MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
MARCH 7, 2002
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Minutes Received: Johnson County Empowerment Area Board for February 7, 2002
Lone Tree City Council Members Kice Brown and Jeff Lihs: Lone Tree Senior Dining Meal Transportation
Reverend Bob Welsh: Lone Tree Senior Dining Meal Transportation
Chairperson Thompson called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:12 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
AL MONSANTO: SENIOR CENTER UPDATE
Thompson: Call to order the Informal Meeting. The first item of business is from Al Monsanto, a Senior Center Update.
Senior Center Commission Member Al Monsanto: Our first business in the meeting is we had a discussion on our budget shortfall. I’m sure you’re familiar with that, trying to figure out how to make it up. So far we haven’t come up with any solutions. It was suggested we probably have to cut back on our landscaping and some of the building maintenance and extra help. We got a letter from Diane Flemming from Elderly Services that is through the dining. I believe they’ve taken it over now, just explaining and going on. April the 21st is going to be our Volunteer Recognition Week. We set up a committee to take care of what we’re going to do and so forth. On the 3rd floor entrance to the parking lot of the law firm, I had their name here, I forgot it. Any how, they decided they wanted to beautify the floor. The concrete floor that was there, so they put in a fancy, it’s a kind of a tile shaped with ripples in it. There is some apprehension that this might be, especially if it’s wet in the winter that this might be a hazard for older people. So we did go to the City about it. They in turn talked to the law firm. They have determined that it’s not that big of hazard. We got a letter from the law firm asserting that they don’t consider it a hazard. I don’t suspect they want to replace it. We lost one of our members, Bill Kelly, and Linda mentioned that Bill made a nice donation to our gift fund. I think that about covers it. Is there any questions I can answer.
Thompson: Thank you. That was a very thorough report.
Monsanto: Oh, good. Now I’ve got to go home and take my wife shopping.
Lehman: Did you want us to keep you a little longer maybe?
Thompson: Next is business from Linda Severson. She’s not here, do I hear her voice out in the other room? Let’s go on to business from Elaine Sweet, the director of Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities.
Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Elaine Sweet: Good morning. I have 2 items of business for you this morning. The first is a request from the Iowa State Association of Counties for a $300 voluntary contribution to begin technical assistance studies for MH/DD redesign Statewide. The CPC redesign proposal is something that’s been discussed for about 3 years now. Given the recent DHS restructuring, we’re wanting to move ahead with this and expedite the process as much we can. It becomes even more important because of the State level budget cuts that we’re all dealing with. ISAC has requested that each County in Iowa make a $300 contribution to begin these studies. ISAC made a donation earlier. The $300 donation from counties will assist in the process. The Central Point of Coordination Administrators this week conducted a survey to see how Counties were responding to the request. As of yesterday, 53 Counties had responded. 38 Counties will contribute the full $300, 1 County will contribute $150, 5 Counties have refused to contribute, and there were 9 that responded that they were undecided. So there are a number out there that didn’t respond to the survey, but clearly overwhelmingly the Counties are supporting this effort. All of the larger Counties in Iowa also have responded affirmatively. It is my recommendation that the $300 be funded out of MH/DD Services.
Stutsman: I might add that when we attended Fall school of ISAC, Iowa State Association of Counties, there was a vote by the Supervisors affiliate and it was the majority to go ahead with this to make the assessments. I know I voted for it because I think it really is a good plan. The plan is to hire a professional technical team that will come in and assist with the restructuring project. I think it’s identified some people from the East coast.
Sweet: I believe so. I believe they’ve already started with initial ISAC contribution.
Stutsman: This is such a complex system and the people that were hired or consulted to do this have had a lot of experience in dealing with the Medicaid and Medicare systems. So, I think it’s definitely a way to go. So I have no problems with contributing the $300.
Lehman: How large was that contribution from ISAC?
Sweet: I believe it was $15,000.
Lehman: Is ISAC funded other then just through County dues?
Stutsman: No that their…
Lehman: So we’ve already contributed somewhat.
Stutsman: Right. I know this wasn’t monies from the case management part, this was from the ISAC Board so it wasn’t funded… I forget what the cost was for this consultant. I have my notes back there because they talked about that at the Board meeting.
Sweet: I think it’s being phased in. I believe the original ISAC contribution was in the neighborhood of $15,000 and now they’re asking for the $300 donation per County to continue that study. The actual redesign proposal has several fazes though and goes over a several year period.
Thompson: So are we going to be asked for money at a later time?
Sweet: Most probably.
Stutsman: But ultimately the results of this are going to benefit Counties. I think if we don’t start something like this I think we’re going to be asked for other costs other ways. So I think it’s something that needs to be done and it’s something that I think we need to move forward on. Which, you know, quite frankly I’m surprised that they didn’t do, expecting the larger Counties to give more and the smaller Counties to give less.
Lehman: It may end up that way.
Thompson: $300 seems like a small enough part of a $9 million budget.
Sweet: The redesign proposal provides for the long term viability of the MH/DD system. We all know the changes are eminent, the budget cuts are forcing a lot of decisions that we don’t have time to really analyze to the degree that we would like to. This is being proactive in looking at the long-term implication of budget cuts and planfully preparing for those that we know will be coming. So if you look at it that way, $300 is not a large expenditure.
Lehman: I think Sally’s absolutely right that the study… Hopefully some recommendations will come off, the Iowa State Association of Counties will make recommendations to the governor or legislature and the future of how it’s going to be funding MH/DD.
Stutsman: Well I think what the most important thing of this whole thing is the expertise that this group will have in dealing with this system. Then ultimately allowing us to look into accessing more Federal dollars to put into the system. It’s so complex, unless you’ve had some experience dealing with it there’s just lots of things that can be overlooked. I think sometimes it’s worth the money to hire somebody that knows how the system works, have had experiences in dealing with other States, and it will pay in the long run.
Thompson: So is there consensus from the Board to put this on for next week?
Lehman: Would this come out of Elaine’s…
Sweet: Yes, I recommend it’s paid out of MH/DD.
Stutsman: I suppose probably it would be better if we did have a motion to forward to ISAC that the Board took formal action on approving this. Elaine has it in her budget to do this. I suppose, yes.
Thompson: It is in the budget for next year to do it.
Stutsman: No. You have some dollars that…
Sweet: I have one budget account number that’s not been used to the fullest and I would take it out of that.
Stutsman: I was going to say, there’s nothing saying it has to come out of the MH/DD. You know, if we wanted to pay for it out of another fund, we could.
Sweet: It’s certainly up to you.
Neuzil: Quite generous.
Thompson: I don’t know whether… Should we go ahead and put it down for next week, just to pin it down with a motion. Next is discussion action regarding the Iowa Department of Human Services Community Mental Health Center Affiliation. We also have Steve Trefz here, who is the Director of our local Mental Health Center.
Sweet: The Mental Health Center Affiliation is something that we do annually. Each County is required to affiliate with a mental health provider. Johnson County affiliates with the Mental Health Center. This is a requirement of the State in order for us to qualify for our community services allocation fund and the community services for this year is $1,135,119. As I said it’s a formality, but it is necessary in order to access those funds. It’s a formality in that we don’t access the funds without signing the form, but it’s also a pleasure in working with the Mental Health Center. We do have a very cooperative collaborative relationship and our relationship goes all year and not just when we sign the affiliation form.
Thompson: I guess there’s not much question about this since we only have one mental health center.
Mental Health Center Director Steven Trefz: I would just echo what Elaine says. We’re proud to be affiliated with the County. I think at the brainstorming session when we saw as many Supervisors there helping us try to solve problems with MH/DD was very impressive. So anything we can do to help we’re getting up to the plate.
Thompson: So do we have consensus to put that on for next week?
Neuzil: Yes.
Thompson: Anything else you need?
Sweet: That’s all for today. Thank you.
Thompson: Next is business from the County Engineer. Oh, let’s go back to Linda Severson. Linda is coordinator for Human Services for Johnson County Council of Governments. She’s going to talk about our County match for our local government funding of family resources centers and neighborhood centers.
Severson: Good morning. The information I bring to you today as Carol mentioned relates to the County’s funding commitment to rural family resource centers and neighborhood centers. I believe this is our 3rd year of funding and what the County agreed to was if local municipalities committed funding for their family resource center or neighborhood centers and the County would match the up to $25,000. I sent over letters from the municipalities. I think you should have it in your packet. The City of Hills has committed $6,000 for FY03 to their family resource center which is located at the Elementary School in Hills. The City of North Liberty has contributed $20,000 for FY03 for their family resource center, which is located at Penn Elementary in North Liberty. The County from my understanding has committed $25,000 in department 45 for the program. With the requests we’re $1,000 over. The requests come to $26,000. So my suggestion for the Board to consider was that we would decrease the North Liberty County commitment by $800, which would be 4% and Hills by $200, which would be 3.3% of what they requested. So that would bring us up to our $25,000 that we committed to family resource centers. Does the Board have any questions or comments?
Stutsman: This is money that we already have in the budget for this year and there was… Just for historical background, that there was a RFP process, letters of intent were sent out to all the communities, saying that this money was available if they wanted to participate.
JCCOG Human Services Coordinator Linda Severson: In October, Jan Peterson who is the former Decat Coordinator and I sent out fliers to all City Mayors and City Clerks and we held an informational meeting in October at the Library. Then their letter of intent were due by November 4th or 6th, the first part of November. I also sent out press releases to all the local newspapers.
Stutsman: These were the only 2 that responded.
Severson: These were the only 2 that responded, correct. Also in the past we’ve used a Decat contract because it’s gone through Decat. I was wanting direction from the Board in terms of do you want to continue with the Decat contract or we could also fold this into the County contracts or agreements we’re using with out block grants human service agencies.
Stutsman: Since Decat is no longer an organized entity in Johnson County… I think the Decat contracts worked very well. They were put together over a period of time and I think they are very good and very useful. But who would administrate that, would you Linda?
Severson: I would be glad to process the contracts and then I think my understanding is would Cheryl still sign off on the invoices for Department 45? I think for Hills, I think that was a one-time payment in this fiscal year and then the North Liberty one was payments, not just one time.
Thompson: This money that we’re talking about now is for FY2003.
Severson: Right, starting July 1st.
Thompson: OK, but we need to check the budget. I know it was $25,000 for this year, but we may not have added the extra thousand for next year. I can’t remember.
Severson: OK.
Lehman: Is this area of the budget effected by that 1%? I don’t believe block grants…
Thompson: The Departments budget was effected. This is in Fund 45. The whole department has to take the 1%, but probably she won’t take it out of this.
Severson: No, I believe Cheryl recommended at least at the $25,000 level was my recollection in talking with her.
Stutsman: What’s your feeling about whether to do the Decat or is it better to have them all, all of our block grants on the same contracts?
Severson: Well, I would lean towards that direction just because I don’t see Decat being resurrected in the near future, so there would be some consistency. I do have copies of the Decat contract so I’ll look through those and if there’s anything relative that would be important. But in the County agreements we talk about the amount of money, the distribution pattern and what services are to be provided. So I think we would have most things covered, but I’ll compare that to the Decat contract. Also Joan Vandenburg was going to be here this morning, but she had to send her regrets. She’s at a workshop about a grant application.
Stutsman: I think that’s a fair way to do it, to reduce the allocation to each group so we come up with our $25,000.
Thompson: I guess we should add that we only extended this invitation to the small cities in the County. Not to Iowa City or Coralville.
Severson: Correct. I think as a County we wanted to see services available in the rural areas and also to see commitment from our rural communities.
Stutsman: That’s what I wanted to add too. I think a big or important part of this is the local councils or the local communities has matched the County dollars. So it’s a good collaborative effect between the County and smaller Cities in the County.
Harney: I guess I have a question on this, not being familiar when this was set up initially. The County puts in the $25,000. So we have 2 communities asking for the $25,000. It goes over, so we’re reducing back down to the $25,000. Now do we reduce that, say Lone Tree or say some of these other communities ask for the same thing or have committed, do we just lower the $25 or do we give more in the long run.
Thompson: Well, we said we would talk about that. That’s why they put out the RFP in the Fall and find out who wants to do it with us and then we’d have it in our budget discussions about how much we’d be willing to match. But so far they haven’t asked for much more then we have had available.
Severson: I think Pat if that were the case, then we would come to the Board saying these are the requests that we have in relationship to the amount of money that the County has committed. The Board would then decide who they wanted to fund and how much they wanted to fund. If I was involved, we would give a couple of options in terms of we could match this amount of money from North Liberty or this amount of money from Lone Tree. But if that were to happen I guess I would encourage the Board to review all of the requests.
Harney: It’s not a problem this year.
Severson: Right. It hasn’t been a problem since we instituted the program a couple of years ago, but we could… Yes.
Stutsman: There has been interest. I’m thinking, like from Tiffin, they have expressed some interest, but there again it’s coming up with that match. It’s not just the County giving the block grant, we do ask the local governments to provide a match.
Severson: The City of North Liberty has supported their family resource center for a number of years even before there was the County match available. I think they started out at maybe $5,000 5 or 6 years ago. It’s reached the point that North Liberty supports it up to $25,000 with local City dollars. Then I think for Hills, $6,000 is quite a commitment also, when you look at the size of the Community.
Stutsman: But then the bottom line, it’s $12,000 for the resource center.
Severson: Exactly.
Stutsman: You can tell I’m supportive of this program, because I think this really does have an impact in the Community. Of course I live just outside of Hills, but you know, have heard some very positive returns on having the resource center, the community that it builds, it’s a good prevention tool in the Community. Have visited with the North Liberty center and I just can’t believe how busy they are and how important that center is to the schools and to the Community. I think these are good uses of our dollars. When the Board made this decision, part of the interest was to reach out to the rural communities. We have lots of services in Iowa City and Coralville and I think the Board just wanted to make sure that those kinds of services would be available in the smaller communities too.
Thompson: I wish we had time to read all the letters that they sent, the activities are… I feel like we’re getting a good amount of accountability for this too. The Hills people mentioned their family night, which has become an important activity in the Community where families can come to the school and have dinner. North Liberty mentioned that last year they had 4,369 total contacts. That’s a lot of people that go through that center in a year.
Severson: For instance with the Hills family night, for supper, lots of times they connect with Table to Table to get food donated. I know I was down there one night and the food came from the Iowa Memorial Union. I was pretty impressed. Also to if they have extras and people can take home bread and other types of things.
Neuzil: Boy you had a good one. The night I was down there it was Hy-Vee. Hy-Vee was fine too.
Severson: Another comment that Joan wanted me to share with the Board, in terms of the family resource center. It also gives the rural communities a focus and in terms of donations also. Sometimes a group may want to do something, but they’re not quite sure who to contact or how they could give resources or if they have a donation to make how they can get it to someone in need or someone who needs some other types of material things. She said it’s been a good focal point in terms of local business, the churches and even individuals. That’s been something, say the Catholic Church in Hills wants to do something, but they’re not quite sure how to proceed. So they’ve made a contact with the family resource center to say this is what we have to offer, how can it be best utilized in the community. So I think that’s another plus of the resource centers.
Stutsman: I was going to say another positive… Linda and I could just go on and on about this is that, they have such good response to these potlucks because so many times families, so many times they have contacts with the school is something negative.
Severson: Right, you get that call.
Stutsman: You know, Johnny’s misbehaving, he’s doing poorly in school. This is a real camaraderie and so they feel more comfortable being involved with the school. Which is so important for so many young children to see that parents at school for something positive instead of, well we’ve got an issue to deal with.
Severson: Exactly, exactly.
Stutsman: Don’t want to put you on the spot guys. But I hope you’re taking this all in and listening for Lone Tree. Because I know last month at our Empowerment meeting the Lone Tree preschool had a request for funding. So maybe that something that…
Lone Tree City Council Member Carl Kice Brown: I was listening. I don’t remember our council even considering this issue, so it wasn’t brought before us. I’m going to go back and check and ask why.
Stutsman: Good.
Severson: Any other questions or concerns or comments?
Thompson: Thanks Linda.
Thompson: Next is business from the County Engineer, Mike Gardner. Discussion action regarding right-of-way action of for a grade and pave project on Mehaffey Bridge road and 180th street. This is a follow up to the ones that we already approved. These are ready for next week.
Assistant County Engineer Al Miller: Yes, these are…
Thompson: 14 projects?
Miller: 14 more parcels of property that contracts are signed and waiting for your approval. Similar to last week, it’s the 180th Street, Mehaffey Bridge 180th Street grading and paving project. I don’t know what more I can say I guess.
Thompson: Did you mention there were 33 all together?
Miller: Yes, I think we have 31 parcels involved in this project and 2 different parcels that need to have right-of-way acquired for the Solon turn lanes and stuff in front of the school.
Thompson: So, you are getting close to the end.
Miller: Yes, we are on our way. We are down to 6 or 8.
Stutsman: Just for information to the public, did you work with an appraiser with this, too, or was this all done with the staff at Secondary Roads?
Miller: What we have to do is, we put together the information for the right-of-way plats, plats got put together and it’s required that compensation estimates are done by an individual that is qualified to do compensation estimates for anything less than $10,000. Anything over $10,000 they have to do a full-blown appraisal, which an appraiser has to do. We contracted out to a local appraiser to do the work and that is what our offers were based on.
Stutsman: $10,000 per parcel or $10,000 for the project?
Miller: Parcel, per parcel.
Stutsman: OK.
Miller: So, if you had one that’s, we anticipate being over $10,000. We contracted out for a full-blown appraisal on it.
Harney: Do the dollars for all of this, is this cost share or is this just County dollars?
County Engineer Mike Gardner: This is all County.
Miller: This is all County. There will be a little bit of sharing in the 2 parcels that are involved with the Solon project. But, the property actually is in the County, so we have to buy it.
Stutsman: There is no State dollars that help with this? This is all…
Miller: Not in the right-of-way.
Thompson: Is there consensus to put this on for next week?
Stutsman: Yes.
Thompson: Next is discussion action regarding the Secondary Road 5-Year Construction Program and Future lists project. You’re bringing us new copies? OK.
Miller: Yes.
Thompson: Thank you. You brought extras for the public. If anyone else wants one they are here.
Gardner: While he is finishing that up I’ll just give you a little background. We have had 4 separate work sessions so far on this document, the 5-Year Program that has to be submitted to the DOT each year, to help (inaudible) the work that Johnson County proposes to do in new construction on their Secondary Roads system. We held 2 meetings in November and 2 meetings in January for discussion. In those discussions, the Board decided that they wanted to remove Sharon Center Road from the program. In addition to that, there in the budget process, Secondary Roads had about 13% of their budget cut, which amounted to a little over $1 million. So, the combination of those 2 things required us to make a few adjustments to the program that we had initially submitted. What basically we did was to remove the Sharon Center Road project from the program and adjust the rest of the projects, taking into account the budget cut that we had this year and anticipating that similar budget numbers could be used in the remaining 4 years. So, that is what we’ve based the document you have in front of you now on, trying to juggle the figures and juggle the time schedules to try to get it all done as best we can.
Lehman: I think one we had moved up was the Sand Road. That extra year of not doing a project should give you enough, or more time at least, to address that for engineering purposes.
Gardner: That’s correct. Al and I did meet with Jeff Davidson to start some preliminary discussions on that particular project. So, that is in the works at this point.
Stutsman: I attended a meeting yesterday that was talking about economic development in the eastern part of the County. One of the projects that was talked about was a big apartment complex down by the water treatment plant. Do you know what I am talking about?
Gardner: On Sand Road?
Neuzil: It’d be off Sand Road.
Lehman: Public Works.
Stutsman: Yes, right. Is that project going to have an impact on any of our roads down there? I’m not real sure where the location was and I’m just… What I’m getting at is, do we need to be thinking about that as far as the problems we came into with Sioux Avenue because of the soccer fields and stuff like that?
Gardner: That was part of the discussion we had the other day with Jeff Davidson and Rick Fosse. They showed us where the bypass road is proposed to come through and we held the discussion as far as what may or may not happen with funding and issues like that, that are still unresolved. But, we are aware of the information they have and we’re going to try to anticipate that in the design construction.
Stutsman: OK.
Neuzil: You’ve got to figure that Iowa City is going to grow, pretty much, at least up to Sycamore pretty soon here. It’s in all of their plans. The project number, I think it’s 10 on the map, the Lone Tree. Can you just go over what that is? Is that just to fix up the sides?
Miller: What we are planning on doing on that is widening the shoulders on the existing road and then resurfacing the existing road. The pavement is about at the end of its life. We kind of had a discussion in the past. That’s what we’re kind of looking for on some of these paved roads, is that we get as much service life out of them as we can. Then, when it is time to do something with the surface, we look at geometry and things like that, putting shoulders on roads. That happens to be an area where there are not really any geometric problems to it, but it doesn’t have any shoulders on it. So, we are looking at putting shoulders on it and flattening the 4 slopes.
Thompson: So, when it is finished it will look like Wapsi Avenue and north.
Miller: Yes, that 4 miles north that we did.
Lehman: Do we need to purchase right-of-way?
Miller: Yes.
Neuzil: Will that be done this summer or you think next summer?
Miller: No, we’re looking at buying right-of-way this summer.
Neuzil: OK, so it wouldn’t be until next spring.
Miller: It will be next spring.
Neuzil: OK. So, do you think Mehaffey will be done this summer? Is this kind of the plan at this point?
Miller: We’re hoping to, yes, unless we get into something that might set us back. I don’t foresee anything happening right now. We’re hoping to get started somewhere around the 4th of July and get that done.
Neuzil: Solon is pretty much on Board as far as going into their community?
Miller: They want to be done with the turn lanes by sometime early August.
Neuzil: Yes, for their school.
Gardner: Right now we are on schedule for a June letting with our part of the project.
Miller: Ground breaking is June 4th.
Harney: You go to the school, right, and then the City of Solon is doing the intersection at the school?
Gardner: Actually, we’re going to stop our project just west of where Racine goes north to the church. That will be the end of our construction and their project will pick up at that point and go on east.
Miller: We are in the process of putting a 28E Agreement together as far as… The south half of that road is the County’s. We had some discussion when that was kind of coming together about us funding our portion of it. I don’t know if you guys remember the discussion. I can summarize that quickly.
Harney: I do remember, but I’d like you to go over it for the public anyway.
Miller: Yes. When we first started, Mehaffey Bridge Road and 180th Street was a 2-phase project. When we started designing, we met with the City of Solon prior to their bond issue for the school and asked them if they wanted to participate with us in improving that road up into Solon, because half of that road is ours between where Racine goes north and into where the railroad tracks used to be there. What they said at that time is they didn’t have any funding to participate, but if the bond issue passed and the school ends up going in there, that there will be some traffic impacts and they may want to look at it that way. Our recommendation at that point was, if that all happens, we would just as soon have them do the design of that portion there in town and we would participate funding wise. We came up with an estimate at what it would have cost us to do our share of it. That’s basically what is on the table right now and we have that in our program. But, like I say, we’re working with Solon and our County Attorneys Office to do a 28E Agreement. That is going to include future maintenance of that area, too.
Harney: Good.
Stutsman: So, this needs to be into the State by April 15th?
Miller: At the latest.
Stutsman: OK.
Gardner: Kind of on a side note, I guess I’d kind of like to mention something I wanted to bring up earlier. We have a pretty good staff here and the work that is done on these projects on the program, it’s been recognized State-wide now. We just recently got several awards, 2 of them were special recognition awards from the Iowa Concrete paving association for, Prairie Du Chien was one of them, and for the Dubuque Street rec. trail was the other one that we got that award. We also got an award of excellence from the DOT and the concrete paving association for the best PCC pavement in Iowa for 2001. That was on a local road and that was for Sand Road. So, that was considered the best PC paving job done in the State on a local road in 2001. We also received an Iowa Quality Initiative Structures Award, which is given by the Associated General Contractors and the IDOT. That was the best casting place concrete slab bridge on a local road system in the State for 2000 and 2001. I would just like to bring that out, that we’ve got a lot of good people working out there doing a heck of a job. When we’re doing these projects, you’re getting a quality product.
Stutsman: Congratulations. That is wonderful.
Gardner: That was real good and the guy sitting here next to me gets a lot of the credit for that, him and the other engineers and the technicians that are working out there. They are the ones that are doing the design and doing the follow-up when the construction is taking place. Plus good contractors, I mean that makes a difference, too.
Stutsman: How do you determine whether it’s a good road or not? I just go by the drive? What are the things that they evaluate this on?
Gardner: The Prairie Du Chien award, it was an innovation award in the design because we had so many different things taking place out there. We had the urban cross section, as well as the rural cross section, the paved shoulder or the lane for the rec. trail thing. Just dealing with all of the different issues in it. That smoothness is a big thing for them when they are out there looking at it, too, on some of these other awards. But, just quality and the end product are what they look at. They have a team of people come out and I’m not sure exactly who all is included, representing all of these organizations, and they visit all of the projects Statewide and look at them and evaluate them on several criteria and come up with their decision based on that.
Miller: Metro Pavers did Prairie Du Chien and the Dubuque Street Rec. Trail and the Sand Road project and they were recognized as well. Part of the decision by the team that comes out and looks at them is the administration of the project and how quickly it got done and the complexity that the contractor had to deal with and that kind of stuff, too.
Lehman: I would hope that they would judge you on the before and after. It they see a nice flat road afterwards, do they know what you had to deal with and your staff as far as cuts, grades, right-of-way purchases and things like that to see where it actually came from. That’s what our recommendations from you are, is how is this road going to be improved. You have to deal with all of these issues we saw here, the long list of right-of-ways and trying to make allowances to people for their driveways, the slopes and the ditches back to their yards and that type of thing that they need to make adjustments to. It costs dollars as well as the aspect of geography and topography.
Gardner: Getting it vegetated again, that’s something that is more aesthetic than anything, but it is a component that you don’t have the erosion and stuff. So, we’ve got Chris Henze, he’s getting out there and getting it seeded in a real timely manner and getting things growing so they look nice when people come out.
Stutsman: What was it that we got the top award for in the State?
Gardner: Sand Road.
Stutsman: Sand Road, OK.
Gardner: Sand Road was the paving project and the bridge we built up on Lake MacBride on Mehaffey Bridge Road, that got it for the casting place bridge in the State on a local road.
Stutsman: Two projects from Johnson County. Are those the top awards in the State or did they give…
Gardner: In their category.
Stutsman: Great.
Thompson: That’s impressive to get so many.
Gardner: It was nice.
Stutsman: I hope a Press Release is being sent out about this.
Gardner: I had kind of anticipated that maybe the concrete paving association was going to and they haven’t yet or I hadn’t seen it yet. That is part of the reason I had delayed in bringing it up. I wanted to bring that up today.
Neuzil: On the 5-Year Road Plan, the extension of Prairie Du Chien road, was that moved to 07 simply to try to keep the project all in one area?
Miller: I tried to combine them. There has been some concern about, do we want to do that before the feasibility study and do we know exactly what we want to do with Newport Road. So, currently it is combined with those basically 3 projects, 2 phases of Newport and then the East Overlook. I guess what I anticipated, once the feasibility study is done and some decisions are made there you can program it. Obviously, as long as we have the funding to do it, we can program however you want to.
Thompson: Did you have to move it into the future because of the funding shortage for this?
Miller: My concerns were the same as everybody else’s. I don’t know that there is that much variability in where that particular segment of road needs to go, but it is hooked on to the Newport Road area. So, I put it out there. It’s something that can be moved around next year if you guys want to schedule it differently. But, that was my thought on that. We’re trying to budget our Farm to Market funds and our federal funds and East Overlook Road and Newport Road aren’t eligible for any federal funds. That’s one other point I’d make, too. We’re going to apply for some federal funds on the Sand Road project. But, those projects of East Overlook and Newport aren’t eligible for the federal funding, so I had to look at where our Farm to Market balance is at and make sure we have enough funds to do them in the year we programmed them.
Gardner: The one other point I should probably bring up is that, on the future projects list, which was the other document we supplied you with, I believe the only change to that was when Sharon Center Road was taken off of the program. It was moved to the future projects list. So, it didn’t get eliminated completely, but it’s on that future project list now. I think that was the only change made to the future projects.
Thompson: Sugar Bottom?
Gardner: It’s on the future project list as well.
Gardner: So, Al, you’re saying Newport Road and Prairie Du Chien extension don’t receive federal funds?
Miller: They’re not eligible for federal.
Lehman: But they still would classify for some State funding?
Miller: Yes, Farm to Market State funds. The other thing you have to look at is we have a program locally for the right-of-way cost there and Mike and I have been…
Neuzil: There are a lot of houses right up there.
Miller: Yes, depending on where you go. What I anticipate as part of that feasibility study too, is getting with an appraiser on a route that’s chosen and getting some good estimates on what we are looking at so you guys know how to program our local funds to cover our right-of-way costs. Those have to be done obviously prior to the construction.
Thompson: It’ll only go up every year.
Miller: Yes. Obviously you all know that’s not the cheapest place in the County to purchase right-of-ways.
Thompson: Do you want to give us a little update on the feasibility project and how it is going?
Miller: Yes, basically what we talked about last time is I’m going to be hopefully working with Sally and Pat to get together on an outline of the feasibility study, agreeing on the scope of the work that we want to do there and a timeline on how we want to set the thing up. We want to have it completed by this time next year is what we’re shooting for. I just need to get some feedback once the outline is there and the scope is determined how we want to set up information meetings and that type of thing. So, that is where I am going with that.
Lehman: For clarification, the first portion of Prairie Du Chien and Sand Road, were they…what type of federal funds do we get there?
Miller: We actually got some enhancement funds on Prairie Du Chien for the paved shoulder on that. It wasn’t eligible for federal funds for the road. The rest of it was funded by Farm to Market State funds. What was the other one, the other part of Sand Road?
Lehman: Sand Road.
Miller: That was funded Farm to Market and local funds actually.
Lehman: Have some of those federal funds ceased or just because of the type of project or combination of both?
Gardner: Sand Road would have been eligible, but we had chosen to fund other projects with the federal money instead.
Lehman: So, it’s a balancing act of maybe the funds aren’t in the projects we would like to get done.
Gardner: Right.
Lehman: The dollar amounts.
Miller: Well, we’re going to apply for about a million dollars for the rest of Sand Road this fall. That’s in line with what our allocations…
Thompson: So, is there consensus to put this on for next week.
Stutsman: Yes.
Harney: Thank you.
Gardner: Thank you.
Thompson: Any other business from the County Engineer?
Thompson: Next is Business from the County Attorney.
Assistant County Attorney Janet Lyness: No business. Thanks.