Thompson: Next is Business from the Board of Supervisors. Discussion Action Needed Regarding a Proposed Annexation by the City of North Liberty regarding the annexation of 65.56 acres located in the southwest corridor of section 1, township 80 North, range 7 west, of the 5th p.m. Penn Township. We have Dan Swartzendruber from Planning and Zoning here to discuss this.

Neuzil: I think Mary Kay from North Liberty was going to come. She was told about 10.

Thompson: OK.

Stutsman: Hold that thought.

Neuzil: I’m not positive she was going to be able to make it or not. But, I know she called.

Thompson: Well, we could go ahead to the next item. Do you want to just wait a few minutes to see if she comes? Next is Discussion Action Regarding Appointments to the Johnson County Integrated Roadside Vegetation Management Committee for unexpired terms ending June 30, 2003 and June 30, 2004. Mike is going to stay a minute to help us discuss this. The report or add in the paper, we need one member representing the private sector including community interest groups and one member representing County Conservation Boards. We had 3 applications. I talked with Mike Gardner earlier and he feels that all 3 would fit the 1st category, the private sector category. Those applications are from Robert Crane, Judy Nauseef and Kris Frisbie. The Board has copies of those in our packets.

Stutsman: Not any of them would fit into the County Conservation Board representative.

Gardner: Not from what I can see on their applications. I’m not familiar with any of them.

Stutsman: That’s the problem when we limit what people’s representation will be. I don’t have those applications in front of me. I left them back at the desk. You don’t have a recommendation or…

Gardner: Not really, no.

Stutsman: OK.

Harney: I noticed Bob Crane…

Gardner: The one comment I made to Carol is, on the applications, I feel safety is a real important part of the Secondary Road system, whether we’re talking about the Roadside Vegetation or any part of it. The one application that did mention safety, along with the other items was Robert Crane. But, beyond that, that was the only comment I had after talking. I did, I believe Kris Frisbie called me and I spoke with her for quite awhile on the phone one day and she was real interested and wasn’t real familiar with it. So, I kind of gave her an idea about what the Committee did and so forth. She was still interested after visiting with me about it.

Stutsman: Well good. OK, I was going to… It sounds like they are all qualified and interested and what not. Gender balance on the Committee?

Gardner: Yes, in the 2 positions that we are filling, the 2 that left one was male and one was female, so…

Stutsman: OK. People living in the rural area versus in town. Let’s see, James Avenue, that’s out in…

Lehman: Southwest.

Stutsman: Rural.

Gardner: Right.

Stutsman: The other 2 live in town. I don’t know how the makeup of the…

Harney: Bob Crane owns property or some farms in the rural County.

Lehman: He manages farm property, too. The wear of erosion and things like that might enter into it a little bit.

Neuzil: Want us to come up with a name for next week?

Lehman: Get a chance to review them again. Is there any deadline on this Mike? How soon are they meeting to make any decisions, anything on the horizon?

Gardner: Not really. We just met for this month so we won’t have another meeting until April, the 1st Monday in April. We haven’t been able to have a meeting the last 2 months because we haven’t been able to get a quorum. So, it does impact in that way.

Stutsman: Was Harry Graves contacted about the opening from Conservation?

Gardner: We discussed it. We had a discussion with some of the committee members Monday night and they’re going to get a hold of him. Chris is going to call Harry. Harry had been contacted in the past and made aware of it. But we haven’t made any recommendations yet or had any names, but Chris was going to contact him (inaudible) to see if he had somebody.

Thompson: So are we going to put this on for next week? We don’t have a consensus yet about…

Neuzil: Yes, I want to get a couple of those questions answered.

Thompson: OK, so is it going to be on informal next week? Are we going to need further discussion?

Lehman: How about if we put it on informal next week and don’t take action, we won’t be meeting the following week… If we don’t take action next week it’s probably going to be about 3 weeks before there’s…

Thompson: I guess since this is our time to discuss, I’d propose that we appoint Bob Crane.

Stutsman: I guess I don’t have a problem with that.

Thompson: He would be a responsible member of the committee. I think that committee is very dependent on interaction between the groups and I think he adds a good balance to the group.

Harney: I think we could appoint the one and do that next week, but leave that opening until we find out about that other issue as far as if there’s someone that would apply that would match for the other portion of that.

Stutsman: I think we kind of left it about ended when we said County Conservation Board. Does anybody belong to a County Conservation program?

Gardner: The vacancy was held by Sandy Rhodes. He wasn’t on the Conservation Board at the time. I can’t remember exactly what the requirement is.

Stutsman: Maybe, I guess I wouldn’t be adverse to even the County Conservation Board to making a recommendation.

Gardner: It says representing County Conservation Board and I guess the way it was interpreted was someone that they felt comfortable with.

Stutsman: We could ask Harry if they don’t have somebody within the Conservation Board if they could recommend somebody that’s been involved and has an interest in representing their views.

Lyness: Sandy Rhodes goes to all of the Conservation Board meetings.

Stutsman: Is there anybody else that goes to all those meetings?

Lyness: Judy Felder.

Thompson: OK, so we’ll put this on for next week.

Stutsman: And consider Bob Crane then. Are we all OK with that?

Thompson: Now Mary Kay has come in, so we’ll go back to our discussion about the proposed annexation by the City of North Liberty. We have Dan Swartzendruber from the Planning and Zoning Department and Mary Kay Mitchell from North Liberty.

North Liberty City Clerk Mary Kay Mitchell: Good morning.

Thompson: The way this process works is the Cities notify us when they’re proposing annexation and when they’re sending it to the City Development Board. Later we’ll receive an official notice from the City Development Board. The question this morning is what sort of response we’ll want to have ready to send when we receive the second notice about their public hearing.

Assistant Planner Dan Swartzendruber: Well, staff has looked at it. I’ve given you folks a little memo and a little map there. Hopefully it’s not too confusing. In general, we don’t have any problems with it. Number one, it’s in our fringe area that’s destined to be annexed. It’s a growth area for North Liberty, we understand that. The only thing that sticks out is that the remaining portion of parcels will be somewhat of a, in a flagpole type shape and we’re concerned if you incrementally annex, that you may run out of enough land to do an 80/20 in a couple of those parcels.

Stutsman: Which parcels are you talking about Dan?

Swartzendruber: On this map, the Becker Annexation, it’s the one on the top here, this one.

Stutsman: OK.

Swartzendruber: That’s the parcel we’re talking about, but also the parcel to the South and to the East, the orange one and the dark blue. When we were talking to Mary Kay, she indicated that that probably would be also a voluntary annexation at some point.

Stutsman: I think we have a color difference here Dan.

Neuzil: Is it tan or pink? Mauve.

Swartzendruber: What did I say?

Stutsman: Orange.

Swartzendruber: I could have a problem. Coral.

Thompson: Thank you.

Swartzendruber: The concern being that we get down here too far and we incrementally annex. It’s possibly unlikely, but perhaps there could be a problem with a parcel or 2 coming in even under 80/20 at that point, because you wouldn’t have enough land to do that. So that’s really our primary concern.

Stutsman: OK. Just so I get it straight. The coral is not annexed yet and neither is the lower purple.

Swartzendruber: Right.

Stutsman: The lighter blue is not annexed, so all we’re talking about is this green for consideration. But it is contiguous isn’t it.

Mitchell: The green portion is the part that’s requested for annexation now, voluntary annexation. Dan is right, the other colored parcels, it looks like 5, would need to come in all together if there were a parcel that didn’t want to be voluntarily annexed if there were a parcel that didn’t want to be voluntarily annexed in order to meet the 80/20. So that’s a consideration. That large white area South of the darker blue, there is a parcel owned by the State, so we’re assuming that would be voluntary too. So if we add all the colors other then the, what did we call this one aqua? Then it would be possible to do the rest of those parcels together.

Thompson: Did you, Board talk about this? Did they see this as a problem?

Mitchell: Actually it did come before Planning and Zoning on Tuesday. They did not discuss that. The City Council meets and will talk about it next Tuesday. They have not discussed it yet. You’re getting it first.

Swartzendruber: The next go around, if they were to take this blue parcel as voluntary and the coral parcel, then I would believe there would be enough, along with the right-of-way too. At least get the purple and that yellow parcel, so that would take care of a lot of it. So then you would just have this mustard colored one to the Northwest. It’s more or less a concern for down the road then perhaps right now.

Stutsman: I think these are really good issues to bring up. Think down the road what impact that a large annexation like that would have.

Swartzendruber: Then the final thing would be, there is going to be a portion of Scales Bend Road that will be County, but then will go back into the City so there should be some maintenance agreement with the County worked out. I’ve talked to Mike about that. He’s agreed that there would need to be something put down.

Mitchell: We have those road agreements, joint maintenance agreements in other areas of the City around the boundary areas. So I would not perceive that to be a problem.

Neuzil: The surface is chip seal isn’t it. Is it asphalt in that spot right there?

Swartzendruber: It’s pavement up until you get about to the cemetery.

Neuzil: Then it turns into the other. So that should be a problem.

Thompson: But as far as the points that we usually make in our letters to the City Development Board, you don’t have any comments to make about that.

Swartzendruber: In generally speaking we don’t have a problem with it, other then these minor issues. Really it’s something for down the road. If they came back next year and were talking about this parcel and not taking any of the other ones, then I think we’d have a larger concern at that point.

Thompson: So would we be in favor of suggesting, sort of our form letter, with the comment that we have no objection other then possible future concerns.

Neuzil: We want to obviously listen to hear what North Liberty City Councilors, if they have any other concerns, maybe before we write that.

Mitchell: Then I will pass this on to them, because it’s something that they really will want to look at.

Thompson: Thank you.

Swartzendruber: So how would you like to proceed. Would you like for us to wait for the City Council’s recommendation and then get back on and perhaps talk about the letter you want sent at that time.

Thompson: A draft.

Stutsman: Yes.

Thompson: That should happen right after we get the notice from the City Development Board that they’re going to have their public hearing. At the time we approve the letter, we usually decide if we’re going to send somebody to go and represent us and make comments. Thank you for coming.

Thompson: Next we note that we have minutes received from the Johnson County Empowerment Area Board from February 7th 2002 and we have reports and inquiries from the Board. Let’s start with Terrence.

Neuzil: Another busy week as a member of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors. Going through the calendar, we are getting very close to finalizing our budget situation and I know we’ve been talking about this, but coming up on this coming Monday we’re going to be giving our presentation to the Community. We really encourage people from the Community to come and listen to our public hearing regarding the budget and that it this coming Monday. We’ve held a brainstorming session, yesterday with the Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Planning Council, the Board of Supervisors staff, clients and all involved trying to figure out how we should handle the upcoming, what we anticipate, a number of budget cuts happening at the State level. We’re on a waiting list situation right now. I think it was a good session yesterday just trying to bring it out in the open and really involve everybody in that process. That was held yesterday and we’ll continue to have more of those brainstorming session on that. Tomorrow, Friday, March 8th I’ll be having a listening post at Fitzpatrick’s Brewery if you’d like to come out for lunch. I’ll be there from 11:30 to 12:30 to talk about any kind of issue you’d like to talk about. One other mention. It’s my birthday today. So to all the good people in this room, since you sat all this long time in this meeting, make sure you grab a bratwurst and some sauerkraut in the break room afterwards. All right.

Reverend Bob Welsh: Well happy birthday.

Thompson: Thanks Terrence. Sally?

Stutsman: Let’s see. Had MECCA Board meeting on Thursday. Just discussed some budget concerns and issues of that nature. Just continue to monitor what’s going on at the State level and what impact that will have here on the local here as far as delivering services for people with substance abuse. Attended a Hills bank luncheon yesterday afternoon where they had a panel where they talked about what’s happening as far as economic development on the Eastside of Iowa City. For those people who think that there’s not much going on, on the Eastside of Iowa City, it was very apparent that there is lots of activity going on. It was real good to have different developers as well as a City Manager there and kind of just update what’s happening and what’s going on and what future plans are. So I was glad to be able to attend that and be able to hear what’s happening and those things that might have an impact on the County and what our plans for on that part of Johnson County. Let’s see, Mike and I met with representatives from MH/DD yesterday afternoon, as well as the Auditor’s office to talk about fund balances and open up communications so that we’re all working with the same numbers. We’ve got a lot of issues discussed. We are going to be meeting again. I think it was a real good meeting. A lot of good information shared and working towards monitoring the balance in a department that has a great deal of interest. I think that’s everything for right now.

Thompson: Thank you. Pat?

Harney: Thursday I attended the East Central Iowa Council of Governments meeting, the Board of Directors meeting in Cedar Rapids. They’ve got a lot going on. They’re still doing the study on the trash recycling in Marion, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and 2 other communities in this area. I can’t recall their names right now. But it’s a Vermont firm that’s doing the study. They’ve actually complimented this particular area. It’s one of the best places that they’ve covered so far that is doing recycling. They’re not finding a lot of things that should have been probably recycled. There are some, but no… We can do better, but it’s probably one of the better ones in the Country. They’re going to be having an open house at the Iowa City landfill, where Iowa City is going to be displaying the new hazardous material building. It’s going to be on the 19th… April 20th, it’s would be for the public the 19th, they’re going to have local officials, ECICOG people and things like that out there to review. That’s where you recycle the paint and hazardous materials and things like that. It’s that new facility. I think it opened up last fall.

Stutsman: What time will that be Pat, do you know?

Harney: I don’t have the time on that. I do have it back there, but I’m not sure what it was. They’re working on the long-range transportation plan for Region 10. It’s being printed. It will be out for public use, probably in the near future. It should be probably ready by now. They’re also working on a joint purchasing report. The joint purchasing, that’s where bids are taken for furniture, vehicles, things like that. The Communities get together and take their bids. In the Cedar Rapids area, they’ve been doing it up there. They’ve saved about $59,000 in `01 and this year so far they’ve saved about $112,000 by doing it in group purchases. They’re doing also technology study. They got a $50,000 grant where they’re doing a technology study for the Iowa City, Cedar Rapids corridor, North Liberty area, along North, the potential for industry and what might fit in that particular area. Thursday also attended a Chamber PM, which was held at Pip Printing. They had a display of their machinery down there and their printing processes. It was a very interesting evening. Friday the Board here had a farewell gathering for Lisa Dewey the SEATS Director, who has left and went for a warmer climate. Also went Friday to the Senior Center. They had displays about Iowa City City Manager for the paintings he does. He’s very talented. I was surprised in the quality of painting that he actually does. It’s really nice. Monday, Planning and Zoning staff and myself attended a meeting at Shueyville, working on the fringe area agreement. Putting things together, that will be starting, we’re going to have some more meetings on that. It looks like that’s going to be a good agreement. We met with the Planning and Zoning staff up there. Tuesday Terrence and I met with the Facilities Director and went over how the things are going with facilities, areas that need attention and progress reports on the maintenance of the buildings. That went very well. Wednesday the Board met and conducted 2 department head evaluations. Wednesday also, MH/DD budget planning session and trying to brainstorm how we’re going to address some of the shortfalls and addressed those. I think Terrence kind of went in depth on that, so I’ll go on with that. Last night attended the Democratic Central Committee meeting up at the school board office.

Lehman: Thursday afternoon I met with Elaine Sweet, the Mental Health Director, along with a professional review team. This is a group of specialists that have been put together with our service management plan of Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities to address the appeals process. It was an orientation type session where we reviewed the eligibility, the criteria and the appealing process and also funding. It was very interesting for some of their providers that are in that group and members from other Counties of how their Counties are addressing the funding shortfall here, some of the services that they are going to be reducing. Also, I guess mentioned the things that I attended with the rest of the Board. Next Monday at 5:30 will be our budget public hearing. We’ll be doing presentations on that. I guess also like to congratulate and wish area teams good luck. The Mid-Prairie girls are at State right now and have won a game. So the Iowa City West boy basketball team, the Trojans and also the Iowa City Regina, Running Regals are going to be at the State tournament next week.

Neuzil: That’s because of that one good player.

Lehman: A lot of good players. That’s all I’ve got to say.

Thompson: Thank you. On Friday I met with Margaret Wieting and a teacher from West High who has applied for and received a Toyota Tapestry Grant to do some work with the students about the preservation and the ecology of land at the County Care Facility. He’ll be coming in the next month to talk to us about his plans. I asked Mike Sullivan to do some research into liability and things like that for us. Which all, so far from Mike’s report look fine.

Stutsman: Have they gotten the grant?

Thompson: They will receive the grant at the end of March. It’s quite an honor because there are only 50 of them that are given out in the whole United States.

Stutsman: Did anybody else know that they were applying for the grant?

Thompson: No, not until after they got it.

Stutsman: Usually they ask for letters of support or at least let us know that they’re applying. But I think it would have been more appropriate to at least tell us that they were applying for the grant since we do own the County Farm. But that’s great that they got it.

Thompson: In the meeting I realized that there’s quite a bit of traffic out there. People are very interested in that. One man who was at the meeting says he’s a neighbor and that he walks on that land frequently. Other people mentioned that they go out there just to walk around and look at the land, because it’s apparently getting quite a recognition now as a prairie remnant. So we may need to think about that. I don’t think the Board has thought about it as park or anything in that regard. I also attended the MH/DD Executive meeting on Tuesday. We talked about the bi-laws, so there will be a new copy of the bi-laws coming to the policy council at the next meeting I think. Then on Tuesday I was invited to City High. A student name Brian Fiagle, who is in Jeanine Redlinger’s social studies class, some kind of a social studies course. It was very interesting. The students were all asked to pick an issue in the community and present things about the issue from various sides and take a community action, which included inviting the Board to the presentation to encourage others to take part. So he prepared a 3 minute video tape, which I think we’re going to be able to show here, in that he asks people to call the Board if they’re interested in this issue. So I thought we should see the video tape in case we get some phone calls. I was very impressed with the students poise and professionalism of their work. It’s only 3 minutes, it’s not that long.

Video: Where residential institutions to which people required to go if they cannot support themselves. They were started as a method of providing a less expensive alternative to what we would now call welfare. People requested help from the Community Poor master, an elected County official. If the need was great or likely to be long term, they were sent to the poor farm instead of being relieved while they get to live independently. Sometimes they were sent there even if they had not requested help from the Poor master. That was usually when they were found guilty of begging. As early as the 1840’s Johnson County cared for citizens who could not care for themselves. At first County Supervisors contracted out care of the poor and insane by hiring individual caregivers. These individuals sheltered the needy person in their own homes, gave them personal care, and billed the County for expenses and services. Often these caregivers were local doctors. In 1842 for example, a contract for the care of the County’s poor was awarded to the lowest bidder, Dr. Henry Murry. Murry offered medical care for the County’s poor for the year for $6. Individuals were sometimes hired to care for the insane too. Alicia Pearson was employed in 1843 to care for an insane pauper. He was to receive a $150 for providing the service for a year. The system was inconsistent at best and difficult to manage. Non of the individual caregivers stayed on the job for long. In 1855, the County Supervisors decided to procure a poor farm to provide systematic care for more economic purposes. Every type of dependent person would be sheltered at this one facility. In May 1855, voters passed a resolution for a poor farm by a vote of 987 to 146. Supervisors hope the new facility would provide more consistent care and be easier to administer then the old system. Also they hoped that the 160-acre farm would produce crafts and farm products and be somewhat self-supporting. The first building on the site was a 4 room frame building. There was a kitchen, a room for the steward and his family and 2 other rooms were for the poor and mentally disabled, one room for the men and the other for the women. In 1859 2 long wings were added to the original 4 room structure. However, by 1886 the structure was no longer used as an asylum. For many years afterwards, this building served as a hog house. In 1977, the remaining 1859 wind of the building was nominated to the National Registrar of Historic Places. This structure was restored by the County and opened to the public in 1990. In addition to the historic asylum building, a number of early farm buildings in the poor farm cemetery are notable features of the site. The area is now in the city limits of Iowa City, within the Cities growth area. The farmland is rented. Supervisors have said that they wanted to preserve the farm, but have also been presented with the possibility of selling off a portion of the land to build housing. Agriculture is deeply rooted in Johnson County and this is one of the original self-supporting traditional farms. It is the people’s farm. This could even become more valuable in the future for the cultural, historical and educational opportunities it presents to the people of Johnson County. Please join in actively support the bi-centennial farm project. The overall goal of the bi-centennial farm project is to keep the County poor farm in public ownership and develop it into a more valuable and accessible community asset.

Thompson: Thank you. That’s the end of it.

Neuzil: Boy that was good.

Lehman: He did a real nice job on that.

Thompson: Yes, yes, he did. So we’d like to thank Brian and Mrs. Redlinger for her work in that class. Or this afternoon the Board has a work session regarding the budget, preparation for the budget hearing, which occurs at 5:30 on Monday. On Monday also, the Board will have SEATS interviews all day. On Tuesday Planning and Zoning, there will be a meeting about the North Corridor plan. Is there any other business from the Board? That brings us to inquiries and reports from the public.

Thompson: I see we have Kice Brown and Jeff Lihs here, who I think want to address the Board about the transportation for meals in Lone Tree. You understand that we can’t dialogue with you because this is the public comment part of our meeting, but we’re certainly willing to listen to your comments.

Brown: It’s always nice to have a silent audience.

Lone Tree City Council Member Jeff Lihs: I actually have some pass out sheets here. It’s actually 3 separate things here.

Brown: We won’t charge for the paper clips. To start off, this is discussing basically the Lone Tree nutritional transportation system for which we have had a 28E agreement with the County or SEATS to provide us a bus. We’ve been, well basically, a little bit of history of this that you guys all know, but the public may not know, is that because of budget issues you’ve decided not to continue the 28E agreement for the next fiscal year. Basically we discussed this in our Council meeting Monday and I’ve got an authorization to search out to see if we could purchase an accessible vehicle so that we could continue to provide this service to our Senior Dining and also the meals on wheels type of thing. But the other aspect of it is the Council remains very disappointed that, in terms of our negotiations, that we couldn’t come to some agreement that would allow SEATS to continue to provide the service. I wanted to bring up some of the issues. Basically this is that last letter that you just faxed us that we got before the meeting, our meeting. We were able to look over and we still have some questions about the budget information that you gave us. One thing is that your estimating, your listing the rider donations to and from the meal site for the FY01 annual budget, you’re listing $241 and then for the first 6 months of FY 02 budget only $101.5. That handout that I gave you that was payments to SEATS, these checks are provided by basically, Merry our City Clerk gets the money from our Nutritional Supervisor. These were the monies that were actually donated by the riders, so actually for the FY 2001, the riders actually paid $1,020.78 that were sent to SEATS. For the first 6 months of the current fiscal year, they actually paid $401.80, so the amount that was listed here in donations from Lone Tree is actually about a quarter of the actual amount. I’m not sure where these monies came from. I do have a hypothesis that perhaps those were the donations that came from the riders, perhaps in the regular SEATS thing to Lone Tree, which I think has about 3 trips on 3 days a week, which isn’t really covered by our 28E agreement. The other thing that we passed out SEATS are about, concerns that the amount listed for as payment for salaries for the casual driver Lone Tree. Although this isn’t a fiscal year, we actually have the information. The W2 forms from the County, basically from SEATS for the 2 drivers for our Nutritional Program in the calendar year 2001. As you can see that those are even adding information for IPERS and FICA and Medicare, do not come up to the amount that is actually listed here. So there definitely is a discrepancy there as well. Concerning the vehicle right now that actually is in Lone Tree. That, I called Lois yesterday, she’s busy lamming so that I could hear all the lambs yelling behind her while she was talking to me. Asked her about how long the current vehicle had been there. Her immediate memory of that without talking to anybody was at least early fall and maybe even from the Summer. So that vehicle has been there for a long time without any need for maintenance. Basically getting the gasoline, the gasoline then that is also being used, I understand that there is a credit card made out to SEATS that is used basically at the LT's grocery in Lone Tree. So part of our proposal to you was that… Obviously one of the reasons why it doesn’t need maintenance as much is that it’s used basically on for driving people to and from the Senior Center and delivering some meals, our senior dinning site, which I guess is our Senior Center. So it doesn’t get as much use obviously per day as the rest of the SEATS buses, but it certainly… One of our concerns is that we don’t think you actually will be saving as much money as you actually think you will be saving by eliminating this… One of the things that we proposed, basically, was that we pay the salary, we obviously for the insurance purposes it still have to go through you, so we would give you the money for the salary in the 28E agreement. That we would basically pay the gasoline in Lone Tree, since it’s staying in the Community, that would be fine with us. That we would basically go over the other overhead things to… There were some of those that we had some questions about. Some of those I think, maybe not at 3%, some of those may be actually what the use is for basically program, may be lower, like 1% or something in that… I mean that’s one of the things that I was thinking of with the maintenance. If the maintenance is much lower because the vehicle doesn’t need it as often, then the overhead for maintenance should be assessed to us at 1% instead of at 3%. So we understand that you’ve made this decision. We would be always open for you to changing your mind and coming back to us and saying let’s negotiate. But we basically have until July really to create a 28E agreement and work this out. So I guess that’s basically what I had to say.

Lihs: My basic feeling is that you guys had a meeting to discuss this and made a decision to end the program without contacting us to let us know that you were going to be having this meeting. So we would have some kind of input on this. We’ve been trying to work with the County Supervisors. We’ve contacted Pat Harney as few times to try to work together and do this. We have not gotten anywhere with it. Everybody on our Council is very frustrated about this because our feeling is if we loose this it’s going to make it harder for us to keep our Senior Dining Program in Lone Tree.

Brown: We’re the only other Community other than Iowa City in Johnson County that actually has a cooking facility. We not only cook for ourselves, but we also deliver meals to Riverside. So we supply Riverside. Actually Pat has been helpful in terms of giving us some telephone numbers to and people to contact about purchasing our own vehicle should we actually need to do that.

Thompson: Thank you. We appreciate your comments.

Brown: Thank you.

Thompson: Other public comments? Bob?

Welsh: Bob Welsh. Let me add to this, I think there’s several different alternatives for you all. Number one, I know that Heritage has in its budget the transportation route, the County did not send out an RFP. They had in their budget the same amount as last year, which as I think, don’t hold me to this is like $1,080. Another alternative that you all have in terms of funding is, I think you have decided that the interest from the Sterba Fund could be used in relation to the whole Nutrition Programming. That is, I think, around $7,000 for this past year. That could be used if you chose, in relation to Solon and Lone Tree at that point to be of assistance. There are at least some dollars there that would give some negotiations at that point. I don’t know these gentlemen, so I’m just trying to think of alternatives. Because I think, I’ve been to Lone Tree and that is an excellent site. They have good meals. I used to kid them that I thought that ones in Iowa City were better, but I think that is a fine Nutrition Program. I think it is an important activity for the community and at least it’s… I’m hoping that the information that I’ve just shared with you will allow some flexibility.

Thompson: Thank you. Any other public comments? I think we’re ready to adjourn them. So we’re adjourned.

Adjourned at 10:45 a.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary