Stutsman: Discussion Action Needed Regarded the Iowa Organization of Woman Attorneys. Iowa Project Entitled 202 in 2002. You have a letter in your packet and this is a good project for the Iowa Organization of Women Attorneys to undertake. What they are trying to do is to promote the installation of diaper changing stations in all county court houses throughout the state by the year 2002. So, they want a commitment from the Johnson County Board of Supervisors that we indeed will be putting diaper changing stations into the courthouse. I don’t know how the rest of the Board feels about it.

Lehman: I was wondering if we couldn’t do that with some of our remodeling work we’ve proposed.

Thompson: I think we’ll have to because at the current time I don’t think you could put a changing station in the bathroom at the courthouse and get the door open. You’d have to have a choice.

Stutsman: Janet, do you have a comment?

Assistant County Attorney Janet Lyness: I have to confess. I’ve been on this Board for several years. Actually, my term just expired in June. I feel bad I have not brought this up before as they indicated they had written to you before. But, it is the idea of trying to make courthouses more accessible to families because families are using them. I would encourage you also to think about putting them in this building. Because I think the idea of putting them in courthouses had to do with the courthouses in smaller counties where the Auditor’s Office, the Treasurer’s Office, everything were all in the Courthouse so you just have a lot more families in these kinds of buildings, too. Not only the Courthouse, but I would like you to think about it for the County Administration Building as well.

Stutsman: Good thought.

Lehman: I think we might have failed to mention to Mike Scheer and Dwight Dobberstein when they were reviewing the restrooms at the Courthouse. I think we need to make both those people aware of them.

Stutsman: Well, I was just thinking, where would we put it in the women’s restroom? But, I thought, why does it have to be in the women’s restroom?

Thompson: Well, no, put it in both.

Lyness: I think the idea is to have it in both.

Jordahl: It needs to be in both.

Lyness: Exactly. Which is why it’s the 202, because there are 101 courthouses in the state of Iowa, and we want it in both the men’s and women’s restrooms.

Jordahl: You probably don’t spend a lot of time in men’s restrooms, but actually there are a significant amount of changing tables out there.

Stutsman: There are. That’s wonderful. I’m really glad to hear that.

Thompson: Well, let’s join that trend.

Stutsman: They’d like formal action for the Board. I guess I’m comfortable in saying, we’re going to do this, we’ll work out the details at a later time, as far as coordinate it. We do have a work session with the courthouse.

Thompson: The little changing tables don’t cost very much. I’m pretty sure our staff could put them up.

Jordahl: It does require a little more room, though, and that’s always a welcome thing in a bathroom, a little more room.

Thompson: They fold up so they don’t take up much room when they’re not in use. But, you can’t really have them fold down so that no one can open the door. That won’t work, so we have to figure that one out.

Stutsman: OK. So, it sounds like the Board is in agreement to go ahead.

Board of Supervisors Administrative Assistant Carol Peters: I’ll forward this to Mike and Dwight then.

Stutsman: Great. Thank you. We’ll put this on for formal action for next Thursday so we can officially send the Iowa Organization of Women’s Attorneys a letter and telling them that we’re on tract with this problem.

Lyness: You’ll save face for me.

Stutsman: Anything we can do to help you out Janet. But, it is a great project. Isn’t it interesting it takes something like this to bring this to people’s attention. You always have in the back of your mind, what a great idea. But, it takes an organized effort like this to bring it to fruition. So, I applaud their efforts in that.

The Board of Supervisors scheduled a progress report with Information Services Director Jean Schultz on July 11th, 2000 at 10:00 a.m. The Board scheduled a pre-evaluation of Senior Dining Director Mike Foster on July 17, 2000 at 11:00 a.m. The Board scheduled a pre-evaluation of SEATS Director Lisa Dewey on August 22, 2000 at 10:00 a.m. and the evaluation on September 6, 2000 at 9:00 a.m. The Board scheduled the DHS site visit on September 19, 2000 at 1:30 p.m. The Board scheduled a site visit to General Assistance on October 3, 2000 at 1:30 p.m. The Board scheduled a site visit to the Facilities Department on October 24th at 1:30.

Stutsman: Let’s move on to Reports and Inquiries. Charlie, do you have anything this morning that you would like to report on?

Duffy: I had quite a few of them last week but didn’t get around to them. I got the last information I got for this water quality assessment of Eastern Iowa River Basins in Wales. I got that the 22nd of June. Remember, I said the last I’ve wanted to look at anything we’ve been doing this 6 years, with $4 million budgets and this will be the last one. I stamped it this time. There’s about 359 pages in this data about what’s coming down the river, especially pollution. There’s a study on whales, alluvial aquifers, which I was familiar with, shell aquifers and a lot of the cities get water from them. Anyway, this is really something else. This time I’ll pass it around but this is the last one. It’s been 6 years, $4 million bucks.

Jordahl: Might as well read it. If you could summarize that would be good.

Duffy: I guess that’s all.

Stutsman: OK. Thank you Charlie. Carol, do you have anything this morning?

Thompson: Well, I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the Senior Dining thing. A week or so ago we talked about the form that people will now be required to fill out when they participate in Senior Dining. An additional step has been added and that is that we will now have to take attendance at the congregate meal sites. So, as people go through the line, they will have to identify themselves and we’ll have to be able to keep attendance of who attended each time and how many times in a month each participant came. Since we’ve already used up the amount of money that’s available to us from Heritage, the record keeping for this will no doubt have to be done at County expense because we’ll have to pay someone then to enter this data into a database and provide it to Heritage. Sally, you made a good point last time that there is many ways to kill a program and I think that this is just another step in the demise of the Older Americans Act and I think it’s really unfortunate.

Stutsman: Is that it?

Thompson: That’s it.

Stutsman: Jonathan, do you have anything this morning?

Jordahl: Well, I want to share Carol’s concern. I met with Mike Foster yesterday and he’s detailing the difficulties of getting people to fill out these forms. I think I have a copy of that here. You know it asks them for their annual income and their race and the name of their providers and what kind of care they’re receiving. Can you get around the house, bathe, dress, use the toilet and so forth. It’s like you say, pretty invasive stuff in here. Well, they got to answer this before they can eat.

Thompson: Better before than after.

Jordahl: You don’t feel welcomed exactly. But, according to the letter that Carol received from Heritage, this is not, maybe, this is not kind of fill it out, this is fill it out because ultimately the reimbursement is going to be based on whether these forms are filled out and signed. So, there’s kind of a hard little patch here for Mike and the staff to try to get over. I suggested that, this is kind of hindsight here, but it would have been a good idea and would still be a good idea for us and anyone else to go volunteer to help with the process, I think, of getting these. I know Reverend Welsh has been doing that. Just to sort of ease this time for them.

Stutsman: Along that same line, Bob had written a couple, drafted, some letters that the Board could send. I guess I’d be interested in sending those.

Jordahl: Yes. We could. We probably should put that on the agenda to address kind of a Board response to this.

Stutsman: Yes. Can you do that Carol for next Thursday and make copies of those drafts which I thought were good? Anything else this morning Jonathan?

Jordahl: Let me see here. I don’t believe so.

Stutsman: Mike did you have anything?

Lehman: Yes. I attended the Workforce Development last Thursday afternoon in Cedar Rapids and I heard a presentation from Steven McCann. A different Steve McCann that’s with the Review Development, City Development Board. He’s with the Human Resource Recruit Initiative called Smart Career Moves and he’s involved with recruiting former Iowans to come back or even graduates who have come here for education purposes and have left because there weren’t in the past opportunities to be involved in employment. He gave some examples of how Governor Vilsack and the Economic Development groups have gone out to New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Minneapolis and attained, had receptions to try to recruit people to come back. He gave some examples even about the couple that had $200,000 set aside to purchase a home and they were able to come back to Iowa to purchase a home and also own a car, where it cost them $30,000 to obtain a parking space in New York City. Just perspective the opportunities that we have here. I passed that information on to Lora Shramek so that we could advertise some of our jobs on a web site that they have provided so that we get people that are interested in coming back may not be aware of the opportunities. Things have changed in the past several years that people… Things have changed, people have left and they’ve gone away, maybe they want to come back to retire to a simpler life, better opportunities and stuff. So, a real good report there. Also then, after that, attended the East Central Iowa Council of Governments. We had some discussion on mobile home tax, pros and cons, also heard from Iowa County Supervisor, Rod Staub, on the Highway 151, which they are proposing to do a, they say, a Super 2, and they’re 5 to 10 years away because they’re not in the 5-year funding. He talked about trails and stuff and I have some information I want to share it and he wanted support from surrounding communities and counties that would tie into that trail. So I will make that available to everyone to. They haven’t heard anything on that. Other than that I guess participated in the Coralville parade and I don’t know who’s campaigning to end a drought, but I think they have succeeding. Had a good time there. So, that is all I have.

Stutsman: OK. Thank you.

Thompson: Sally, could I add one thing?

Stutsman: Sure.

Thompson: A week before last I attended a planning session that DHS had to present to the public. There plan for their department for the next few years and I circulated that to the Board, but there were 2 things I wanted to mention that I noted in there. One is that they clearly intend not to offer services of any comprehensive nature to children with developmental disabilities or mental retardation. In the past, they have offered some services but nothing comprehensive, and now they are just stating formally that that will not be one of their services.

Stutsman: But that is not to say services won’t be provided, it will just be provided at the County level. Is…?

Thompson: We would have to take care of that.

Stutsman: OK. Yes.

Thompson: There wouldn’t be any service provided unless the disabled child was abused or neglected.

Stutsman: Right. From the State.

Thompson: From the State, right.

Stutsman: I don’t want people to be confused thinking that we are not going to be providing any services.

Thompson: Yes. Oh, thank you.

Jordahl: But to clarify, in that question of daycare, the allowance that there currently is. Are you saying that’s going to go away?

Thompson: No, because those people qualify by financial guidelines. So, you either have to qualify financially or have a protected service issue in order to receive services. Along those same lines, I think in the past, many communities have kind of looked to DHS to deal with any family that perhaps didn’t meet community norms. The schools will call, whatever, and they department has, on occasion, provided voluntary services to families. They indicated their intention to discontinue that, which I think is kind of a good thing because that will formally notify the communities that we have to pick that up with either Decat or Empowerment. Or something like that.

Stutsman: Interesting. Interesting times.

Thompson: Yes. Read it carefully, it’s a pretty interesting plan.

Stutsman: Yes. I have a chance to do that, so thanks for pointing that out. Is that it?

Thompson: Yes.

Stutsman: I just had a few things this morning. I wanted to remind Board members as well as the public that the Board will not be meeting at an evening meeting next week. Usually the second Thursday of the month is our evening meeting. Because of the Edleon Public Hearing, we have rescheduled our Board meeting to be at our regular time at 9:00 in the morning. So, I just wanted to make sure people were reminded and aware of that. Our Fair Subcommittee of the Communications Committee has been meeting and I kind of just want to fill the Board in about what our plans are for the County’s presence at the Fair. We will have a booth. Matter of fact, we will have 3 booths from County representatives. The Sheriff’s Department will have their booth, as they normally do and the Ambulance Department will have a separate booth. The rest of the County will be combining in one booth. That means, the Department of Health, Roadside Vegetation, Conservation Department. The Auditor will have his voting machine there at the booth again. And anybody else from any of the County departments that want to participate will be sharing that one large booth. But all of the County booths will be in one area so we wont be split up as we were last year. We will be having a Wheel of Fortune with questions concerning County government. We will have prizes available if people answer questions correctly. One thing, Mike, you mentioned about advertising with the HR Department, Lora has magnets available for HR, which will also be a advertising about job openings in the County to check with the HR Department if people are interested in work. So that will have a double purpose. Also have stickers and tattoos available. Plus, we have recruited some prizes from some businesses that will be available. No County dollars are used for prizes. An e-mail is being sent out for people to sign up to work at the Fair. We certainly hope that there will be a lot of participation by Board members as well as other individuals. I think that is pretty well it as far as we are hoping for good weather so that we don’t get too terribly warm. I wanted to also alert the Board that we had a fax come in yesterday that wasn’t very clear from Zambrana Engineering Company regarding the plans for the corps property concerning the MYCA campsite. Anyway, they are having a public hearing that I wanted the Board to be aware of. Carol did ask for a hard copy from the information they sent because it didn’t come through very clear at all. But any way, just for your information, there will be a public meeting about the proposed use of that land of July 12th. There will be 2 sessions, one from 2:00 to 4:00 and one from 7:00-9:00 at Penn Elementary. So Board members might want to put that on your calendar. When the hard copy comes through, that will be passed around.

Duffy: When is that again?

Stutsman: That is July 12th. Which is next Wednesday. And there is a session from 2:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon and there is one from 7:00 to 9:00. And that is concerning the Muslim Camp and this is the Engineering firm that was hired by the Corps of Engineers to do the environmental assessment on that project. And the public is invited, it is just not for Board members, but I just thought…

Duffy: Would you give me the time again?

Stutsman: There is one from 2:00 to 4:00 and then there is one in the evening from 7:00 to 9:00.

Duffy: OK. Penn Elementary?

Stutsman: Yes. The other…I lost my agenda…also wanted to remind Board members that Mikes evaluation, Mike Gardner’s evaluation is next week. Jonathan had complied are pre evaluation notes and so if we have any changes we want to make, we need to make sure to get those to Jonathan, at least by the end of the week, so that will be ready to go. I attended Sixth Judicial last week, and always part of those meetings, they give Board members an update about what’s happening with different programs in different departments with (inaudible) 6th Judicial. And one of the workers, who works with parolees in their community project, spoke about how things are changing with corrections in the 6th Judicial District. And with Community based corrections. When this was first put in place, what, 20 some years ago, the intent was to work with those fenders who had offences that weren’t real serious, maybe 3rd degree theft or things of that sort. And the particular worker came in and was just talking about how things have changed and about the offenders they are currently working with in this program. His concerns that they are getting more and more serious offenders who are in community based corrections and I think it is something the community is going to have to address at sometime whether we really want these serious offenders still out on the streets with parole. There again, it is all the back up with the court system, with the jail space, and judges making decisions about these people can still be on the streets and really some of them have no business still being on the streets. So, just for your information about how things are really changing in the communities and with the court system and things. What they are asking for is more officers and more staff to follow these people and how we are going to deal with that.

Jordahl: I assume the connection to mandatory drug sentencing was prominently mentioned.

Stutsman: Right.

Jordahl: Seems like people are being squeezed out of the correctional system by squeezing in drug offenders and it seems to me maybe some of these violent type folks be the ones left in jail.

Stutsman: Yes, it is, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but when somebody who works in the field brings this to the Boards attention, I think it deserves some consideration. Part of what they were asking for is permission to carry firearms. Historically this has not been something that they have done, but I think that they are feeling that some of these people are serious enough, or the environments that they are exposed to are serious enough that it is something that should have some serious consideration and so the Board is looking at including firearms as part of what they can have as part of their regular uniforms.

Thompson: That certainly impacts on our jail. I was surprised at the number of people in our jail who are picked up for parole on probation violations.

Stutsman: I tell you, I don’t think I would be a probation officer anymore. It is pretty intense. Pretty intense. OK. I wanted to also announce Rod Dunlap from the Conservation Department sent a letter announcing his resignation. He is giving the Board and the Conservation Department plenty of lead time, his resignation wont be official until February 1st of 2001. But Rod has certainly been at the Conservation Department a long, long time and has certainly fulfilled his duties well in that Department. So, just a heads up that Rod is resigning after the first of the year.

Jordahl: Does anybody remember when he was hired? Charlie?

Duffy: Its been a long time ago.

Jordahl: I know I have worked for him 26 years ago. So its got to be.

Stutsman: I was going to say 25, so it has been longer than that.

Thompson: He was here when I came in 1972.

Duffy: Its been longer than that. Rod has actually saved us a lot of County dollars and I brought this up one time before on the Northwest end of the park, there is a hill and a creek down there. And I think anybody else that was director of a park like that would probably have an engineer, land use planner, that type of thing because that was a real big tube, and he and the help there rolled a tube down that hill and he was 3 inches off. And it is still there. Things like that really save the County a lot of money.

Jordahl: He is not afraid of heavy equipment.

Duffy: I know it.

Jordahl: He has a long history, back to the military.

Duffy: You know those bridges that the County didn’t want.

Stutsman: Yes.

Duffy: Including the one that was picked up by a helicopter and flew it over there. He used all of those.

Stutsman: Yes, part of the walking path around the lake. So that was great he was able to incorporate those in there. Because a lot of those bridges are just historical. They are bridges that just aren’t built that way anymore so it is good to have them still in use.

Duffy: Let me tell you just one little, being of Irish decent.

Jordahl: Are you really?

Duffy: I happen to know who used to be on the Nutrition Committee with the gentleman who lived out by the County Farm. He’s passed away, how could I forget his name. Anyway, he was on the Board with us. He’s a minister, you know who I mean.

Stutsman: Oh, Wendy?

Duffy: Yes, I don’t know how I could forget that name. Anyway, they lived out there, it is kind of South of County Engineer out there. And when they picked up that bridge and I was out there, he told me himself his wife went out early in the morning, he told us that on the porch, come back in and Roy said, well, how is everything this morning? She said I just saw a bird fly by. Actually, Rod Dunlap was real good at that. It’s a beautiful park, there is no doubt about it.

Jordahl: Yes. It is quite the monument out there at this point. I helped build the beach house in that area. Do plantings and stuff. Now we have this Conservation Education Center that is a fine meeting place and he is doing Prairie Restorations and all kinds of landscaping and lots of trails to walk on. It’s really a beautiful resource.

Thompson: It is a nice place to walk.

Stutsman: OK, anything else under Board of Supervisors business?

Jordahl: Well, I did want to raise a question. We have a meeting coming up, a joint meeting with the Space Needs Committee at the Courthouse and I was wondering if we are interested in having that televised because I understand that Judge Robinson’s talk is supposed to be quite a worthy way to spend your time. What do you think, Carol?

Stutsman: I think that is something we probably need to put on the agenda for consideration.

Jordahl: Yes. That is what I mean, we should put it on the agenda.

Thompson: We have to put it on for next week, because it is next Friday.

Jordahl: Yes. Friday the 14th. We have to talk with Andy.

Thompson: Andy is looking alarmed.

Video Center Owner/Operator Andy Small: So it is not on a Thursday?

Jordahl: No, its on a Friday. The 14th.

Thompson: No, its on Friday at 10:00.

Small: I really doubt that I am available. Thursday is the one day of the week that I just set aside for your guys. But this is the business time of year for me and I know I am booked solid this whole month. I think I have 2 Sundays off. And aside from that, I am booked sold. I would love to switch it around, but other people, other clients, its kind of a sliding scale, you guys are sort of at the very bottom of the scale.

Jordahl: Is that personal?

Lehman: That is the top priority.

Small: No, (inaudible) reschedule 3 people when there are no times available. With Thursday set aside specific for you guys, that means I really only have 4 other days of the week to schedule. I am very busy. It is a very busy time. So I will check on Friday at 10:00. But I just cant imagine (inaudible) and as a matter of fact, next Friday…

Thompson: The 14th.

Small: The 14th, yes. I am almost positive I have a wedding that date that I have to videotape. So (inaudible) Friday and Saturday.

Jordahl: Time to hire more staff.

Small: Yes. I will double check, but I am really not sure. Maybe the best I could do would be one camera coverage and just send someone to do it.

Stutsman: Alright. Let Carol Peters know what your availability is.

Thompson: And we will have to tell her to put it on our agenda (inaudible) not here.

Thompson said since their last report the Space Needs Committee has visited the Health Department and the Human Services Office. She said the Space Needs Committee has changed their plans and the land bought for MH/DD won’t be used until the Jail issue is resolved. Thompson said those departments are now making plans to tide them over in the meantime. The Space Needs Committee would like to schedule a work session with the Board sometime in August where they could lay out the plan and the cost of it.

Thompson reported that there is money saved to cover the cost of the jail plans. Thompson said that that would be ready sometime in August. Thompson said there is a plan to partition off some of the Treasurer’s Office space to give Human Resources more space. Stutsman cautioned the Board in spending too much money on remodeling the Administration Building for quick fixes because they have a large remodeling job planned. Thompson reminded the Board that the Courthouse will be having it’s Centennial in 2001 and they need to prepare for that. Thompson said the Historic Preservation might have found some grant money for them to be used to help pay for the Historic Celebration and assistance on renovations to put the building back to its original condition.

Welsh: Let me comment since Carol and Jonathan have mentioned the NAPIS forms, that whole process. I want to express particular appreciation to Reed Blanchard and Betty McCray who are members of the Nutrition Committee who are really working on the tracking, attendance record keeping, and to the staff and to the participants. The participants have really been very cooperative. I think I would be interested, they mentioned you got a (inaudible) from Heritage, I would be interested in seeing that. I think one of the problems is, is that we are getting mixed messages at this point as to what is required and what’s optional, in terms of the types of information. I can tell you that the Federal Government does not require tracking. That is the decision of the State of Iowa, Department of Elder Affairs. The NAPIS form that the Federal Government has put together has a distinction between the types of information requested for home delivered meals and for Senior Dining. All of the ADL, assisted daily livings, require (inaudible) are not a part of the Federal Government’s in relation to Senior Dining program, but in relation only to the home delivered meal program. The whole section about nutritional questions on the Federal Form is merely a question are you at risk nutritionally yes, or no? The form that is being used here in the state, by Heritage lists 9 items from a check list of risk factors. Again, there are a lot of things which the State of Iowa has decided to do that’s not required by the Administration on Aging, because I have talked to the Administration of Aging, I have gotten from the Department of Elder Affairs the types of data which they are sending in to the Federal Government. But I think the important thing is to emphasize the fact that the Nutrition Program in the 2 aspects, the home delivered meal program is really an extremely important program in terms of helping keep people in their homes. The second, in terms of the Nutrition Program of (inaudible) congregate settings of Senior Dining Programs is not merely nutrition, but is a socialization and helping people to get out of their homes. And I would emphasize again and again and again in capital letters that this is not a welfare program, it is not a means tested program. I think that there are better ways of gathering statistical data then this NAPIS form and this tracking. And I appreciate your concern, but I guess I just want the general public who is listening in to realize that these are very good programs serving people and that the volunteers, the participants, and the staff are working very well to do this in the most user friendly was as possible. One of the problems is, yesterday, we are using for tracking purposes, the Senior Center number at the Senior Dining at the Senior Center. And a lot of these people really have difficulty remembering their number at this point. Part of that is just the resistance at this point to being a number. And Carol is right, this is going to add time and this may be something that in negotiations, we need to go back to Heritage and say, hey you want us to do this and this causes this problem. Is that a legitimate expense on your part? I do appreciate the fact that you are going to discuss this.

Stutsman: Thank you Bob.

Welsh: I particularly wanted to thank Reed and Betty because they are spending a lot of time.

Stutsman: If there is no other business we are adjourned.

Adjourned at 11:48 a.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary