MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
MAY 4, 2000
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:45 a.m. Members present were: Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
Stutsman: We’re ready to get started with the Informal Meeting for the Johnson County Board of Supervisors for Thursday, May 4th, 2000. Second item on the agenda is Business from Chris Taliga, Restorationist, and Cathee Wilson, Coordinator for the Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development. They’re going to give us an update on the Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development and then an update on the Iowa Living Trust Program. Good morning.
Restorationist Chris Taliga: Morning.
Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development Coordinator Cathee Wilson: Hello. How about if we step back about 18 months and talk about RC and D, just quickly. I have some handouts that I’ve given out. Well, it was actually in May of 98, the Iowa County, Benton County, Tama County and Johnson County submitted for an RC and D application to the USDA. It was approved, and in August of 98, I came on board and we incorporated in December of 98. The sponsors are boards of supervisors and commissioners. How that’s set up as far as membership, is each county has 4 representatives, a Board of Supervisor, an appointee, a Soil and Water Conservation District Commissioner and an appointee. That’s how our Iowa Valley RC and D Board is made up. Now, we’ve had some changes since this last map. If you see the Iowa Valley RC and D. This was made after our change in December. At the Board Meeting, we voted to expand with Poweshiek County. We also, in the February meeting, voted in Linn County. Now, that will be our original borders for the 4, but this will be our final borders. We like to have like around 6 counties, no more. So, in February, we voted to have Linn County in, so you can see where a white spot will now be filled in with Iowa Valley RC and D. So, we’ve been up and running about 18 months. We’re having a lot of fun. We brought Chris on board. I thought I’d give you just a quick highlight of our projects, what’s going on in Johnson County, as well as the other counties and regional projects. The first one I want to talk about is the Forestry Resource Assessment. We received a $12,000 grant from DNR to do an assessment on our forested acres in each county. That’s for you to keep. It goes into quite a bit of detail about products and secondary markets and things like that. So, we did that. Another project that we’ve done in Johnson County, we’ve done some workshops. We did the Winter Tree ID Workshop through the Land Stewardship Program. We’ve completed 2 prescribed burn workshops and we’ve done a native landscaping for Public Officials’ Workshop. I heard you talking about grants earlier and it does get complicated. We do a lot of grants and so I’m going to jump into some grants here.
Jordahl: One quick second. What’s a Winter Tree?
Wilson: Winter Tree ID Workshop.
Jordahl: So, identifying trees in the winter.
Wilson: As far as identifying trees in the wintertime.
Jordahl: OK. Thank you.
Wilson: So, anyway, as far as grants, we have a large EPA Grant that we’re administering and it’s 6 sites along the Iowa River Corridor, the actual river. There’s 2 sites in Johnson County. There’s one at Camp Cardinal Park and there’s another one at the Memorial Union at the University. So, there’s 2 and they go up and down. We should complete that in October of this year. So, we’ve been implementing that. We also have Birdy Birthplace, which was an individual farmer up around Shellsburg. He is adding value to a wood product. It’s really interesting. He’s making birdhouses out of large, 8-inch diameter tree logs. Then, he also makes the 4x4 deck ones. It’s quite interesting. Then, the other we’ve done, we have a grant with Wetlands Initiative, which is a flood plane forestry project, along the Amana Colonies. We have the Iowa Valley Scenic Byway. In November of 1998, this was a state byway, that we got state designation for a scenic byway. The actual spine wraps around the Amana Colonies and goes up through to Tama, Toledo (inaudible) the river. That is the spine. But, we can also have fingers going off into each county. It is our goal to fingers off into Linn County, Poweshiek County and Johnson County. Now, it’s not like you can just say, we’re going to go down here to the middle of Iowa City or something. It has to qualify. There’s an actual application as far as a designated route. But, we’re really excited about that. We recently got a Federal Highway Administration Grant to develop a corridor management plan for that scenic byway. Now, it’s not like you can just say we’re going to go down here to the middle of Iowa City or something. It has to qualify. There’s an actual application as far as a designated route. But, we’re really excited about that. We recently got a Federal Highway Administration Grant (inaudible) to develop a corridor management plan for that scenic byway. There’s a lot of economic development we hope to see come off of this, like genealogy tours and different signage. It already has a sign. I don’t know, has anybody been on it, the scenic byway, how it goes up through Chelsea?
Thompson: Oh, that’s a beautiful road.
Wilson: Yes. That’s one and the signs are in place. Iowa Valley Scenic Byway. Yes?
Jordahl: Can you give a quick sketch of what the qualifications are to be a scenic byway?
Wilson: Well, they piloted them back in 1996. The program for Iowa is about 10 years old through DOT. What they do is, they have a ranking criteria, and they rank you out. It goes with scenic and heritage. So, they ranked us out and we qualified very well on the heritage. We qualified mediocre on the scenic. So, we did receive the state designation. Now, in 4 years, they rank you again and they go by what activities you’ve done and things like that, improvements. So, that’s why the Corridor Plan is a great help, because this shows that we’re grabbing onto this project and we’re doing some different ideas and getting a plan. Then, we can go back to the grant funder and also look for turnabouts and things like that. So, we want to rank out in 4 years to keep our designation. There’s 6 in the state, I believe.
Jordahl: Are there other limits in interests of a traffic volume or surface type on the road?
Wilson: Yes there is. They have to meet the 14 steps for National Designation and there are signage and safety issues. Like I said, the heritage (inaudible) scenic. When we rank out 4 years from 98, November of 98, we would like to rank out at totally heritage, because that’s where we do really well in.
Lehman: Wonder if you could make that criteria available to us? We have some projects we’d be interested in maybe applying it to.
Wilson: Sure. I can get that. I can get that to you.
Jordahl: Now, are those, if they’re national criteria or something, might be more appropriate or easier for Mike. Are you familiar with this stuff?
Wilson: Yes.
Jordahl: Maybe we already have it.
County Engineer Mike Gardner: No. I don’t believe we have one.
Wilson: That’s a national site. To date there’s not a national scenic byway designated one in the state of Iowa. Great River Roads just applied for an application to receive national designation. We’ve got state designation, but we believe that our Iowa Valley Scenic Byway has potential to be national designation. So, when we’re doing this Corridor Management Plan, we are doing it to meet those guidelines, so we can try to attain the national designation. It’s really exciting. A lot of neat things are happening with it.
Jordahl: We’re looking at it.
Thompson: Are there any roads in Johnson County that you are thinking of adding?
Wilson: I don’t know any off the top of my head right now. It’s something that, as we go through this Corridor Management Process and get into the communities, we’re definitely going to look at enhancing it through having fingers off the main spine.
Jordahl: We have an incentive from a citizens group, and the Board has asked some of the staff, to begin looking at a scenic roads ordinance for Johnson County.
Wilson: Oh. OK.
Jordahl: So, this information that you’re talking about here rings bells with us. So, whatever you could do to provide us with something like that would probably…
Wilson: Sure. I can get you the information. That’d be great.
Jordahl: …fall on willing ears.
Wilson: Good.
Stutsman: OK Cathee.
Wilson: Just a couple other ones I wanted, we’re running about 30 projects and I don’t want to go through all of them, but I did want to touch on some that are pending here in Johnson County. We work with the Clear Creek Watershed and Jonathan, I know you were on that about 2 years ago when I started. A lot of interesting things are going along with that. I recently was put in for 319 funding. I don’t know the status of that, but that’s one of the actual projects we’re partnering on. We just submitted a grant to Humanities Iowa. This is an interesting project. We’re looking at documenting oral history up and down the Iowa River Corridor. We’re working with 4 scholars. One is Dr. Larry Reddig, from Iowa City. Our lead scholar is Bob Wolfe, from Lansing, and we have Lanny Holiday, from the Amana’s, and we have, Dr. Andelson, from Grinnell College. We’re going to work with high schools within each county to get documented oral history, along this Iowa River corridor. Amana Clear Creek, Marengo and Tama Toledo have confirmed, and we’re looking for other high schools. I know some of the Amana Clear Creek students come from Oxford and different little towns in Johnson County, so that’s an exciting one. We also will be putting in, for the printing side of that, we want to print 50,000 copies of this oral history, and we’re looking for grant funding sources for that. One of them that we’ll submit here in the next couple of weeks will be the Gannett Foundation, which owns the Press Citizen. It owns several papers. They recently bought, I believe like 6, up and down the Iowa River Corridor. We submitted a project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife last year with Saddlebrook, the development south here, on ecological restoration. We did not get funded, but we are going to resubmit again this fall, so we are excited about that. Other regional ones that we have have come through the Land Stewardship Program. I’m going to turn it over to Chris here in a minute. We developed the Land Stewardship Program. It started March 15th of 99 and we’ve been running for about 12 months. I’ve handed out brochures for you each on that. It’s ecological restoration and we’re reaching out to individuals, as well as schools, outdoor classrooms, doing different things with ecological restoration and live in roadways. It leads in to Chris. One comment I might want to make, we have 4 cooperative agreements with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The first one we have is a tribal poster project up in Tama Toledo, which we are doing posters with medicinal plants or with plants on their medicinal purposes and culinary purposes. We also have one for our national carbon conference. This is important. It’s August 28th, 29th and 30th. It’s an international conference that we will have. Leroy Brown, our State Conservationist, picked RC and D’s to host this. It will be on carbon sequestering and I’m sure you’ve heard some of the information that’s out on that. It’s going to be a great meeting. One of the things that we’re doing different from some of the other states, who had participated with carboning, such as Montana, and Illinois recently had one, we are bringing together producers to this meeting and policy makers. Some of the other meetings have been heavier on the policy issues and we’re bringing in the producers. So, mark your calendars because that will be a great meeting.
Jordahl: That’s where?
Wilson: That is in Des Moines, August 28th, 29th and 30th.
Jordahl: How would a person get in contact with that? Is that through the RC and D?
Wilson: Yes. I can get you registration forms for that.
Jordahl: Yes. That would be interesting. I was just reading last night about carbon sequestration and trees and the deforestation and greenhouse gases. This is basically what the issue is.
Wilson: Right.
Jordahl: I’m wondering what the role of grasses, for example are? Does prairie restoration do the same degree of sequestration as a forest does?
Taliga: Better.
Wilson: Better.
Jordahl: There we go.
Wilson: Lots better.
Jordahl: I think we’re (inaudible) over to Chris here.
Wilson: Yes. Then, the other cooperative agreement is the Land Stewardship Cooperative Agreement, which Mr. Brown, through the Land Stewardship program, was able to get training out into the field offices. The field offices have their programs they administer through USDA and then also, you reach out to under-served people and that’s who we’re reaching through the Land Stewardship Program. Kind of going out there on some new, innovative practices. So, I’d be happy to hang around afterwards. Like I said, there is several other, that I didn’t get into great detail. It’s really fun, we have a lot going on. One thing I might mention to you. As Linn County, we’re doing the expansion summary for it. There have been some concern about the Supervisors. So, one of the changes in our bylaws will be to have a proxy. So, you’ll have the voted, elected supervisor, which can have a proxy, and then an appointed from the community and we hope that will help you out.
Jordahl: Proxy in what?
Wilson: Meaning that, say like for instance, Sally is our elected official from the Board of Supervisors here. So, she would have a permanent proxy that could come to the meetings and vote for her. Then, an appointee is someone within the community, not on the Board.
Stutsman: I have to be quite honest. I’ve had a very difficult time getting to these meetings. Not only distance, they’re in Williamsburg every other month or in one of the surrounding counties. It takes awhile to get up to Vinton and it’s a time commitment. So, that would probably be very good. So, that would probably be very good. The meetings are… I wish I did have more time to go and I would really encourage any of the other Supervisors to go if they have the opportunity to do so, because Cathee just is doing a terrific job. I’m just exhausted listening to you do all this stuff.
Wilson: Thank you.
Stutsman: It’s remarkable what this project has done in the short time that it’s been in place and Cathee has been on board. It’s terrific.
Wilson: At this time I am going to turn it over to Chris Taliga. She is our Ecological Restorationist for the Land Stewardship Program.
Taliga: Thank you for this opportunity to come here today. I wanted to take this opportunity to give you an update on the Roadside Inventories. I think that last year, you may remember, we came here with Mike Gardner and Chris Henze, with the Secondary Roadside Department and applied for the Roadside Inventory for Johnson County. This is a grant program through the Iowa Living Roadway Trust Program, add in anything you have to. Mike Gardner and Chris Henze have been very, very helpful in providing information to us to help put together sort of the historical data that was done on Iowa, on Johnson County roadsides over the last 10 years. We’ve been able to work together to make copies of previous documentation on the roadsides. We’ve also had a chance to really get up and going with the Roadside Inventory in Johnson County. It’s really interesting to see some of the roadside’s hedges are in full bloom. That is our native gramanoid that often gets overlooked. It is in the shadow of Big Blue Stem and Switchgrass and the warm season native grasses. But, the inventory, I think, will be very helpful to Chris. I hope that the outcome will also try to document the flowering times of the native vegetation that we do see. To perhaps aid in his endeavor to do some native collection of seed in this area for the purpose of reseeding and supplementing the seeding grants that he gets through the Living Roadway Trust Program. You showed me this. Do you want to talk a little bit about this thing you just picked up?
Integrated Roadside Vegetation Manager Chris Henze: I can. I had given Chris a copy of some of this. The seed that we just got yesterday, UNI, University of Northern Iowa puts in for a grant to Federal Highway Administration every year for a very large seed purchase. I bought this year about $400,000 worth of prairie seed and wildflowers and then they distribute it amongst all the different counties that apply for it. There were 56 counties in the State that applied for it. We were one and we got about 300 pounds of free grass seed and about 40 pounds of wildflower, about 25 different species of wildflower. It’s a great opportunity for us to get some real nice species. Some stuff are very high priced and some are more common or more common in (inaudible). Some I would buy and some maybe not so much. But, it’s a good opportunity for us to get some real high quality seed. They buy local Iowa seed. They’re trying to keep all of the seed buyers within Iowa. Not just to keep business within Iowa but also for the genetics end of things. So, keep all the seed from the local seed sources. You can pass it around. If you’re interested in looking at it, or I’ve got all kinds of information. I didn’t bring a whole lot of information on the specific plans, just a list I didn’t want to forget.
Jordahl: This UNI thing sounds like a real boom. Rick Dvorak and R.J. and I went out to look at the restoration of the S&G sandpit down there south of town that includes a lot of these plantings. They were talking about buying this stuff by the ounce and it was real expensive. Do you have a kind of approximate cash value on this?
Henze: That’s about $8,000 worth of seed that we got.
Jordahl: That’s how many pounds? 200 pounds, $8,000?
Henze: About 300 pounds of grass seed split up over those species and then about 35 or 40 pounds of wildflowers. Some species, there’s only a few ounces of, but some there is several pounds of. Some of the cheaper ones that are easier to produce and clean up the seed.
Stutsman: Wow. So, Chris, the inventory is done then?
Taliga: No. It’s in progress.
Stutsman: OK.
Taliga: We’re probably a third of the way there. A great component that took up a lot of time is gathering the historical data, which we did over the winter time and the early months this spring. We’re really getting started full force now, actually inventorying the roads. So, we should be done with that process by December of this year. So, we’ve got a few months yet to go to inventory the roads. I just also wanted to take this opportunity to let you know, this is such a great way to not only work with county representatives, because there’s a lot of knowledge and information that helps us in our endeavor with the Iowa Valley RC and D Land Stewardship Program. But also learning about the native plants in the county, what better reason than this grant opportunity, to inventory the native flora here. It’s just been a really good project for us and I wanted to thank you to support than endeavor. Also, I would like to just give you a little bit of information on some of the other things that we’re doing in this county, if we’ve got a quick moment. Not only do we administer a variety of grants, we also work with private land owners and businesses to help them design their homes and their outlot communities. Using native plants, so that they can go to maybe a low mow system instead of a high chemical intensive system in their lawns. At the Native Landscaping for Public Officials Workshop, there is a figure that the lawn homeowner uses 10 times as many chemicals on a third of an acre of lawn then a farmer does. That’s an incredible opportunity for the urban homeowner and the sub urban homeowner to do their part in soil quality, soil erosion prevention and water quality enhancement. So, this is an example of a plan that Brenda Nelson, who is a landscape architect, and I are developing for a homeowner in Johnson County. I just wanted to let you know that not only are we working with small businesses to do these plans, there are a lot of homeowners that are taking the incentive, and really the cost upon themselves, to go to a system like this because they are finding it not very enjoyable to mow 8 hours every weekend.
Stutsman: Right.
Taliga: So, would you like me to pass this around? You can just take a gander.
Jordahl: Been there, done that.
Stutsman: Now Chris, do you do this through RC and D? Is this one of the services that you offer and you do charge and get reimbursed?
Taliga: Yes.
Stutsman: So this is one of the ways that you sustain the project. OK.
Taliga: The funding for my position is totally on what we generate. So, if we don’t generate any funding, my position is not available. So, private customers constitute, I would say maybe 35% of the component of our funding. We work with businesses, we work with the Poweshiek Water Facility and their Wetland Mitigation and we design for the Army Corps of Engineers, the Wetland Mitigation and did the seeding for them. We work with the City of Marengo and their Entryway Beautification Program, where they hired us to oversee the installation and the seeding of their entryway beautification. So, we get hired by all sorts of private, public, community entities to do this kind of work.
Stutsman: Great. Real good.
Wilson: I have one project that I overlooked, that I cannot believe I overlooked, that I would just like to take one minute to share with you before we conclude. It is a fabulous project. It’s called the Iowa River Corridor Project. It ranges along the Iowa River. It’s a 50 mile wide band that goes from south of Iowa City all the way up to Tama Toledo. Iowa State College of Design, as well as they’re bringing hopefully in the College of Agriculture. Private consultants were working on this bountiful valley, is what we’re going to call it. We hope to be known nationwide, that if you say you live in Oxford, people will say, oh, that’s in that bountiful valley. It’s a combination of like, a component within the Iowa River Corridor would be the Scenic Byway. Another component would be like, genealogy tours, where we have, where you can click on a cemetery and you could pull on that specific stone all the history. Things like that. Genealogy tours, historical tours, value added agriculture, design and we’re partnering. We were just up at the College of Design at Iowa State and we’re working on being in their program called Place, Planning Landscaping and Community Enhancements. It’s the first project they’ve had come out of there. They’re looking at a couple of projects in the state and we’re one of them. So, we’re very excited about that. It’s interesting because it reaches about everybody within the RC and D, but it’s very big and there’s a lot of different things that will go on in it. It’s also reaching out to target small business owners. Like the Willow Basket Company, which we helped in Marengo, helped her get started and she’s adding value by doing her willow baskets and commodity that was really looked at as a nuisance and she’s turned it into a very successful business. So, it’s about that. It’s very, very exciting. So, if you hear about the Iowa River Corridor, you’ll know.
Jordahl: 2 things to make sure that you have awareness of for that project are, there’s an organic egg producer down south here by Frytown, and of course our new bread factory up in North Liberty, then, the aspect of Eco-tourism, together with the County Trails Plan for recreational trails. We’re headed in a direction where these things can be synergistic.
Wilson: Regionalism is very good. What’s good for Tama Toledo is good for Oxford, is good for Williamsburg. You see all that regionalism and we’re looking at getting a bike trail all the way through and different things. It’s got several different items in it, but we just had to get a group, like the RC and D to get their arms around it, because it’s such a big project. So, if you hear about that, you’ll know. I’ll get you information on the Scenic Byway and other stuff. Any questions for us?
Duffy: I see quite a few of your grants is through the Iowa Department of Economic Development.
Wilson: We have 3 Iowa Department Economic Development Grants.
Duffy: I happen to be on the Rural Policy Counsel. Been on it for 11 years. If Economic Development gives their blessing on anything, it usually comes down to the cost of money. That’s about what it amounts to, but they’re doing a good job.
Wilson: We’ve gotten several dry fire hydrants for Iowa County and I did work with the Hills Fire Department on getting one, a gentleman Steve, down there. So, if any fire departments are interested in dry fire hydrants, I think there is a 2nd go around for grants on that through Iowa Department of Economic Development.
Duffy: We got fire trucks, not like up at Swisher, just got a new one that can handle about 1,000 gallons of water. If you really want to push it, say here’s a pond or small lake, they can refill that in 3 minutes, 1,000 gallons.
Wilson: Right.
Duffy: This really is a powerful thing, so that’s a good idea, too.
Wilson: Right.
Stutsman: Well, Cathee, I want to thank you.
Wilson: Yes, thank you for having us.
Stutsman: For coming in, you and Chris. It’s great to have an update on this and to get us up to speed on all that you’re doing. Impressive.
Taliga: One quick additional item. In getting to know Chris Henze, the Roadside Manager for Johnson County, and really seeing the strengths of that program, there have been some businesses that we’ve worked with and private customers in Coralville that have wanted to utilize prescribed burning as a way to restore woodlands that they have in their open areas. Chris has really been fantastic in helping do the education to the fire departments for the prescribed burning and how that is done and how it’s done safely and effectively. I think in some of those projects, without his help, we probably wouldn’t have gotten the permit to burn in those areas. So, I just wanted to thank you for supporting that program and it’s efforts because it’s really making a difference in our program outreach as well.
Stutsman: Terrific. Coordination. That’s great to hear.
Taliga: Yes. Thank you.
Wilson: Thanks.
Stutsman: Thank you very much for coming in.
Jordahl: Yes. It sounds great.
Stutsman: Probably. OK. Business from Planning and Zoning Administrator. Discussion Action Needed Regarding Authorizing the Planning and Zoning Administrator to Enter Into a Contract With Owens King for Document Imaging to Accommodate New Staff Personnel.
Stutsman: Morning Rick. Rick’s back from Madison, Wisconsin.
Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak: Yes I am. I lived through it again.
Stutsman: Up there the first of the week for a Planning and Zoning Conference.
Dvorak: It was very good. Actually it was kind of exciting. Most of the things that we learned were things that we’re already doing. So, it was kind of a revisiting what we’re trying to do now.
Stutsman: I talked to R.J. this morning. He said that he’s going to present a proposal to present at next year’s conference.
Dvorak: It’ll be interesting to see how they respond to that.
Thompson: That’s nice.
Jordahl: Yes, you guys should publish, too.
Dvorak: Yes, I think so.
Stutsman: OK. Go ahead.
Dvorak: Yes. This morning on here, last year or actually this spring when you approved my budget, one of the items you did was approve a new staff person for my office. Since then the Board has also, at least looking at the possibility of allowing me to hire a Chief Leading Building Inspector and then possibly another Inspector, to enforce the Building Code Program for the County. When that decision was made, it was like, oh my, where are we going to put everybody. As you know, I have no space in my office, so I immediately went over to Kim Painter, who is our Document Management Chairperson. We sat down and analyzed what we had and what we might be able to do. It was her recommendation at that time that we work with Phil Sickles, from Owens King, who does Document Management in the Recorder’s Office right now. So, Phil came down and gave me a quote on what he could do for us to give me some free space in our office. Basically digitize and microfilm 4 years worth of records. Then, we could physically get the filing cabinets out of the office. I then took that proposal to the Document Management Committee. They agreed to the proposal, supports of where we have, I think, $60,000 for Document Management. The proposal I have before you and you should have copies of one of the drafts anyway, is about $21,905 to do this process. That includes some software and possibly some new monitors to facilitate this. That committee then recommended that it be forwarded on to the Computer Committee. They met last week and I believe I gave you favorable support from them, unanimously, to pursue this further. I’m here today to see if it’s OK to continue to pursue it, with the idea that I’d like to sign a contract now. As soon as possible, because it would take at least 3 months to do this, and I may have staff people in place by then and no place to put them. So, again, I’m here to ask your permission to go ahead and sign a contract immediately. Payment would not start until July 1st. Jean Schultz is here if there is any questions from the technical part of it.
Duffy: That’s for this new person?
Dvorak: The intent would be to remove all the files from a segment of the office, to facilitate another desk and a new person.
Duffy: A desk, but it doesn’t say we’re going have this person, or it’s up in the air yet whether we’re going to have a Building Inspector.
Dvorak: Initially…
Stutsman: No. I think Charlie…
Duffy: Am I confused about something else?
Dvorak: No. Right now you have authorized me to hire a Planner for the office.
Duffy: A Planner.
Dvorak: Right. Then, I need space for that person. That’s in my budget right now.
Duffy: Well, it’s in the budget, but I’m not so sure that we authorized that.
Jordahl: I didn’t believe we did.
Stutsman: Yes, we did.
Thompson: We did.
Stutsman: This project is not to hire somebody.
Dvorak: Oh, no.
Stutsman: It’s just a contract to enter into with Owens King to do the work of scanning these documents so that you then can get these documents out of your office and then have space to hire this person that we authorized to do July 1.
Dvorak: Exactly.
Jordahl: The only way that these things are linked is that Rick is requesting authority to sign contract now, in advance of the beginning of the Fiscal Year. They would do their work during FY2000 and be paid during 2001. The point being that, if we get the files out of the way, we can have a place to put someone who has authority to hire starting July first.
Stutsman: We did authorize these monies to be spent for this Document Management Program to start July 1. It’s in the Fiscal Year 2001 budget.
Dvorak: That is correct.
Stutsman: So, Rick was one of the 3 departments that was authorized to go ahead with Document Management, that being, the Auditor’s Office, Planning and Zoning and Treasurer. So, then, you are just starting the process early that we’ve already agreed to put in place. Treasurer’s Office and Auditor’s have agreed with this plan.
Dvorak: Yes. They agree 100%. My need is immediate. Their needs are kind of like, more futuristic. There still will be around $40,000 left in that segment of the budget for them to start working into Document Management also.
Duffy: Some of these documents go way back.
Dvorak: 1960.
Duffy: I remember I was down there the last time.
Dvorak: 1960.
Duffy: You’re talking 40 years.
Dvorak: Yes.
Lehman: Would these documents, just to refresh myself, would they be stored somewhere else? They wouldn’t be destroyed.
Dvorak: Oh, no.
Lehman: Offsite.
Dvorak: We’d have to have them for litigation and so we need original documents. I’ve been working with Mike.
Stutsman: Mike?
Dvorak: Scheer.
Stutsman: Oh Scheer. I thought you said Mike Lehman. I thought, oh.
Dvorak: No. To find a temporary location in the building and then futuristically we would probably put them in Cedar Rapids. There is a place up there that facilitates (inaudible).
Stutsman: I was going to mention I did go visit a place. Kim and I went to that place in Cedar Rapids, that does do long-term storage of documents. A fascinating place. The businesses that are out there that you just don’t realize are there. That’s all they do is just store documents.
Dvorak: They have like a 24 hour turn over if you do need the hard copy of the document back, because some of the documents in the early 60’s were very sketchy. They don’t reproduce real well. Enough you can get some idea, but if you need something specific, they can get it back here within 24 hours. So, with that, if the Board agrees, I’ll have Carol put it on the agenda for next Thursday night.
Stutsman: Are we OK to put that on. Are there any other questions?
Thompson: I have. We asked you to work with a group and coordinate it with other County Offices and you’ve done that and it looks like you’ve saved a little money.
Jordahl: Typical of Rick Dvorak behavior. Working with others and saving money. I don’t know.
Dvorak: Thanks.
Information Services Director Jean Schultz: His will use the same software that the Recorder’s Office is using and it will use the same platters and it is consistent with what they are doing, too.
Stutsman: That’s Jean Schultz, Director of Information Services.
Jordahl: To elaborate on them, this is part of the County’s initiative to handle the question, what do you do with all the paper that we accumulate. By using new technology. It’s been piloted in the Recorder’s Office. We’ve got this juke box thing you were mentioning that uses these optical disk platters and Rick’s able to then piggy back on that technology. This becomes a central County resource, much as your entire office is a central County resource, Jean. So, I really like that aspect of what computerization has meant in Johnson County. It has meant people working together and figuring out how we’re going to use our joint resources to accomplish shared goals and save money at the same time. This is good stuff.
Dvorak: It’s a space needs issue, too. It really is.
Stutsman: OK. Very good. We’ll put this on for next Thursday then. Thank you for that report and update and proposal.
Dvorak: Thank you very much.
Stutsman: Anything else Rick?
Dvorak: Not till later.
Stutsman: OK. This is from Becky Mills. I don’t see Becky.
Peters: She’s on her way.
Stutsman: OK. Why don’t we move on then to Business from the County Engineer.