• Updates: Interim Plans; Jail; SEATS; and Administration Building
• Discussion: Budget Update
• Discussion: Jail Update

Supervisor Carol Thompson called the Johnson County Space Needs Committee to order in the Johnson County Courthouse at 11:15 a.m. Members present were: Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, and Carol Thompson; absent: Sally Stutsman and Charles Duffy.

Thompson said she is hoping that the Committee will be able to vote today to unanimously approve the document recommendation of the Space Needs Committee. She said that the handout lists all of the things that the Committee has talked about in the last year and what they have agreed upon. Thompson said that the other document handout is a budget amendment to the Space Needs budget that the committee is asking the Board to approve during a work session to be held on August 8th. Thompson said that she would run through them one at a time to make sure everyone is in agreement. She then told the others to let her know if she hasn’t portrayed what they thought they agreed on.

Thompson said the Juvenile Court Office has already moved and is saving money on their rent. The Ambulance Department continues to evaluate their space needs and they are OK right now and other needs can be met in the near future by renting or leasing space. Thompson said there has been talk about renovating the Courthouse bathrooms. If they do that, they have to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act which would be a major expense because they would have to go into the jury room in order to get enough space. She said they are hoping that there will be some grant funding available to help them. If there is grant funding, Thompson mentioned that the other thing they talked about doing is taking the false ceiling out from over the staircase which would help make the building look more like its historic state. She said they have not recommended any renovations that would contribute to the workings of the court because the question is still open whether they wish to add to the current building or move the Courthouse to another site. Thompson said that the recommendations from the Space Needs Committee are to just make the historically significant changes to the Courthouse building and make the bathrooms comply with the ADA. She then asked if they could all agree with that. Public Health Department Director Graham Dameron asked if the approximate cost of the renovation for the bathrooms is around $100,000. Thompson and other Space Needs Committee members said that it could be more. Neumann Monson Project Architect Dwight Dobberstein said that they really don’t have a set floor plan yet. Dameron said that the renovation would also include the jury room. Thompson said that it would get painted. Dameron mentioned that the jury rooms will be really small after the renovation of the bathrooms.

Thompson said estimated costs for Courthouse renovations do not include the Harrison Street retaining wall. Dobberstein said it would cost approximately $75,000 for a concrete block retaining wall, but it would not match the existing retaining wall. County Attorney J. Patrick White asked if they could determine, historically, what the retaining wall was, and if their goal should be that. Dameron asked if the retaining wall was put in when the sidewalks were put in. White guessed that it was origionally a limestone retaining wall and the outside was added later as a temporary patch job. Dobberstein said that it would be expensive if they wanted to restore it, and he thought the goal was just to patch it. White said that is a decision that needs to be made. White said they can do creative work with concrete forms and they could probably simulate limestone. Facilities Manager Mike Scheer asked Dobberstein if when they put the wall in, would they have to tear into drive. Dobberstein said yes. Scheer said this could cause a problem. Thompson said that the wall is up for future discussion.

Thompson said the recommendation for Health and the Department of Human Services (DHS) is to make an interim plan to get them through until the building at Mall Drive can be built, probably after the jail. This includes painting and the replacement of carpet at the Health Department. Thompson said that rental costs for lease space in the ICARE building and ongoing costs would have to be paid out of the Space Needs budget and renovation to the ICARE space would be $25,000. She said that in the following year the ongoing cost would be picked up in the regular budget. She said that at DHS the furnace and the electrical repairs will result in reduced utility costs. Department of Human Services Area Administrator Cheryl Whitney said that they should include carpet and painting along with the lights and then look at the mechanical repairs. Jordahl said ventilation is also a concern a DHS and Whitney replied that the landlord is working on that.

Thompson said that SEATS Director Lisa Dewey has said that she has located space and will be making a proposal to the Board of Supervisors including lease costs for the current year which would come out of the Space Needs budget. Thompson said that Dewey still has to address the question of the current lease of the building where they are now. Thompson said that the long range plan for SEATS is to seek a federal grant through ECICOG to build a building at Secondary Roads within 5 years. However, Thompson mentioned, the lease runs out in 2 years so they have to move somewhere in the interim. Thompson said that there is money to accommodate that.

Thompson said at Senior Dining they have recognized a need for office space and storage at Senior Dining, but because all of those arrangements have to made with the City of Iowa City the Space Needs Committee hasn't made a recommendation

Thompson said that the long-range plan for the Administration Building is to add on to the building to give more space for all of the offices. She recommended that in the interim, they address the immediate needs of office space for the HR staff, the GIS Coordinator, and the future Building Inspectors. Thompson said that these needs could be addressed by temporarily dividing the Treasurer’s Office, so HR uses the two offices on the front end of the building. She said that the room would be divided in 2 and a little non-confidential conference room would be at the front of the room. Thompson then suggested that after electronic record storage is completed, 4 small offices could be put on the north wall for the Treasurer and his staff which would cost roughly $10,000. She said that the current HR office could then go to the GIS Coordinator. She said the storage space on the 2nd floor could be converted into 2 offices for Building Inspectors by adding a door and wall at minimal expense. Thompson said they still have extra carpet squares and the only other expense is paint. She said that the cost for materials would be about $1,000 and $4,000 for labor if they hire outside. Thompson said that if Scheer and his staff did some of it, the cost would be less.

County Treasurer Tom Kriz said that it would not be ideal to have partitions for their offices. He said he hesitates to give up the 2 offices that he has. Kriz said that they did get some cost estimates that were really high. Thompson said those estimates included adding windows. She then suggested that they could have partitions that went almost to the ceiling, but still allowed in some light. Kriz said that he is certainly willing to work in this situation, but moving from an office to a partition is not going to work for his office. Kriz said that he did not want to slow down the proposal, but he wanted to make sure that it is done right. He also mentioned that someday the Drivers License Division of the Department of Transportation will be in the Treasurer’s Office. Thompson said that they don’t want to build anything permanent that they can’t take out when they remodel the entire building. Dobberstein said that if you build a wall to the ceiling, that will effect the lighting and the air conditioning and there will be more expenses if a permanent wall was built. Jordahl said that he didn’t see how drywall and some electrical wiring would equal up to $100,000. Dobberstein said the estimate was large because of the addition of windows. Dobberstein said in that short term, cubicles make sense, but in the long term, the Treasure needs that space. Jordahl said that a way to do it long term would be to design a long term project and then back up and see what it looks like for today. Thompson said that offices with windows are $100,000 and 9 foot cubicles are $10,000.

White said that he is going to argue against the jury rigging that they are talking about. He said that if the Board is unwilling to do the larger project, doesn’t it still make sense to go back to the original plan which was filling in the front entrance of the building. He said that filling in the spaces in front was where they started and then they expanded to say that that was only a short-term answer. White said that a short-term solution that would create more office space is to fill in the 2 first floor front-end spaces. He said they should do it right, and do it permanently. Dobberstein said that was part of the long-range plan. White said if the larger project is now 3 or 5 years away, why don’t they do a portion of the long-range plan now which will create more space. Dameron agreed because if they put offices or cubicles in the Treasurer’s Office there is no space gain. He said that he didn’t know what that cost was, but it didn’t seem initially too high and it seems to be a reasonable investment that would give the other County departments the space that they need at this point in time. He said that he knew that there was some crunch to get it solved right now and that this suggestion would take 6 or 8 months. Dameron also said that maybe by that time, they would need the storage space, and the dividers could be used for other offices so the functionality would not be lost. Kriz said that if they were still going to do anything, they should make it permanent enough so that they can use it when other things happen such as the DOT moving in. Jordahl said the changes they are proposing to the Administration Building doesn’t add space, but closing in the front of the building does add space, which makes more sense.

White said he thought they had an agreement with the Board of Supervisors to have a revolving land acquisition fund consisting of $500,000 to $1,000,000. Thompson said that was what the Space Needs Committee wanted, but the Board didn’t approve it. White said that they should take the $110,000 out because they are not going to acquire any land for that. Thompson said that it keeps their budget line items. White said this policy says to him that they’re not in the business of acquiring land in the next fiscal year. He continued, if someone shows up with land available east or north of the Administration building, or anywhere the County might have an interest, they would have to say sorry, come back to us next year. Thompson suggested they look at the budget and find where they could pull money out. Jordahl asked them to look at the DHS Health building construction which has $209,000, but the repairs they are talking about wouldn’t cost that much.

Thompson said that they didn’t put enough money in for some budget items. She said they need to move money around to accommodate the recommendations that they are making. Thompson said that she took $99,365 from SEATS because they know that is more than what they need to make an immediate move and if they can get a grant for the future building, they do not need to be saving large amounts of money. Thompson said she took $5,340 to clear the deficit on the Chatham Oaks Project. She then added $10,000 to make the total for the Health Department building $54,000. She wiped out the $16,000 deficit for the Eastdale Mall remodeling. She added $20,000 to the jail financial consultant because they know there are expenses occurring right now for that. She also added to the County-wide Space Needs evaluation to take out the deficit and then she put in $10,000 to pay for Dobberstein to do evaluations. She added $35,000 to bring the total for the Courthouse Space Needs up to $147,000. She said that still shows $607,000 that the County has saved for the Administration building. She said that if they wanted to take money out somewhere, they could put more money into the land acquisition which currently only has $110,000.

Whitney asked if $209,000 for the DHS construction was in contract payments. Thompson showed where that question would lie on her graph and she said that the total was 0, but next year, they would put money in. Jordahl said 607,000 for the Administration building would cover more than what they were talking about. Thompson said the total project would be around $2,000,000. Dobberstein said he thought White was correct, that it would cost $250,000 to fill in the front of the building. Thompson asked if they should put the remaining money in land acquisition. She then reminded the Space Needs Committee that they are just making recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. Dobberstein said that they should make it $300,000 to be safe.

Jordahl, at the risk of reopening a prior discussion, said all of the numbers exist in the context of the jail. He said that in one sense, they should put all of their money into the jail. But, he said he agreed with the philosophy of White and Dameron of doing whatever they are going to do correctly, instead of cobbling it together. Thompson asked if the Committee agreed with the proposal to leave $300,000 in for the Administration building and move the reminder to land acquisition. Kriz said that the movement makes sense. White said that they were not going to spend $200,000 on the DHS building in the next year so they might as well label it land acquisition. Dameron said that he thought it would be good to have some funds to have Dobberstein start looking at a design. Thompson said that this is just an earmarking, if they need money for something, they can still use it. Whitney asked if there is anything they can do to the Mall Drive property to make it more buildable. Dameron said that until the have a plan, it wouldn’t made sense to do anything. The Committee decided to set aside $102,000 the renovation of Public Health and DHS.

White said the Board is going to make a judgement within the next month as to how much money they can leverage for the jail project. Jordahl said the money the committee has outline, $557,000 and $617,000 together is the cost of 1 years transporting prisoners if the bond issue fails. Whitney said that the County needs to demonstrate that they have put any extra money into the jail, and not have to ask for it from a bond issue. Jordahl suggested putting $500,000 from land acquisition into jail space needs improvement and changing the category to jail space needs improvement/prisoner housing transport. The other Committee members disagreed. Jordahl said that it has to come out of some budget, and coming from a voters perspective, the money is for the same purpose, it is either to house prisoners in their new jail or to house prisoners in someone else’s jail. Thompson said if they have land acquisition and they need it for the jail, they can always move it. Dewey suggested that they would have $500,000 under land acquisition and $674,196.96 in the jail. Thompson asked if that would be OK with the others. White said their jail savings has to get closer to a couple million. Jordahl said that if they called it $1,000,000, he would be more comfortable when they have a bond issue because they could say that they have been saving.

White said that if the lumber yard near the Administration Building shows up on the market next week, they have to be there or they will lose it for half a century or longer. Jordahl asked what that says about putting 1 million dollars in the jail account. White said it would say that they don’t have enough money. Thompson said that they will have to talk about the jail account at the time when they do the discussion about the financing. Dameron said they should contribute a sizeable portion to the jail, but there is always extras that were not thought of before that need to be done. There may be some need for additional money to be used to really do the Jail right. He then said that this funding could be used for a back up, and if not used for that, then maybe land acquisition. White said that that was a different approach than what he was arguing for. He said that when they go to the voters, their best bet for the $12,000,000 project is to say that they are asking for the voters to approve bonds to finance $10,000,000. He said that he thinks they need to contribute to the up front cost as much as they can. Thompson said that because the whole amount of their savings is $1.9 million, they do not have 2 million to put in. White said that they could contribute more and if the bond issue passes and things go perfect, they will be constructing for 2 more fiscal years that they are not budgeting for right now. He said that they could commit future budgets in that document. Thomson asked if they wanted to go for 1 million in the jail and $174,000 in land acquisitions. The Committee agreed the jail is their priority.

Motion by Dameron, second by Whitney, to approve the plan as outlined with the following changes: filling in the front of the Administration Building for more space; removal of building costs for the DHS Health building to be placed in the jail and land acquisition funds with totals of $1,000,000 and $174,000 respectively. (The motion passed unanimously).

A work session with the Board of Supervisors was scheduled for August 8, 2000 at 9:00 a.m.

Thompson began by saying that yesterday the Board appointed a site selection committee and voted to go ahead with solving the problem of jail overcrowding. She said that the sites being considered are 2 plots of land at Melrose Avenue, the current jail site and the space right across from the Administration building. She said they need to solve the matter of whether or not the University will give them space, and include that in their decision making and presentation to the public. Lehman said that he had spoken to Doug True from the University of Iowa, and who said they weren’t interested in selling the County any land and were willing to put it in writing. Dewey said that one of the other considerations in looking at the placement of the jail is grant funding for other facilities. She mentioned that when they do grant funding for their facility, they look at what facilities they will also be working with. Dewey said that because she is working on her facility piece, she may ask for a special committee session so she would like to keep August open for a possible meeting. They scheduled a meeting for August 18th at 10:00 a.m. for a special Space Needs Committee meeting and a meeting on September 8 at 10:00 a.m.

Adjourned at 12:15 p.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary

Meeting immediately followed by Joint Meeting of Supervisors and Space Needs Committee