MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:

FEBRUARY 22, 2001

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chairperson Lehman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:00 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.

CORALVILLE CITY ENGINEER DAN HOLDERNESS: OVERVIEW AND UPDATE ON CORALVILLE PROJECTS

Lehman: First item is business from Dan Holderness, Coralville City Engineer. He’s going to give us a little overview and update on the Coralville Project. Dan, welcome. Sally had attended a…

Stutsman: …a Kiwanis meeting, and Dan had presented, or was a speaker at the Kiwanis meeting, and he had such good information, that I thought it might be helpful to the Board if he could present that same kind of information. There are just a number of projects that Coralville is working on that have an impact on the County’s planning too. Good to have good communication between different governmental entities, and hearing what they’re doing. Thank you, Dan, for agreeing to come today.

Coralville City Engineer Dan Holderness: You bet. Thanks for having me here today, and what I’d like to do is just take a few minutes of your time and give you a brief update on some of the projects we’ve got going on in Coralville. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask as we go. What I’ve handed out is a map, the City of Coralville on one side, with some of the project locations highlighted. On the back side is kind of a brief description of some of those projects. What I’d like to do is just briefly go through the list, starting from the bottom up. First, on the bottom, we have completed projects; it only shows one, sounds like we haven’t been doing much. In fact, that’s the most recent one completed; it’s the East Regional Detention Basin, which is in our west land use area. The area west of 965 had been annexed into the City a number of years ago, but did not have services, utility services, so development was very limited. When Coral Ridge Mall came along, that was kind of the impetus to get services out to the area, and so then in ’97, before the development started, we did a land use study in this area, and one of the elements of the land use study, it’s an area basically bounded by 965 on the east, Forevergreen Road on the north, I-380 on the west, and I-80 on the south. One of the elements of the land use plan was regional detention versus requiring the developers to have onsite detention at each of the developments, so this is the first one to be built, and it's being paid for by impact fees by the developers. Going on up the list here, then, projects that are in progress. The bottom one, again going from bottom to top, is the truckstop redevelopment. Obviously, the City bought the Hawkeye Truck Stop several years ago, and options are being considered now, what to do with that. That hasn’t been determined at this time. The next couple of projects, again going from the bottom, the Section 206 Project, the planning assistance to the State, and if you skip over the next one to the EPA Brown Fields Project, these are all projects that are ongoing in our 1st Avenue Redevelopment Corridor. It’s essentially the old industrial park, which is bound by 1st Avenue on the west, I-80 on the north, the Iowa River on the east, and south down to Clear Creek. It’s about a 200-acre area, and again, those 3 projects are kind of going on concurrently in that area. The Brown Fields Project is a grant that we got from the Environmental Protection Agency a couple years ago. We got an initial grant of $200,000, and then last year we received a supplemental grant of another $100,000, so for a total of $300,000. The idea of this grant is to do environmental assessment to help stimulate redevelopment in the area. There’s a perception that there’s a lot of contamination in the area because it’s an old industrial park, but in reality the contamination is much less than the perception. We’ve done Phase One testing, which is a record search, on 45 properties, and of the 45, 40 of them were cleared from any environmental contamination. If nothing else, we’ve been given basically a clean bill of health from an environmental perspective for 40 parcels within the area which now can be redeveloped if they so choose. Going back to the planning assistance, the State Project PAS, that’s a joint effort between the City of Coralville and the Army Corps of Engineers, again on this old industrial park area. There are four elements to the plan: there’s a land use study being done, a storm water management study being done, a flood plain study being done, and a green belt open space component being done. It’s a 50-50 cost share with the Corps of Engineers, and that study should be winding up soon. One of the elements of that study is the land use, and that goes back to the truck stop redevelopment. We’re looking at what to do with the area in total, and the truck stop is one element of that area that we’re looking at. One of the things that’s being talked about is the potential for a conference center and hotel in that area, so that is being researched, and it should be completed here within the next month or 2. The 206 Project is a joint project between Coralville, Iowa City, The University of Iowa, and the Corps of Engineers. It’s a partnership to restore and enhance wetlands and water quality along the Iowa River and Clear Creek. It’s a joint project, the majority of the funding comes from the Corps of Engineers. That’s about a $5,500,000 project. The areas that it addresses are Waterworks Park in Iowa City and the peninsula in Iowa City, some of the Iowa River riverfront in Coralville, lower Finkbine area with the University. There are also some areas along the Iowa River along Hancher, I believe, and then there’s a number of areas out Clear Creek, that are involved in this. Again, it’s about a $5,500,000 project, and essentially all the local entities have to provide is the land to do the improvements on, and the Corps pays for all the construction costs to do those improvements. That should take about 5 years to complete, and the Corps has just given their formal approval to the project, so it’s in the designing stage at this point and time. Going back to the list, this project is in Coralville, but we’re not directly related to it, our involvement with the National Driving Simulator up in the Oakdale Research Park. I understand that all the equipment is in and they’re doing testing now, so that should be online within the next few months, formally online. I believe it’s about a 15-million dollar project, the world’s most advanced driving simulator when it opens. Going up the list quickly, trail. We’ve had studies done on Clear Creek, the Clear Creek watershed, to provide a trail system as one element. We’re acquiring property along Clear Creek to do preservation and enhancement. One of the enhancements would be a trail system. The short-term goal is to hook the University of Iowa’s trail system into Coralville. The longer-term goal is to then go on west along Clear Creek out to Tiffin. The next goal then would be to get to Kent Park, with the final long-term goal being to get the Amanas, to hook to the, I can’t remember the name, there’s a trail system in Amana, I can’t think of the name of that, but, to get to there eventually. Phase One of this trail system, we received a grant last year, an STP grant to build this. It’s a 10-foot trail. It’ll be between 12th Avenue and Highway 6 down south across Clear Creek and hook into Hawkeye Park Drive, the commuter parking lot there. It will provide a pedestrian/bicycle access directly from Coralville to the University area, which then kids could go on to West High that way, so it provides an alternative route for kids to get to West High. We just were notified a couple weeks ago that we received funding for Phase 2 for this project, which would hook from the Phase One project and go west to the Camp Cardinal Rotary Park. Hopefully that will be built either later this year or next year. Brown Deer Golf Course renovation, the course was donated to the City in ’99. There’s been a lot of renovation work done this year, and that is ongoing. We’re in the process of determining where our new maintenance facility should be built. We’re looking at options for a clubhouse, which actually would be a multi-use facility, as far as public meetings, and other things like that. At this time, we’re also having a consultant look at the opportunity and the potential of building another 9 holes to the golf course, making it an 18-hole golf course. They tell us that 18-hole course are more economically viable than 9-hole courses. That study is underway at this point and time. Going on up the list, we have wastewater improvements, Phase I and II. Our wastewater plant is on 22nd Avenue, Camp Cardinal Road, south of Highway 6 off of Payless Cashways. Even though Clear Creek runs right on the south border of the property, we are not allowed to discharge our effluent to Clear Creek. We have to pump the effluence to the Iowa River so it will discharge south of the University of Iowa and Iowa City water plant intakes. This is the final phase of the improvements to the plan. In ’93, we quadrupled the size of the plant in the anticipation of future growth, but we did not do anything to the disinfection and effluent systems, so now we are upgrading those as well, to be able to handle that capacity of treatment. So we’re building a new force main essentially along the Iowa Interstate Railroad, from our plant site to Riverside Drive, the Iowa River will discharge around the Dairy Queen on Riverside Drive. It’s 4.5 miles of pipe. That’s underway now; it’s about $1.8 million worth of work. Also, a 2nd contract for the pump station and disinfection, we’re going to ultraviolet disinfection, is underway as well. It’s about a $1.1 million, and both will be completed by this fall. We have the First Avenue and Highway 6 intersection project, which, if you’ve been in the area, I’m sure you’re all aware of. Streb Construction is doing that work; they did underground utility work this past fall, water, sewer, storm sewer work. The majority of that is done, so that when Spring comes, they’ll be able to start doing the paving and the surfacing of that, and they are to be done by August, before school starts again. Those are the ones in progress. Any questions or comments on those?

Stutsman: I had a question. I don’t know if you can answer this or not. I attended a League of Women Voters’ Forum last night, and Kelly was one of the panel members, as well as Steve Atkins. They talked about requirements for treatment of storm water before it goes into the river, and they said that the cities of Coralville and Iowa City were dealing with that, and they said that’s also going to affect the counties. I don’t know if you have any information on that, or Mike or Al, have you heard anything about that?

Holderness: Well, I know that it affects the cities. I’m not sure how it would affect the County. The one area that I’m aware of that it might affect the County is there is new storm water regulations coming in, mandated by the EPA, by March of 2003, you have to have a plan, essentially, in place, and then you get 5 years to implement it after that. The plan has to address 6 areas of storm water quality issues, and one of the areas that you have to address is runoff from shop areas, like Secondary Roads Department, we have to look at our street shop, we have to look at our wastewater plant. That may be something that would affect you. That’s the only thing I can think of right off the top of my head.

Stutsman: OK. I’ll have to do some more research on that. I’ll call Kelly and Steve.

Holderness: That’s a big thing that’s going to come up for us, because it is going to be a major issue. Of all the records we have of our utilities, the worst records we have are the storm sewer system. It runs off of the ground and into the intake, and it’s gone, you know. But they are going to make us do some quality issues, to improve the quality of the runoff. Again, that’s mandated; you have to have a plan in place y 2003, and then you get 5 years to implement it after that. That’s going to be a big issue for us in the next few years.

Lehman: Something we have to look at in Planning and Zoning is standards we may have to implement as far as new construction.

Holderness: Yes. OK. Now we can go on quickly up the list here of the proposed projects. The Village Project is the northwest corner of 5th Street and 12th Avenue. A couple of years ago, the City purchased the Carolina Apartments which were there, and they’ve been demolished this last year. A group has gotten together, and they call themselves the Village Project, to look at how that could be redeveloped in a joint civic/private manner. One of the ideas is to expand the library. The number of users and patrons is reaching a point where the facilities aren’t able to handle any more, so they’re looking at doubling the size of the library. They’re also looking at building a building in the corner there that would, again, be a joint private/public facility. There’s some initial planning going on on that, and they’re looking for funding to make that happen in the future. Now we’re onto a major street repair project again this summer, repair some of the streets in town. We’re working jointly with the City of Iowa City on a pedestrian bridge project over the Iowa River power dam. Iowa City is rehabilitating that dam, because it’s important to them to have a steady pool of water for their new water plant north of the interstate. While they’re doing that, we’re going to do, jointly, create a pedestrian bridge across there, so we’ll have a good link between there, the peninsula in Iowa City and 1st Avenue in Coralville. That should be built, actually that will be bid this fall and built next year, I believe. Oakdale Boulevard Trail, we have STP money to do that. This is along Oakdale Boulevard from Wickham School east to 1st Avenue. That should be built this year. Now we’re looking at the extension of Oakdale Boulevard to North Dubuque Street. That’s the final link, on the east end at least, of Oakdale Boulevard. We had ECICOG come do a study for us. I’m sure you’re aware now that you can get from Oakdale up through the Dovetail, Welsh Village Developments, out to Dubuque Street but it’s not a very direct route. They think that based on the growth we anticipate both in the County in that area, and the City, that that will be sufficient for 3-5 years. We’ll look, in that 3-5 year time frame, to try to get this extension of Oakdale Boulevard constructed. Iowa Child Project, which I’m sure no one has heard about, is ongoing. They’re working very hard to get into some of the detailed design of that project now, and prepare their application for the Vision Iowa fund, so that’s moving forward quickly. I-80 bridge widening over 965, this would be a DOT project. I believe this is the last bridge in the Iowa City/Coralville area on 80 that hasn’t been widened yet, in anticipation of the 6-lane widening to I-80. That’s supposed to be beginning later this year, I believe. My recollection is that on the latest 5-year DOT Road Plan they pushed the actual paving of that to 6 lanes back to ’05 and ’06, I believe. Iowa 965 improvements, Heartland Drive to Oakdale Boulevard. There will be some temporary improvements done on 965 at Oakdale, a temporary signal system in this year. Future improvements as far as lane capacity and a permanent signal system are going to be pushed off a few years until we see what the effect of the Iowa Child Project has on the area, presuming it gets approved. Highway 6, we’re looking to do Phase 5 of our Highway 6 5th lane improvements, from the Clear Creek Bridge to 12th Avenue, that will be the next phase, going on west. We hope to do that in 2002, and actually we got some funding problems with that, so that may be pushed back to 2003. Then once that’s done, then they’ll have one phase left, which will be 12th Avenue to 22nd Avenue, and that will complete our 5th lane improvements, our safety study improvements on Highway 6. Clear Creek storm water pump stations, we’re going to complete the storm water project we started in ’96. We did some channelization and built some berms along Clear Creek in ’96 to help contain the storm water in Clear Creek when either Clear Creek floods or the Iowa River backs up. What we did was we built the berms along the edges, in the low spots, put the storm water pipes through, and just put valves on them. So if Clear Creek is up, we can shut the valves so it won’t come back and flood us like it did in ’93. Now we’re going to install pump stations and automatic pumps so that if Clear Creek is up, and the gates are shut, and we get a local rain in our area, then we’ll be able to collect that water and pump it out over the dikes into Clear Creek so it won’t flood the businesses like we experienced in the past. First Avenue Holiday Road Project, the Council originally had thought about doing that this year, they pushed it back to next year, 2002. We’re going to 4-land First Avenue from I-80 north to Holiday Road, and create a T-intersection with Holiday Road, so the through movement will be on First Avenue, and Holiday Road will have to stop. A signal system will be installed. Then the top one is First Avenue improvements, Clear Creek to 5th Street Place. We had a corridor study done on First Avenue, looked at it from the viaduct at the south end, clear to I-80. That was in ’97, about $13.5 million worth of work. We’d like to do it all today, but we can’t afford all that, so we’re breaking into segments, going from south to north, and we’ll improve that as funding allows. So, briefly, that’s some of the things we’ve got going on in Coralville. I’d be glad to try and answer any questions about this or anything else, if you’d like to know about it.

Lehman: It’s pretty obvious you have a lot of irons in the fire and things on the table here. SEATS Transportation is located out in Coralville now. That’s one of the things that Lisa Dewey had looked at, was the growing area of Coralville, Tiffin, and North Liberty, to help service that, and also Mike Sullivan with the Ambulance calling time and stuff, serviced 16 hours a day by the staff now.

Holderness: Yes. We think that’s a great benefit to our area, so we appreciate those efforts.

Lehman: Does the Board have any questions for Dan?

Harney: With that anticipated extension of Oakdale Boulevard across, and perhaps the Iowa Child, is there any other plans to tie that into like 380 or another interchange somewhere, or is that still going to all come down to the same intersection at 965?

Holderness: In the west land use plan, which I mentioned before, there are some plans in the future to create a new interchange with Highway 6 and 380. Actually, the plan shows 2 new interchanges; it shows Highway 6 and 380, and potentially Forevergreen Road and 380, as new interchanges. The way the plan was set up, the first interchange to be built would be on 6 and 380. In the real generalization, if you look at that west land use plan, the north area would be residential coming on south into commercial and industrial areas along Highway 6 and south of Highway 6. It was felt that, for instance, if you did the Forevergreen Road interchange first, you’d be pushing a lot of truck traffic through the residential areas, and we really didn’t want to do that. It was felt that, from our perspective, the Highway 6 interchange would be better to be built, because then you could have the truck traffic get right into the industrial, commercial areas that it needs to service off the interstate. Also, the DOT likes that interchange as well, because they have some continuity issues. If you think about it, you can’t get from Highway 6 to the interstate system directly, anywhere. You always have to go on another road somewhere, and so that would help them connect their system together better. We think that’s a good project that ought to be pushed forward. It’s a lengthy process; you have do a justification study that has to be approved by Ames, as well as sent to Washington, D.C., because the interstate system has federal ownership. The whole process takes about 4 years from the start to finish up construction, at a minimum. We think it’s a good project, but if you look at the map here on the front, you can see our corporate boundaries are down the center line of 380. So, anything that would sit on Highway 6 and 380, the east half would be in Coralville and the west half would be in Tiffin, actually, land that’s been annexed by Tiffin. So there has to be agreement on the local level to pursue that, by both communities, and at this point and time we don’t have total agreement on that. We think it’s something that ought to be done, and so we’re going to meet with Tiffin and work with Tiffin and try to see if we can get some concurrence there. If that can happen, then we would like to move ahead with that as soon as possible.

Stutsman: Are you saying that Tiffin is opposed to having an interchange there?

Holderness: Well, they aren’t in favor of it at this point and time.

Stutsman: OK.

Holderness: We think there’s a lot of benefits to having it there, so we just need to work with Tiffin and talk to Tiffin and see if we can, you know, work through any issues or concerns they have and see if we can come to some consensus on it.

Stutsman: They’re concerned about dumping a lot of truck traffic through Tiffin?

Holderness: Yes, they’re concerned about increased traffic. My understanding of what their concerns are is they’re concerned about increased traffic through Tiffin. But, I guess from my perspective, I think it’s going to get worse if you don’t build the interchange, because there’s going to be some commercial, industrial development on the south edge of this area, around Highway 6. I think that if a trucker from that area is going to go west on 80, he’s not going to go back to the east on 6 to 965 to get on 80. He’s going to go west on Highway 6 to get there. I think, long term, it would be to their benefit as well. We just need to sit down with them, and talk to them, and try to work through the issues.

Lehman: It’s obvious that a lot of thing, the projects, especially your proposed stuff, that sometimes you have to run them up a flagpole and see what happens. The funding will be there, public opinion, that kind of thing. A lot of things are out of your control, but you’re progressive enough to at least bring them to the table. People have to realize that just because you suggest it, doesn’t mean it’s completely good or bad, but you’ve got to do planning.

Holderness: That’s right. We’re trying to, like you say, look ahead and look into the future and see where things ought to be. Just as you said, funding is a different issue. We don’t have near enough money to build half of that stuff, but if we don’t get it on the planning and get it in front of somebody, why, then it’ll never be built.

Lehman: Yes, it’s easy for us to sit here and look at some things we’ve done, or other communities 10-15 years ago, and you wonder what were they thinking? Well, things have changed since they drew those plans up, and implemented them, and you have to be adaptable, and I think you’ve got enough things going here and, like you say, I think you gave a few disclaimers that you just don’t know the final answer on some of these things.

Stutsman: Dan, I wanted to ask you about Deer Creek Road, and what Coralville is thinking about that area?

Holderness: OK. Obviously, that was a joint effort by the County and Coralville/Iowa City 2 years ago, to look at north/south access issues on the west side of the community. The priority came back to look at First Avenue/Mormon Trek first. We’re in the midst of doing our First Avenue/Highway 6 project, which will address our piece of that. Iowa City and the University are doing a joint project to improve Mormon Trek between Melrose and the viaduct. All 3 of us in a project we hopefully can get approved soon, to improve the viaduct, the Iowa interstate river viaduct, to take that from 2 lanes to 5 lanes, plus have sidewalks on both sides for pedestrians to safely get through there. We are looking at that and addressing that as the first priority, which is what the committee recommended. The 2nd priority was Deer Creek Road/965 issue. I guess, from our perspective, we’re feeling that we should probably not spend a lot of money on Deer Creek Road, and that we ought to try to push the 965, just do the future improvements, the ultimate improvements and be done with it. Our Council’s thoughts are that the extension of 965 south of Highway 6 should be done by the developers, as is needed and required. So we really haven’t pushed forward, specifically, anything yet. I do know that there are some development proposals in the works that would begin some development south of Highway 6 at the 965 interchange, and so I think that there’s a good potential with the first 800 feet of that will be built yet this year, actually. (Inaudible) will be the start of 965 going south. They City is committed to, when the time comes, to build a bridge over Clear Creek, because we think that’s more of a public facility. It’s hard to expect developers to pay that kind of money for that kind of improvement, so once the road gets there, we have committed to build that bridge and help the road to go on south. We’re estimating that, at least our portion of 965, could be built in the 5-6 year time frame, from now forward.

Lehman: We’re saying that we don’t want to duplicate efforts, here.

Holderness: Yes.

Lehman: Appreciate that heads up, something that is a joint effort on Deer Creek, but when we do something like that, it may alter plans for 965, or 965 may be duplications of improvements to Deer Creek.

Holderness: Right.

Lehman: We (inaudible) a couple improved parallel roads running together.

Holderness: Right. We realize it’s a situation that needs to be addressed and, like you said, we hate to duplicate efforts and spend money twice. So our thoughts, at least at this point and time, are to put our efforts and money towards the 965 extension.

Stutsman: We received a proposed annexation of the Clear Creek annexation district in the City of Coralville. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Holderness: Sure. That is something you’ve seen before. It’s back again, but in a little bit revised manner. The annexation as is proposed now, I don’t know if you can see this or not, but basically it’s the area between Highway 6 and 380 and I-80, the remaining area. It’s kind of half-moon shaped, that is (inaudible). Plus it includes three parcels that are south of I-80, that border I-80, and border both sides of Deer Creek Road. I need to sit down with Mike and Al, and talk about, we had kind of an agreement worked out before based on the prior annexation request. We had a road agreement worked out in principle, I guess you could say. So I need to sit down with these guys and talk about that again, because we did, if you remember in the original proposal there was a portion that was being taken in voluntarily in the southwest corner of Deer Creek Road and 340th. That parcel has been dropped out of this request, and so all the parcels except for a little 4-acre parcel north of the interstate, it’s all voluntary request. There is one small parcel that has to be taken involuntarily because it would create an island if it wasn’t.

Stutsman: So that little parcel is going to fit with the 80/20 over there?

Holderness: Yes. I’m going to need to sit down with Mike and Al and come to some agreement on road maintenance issues.

Lehman: Any other questions for Dan? If not, then…Mike Gardner?

County Engineer Mike Gardner: I just had one concern with the legal description on the annexation at 340th Street. This goes to the north right of way line. This would be our (inaudible) in the center of the road. It’s City Parcel A.

Holderness: OK. That’s in the northwest corner, Mike, of 340th?

Gardner: Yes.

Holderness: OK. We thought we’d use the legal description that we had been given. Have you actually checked that Mike?

Gardner: Yes, the legal (inaudible) and bounds description just takes it to the north corridor.

Holderness: All right. We (inaudible) at the center of the road then. So, we will change that. We’ll amend that.

Lehman: OK. Thanks. Rick Dvorak?

Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak: Yes, I’ll do the math. I think our staff would support this annexation and probably recommend to the Board to send a letter acknowledging this request and saying is it the plans for the Fringe Area Agreement. Once they rectify the legal description at 340th Street. I think that would be our only concern. Dan had said something, too, about involuntarily annexing. I don’t really think that is correct. I think it’s 80/20.

Holderness: I’m sorry. You’re right.

Dvorak: I wanted to make sure the public is aware we don’t (inaudible) on the involuntary annexation in that area.

Holderness: That’s correct.

Dvorak: I did have another question. I didn’t see a lot on here on Oakdale Boulevard, east towards Dubuque Street. I know there has been a lot of traffic dumped on Dubuque Street. I know that comes up every year for our concern. Do you have any plans to continue that over to Dubuque Street?

Holderness: Yes, that’s one of the things we have talked about.

Lehman: 3 to 5 years, I think.

Holderness: Yes.

Dvorak: OK.

Holderness: Yes, JCCOG did a study and said based on the anticipated growth (inaudible) what’s there now will be sufficient in 3-5 years. So, we intend to get the road built in that time frame then.

Stutsman: OK.

Lehman: Any other questions for Dan? If not, I appreciate you coming in and sharing your ideas with us.

Holderness: Thanks for the time in cooperating with us. We appreciate all of the cooperation we have had in the past and look forward to many more projects in the future.

Lehman: Thanks.

COUNTY ENGINEER MIKE GARDNER: CURRENT CALCIUM CHLORIDE PROGRAM AND GETTING QUOTES FOR THIS YEARS NEEDS; PURCHASE OF TWO NEW LT9500 STERLING TANDEM AXLE DUMP TRUCKS TO REPLACE A 1990 FORD LTS 9000 SINGLE AXLE TRUCK AND A 1992 FREIGHTLINER FLD 112SD TANDEM AXLE TRUCK CURRENT CALCIUM CHLORIDE PROGRAM AND GETTING QUOTES FOR THIS YEARS NEEDS; PURCHASE OF TWO NEW LT9500 STERLING TANDEM AXLE DUMP TRUCKS TO REPLACE A 1990 FORD LTS 9000 SINGLE AXLE TRUCK AND A 1992 FREIGHTLINER FLD 112SD TANDEM AXLE TRUCK

Lehman: Our next item of business will be Discussion Action Needed of the Calcium Chloride Program and getting quotes for this year’s needs. Our representatives are Mike Gardner, County Engineer and Kevin Hackathorn, our Maintenance Chief of Secondary Roads.

Gardner: Good morning. This is mostly just to kind of bring the 2 new Supervisors up to speed on what we are doing with the calcium chloride program now. As of last April, the Board adopted a safety program. Basically, what it says is that any of our granular surface roads that are carrying 150 vehicles or more per day we will put them in the safety program. In doing that we’ll treat with calcium chloride areas such as intersections, residential driveways, approaches to bridges and culverts, any horizontal or vertical curves that present a limited sight distance type of area. So, we will treat those areas with calcium chloride. The policy states we’ll do it at least and last year we did make 2 applications on it. That was our plan again this year. We just wanted to come in and bring you up to speed and let you know that we’re probably going to send out for quotes and we’ll take quotes on the 16th of March and bring that information back to the Board on the 20th of March.

Lehman: Have you already predetermined the roads that we have talked about different additions, one instance was Sioux Avenue? Or include those in your mileage figures?

Gardner: Was it done last year?

Maintenance Supervisor Kevin Hackathorn: Yes, I believe that was done last year. I think you were talking more on a solid type thing last I heard.

Stutsman: So is that what is going to be done this year?

Lehman: You had some that, after looking at it for a year, maybe some recommendations and some exceptions that because of heavy peak traffic.

Gardner: We’re showing the map that we used last year, Sioux Avenue was done, just the spot treatment. If you would like them, we can do that solid.

Neuzil: What is the road count on there? I know it is getting busier with that soccer field down there.

Gardner: It’s showing 230-250 vehicles a day on that stretch.

Thompson: I thought that last year we talked about including Amana Road and Sioux Avenue because of the local traffic that is generated outside the neighborhood and doing the whole road.

Gardner: Yes, all of Amana Road was treated under the safety program last year. Even though there were stretches that didn’t meet the 150 vehicles. But, we did treat it according to the program, the intersections and the residential drives.

Thompson: I can’t hear, can you hear me?

Lehman: Yes, we can hear you, Carol. Mike, what he said is, Amana Road was done, even though all of the road did not meet the full requirements. It was done because, like you said, traffic was generated on that road by other traffic.

Thompson: But, Sioux Avenue didn’t get included?

Lehman: It was done on a spot treatment as far as bridge approach and driveways, intersections.

Stutsman: I think the Board was hoping that Iowa City would help participate in the maintenance of that program, being the rationale is that their facility is what is generating the additional traffic on that road. But, it doesn’t seem like they are willing to help with that. So, I think the Board needs to make a policy decision whether we’re going to do the whole thing or just spot again.

Gardner: We did do some traffic counts on our own on soccer weekends. What we found was this count is fairly accurate. It may have increased approximately 10% on those weekends. The problem that happens is that on those weekends, people are home. We counted Thursday through Sunday and the weekdays you have the normal peaks that you see when you take these counts normally in the morning and in the afternoon. On the weekends, there is a similar count, but it is concentrated in that 9:00-1:00 period. People are home, the traffic is occurring in a more concentrated time frame. I think that is what is creating the problem. It’s not that there is that much more traffic, it’s just they are there to experience it and it is occurring over a shorter time period.

Lehman: Mike had told me they got the traffic during the week where people were going to work. On weekends they weren’t working but it was replaced by traffic going to the soccer complex and in a more concentrated time period.

Gardner: Right.

Lehman: We had some rough estimates of what that cost. I guess I’d be in favor of at least having a separate item we could look at as far as dollars for that. Decide if we want to go ahead and spend the dollars for a solid treatment on that road.

Neuzil: Or just more spot treatments if the neighbors are having problems with dust.

Stutsman: I don’t know how you could have more spot treatments. You’re doing all in front of all of the…

Neuzil: More than once a year.

Stutsman: Oh I see.

Gardner: We’re doing it twice a year now.

Lehman: The problem we ran into last year is we had a lot of rains before the 2nd application. I think Kevin went ahead and had the 2nd application done a little bit earlier, which was actually pre-soccer season trying to help their (inaudible) I believe. We had not done Napoleon Road, which is the east west road that connects Sioux to the south entrance of the soccer. We had not done that. There are 3 or 4 residents on that road, too. People were complaining about not necessarily so much in front of their homes, but also just the danger of them traveling that road. The places that were not spot-treated, just dust and possible going a little faster being out in the County as opposed to City surfaces. They’re worried about rear end collisions, farm equipment, wide equipment traveling the road and people not being used to meeting that type of traffic or coming upon it and the dust being an issue for visibility.

Hackathorn: Last year we did include Napoleon because it was part of a detour for the Sand Road, so we did treat the bridge by KCJJ and the houses on there that I don’t think it would fall in this year unless (inaudible) special.

Neuzil: We don’t get a lot of traffic out there.

Lehman: I don’t remember the exact figure, but it seemed like it was going to be $8,000 to do it. I wouldn’t use that figure, but I guess I would be interested in seeing an option.

Stutsman: I would, too. I know under that policy that we adopted for the calcium chloride, we did put in there those roads that receive increased traffic because of recreational use. I’m worried about the precedence we’re setting here. Then other people say, well, I have more traffic, not quite the reach the 300 but… I think we can justify this because of that recreational use with the soccer fields.

Gardner: Right. The policy says Johnson County will treat granular surfaced roads to County Park entrances, State Park entrances, golf courses and other recreational sites as established annually by the County Board of Supervisors. So, you do have that.

Lehman: But, that did say County Parks and this is not a County Park. It’s a recreational.

Gardner: And other recreational sites.

Lehman: We’ve had discussion with Iowa City and it kind of fell on deaf ears I guess. They felt they provided 2 other dust free entries into the park and they didn’t feel it was their duty to try to control the traffic of how people chose to enter that soccer complex.

Thompson: Most people from that road have been in several times and I would agree with you Sally that we should go ahead (inaudible) road.

Lehman: There are about 18 residences, I think, on Sioux and Napoleon.

Neuzil: Yes, in fact a delegation of them came down to the radio stations. They were visiting here and there. They’re really concerned about it and we should (inaudible).

Lehman: It sounds like we have consensus to at least have that as at least a separate bid or an option so that if we decide we want to put it on, if you can get a bid for your total road.

Stutsman: Yes, why don’t you bring in what the cost is going to be and then we can review it again. But, it sounds like there is pretty general support (inaudible).

Gardner: When we came in on the 20th with the quote, we’ll be able to tell you what it would cost to do solid versus the (inaudible).

Neuzil: For those who are under 150 cars per day, do they have the option of buying it from the County? What’s the process with that?

Gardner: Yes, every spring we notify the public that they can do dust control on their own. They can use… There are a number of people that we have approved to make the dust applications, materials that we have approved, or calcium chloride, or the lignin sulfinate, which is the tree sap. Anyone that has an existing oil spot in front of their residence that has maintained it throughout, they are given the option. Kevin goes out every year and inspects all of those and determines whether or not they have to do the repairs on it this season or not. If we contact them and tell them if they want to stay in the program, they have to upgrade it this year and they choose not to, then they are out of the program and we tear it up and they are back to some other material in the future.

Harney: Just out of curiosity, do you know if a calcium chloride treated road increases traffic because the dust is gone over if it is left dusty?

Hackathorn: It increases speed, I’ll guarantee you that.

Gardner: Intuitively, yes, I would think so. Deer Creek Road is carrying over 1,000 vehicles a day. I doubt very much that all of that traffic would be out there if there wasn’t dust control on it. But, there is going to be a large amount of traffic on that road anyway, but I don’t think there would be as much if it weren’t treated.

Lehman: Kevin brings up a good point here driving on 380, you look over on Deer Creek and somebody is going faster than you are. Kind of a sobering thought. I was going to ask, I’ve had a few people ask about the calcium chloride. I know with frozen weather, there are a lot of holes developing on those calcium chloride roads. I’m sure you’re going to tell me it’s not feasible to go out and spot grade those type roads. Are there are certain windows in the weather here where some of those could be worked or what is your input on that?

Hackathorn: It’s pothole prone. With the freeze thaw cycle like everything is now, they’re more susceptible because there is nothing holding anything together. It’s a hard road to maintain. When it’s lying nice it is a good road. But, it’s hard to maintain in the summer months. The only time you can maintain it is with the right amount of moisture. If there is too much moisture it turns to a soup. Then it just splatters everywhere. Then, if it’s too dry, you blade it. We tried Deer Creek one day. It started raining in the morning and we thought we’re going to get on this. We started blading and it quit raining and we had a dust storm basically. The EPA called us that they had complaints on 380 and we had to reapply chloride then. So, if you don’t hit it at the right time it is a real headache. But, right now, you drive Deer Creek and it is full of holes. We’ve been mixing rock with chloride, trying to blade it in. But, if the conditions aren’t just right, the first truck that bounces, your holes are back.

Lehman: I figured there was a rationale. I wasn’t sure what it was. But, I know it’s not real efficient for you to go out there and try to do… If you’ve got frozen shoulders and stuff and trying to do other high spots, then you’ve got more of a mess then. But, I know there have been some potholes developing. But, I understand what you are saying. You’re pretty limited in what you can do. Just like farming, the weather can make you look pretty smart or pretty dumb.

Hackathorn: Yes. We’ve found, too, that chloride, it fits a certain volume of traffic also. Like Deer Creek, with the big volume, it suppresses the dust, but it can’t hold up to the pounding again. It’s more designed for the 150-200 cars a day and not the heavy garbage trucks, dump trucks all on rock.

Neuzil: It gets back to the whole question of Deer Creek Road.

Lehman: OK. More questions or input here for Mike and Kevin and the calcium chloride program?

Stutsman: Do you anticipate a big cost jump this year?

Hackathorn: I’ve talked to one supplier who had the contract last year and he said about $.03 a gallon he thought. But, it’s like everything else, also they are talking a shortage. So, he doesn’t know what that is going to bring, plus that’s just the cost of the chloride. The trucking he hasn’t even put a figure to yet because it’s so up and down.

Neuzil: As far as the sap?

Hackathorn: Tree sap, I haven’t talked to them much. We really don’t apply much of it. That’s more out to the general public to put in front of their houses and we’ll have those costs before we send out our spring newsletter and everything and know what they are going to charge.

Stutsman: Just to clarify, when people do their own applications in front of their houses, we’re just out of it. We just basically give them the information and they do their own contracting with the private individual.

Hackathorn: We get it ready for them prior to applying it. We try to get it as smooth as we can. Then, if holes develop, that’s where the problem lies. Liability wise we’ve got to do something with the holes and that’s blade them. Then, you lose some of your dust control.

Lehman: That’s in the case of tree sap. The tree sap is basically on the surface. Once it’s graded you pretty well lose any benefits you ever had from it. The calcium chloride can be worked around a few times.

Hackathorn: The calcium chloride lies there and it draws the moisture out of the air, which suppressed the dust. As you talked last year with the rains, it dilutes it and pretty soon you lose it. The more you blade it you lose it.

Lehman: Your normal target dates for calcium chloride are around Labor Day and Memorial Day?

Hackathorn: We try to get it down before Memorial Day. Get everything in the County because everything is starting to go up around the Reservoir. We used to say Memorial Day and Labor Day. Last year it was the end of July, the first of August they needed another application because people wanted it. Then, we told them, too, you put it on now, come October, when your windows are open this fall, the effectiveness of it was going to be down. At that point we had people calling in asking if they could buy a 3rd application and we just sent them to the companies and dealt with it that way.

Lehman: OK. We appreciate that information. If nothing further we’ll go to Discussion/action needed on some equipment that Kevin is purchasing through his budget request for this current year.

Hackathorn: Yes, basically this is to fix the potholes and the chloride. No, we want to replace a couple of our larger trucks. It’s pretty much right there. I recommend that we go with the low bid, which would be with a Sterling, through Mid-American truck in Cedar Rapids and it won’t come out of this Fiscal Year’s budget for equipment, but it will be within our budget for next year.

Stutsman: You have to order this far ahead?

Hackathorn: We’re doing good now. It used to be it was 14 months out.

Stutsman: Wow.

Hackathorn: The trucking industry has sort of gone south and actually, they are saying I can get a truck in 60-90 days. But, I want to get the order in. I told them I couldn’t take the truck until August or September.

Lehman: Your 2 trade-ins are a 1990 and a 1992.

Hackathorn: Right.

Lehman: You’re getting some use out of them and some lifetime.

Hackathorn: Yes.

Lehman: I think you had explained at other times that there are still some trade-in value when you get to that, just like a personal car, where is the point of no return on diminishing the value of your trade-ins.

Hackathorn: Yes. It varies so much from year to year because a lot of them, when you are dealing with your trade-in, they are looking for a buyer before they even give you a number. So, this year, we’re trading some old plows and stuff on them and we’re getting halfway decent money for the fact that everybody is looking for snow removal equipment. I say the low bid truck fits our specs and everything. I don’t think we’d have any problems with it.

Lehman: These 2 new trucks are basically for the same purpose, replacement. Are you looking to do anything? It looks like you’re getting 2 tandem axles and you are trading in a single plus a tandem. So, you’re going to be able to do a little bit more than you were before, heavier duty on the 2nd truck. You’ll have 2 heavier trucks as opposed to one light and one heavy.

Hackathorn: Just during our year’s experience, we just kept getting bigger. These bigger trucks are actually shorter wheel-based so they are not quite as stretched out tandem. They are short wheel based tandem, so we can still turn around navigating our narrow right of ways and stuff. But, we can’t haul more, especially in the winter when we need to get more sand out.

Lehman: It was interesting talking to a lot of your maintenance people. You had to keep a load of sand on just to keep your traction for pushing the heavier snowdrifts. Then, you get a situation that’s ice, it’s quite a task out there. It’s been a trying year this winter.

Stutsman: How has the equipment been holding up?

Hackathorn: Not bad. It’s our typical breakdowns, transmissions, axles and things like that. But, not too awfully bad for what they’ve been doing.

Lehman: I think I talked to one of your drivers and they said it was so cold and the snow and they get a lot of buildup around the engine and the frame. The heat of the engine didn’t melt stuff. With axles and stuff you’re getting crushed lines and even oil filters that snow has built up on the axles and when the things pivot they actually break oil filters.

Hackathorn: We actually had an axle build-up with ice that dented the oil pan on the engine. It just came up and caved it in. Two weeks ago when we had that snow rain, we had trucks coming in and they had to wash the truck down because the ice formed on the cables and everything. Nothing would go up and down. They just came in like a big ice cube. They get beat up. Not beat up but tried and tested out there.

Lehman: They’re not sitting out there in the parking lot, they are being put to use. Hopefully, rural residents understand that, that that is the cost to maintain that stuff.

Hackathorn: Right now we are doing the juggling act of plowing snow in the morning and trying to haul rock in the afternoon. It’s just that time of the year.

Stutsman: How are salt supplies holding up?

Hackathorn: We’re getting down. I’ve got 300 more ton ordered. I was supposed to receive the first 100-ton last week but it didn’t show up. They’re having problem with their shipping is where they are having the problem. I know right now I’ve got some on order, Iowa City does, North Liberty, it all comes out of the same place and they just bring it in and divvy it up between us. But, we’re sitting good for now. We’ll get by another couple of storms.

Stutsman: That’s all we’re going to have, right?

Harney: I hope so.

Stutsman: I think everybody’s getting real tired. The first one is kind of exciting and then it gets to be a real grind.

Lehman: (Inaudible) suggested changing his job description to meteorologist, maintenance slash.

Gardner: Kevin was telling me the other day that 11 out of the last 12 weekends they have had to work at least one day. So, they have had one weekend in the last 3 months that they have had the full weekend off.

Lehman: Talking about product, sand and salt and also hitting personnel with overtime. A factor you don’t have control over.

Lehman: And fuel.

Gardner: That’s a day to day basis on what that is going to cost.

Lehman: OK, any other questions for Kevin or Mike?

Stutsman: Now, this doesn’t need to be put on for further action? This is just for our information?

Gardner: Yes.

Stutsman: OK.

Lehman: OK, we’d like to take about a 10-minute recess here. A little break recess.

Stutsman: Oh thank you.

Recessed at 10:12 a.m.; reconvened at 10:25 a.m.

(Continued in Part 2)