MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
FEBRUARY 13, 2003
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Harney called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 6:23 p.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
Harney: Call to order the Informal Meeting of February 13, 2003. First item of business is the economic development plan for unincorporated areas of Johnson County.
Assistant Planner Dan Swartzendruber: Good evening. I hope everybody’s got a copy of the plan. I did bring some extra ones. I believe Mike has got them if you do not have a copy.
Stutsman: This is dated January 3rd, right?
Swartzendruber: Yes, draft 1-3-03. I noticed that Joe Raso and Jeff Horne are here. They helped me quite a bit with development of this plan as well as Carol and Terrence. I appreciate the help on the Economic Development Committee in drafting this; it was a big help. We also received some reviews from the County Attorney’s Office. Pat White, Andy, as well also looked at this document. We did receive from comment from Jeff Davidson from JCCOG as well. Briefly talk about what we’re trying to accomplish with economic development and why we’re doing this and going through all these things here. Really defining economic development, as Joe can probably attest to, can be fairly difficult. Typically it’s measured in terms of the number of jobs added to a local or regional economy. In a broader sense economic development, should, theoretically, produce a multiplier effect on the local economy by exporting value added products outside of the region. This type of basic sector employment is generally considered a catalyst for growth benefiting all the sectors in the local and regional economy. Conversely, the community development initiatives such as the Englert Theater project, the North Liberty pool project also play a role in economic development although in a more limited sense in that these projects tend to provide amenities and infrastructure that firms typically look for when they’re seeking to relocate in an area. As far as what the County should accomplish with an Economic Development Plan, I believe one of the primary things that we’re doing with it is to identify areas in the unincorporated area of the county that are suitable for some level of commercial or industrial development. The draft plan that we’ve submitted to you all has identified 2 major areas. One would be highway intersection areas, what we call key intersection areas, that are probably better suited for larger scale types of commercial or industrial development hopefully with the intent of creating a basic sector level of employment that I just talked about. Other than that the village areas, which we’ve also identified in the 1998 Land Use Plan, are probably best suited for some type of development that’s perhaps less intensive. The key within these areas is the compatibility with existing uses, I believe. I think also you should hope to accomplish and consider what types of incentives may be appropriate for a business by evaluating the viability of development proposal and measuring the resulting impacts on the businesses and what that may have on the local and regional economy. Finally, the plan should accomplish the objective set out in the Land Use Plan, that’s namely to develop an Economic Development Plan and further expand on some of those ideas and goals in the Land Use Plan. I do have some concerns about this draft. Every planning document is to me a work in progress. Hopefully if it’s going to be used and if it’s going to be something of any merit, it’s not going to sit on a shelf and gather dust and it will be updated periodically and it will have some reference. Sometimes it’s very difficult to arrive at a finished product that everyone is happy with right off the bat and sometimes it takes some work. One of the concerns and future considerations that I think we should think about is the type of incentives that could be offered. I know Pat White in his review of the document questioned what assistance is being considered and where would the money come from. That’s a good question and the Board really needs to consider this. I believe in the plan we came up with a wide range of incentive opinions and if you look on page 5 I believe I’ve detailed some of those. I think primarily we’ll probably be looking at perhaps tax abatements, you may want to look at TIF, you may want to look at funding some infrastructure improvements such as roads to facilitate a development. That’s something I think that really needs to be determined and probably narrowed down. Whether or not you’re going to use a TIF and fundamentally whether or not you want to go with that is something that I believe is a definite policy decision. It has some real serious implications if used the wrong way. So I think those are some of the things we need to probably discuss further. Jeff Horne may have some ideas too on some of the different incentive vehicles and whether or not they can be viable and what types of impacts they may have as well. I found him to be a good resource for this. As far as the basic sector types of development, typically ICAD… Joe jump in any time here. They would be assisting the County in obtaining probably some State-funded packages that may include CEBA, RISE, I don’t know, various different State funding sources that could be combined perhaps with some of the local incentives to put together some sort of package that would be attractive to certain businesses. As far as the Community Development type projects such as, again going back to the Englert Theater and the North Liberty Pool, the Board may seriously want to look at that as a matter of policy, whether or not they want to set aside some sort of monies or some sort of fund on an annual basis to give to these projects. The advantage of being you could probably set aside a reasonable amount and once that’s done, that’s it and the question of whether or not 3 or 4 entities could come back time and time again and keep asking for monies… They’d know it ahead of time, I guess that’s the advantage, they’d know how much is available and how much you can go to the well for. I don’t know if that’s something that you want to consider or not, but I think there’s probably real benefit in supporting some of those initiatives. Now this plan really deals with the unincorporated areas and not so much of what’s happening with the cities, but I think it’s a regional thing, it’s not just isolated to one city or to the rural area. So something else to consider.
Stutsman: Excuse me Dan. When you talk about setting aside these monies. So we’d have to set up a whole series of policies about funding, like if there’s certain criteria for businesses, if they provide daycare or above minimum wage jobs or that kind of thing.
Swartzendruber: That’s all illustrated in the plan but I’m talking about probably in addition to that you may want to consider whether or not you want to have a fund that would be set aside for some of these more community development type initiatives. I’m not just saying the North Liberty Pool or the Englert Theater, but it could be for development project in a village or any community type development project that you think has some benefit.
Thompson: So you’re talking, not about the areas that are defined in the plan and about what incentives we might offer people for those, but about if an area or a village wanted to offer something that would be an incentive. Like the Englert wouldn’t be covered in this plan because it’s not in the rural area and it’s…
Swartzendruber: Just an additional thing…
Thompson: …but it does add to our community.
Swartzendruber: …that you may want to consider. Yes.
Neuzil: Yes. I like the draft. It makes Johnson County a player when it comes to economic development and I think that’s the message that we want to send to all the different communities around here and to all the people around eastern Iowa. We are now going to be a player; we’re going to be… Well we’ve got a plan in place. Now we’ve got to build on that plan. I would hope that what branches out of this plan is an actual development of an Economic Development Commission in Johnson County that will look at those incentives like abatements and TIFs, infrastructure and the grants. As Dan talks about, the grants, this is something that maybe the Commission would be able to look through. This could also be forward thinking as far sending reps to Washington DC when the Chamber goes on their legislative trips. This could be a person or persons that could be a part of ICAD’s recruiting efforts. These are all the things that I think can be built off of this plan. But I think this is a very good start and obviously something that has been in the minds of many people in Johnson county since 1998 in our Land Use Plan where we identified this as something that Johnson County should be looking at. I think it’s a good step in the right direction. We’ve identified a number of areas where we want to see growth and development to occur. Some of the major intersections. Do you want to go through some of those? That would probably be good.
Swartzendruber: Sure I could. The major intersection areas are at Herbert Hoover Highway and Interstate 80, at I-380 and the Highway 965 or 120th Street Exit commonly known as Swisher/Shueyville Exit; Interstate 80 and Blackhawk Avenue commonly known as the Oxford Exit; and US Highway 6 and Taft Avenue which is just east of Iowa City. Those are the 4 primary areas that it appears that a greater amount of commercial/industrial development could take place.
Thompson: The Oxford one is the largest in acres isn’t it?
Swartzendruber: Yes.
Thompson: The Herbert Hoover one is the only one that currently has sewer and water?
Swartzendruber: Yes, it has… Mr. Eyman’s development at Gateway currently has a large sewage plant there. The so-called Community Development areas are primarily all of the villages within the county. Those I think you really need to separate them out. I took the advice of Joe on this and I think it was good advice and that’s really these areas are not probably as best suited for larger scale types of development. I really envision some sort of a more mixed use type of arrangement, lighter commercial. Also I think this brings up the idea of whether or not we want to do any other initiatives as far as planning around there. I know R.J.’s getting ready to start Small Area Village Plan in Frytown that I think is a wonderful idea of what needs to be done in some of these village areas. It’s not just to address commercial and any possible industrial development but also what can happen as far as the residential and other mixed uses and just generally what’s going to occur in those areas. It also gets some buy-in from the residents in those areas and I think that’s really important.
Lehman: It helps send the message to those that may be looking for a zoning application. You give some direction that this is an area that we’ve set aside near a village rather than… We’ve had a couple of those that we’ve asked them to look for other locations. The indication is that they probably won’t be approved in the middle of nowhere. We’ve given some locations to… that they’re pretty close by to where they’d like to operate their business and it’s an expansion of what’s already there.
Swartzendruber: The first step is identifying those areas and getting those areas established saying this is where we want to see the commercial/industrial development happen. I think maybe it’s prudent to take a step further and actually look at the smaller area plans and…
Lehman: It’s kind of a situation where someone may have an idea, they may go the realtor and the realtor will say if you want to be out in the county, if it’s a county atmosphere you want to be involved in the County has issued and stated where they’d like to see development occur. It gives them a vehicle to guide entrepreneurs.
Swartzendruber: Absolutely.
Harney: The other thing I was going to say, I agree that development around the villages is great and we encourage that. In conjunction with the one your presenting here and I’ve got the North Corridor Development Plan it also says encourage commercial/industrial development at major road intersection where adequate transportation and infrastructure exists and land area will adequately accommodate onsite wastewater treatment and water for onsite wells is available. So this encourages along the North Corridor as well, however, you don’t have any of those listed in here.
Swartzendruber: Well our feeling was that number one having it on an interstate or access in close proximity to an interstate would tend to be more attractive to a larger scale industrial and/or commercial type business. These are the types I think that would be a… I don’t know, give me an example, probably a warehouse, truck manufacturing plant, something like that with enough land area to locate and enough good transportation network area to locate. That I think would be a boon and perhaps would be a lot better generator and… business that would generate a lot more basic sector level jobs which would ultimately improve the whole economy in the area and I think that’s what we’re focusing on. I think you can get mired down in perhaps declaring too many areas. I think there are probably some places in the North Corridor that we could look at too and I don’t think that this excludes them by saying we can’t look at any other area if it’s got an existing zoning and there’s perhaps reasonably infrastructure. I think what the point was here is that these are the areas where we want to target basic sector employment, use the resources of ICAD and then perhaps be able to bring in a really nice… develop a really nice business.
Lehman: I understand. My thought is along 965 and those areas; we want to encourage that development as well. It’s already occurring up in the North Liberty, up towards Cedar Rapids area. But at the same time, I think along Highway 1 perhaps up near Solon, areas like that, I think that would probably be feasible for that to fit in that particular area. I guess what I’m asking is if we’re looking at the North Corridor, if we’re removing this, I don’t necessarily want to do that I want to keep that in our North Corridor Plan if that’s feasible in the future.
Swartzendruber: Like I said when I started this, it’s a work in progress and it’s certainly something that can be added and can be changed. Really I think at this point what I would really like to see from the Board is perhaps where would you like to go from here. Do you want to hold some more work sessions to discuss this further? Or do you want to… do what? Go open public hearings or what’s the inclination at this point?
Thompson: This plan is pretty basic. It mostly just identifies 4 areas where we would go out and have a plan to look for development and then identifies the areas around the little towns where certain kinds of development might be allowed.
Neuzil: This is also a plan that hopefully ICAD will take with them and when there are certain kinds of potential clients out there that might see a more attractive area, particularly along the interstate, that might be another opportunity for ICAD. Again most importantly this is something that at least Johnson County says we have a plan, we have identified some areas where there is potential growth and development that can occur in our county and that we want to actively and potentially recruit for those, even if it means taking some economic development away from a city. I think that there are some areas in Johnson county that would be more attractive to businesses than potentially a business inside of a city.
Stutsman: I guess those of you that worked on it know this fairly well, I feel that I don’t have near that familiarity with it. I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to go through it just segment by segment in a work session again. Just talk about it so we that we all have a pretty clear understanding of what we’ve put in place here. That would be my preferred way to work through this. Because you said you had some concerns.
Swartzendruber: Yes. I think I’ve highlighted some of them and I think we probably need to talk about them and discuss how you want to deal with those concerns. It’s not saying their insurmountable or anything. I just feel like those need to be brought out.
Stutsman: But I agree with Terrence too. I think it’s a great initial first step. I’m just thrilled to see this down on paper and some maps.
Swartzendruber: Sorry it took so long, Sally.
Stutsman: It’s here so that’s the main thing. I just think it’s going to be a great tool for the County to use.
Lehman: I like the fact that it will help us in fringe area agreements. Like Terrence had said that there are places out there that we feel are suitable. There are developing businesses that are looking for places and I think will be a perfect match. I think we need to identify those in our fringe area agreements so that cities are also aware that people might be better located in certain situations; businesses might be better located out away from traffic area but still have some of the services such as the Jerry Eyman where sewer and water can service more than just one business too.
Raso: If I could just add that having spent some time on this I have this marked up quite a bit so I will be very interested, as the individual representing ICAD, to talk more about some of the details of this plan. But as Terrence if you’re going to make a decision to want to look at economic development and potentially industrial development in some of these locations, it does you no good unless you have sites and areas designated that you would like us, as a development group, to represent either through communications or information on our website or what-have-you because that process starts with finding available sites. If we don’t know what sites you’re looking at and have a process in place and incentives and other things to deal with it makes it next to impossible for us to direct potential clients to those areas should you choose to move forward with this.
Harney: I agree it is a good plan. I’m like Sally, I’d like to go through this piece by piece and hopefully you could be here Joe to partake in that.
Iowa City Area Development Director Joe Raso: I’d be glad to.
Stutsman: Shall we set up a work session?
Neuzil: Do you have your calendar?
Raso: No I don’t.
Neuzil: Do you want to wait and maybe have Mike…
Stutsman: Coordinate that…
Neuzil: …coordinate with Joe and pass it around.
Stutsman: OK.
Raso: I’ll see Carol in the morning so we could coordinate some dates.
Stutsman: Great, great.
Harney: Thank you.
Thompson: I had a question on page 5, in your list of possible incentives you have tax exempt financing. Is that industrial revenue bonds? Do we need to spell out how we have a separate policy for that?
Swartzendruber: I was hoping that the policy that I have also attached in here would supplant that old policy for IRBs and would include all of these other vehicles. So whenever we’re thinking about offering some assistance then we would have the entity fill out that form.
Thompson: Because this does seem to be all the same thing.
Swartzendruber: Yes.
Thompson: OK.
Stutsman: Exciting.
Swartzendruber: OK, any other questions or…
Lehman: No. I’d like to thank you and Joe…
Stutsman: Yes. Thank you.
Lehman: …and Jeff, Carol, and Terrence.
Neuzil: Yes, thanks.
Thompson: So one thing we’ll need to think about for our work session is whether we want to add an item, I suppose there on page 5, saying that each year we’ll set aside a certain amount of money.
Neuzil: Yes.
Stutsman: I would like to know what is a reasonable amount of money.
Neuzil: Right, like I said…
Stutsman: $25?
Thompson: It might have to be beginning ’05.
Stutsman: Yes.
Neuzil: That was the thing again. As we work through the this, again, if we want to develop that kind of Commission… If you want to develop a way to put together grants to potentially at some point even have brochures, something that says this is Johnson County this is something that Joe can take around the country. Those are the kinds of things that I think can stem out of this plan, maybe we can discuss that during this work session.
Stutsman: Thank you.
Swartzendruber: Thank you.
Harney: Any business from the County Attorney?
Assistant County Attorney Andy Chappell: No business from the County Attorney.
DISCUSSION: CONFINEMENT FEEDING OPERATIONS CONSTRUCTION EVALUATION RESOLUTION
Harney: Business from the Board of Supervisors, discussion on confinement feeding operations in the matrix.
Stutsman: This might have been the Planning and Zoning Commission agenda tonight.
Neuzil: I can go ahead. I’ll start and then you chime in. How’s that sound?
Planning and Zoning Director Rick Dvorak: Sounds fair.
Neuzil: Or we can do it the other way around.
Dvorak: No, I like your idea.
Neuzil: Primarily what we’re talking about here, it says here confinement feeding operations and construction, what we’re talking about is particularly large hog lots. We’re talking about the master matrix which is something that people hear about all the time. The State of Iowa has put together a Rules Committee and through the Rules Committee has come up with its recommendation for a master matrix for construction of concentrated animal feeding operations otherwise known as CAFOs. If Johnson County wants to participate in this master matrix we have to adopt a construction evaluation resolution and we must do so by the end of this month if we want to participate. After having a meeting with Les Beck who’s the director of the Planning and Zoning Department of Linn County with the help of Supervisor Harney and from the staff, R.J. and Rick, we learn that Linn County is going to be supporting this. Have they done that yet?
Dvorak: No I think it’s going to their Planning and Zoning Commission and then the next day it’s on their formal for approval.
Neuzil: Right.
Dvorak: I believe the 19th.
Neuzil: I believe that Les Beck who gave us a memorandum goes through the pro’s and con’s if you will of adoption of the master matrix or not the adoption of the master matrix. In his review he says by adopting the construction evaluation resolution, which is what will be in front of the Board for a yes or no vote I assume, says if we adopt this it gives the Board of Supervisors, it gives the County the authority to review a proposed qualifying concentrated animal feeding operation utilizing this master matrix. In other words if we don’t vote to have this construction evaluation resolution we don’t get to be a part of the master matrix. We don’t get to have a say when it comes to concentrated animal feeding operations. I think that’s pretty much the gist of it. If we don’t vote on this we don’t get to be a player. If we adopt the CER, or the construction evaluation resolution, it gives the County authority for us to be able to send representatives, County employees, to accompany the DNR on site inspection. Again without voting on this we aren’t even allowed to send any of our staff or any of the Board of Supervisors can not go up there and review with the DNR. By adopting the construction evaluation resolution it gives authority to make a formal recommendation to the DNR to approve or disapprove of the application. It also allows us the authority to request a hearing before the Environmental Protection Commission to appeal the DNR decision. Again if we aren't going to support this then we don’t get to be a part of it. Now those are some of the things in favor of being a part of the master matrix and adopting the construction evaluation resolution. If the County chooses not to adopt then we have not right to send a County employee along to the DNR site inspection. We may submit comments to the DNR but not an adopted recommendation. It is not required to be notified by the DNR of the DNR action or on the application and we have no authority to request a hearing before the EPC, Environmental Protection Commission. In other words if we don’t have support of this construction evaluation resolution, if we don’t want to be a part of the master matrix then there is no master matrix in this county. It means that the DNR will avoid the master matrix. As Les pointed out in that meeting it means counties who do not participate in the master matrix, it will mean that potentially concentrated animal feeding operations, large hog lots in particular, will look to counties who do not have the master matrix because it will be easier for them to get approval if a County does not have the master matrix. I’m of the opinion that this is something that has a lot to do with home rule. I guess the question that the Board has to kind of figure out, do you want to be a decision maker, do you want to be a player when it comes to this or do you want the State of Iowa to make that decision without us? To me this is a home rule piece of legislation. Does it mean that we can stop an animal feeding operation? No, it really doesn’t. Does it mean that we at least can have a say? Yes, it does. So that’s in a nutshell what the construction evaluation resolution is and if the Board is interested we should vote yes or no and we must do so by the end of this month.
Harney: If we have a resolution in place we can have public hearings…
Neuzil: Correct.
Harney: …which actually would allow the public to speak even though we can’t make the decision, we can forward a recommendation to the State, but if we don’t have that in place, we can not. Quite honestly a lot of the farmers do not want County government getting involved in their feeding operations, but after this has come out this way I’ve talked to several who believe that we don’t have much of a choice under the circumstances as it is. Because if we did not have it in place… if a commercial feedlot wanted to come in they could move right in along side one of their private operations and it would just be competition that would be unwanted. But at the same time if they did that, if we didn’t have this in place we would have no appeal, no complaint to the State; we couldn’t put anything out formally to the State on a review. If we don’t adopt this as Terrence said we can adopt it later on, however, that would be 18 months out and a lot can happen in 1 1/2 beyond the adoption.
Dvorak: I think to support that too, that if you do adopt this it lasts until January, I believe, 2004.
Neuzil: Right.
Dvorak: So it gives us that period where we can work through the process, involve the public, get public comment, learn the matrix system. If we don’t take this opportunity we can not get in it until 2004 and then that’s subjective I guess if we can even get in at that time. But the matrix itself, to me it’s a very common sense approach to the applicant who has to fill this out first. It’s not a whimsical thing, it’s very, if you’re X amount of feet from here you get this many points, if your X amount of feet from here you get this many. They look at air, water, and community. In other words, how close are you to a residence, how close are you to churches, how close you are to city limits. They’re pretty… If you’ve had… You’ve probably not had a chance to look at them. To me it’s a very simple, a very simple form, it’s not like it takes an engineer to do this information. I guess I’m trying to simplify that it’s not that difficult a person would not have to spend $1,000 to hire an engineer to go do this for them I guess that’s what I’m trying to lead to. It can be handed by most operators of livestock facilities. The other thing is the trigger mechanism, you may have said this and I may have missed it, is it’s 1,000 head of livestock for new facilities, 1,600 for expanding of facilities.
Stutsman: 1,600 additional?
Lehman: If one facility’s already existing, they can add on to that up to 1,600.
Dvorak: So if they have 1,000 now, they add 600, then they fall into this.
Stutsman: I see. This is not, the matrix doesn’t apply to current operations. This is just if somebody either wants to expand or build a new one.
Dvorak: Yes, they have to go through the permit process.
Harney: And either way, whether we adopt it or not, the State still controls the matrix and the inspections. But the only thing we really gain by adopting it, is at least we can go along, we can have our say and they will listen to us one way or another. If we don’t adopt it, we have no input what so ever.
Lehman: We can have our input plus the public can have a chance to…
Stutsman: But what good does that do? This is such a silly compromise.
Neuzil: You’re right. It is.
Stutsman: I just think… I don’t know why the legislature just doesn’t step up to the plate and say we’re not going to have polluting large-scale hog operations and that’s that instead of playing these silly games. But anyway, with that said I support going ahead.
Neuzil: There is. This is a lot of public relations, but again it at least allows us to have a say. I guess that’s really how I feel about it. Also, if somehow, some way it is determined that this Board doesn’t like the process of the Master Matrix, if we chose not to participate even after we approve this… If we would approve this resolution and say we chose not to participate, then we just don’t participate. It means we will lose our status of allowing the Master Matrix, but at least we don’t have to. The other thing that needs to be brought up, is who is going to be the designated department that would be in charge of evaluating? I would like to nominate my good friends, the Planning & Zoning Department.
Lehman: I think the timing of this is good because 4 to 6 years ago, just because of the economic cycle there were some of these built in Johnson County. With grain prices being better than they were in the last couple of years, price of hogs are starting to rebound just a little bit, there hasn’t been a big demand for increases. So there is a little bit of a lull. This would give us a chance to get our feet a little bit wet, without getting a lot of pressure, being overwhelmed by applications. It’s going to be a learn as you go type thing, but we’re not going to have 50 applications out there as soon as we adopt something. We’re going to get some, but we’re not going to be overwhelmed. I think the timing would be good if we do adopt something like that.
Dvorak: I also think, in Terrence’s…what he was saying about our office looking at this. There are some zoning issues associated with this also. One thing that we’ve done historically and this was some work that Pat and I had done some years ago, that if a person comes in… We had a big issue with the bank, the lending institution for hog confinements. I think you’re aware of this Mike, where the lending institutions really didn’t want to lend to farmers. I mean farmers in our definition, 40 acres or more where they’re actively involving in the farming operation. So the banks were trying to get these confinements to be put on 5 and 10 acre parcels. Well the good thing way, at that time, they had to come to me to sign off on that before the individuals could get the loan. So if a person comes in here and they have 10 acres and they want to put up a large hog confinement, somebody else may not realize that they could be in conflict with the zoning ordinance if they allow that. We would say, no you can not do that. You have to rezone that property if you want to put a large confinement of any kind of in, hog, chicken, geese, whatever. So I think the fact that, yes, we can help control the zoning part and help facilitate what the Board wants in doing this with Mike Sullivan’s help of course. Then also if you chose we can get into… We can have a person, an employee of the County and obviously I would recommend a building inspector go through that facility. You may not like that idea or you may chose not to do that, but we do have that capability now, to have a building inspector go through the facility too. So these are things you may want to look at, so therefore my staff would definitely want… If you chose to have us to do this, we would definitely do it for those reasons.
Stutsman: Does the building inspector have the expertise to…
Dvorak: Well electrical and mechanical are the main things that we would look at. We wouldn’t issue a building permit, don’t get me wrong. But if you chose to have a person go through that, you may want to have physically somebody that knows how to look at that. You may not. You may prefer having a Supervisor.
Harney: Why would we have an inspector go in and inspect a hog confinement on a farm when we don’t require inspections of those facilities?
Dvorak: All I’m doing is offering. If you chose to have that, because it allows you to designate some person to go through that facility with the DNR, you may chose…
Neuzil: I think we’d want a team here, not only the Planning & Zoning. I think you would be the first step. But I also think that obviously the Public Health Department is one that’s going to have to be a major player in all of this.
Dvorak: Agreed. 100%.
Neuzil: But I think that as far as designating whose going to help do this, I think it best fits Planning & Zoning Departments.
Stutsman: Yes, I guess I’m not ready to sign on to having a lot of people going in and inspecting. I guess I need to think through that if that’s the route we want to go, when we really don’t have much of a say about it anyway.
Dvorak: I shouldn’t have made the offer.
Stutsman: Pardon me.
Dvorak: I shouldn’t have made the offer. Just an offer for consideration.
Stutsman: We can consider it.
Harney: I guess I’m getting a little clouded here on this. My understanding was the matrix and we had our says and so on and so forth and we could walk through, but I’m getting the gist here that perhaps we’re looking at it further. Maybe there might be some inspections coming up in the long run on this. Am I missing something in this?
Neuzil: I think it’s part of your scoring that you would want to have some expertise and be able to justify to the DNR as far as things. I think that expertise would give more creditability to the scoring process.
Stutsman: But we couldn’t put more County rules than what the State has.
Dvorak: No and I’ve never said that.
Thompson: But we have some zoning rules that would still stand.
Dvorak: Our zoning rules will apply. I apologize. I shouldn’t have said we will have a building inspector. Again, I just wanted to say if you chose to have somebody with a building inspector’s background to look at this, then you could use that as a tool. If you chose not to, then I think Terrence is right, have a health officer go through, have a zoning person, have a Board of Supervisors. I was just making an offer. Like if the Health Department went through and the wiring was laying all over the place and the water and there was an issue, you may want to have somebody else go back, if you wanted to. I’m just making that as an offer.
Thompson: So you’re just saying that your department would have staff available to review who would be knowledgeable about buildings. Your not saying it would be an inspection of the County.
Dvorak: Not at all. We cannot inspect an ag building on a farm. Period.
Thompson: We don’t want to mislead anybody about that.
Dvorak: Thank you for clarifying.
Neuzil: I think again, communities that have the ability to participate… Really the only value out of this is number 1) at least counties get to go to the table and number 2) again has to do with the public. There is no doubt that a very large concentrated animal feeding operation is less likely going to go to an area that has a lot of conflict amongst it’s neighbors. So at least it does give us this opportunity to be a player. Let the community be a part of it too.
Lehman: You have mentioned that Linn County Planning & Zoning acted on this. Do we have time?
Neuzil: We don’t.
Lehman: We don’t have time. OK.
Dvorak: It’s not required. Just as a courtesy review.
Lehman: But we don’t have time if we need to act on this.
Dvorak: No, no. We talked about this last week and we didn’t have time to get it on their agenda. As you’re aware this just came up like…
Neuzil: Last month. The rules were actually approved when Sally and I were actually up at ISAC in January. So that just tells you how little time there really has. We pretty much knew what the rules were going to look like. We pretty much knew the scoring, as far as the Master Matrix, but as far as the finalization, it did not happen until the middle or end of January.
Stutsman: I looked at the ISAC web site last night. They have a pretty extensive review of this whole proposal under their, what they call hot topics. Anyway, they have a list of counties that have already adopted it. There must be at least, probably 15 that have already adopted it. Not too many large counties, mostly small.
Dvorak: I think those were the counties that were concerned, at least from what I’ve been reading out of the same information. That they were the ones that were jumping on the bandwagon first because they’re being the ones that are getting all the large hog confinements quicker. Because they’re rural counties. Us being an urban County, we haven’t had a bigger issue right now, up until now.
Stutsman: There were a lot of counties at ISAC that talked, that this was such a big issue, that weren’t on that list. So I was kind of surprised, but it’s early yet. A lot of them may be discussing like we are. It’s kind of interesting to follow that.
Dvorak: I’ve been getting, I bet I have gotten 25 emails through our Zoning Officials Association in the last 3 days regarding what are you doing, what are you doing, where are you at? Like you, I think they’re talking these things daily. They’re trying to get under the 28th deadline. My recommendation if the Board would chose to do this is to put it on next Thursday’s agenda for formal action.
Thompson: Would that be a resolution to join the…
Dvorak: That’s correct.
Harney: Just a resolution.
Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator R.J. Moore: There’s a drafted resolution that Les Beck submitted.
Dvorak: Well no, actually Mike had drawn one up for Johnson County.
Harney: It’s on the back of your agenda.
Stutsman: There’s one on the ISAC page too. That’s probably where this came from?
Thompson: I guess to me the telling thing is, if we don’t do this, future DNR determinations, it sounds like would be based on lesser requirements. Which we have the potential to make this a very attractive place.
Stutsman: Oh, sure.
Neuzil: That’s right. That’s it. Then all they have to do is go through that one section of the Code, 455b.
Thompson: I mean in the past, we haven’t been very attractive I think because…
Neuzil: Does this create a lot of paper work on your end?
Dvorak: No, in reality, my understanding and I’m not all knowledgeable, but my understanding, they submit the information to us. The matrix has to be completed by the applicant. Then we review that information.
Neuzil: Is there consensus to put this on next week.
Dvorak: The reason I say next week, in case there is some continuing questions we need to go, we can push another week back and still make the deadline I think. The 27th.
Harney: Andy is that something you’d be able to review before next week.
Chappell: What the resolution? Oh, sure. Rick gave me a heads up that you’d be discussing this, so I was able to familiarize myself generally with the issues. I won’t have any problem reviewing the actual resolution by next week.
Harney: Thank you.
Stutsman: Thanks for reviewing that, Terrence and Pat and Rick.
Harney: Next item is reports and inquiries. Carol do you want to start?
Thompson: Sure. Last Thursday the Board had a meeting regarding future uses of the County Home property. Then after that we had a work session talking about the Road Performance Standards. That was a busy day. On Friday, FinCore met again. We’re down to the last 2 companies. This is an achievement. So tomorrow we’ll meet again and get final financial data on those 2 companies. We should be pretty close to going back to the large Financial Software Committee with a recommendation and then they’ll deliberate and make a recommendation to the Board. But it’s within sight distance now. On Monday, Mike and I met with the County Attorney’s Workgroup about the MH/DD Audit and set up some more strategies, which Janet is pursuing. She’s going to ask the Auditor’s if they would be acceptable and we’ll meet again next week to find out what her findings are. Also the MH/DD Finance Committee met. The bills are up to date now and the Department was at 52% of it’s budget for January, which is somewhat under budget for the year. We don’t have revenue figures yet, so we can’t really predict an ending balance for the year, but we’ll need to be considering that in the next few weeks. Then in the afternoon, I went to the Heritage Task Force because they were talking about the Senior Center Plan. There was quite a bit of comment. I think the Board members have heard from a number of people on the subject. I couldn’t really get a feel for whether the proposal is being well accepted by seniors or not, but there were some alternate proposals put forth that may be considered later. Then this afternoon, Terrence and I met with Lora for the semi-weekly HR meeting. That’s my week.
Harney: Mike?
Lehman: Carol and Mike Sullivan and I met with Elaine Sweet and we went over a little bit of the cost reports that the providers turned into the State for the CRIS reports. It was kind of a qualification of how Elaine handles that kind of thing. Carol, with her background, had a few pointers for her and things. It was kind of enlightening for me. These things that we heard about, the nuts and bolts of them. So it’s kind of enlightening to me of what we’re trying to accomplish that. Terrence is on that State Board. He’ll be following up with some of that. It was kind of interesting, the timetable that some providers, they work on strictly a calendar year. It’s different than our normal fiscal year, so those reports have to be turned in, have to be adjusted. But the purpose of it is to get those costs in. We’re dealing with other counties, and we’re all on the same wavelength of what price of service is and stuff. Along with the majority of the Board members, attended the Jail Taskforce. It’s interesting to sit there, listen to the comments. I guess one of the things that kind of bothers me, there’s 26 people on the Taskforce and the resource people are going to be well informed of the pros and cons. The media does a good job of trying to cover those meetings, but the average person is not going to hear the whys and why nots of restrictions and why we’re limited with what we can do with out resources. Also just why certain things cannot be done. Why we’re going to be limited here for our overcrowding problem and stuff. They’re down to 2 more meetings left here, trying to come up with some recommendations that’s going to answer our problems. I think we’re all looking forward to something productive coming out of that. Tomorrow morning we’ll be meeting for canvassing the school vote at 9:00. I guess that’s all I have to report.
Harney: Thank you. Sally?
Stutsman: Attended an Empowerment Board meeting Thursday night. I know that sometimes there’s confusion or not quite understanding what Empowerment Board does and the funding that’s available and the programs that are funded. So I’m going to kind of give the Board a brief overview of the programs that we funded or approved RFPs for last week to give you an idea of these are the programs that are in place in Johnson County from Empowerment funding. We approved several programs. This is just monies that will apply from February 'til the end of the year. So this is just a short timeframe. One program will receive $2,250 and this is a 4 C’s program. It’s called programs for infant and toddler caregivers. This is a program to assist in-home caregivers in developmental programs for children that are in their care. We also approved $2,049 for the Hawkeye Area Childcare Provider Network. This is a new group in Johnson County. It is set up for in-home providers. It’s to enhance their skills and improve their programs through the use of communication, collaboration and training and professional support and development. This will give them an opportunity to set up some training programs just to provide some just basic programs for people who do childcare in their home. They’re a new group. They’re very enthusiastic and I think the idea is to present a more professional environment for in-home providers. We also approved $20,000 for a continuation of the Home Ties Childcare Program. This is a program that is put together by the 4 Cs. This is to serve homeless families, families at risk of becoming homeless and any other children in need. This has been a very successful program in the community and it’s the only program like that. We also approved $1,372 for the Good Shepherd Daycare Program. 5% of the Good Shepherd’s families meet the eligibility requirements by Empowerment, so they asked for considerably more money, but this is what was agreed to give them. They will use that money for equipment. They are moving from their current location at that church on Melrose. Is it Trinity? No, it’s not Trinity. It escapes. Anyway, they are no longer going to be located…
Neuzil: I’m trying to think of which one.
Stutsman: Presbyterian.
Neuzil: Presbyterian United. Yes.
Stutsman: On Melrose. They’re going to be moving into a new facility at Greenwood. So all the equipment they had was the church equipment, so now they’re having to buy a considerable amount of equipment. So some of those dollars will go to that. We also funded $27,854 for a new childcare program in Iowa City that’s called Hannah’s Blessing Childcare. This is a program that has been trying for a number of years to get in place. They are providing childcare for low and moderate income households. They are fulfilling a much needed niche in the community. So they will be getting funding for that. We also approved $1,200 to United Action for Youth for their kinder music program. This is to provide story time, playing simple instruments, singing and vocal development for young children. We also approved $15,740 for the kindergarten transition program. This is put on through the Iowa City Community School District. It is in conjunction with some of the resource centers in the community. What it does is it provides exposure to those marginal families that aren’t real comfortable with schools. One of the things that they do is before children enter kindergarten they have an opportunity to ride on the school bus, so that they get more familiar with the school routine. The whole idea is to make children as well as their parents more comfortable with school so that it will help them as they get into school to be more involved in the school and their children’s activities. We also approved 2 programs that will deal with children in families with adults who may have a mental illness. That will be through the Neighborhood Centers out at Tiffin and it will also be through the Community Mental Health Center. This is a problem because so many times programs are geared to the clients, so when there’s children involved there’s not additional funding to help with the problems that they may be having. So we will be funding those programs. We also approved an RFP for funding for this next fiscal year. That will be for programs that will help children in early development and for parenting and those things. So that RFP just went out and will be reviewing those proposals in the next couple of months.
Harney: Would you mind for the public telling them where the dollars come from for Empowerment.
Stutsman: OK. These are State dollars that the State has put into local communities that have set up Empowerment Zones. I think there’s probably an Empowerment Zone in every County in the State now. What it is, is that they want the communities to decide what programs are going to benefit children as far as early childhood learning and as far as school ready grants. So that’s the programs that we’ve put in place. It’s a very thorough process. The programs go through what we call the RFP process, requests for proposals. Those are reviewed by various Empowerment Committees and then those recommendations are brought to the Empowerment Board for final approval before contracts are written and monies dispersed. So it’s a real community effort. The community has a lot of say on how these dollars are spent. Friday I as well as Elaine Sweet and Debbie Guard from MH/DD and Shirley Parker from Information Services and Bruce Juetten from MH/DD, traveled to Des Moines to review the Quilogy project that Polk County has been putting together. It’s been a collaborative effort between Polk County and Johnson County. If people are aware, we’ve invested a sizeable amount of money in the project, so I wanted to go over there and see what it’s all about. I was very, very impressed with what has been put together. I think it’s going to be a tremendous asset to Johnson County, getting an MIS system in place. There are just some very minor, minor issues to work out with the project. It will soon be going online in Polk County and we will soon have it in place, hopefully by the first of the fiscal year, in Johnson County. So that’s going to be a real benefit. You know about the only unsettling thing with this project and it’s just the nature, I was just blown away with the information that’s in these files on clients. Just absolutely blown away. Fortunately there’s lots of confidentiality issues that safeguard the system. That’s the downside, but that’s the kind of environment we’re in these days. Pat and I attended Ag Committee meeting yesterday. They have a new chair for the Fair Board due to the unfortunate death of their previous Chair, Stan Feldman. Nick Greiner will be the Chair of the Fair Board. The Fair Board, asked for help from anybody to talk to legislators about continuing the $1 million Fair Infrastructure Program. Each County gets $10,000 to apply for infrastructures for their fair. In Johnson County they are going to be looking at building a new building, so this money really, really is important. So, I hope it doesn’t get axed as well as with…
Lehman: May I ask a question? That is one of the things that we don’t have to charge a fee for the public.
Stutsman: Right. So it is real important that those dollars continue. They really do benefit the community. Let’s see, Pat and I met with Steve Spenler of the Ambulance Department yesterday afternoon for our monthly liaison visit. I asked him about the contract with Coralville and why we haven’t seen that yet. He said there is just a minor detail with some workman’s compensation issues. He said it’s no big deal. Janet Lyness from the County Attorney’s Office is reviewing that, as well as Bob Saunders. That should be to the Board before too long. Steve did say his evaluations are up to date and done. He is visiting with the University of Iowa Athletic Department to review fees and look to see if there might be fee increases. They have not been increased since 1987, so this might be a time to do that. Dave Dvorak, who is the Assistant Ambulance Director, and Steve, will be going to the EMS Leadership Conference on February 28th. That is a one-day conference, so they both will be attending that. Steve does have plans to attend the EMS day on the hill. He won’t be going with the County on our County-A-Day program since they have their own EMS day. So, that includes my week.
Harney: Thank you.
Harney: Terrence?
Neuzil: I think the Board covered most of the things. The County budget is getting pretty close to being finalized. We will have a public meeting to set the public hearing on the 21st of February. At this point, it looks like March 11th, if people want to get that on their calendar. March 11th, I believe at 5:30 is when the public hearing will be held for Johnson County’s budget. So, if people are interested in participating in that, that would be March 11th at 5:30 is when we will finalize and give our presentation to the community and listen to any of their concerns that they may have. We attended the Johnson County Task Force for the Jail. It was an interesting meeting is how I would describe it. I am doing my best to keep an open mind, but I would hope that the Task Force provides the Board of Supervisors specific recommendations to help solve our Jail overcrowding problem that have the seal of approval from both the County Attorney and the Sheriff. That is a message that I hope the Task Force is going to be getting. Hopefully it is more than just a list. Besides that, I had a really fun time last night. I went to Pat Harney’s old stomping grounds, the Iowa City Civic Center. In the Police Department they had a wonderful bronze statue of Pat. No… When I went there I got a real nice tour of the facility, including the pink room, which I never knew existed. There is a Hayden Fry locker colored pink room where the records are held at the Iowa City Police Department. It’s very nice. But, I had a chance to participate in the FATS Program. I don’t know what that stands for. Do you know?
Harney: Firearms Training Simulator.
Neuzil: Firearms Training Simulator. Thank you Captain. It was a great opportunity to learn, most importantly, the kind of decision making that police officers have to go through and the amount of stress that they have to deal with on every single incident and every single situation that they see. Until you’ve had the opportunity to go through this citizen’s police academy, you do not realize, certainly do not have any understanding of the appreciation that our officers have to go through every single time they have to engage with somebody and how they have to be prepared for that. On the bright side, I scored 100% each and every time and hit my target when necessary 100% of the time.
Stutsman: You’re kidding!
Neuzil: Now, if only I could do that with a deer. That’s my report, thanks.
Harney: Thank you.
Harney: The Board has covered pretty much everything. I got a couple of things. Last Thursday at the Board work session, we had the County Farm planning study with Jeff Davidson, the Planner, and any interested parties interested in the County Home property out there. Jeff put together a good plan. I think that the Board is pretty much in agreement they are going to do some adjusting and so forth. We haven’t adopted it. It is just a plan and we will be reviewing that in the future. We also had a work session with Secondary Roads staff and Planning and Zoning staff and Jeff Davidson on Road Performance Standards and the County on the way they are, if we need to make any adjustments on those or not for development reasons and so forth. Sally had mentioned the Chamber Ag Meeting. Through the winter months, December, January and February, March I believe, too, they have the breakfasts’ at Montgomery Hall, which are very interesting. They always have certain speakers that come in. Actually, on February 28th, at 7 a.m. is Robert Walker. He is going to be speaking on bio mass that is residue from stalks and so forth like that and the use of the bio materials. As a matter of fact, Younkers sells mattresses and pillows that are made from bio mass. They are real popular.
Stutsman: I think they are going to give 2 pillows away that morning.
Harney: Is that right?
Stutsman: Yes.
Harney: Ed Williams, he is always active in that particular type of area, the biomass and things like that. He is going to be actually cooking and he is going to use his corn fed grills. He sells corn fed grills. I think the Board has covered everything else. That is all I have. Is there anything from the public? Meeting is adjourned.
Adjourned at 7:25 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary