Lehman: OK. Next is Business from the Board of Supervisors. Discussion Action Needed for the Notice of the City Development Board Regarding Tiffin Voluntary Annexation. Rick and R.J. from the Zoning Department.

Stutsman: You put a good summary together concerning this annexation that was at desk this morning.

Dvorak: Do you want me to give a brief history because I don’t think Pat and Terrence were on board.

Lehman: We have a member representing the City of Tiffin.

Dvorak: Mike Gardner. We requested he stick around, too.

Lehman: Yes, he’s here.

Stutsman: Dan Holderness is here, too.

Dvorak: And Dan Holderness. What had happened, the City of Tiffin requested an annexation of quite a considerable amount of land. I think 800-900 acres. I was asked by the Board to go to the Tiffin Council Meeting when they were discussing it. At that time I shared with them our concerns about a lot of the annexation to the south and east of the Interstate. At that time they did reduce the request by about 100 acres. That was kind of in cooperation with the City of Coralville and the County at that meeting. The Board then did request that the Council be represented at a meeting, and I’m going to say a month ago, I could be wrong, about a month ago, and do their presentation to this Board. Prior to that, our staff did present to this Board our staff’s opinion only on this annexation. We shared with you at that time our concern about parcels 19, 16, 24 and 35. They did remove parcel 42. There are 2 really small parcels, I think, that are 37 and 17. Our staff’s concerns are still the same today and I think we wanted to talk to you today because there is a public hearing set for…

Peters: February 15th.

Dvorak: February 15th. We were wondering if the Board still felt the same as staff, that you have concern about this annexation. If you did, again, we do have this overview of our opinion on that. If we can submit that to the Iowa Development Board and if you would want staff and/or Supervisors to attend that, if you feel this annexation is not in the best interest of Johnson County. Again, there is a lot of the annexation that we, as staff, and I think the Board, did support and we still would go on record as supporting that. That is in conjunction with the Fringe Area Agreement that we did work out with the City of Tiffin. The parts that they are proposing are not in compliance with our agreed upon Fringe Area Agreement. We’re here today to find out if the Board wants us to continue to not support the annexation.

Lehman: Do you want to hear from members of the audience that might be representing the bodies concerned?

Karen Mills: I’m Karen Mills with the City of Tiffin. I’m on the Council there. I’m a Council Member. We wrote up this letter in response to the letter that you had written to the City Development Board regarding some of your concerns.

Stutsman: We haven’t written a letter yet, though, have we? No.

Mills: No, we had a letter that was…

Moore: From our staff.

Thompson: That was staffed to us.

Mills: Yes.

Stutsman: Yes, I just wanted to make sure that we haven’t sent a letter yet.

Lehman: I think the City of Tiffin here is basically responding to some of the questions that we had and heard in the Informal Meeting from some of the land owners and also representatives from the City of Tiffin and I believe also maybe Coralville at that time. I don’t believe anybody was here from Iowa City or North Liberty.

Stutsman: My objection to this, as pointed out in one of the paragraphs here, we are anticipating future development. To me that doesn’t say we have a plan for future development. The fact that you’re anticipating to me is not enough to warrant an annexation of this size. We all anticipate development somewhere in the County. We could annex the whole County under that idea. What’s on my mind is the fact that we hear about urban sprawl. I think this, to me, is just a classic example of urban sprawl. There is not a plan. There is not a definite direction. It’s just that we’re annexing for the sake of annexing, with the anticipation that someday, down the road, there might be a development plan here. To me that is not good land use plan. That’s what I want to convey to the City Development Board. I know even at the State level, it’s been on the table off and on to address the concerns about urban sprawl in Iowa. Just taking up farmland for the sake of taking up farmland without a real plan in place, I think sooner or later we need to say that this is just not in the County’s best interest. There are too many unanswered questions. We haven’t had that discussion with Secondary Roads. I don’t know if I am willing even to enter into an agreement. That’s not even been discussed. There’s not been a discussion about the other infrastructure needs, about wastewater. It’s just not a plan that warrants my support of this annexation. So, I am supportive of setting the letter, much of what has been drafted by the Planning and Zoning Department as to our concerns. The things that are outlined in here are exactly my concerns as a Board of Supervisor at this kind of annexation.

Margaret Reiman: Sally, is that also your stance for other growth by other communities?

Stutsman: No, no, and we do not send a letter with every growth or development that’s come.

Reiman: Why are you just choosing Tiffin?

Stutsman: I’m not just choosing Tiffin. We’ve sent other ones too. People in here talk about annex because they don’t want Coralville to annex them. If Coralville had this on the table, you bet I’d support sending a letter about this, too.

Reiman: Have you done that in the past?

Stutsman: I think we have, I can’t recall specifics. I’d have to go back and see. I am not just picking on Tiffin. North Liberty, I know we’ve expressed some concerns there with some of the development that they’ve had, but they’ve been able to, too, come forth and say, here is our plan. We have the development in place. Somebody’s come forward. When this is taken out of the County, to me, we are setting up helter-skelter development all throughout Johnson County for this area. I agree with what’s been said. A farmer, his land is no longer in the rural areas, they’re not going to make improvements, because their idea is that someday I’m going to develop this. We farm and we would not rebuild that barn if I knew it was in the city and that development is just… It just encourages that kind of thinking and that kind of thought.

Lehman: I want to ask that maybe you identify yourself for the Auditor.

Reiman: I’m sorry. I’m Margaret Reiman. I’m the City of Clerk from the City of Tiffin. Maybe you could give me a copy of those earlier letters, then.

Stutsman: Carol, if you could.

Thompson: Are we agreed that we concur with the other parcels besides the 4 that… Actually there are 4 and 2. It looks like 37 and 17 we haven’t really talked about yet. But, do we concur with the other ones that are on there, the ones north of the Interstate and the one that is labeled Parcel 4?

Dvorak: It was the staff’s opinion that since it was in the Fringe Area Agreement as a growth area, that staff is (inaudible) out that annexation and also Parcel 4 is also a (inaudible) growth area.

Thompson: There was some discussion about that one being the flagpole shape. We aren’t objecting to that, right?

Dvorak: Well, there was a concern I think that we had on the road. Partially, the problem was that it was (inaudible) on the road. There might have been some problem with creating an island because there wasn’t a road that it was being excluded on the proposal. I think Mike and Doug Fredericks had found an error in the description of that. That was what I remember. Those other concerns I don’t remember.

Thompson: Our concerns remain then basically with 19, 16, 24, 35, 37 and 17?

Dvorak: Correct.

Thompson: Well, when we had the meeting before, we had extensive discussion about this. I also have concerns about those parcels mostly because there is no… Even in the plan that Tiffin has outlined, there is no plan to provide any infrastructure there or do any real city development for the foreseeable future. I guess I would be in favor of sending our letter with making a clear statement that those are the only parcels we ever checked into.

Stutsman: Right.

Lehman: Our concern, mine is, the immediate development. If we see something that we’re not necessarily…a developer comes in. Like Carol said, the infrastructure, I don’t think any municipality wants somebody developing out there and then have to go out to the homeowners someday and say we’re going to change your whole wastewater treatment system or your water system. We need some type of a central development out there. I don’t see that kind of leap frogging out here to protect something very far out in the future that is not immediate. I don’t have a problem with the close in type areas here being identified.

Stutsman: To clarify for me, if say I own Parcel 35, and I wanted to put in a subdivision, I could, couldn’t I? Then would the City be required to provide services to that subdivision?

Thompson: Yes.

Moore: Well, if it’s annexed within the City, then it’s solely under the City’s jurisdiction for zoning and platting. They should make those decisions as sort of an (inaudible) with their land use plan. Ordinances, usually municipalities, have ordinances requiring hookups to their infrastructure, including water and sewer. It’s generally based on a distance; if you’re so close to an existing trunk line, then you’re required to hook up. I don’t know if Tiffin have that, or if they have infrastructure that close anyway. It might be part of their development process to require that if somebody wanted to develop that, to extend, wherever their sewer is now, to extend the wiring out to the sewer. I’m not sure what their policies are on that. But this, I think that’s a, and Sally, you brought it up, and as we put together the letter to you about this annexation request, as Rick has noted earlier, the majority of that annexation request is in not only compliance with our fringe area agreement, but it makes a lot of sense as planners, as we looked at it. It’s good solid planning on their part. But when you’re taking in hundreds of acres designed solely for agricultural uses, as you noted, we feel that’s bad. Agricultural land should stay in the County until it’s ready to be annexed into a city to be used for some other use, partially because we’re well aware of studies that show not just land within a municipality used agriculturally, but on the fringe of a municipality, the landowners start disinvesting, basically, as you noted, Sally. They stop investing in land, equipment, and buildings, and then it leads to quicker annexation and sprawl. We don’t feel we need that. We feel that if it’s going to be used agriculturally, as this well-written memo from the Mayor outlined some of what they’re doing, this should stay in the County until they’re ready to take it in and use it as some other kind of parcel.

Stutsman: That to me is what planning is all about, you know. You have an idea, or a plan, and then by annexing, you bring that plan to fruition. It seems like it’s backwards, to annex, and then think oh yes, now what are we going to do with all this land that we have.

Moore: Well, the Mayor’s letter is pretty good. He talks about those parcels, and under the State code, where it says that landowners initiate that, and that is a response from the landowners. The City of Tiffin is only responding to that, and I don’t think we can get upset with them for that. They’re doing as the landowner asked. But is it appropriate or not, and I think that’s what we’re trying to determine. And it would appear from, at least you staff, we don’t feel it’s appropriate to annex this for agricultural use.

Thompson: I see it as a very positive things that, after earlier discussions, they were willing to delete Parcel 42.

Dvorak: Yes, for the City of Coralville. That shows good governmental working together, that cooperation.

Thompson: In my notes from the earlier meeting, I have a little thing that says does the County remain responsible for Ireland Avenue. Did that get resolved?

Gardner: I met with Doug Smithers last week, and he requested that if there wasn’t an easement for the roadway that had been taken for roadway purposes, he’d like a copy of it, and I did send a copy out to him. I haven’t heard from him since. He had a copy of that easement.

Thompson: So what does that mean? Do we still have to be responsible for it, or what would happen?

Gardner: No, initially, in the documents (inaudible), that’s not even included in the annexation. They only annex up to the right-of-way line, and my comment at the time was that that should be annexed to the center of the road. He wasn’t able to find the easement, but I did supply him with that easement, so that should be corrected. I haven’t heard from Doug since, so I don’t know that he’s done it yet, but he does have the documentation so that it can be done.

Thompson: So, we don’t know whether the proposition to the City Development Board includes to the middle of the road, or not?

Gardner: I don’t know. I haven’t heard from Doug since our meeting.

Thompson: If we’re going to write a letter, I think we should put that in there, because we don’t want…

Stutsman: I might also add, too, just because we write the letter expressing our concerns doesn’t mean that the City Development Board won’t go ahead and approve this. It’s certainly their decision. But I think, you know, we do have fringe area agreements placed, and I think we’ve done a fairly decent job of planning in the County, and I think it’s good for us to share our concerns at the State level when we do have some concerns. My feeling in supporting writing these letters, if they don’t hear from us, then they just think it’s A-OK, for all those things to go on. And when we do have some concerns, I think we have a responsibility to share those concerns through a letter to the City Development Board.

Neuzil: I was just going to add that, what we say, really, as far as the legal terms of our role when a city wants to grow, you grow, right? Johnson County can’t stop that.

White: Not unless it would be in violation of our fringe area agreement. That fringe area agreement would create a contractual obligation, and there are some provisions, I don’t remember whether there is in Tiffin, dealing with annexation. But the City Development Board makes a decision, and you’re in the position of providing input to their decision-making.

Neuzil: Is this in violation of our fringe area agreement?

Moore: Well, we feel that area that is 6 parcels on the southeast part of the Interstate, are not included in a growth area, and as the annexation request is to keep it ag, is that that isn’t in compliance with the fringe area agreement.

Neuzil: OK.

Thompson: Pat, do the schools have a chance to respond, the same as we do? Because I would have some concern about what provision has been made for schools in this letter.

White: Really, anybody has a chance to respond. I don’t know that I remember whether they notify the school district separately, or not.

Thompson: I remember that when we were making the letter that we kind of use as a model for these letters, we included a sentence about schools, because we weren’t sure about that. So, we might want to add that to our letter.

White: I think on the distribution I get, schools are not included.

Lehman: Anyone else like to make a comment?

Neuzil: Well, I just want to make sure that in our letter and our approach, that we make it clear that it is in violation of our fringe area agreement.

Thompson: That those parcels are.

Neuzil: Yes, those particular parcels, which could cause, obviously, some kind of litigation.

Lehman: Should we indicate that we’d like to take some action on this next week, as far as a letter?

Stutsman: Would it be appropriate for a letter to be drafted, and then we could review the letter.

Lehman: I would like the City of Tiffin to have copies of what we’ve done in the past, in case they want to respond back to us next week, or before that time.

Thompson: Basically, we’d be looking at a letter that specifically says that we approve of the major part of this, but for those 4 parcels, we have these concerns, and then adds the concern about making sure that Ireland Avenue is taken over to the center of the roadway, and a sentence about what plans are made for school.

Stutsman: Mike had his hand up.

Gardner: Yes, I think in the letter, too, if you would, we’d need some kind of road-maintenance agreement, because some of these roads now are going to be shared roads, and we have nothing at this point as far as sharing the maintenance on this road. Yes, we have accepted, yes, with Doug.

Mills: And from what I saw, it looked (inaudible).

Gardner: OK.

Lehman: Those are the things we would have liked to have done ahead of time or at the same time, rather than after the fact. Sometimes when you’re negotiating, I don’t want to say leverage, but your position will get negated by after the fact.

Moore: We would be glad to help the Board put… It appears that our original staff memo, the points there, the Board is in agreement with most of them. We’d be more than happy to work with the Board on creating the letter that you’d like to give.

Lehman: OK. All right.

Coralville City Engineer Don Holderness: It might be that from our last meeting, Coralville and Tiffin have sat down and talked, and they’ve agreed on that one parcel, 42 was taken out of the annexation request, and Dan has told me that they revised the legal descriptions as well along the east side of 380, or 218, as well. So, Tiffin and Coralville have worked together on this since you met (inaudible).

Lehman: OK. Thank you. Don Holderness, City Engineer, City of Coralville. OK. Do you feel we have direction on that, that we’ll revise what we’ve seen here plus the comments that we’ve heard today, and address a letter to the City Development, and we’ll have that on the agenda next week.

Moore: Is there a certain Board member you’d like me to work with?

Thompson: Would you like me to?

Lehman: OK.

Moore: I was taking tomorrow off, but I can come in tomorrow morning if one of you would be here?

Lehman: Carol.

Thompson: I’m willing to do it and I could do it late this afternoon if you wanted to try for that.

Harney: Was all this voluntary annexation of those parcels? Were they requesting that voluntarily?

Lehman: OK. We’ll conclude on that, then. Thank you. OK, our next item would be appointments to Johnson County Building Code Board of Appeals for terms ending December 31, 2002, through December 31, 2005.

Dvorak: And this is Ruben Arsate. I think most Board members know Ruben, who is our Senior Building Inspector. Part of the Uniform Building Code requirements is that we have a Board of Appeals. We have advertised in the newspaper and we have had 13 applicants respond, that would like to become members of this board. Our recommendation to you that this be a 7-person Board. Your staff has looked at these applications, and if you want our recommendations, I did share with you a copy this morning of what your staff would like to see, who we’d like to see on that 7-person board. If you’d like to discuss that, we’d be glad to. The one that you have isn’t in color, but basically it’s this copy here. And our recommendations are the 7 members that have the stars beside them, and one of the requirements that we came up with in our resolution was that we have a majority of the people from the rural area be on this committee. Yours isn’t highlighted, but basically we have 4 rural people and 3 city people. We have tried to put on there as the code provides that there be one person from the electrical field, one person from the heating and air-conditioning or mechanical, one plumber, we recommend one person from the LP industry, and one engineering person, engineer or architect. And then 2 at-large people, which we really didn’t get at-large people applying for this. We were hoping to, but they are pretty much all professionals. We did include Gregory Schott, who is currently a rural resident that acts on-contract as a building inspector for the City of Tiffin. And I felt that would be a great addition to this board. With that, there are recommendations, you can choose from whoever you’d like.

Thompson: This is a gratifying number of applications.

Dvorak: One thing we had to be careful of was that we wouldn’t have an applicant try to get on this committee that may have an agenda, because there are people out there that do not support a building code. I think that the 7 people that we recommended to you are people that do not have an agenda.

Stutsman: Could we explain what this Board of Appeals will be doing?

Dvorak: Briefly, and I think that’s, I’ll start and then I’ll let Ruben finalize it. But basically, the intent of this, and this is what a lot of people don’t understand, the intent of this is not to change the rules for a specific person, it’s more to agree with Ruben or his staff’s interpretation of the rules on a specific item. Now what I mean, for example, if a person is arguing with the inspector that he wants to put in a 14-foot-wide concrete footing only 6 inches thick, well you don’t go to the Board of Appeals. The law says it has to be 16 inches by 8 inches, or something like that. That’s not the purpose. If there’s something that there’s a difference of opinion on the interpretation, then they can appeal Ruben or his inspectors’ opinion or their decision to a Board of Appeals, who primarily are professionals in that area, and have worked with codes in the past. There were some people that I talked to that, well, we want to make this fair. Well, unfortunately, the building code may not be fair. It’s black and white; it has to be done. But there are areas out there that are gray, and that’s where I think the intent of that, now. With that, maybe Ruben can be more specific, but that’s generally what the purpose is. Their meetings basically would be once a month, on call.

Lead Building Inspector Ruben Arsate: Actually, Rick did a very good job explaining what the Board would be doing. For example, we just had a discussion in the office with the other inspectors about smoke detectors. And we talked about a flight of stairs coming up to a (inaudible) where, and no wall between where we’re at and where the smoke detector would go. Would we (inaudible), at the bottom of the stairs, or the top of the stairs, (inaudible)? Or would you put one at the bottom or at the top? And so, that’s really an interpretation there. Can you call up for something that the contractor thinks is overkill, and is going ultimately cost more money, that’s when this would come into play. Because I would be asking them to put 3 smoke detectors as opposed to 2 in a large unit of apartments, or what have you, so you run the costs up. Or perhaps I made a call where they need to put in a sprinkler system, and they don’t agree with me. That’s when we come to the Board, and say, this is how I interpret the code, and this is how I interpret it, and then the Board will listen to both sides and, being in the know, will actually decide.

Dvorak: And I think their 2nd charge, then, would, if we would get 100 complaints about something in the code, then it would be their responsibility to try to figure out why we’re having so many concerns about something. Is there a fallacy in the code? If there is, then they would make a recommendation to you folks that maybe this should be checked into and/or an ordinance amendment to that. And that’s something people forget, is they do make these recommendations to you, if there’s a continual problem, something out there’s always a problem. We don’t want that to be a problem. But there must be some reason for it.

Lehman: Well, they have a very qualified list, I can see that, and several of these people are very active in helping research and institute this. It’s going to be a very tough call for myself. One of my questions are we had to visit the LP industry, specifically, and we have 2 applicants with a background there. I kind of wonder if maybe, both those, I don’t know how much of a question that’s going to run into any type of these appeals. I wonder if there might be a need for both those individuals. Just my thoughts. In that case, there’s somebody else that would not be recommended. But these are staggered terms.

Dvorak: That’s correct.

Lehman: So teams could be made, because they are one, 2, and 3 year terms, and the 1st ones will turn over rather quickly. Someone may decide it’s not something they thought it was going to be. And like Ruben said, these aren’t big demands, but there possibly could be some, with a new code going in.

Stutsman: Well, I’d definitely be supportive of Jane Hagedorn. We only had one woman apply, so…

Thompson: Yes, she looks like she would be good.

Dvorak: She really didn’t want to do this.

Stutsman: She didn’t?

Dvorak: But she was.

Lehman: And she was very active in the study committee for this.

Dvorak: That’s correct.

Thompson: Our gender balance.

Dvorak: Well, I don’t know, Mike, do we need, I don’t want to put pressure on you to try to resolve this minute, if it’s OK with you, can we just put this on formally, and that way you can digest some of these?

Lehman: Yes.

Dvorak: Maybe you can call some people, if you’d like, and see what you want on this Board of Appeals.

Lehman: Yes, give a little thought.

Thompson: I forget, how did we say we were going to assign terms? By lot?

Dvorak: It’s in our resolution. We can share that with you. I don’t have a copy with me, but they’re all, they’re somewhat staggered, 1- to 5-year staggers.

Stutsman: But Carol was asking who gets which one?

Dvorak: I don’t remember.

Arsate: We didn’t bring that with us.

Dvorak: Some of the other non-professionals, the criteria isn’t quite as stringent. But yes, I think an electrician is like 3 years, and the first third, something like that. I don’t remember. We’ll get you that.

Thompson: So we’ll be assigning people to terms when we vote?

Dvorak: Correct.

Lehman: I suggest maybe we do a little homework on this. I need to visit with Rick and Ruben, and kind of make a decision and we’ll come up with a consensus next week.

Dvorak: Very good.

Lehman: Thank you very much for your help.

(Continued in Part 5)