Stutsman: Business from Carol Thompson, regarding Senior Center Commission update and report.

Jordahl: Where is she going?

Stutsman: I don’t know. Oh, she’s coming.

Thompson: I’m the representative from the Commission this time, so, I get to sit in this chair. The Commission met on April 18th. The first report was from the Skywalk Planning Committee. There are currently $53,678 in donations to this fund. There have been some setbacks in the fundraising, but the Commission continues with this as part of their strategic plan to complete the skywalk facility to the new parking ramp. There was also some discussion about the Council of Elders, which is a long-standing group at the Senior Center, and at one time had extraordinarily large participation from seniors. In recent years it’s been a little harder to get members for the Council. So, they’re talking about some reorganization of that. You may have noticed in the newspaper, there was some discussion about the use of the Senior Center by political candidates. It was discovered that there was no policy in place for the Senior Center, although other public buildings owned by the City have them. So, the Center is looking at the one that the public library has and they’ll be drafting a policy for the center space. Linda Kopping reported that the refurbishing of the building is almost finished. If you’ve been over there, you’ve no doubt noticed how nice it looks. The new color scheme is really nice and the user-friendly seating is very nice. There are just a few cabinets that remain to be put in place and those will be ready for the reopening, which is May 17th. It starts at 1:30 in the afternoon and it’s called Rediscover the Center Day. I also wanted to mention that Linda Kopping, the Senior Center Director, has been working with Joe Fowler and has put in place, beginning March 1st, a program that reimburses participants at Center programs for 50% of their parking fees, when they use designated Senior Center parking or when the designated spaces are full. So, they have to have a Senior Center parking permit and they park in the Chauncey Swan Parking Ramp in order to qualify for the program. Also, the Senior Center is seeking accreditation as part of the strategic planning and the first activity for that is a self-assessment of the Center and its programs. We began with a kick off meeting on Tuesday night. That was for Commission Members, staff and a few volunteers from the community. But, each group will be asking more volunteers. So, this will be a community effort for people of all ages to look at the Center and participate in the accreditation. I think that will do it. Any questions or comments?

Stutsman: Good report. Well, you talked about setbacks in the fundraising?

Thompson: There was a request to the CDBG for funding that I don’t think has been approved.

Stutsman: OK. It probably won’t be approved either.

Thompson: I haven’t heard the final story on that. But, it wasn’t recommended by the Committee that makes those recommendations.

Jordahl: I had a suggestion made by someone yesterday about modification and the form of the Senior Center Commission. Certainly something that’s been on your mind over the last few months, I think, and these would be the Council of Elders and those agencies that occupy the Senior Center. Is there any sense of a desire on the part of the Senior Center Commission to review that structure or the 28E Agreement? Or is that just not an issue?

Thompson: I think all of those things will be looked at in the process of the accreditation. So, this is a good time to bring those things up.

Jordahl: Ok. Well, maybe you and I can talk about that a little further.

Stutsman: Thank you. Good report.

Stutsman: Business from the County Attorney. Report/discussion regarding possible purchase of 821 South Clinton Street. We had this on the agenda a couple of times and had to take it off and now we’re ready to hear a report.

White: I’m still in need of guidance at this point and I’ll just give you a refresher as to where we’ve been. A number of weeks ago we started to take a look at the building that’s located at 821 South Clinton Street, the former auto parts store. As part of the existing policy recommended by the Space Needs Committee and agreed on by the Board, that a long-range County goal is to create a mini campus in the location of the Admin. Building for future expansion needs. Without dwelling on what they potentially are at this point, the implementation of that policy is to, when property becomes available that is adjacent to or near this building, take a serious look at acquiring it. So that over 5, 10, 15, 20 years we’ll assemble a campus that will be more efficient in the long run than scattering County offices around a lot of locations. Most of you, at least several of you, have walked through the building. We had it appraised. The appraisal is still confidential in that we don’t want to disclose the price publicly for fear it will increase the cost that we might have to pay if others became aware of that. Eventually it will become a public record. We had the condition of the building assessed by our architect and it’s fair to summarize the condition of the building is not particularly good. So, I think we’ve done enough evaluation so that we ought now to be able to say well, yes, let’s go forward and try to negotiate a purchase agreement or let’s just close up our file and pass this particular building by. I don’t think it’s necessarily a most significant campus or land use or acquisition decision we’ll make. But, I think it is a significant one. My assessment of the pros and cons are, it is beside this facility. Standing alone it could probably never serve anything more than either storage or parking. But, assembled with land that lies to the north of it on the west side of Clinton Street, it certainly would have the potential for a future office site for whatever offices we eventually chose to consolidate here. As you know, you’ve been talking recently about leasing space for Juvenile Court Office. That’s an example of a potential tenant. When you set as a goal building a campus by acquiring property, it’s important that you act when the property is reasonably available and before it gets recycled or improved. So, that’s why the timing is fairly important for this particular property. It’s not critical in terms of a specific or long-term campus plan. It’s critical only because it’s now in a position where it’s being marketed, not for sale but for lease. Potential trade or remarketing is always an option. As you build a campus, you can’t possible create a specific plan until you know what you are going to acquire long-term. It’s not impossible that this site, rather than being utilized for a County office building or incorporated in a larger facility, might be available for us to trade for property that is east of this facility or north of this facility, if it was more important to acquire something else. My personal conclusion is, it’s still something we ought to do. The only decision or step that you would need to take at this point is just say yes, go ahead Pat and negotiate a proposed purchase agreement, which would have to come back to you for consideration and approval before we acquired it. Options that, if we’re going to put together a laundry list of options, one of you I think asked me the last time we had a brief discussion about options to purchase or rights of first refusal, that would be a step down from actual acquisition but there would be nothing to prevent us from attempting to negotiate that. I don’t know that we have a whole lot of leverage to try to get that done. Yet another option would be, acquire it as is and instead of the current owner trying to lease it, we could turn around and lease it. I think that’s an issue that we’re likely going to have to confront wherever we go about trying to build a campus. Whether it’s here or out on Melrose or around the Courthouse and the existing Jail. Inevitably, I think we are going to look at acquiring property that we don’t have a tomorrow or immediate use for. It might make economic sense for us to become a landlord for some period of time until we finish assembling a campus site or make specific use decisions for individual sites. I think I’ll quit and invite your questions or discussion.

Stutsman: Thank you.

Jordahl: Could we not raise buildings and park there, even a gravel surface?

White: Sure. I can’t honestly tell you what the City parking surface rules would be. They don’t encourage gravel parking, for good reason. But, technically, their rules don’t apply to us. We’d apply them to us just as a matter of courtesy to the City. But, absolutely, parking is a viable short term use. The condition of the building is such that a primary option, if we were to acquire, would be to clear the site and turn it into parking, which even I can attest is a growing need at this site. I don’t remember which meeting it was. It might have been a Board of Health Meeting that I was covering within the last month. There just was no parking available here.

Jordahl: Why liability would we incur or requiring staff to park across a busy street from our building?

White: I suppose there would be an argument that the walk from the park to the workplace is slightly more dangerous. The test for a workers’ comp claim is arrival at work and I think you can assume that parking, once you get to the employer owned parking facility, that you’re at work. So, if somebody got hit by a truck crossing the street, I suppose our workers’ comp liability is marginally increased.

Stutsman: Well, I guess my personal feelings, I have some real reservations about this piece of property. I certainly have no problem with going ahead and just the next step, seeing what’s available and what kind of offer we can put together or whatever. This is personal feeling. I just personally have a problem with governments buying up property and then getting into the leasing business. I just don’t think that’s what taxpayer’s dollars should be used for. Unless we have a definite plan that we’re going to use this building in the next 5 years, I just am not real supportive of just buying property to have property.

White: So, the next 5 years there would be 2 realistic options, storage and parking. A 3rd would be, do exactly what you say, buy it and lease it. But, the immediate uses of the County I think are limited to storage, as is, and clear it for parking.

Jordahl: I think storage, as in moving stuff from one place to another, is not an attractive option to me. I did that recently in moving. I looked across the stuff and think, should I really have moved that stuff. I think a different way of dealing with stuff being in a place, like Document Management is dealing with it as a better approach to it. My vision of this, if we chose to acquire it, would be that it’s parking.

Stutsman: Then how much do we pay for a parking lot?

Jordahl: The Juvenile Court Office idea that you mentioned, we could at some point construct a building, might be kind of like a 2nd phase. I don’t see us going into constructing, because it’s not the top priority for construction right now.

Stutsman: But, I wouldn’t be willing to make that decision today until I knew more about what the Jail location is.

Jordahl: Right. Exactly. But, the question is, in view of the Jail and the priority of other space needs, where does land acquisition in this moment of opportunity fit?

Stutsman: I know.

White: We certainly talked about the armory. I still think, realistically that’s at least 5 years away, probably 10, maybe more. There are just so many components of putting that together.

Stutsman: Well, yes and no. We’ll have to talk to you about our conversation.

White: We certainly talked about north of here. We’ve also talked about the block east

of here as a future parking site. But, there’s some fairly recently refurbished or built structures over there that make that even more expensive. One of the realities of building a campus, because you’re focused on location, you will end up paying more then you would if you said, well, we need to find a parking lot somewhere within 6 blocks of this building. You could find a less expensive site. When you want to build a campus, besides something that already exists, inevitably it costs you more.

Thompson: Now that we’ve more or less informally committed ourselves to the campus idea, I think this makes sense in the 20-year perspective. Because over time, we will undoubtedly wish we had that piece of property. I was frankly surprised by the amount of the appraisal and don’t feel as strongly committed to it as I did, now that I know how much it would cost us.

White: It was high, relatively high. I agree with that.

Stutsman: Well, are the landowners even interested in selling at this point?

White: Well, the realtor hasn’t told me to stop calling him. In fact, he’s even been eager to hear from me over the last couple of weeks. It’s clear to him that I’m dragging my feet on giving him an update. Part of the reason for that, in all candor is, the owner would understand that we have condemnation authority. Now, nobody is proposing to use that on this site. But, at a point at which a unit of government says, we’d like this property, that has some impact on the market. So, the fact that we’re publicly talking about this I’m sure has made it a little more difficult for them right now. Somebody who would even look at leasing it would say, well, if the County is going to come in here and buy this thing, I don’t know that I want to sign a lease yet. In fairness to the owner, I think we ought to give them an indication of our continued interest and work towards getting to a decision. If you want me to go forward negotiating a purchase agreement, I’d certainly propose that we try to get that done and then ask you for a formal decision within 4 to 6 weeks at the outside. I just think we need to move forward or get out of the owner’s way right now.

Jordahl: The attractive thing about a small parcel of parking across the street from a larger parcel of property, if we were talking about the block north of here as an eventual campus site, is that you would be able to utilize that entire contiguous space for a building or the maximum possible amount of that block north for a building. The parking, the discontiguous parcel, would be… It’s not so much of a problem that it’s not connected, because you’re just parking there rather than having to nip out a corner out of your building or build underneath it or some kind of a ramp structure.

Stutsman: So, you’re saying using the parking lot here to expand this building and then just have parking over there. Is that what you’re saying?

Jordahl: I’m talking about if we acquire the block north of here, under this campus concept, all the way to railroad tracks at Lafayette Street, then that parking over there begins to make more sense as a parking that’s right across the street from a building. It would give us the capacity to use more of that block for building. Maximize the buildable space on that block by having parking right next to it.

Stutsman: I’m not real excited about that as a parking place, to be quite honest. It’s only my own personal preference. From going that direction and crossing that street, it just terrifies me.

Jordahl: It’s a hassle.

Stutsman: Then, there’s 2 streets that you have to cross to get to this building, so it doesn’t have a whole lot of appeal. I know Mike parks over there all the time. I’ve never parked over there for that reason. I just feel like I’m taking my life in my own hands every time I cross that street.

Jordahl: Well, I frequently walk that way from the bus and it is real hard to cross. What I’ve suggested, and Pat has brightened up a little bit on the concept, of asking the City to close Benton Street there. So, if we develop this campus deal and then offer the alternative, if we acquired the armory of cutting through.

Stutsman: Where’s Benton Street?

Jordahl: Benton’s the one that runs along the north here. Shut that off.

Stutsman: Never fly.

Jordahl: Then run the traffic.

White: This really is long range, I won’t say planning, just...

Jordahl: Fantasize.

White: Thinking out loud right now, the concept would be that you try to make a link between Benton Street, mid block over here, to Kirkwood, over near the Gilbert Dubuque intersection. Replace this one way round about with a connection of 4-lane street diagonally, through some of the existing armory sight. Then, as part of that, you look more serious at closing Benton Street from Dubuque over to wherever that sight is, to try to create a physical connection between the existing Admin. Building and the land north of us. Now, we haven’t called the City to tell them.

Thompson: Even if we just built something here and across the street that needed that intersection out there widened or something, it would be important for us not to have a new building on that land. I also think that looking out 20 years, we need to think, what if someone else buys it and they build something there that isn’t very compatible with the use that we want to make of this land. I can’t imagine what that would be. But, do we want to be building an architecturally sound campus with something else plunked sort of in the middle of it. So, it’s just something that we have to think about for the long range.

Jordahl: If it was a heavy traffic use thing over there, like it was a shopping center or mall or something, then we built something over here.

Stutsman: I’d love it.

Jordahl: And we wanted to have our ability to park over here and there’d be traffic overlap and the people would park in our spaces for the government building in order to get to the other commercial use over there. We might have a kind of conflict of parking needs. That’s a point.

Thompson: There are all kinds of possible conflicts.

Stutsman: But, that space is pretty limited and I guess that’s not so much of a concern for me. I can’t imagine building a big enough, aside from a 10-story apartment building or something that would generate a lot of… That’s not going to happen.

Thompson: I don’t know.

Duffy: Sally, I hate to go against the grain all the time, but I’m not for closing Benton Street or buying up blocks of residence.

White: We’re not proposing to close Benton Street. We were just thinking out loud.

Duffy: Jonathan brought it up.

White: He and I did.

Duffy: Heading north way up the tracks and buying blocks of property. I would get rid of the property out at the Mall Drive. The interest alone before that’s paid for is almost half a million dollars.

Stutsman: I thought we’d be further along in that project than we are.

Duffy: The campus concept, really, in this building now, and probably the main thing are the taxes and the Assessor, Treasurer, the Auditor. They’re all kind of connected there and I can see that. But, for all of our County businesses to be on the same campus, usually a person just stops at one County business anyway. We’re really talking about a lot of money here. What are we going to do with the Jail? Can we condemn property for the Jail?

White: Yes.

Jordahl: But not the University’s property.

Duffy: Well, that’s what I meant. We can’t condemn the University’s property because of State, right?

White: Right.

Duffy: Well, that stops us there.

Jordahl: They trump us.

Stutsman: So, what do we want to do? We need to give Pat some direction. What’s the Board’s thought?

Lehman: I’d say maybe negotiate to get down to a final dollar, then make the decision.

Stutsman: I guess I don’t see any harm either in going ahead and just seeing. We’re certainly not saying yes to anything at this point. Just continuing to look at all of our options.

Duffy: Well, how about next door? You don’t hear too much about that anymore and that’s not on the tax roll.

Jordahl: Sally seems to (inaudible).

White: Sounds like Sally must have heard something.

Stutsman: Yes and I’ll visit about that.

Jordahl: Well, we’re not saying go spend the money. We’re saying continue negotiating. But, on the other hand, we got the County Attorney’s time, so if we have no intention of purchasing this, we should let him do something else.

Duffy: I understand.

Stutsman: That’s a good point.

White: That’s basically the guidance I’m looking for. If 3 of you now say we don’t want that location under any circumstances, I’d just assume save the time. But, if 3 or more of you are still interested, then I’d attempt to negotiate a purchase agreement. With the condition that if I successfully negotiate one, the approach we’ve always used is a clause that says this is null and void unless it’s approved by the Board of Supervisors within 30 days. At that point, we’d bring it to you with a specific price and you could have some time then to decide to vote it up or down. That’s the same procedure we used on Mall Drive.

Jordahl: Is Carol setting up a price? I would be much more interested in this property if it cost about half as much as it’s projected.

Stutsman: That’s where I’m coming from, too and I don’t think that’s going to happen. So, I guess maybe I’m to the point of saying no, I’m not interested in pursuing this. That’s what I’m looking for is a real bargain.

Jordahl: Yes. Anybody got bargains out there?

Lehman: It has limited value to us, but it also has limited value to someone else. If you were to try to put in another building, you’d have to set it back and it would be limited to size of a building you could put in there. There’s a lease ground that it’s parked on now. I think with the railroad you’d have to get some type of a sub lease there with the people that are already leasing from there. There are a lot of limitations for ourselves, as well as any others. The owner may see that and light up to that fact that this might be a buyer. It might be the only buyer.

Jordahl: Point of condemnation there again to the north, though, if it was a question of the parcel that takes away the rest of the railroad tracks, we could get it. But, we haven’t yet decided to do that kind of thing.

Stutsman: We haven’t come up with a decisive plan that that is what we are going to do.

Lehman: I’d like to see Pat at least visit, but it’s not a strong urge unless the price changes from my viewpoint.

Jordahl: Yes. I wouldn’t negotiate real hard. I’d shoot them a real low offer if I were going to negotiate at all.

White: That would be a waste of time.

Duffy: I’m not so sure we should shoot them anything. But, I’d agree with Pat. If we could get more information about this building, I think we should do it.

Jordahl: But, what building?

Duffy: Caddy corner across the street.

Stutsman: You mean the 821 South Clinton?

Duffy: Yes. Well, if it’s not going to cost anything.

Stutsman: Well, Pat’s time.

Duffy: Well, I understand. I shouldn’t have said it that way. But, I don’t think it would hurt to look into the situation.

Stutsman: Well, it sounds like there are 3 votes to go ahead and at least pursue it. Is that what I make of it?

Lehman: Yes and you may be back next week and say it’s a dead end. No budge. It’s a dead issue.

Jordahl: But, he’s already saying that he can’t get it for less. I’m saying let’s let Pat do something else unless we have some reasonable belief that we could drop this price.

Thompson: This may not be our last chance if we don’t pursue it now, maybe in a few years the picture will be different. But, we also take the risk of losing it.

Stutsman: Yes.

Jordahl: I hear 3 people who would just assume say we got a jail to build, maybe 4.

Duffy: I guess we do have one.

Stutsman: I’m one that’s saying I think we should just let it go. Carol, it sounds like you’re saying the same thing.

Lehman: I would say that, too, in light of Pat saying that there’s not going to be that much of a budge in the price.

Stutsman: OK. So, it sounds like there’s 3. Just drop it for right now. All right. Anything else Pat, under reports and inquiries?

White: I don’t have reports. I just want to mention to you that I’ve spent some time with Dwight Dobberstein and Mike Scheer looking at the Courthouse restrooms. Dwight’s done some preliminary sketching and thinking. I’m going to try to organize a meeting within the next few weeks of Dwight to show sketches and questions to judges. As soon as I get a date for that, I’ll let you know so that one or 2 of you could preferably sit in on that meeting. His early conclusion is that we’ve got to find some expansion room for the 3rd floor in order to get them to ADA standards. That’s going to involve reconfiguring walls, at least a little bit, and trying to borrow some space out of a jury room. Before we go very far with that, I think we ought to put that down in front of the judges and show them what we’re talking about. As soon as I get a date for that I’ll let you know in hopes that Sally or one or 2 of you could join the judges to look at that.

Jordahl: Charlie, you mentioned IDED all the time, on possibilities of grant money. It seems like the kind of a thing that, with the centennial here coming up, maybe we’d be in fairly good standing for some kind of money there.

Duffy: Could find out. It wouldn’t hurt anything.

Jordahl: Would you look into that?

Duffy: Probably could.

Stutsman: Anything else, Pat?

White: No.

Stutsman: OK. It’s been requested to have another short break, so why don’t we take just a 5 minute break?

Recessed at 11:27 a.m.; reconvened at 11:37 a.m.

(Continued in Part 3)