jordahl: So, what does this flooring look like? Does it say Goodyear Wrangler on the side and stuff little chunks?
Neumann: It’s very fine ground and I believe it’s mixed with plastic of some kind and they can color it in just about any color you want. But, they wanted to utilize recycled material and they came to us and asked for money to do that.
Stutsman: OK. Any other questions or comments for Brad?
Neumann: I’ll check with Dave out at the Landfill. See if we want to move that date back, if that’s OK for him to do that. I’ll get back to Carol on that. I’ll get a letter down here supporting the grant for next year, which you can sign then.
Jordahl: I’d like to know more about that flooring stuff. Maybe you can send something to Mike Scheer or send me something. The products made from this stuff, I’d really like to see something on that.
Neumann: OK. I can do that.
Jordahl: Thanks.
Stutsman: OK. Thanks Brad.