MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
FEBRUARY 6, 2003
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Discussion: Consideration of Land Exchange with National Guard and Related Issues
Discussion: Communication Committee Update on Kiosk in Lobby of Administration Building
Chairperson Harney called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:05 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
Harney: Begin the informal meeting for Thursday, February 6, 2003. The first item on the agenda is business from Brad Neumann, Iowa City Solid Waste Planning Department, in reference to Countywide Waste Tire Collection Program at the Iowa City Landfill.
Johnson County Council of Governments Solid Waste Management Planner Brad Neumann: Morning.
Harney: Morning Brad.
Stutsman: Morning.
Neumann: It’s a different view here. I’m not used to this with everything twisted around. A few weeks ago I was giving an update on the Waste Tire Collection Program, which is a Countywide program, to the Johnson County Council of Governments Board and they asked me to come in and talk to you about the tires, the situation with the program. As you know, the last 6 years we have had free waste tire collection here in Johnson County and most of that money had come through the Department of Natural Resources. We had applied for funding every year. We got funding every year, it just kept getting less and less and less as the years went on. But, it was a free tire program. In that 6 years, we spent $147,000 on waste tire collection. We collected over 50,000 tires in Johnson County. Of that $147,000, $94,000 roughly was from the State and the rest, about $53,000 was subsidized by the Iowa City Landfill. We arranged and our programs changed every year depending on the amount of money. We went from 2 months worth of free tire collection. We collected over 19,000 tires. That was the 1st year. All the way down to last year we had a 1-day event because the funding was a lot less. We got 2,500 tires in that one day.
Stutsman: Brad, can you review that? In 2 weeks we got $19,000?
Neumann: The first year we had the program we opened it up for 2 months and we got 19,000 tires in that 2 months. Since then we scaled it back to one month, one month, one week, one week and one day. Those were the 6 programs that we did and those were based on the amount of funding. Like I said, the funding kept going down. But still, down to that one day, we got 2,500 tires. Unfortunately, the money from the DNR for the free programs is gone now. They are not handing out any more money to the counties for free collection. In talking to the Iowa City Landfill, they are not interested in subsidizing a totally free program anymore. They have spent $53,000 in the last 6 years already. What they are proposing is a half-price program for a week period in the spring. What they plan on doing is advertising a set price for each type of tire, such as a car tire. Right now they charge $.07 a pound for all tires. Now, really, nobody knows what that means when it comes to bringing in a car tire or any other tire. Roughly, it’s about $1.50 for a car tire based on that $.07, all the way up to about $12.00 for a tractor tire based on the weight. What they would like to do is advertise $.75 per tire. That’s on car tires, just a passenger car tire, and then the scale will go up from there up to a tractor tire. They haven’t got those numbers pinpointed. But, that will give you some idea where we are starting at so they can go out into the public and say, you can bring us your tires and we’ll charge you $.75 apiece. So, we can see where we go and how many tires we get in from there.
Stutsman: Brad, just to clarify for me, this is just during…is this the whole year?
Neumann: Just for the one week period.
Stutsman: Just for the one week.
Neumann: For the one week period. The rest of the week we will go back to the $.07 a pound.
Thompson: Will the tire collection be free or half-price for everyone or just Iowa City residents?
Neumann: No, it will be for everyone, everyone in the service area for the Landfill. That includes all of Johnson County and the communities of Riverside and Kalona in Washington County. That’s the service area for the Landfill, so everyone in the service area will pay that same rate, $.07 a pound, or they will get the half-price.
Harney: Do you know how many of those tires came from rural Johnson County?
Neumann: Well, every year during our program, anyone that brought in tires, we’d have them fill out a survey and we found that 2/3 of those tires coming in were coming from the rural areas of the county.
Stutsman: Brad, you’re asking us to subsidize part of this. What I am getting at is why should the Johnson County taxpayers subsidize Riverside and Washington to bring in.
Neumann: That’s a good point.
Thompson: Are you asking us to subsidize that?
Neumann: It was something Pat brought up during our JCCOG Board Meeting, whether or not to keep it. I think the idea was that the free program is so successful and so popular, and the Landfill is only proposing to subsidize half of it now, that maybe the County could look at subsidizing that other half. I think that’s where it started and came from. There is really 2 options, I guess, that you may want to consider. That is one is to subsidize the other half that the Landfill is not. To do it for one week, going back and looking at the numbers, that one-week program cost $14-15,000 for tires. So, to subsidize half of that, you’re looking at $7,000 or $8,000, somewhere in that range to do that. The other option I guess would be during your County cleanups, you’ll pay up to 1,000 pounds, I believe is how it works, for those residents in the unincorporated County, which would not include Riverside and Kalona areas.
Thompson: So, we paid up to 1,000 pounds was free.
Neumann: Was free, which is roughly $21, $22.
Thompson: That included tires.
Neumann: That does not include tires. It doesn’t include tires or appliances or yard waste.
Thompson: One year, didn’t we have a day during that time when you could bring tires?
Neumann: That was the free tire program.
Thompson: That was the same day. OK.
Neumann: Yes, we just had it at the same time, which the Landfill won’t recommend doing again, because they’re just overrun the lines all the way out to the Highway, which is too much. But that is one thing you might want to consider, is allowing those residents in the unincorporated area to bring in tires based on that 1,000 pounds or included in that 1,000 pounds, because right now they are separate. During that cleanup period, what happens is, if a resident brings in material and he has a refrigerator and 4 tires and other junk, the junk will get in for free up to 1,000 pounds. They will still have to pay for the appliance, which is $12.50 and the tires at $.07 a pound, that is not covered by that 1,000 pounds.
Stutsman: But, the County could take care of those tires if we chose.
Neumann: You could include the tires in that 1,000 pounds, or you could put more money towards the collection of tires on top of the 1,000 pounds. Now, how much that would cost I have no idea.
Thompson: Wouldn’t we have to pay more for the tires if we included them in the 1,000 pounds?
Neumann: I am assuming they would base it on that same $.75 per tire type thing, on that scale.
Thompson: Do you know how much extra that would cost?
Lehman: I did a little math. You said that there was 2,500 tires collected last time from the rural area.
Neumann: That was in one day. We are looking at one week.
Lehman: OK. If the one day was 2,500 and 2/3 of that was from the County, times 75 that would be $1,237, if that was just for one day. Multiplied by 7, I don’t…
Stutsman: We don’t know how many of those tires came from Riverside or Washington. Maybe it’s miniscule. Maybe it’s not enough.
Neumann: It is. I think most of them are from Johnson County in those programs.
Stutsman: But, then this way we would at least know that we are paying just for Johnson County tires. These are not business tires. These are residential.
Neumann: Just residential, it includes farms.
Lehman: I think one of the things I might look at is if you did have the week of bringing in, we subsidized the waste, maybe if people would throw them on the same load, they would be willing to pay the $1.50 themselves and basically save themselves a trip. If you go to a tire dealer in town and you leave your old tire behind, they are going to charge you $1.50 anyway.
Neuzil: Up to $5 I’ve paid.
Thompson: So, what if we had half-price like the City?
Stutsman: Why don’t we just pay it? Just include it with the County cleanup cost. Those have been decreasing.
Neumann: We could.
Stutsman: I think taxpayers would appreciate having that opportunity and knowing that they can just take them to the Landfill and it will be included in the 1,000 pounds at the County cleanup.
Thompson: There has been so much publicity about the importance of cleaning up tires because of the West Nile virus and the mosquitoes. It seems like it would be a good thing to do.
Neuzil: But, would the Landfill want to do both at the same time?
Neumann: I don’t think it would be a problem. Talking to the Landfill, they actually recommended that that be included in that 1,000 pounds. It would be easy for them to just charge the one rate, or up to 1,000 pounds on everything and then anything above that they would charge, like they do now. So, yes, they could easily do that. They’ll still have to weigh them in separate, the layout and everything else because we have to track them.
Neuzil: That was the point of do they want to do everything at once.
Neumann: Yes. So, that wouldn’t be a problem. Just to let you know though, our one-week programs, we collected anywhere from 5,500-6,300 tires in that one-week. So, if you took 2/3 of that, then you’re looking at a little bit more money.
Lehman: Yes, if 2/3 of those were County that would be 4,000 tires times $.75 would be $3,000.
Neumann: So, that would be a good place to start. That’s what you might be looking at.
Lehman: We’d just have to make sure we had appropriate budget figures.
Thompson: So, for 2 weeks it’s $6,000.
Lehman: If the numbers held fast.
Neumann: I’m not sure how much money you put into the cleanups now.
Thompson: About $8,000.
Neumann: So, if we could just look at including the tires in the 1,000 pounds.
Stutsman: I would be willing to consider it, at least for one year and see where we are at.
Neumann: Sure.
Stutsman: I could do it for one year.
Harney: Again, you say that it is no problem for the Iowa City Landfill to have tires and the other rubbish coming in at the same time.
Neumann: No, they would just include the tires in the weight up to that 1,000 pounds.
Harney: I was thinking about the separating portion of it.
Neumann: They’ll have to do that anyway.
Lehman: They’ll have to stop at a different location. They just don’t dump in one spot.
Neumann: They need to do that anyway. We could do that and see where we go from there. I know Mike, you mentioned changing the dates or times.
Lehman: We’ve had, I believe it’s sometime the 1st of June and the 1st of October. I know for people that do farm, June is not too bad, they are finishing up planting, but a lot of the harvest starts in October. I think Brad had mentioned maybe we want to do it one week in the middle of summer, if that would be OK with the Landfill. That may be a problem for them there if we concentrate it, instead of 2 separate weeks maybe one.
Thompson: If we did that we could easily afford the tires, probably.
Stutsman: You mean not have 2.
Lehman: Just have one cleanup in the middle of the summer and include the tires at that time. It might be easier to manage as far as claims and things like that.
Stutsman: I think that probably would work pretty well. Things are kind of quieter in the summer.
Harney: My understanding of the same time, I think the 2 chances are a lot better than one as far people being gone and wanting to get these items brought to the Landfill with tires. The reason I asked Brad to come in originally was that the dollars were being cut out by DNR, so I wanted to make sure that we at least had the opportunity to take tires out there rather than have them collecting in the ditches. Personally, I like the idea of having 2 opportunities to turn those in.
Lehman: Maybe defer it some time in June and then maybe in September, early September, if that is OK with the Landfill.
Neumann: I will talk to them and see if there are… Maybe they have certain times that they would prefer over others, too.
Neuzil: I’m sure there are, considering when summer school ends and those kinds of things.
Stutsman: That is true. That is very, very true.
Neumann: I’ll talk to them about that and then I will talk to them more specific about adding the tires into that 1,000 pounds and then going from there. I will get back to you on what they have to say about that. I think that was about it on the tires.
Harney: Thank you. When we get those numbers back from you and the information, then we will put that on our formal agenda.
Neumann: I’ll sit down with the Landfill and see if we can’t come up with something that will work for everybody. OK.
Harney: Thank you.
Lehman: Thanks Brad.
Harney: Next agenda item is business from Elaine Sweet, the Mental Health and Disabilities Director, Planning Council recommendation that the Board of Supervisors requests that a persons with disability fund be established with the community foundation and that MH/DD work with the consultation of religious communities to establish a mechanism to assist with one-time needs. Elaine.
Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Elaine Sweet: Thank you. As budgets become tighter, MH/DD continues to look for other funding sources for services for persons with Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities. Earlier this morning we talked about amending the Strategic Plan section of our Services Management Plan. Our current Strategic Plan says that we will aggressively look for other ways of funding services. This recommendation is one of those ways that we have identified for stretching our budget, if you will. Planning Council works with 4 committees. One of those committees is the Finance Committee. Over a year ago, Finance Committee formed a task force, which was called the Fiscal Resources Task Force. Members of that work group were Bob Welsh, Jeff Horne, Mike Townsend, Debbie Guard and Carol Spaziani. They started working with Mike Stoffregen, with the Community Foundation and have developed an idea, a means, for MH/DD Services or the Board of Supervisors for MH/DD Services to establish a fund with Johnson County Community Foundation that would be just for persons with mental health and developmental disability issues. The name of that fund would be Persons with Disability Fund and that would be within the Community Foundation. So, this comes to you this morning as a recommendation from Planning Council. I spoke with Mike Stoffregen this morning. They are on board with this. We are ready to start developing the details with the Board’s approval.
Neuzil: Elaine, I know you talked to Mike. Can you explain a little bit about how the money would be allocated? In other words, if persons decided to contribute to the Community Fund, designated toward MH/DD, who decides how it’s spent?
Sweet: It’s my understanding it would be allocated by the Community Foundation’s Board. But, there would be input from the mental health community on that. There would be an administration fee that would be involved as well. It would be one segment of the larger Community Foundation rather than its own entity.
Neuzil: Then, as far as certain rules in regards to MH/DD funding and one of those has always been you can’t… I know there are so many rules about you can’t really donate money into that. How do you get around that?
Sweet: It wouldn’t be part of the MH/DD Services fund within County government. It would be part of the Community Foundation Fund. So, those rules would not apply.
Harney: So, this would be all donations, no tax dollars in any way.
Sweet: That is correct.
Stutsman: It would be an avenue if people had a particular interest in donating money, specifically for services for persons with disabilities. It would be a fund that they could do that to and know that it is designated and that is where those dollars would go.
Sweet: It is an avenue that would serve that purpose, but it is my understanding that the donations can be more specific. If individuals would like to make a donation for a particular agency for, it’s my understanding even a particular individual that this would be a mechanism for doing that.
Stutsman: The big advantage is that the foundation is set up to handle those kinds of funds. They have a regular investment committee that invests the money in, of course, safe funds and things, so that they are building those funds. They are just not sitting in a pool and not having the opportunity to grow. It just takes that administrative part out of individual departments or whatever and puts it into the bigger hole, which is a definite way to grow the funds.
Sweet: That is correct.
Lehman: Not to put you on the spot here, but could you give us some examples of what some one-time needs might be, through agencies or living expenses.
Sweet: A one-time need might be a piece of medical equipment or something like that. Something that would not be able to be funded by another means. An example that comes to mind that we have dealt with recently is an individual in a nursing home that right now has a feeding tube, and is struggling with that feeding tube, Medicaid will not pay for the electronic equipment to serve that purpose. That is not something that falls under our Services Management Plan. So, this fund would be able to assist with a need like that where we can’t find funding in other places.
Thompson: So you need a letter from us requesting to be part of the Foundation?
Sweet: A letter would be nice, formal Board approval is actually what I am asking for.
Harney: The formal approval would have to come to our formal agenda, so we would have to have some type of a plan of what it would entail and then bring it for our formal and then we would decide whether we want to approve or not at that point.
Sweet: OK.
Lehman: Is this something our County Attorney should be reviewing?
Sweet: I visited with the County Attorney’s Office in the early stages of this process to identify if this was something that we might be better off to do just internally and if we were able to do that. While we are, we felt that this was the way to pursue. I’ll certainly go back to the County Attorney’s Office again if you would like me to and be sure that this final product meets with their approval.
Harney: I think once you have a better grip, or at least a proposal or what it would entail, then let the County Attorney’s Office review that and then it bring it back to us for our Board decision on our formal agenda.
Sweet: Certainly.
Thompson: After we request to become a part of the Community Foundation won’t there be some negotiations between the County and the Foundation about the details?
Sweet: We’ll have to sit down and work those through.
Thompson: So, all we really need to approve is the request to belong.
Sweet: To move ahead with this. There will certainly be follow up work in getting it done and established.
Stutsman: Maybe it might be appropriate for Mike to come to the Board and just talk about the Community Foundation. I know they have approached the County about taking some of our designated funds and moving them over to the Foundation. We don’t have a lot. The Sterba Fund comes to mind. But, at least then it would be building up their endowment and then it would be one less thing that the County would have on their books, but we still would have control on it. I think that is the advantage of it. It gets away from handling it and that administrative cost of it but you don’t give up any of your control of the money. But, I think it would be good for Mike and I know he is more than willing to come out and explain how it works and things.
Sweet: We had hoped for that to happen this morning and the schedules have been a little crazy this week. But, I am sure he would be more than happy to do that.
Thompson: Maybe if it is on for formal next he’d have a chance to come.
Sweet: OK. We’ll see.
Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan: That’s a night meeting. Does that matter?
Sweet: I’ll ask.
Sullivan: OK.
Thompson: Or we could do it the week after if that would work for you.
Sullivan: Just let me know what you want to do.
Sweet: Sure.
Harney: Thank you.
Sweet: Thank you.
Harney: Any Business from the County Attorney?
Assistant County Attorney Andy Chappell: No.
DISCUSSION: CONSIDERATION OF LAND EXCHANGE WITH NATIONAL GUARD AND RELATED ISSUES
Harney: Next item is discussion reference consideration of land exchange with the National Guard and some related issues. Mike Gardner and Rob Winstead.
County Engineer Mike Gardner: Morning. I’m going to let Rob just take this from the get go. He’s been the one that’s been most involved with it so he would be able to do a better job than I explaining it.
Assistant County Engineer Robert Winstead: Good morning. We at Secondary Roads have done some work regarding the possibility of the National Guard relocating their Armory on some County owned land directly east of the current Secondary Roads office. We’re here to update you on what work we’ve done so far. Part of that will be explaining what you are going to be looking at that Mike is handing out. Then find out if we’re still headed on the right direction and then tell you where we’re going next.
Harney: Do you have a copy Mike for the press to view?
Gardner: We’ve got 2 or 3 here.
Winstead: The first step in our work was to look at the County owned property north of IWV and west of 218 to see if that property could work for the National Guard and also for Secondary Roads. What Mike passed out was kind of a summary of what that work has shown us. The one document that is an aerial photo shows 2 parcels of land. One being a parcel of land that the Secondary Roads office would continue to operate upon, 25.7 acre tract. The other parcel would be a parcel that would be suitable for the National Guard. Part of their programming requirements to relocate an Armory is that they need 25 acres of land. That’s what we’ve shown on that map, is a 25 acre parcel that would work for them and also still work for at least the Secondary Roads office’s needs. We’ve had a couple of meetings with National Guard folks. Colonel David Rogers, he is out of Des Moines, he’s their director of facilities and construction. So he’s seen these sketches and has given us input on what their needs would be. This is something that we’ve developed that looks like it would work for the National Guard and Secondary Roads. The other document that was handed out, that’s just the mechanism to create that parcel if we so desire to do it. It’s a plat of survey. That’s the document that would create those 2 parcels. So to this point, that’s kind of the work we’ve done. We’ve done a boundary survey of the County owned property. We’ve had meetings with the National Guard to develop these 2 parcels and our next step would be to work on the Sanitary Sewer. They would require sanitary sewer and that would require extending the existing sewer that now serves the County home. I guess we felt that we would come in and just show you the parcel that we came up with and see if we’re still headed on the path that you want us to head on before we got into all of the sewer issues.
Harney: Mike, the boundaries, I know they can be adjusted on way or another as far as where you split that off. The one you have there, is that satisfactory with the services that you need to provide and furnish?
Gardner: Yes. It works fine for us. You can maybe pick out up there on the north end of that parcel that we are using part of that property right now for some storage. But that’s not going to be a problem for us to move that and relocate it somewhere else in our yard.
Lehman: The pond is located on the property that they’re interested in. Does that serve any purpose for Secondary Roads?
Gardner: It was constructed to allow us to fill some water tankers in doing our maintenance of Deer Creek Road. We haven’t used it much recently but the National Guard has indicated they would not have a problem with us continuing to use it for that purpose if we wish. There is an issue we’ll have to come up with a drainage easement because we’ve got drainage that will go down into that pond. That’s a minor issue that the guard has indicated isn’t going to be a problem for them.
Lehman: You’ve indicated Pat in his discussions that the Guard will do some grading but not a whole lot. They like to keep a lot of the natural for their training and so the pond will stay. The timber will stay.
Gardner: The pond will stay and they’ve also indicated that they’ve identified some possible wetlands that they will be impacting and they may have to enlarge the size of the pond for some mitigation. None of that has been determined for certain yet but that was something they did indicate was a possibility.
Stutsman: They’re required to have the 25 acres. I was thinking we were talking about 20 to begin with.
Gardner: 25 was what when we met with them initially before we did the survey, 25 was what they indicated to us was required for part of their funding.
Harney: You were right. Originally they wanted 10 to 15 acres and then when they got into it they found that the new rules, the guidelines to get their money they have to have 25 acres for a facility like this in order to gain their Federal funding.
Stutsman: Pat and I met with Rob, Mike, Al and Kevin last week and kind of went over this and wanted to make sure the Board was all OK to go ahead and proceed because there are some real issues that we need to decide about this sewer hookup. So I wanted to make sure that everybody was OK with the size of this before we move on to the next level of commitment on this project.
Neuzil: That’s exactly what it is. This is a step in the direction that this County is going to commit to a County campus idea. That we are going to start growing to the south of this building and this is certainly a step in that direction, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Stutsman: But by the same token it does limit us too, that we no longer have this large parcel to consider for any of our uses. To me it’s fine, but I want to make sure that the Board fully understands that.
Neuzil: Has anyone actually done a cost evaluation between the 2? The cost of what this is actually worth compared to what next door is worth.
Harney: Yes, we have the appraisals.
Neuzil: Is it pretty close?
Harney: Dollar-wise this property is worth much more than the property out there. But as it works out in a long-term interim, the time they are allowed to use this, if we do make that swap, and they get their building completed it comes out to be nearly a wash on cost. The real reason, one of the real reasons they come in here, they want to know if they’re on track with the Board; want to see if it’s more or less their approval, as they talked about it was the sewer issue. One of the issues that comes up with that is how much size they need coming up for sewer to serve the National Guard and any services we may have. There was some discussion earlier about the possibility of another facility near the County Home. If that’s the case and we’re going to run the sewer we need to make sure the it’s large enough to pick that up as well as Secondary Roads. They don’t want to get into that research, that in-depth of a study, unless the Board feels that they want them to go ahead and pursue approval eventually of the National Guard. As long as the National Guard site is OK with the Board, then they’ll go ahead and do the research for the rest of the sewer. But it’s going to take some time and some effort and they don’t want to spend the money until they knew the Board kind of had a consensus that they were going to approve something like this, before they spend anymore time and money and energy on it.
Stutsman: So are we basically OK with the size and…
Lehman: I don’t see any red flags at this time. I just would need a little more of the scenario if this transaction should take place, the Guard was looking at constructing some buildings for housing their vehicles and still probably remain over in this location here for 4 to 5 years. So it’s not going to be something that we sign tomorrow, it’s going to happen in the next 4 or 5 months.
Neuzil: Not only is this, like I said, a step toward the County Campus idea, but a step like this does eliminate the location of what was, at one point, the Jail location and that is something that we have to realize, that we lose a pretty prime location there for a Jail. I don’t think there’s a whole lot more room on that north side of the land that’s owned by the County.
Stutsman: We kind of talked about that a little bit and there is… Although it would be expensive and I’m certainly not advocating it, but as growth continues in that part of the county we may be looking at relocating that Secondary Roads facility at some time. So that’s something to keep in mind for many, many years down the road, but that is a possibility. Mike, do you want to add to that?
Gardner: No, that was pretty much the discussion that we had the other day, that that was a possibility at some point in the future, that Secondary Roads may need to relocate from there.
Neuzil: Is it advantageous to have a Secondary Roads inside the city limits or more just access to a main road?
Gardner: The location is nice for getting from here to any point in the county, but there are also disadvantages. The compatibility of the Secondary Roads Department in an urban area, people don’t necessarily like to see the stockpiles of rock, sand, and salt.
Harney: As Sally said, that’s out in the distance, it’s not in the near future. But as the city, as you know… it’s changed from the east side of Iowa City to the west side and the growth seems to be occurring out there and eventually it’s going to move into that particular area, but that’s several years down the road.
Neuzil: But that decision could be much sooner than we think, it could be in 2 months.
Harney: That’s true.
Stutsman: It does make for some other options when you look at this. I too was concerned about giving up those 25 acres and stuff. But then I think that may be an option. I’m sure we’d have to weigh the cost and what not. But we are, by going ahead with this, we are entering into the realm of point of no return. So that’s why I think we have to make sure that we’re all on board with this.
Neuzil: There’s also a lot of room to the south too; of course we’ll have that discussion later today, actually.
Harney: Is there any other information you folks need?
Gardner: I don’t believe so at this time.
Winstead: I think what we would do next would be start to look at the sanitary sewer issues and evaluate the different scenarios that are involved with that and probably come back for some additional direction once we have more information on that. There could be some decisions to make about what we want to serve with that new sewer and maybe some cost issues associated with those types of things. Do we want to serve Secondary Roads?
Lehman: I understand that you don’t want to be spinning your wheels and doing work that may not come to fruition here. But I guess along with what Terrence is saying, if that was another County facility we still need probably to have some type of sewer and water capabilities, but you don’t know what size that demand might be. If it’s not the National Guard it might be some other facility there. It’s hard for you to say, I don’t know what the demand is, but you’ll at least have a benchmark of what the Guard will need. You know what I’m saying? I don’t feel that you’d be wasting your time, it would be for some future use.
Stutsman: We need to take into consideration the size of the sewer too. There’s a difference between whether you’re going to do it for a 10-inch or the 12-inch and what we see as the future out there. That is…
Lehman: The National Guard may not be the same as something else if something else was decided in the near future.
Harney: What it is, is an 8-inch line that comes up to the County Home right now. They need to do some research and if we’re looking at possibly some future development on the County property as been suggested then they need to research and find if that 8-inch is still going to be serving this entire area or if it needs to be enlarged.
Lehman: If it won’t then we may have to have a different line, a larger line come from somewhere else and that would involve more of a cost and that’s what we’re trying to decide, if the 8-inch will serve… I understand what you’re saying, you’re trying to find out if an 8 would serve the National Guard or would it serve Secondary Roads or another facility there.
Winstead: Iowa City will have some say in this decision making process because the way this would transpire is the County, we would design the sewer, it would get built. The City of Iowa City would probably inspect the construction of the sewer, it would be built to their standards. Then once everything is finished to their satisfaction they actually would take that sewer and it would become a city-maintained sewer, other than the actual services that would go to the buildings, those would be private, but it would be a city sewer. So they would have some say in those types of decisions and we would need to make sure they’ve got the easements they need to maintain that sewer in the future.
Stutsman: For the Board’s information because I had forgotten about this. Across from 218 where it says Johnson County, the County owns a 3-acre parcel in there? Mike said we owned all that at one time and then when the interstate came through of course we gave land for the interstate.
Gardner: They acquired the property for 218 out there, the Sedlacek property.
Lehman: Is that road on the right there, is that the Camp Cardinal spur?
Gardner: Yes.
Lehman: It looks like maybe there’s a pond in there, probably not a real useful purpose, probably some wetlands. I don’t know what the terrain might be.
Winstead: The way the DOT took the right-of-way for 218 I think a significant portion of that pond is actually in the right-of-way. They didn’t necessarily hug the road when they did their taking and it kind of skews outward from Camp Cardinal Road and part of that pond would be in right-of-way that the County actually conveyed to the City of Iowa City through the DOT.
Lehman: Kind of getting off kilter here, but isn’t Camp Cardinal slated to be updated, will that affect some of that property even more, may need more right-of-way?
Gardner: It may impact that, I haven’t seen any plans. They are planning to upgrade that, but I haven’t seen the plans so I’m not sure how that would affect that parcel.
Lehman: It’s something to keep in mind. I don’t know if it’s any value to ourselves or someone else.
Stutsman: Yes.
Gardner: I think Rob is planning at this point to continue with what he was saying and maybe come up with some scenarios. He’s been in contact with Iowa City from the beginning so they’re being kept informed on what we’re doing and he’s being kept up to date on what they’re going to be looking at. We’re anticipating, at this point, probably about 3 weeks, in that neighborhood, when we would probably be back with some additional information for you to consider.
Harney: I think the only other issue I saw in that, particularly that we need to be concerned of is where is the right-of-way for the sewer going to go? Is it going to go on the County Home side or on the side of the National Guard and Secondary Roads? If there needs to be an easement in there or if we need to keep it on the south side? There isn’t a lot of development room to the north, but at the same time I think we need to keep that in mind, which way you want to go with that.
Winstead: The water main apparently runs on the north side of Melrose so without looking at it real close your first thought is the sewer might travel west along the south side of IWV, but that’s what we’ll evaluate.
Lehman: Is Secondary Roads or Chatham Oaks using the city water at this time?
Gardner: They both are. Both on city.
Stutsman: But not for wastewater, just for…
Gardner: Yes. We don’t have sanitary.
Lehman: But Chatham Oaks does?
Stutsman: All right.
Harney: Quite honestly I would like to see sanitary included for Secondary Roads.
Thompson: Yes, me too.
Chappell: Chatham Oaks has sanitary because when the DOT put the highway in, I think they put the highway through what was formerly Chatham Oaks’ leach field. So the DOT was required then to was to was essentially hook them up to city sewer at that point.
Harney: OK, thank you.
Chappell: I had one other question since we’re on the topic which is I think they gave you a timetable of 3 weeks they’d be back with more questions. At some point, I envision Secondary Roads work on this part of the project as sort of being done. All of this has been done in-house which is great that we’ve got the capability to do it, but at some point this sort of work will be done. Obviously our office will have some easements, some legal documents to review. In talking to Mike and Rob and Pat White, we’d like some direction from the Board as to perhaps who you would like to serve as point person for the County on this sort of thing as far as we can tell the National Guard this is the first person you call and if this person needs expertise from Secondary Roads or the County Attorney’s office this person will contact them. You’re all right, it’s going to be a long fairly slow process but as we move through it we want to know maybe who do we deal with. The easiest thing personally I think would be for your Executive Assistant to sort of take that lead and then obviously, I think Mike is probably very adept at filtering to you as needed and then getting a hold of other departments and coordinating. We just wanted to get your sense on that.
Harney: I think we had already, some time back, had designated that Mike was the point person on this.
Chappell: OK.
Stutsman: Now it’s official.
Harney: I guess the question I have, Andy, is the contract that was reviewed for this exchange, the initial proposal, where is that at, do you know?
Chappell: There is a draft of what would be a 28E Agreement which is sitting with the National Guard. Their process is fairly arduous as far as moving through. They have an Executive Committee that has to review it. My understanding is that they were going to take the draft in the idea of a proposal, without necessarily agreeing to all the specifics, this is generally what we propose to do when, and how, and sort of get a response from their Executive Committee. We’re waiting to hear back from them. It’s a very preliminary draft. I haven’t heard anything recently. I wonder if they are perhaps preoccupied with some other things right now.
Stutsman: Could be.
Harney: Hasn’t been that long ago I talked with them, they were looking for actually the legal description of this, which is what this is right?
Winstead: Correct.
Harney: I think they’re waiting for that to attach it to theirs to get their report.
Chappell: We certainly will get them this preliminary… This won’t be finalized until we decide for sure we’re going to move forward with this, but we would certainly get this preliminary plat to them.
Winstead: In fact the contact we’ve dealt with, with the National Guard they have these documents that we’re looking at today.
Harney: Good. Anything else? Thank you.
Stutsman: Thanks for your work on that. It’s been a fun project, right?
Winstead: Yes, it has.
Lehman: I wanted to ask, Pat and I have been out there, is this staked out if we wanted to go out there and visibly see the lines. There’s flags now?
Winstead: Yes, there are risers that are painted up with flagging on them. You may have to drive into the site towards the back because some snowplows and equipment might block the back one, but you can see them.
Lehman: If we wanted to get a rough idea of where these boundary lines might be.
Winstead: Yes.
Gardner: Each one of the break points has a marker on it.
Lehman: OK, thanks.
Chappell: Maybe I would just also add is that before any… we’re talking about the proposal, before any exchange is made, just like any other County property, we’ll have to have a series of public hearings. We’ll have to bring a proposal to the public, we’ll have to schedule a hearing on that proposal. All of this will be done very out in the open and well publicized. We’re just not near being at that point right now.
Lehman: Thank you.
Harney: Thank you, Andy.
DISCUSSION: COMMUNICATION COMMITTEE UPDATE ON KIOSK IN LOBBY OF ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
Harney: Next item is discussion from the Communication Committee. Sally or Terrence?
Stutsman: Yes, we put this on the agenda. Part of what we’ve been discussing in our Communication meeting is talking about… Kiosk is not the right word, I should have put down some kind of information center downstairs in the rotunda. We’re to the point of needing some direction from the Board. We have recommendations from the Communication Committee to move ahead with this project and now we need to make sure that it’s OK with the Board. Tim has been working quite a bit on researching this particular project so I asked him to come in and kind of explain to the Board where we’re at and what we’re doing. I might also add that this fits in with the Strategic Plan for the County in informing the county about County government and what we’re doing and things. With that introduction I’ll ask Tim to update the Board on where we’re at and what information we need.
Information Services Network Support Technician Tim Knipper: All right. What we’ve been talking about is, we’ve found software that we want to replace the podium that’s downstairs that has the directory and everything on it with an electronic version or online version to have a directory and frequently asked questions type thing for County offices as well as having the web site and stuff available for people that are coming into the building while they’re waiting to get their license plates renewed, things like that, whatever. We have figured out the specs. We’ve found some software that does all what we want it to. It basically lets you put the web site out there and then you get to control everything that can be accessed from that computer so people won’t be coming in and aren’t playing around, getting into things that they’re not supposed to. With that the Information Services department will provide a computer that we can use. The things that we need for this, are we need to set up electricity and network connections down in the lobby. We talked to David Kempf about that and I believe that that would come out of his budget on doing that work. Basically I think we’re looking for direction on who should be paying for this and things like that and if it’s OK to go ahead with it.
Neuzil: The Communications Committee does have a little over $4,000 that we have set aside each year to try to promote Johnson County government. This is something you would basically need the hook-up, the computer, and some kind of table or…
Knipper: Desk or something.
Neuzil: …and obviously something that’s secure, that you can’t just take and walk out with. There’s a little bit of everything that has to be a part of this, but our current system right now is embarrassing more than anything. It’s something that’s not adequate, it’s not something that’s user-friendly and it’s something that’s outdated. Having an opportunity for people to be able to come in and know where to go to, when it comes to County government, to be able to have access to County government more; and for what I would consider a fairly reasonable price, here would be something that we could invest in and have for years to come.
Thompson: What kind of price are you talking about?
Knipper: I would say it would be under $1,000 for it. I don’ t know… The software that I’ve located is $150 and the desk, depending on what type of compartment that we want to be secure, can range anywhere from $300 to $400 up to $1,000 or more depending on which way you want to go or how nice of a desk you want.
Thompson: Where will you put this?
Knipper: David kind of gave us some ideas of where it would look best, and we were thinking behind the stairs. Downstairs if you go, like when you get to the bottom of the stairs… It would actually be facing the Human Resources office.
Thompson: OK.
Knipper: I think there’s a table sitting down there right now.
Stutsman: Ideally, we talked about having it where the podium is now, but the cost would just be prohibitive to run wiring to that, it would just be one major project. This isn’t our first choice…
Knipper: No, but probably most cost effective.
Harney: There will still be a location where there will be directions when someone comes in if they want to come to the Board office or the Recorder’s office. They won’t have to come to go to the computer for that, they’ll still be something indicating where that is at right?
Stutsman: That would be on the computer.
Knipper: It would be on the computer. That would be the main screen of the computer.
Neuzil: The screen on the computer would be that then if you wanted to look at more you could look at more.
Harney: But I’m thinking of new people coming in or older people that don’t necessarily get on the computer they want to walk in and see where they can go.
Neuzil: They won’t even have to.
Thompson: It will be like a sign?
Neuzil: The screen…
Knipper: Yes. We talked about some kind of sign or something like that. They wouldn’t have to do anything with the computer that would be the home page, it would basically be the directory updated.
Stutsman: Then if they were more proficient with the computer, and they wanted to ask where do I go to a driver’s license or a marriage license or where do I pay my taxes, those frequently asked questions. It’s kind of been kind of neat because who is putting the frequently asked questions together is the HR department which gets all these inquiries when people walk in the door saying where’s this or where’s that and what not.
Neuzil: I think the whole idea stemmed from… Not only if you actually look at the thing down there, it’s not really that safe, it’s also something that has fallen over before, it’s also something that if you actually look at the readings on it, it’s not quite correct. It’s all of those things. You think about again, a user friendly government, you think about Iowa City and you think about Coralville, when you walk into Iowa City or Coralville’s administrative offices there is a person actually there, an information person. We’re not talking about that right now, what we’re talking about is something to supplement that individual and that is at least a screen on a computer that says these are the things that are going on and actually can change the hours if the hours do change. But it also says, hey you want to learn more about County government, here’s an opportunity, take 5 minutes.
Thompson: Can you make this pretty sturdy?
Neuzil: That’s got to be important.
Thompson: One of the reasons the thing we have now looks bad is that it’s been knocked over by… I think parents whose attention is taken up with their application at the Treasurer’s office don’t supervise their children well and then they climb on it and knock it over.
Lehman: I think this is something that basically you’re going to go next to a wall so you can draw electricity, you can probably do some type of anchoring or fastening.
Thompson: Anchor it to the wall.
Stutsman: We keep talking about kiosk and that was expensive, but if the Board is willing to consider that we’d be more than happy to move in that direction.
Knipper: Exactly. That’s actually been a concern, I was talking to Bill Horning about this, of having the mouse and keyboard and stuff out there. He’s afraid that they might get broken and stuff like that, but they’re minimal expenses compared to…
Thompson: The touch screen costs like $40,000.
Knipper: Exactly.
Stutsman: Is it that much?
Knipper: It’s awful. Yes.
Thompson: I thought I heard that from somebody.
Knipper: You may be able to get them for cheaper for 10,000 to 20,000 but I don’t know about the quality.
Lehman: Yes, we could hire a part-time employee for that.
Neuzil: Yes.
Stutsman: No kidding.
Lehman: We could get volunteers to do that.
Stutsman: So we just need to make sure that this is the direction the Board wants us to go before we start investing in the project.
Knipper: I think we feel it’s an inexpensive way to actually try to see if it’s something that’s going to work and that people are going to use instead of jumping into the touch screen and things like that. That could be something, maybe down the road.
Stutsman: Part of what we were thinking too is that… This is feedback from the HR department because they’re right there. A lot of people spend time waiting in that lobby area, waiting for applications or licenses or whatever, and it would be an opportunity, if people had the time, to go over to the computer and look at our website. That day when Kim Painter came with Art Small saying the County needs to have this kiosk with information and she pointed out we already have a lot of that information on our web site; that people just aren’t aware of. This would give another opportunity for people to view that information.
Knipper: Exactly.
Thompson: Will you be able to have a screen in Spanish?
Knipper: Yes. I’m looking at software now where you can convert the website into different languages.
Harney: I understand the idea of the computer and what you’re doing, but I still see the issue of people coming in that want to go to the Recorder’s Office, want to go to Planning and Zoning, they need to know where it is. Whether it’s between the 2 front doors or something, so they know whether they need to go upstairs or whether they need to go over to the right or to the left.
Lehman: Are you thinking that we can put something on the wall near this that might get people that are looking for the written direction?
Thompson: Maybe just a sign on the window when you come in that says…
Stutsman: That’s another thing that we’ve been talking about. We’re going to talk about at Elected Officials meeting. We want to put hours, office hours, on the window outside as they come in. Maybe that’s where those things need to be.
Neuzil: Suite numbers or something. Second floor, first floor, sure.
Stutsman: But down there on that podium, it talks about Veteran’s Affairs, well that’s not even in this building and Department of Human Services.
Thompson: It’s got the wrong address for Juvenile Court.
Stutsman: Yes.
Neuzil: It’s just outdated.
Lehman: Either that or just on the wall inside the 2 front doors.
Neuzil: I think we’ll bring that up in the Communications too just to have a separate. I think we’ve been talking already.
Stutsman: We’re running out of space down there is the problem.
Neuzil: We don’t want to put anything on that one wall. We know the one wall.
Stutsman: The one wall is definitely off limits.
Harney: So you’re talking about wanting to know where dollars should come from. To me that should come out of our Computer Services if it’s going to be a computer unless you’re looking for something else.
Neuzil: I think it’s going to be just a combination of a few things, the Communication Committee, IS is going to help with the computer. David will probably help out with some of the internal costs. It’s more just, here’s a heads up, this is something that the Committee’s looking at and…
Stutsman: And make sure that… This is a recommendation from the Communications Committee, we wanted to make sure that the Board was OK with it before we moved any further along. So what do you think?
Thompson: I just would stress sturdiness. That piece furniture that’s there is pretty solidly built and you can see the shape it’s in.
Knipper: Yes. Depending on the cabinet and stuff we’ll probably get some type of desk type thing because it’s going to be a computer monitor sitting on it. It’s not going to be a tower or anything where…
Neuzil: We’ll look at things, obviously, like accessibility and all those factors too of course. We’ll keep moving then.
Harney: OK.
Stutsman: Sounds OK? Thanks Tim, for coming down.
Knipper: Yes.
Harney: Next item is reports and inquiries. Mike?
Harney: Reports and Inquiries. Mike?
Lehman: We’ve all been working on the budget here in the last week. Good conversation and questions and information have been provided by Jeff Horne, our Budget Coordinator. This afternoon we’ll be talking with Jeff Davidson on the future of the County Farm, getting some direction there. After that we’ll be talking about the Road Performance with Zoning and Secondary Roads. Carol and I will be with FINCORE the Financial Software group tomorrow at 1:30. Hopefully trying to hear some recommendation from the Committee as far as the last 3 vendors they’ve narrowed it down too. Trying to look at the dollars and the functions that they’re going to be offering. That’s all I have.
Harney: Carol?
Thompson: Well the Board met yesterday morning to do evaluations, which was a nice break from doing budgets. We had a visit to the Recorder’s Office, which is always interesting. We learned a lot of interesting facts about Johnson County that we didn’t know before. Other than that I’ve just been working on the budget.
Harney: Thank you. Terrence?
Neuzil: Budget, budget, budget, that’s what we’ve all been doing and we’re looking forward to yes, more meetings on the budget. We’ll be meeting, so the community knows, we’re getting pretty close here now. We’re starting to see the effects on what happens on the taxpayers. We’re all taxpayers too and we’re going to keep that in mind. Monday at 3:30, Tuesday at 11:00, Wednesday at 10:30, those are just 3 of the days coming up, the 10th, the 11th and the 12th when we’re getting pretty close to finalizing the County budget. Those are the tentative meetings right now scheduled for next week. Besides that of course the evaluations, we had a real nice visit with our County Recorder Kim Painter. Kind of got to go through the whole tour of her office and some of her needs for the future. I want to also talk a little bit about a new thing that I’m doing. It’s pretty fun and interesting all at the same time. I’ve been selected to be a member of the Citizens Police Academy so that I can actually take Pat on when it comes to some of these issues. It’s a really incredible opportunity to learn about some of the things that our officers throughout the cities and the county work on. I’ve been going a couple of weeks and will continue to do that through April and hopefully update the Board quite a bit on that experience. It’s a lot of fun and it’s held over at the City of Coralville but we’re also going to go through the simulator next week in Iowa City. Have you done that?
Harney: Yes.
Stutsman: What’s the simulator?
Neuzil: That’s where you actually, what do you do? I don’t know.
Harney: That’s where you are in a shooting situation.
Neuzil: You actually have to decide do you pull the trigger or not. So you have to go look for the right bad guy.
Harney: What your response will be.
Neuzil: So I’ll be doing that. There will be visits to Iowa City, to Coralville to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department. All of those different areas. I look forward to that. The Board of Supervisors is working on a couple of different issues. Even as of today we’ll be working on the County Farm, having a work session along with the Secondary Roads Department along with Planning and Zoning talking about the Road Performance Standard Ordinance. We’ll see if we’re going to make any changes and what to do about either of those issues. Besides that it has been a great week. I’ll be working on a project coming up and that’s with County Government Week and that’s with Sally and the Communications Committee. We’re going to start getting together and have a nice event coming up in April. We’ll have more details on that.
Harney: Thank you. Sally?
Stutsman: Well like everybody else, I’ve spent my time on budgets and also had liaison meetings with representatives of Secondary Roads with the department head at MH/DD and with the Planning and Zoning Department. I guess that takes care of my week.
Harney: Thank you. This last week I attended the East Central Iowa Council of Governments Board of Directors meeting in Cedar Rapids. They approved the adoption of the Region 10 Disaster Recovery Plan. That’s put together by local Emergency Management Services. And ECICOG Planner Chad Sands provided an update on community development in the particular areas. It was very good and informative. Also Jennifer Ryan provided an update on the third year of the recycling challenges. This next following year they’ve been concentrating on cities and communities and this year they’re going to concentrate more on the business recycling, see if they can’t improve some of that recycling. Reviewed the Fiscal Year 04 budget and also attended the ECICOG Region 10 Policy Committee meeting. They reviewed the transportation funds for 3 year allocations for the upcoming 3 years. Incidentally Johnson County requested a million dollars for the Sand Road project and they got $994,951. So they’re real close on their request on that. So they’ll be in good shape for that project. Reviewed also the Region 10 Transit Plan, which includes Johnson County SEATS programs and the other surrounding counties SEATS type programs. Sally, Mike and I attended the Chamber Ag Breakfast Series at Montgomery Hall this last week. Through the winter they have a series of speakers and a small breakfast. This last week they had Greg Brenneman who is an ISU Extension Ag Engineer. He gave a very good presentation on water quality and the nitrates and phosphorus and nitrogen in the waters and how farmers apply and what is dangerous and not dangerous. It seems kind of strange we talked about it in Iowa State. Right mike?
Lehman: You’ve got to go to the source where the knowledge is.
Harney: As Sally said, she and I met with Secondary Roads staff over our regular monthly meeting. We had good discussion on road issues and road maintenance and brush cleaning and so forth. That was pretty much my week. Are there any inquiries and reports from the public?
Lehman: I might add that at 5:30 on Monday the 10th, the Board will be having a work session with the County Planning and Zoning Commission on the North Corridor. Next Wednesday is the Jail Task Force at 12:30 at the Coralville Library. We all usually try to attend those.
Harney: Thank you. Meeting is adjourned.
Adjourned at 10:15 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary