Stutsman: Any other questions or comments? Tom?

County Auditor Tom Slockett: I have some questions. I was appointed to the Site Selection Committee. I was appointed when I already had a commitment when the meeting was held. Some of the questions I would have asked had I had the opportunity and some of the information I would have wanted relate to some of the questions that former Sheriff Schneider asked. I appreciate you, Maynard, coming here and just for disclosure purposes we haven’t talked about this before and I didn’t know he was coming or what his position was. One of the interesting things to me is that this is what you have disclosed as the site around the current Jail. What was interesting to me isn’t what was included in the site, but some of the things that weren’t included. That’s one of the things that former Sheriff Schneider brought up is that you did not included the whole Clinton Street which goes along the east side of the Jail. There are 2 parcels of land along Clinton and Prentis that could possibly be acquired. There is a large federal parking lot. There’s the entire Courthouse site. We once had a bond issue for a joint County/City law enforcement and Jail on that site. That is land that is currently owned by the County and is adjacent to the Courthouse. One of the points that was brought up that I appreciate is that it is important to have a secure access between the Courthouse and the Jail. In addition to that there is a federal lot which is adjacent to the Courthouse right across the street. Across the street from that is the current headquarters for the Iowa City School District. There is a large amount of public land some owned by the County some owned by the federal government some owned by the school district adjacent to the Courthouse and to the Jail. To me it would make so much more sense to pursue a limited expansion that could be staged for the future along those properties than it would be for a whole new site for a 255-bed facility.

Stutsman: But it seems like there are so many limitations about what you can do with a building on those sites. Because I think some of what we are talking about is the efficiencies that would be gained by a building that allows a reduced number of staff that can view all these pods. I’m just not hearing what we could do with the current site that would encourage that kind of efficiency and staffing. It seems like it might be a trade off. Maybe a trade off with the current site and maybe some cheaper cost in acquisitions and I don’t even know if that’s a possibility for long-term operating cost that is just… It seems like my experience has always been building a building is one thing. It’s the operating costs that are really an on-going cost that people loose site of. We may save some money up front, but then in the long term… That’s what I’m interested in, something that will maximize our staff efficiencies and save on operating costs.

Jordahl: That’s a very important point and I wonder if we could get some numbers put to that by someone. I don’t know if Sheriff Carpenter wants to address this. But I think the magnitude of these numbers, the multiples that they are how many more staff it’s like twice as many staff to watch half as many prisoners. Can you help with that Bob?

Schneider: Well the type of prisoners are not going to change. The ones that need to be in a lock up system, that’s not for people that are killing, it’s the people that they’re bringing in on Saturday night and all these people and OMVI’s and things like that that are going to be there for a day or 2 and they’re going to be gone. That’s bringing our numbers up.

Stutsman: But it was my understanding, Bob…

County Sheriff Bob Carpenter: I disagree, Maynard on that point, because the percentage of alcohol related arrests may be higher than some of than some of the others. But for most alcohol related arrests there’s always another serious charge or a lot times a more serious charge. Usually an assault goes along with an intox. The problem I’ve got is that if you look at my daily long right now you’ll see that is not our problem. That takes our 103 average count up to 130 on a weekend. But they don’t put us back down to our legal level. I disagree with the fact that the State isn’t going to do anything because Scott County thought that too. They’re shifting prisoners under court order to Illinois and Wisconsin. Polk County is going clear down to Missouri right now. Washington County was closed. I don’t think we can set back and…

Schneider: That’s why we need regional jails, Bob.

Carpenter: Regional jails aren’t the way its going Maynard.

Schneider: That’s because each one of you don’t want to get off your…

Carpenter: I don’t care Maynard, you get someone to take responsibility. I don’t want responsibility for Washington County’s prisoners. We’re number 6 or 7 in the state for population is the way I look at it.

Schneider: You’re not taking the responsibility. You’re going to have a whole new setup. You’re going to have your jail back here and that set up out there. They’re going to have whole different people.

Carpenter: Maynard I really don’t care. If you don’t remember when they have the election.

Thompson: Perhaps we could ask the man from Venture. They discuss the regional jails concept and informed the Board at our last meeting about their thoughts on that. Maybe you could just briefly run over that one more time.

Cain: I don’t have my notes but I’ll try to summarize some of the points that we made, because regional jails do make sense in parts of the country.

Schneider: That’s a beautiful setup you’ve got for a regional jail.

Cain: This jail would not preclude Johnson County from renting beds to other adjoining counties or perhaps even the State of Iowa to generate income. That possibility will always exist in your jail even as the sole owner of the facility. There have been, and are 2 case studies for regional jails in the State of Iowa. I’m not good at Iowa county names. I know generally where they are though. There’s a study that has been going on for a number of years in the northeastern part of the state up near Dubuque. 5 or 6 counties have been talking for a number of years about a jail facility. The bottom line for that: the whole deal fell through. One or several of the counties decided to do their own thing and the others are essentially left trying to determine for themselves what they’re going to do. There is still a second regional jail concept being developed south of Des Moines, a number of counties that are in that part of the state. Likewise they have been involved in a study for quite a number of years and they’ve just recently gone out for another feasibility study to determine whether that makes sense for them. It’s interesting to note that if you took the total population of those several counties, that total population doesn’t even begin to equal the single population, citizen population of Johnson County. What they’re trying to do in the Southern part of the state is provide for efficiency. A small jail is extremely inefficient. You’re goal is to have pods of 100 beds where you would have one officer who can see and manage the entire 100 people. For a small county to have 12 or 15 or 20 beds and have that same officer observing them is very staff inefficient. Sally you talked about long term operating costs, that’s what they’re going to be dealing with. That’s why they are trying as best they can to come together, come to terms with a single regional facility. There are examples of regional jails throughout the United States. But the issue has to do in some cases with state laws and whether it’s allowed. It has to do primarily and almost the bottom line is the ability for these counties to get together and agree upon location being one. Because one sheriff will have it in his or her county and everybody will have to deal with those transportation costs. So again there’s an operating cost and a burden to those other counties. Granted in mathematics of the deal you can work all of that out so it’s even across the board. But as part of our report and recommendation from several weeks ago, our concern with Johnson County was really 2 fold. One the time that it would require to try to put together a deal with the adjoining counties. We did talk to all of them. 2, the fact that you have already here enough critical mass, the inmates that you really can be thinking about your own efficient jail facility. You don’t really need those other beds, you don’t really need them to make a regional jail. But as I said at the beginning, the strong opportunity that you have to rent those beds to those adjoining counties or the State of Iowa because you will have beds available when you do open up. I’m not sure if I’ve answered your question.

Stutsman: Bob you had a comment.

Kemp: We did talk about this quite a lot, the transportation problems and so on. Let me say that I’m very deliberate, more so than I should be about anything. 2 things did persuade me about the Jail. One that you mentioned. That is the staffing costs increase aware going to be less than you’d anticipate. As you say usually when you open a new building, for example the University, the costs are just tremendous. But the costs of an efficient jail or a new jail one proposed here, those seemed to be under control and would be less than before. The other thing that persuaded me was that a new jail, or in this case a better jail than before because it would contain facilities for the kind of population that we have in our jails. Nonviolent dormitory kind of situation. The one we just mentioned here, the people who have mental and other kind of problems that are difficult to house in our present jail. Then those who are not too good of customers and have a place for them separate from the others. It just made sense to me once I looked at them that those 2 things were overwhelming arguments for a new jail. Now there are arguments against any change and if we can make the prisoners go away I would be all for that. My god I would be for that. But I just don’t see anything clinically happening in the country or in our state that’s going to make that happen. I think this plan is the best plan we can come up with. I say we did investigate. I remember our investigation of the regional jails and all of the kinds of things that you’ve talked about. In the beginning it made a lot of sense. But the political problems and the transportation problems made me think that wasn’t as good of an idea as it seemed. It does seem like a wonderful idea.

Stutsman: I think John makes a good point. When we talk about our population here in Johnson County versus these other rural areas, I think we forget where the population is concentrated. I’ve been doing some work in Louisa and Muscatine County and you really do get a very tunnel vision of what’s happening in Johnson County versus the needs in these rural counties and how it differs and it’s not the same. It’s not the same at all.

Schneider: Well, there’s no question that we need a jail. I’m not against the jail and facilities. But, I may say what you’re going to get passed and what you’re not going to get passed. You can put a Cadillac type building out there and if it doesn’t pass you’re not going to use it. You’ve got to get down to something that people are going to buy. As it is now, they’re not going to buy it. I’ve been around enough to know it’s not going to pass. Especially not in the year when everybody’s voting.

Jordahl: Bob, I tried to ask earlier about the cost differential. Sally, I think, alluded to that or maybe it was Venture, the staffing costs of the new jail design would actually be lower than the staffing of the current facility in terms of the number of people that are going to supervise and so forth. Can you speak to that a little more clearly?

Carpenter: In prisoner ratio?

Jordahl: Dollars, I don’t care how you express it but I’d like to know.

Carpenter: I don’t know if I’m qualified. From what I understand is that for prisoner ratio it is more economical than to the old jail cells that we’ve got. But, common sense would tell you, is if you’ve got 255 prisoners, it’s going to take more than it would take to take care of 25 or 46. We’re running almost 100 right now and we’re understaffed now. We had 2 incidences last week with the injury of 2 officers.

Jordahl: I would have to guess completely hypothetically and being unqualified to really speak about it that the conditions where you have double bunking don’t help any when it comes to conflicts between people.

Lehman: I’ve heard it said, I don’t know quite the numbers on it, but 90% of your budget is personnel. If you have approximately 22 on your staff now to take care of, plus or minus the 100 inmates at Rhinelander which is 250 beds and they had a staff of 25 or 26. Because of the modern design it took less people to look at that. That’s what we’re looking at, efficiency. We’re trying to do something to the old jail site. You’re going to be very inefficient. You’ve got to maintain those old cells with a certain number of people, then you’re going to have a new construction which is more efficient, but your personnel dollars are going to still really spike up.

Carpenter: Let me say one thing Mike. The problem we’ve got is our building is fine. There’s no question. Our building is fine but we’re running over. It was built to house 46 inmates. The intake was built to take in 46 inmates. Rhinelander was a beautiful facility, but even Rhinelander was not built… They’ve got a population of about 36,000 people in Rhinelander. They built their jail, a 200 bed capacity to take in outside prisoners, they actually only book in 1 or 2 prisoners a day compared to we do 40. So, our intake procedures alone aren’t large enough for us. Our facility would have to be larger, not only intake. Same way with cooking. We talk about expanding of our present site. There’s no way shape or form that our kitchen area is capable of feeding 250 people. It’s not. It just barely handles the 100 population right now. It was built to take care of 46 people, the same way with intake booking and the whole works. The building is just really too small. That’s our problem.

Lehman: I appreciate a lot of the comments of people that would like to purchase land in that area, whether it be parking lot now or apartments or whatever. But, we don’t have a history of being out there and purchasing land for future use and sitting on it. We did buy some property at Mall Drive with not immediate short-term use for it. We don’t have a history of doing that like the University does where you see a parking lot and then in a couple of years you’ll see a building. I’d worry about paying ourselves into a corner. If we were able to buy a piece with the intent of having to expand in another 10 years, that other piece may not be there. We just don’t have that history. That’s something I worry about is paying ourselves into a corner trying to enlarge there and faced with another dilemma here and we’re right back where we started short term in 10 years.

Stutsman: Yes. Mike, to add on that, I think this Board has tried to be more futuristic or more progressive in dealing with issues. Because so many times the things that we dealt with are things that are the consequences of not having long term planning. This is painful. I know there is a lot of feeling about this Jail and the cost of it. But I think this Board is trying to position ourselves so we’re not having to face that same painful set of circumstances in 10 years, 20 years from now, to have a facility that can allow for that expansion. All indications I have is that Johnson County is going to continue to grow. I have no reason to believe that we are going to have a reduction in population and an increase in the need for a facility like this. I wish it weren’t that way. Like Carol said, I would love anything to spend this money on childcare. Love to spend this money on things that will prevent us having to have a jail, but I don’t see that happening. I just don’t. This is a tough decision for the Board. It’s a tough decision for the community. Nobody wants to spend this kind of money. But, when I look at the alternatives, I just don’t see anything else. We’re either going to pay now or we’re going to pay incrementally for additional operating costs for our current facility. That means outside of Johnson County.

Jordahl: I think this is the comparison that needs to be drawn. Mr. Schneider, I’d like to address the question in a way specifically with respect to your earlier comments about there’s no way this is going to pass. The question before the public will be not whether we want to spend money on housing prisoners, when we’re going to spend additional large amounts of money on housing prisoners. The question is are we going to spend it in Johnson County or are we going to spend it somewhere else where they already have a jail that will take the prisoners. Sheriff Carpenter estimates if we had a legitimate capacity of 92 prisoners a day and we’re regularly running up to 130, we’re likely to get an order from the State to bring our population down to a level that will give us some head room. He estimates transporting 30 prisoners so we get an order that from where we’re at now, we need to pull down by about 30 in order to be operating at a reasonable level. Stop me when I go astray here.

Carpenter: Let me point that out. The Board of Supervisors got a letter from the State in January, indicating we have an overcrowding problem. At that time, that 30 figure is the figure that the State Jail Inspector gave me, that they come in and tell us to start shipping people out. That 30 would be the mark because it would put us down in the 70 area and it would give us room to operate within, so that we didn’t have a bunch of people lying on mattresses.

Jordahl: Right. So, even taking the most conservative estimate of the cost of housing a prisoner in a bed at $65 a day in some other place, you’ve got 30 prisoners times $65 a day times 365 days a year to start. That has not included the cost of overtime for the deputies to take them to another state to house them or wherever they are taken. It doesn’t include the wear and tear on the cars. It doesn’t include the gasoline. A safe estimate, I believe, of the costs, as soon as we get an order from the State to transport those 30 prisoners is in the neighborhood of a million dollars the first year. As Sally has said, with the growing population of the County that’s a million dollars the first year, but it doesn’t go away for the 2nd year, we got more people to transport. At some point there’s going to be a recognition, and I think as soon as we go through the next budget process.

Schneider: I think then is when the City and the University and Coralville ought to start paying their way as far as prisoners are concerned. There’s no reason we should have to take them. They can have a lock up. We don’t have to take those prisoners down to the County Jail. They used to have a lock up in Iowa City. Johnson County didn’t have to take care of those prisoners at all. The next day they were taken to court and they were either let loose or brought to the County with papers. The County is paying for what actually we shouldn’t have to pay for.

Thompson: Is there someone here who can speak to that because that’s not the information that we already have been given?

Slockett: I can speak to something relative to that. One of the things that the Board may not know about, because frankly I don’t think it’s looked at. A lot of the things going on elsewhere around the State, is, Dubuque County is about to put a jail expansion on the November ballot and I believe it’s something around the $5 million level. They have 46 prisoners currently. It’s a population of about 88,000 and that is in conjunction with a million and a half dollars from the City of Dubuque. That would go along with what you’re saying, that it might be possible for the cities and the University seen contributing to this cost. Why should a farmer in Graham Township have to pay all these additional costs because Iowa City is hiring new police officers?

Schneider: Well, the University has all the (inaudible), too.

Slockett: And arresting students and bringing them to our jail?

Thompson: Well, I think it’s fine if they want to help out and clearly the City of Dubuque has offered to do that. But, do we have any leverage? Does anybody know that we have any leverage whatsoever to make the cities pay for part of this?

Jordahl: I think that’s Pat’s question.

Stutsman: Yes Pat.

Schneider: Patrick.

Stutsman: Any thoughts?

White: Not today I don’t. Nobody has really asked me to participate very deeply in any of this discussion to this point and I’m certainly not going to guess at that one.

Slockett: Well, say one person has asked you.

Thompson: Yes, well, let’s ask because that’s an important thing.

Schneider: I know that what Bob is running through is no different than when I was there or Gary was there. We were always short of help. We never had enough help. I remember a time when the riots were on and we had probably 200 people housed in the garage over at the Courthouse. We didn’t have any place else to put them so we kept them there until we got them booked. We had the Jail full and everything else full. That’s no different than what they have. The State wasn’t about to indulge. We had too many prisoners, what are we going to do with them.

White: One of the important historical things, not to forget, is the current Jail was the product of a pretty extraordinary intergovernmental agreement between the City of Iowa City, the University of Iowa and Johnson County. The University gave us, no cost for the land for the current site as part of that exchange. The City of Iowa City gave the University the Harrison Street right-of-way. So, what we’ve been doing for 20 years was the product. We paid for the construction but the site was the product of a cooperative effort between those 3 entities.

Stutsman: Several of us have another meeting at 3:00. We do have action on the agenda today for the jail site selection. I don’t know if the Board is ready to take action today or if we have additional questions.

Jordahl: Can I get one more question into Pat?

Stutsman: If you could briefly ask it Jonathan.

Jordahl: It’s a brief question. Mr. Schneider stated that we do not have an obligation to provide a jail for the cities and my understanding was the contrary. Can you put that to rest for me?

Schneider: (Inaudible) jail but they got to pay for it.

White: If that’s a question the Board wants me to look at I’m happy to do it. I’m not going to guess at it this afternoon. But, to put that question in some context, the way we’re functioning now is, in a sense, a regional jail. The policy makers who decided what to do 20 years ago decided it didn’t make sense to have each city having its own holding cell, both in terms of safety of prisoners, safety of officers. It made a lot more sense to consolidate where people were held in the Johnson County Jail, administered by the Johnson County Sheriff.

Schneider: Did the Highway Patrol bring their people in?

White: Yes.

Carpenter: If you think back you’re going to find out that Codes, and I think it’s changed in the last 20 years because at one time it was in the Code I believe, where a municipality was responsible for those prisoners until such time that they could see the magistrate or go before the judge. At that time the judge was the one that referred them into the County Jail. I can’t find that in the Code anywhere now. Remember a few years ago I did ask you about…

White: Indeed I do remember.

Carpenter: …charging the City and at that time we didn’t find anything. The only thing here we can do is charge them a per diem on the City ordinance charge. But in most cases what happened they get a State charge tacked along with it and that eliminates it. We were always required to take State prisoners. That was in the Code, we were mandated to take prisoners from off the Highway Patrol and the DCI or BCI, at that time, and I can’t find anything to change that.

Schneider: Bob, I remember when I was first came into the Sheriffs Office. They didn’t even open the office up down there until 8 in the morning and they left at 4 o’clock to play golf. There was no one there to take care of the Jail. The Highway patrol got started they took all the prisoners over to the City and the City took care of them. I’m not arguing about getting a jail, don’t get me wrong I’m all for it. I can understand the problem. But I think the biggest thing is to get it passed. Like I said a Cadillac’s fine if you can buy it. Let’s buy the best thing we can and get it done.

Stutsman: I think there’s been some good questions this afternoon. I for one Supervisor and I think there’s probably support for Pat to clarify what the County’s role is versus dealing with the University and the with the City of Iowa City. Do we in fact by the Code have to…

Schneider: Everybody’s sponging off you and they will as long as they can.

Stutsman: I guess it would be interesting to see how Story County handles this because they also have a University and I know that the county there has just built a new facility so if they got some arrangement worked out it might be…

Thompson: Well their city has a jail too.

Stutsman: I don’t know.

Thompson: Don’t they?

Stutsman: I don’t know.

White: I don’t know

Thompson: I thought someone told me that they did.

Lehman: Need to do some research.

Jordahl: If we could get some more money from somebody that would be great. I want to see… Tony might be the guy to get this from, a comparison. Tony Roetlin is our financial adviser for the Jail project. The comparison of the cost for transporting prisoners projected for 10 to 20 years and the cost of dealing with the bond issue if it were to pass based on the best estimate of the cost of the Jail. Look at that as an annual cost of the tax payers starting with the next fiscal year.

Stutsman: Do we want to take action today? I’m sorry Tony did you have a comment?

Jail Project Financial Advisor Tony Roetlin: I was going to respond to that. I could provide that if that is the Board’s wish, a week from now at the same time.

Jordahl: I think it’s going to be an important number to have. The question really before the taxpayers is how much are we going to be paying to transport or house prisoners next year or sooner.

Slockett: Aren’t these going to be extremely hypothetical assumptions?

Jordahl: No, they’re not.

Lehman: We won’t know how many prisoners or how far. We need some type of target. We need some type of number at least used as a comparison.

Kemp: The Committee has that number of increasing the costs.

Jordahl: The number I’ve seen from the Committee so far did not include any cost for transportation over time.

Carpenter: Just for housing.

Jordahl: Just for housing. There’s an extra 30% or something in there.

Lehman: Personnel.

Dobberstein: I think our schedules that the Board would make a decision on this by the next meeting. We wouldn’t have to make it today, but we do need to select a site if we’re to proceed any further with the design. Ultimately what we want is to get a cost estimate and that’s contingent on which site. I think if we could pick a site out loud as to proceed then we could show you the concept and design and address the question whether this is a Cadillac or not.

Jordahl: Part of our choice of Venture was that they were not known for designing Cadillac’s, they were a more Chevrolet operation.

Thompson: I think it’s important for the video audience to point out the current site discussion included land that we don’t own that we have been told by the University they don’t intend to give us or sell us. It would be very difficult to expand on the current site.

Schneider: They all were talking about air rights as far as… We’re not talking about street rights from the City or anything else but we look for them to get some pillars or something in the ground. We’ll have to have some rights. We’re not asking for the street rights, we’re just asking for the air rights to that street.

Slockett: I don’t think it’s clear that the University would not exercise good citizenship like they did in contributing land for this Jail and cooperating with the County on a new jail site. I don’t think that letter that the Board solicited makes that case whatever.

Duffy: I don’t see how we can vote today.

White: Well you’re in informal session anyway.

Duffy: I mean we ought to have a consensus.

Schneider: They’re going to vote on the library on the same time aren’t they.

Stutsman: Yes.

Schneider: That’s gonna kill us.

Jordahl: But we have to have a jail.

Kemp: Depends on how good of a job we do.

Stutsman: I agree too Bob. I think it’s educating.

Schneider: All the people against the library are going to be out and they’re going to vote against both of them. It would be a lot better off if they weren’t both on there.

Kemp: We don’t know that.

Stutsman: They would probably say the same thing about us too. It sounds like the Board has some questions that it wants answered about what the role is with the University and the City as far as our responsibilities with the Jail and Pat if that would be OK for you to get the information for us. Also from Tony some figures on cost of transportation and housing.

Roetlin: For clarification purposes what I could do is take the projections of the transportation and housing costs and compare them with what would be more in my venue which would be bond issues costs over a 20 year period or something like that. I would be dove tailing in with final projections of transportation should that answer your question.

Jordahl: Yes. I just would hope that as you produce those numbers the ones you have to work with do not include the transportation costs, only the housing costs of transported prisoners. At least a footnote should be in there to say that this does not include which are estimated somewhere in the neighborhood of or something to give it a real sense of comparison.

Kemp: The cost of the bond is an important figure for us to have.

Slockett: One thing Tony you may not realize is that this is something Jonathan has been trying to get for months. Bob and Dwight and Mr. Cain have consistently told him that they felt that the more conservative housing cost was one that was not as speculative and would be easier to defend to the public. What Jonathan is asking is to try to add in transportation costs which are so variable because transportation to where? Missouri, Minnesota, or just to Black Hawk County and for how many prisoners is very hard to say.

Jordahl: Whatever they are they’re not nothing.

Slockett: They’re not nothing.

Lehman: An average figure is better than not planning for anything.

Stutsman: And we could certainly qualify whatever we put together. Pat is it possible to get that information to the Board by our next formal meeting?

Thompson: Sally, actually August 24th would be the date when we have to vote on the funding method and the question of who’s going to pay would fit in there. So we could give Pat some extra time there if he needs it.

White: I could do it by the 24th. Next week is pretty problematic. Running the risk of opening more of a discussion than I really want to, it’s hard for me to say that without risking it however. One of the things I worry about is, I think there are a lot of questions that we’re hard pressed to get to final conclusions on in the time frame that is before you if you’re going to be on the November ballot.

Jordahl: Such as?

White: We haven’t heard any numbers and theoretically we’re 27 days away from deciding whether to put this on the November ballot. You’ve not been provided a cost estimate for this project.

Thompson: Next week. Right on the list for next week

Jordahl: I think Sheriff Carpenter has been provided with a cost estimate but there’s a question…

Stutsman: Well we have to nail down the site before we can come up with any cost estimates.

Lehman: Design for a site development and a building.

White: I think you can debate that. It depends what approach you take to site evaluation. The site evaluation that you’re engaged in so far is largely subjective. There’s no cost benefit analysis that’s been done or at least that’s been presented in terms of site analysis. I don’t know what the dollar difference is between site A and site C. Clearly there are going to be cost differences. But I think the point at which you ask the voters to say yes or no, which is where we’re headed, they’re going to quickly start asking those questions. I’m just worried that we’re doing too much too fast here strictly to get a decision made by the end of August.

Jordahl: If you’re suggesting that we have no cost analysis that we would have to go through and do the borings and so forth on the property north here and then assume that somehow the cost of dealing with the problems that might exist on site A would exceed the cost of land acquisition on site C?

White: No I don’t know. It’s part of a balancing to say this is the best site. It seems to me you need to know what those numbers are. You haven’t yet made a decision about size of facility. You’re being presented with a recommendation for a 255-bed facility, which is more than double your existing facility. You at least haven’t started a discussion about whether that’s what we can and should do today. Are 255 beds the goal today? Clearly I’ve opened a much larger discussion. We need a new jail or a significantly expanded jail. This is a very good plan. As all of you know I’ve started with a strong bias for the current location and I’m giving that up fairly reluctantly. This may well be the best site. If this plan is going to cost a million and half to 2 million dollars a year to service and staff that’s a consideration that fairly soon needs to get on the table as part of discussing what the voters are going to be approving. I’m pulling that number out of the air. This is going to be a multi-million dollar bond issue. Principle and debt service are probably are going to be somewhere between a million and 2 million dollars a year plus you’re going to have significant additional staff costs. I just live in fear of imagining putting that down on top of your existing budget. Even with voter approval. It’s going to have to have voter approval. You know how much you struggle to get your budget down as it is. If you’re starting in a of couple years adding 2 or 2 and a half million dollars to your existing budget...

Lehman: That’s a good point. We’re going to have to add something to our budget if we have to transport people. But what you’re saying is it gives an idea of what those choices are. We don’t have the research to do that yet.

White: This is a much more minute example of cost analysis. There is going to be some incremental cost to a jail site on Melrose whether its 10 minutes or 3 miles. There is some cost to that. I don’t know that its possible to do a survey and say lawyers, judges, probation officers now spend X amount of time waiting for prisoners to arrive and when the Jail is on Melrose there going to spend Y amount of time. That’s very hard to quantify. But there is going to be a system cost. There will be a system cost to Iowa City PD, University Public Safety, going to the Melrose site rather than to the Capitol Street site. They’ll spend more money it will take them longer, they’ll be off the street. That’s the sort of balancing that goes on when you decided what the best site is. It is impossible, absolutely impossible to create a perfect site. All of this is balancing trying to decide what the best site is. But at the point of which John and Jane Doe are in the voting booth to say yes or no, I just think they are going to need a lot more information about why you think this is the best site currently available.

Kemp: That number, Pat, was based upon the population figure increase in the county.

White: No I understand where the 255 comes from.

Kemp: For 20 year projections.

White: Bob, one of the very first things that I heard the Committee say that personally I disagreed with… The Committee has always said the existing Jail was a mistake and that we didn’t want to be in the same position again. I disagree very strongly with that.

Kemp: They were saying in terms of small.

White: I think the money that was spent on that jail and the service that it’s performed for the dollars invested 20 years ago has been terrific for the citizens and the tax payers. I don’t think it was a mistake what was done. I think it worked very well and was very cost efficient. Now we’re at a stage where we have to do something different, but I’m not ready to agree that the something different has to be to create a forever solution.

Kemp: I think the mistake, and certainly Peter Hayek had strong feelings about this, that is coming to citizens 20 years after what looked like a new jail was built. Certainly the library is doing that too. His feeling is that 20 years is too soon to come back to the citizens for that. That we ought to think about one that will be a long-term solution rather than a… 20 years for a County building is a pretty short term. It was not the quality of the Jail or the quality of operations during the 20 years that its been going, but only that we reached that point in 19 years of being too small and that was a mistake. We all know that was the mistake and that was the third try. We kept having to reduce the size of the expenditure and the size of the Jail.

White: It was but I still think the term mistake is not accurate.

Jordahl: The expandability of the thing is what I would characterize as in the area of something I would like to do differently from what was done 20 years ago.

White: That I don’t disagree with. The footings should have been provided that would allow expansion.

Thompson: Well there was expansion 10 years ago when it had 48 bed and it was first discovered too small they double bunked. Last year the County Sheriff started the electronic monitoring project to try and help with the overcrowding. This isn’t the first time we’ve known of overcrowding over there and that facility has accommodated it a number of times.

Carpenter: My feeling is that we’ve heard about every others agencies problem except mine. I want to tell you I’ve got a group of people who’ve done one hell of a good job over the last 10 to15 years to keep that Jail in operation. It wasn’t me it was the people that work there. But let me tell you this, I hope this gets on television, because there is going to come a time when I can’t allow my officers to go into that facility and operate the way there doing for the public right now. Like I said, last week I had 2 incidents where 2 officers were injured where they have to go into the facility that has been overcrowded for some time. The only thing we did 10 years ago was let the County off the hook. We put more beds in there in an area where there was meant for one, and doubled our capacity so the State wouldn’t come in and close us down. That’s all we did. We did not do anything else to solve our problem. In reality this Jail that is supposedly such a great place to be 10 years ago was over crowded that was less than 10 years after it was built. What I’m saying is that sometime or another we’re going to have to do something here to take… It’s not the other departments I’m concerned about. They’re not the ones that have to come in and walk around these inmates that are laying on mattresses on the floor. These other agencies bring them in and dump them off to us, as Maynard said. My concern is my staff and our responsibilities to operate a Jail as safely not only for the public, but for those inmates. Right now we’re not getting the job done. We can retain this for longer and longer. The people in the county know we need a new facility. There’s no question there on that. If we were to put it on a bond issue later on I’d imagine we’d hear a lot of people say there’s $40,000 the County knew about, why have a special election? I guess we know what the problem is. If we get it on a ballot I think we can put in the 2 before months before the election we can have the figures necessary for the public. Quite honestly, we are responsible for those inmates whether they were brought in 2 days ago or who brought them in. We’re responsible. Each individual taxpayer in this county is responsible. It isn’t the farmer out there, it isn’t the person that lives in Iowa City. We’re citizens of Johnson County we’re all responsible for it. We can sit forever and try and figure out if we want to build 2 blocks from the old Courthouse or sit on the Courthouse but that isn’t going to change the problem. So all it’s going to do is delay and its going to be a lot more costly in the long run. I do have a serious problem down there right now for my officers. Nobodies ever addressed that and I’m doing that right now.

Jordahl: The guys for Venture have. I think it’s one of the reasons we selected them. I don’t know if you want to speak to that or if Bob, you do. But something in the design of that kind of daisy shaped thing with the hallways around the periphery and the central guard structure and so forth is what really appealed to Bob for a sense of concern for the workers in the jail.

Thompson: We can see that next meeting.

Stutsman: Yes.

Thompson: The people that we hired to advise us about this say that they need an idea of what site were going to have so they can do cost estimates. I feel like this Committee did a lot of work, they went over a lot of data, their recommending this site. I’d be in favor of going ahead with doing the cost estimates based on site A.

Jordahl: Yes me too.

Stutsman: I would too. I just think we need to this moving along. I know that there’s a lot of questions. I guess I still would like if at all possible to put this on the November ballot. Just as Bob said just, to save the expense of another referendum. Because we’re going to have to deal with this sooner or later. It’s not going to go away. I wish it would but it won’t. But I think, too we need to have that discussion whether were going to meet this time frame. I would like to have continued discussion on that.

Jordahl: Today?

Stutsman: No.

Jordahl: Just asking.

White: Isn’t it likely that if the 24th is when they come back they can do pretty decent cost analysis.

Thompson: Next week is the cost analysis.

White: I see. What was the 24th?

Thompson: The final decision about the funding.

Dobberstein: Yes we were going to get an idea of the cost. But the 24th is going to be the final that a concept design and a cost estimate for the buy.

White: Well they could do that by the 24th.

Dobberstein: Next week will be the chance for you to respond and say that’s too much or to little or whatever.

Stutsman: Because the 24th we have to have the wording for the ballot.

Dobberstein: Yes that was our deadline we were working towards.

Slockett: The 30th. That was when we were gong to have the 30th as the deadline.

Thompson: The 24th was our meeting day.

Stutsman: Yes, the 24th.

Dobberstein: To back up and look at other sites in that time, there’s not enough time to do that really. We’ve made some broad recommendations based on what our experience is. What Venture’s experience is.

Jordahl: Well you’ve heard the straw poll, that there’s a majority of the Board that is interested in going ahead for site A.

Dobberstein: You can always decide it’s too much money and you want to cut back. Stutsman: It seems like if we want to start considering these other sites, it’s going to take years of negotiating, working with the City working with the University. If even then it would be a possibility. I don’t know if we’ve got years to sit down.

Schneider: That’s the way to get it passed though and let people know what it is. You hurry up and do it, it will be questionable if it will pass.

Slockett: In terms of years, I would also like to bring up, first to compliment Bob Carpenter, because he is doing a tremendous job. His employees are doing a tremendous job in difficult circumstances. But I really think the Board ought to seriously think about this overcrowding situation and what you’re going to do about it. If this passed in November, which I agree with Maynard is highly unlikely, it will still be 2 years before you would have additional prison bed spaces. What are you going to do about overcrowding now? I really think the Board should seriously look at that.

Jordahl: What would you suggest Tom?

Stutsman: Yes.

Slockett: I think you should find a minimum security space to handle people that aren’t violent. Or you should have Bob go ahead and start transporting prisoners. If his deputies are being injured, he said that twice today. I think the Board ought to react to it.

Jordahl: He said it was true I think.

Slockett: He ought to react to it. It ought to happen now and not later.

Jordahl: We’ve elected him to serve as Sheriff and if Bob wants to start transporting prisoners he’ll hit us with a budget amendment and that’s a call for him to make. We’ll certainly listen to him when he does.

Stutsman: To add to what Tom said sometimes Bob been too good. I think we’re dealing with the situation because he’s just made it due. Now all of the sudden…

Jordahl: We got a letter from the State. The State said hello your crowded, stop doing measures to get by with this Jail and fix it. That’s what we are responding to. That’s why now. That’s why all of the sudden the State said fix it.

Duffy: Yes Jonathan that’s what they did. That an unfunded State mandate is what it amounts to. Now we have a lot of state property in this county. I don’t think we’d be out of line if we would of hired somebody to get grants. We might have got some money from the State to help with this jail. I don’t think that’s out of range. Because there’s a lot of mistakes…

Jordahl: I think that’s what Tony is kind of working on.

Duffy: Yes. But that’s what it is. It’s an unfunded State mandate. When the State says that you have too many prisoners in this Jail, we have to do something. But I also understand that Maynard thinks it won’t pass. It probably won’t.

Jordahl: Well we’re going to think positive.

Duffy: Were just going to have to do something.

Jordahl: Were going to fix this thing because were going to pay for this one way or the other.

Lehman: Does everyone have their directions and what they want to do for their homework? So that next time Pat’s looking at having some information at the meeting after that. Questions. Do I hear a straw poll of site development and building design costs?

Dobberstein: For site A, that would help you answer some of the questions you might have.

Lehman: Right.

Jordahl: Tony’s numbers pertinent to the cost of amortizing a bond issue. Whatever that all amounts to could be… I suppose that’s a multiplier that you could attach to whatever number you come up with.

Roetlin: Exactly.

Lehman: I hope everyone stays focused on this and cooperates here so we can make a decision. Appreciate everyone’s input today I’d like to adjourn here and let people get on. Thank you.

Recessed at 3:10 p.m.; reconvened on Monday August 7, 2000 at 11:01 a.m.

Lehman said the Sensitive Areas Ordinance is currently in the County Attorney’s Office, and Stutsman said the Board members should also be reviewing that. Stutsman said they are on target with the Building Code. Thompson said they should have the Conservation Subdivision Ordinance Draft should be done in September and October. Thompson said they haven’t yet considered revisions to the Conditional Use Permits Ordinance. Stutsman said they have been working on the AR Zoning.

Recessed at 11:05 a.m.; reconvened at 11:07 a.m.

Stutsman said that overall they are doing well meeting the goals that were laid out in the Land Use Plan through the Strategic Planning Process. Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak said that the County Attorney’s Office also has the Conservation Subdivision Design Ordinance. Dvorak said he doesn’t know what they want to do with the Conditional Use Permit Ordinance Revisions, so they will have to revisit it. He said their goal was to come back to the Board in September or October and talk about all of the goals. Jordahl said with their Conditional Use Permit Ordinance and their CP2 amendments he sees them having more general ordinances. Dvorak said they have only really been discussing this for the last couple of weeks.

Stutsman asked where they are at with the new zoning classification. Dvorak said they are waiting for a work session date. Dvorak said at that work session he would like to talk about LESA. Jordahl said he would like to promote LESA. He said it would enable them to quantify their response. Dvorak said the reason he wanted to discuss LESA was because there will be 2 new Supervisors on the Board and it will be something they will want to learn about the zoning process.

Dvorak said that after they come in in September or October they will have to amend the Johnson County Land Use Plan to set more realistic dates for getting projects completed in. Thompson said they also talked about rewording some of their goals in the Land Use Plan. Dvorak reminded the Board if they make amendments to the Land Use Plan it will have to go back to the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. Dvorak said the Fringe Area Agreement with Swisher is done. Stutsman said the Road Management Study is done. The Board discussed talking with the Conservation Department about participating with some of the goals of the Land Use Plan.

Dvorak said if the Board wants the Planning and Zoning Department to revisit the North Corridor Plan they will have to push something else back. Jordahl said the North Corridor Plan is going to be easier to work on because of some of the other policies the Board has recently passed. Jordahl asked if the Zoning was at the point yet that during Zoning Applications the Zoning Department could put on computer presentations with GIS. Dvorak said he would have a fairly good presentation for applications before the Board. The Board discussed having a work session after the November election with present and future Board members on land use.

Stutsman asked the Board members how they feel the combined formal/informal meetings are working. Jordahl said the meetings have been long. Stutsman said they have been long, but there are a lot of things the Board is dealing with. Thompson said they have only had one time where it went beyond the 4 hours. Lehman said one of their main goals was to inform the public, and asked the other Board members if they were accomplishing that. Stutsman said in reality their meetings are shorter because in the past they were having a 3 to 4 hour meeting on Tuesday and then another 3 to 4 hour meeting on Thursday. Stutsman said she likes having the Tuesday morning free now, and they have done a better job of keeping the formal to just taking action on items. Jordahl said, playing devil’s advocate, that they give the impression of shorting a topic in the formal meeting because it was discussed the previous week.

The Board discussed the option of starting the meetings earlier or recessing over the lunch hour and reconvening at 1:00 p.m. Duffy said the Supervisors are doing too much talking at meetings and the public isn’t speaking enough. He said they came here to listen and not to dominate. Jordahl said they could let the public talk first like Iowa City. Reverend Bob Welsh said that at Iowa City City Council meetings, they make it clear that public comment is for items not on the agenda, then when they come to an agenda item, if there is somebody who wishes to speak they are provided that opportunity. Welsh said they do try to limit discussion to there is not a rehashing of topics. Stutsman said they allow people to talk during items. Jordahl said a person in the community who wants to put an item on the agenda, can have that done.

Duffy said individual Board members are talking too much and the public isn’t showing up because the meetings are televised. Welsh said the likes the public comments coming at the end of the reports from the Supervisors. He said the way the agenda is done by the Board now is good, and the only thing that bothers him is when the Board can’t discuss an item. Stutsman asked the Board members whether they wanted to keep discussion from the public at the end of the agenda or move it to the beginning of the agenda. The Board decided to leave it where it’s at for the morning meetings and for the evening meetings, move it closer to the beginning of the agenda.

Stutsman said Duffy’s point is well taken about discussion from the Board of Supervisors being too long. She said they do need to be careful of is repeating points. She said they’ve all had instances where they feel they’ve made a good point and want to say it again and again, but that takes up time. She said they are elected to discuss issues. Stutsman said that for the most part they have a welcoming attitude about public input if there’s an item where there’s a lot of discussion. Thompson said she has been wondering, because they have so many other meetings, if they want to set a time aside when they would have those. The Board of Supervisors decided the first Tuesday of every month they would keep open in their calendars to have meetings such as work sessions and evaluations.

Jordahl said they should have a requirement that anybody who is on the agenda provides enough copies so that members of the public will have some. Jordahl suggested that anybody who gets on the agenda should be able to provide electronic copies of whatever information they bring in.

Adjourned at 12:10 p.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary