• Iowa City Planning and Community Development Director Karin Franklin: Iowa City Annexations

• Hawkeye Area Community Action Program (HACAP) Site Director Al Axeen: Presentation of HACAP Services

• Eastern Iowa Tourism Association Director Carrie Koelker: County Contribution to Eastern Region

• Iowa City Solid Waste Planning Department Planner Brad Neumann: County-Wide Waste Tire Collection Program at the Iowa City Landfill

• Johnson County Sheriff’s Captain Keith Slaughter: Proposed 28E Agreement Between Cedar County and Johnson County for Mutual Police Protection

• County Engineer Mike Gardner: Bituminous Resurfacing (Oil Contract) of Various Johnson County Secondary Roads Located Throughout the County; Johnson County Secondary Road Five-Year Construction Program and Future Projects List; and FY 2004 Johnson County Secondary Road Budget for Submittal to the Iowa Department of Transportation

• Discussion: Directing Planning and Zoning Staff to Begin Negotiations on a 28E Agreement for the Purpose of Developing Fringe Area Policy with the City of Cedar Rapids

• Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: Uniform Payroll Schedule and Payroll Processing Policy

• Minutes Received: Sixth Judicial District Department of Correctional Services Board of Directors for February 21, 2003; and East Central Iowa Council of Governments for February 27, 2003

• Report (Stutsman): Attended Johnson County Council of Governments Meeting; and Attended President Bill Clinton's Lecture

Chairperson Harney called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:47 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, and Sally Stutsman; absent: Carol Thompson.

Harney: First item on the agenda is from Director of the Iowa City Planning and Community Development referencing Iowa City annexations. Good morning Karin.

Neuzil: Good morning.

Stutsman: Good morning.

Iowa City Planning and Community Development Director Karin Franklin: I’ve got some handouts for you so you know what I’m talking about.

Stutsman: Do we have a tripod or whatever so that Karin can set her map up or on a chair or…

Franklin: I can…

Stutsman: You want to hold it?

Franklin: Sure. This isn’t going to take long.

Harney: We have a good position for the camera plus the audience.

Franklin: My audience is there, the camera is here.

Neuzil: Do a little bit of both.

Stutsman: We expect you to rotate continuously.

Neuzil: She’ll wear one of those sandwich boards.

Lehman: We’ve got some extras for the audience to help them follow along.

Franklin: I just wanted to update the Board as I do periodically on any annexation proposals that we are considering in Iowa City, and this is a rather significant one. It is in what we call our South Central Planning District. We have done a District Plan for this and for the area within the city corporate limits as well as the area in our growth Area. The map that is on the chair illustrates what our South Central District is, and it shows what is in the corporate limits as well as what is currently in the County. The total yellow area that is on the map, part of it has green slash marks through it. That is an area that we are not going to be annexing at this time. However the area to the west and north is what we are going to be considering for annexation and that is what is on the illustration that I have given the Board. This is approximately 120, 122 acres and it includes property that is owned by the City of Iowa City through the Airport Commission. It includes Hargrave-McElaney, Burg Auto Supply, some property owned by DOT, and the north side of Highway One. It’s that triangle that is kind of surrounded by Iowa City now. Also property that is owned by the Danes, the Davis's, and then Rock’s Roadhouse, owned by Rick Jirsa. We’ve had communication with all of the property owners and have consents to annexations for all except one and I’m expecting that consent any day now. It’s just a matter of working through some things with their attorney. So this annexation would be a voluntary annexation. I don’t anticipate that we are going to have to institute the 80-20 rule at all. This is part of our overall effort to bring this portion into Iowa City, and part of our project related to Mormon Trek Boulevard and the extension of it from Highway 1 to 921 and to foster some commercial and industrial development in this area southwest of the Iowa City Airport. One point that I think the Board is typically interested in, Dane Road, a portion of that will be in the City at this time, and a portion will be in the County. I’m talking about Dane Road north of our projected Mormon Trek extension. That is because, as you know, property owners own to the center-line of roads and the County and it’s an easement over the top. So until the Danes elect to become part of Iowa City, that east half of Dane Road from Mormon Trek north will be in the County, except for that which goes through the Airport property. So the portion that we are going to be closing and relocating will be in the Iowa City Corporate Limits.

Stutsman: So that’s not going to be a through street then at all, Dane Road?

Franklin: No, what will happen, if I can use this illustration… What is going to be happening is that we are going to have a relocation of Dane Road such that it comes from approximately this point on the new Mormon Trek and over to the existing Dane Road. That is an interim measure until this whole area starts to develop, which I expect that the area west of Dane Road is going to start developing pretty quickly.

Stutsman: Have you been in contact with Secondary Roads about the roads and who’s going to maintain them? I guess it’s way down the road.

Franklin: We’ll have to work that out with Secondary Roads in terms of this half of Dane Road. I would expect that we will take over maintenance of it, because so much of it is going to be in the City. It’s basically going to serve the Dane family at this point in time.

Neuzil: So the current road that connects to Highway 1 would be closed at that…

Franklin: Yes, it would be closed from this point north. Basically, the north property line of John Dane’s property, north to Highway One would be closed. Then it would also be closed at the south end. We will have an intersection of Dane Road from the south in the county to the new Mormon Trek Boulevard. So now people who are living south of the new Mormon Trek Boulevard would come north on Dane Road and then take a left or a right on Mormon Trek to access Highway One or Highway 921.

Neuzil: So for the Danes to get to their home they’d have to use the new Mormon Trek?

Franklin: For the Danes to get to their home they’d use the new Mormon Trek, the road that we are putting in from Mormon Trek over to their property, and we are negotiating with them for the acquisition of right-of-way for Mormon Trek, as part of that would be relocating their driveway to both John’s house and to George’s house.

Neuzil: We are talking about what kind of surface of road for their access. Would it be gravel?

Franklin: Well, it’s likely, given that development on the west side of Dane Road is going to be happening fairly quickly, that it will be at least chip seal and if it’s not chip seal, it will be a road built to City standards.

Neuzil: A couple of comments. This is very good as far as timing goes because it’s something I actually put on the agenda for the City-County meeting, coming up in April, so some of these answers are already coming. This would be then the conclusion of any County property that would be north of Highway 1. This would now all be officially into the City?

Franklin: Correct.

Neuzil: We also are curious about how the access will affect Rock’s Roadhouse as far as the road and their structure. Their structure is still going to be allowed to be there?

Franklin: Yes. I understand that there may be some changes in land use there that are precipitated by the property owners and not by the project.

Neuzil: Yes, it seems like that road is pretty close to that building but is anticipated to be remaining?

Franklin: That will be up to the property owner.

Neuzil: OK.

Franklin: As far as the road project and what we’re doing, it may remain.

Neuzil: OK. The new road that’s being proposed for Mormon Trek Boulevard, and its extension, it looks like a majority of it’s still going to remain in the County, is that correct?

Franklin: For the short term we’re hoping. Our long term intentions are to have all the way down to this blue line within the City. We will be restricting access to it from the County properties until those properties are within the City.

Stutsman: Restricting access through the Fringe Area Agreement, is that what you’re…

Franklin: No, right now we are making accommodations through our negotiations with the Danes for access to Mormon Trek, to get to their houses. As you know, the alignment for Mormon Trek Boulevard will require the relocation of the Williams. It goes through their house. The Williams will have a farm access, but any development of that property would require that it would come into the City in order to get access to Mormon Trek but the Fringe Agreement would also come into play, Sally, in answer to that question. I think probably my statement is more pertinent to the Lake Ridge Manufactured Housing park in that there will not be access to Lake Ridge until there is annexation to Iowa City.

Neuzil: Yes, that’s what I was going to ask. As far as the timeline goes, the Mormon Trek Boulevard extension as far as… I think there’s 2 phases, at least there was through some of the Federal discussion that I had with the City. But it looked like the first part of it is basically going to go to Dane Road, or is it actually going to connect to Riverside Drive?

Franklin: The first part would go to the Williams property, and then the 2nd phase would take it to 921, to Riverside Drive.

Stutsman: Do you have a time for…

Franklin: '05.

Stutsman: For the first phase.

Franklin: No, the first phase would be this fall.

Stutsman: Oh boy.

Neuzil: Yes, you have funding through City…

Franklin: The funding is not an issue and we have some STP funds that are in this too, but the only issue right now is the condemnation which is scheduled for April. See, because of the Williams homestead, there’s different state law that comes into play, and that’s where there could be potential delays, and we’ll just have to see how that goes.

Neuzil: Agreed.

Harney: The only other question I had is I know it always creates a problem when you have partial roads in the City, partial in the County, who has jurisdiction where and who should be covering the accidents, where that line is, things like that. I don’t understand why they can’t just take the road…

Franklin: Mormon Trek Boulevard?

Harney: Mormon Trek, or, like you’re talking about, Dane Road as well…

Franklin: Dane Road, we’d be happy to take the entire road, but because of the ownership, and I really haven’t talked to the Danes about this, as to whether they would be willing to annex at least the sliver that is Dane Road. It is only because of the ownership and the fact that they own to the center line that we would not be annexing it at this time because they are the owner of the property. They’re the one that has to consent.

Neuzil: Pat brings up a good point, and that is this little section of road that you’re talking about…

Franklin: Dane Road?

Neuzil: The one that you’re kind of going to connect on to, basically as a driveway, if you will…

Franklin: It becomes such, yes.

Neuzil: But yet, it would still be a City-County road.

Franklin: Legally, it is an easement over private property. That’s what it is right now. So when we annex, we negotiate with the property owners for annexation. That’s how it gets us to the center-line. Whether the Danes would be willing to annex the road or not I really don’t know.

Harney: It just seems like it’s much cleaner if you take the whole road because we’re always trying to come to agreements on who’s going to maintain, who’s going to do this and do that, and law enforcement has problems…

Franklin: We’d be perfectly willing to take the entire Dane Road. I think it would be cleaner also. I’m certainly willing to pursue that with the Danes, and whatever influence you have would be appreciated.

Neuzil: There’s been a lot of concerns about this whole area, I mean obviously. I’m happy to hear that there’s voluntary annexation here, because I think that a year ago that was not the case. The reasoning behind this, maybe, if you could just for a minute go over what the community… Why Iowa City is annexing and maybe discuss the Iowa City Airport.

Franklin: We have an economic development policy, that is to grow our commercial/industrial tax base. The reason for that has to do with the state tax structure and how commercial and industrial property is taxed versus residential. That if we want to provide some of the services that our constituents want, we need to have the revenue to support that, and we get it from commercial/industrial development. This is one of the areas, due to its topography, and due to its location near the Iowa City Airport, and the interchange with 218 that makes it attractive for commercial and industrial development. In order to have that happen, one of the catalysts that the City can provide is providing sewer and access. So that is why we are doing a sewer project that will bring the sanitary sewer over to Naples, in fact, underneath 218 to Naples Avenue, and the Mormon Trek Boulevard project. As we do that, obviously, it is in our interest to have that development happening within our corporate limits. That’s how we get the tax revenue. So it’s all part of that larger plan that we are moving in this direction. In our long-range plan we show that south of Mormon Trek Boulevard would be residential. That’s largely because of a decision regarding Lake Ridge. That’s there, it’s a fact, and it’s not something that we’re going to change, it’s kind of set the tone for the land use in the area. Mormon Trek can act as a line between different land uses because it will be a fairly wide right-of-way. In terms of the Iowa City Airport, as I think we all know there have been discussions over the years in terms of its future. For now, its future is where it is. There is a Master Plan for the Airport to improve it, to take it to 2 runways. Our future plans for the area do anticipate that North-South runway being closed. That is another opportunity then that we have for that industrial development to continue to the east, and front on 921 at some future time. So that’s kind of the big picture of why we’re pursuing this.

Stutsman: So what do you need from us today, just to inform us of the annexation?

Franklin: It’s just to let you know, this is about to go to our Planning and Zoning Commission. You will be receiving, of course, the formal notifications that we must send you according to State law, but I like when we’re doing these kind of things to let the Board know, since it’s in the County now. You will be possibly be getting input from your constituents about it, so you know ahead of time.

Stutsman: I appreciate your coming in Karin, taking the initiative to come in, because it helps with communication between everybody.

Franklin: Sure. Happy to. Thank you.

Harney: Next item is a presentation from Al Axeen, site director for Hawkeye Area Community Action Program.

Hawkeye Area Community Action Program Site Director Al Axeen: Thank you for your time today. I was sorry that Diane could not stay and present the Headstart part of it, because she’s much better in that area than I am, obviously. I am now the Director of Housing Operations for HACAP in the 6-county area. My office is no longer in Waterfront, it’s back in Hiawatha, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted Diane to be here today. But let me give you first an overview of Headstart, because in fact Headstart and our Children’s Services Programs are the kingpin, the linchpin for everything we do at HACAP. It’s almost half of our budget, it’s the driving force behind everything that we do. In fact we try to tailor our housing programs and the intake into them for families with young children. That’s what our stated mission is, to serve young children and families in our housing programs. Currently there are 3 family service centers in Johnson County. By over this summer we are adding a 4th one, so we’ll be in north Coralville towards North Liberty in a church there. It’s an opportunity for us in Johnson County to get another 32 Headstart slots into the County, half of them full-time, half of them part-time. This is because we haven’t gotten any more slots from Headstart. It’s just that they’re having a lot of trouble in the rural counties of keeping them full. Performance standards say that we need to have a certain level of participation with our slots, and we have such a waiting list in Johnson County that it’s natural that we move them in. Over the last 5 years we’ve almost doubled the Headstart slots in Johnson County. About 2 years ago we added a Family Service Center in downtown Iowa City, on Bloomington next to Pagliai's Pizza, in what used to be the blood bank there. We also have 32 slots that are with Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County where we pay them to do Headstart comprehensive services in 2 classrooms, one in Broadway, and one at Pheasant Ridge. So the scope of our Headstart operation in Johnson County has really grown. Our outlook basically is pretty shaky. The Bush Administration has some fixation on Headstart. They’re thinking of moving them from Health and Human Services and putting them into the Department of Education. Basically change the funding streams for the direct funding of agencies, Federal direct, to go to block granted through the states. As we have seen programs before, when they get block granted through the states, usually what happens is the funding gets dissipated quite a bit. It’s just another level for it to go through, and you lose a lot of the pass through just to run it through the state. It’s easier for them to not fully fund block grants, hoping the states will pick it up, and then funding directly is sometimes… The Headstart Association nationally can obviously network with a lot of politicians but if it’s block granted through the state then you lose that kind of close touch. I think there’s a lot of children’s services things that have happened in the past that when they have gotten block granted, the basic funding has kind of dissipated. The Mayor’s Youth area is one of them that you can see that has happened. But some of the things we are changing as we go along because of the initiatives that are coming down is there’s going to be a greater emphasis on literacy and language. There’s a fatherhood initiative that they want all the Headstart grantees to increase involvement in. We’ve done some at Waterfront before this was even mandated. Our outcomes measures are starting to come around. We’re getting much better outcome measurements but their focus will change from child development and social development to A, B, C and 1, 2, 3. In fact, they’ve zeroed out for the next fiscal year the entire Headstart training program, so they can create a bureau to run around and test the kids to see where they are. So we’ll have no training budget coming through our regional offices anymore, for assistance. It seems kind of crazy, but that’s what they’re doing. We’re worried about the funding outlook, but for right now we’ll proceed as we are. I think Johnson County itself is pretty well situated. We’ll have 224 Headstart slots in Johnson County and HACAP has 570 in its service area, so we’re getting more slots per capita than we probably should have, but we have a greater need here. It shows up on our waiting lists, so…so be it, that’s where it's going to be. The funding has to follow where the people are, and that’s good. But that is a part, or at least half of what HACAP does, is children’s services. What we also do in Johnson County, one of the other things is transitional housing. We have 36 units now, we got money last week from the City of Iowa City to purchase 2 more that go into our local housing program. 18 of our 36 units are HUD sponsored. The other half of them are locally funded. The grant pays for all the support services, the counselors and property management. Our LIHEAP program brings about $700,000 into the County in payments directly to individuals for heating assistance. Also encompassed in some of that LIHEAP funding is the weatherization program, that is also funded by the Department of Energy. The weatherization probably spends about $150,000-$200,000 in Johnson County weatherizing homes. It’s a very good program, and out of that program we’ve developed some other expertise. We do a lot of work through ECICOG and what Johnson County does in their rural cities and renovating homes. It’s very important for the smaller cities to keep their housing stock up. Don’t let it deteriorate. This is a program that comes through Johnson County and ECICOG. They’ve gotten home loan bank grants to renovate homes and bring them up. It could be a roof, it could be insulation, fixing a foundation, a lot of things to keep them livable and keep the housing stock up. It’s an affordability type thing. It’s key in a lot of cases to keep the seniors in their homes in the rural areas. We play a big role in that. We have a construction person on staff that goes out and writes the contracts, sets up the contracts, bids out the projects and oversees the construction. So that’s kind of our role in that. This is our niche with ECICOG and that. We through the LIHEAP Program do a lot of emergency furnace repairs in Johnson County. These would be mostly for people that own their houses and their furnace fails, especially during the heating season. They can do a repair or replacement on these units. There again, most of the time, it’s our seniors that have qualified. It has to be people that have qualified for LIHEAP. Out of home renovation unit we embarked on something about 5-years ago where we do lead testing. We’re probably the only certified lead testers in about a 4 or 5 county area. I think the Linn County Health Department and Johnson County’s may, but we do have the gun to go in to test. We don’t have to send samples out to other places, but they can go in and shoot a wall, they key in what they’re doing and they go back and plug the unit into a computer and it gives a print out of all the spots and what they were. It’s just a great tool. When you have older housing stock with the new laws and what you have to do for construction, a lead test is a necessity because all the contracts now have to be licensed. They license through the State and to do this type of work they have to be certified. So it’s important to them to know whether they are capable of doing a renovation somewhere depending on whether there’s lead there or not. We do HUD counseling. We do reverse mortgage counseling, mortgage closure prevention counseling. Not only do we do it for most of the State of Iowa, we also do it for 5 counties in Florida and 2 in Utah. I don’t know how that ever developed, but it was just a quirk. One of our other big programs that brings funding into Johnson County is our Homeless Children’s Trust Program that provides back to school shopping for homeless children. In other words, we take the kids in all the transitional housing programs in Johnson County, any kids that are DVIP or the shelters and have a back to school shopping for them. We give the parents so much money to get a list from the schools of what supplies they need and then they have other money to spend for tennis shoes or things like that. If they need something particular like graphing calculators, sophisticated calculators for math classes or special athletic shoes we make connections to either get them or find the funding for them to get them. Then at Christmas time we also, the same population, they just have a Christmas party where we bring the kids into, we’ve used the youth hall the last 3 or 4 years, bring the kids in and entertain them in the morning while the parents have a chance to go shop for them. We give them $75 a kid to go shopping and then we wrap the presents for them before they leave the store. We’ve done this at Target the last 4 or 5 years, so they take them home and put them under the tree. At the same time the kids, when they leave the party, get a back from Santa that satisfied that immediate need for something so they don’t go home and grab the presents. It’s a wonderful time to do that at the beginning of the Christmas season. I’ve had a lot of fun doing it over the years. So that’s kind of our service to Johnson County. I think we do a good job of bringing a lot of money into the County and distributing it. Of course we also operate the Second Harvest and food bank and a lot with the Crisis Center and other people in Johnson County that non-profits can get food out of there for .10 per pound. I don’t care if it’s meet or potatoes or potato chips, it’s all the same price, 10 or 11 cents a pound. So we have an effect in Johnson County and I think return much more than what’s invested, plus we have a payroll of people that live in Johnson County of pretty close to about $800,000. Any questions.

Harney: Thank you. It’s a great service. We do have so many good agencies here and this just depicts what really goes on in the background.

Axeen: Thank you.

Stutsman: Is there a Service Center Director here then in Johnson County?

Axeen: Each site has a Site Director.

Stutsman: OK, but there’s not…

Axeen: Not right now. Jane DePoe is officially there. She’s the Associate Director and is officially their supervisor. We did have a person in between that and with some funding cutbacks and that, we had to absorb that position. We couldn’t afford to keep it. So each of the site directors has a different focus. Mine was United Way and some other things. Diane’s is Empowerment. Dawn in Coralville does the Homeless Children’s Trust. Now Diane I think might be doing United Way stuff and probably Nancy Ciao in Waterfront will do the Empowerment I think. I don’t know how that’s going to work out, but it’s still in flux. There will be a few changes. So that’s how we’ve tried to adopt. You try not to change what you put to the road, so when funding cuts come you try to keep that static and then in between them and the top you try to adjust to fit. That’s what we’ve done with that position, we just could no longer afford it.

Lehman: It sounds like you’ve got a lot of challenges ahead of you, but you’ve done a wonderful job in the past.

Axeen: Our one thing that we’ve had to do in this last 2 budgets is to try to disconnect our programs a little bit from each other so that if some do have funding cuts, that they’re not going to have a ripple effect to try to isolate the things. We think we’ve come to that point a little bit, but you never have it 100%. Thank you.

Harney: Thank you.

Harney: Next item is a presentation from Carrie Koelker, Executive Director for Eastern Iowa Tourism Association.

Stutsman: Good morning.

Eastern Iowa Tourism Association Director Carrie Koelker: I’ve got packets as well. Well thank you for allowing me the time to join you today briefly. I’m Carrie Koelker and I’m the Executive Director for the Eastern Iowa Tourism Association. Some of you may be familiar with the Eastern Iowa Tourism Association and some of you may not be, so first of all I’d like to just explain the whole set up Statewide. The State about 13 years ago broke the State into 3 different areas, eastern, western and central. The Eastern Tourism Association has the eastern 28 counties. Last year Johnson County backed out of their Countywide contribution to leverage the funds from the Iowa Department of Economic Development. So I’m here today to hopefully answer any questions, address some concerns that possibly generated that back out drop from Johnson County. Johnson County, we do have participation from 98 counties across the State. Johnson County was the only county last year that back dropped out of the Iowa Department of Economic Development’s Tourism Regions status. We do have about 260 members. In your packets I’ve enclosed our 2002 visitor guide, which Johnson County was highlighted on page 8 and then I have our 2003 Eastern Iowa Visitor Guide as well. I’ve also made copies of you for the reports of the tourism expenditures, which I’m sure Josh Schamberger has shared this with you, but I just made a copy for your reference in regards to all the counties across the State. The counties tourism expenditures that they’ve generated themselves. $192 million was generated in 2001 just alone in Johnson County. You guys ranked 4th across the State, so obviously the local efforts and the local partners in the County are doing a great job promoting tourism and drawing tourists in. Tourism overall is a $4.3 billion industry in the State of Iowa, so it’s one of the 3rd largest employers across the State. $39 million dollars was generated just in Johnson County in regards to wages and salaries in the tourism industry and it creates 3,100 jobs. You also generated $10.5 million in State tax receipts and $3.5 million locally. Obviously Johnson County’s doing the right thing, the Iowa City/Coralville Convention Visitor’s Bureau as well as your members out within the County. I enclosed a few other information packets. Our budget for you to review as well as our action plan that we had this past year just to answer any questions as you go back and review the paperwork down the road. I also made a list of all the County members within Johnson County. You're probably wondering well what does. Your County contribution is $500 annually. Our year runs July 1st to June 30th. That entitles all non-profits in your County to apply for the Iowa Department of Economic Development Eastern Iowa Tourism Region Grant dollars, which this past year was $38,000. Then we also have grant dollars for your non-profit associations to attend the IDED training sessions that we have throughout that year, the Iowa Tourism Conference, the Downtown Summit, the Main Street Conference. Different items like that.

Neuzil: I think that the history, this must have been 2 years now, because we’re talking about the ’03 budget.

Koelker: '03 was the first year that you backed out.

Neuzil: Yes, I don’t think it was replaced in ’04 either.

Horne: That’s right.

Neuzil: I think the history of it was probably as we started to look closer at our budget I think that we tried to make sure that we weren’t just rubber stamping funding. Quite frankly I think the reasoning behind the ’03 elimination had to do with the fact that I don’t think Johnson County, at least this one Supervisor, didn’t know where $500 was going towards. I think that this is probably the communication if we have had 5 years ago, 4 years ago, 3 years ago, 2 years ago, we wouldn’t be here today.

Koelker: Sure. I will let you know that when you pay your County contribution you appoint a director and alternate to represent you at our meetings that we hold bimonthly. So that’s kind of probably where a little bit of this is falling into place.

Neuzil: This is all new news to me.

Lehman: Do we have a representative off the Board? I wasn’t aware that we’ve had anybody in the past.

Koelker: Wendy Ford was your appointed liaison in Fiscal Year ’02 from the Convention Visitor’s Bureau.

Lehman: From the Iowa City/Coralville Visitors Bureau apparently.

Neuzil: Jeff do you remember the history of any…

Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne: This was in our general basis block grants. Like a lot of them, we get an annual let from them requesting the funding. There just was nothing. I didn’t hear from anyone about this. It just kind of came in. When we had the tight budget year for ’03 and it was one of the things we looked at it was one of the things we looked at. It was just something that came up.

Neuzil: I think that’s where the history for this is. As far as the timing of this, we just approved our budget. So now, going back, we’re getting caught here amongst the Board of Supervisors, it seems in my opinion, over the last month here of special requests after the budget. It really has a big concern for me because we tell our departments, we tell everyone; hey this is it, we’re watching our dollars and all of a sudden here’s maybe $15,000, here’s maybe $500 here. It gets a little wishy-washy as far as the direction of where our County wants to go in regards to budgeting in general. So the timing of this is a bit unfortunate as well in the sense of this probably should have been back in December when we were actually putting this budget together. So now if we’re able to come up and muster $500 or more dollars, it’s just another $500 we’re going to have to have a budget amendment for. I’m just saying the timing of this might be a bit awkward.

Lehman: I might add that we have on the table $4,000 per year for 5 years to the Englert if they are able successfully reach their goal and that should indirectly help you. If they reach their goal and have people come in.

Koelker: Through the CAT funding. The Vision Iowa Funding.

Lehman: That’s something we hadn’t done before, so in a way if we did take money from you, we’ve given it to another source that should indirectly filter back to you through tourism.

Neuzil: I think point taken here is Johnson County is still committed to economic development and certainly to tourism. We’ve just taken money and actually funded it in other areas because we’ve given money to some economic development projects since the '03 budget, which by the way I think they’re still at $320,000 to go. The way it’s committed right now, if the Englert doesn’t reach it’s goal, doesn’t get the CAT grant, then that money actually goes back into Johnson County’s budget, which could then could be allocated back out towards another economic development or tourism project, which potentially could be this. Just a heads up.

Koelker: OK. I appreciate that because I know Johnson County has $1.8 million dollars awarded, as you mentioned the CAT, the Vision Iowa Program, to the Englert Theater and then the North Liberty Community Center.

Neuzil: Which we’ve contributed to both if they get those grants.

Koelker: Sure. We just at the Iowa Department of Economic Development Eastern Iowa Tourism Office like to go up on the hill in Des Moines representing all 99 counties and currently we can’t do that or can’t say that we’re 100% county activated leveraging those funds from the Iowa Department of Economic Development. I guess I’m here just to inform you, answer any questions, but hopefully put this into consideration for… You already mentioned you're closed for Fiscal Year 04 so for Fiscal Year 05.

Neuzil: Like I said, potentially if that other funding doesn’t come through, maybe we could even have a supplemental before the end of the year potentially.

Koelker: Yes, because these funds are used actually to go out and market the State, market Eastern Iowa in general, market Johnson County and things like that. That’s where our budget’s come from. We’re a non-profit organization, so hopefully you can tell we run on an obviously limited budget. We run on a $130,000 grant from the Iowa Department of Economic Development. Part of that grant process is to leverage the funds from the 28 counties.

Stutsman: But I think part of our discussion during the budget process is the Board reacting and looking to our budget at resources that are lower and trying to decide which things we’re not mandated to fund. Unfortunately this came up as one of them. We also did not fund the Senior Center what they wanted, so I think we’ll certainly may have some reallocation, but we’ll have to take that into consideration with some other requests that have come in. So there’s no guarantees. But I think you certainly have been put on alert that, don’t take us for granted. That it’s just not a given that the Johnson County Board of Supervisors will fund your organization every year with or without a letter. So I think you need to be more proactive too in informing us of what our $500 goes for. Why it’s important for us to contribute and contribute County dollars for that so we won’t back out again as you put it.

Lehman: It’s somewhat embarrassing that we are the only County, but one of the reasons that we have your presentation and this is something we just started here about 6 months ago, Al Axeen from HACAP is to give you a forum to talk to us maybe outside the budget and maybe inform the public also of what some of your goals are. This is something a lot of things we didn’t know here. Josh Schamberger of the Coralville Iowa City Visitor’s Bureau did talk to most of us during the Englert proceedings and stuff. I realize it’s a sister organization of yours, but you’re not funded the same. But I think you do feed a little bit off each other and stuff. I don’t think we were trying to shut the door on you assuming that your going to pick up the slack from something from the Englert because that’s something that’s going to happen a couple years from now when they get off the ground. You're looking at today and this past year. I appreciate your situation, but this is an opportunity for you to help educate us. We just need to have more communication between all of us of things we are funding. I think it was said before, we need a little bit of answer, we just don’t want to put out that blank check. We like to have a little accountability.

Koelker: I totally understand and I know you’re busy people. You don’t have time to read our monthly newsletters and things like that, that float across your desks.

Lehman: No we do see it. It circulates.

Harney: In the fall of the year thought, the letters come in for requests to Jeff Horne.

Koelker: In June, right.

Horne: That starts in the fall, just address a letter to me.

Koelker: This fall.

Horne: Requesting funding from Johnson County and I’ll make sure that it gets, that the Board knows that they’ve had formal requests from the agency. I think what happened was that it was just not…They saw, like the Board said, we get your fliers and they see them, but there was a disconnect as to what the County dollars go to and those sorts of things. It’s important to keep the Board updated on exactly what that money is for.

Koelker: I think part of looking back is probably my error. When Wendy Ford resigned as the Executive Director for the Eastern Iowa Tourism Association, I know she did that regularly on a routine basis with you. So in regards to her absence and her transition to her new position that probably hasn’t been 100% done. So any other questions or comments?

Neuzil: Keep in touch.

Koelker: Thanks for your time.

Neuzil: Nice to meet you.

Harney: The next item of business is from Brad Neumann, the Iowa City Solid Waste Planning Department reference to the Countywide waste tire collection program.

Iowa City Solid Waste Planning Department Planner Brad Neumann: Good morning. Talking tires again.

Lehman: That’s where the rubber hits the road.

Neumann: About a month ago we talked about funding possibilities for the Waste Tire Collection program, the Countywide program through the landfill. There’s a follow-up memo and I think you all have that, suggesting as we talked about, charging tires towards your County Cleanup events. I guess what I’m here to do is to find out if that’s the way you want to go. We can direct the landfill to go ahead and charge the tires against the 1,000 pounds that you allow.

Harney: I guess one point of clarification I was looking for here is originally it was going to be like half price for car tires and now when you bring this back it’s showing that it’s the full-charge on our cycle. Maybe it’s just too hard to separate those. I don’t know.

Neumann: Well so what you’re saying, you want the half-price fee during your cleanup event.

Harney: I don’t know. I guess I want clarification of how that works.

Neumann: I don’t think that would be a problem. I think at the time the memo was probably written as it was going to be the full-price, the 7 cents a pound, during the clean-ups. But since that time I have had discussions with the landfill about some of the communities within the County. They always have clean-up days also during the spring and the landfill said we’ll go ahead and bring those in, we’ll charge you half price, so I’m assuming we can do that with the Supervisor's programs, half-price. We’ll go ahead and assume that. If that’s different, I’ll let you know, but I’ll let the landfill know that we can do a half-price charge during those times. But it will be charged against that 1,000 pounds, which is free. Is that clear? It gets kind of complicated after a little bit.

Stutsman: So there’s basically going to be 2 opportunities for people to bring in tires at a reduced rate. That’s going to be this May 31st to June 8th?

Neumann: May 17th through the 24th is the landfills half-price week, is what they have scheduled.

Stutsman: OK, so we’re going to have our own cleanup days, which will also be half-priced, but it will go against the 1,000 that we have.

Neumann: It will go against the 1,000 pounds.

Stutsman: Yes.

Neumann: It’s about $21.75, is what you allow for each resident. Like I said, I’ll make sure that’s OK with the landfill during those 2 weeks. The dates are, I had a question on those dates too. I think you have scheduled your first clean-up for June 7th through the 14th. Is that correct? That’s what I heard from the landfill. Now what I suggested in here was May 31 through June 7th.

Stutsman: Have we done any press releases on the Spring Clean-up.

Lehman: I don’t believe so. It’s usually been the first full week in June I believe.

Neumann: OK. Because I had gotten an email from Dave Alias with the landfill and he said that he was informed by the County that it was going to be June 7th through the 14th. Maybe that’s not correct.

Harney: It’s fine with me if that works for them.

Neumann: Either week will work for them. The suggestion I made in my memo, the May 31 through June 7th was chosen by the landfill initially as a week that would work for them. So either one of those 2 weeks will work, I think we just need to pin that down today, which week we want to go with.

Lehman: I guess I was thinking just for the rural community, the ag, hopefully the planting would be done, which gives us an extra 2 weeks if we went to the June 7th through the 14th because it’s a little bit of a problem trying to plant crops and get things cleaned up at the same time. I think the landfill needs to know in case they need to re-allot their help something like that because it does get a little extra busy.

Neumann: Yes, they’d like to know when it’s coming.

Neuzil: I thought in that discussion we had in the past, was we wanted to make it easier for the landfill in the sense that the students, cleaning up their apartments, which would be pretty much done by then I would think.

Neumann: Should be, yes.

Neuzil: I would think by that second week in May it should be out of there.

Neumann: Yes, I don’t think that’s a problem.

Neuzil: That will slow down then.

Neumann: So we’ll go ahead and plan on June 7th through the 14th and I will make sure that the half-price for tires is fine with the landfill. Like I said they’re doing it for the communities, which I wasn’t aware of. They said go ahead and tell the communities we can do that. So I think we can do that for the County.

Harney: Will there be specific hours or will it just be the normal landfill hours.

Neumann: They’re normal hours.

Harney: One thing that isn’t addressed in here and I’m uncertain, hazardous materials like paints and things like that. Are they allowed to bring those in?

Neumann: Those are done by appointment.

Stutsman: Even during the Spring Clean-up days?

Neumann: Yes.

Stutsman: You might also add at the JCCOG meeting, talked yesterday about the monitors and computers and things.

Neumann: Yes, I’ll have to talk to them. They’re starting to take electronic goods at the landfill, which is computers and televisions. Those are at a fee for the monitor. $5 for a small monitor and it goes up to $15 for large monitors. I would anticipate that that would be… Well if you, it brings up a whole other question I guess. Not only the electronics, but the appliances. Do you want all that charged against that 1,000 pounds? See we haven’t done that in that past.

Lehman: I think we need to re-look at that.

Stutsman: Maybe we should put that on the agenda and talk about…

Neumann: Because the landfill is more than willing to… Everything they bring in they can charge it toward that 1,000 pounds and then the resident would just pay over, everything above and beyond the $21.75.

Stutsman: Jeff can you put that on for a future agenda, because I guess I’m curious to know if people do meet that 1,000 pounds. What it’s going to cost us financially if we do extend appliances and that kind of…

Horne: I think is what you’re saying is it’s going to count against the 1,000, like if you had an old stove or something, it would count against the 1,000 pounds. I’m not sure it would cost us that much more, it would just limit how much else the person could bring in.

Stutsman: That’s what I’m wondering. Does everybody bring in 1,000 pounds or does most bring in 700 or whatever. Just some research on that.

Horne: Oh, I see what you’re saying.

Lehman: We budget based on our history, will this throw our history off.

Stutsman: Too, will we take those for free or will we charge County residents to do that it?

Neumann: The way it works now, the way I understand it, is if they bring in a refrigerator they are charged for the refrigerator and that does not go towards the 1,000 pounds that you cover. What the landfill was suggesting is everything that comes in, they just apply towards that 1,000 pounds or that $21.75. That’s half a ton cost. They can do it that way or it’s just the rubbish that comes in, they charge towards that 1,000 pounds and they charge $12.50 for a refrigerator and $5 for a computer. That’s the way it would be done now and has been done. Well, and the tires also. They were charged out separately. They did not got towards the 1,000 pounds. So it could throw you off a little bit as far as budget.

Stutsman: Maybe we just need to do some research and think about it, if we want to make any changes.

Neumann: But in the mean time we’ll go ahead with the putting half-price tires towards the 1,000 pounds. Is that OK?

Stutsman: Jeff can you be sure to explain all this to Jo. She’s the one that gets all the phone calls about the County Clean-up and how it works.

Horne: I’ll try to get that on the agenda fairly quickly so I can kind of straighten that out before the clean-up.

Neumann: I can probably talk to the landfill about… They keep track of everything that comes in. Of course, I don’t know what kind of detailed billing you get after the program. Does it outline all the weights?

Lehman: Yes, I believe it’s a list of all the residents that participated along with the poundage they brought in.

Neumann: That would give us a good idea.

Horne: We’ve been running fairly close in the budgeting to what the total has been, so we have to be a little careful about this. Now because of the service area issue in this, this falls under the County Environment Service area and it’s under the Rural Fund, so you’ve got those 2 factors. You’ve got a limited thing. You’re almost forced because you can’t borrow it from another area within that to pay for it. You’re kind of forced to adjust it through amendment if you’re going to do it that way.

Stutsman: But we may want to put additional dollars in there next year for the… Because I think this is a real service to the rural residents. I think we’ve had real good response to the County Clean Up days and the Tire Project and all that.

Horne: I believe we’ve added some funding next year for the Tire Project. I think that that came out near the end of the budget process that that came out and I believe that we did.

Neumann: Well I’ll talk to the landfill and make sure that that’s the way the program’s operating. That they haven’t made any changes in the past. But like I said a refrigerator would cost you about $12.50. That’s the equivalent of maybe 500 or 600 pounds of other material that you’d be taking away. So that’s a pretty big cost to consider.

Lehman: I think in the past, if you took 1,200 pounds out there as a rural resident, you were charged for the extra 200. The County pays for the first 1,000. So if you’re going to bring a 1,000 plus a refrigerator or something, you’d have to pay for the refrigerator. We have to figure out what’s the likelihood of… If we’re going to pick up that extra, are we going to limit it to $1,200 pounds, 1,500? It’s something we’re going to have to put some numbers to and then budget accordingly. So I don’t think we’re quite there and we don’t know that history, but we’re going to have to take that first step to get to the 2nd step.

Neumann: All right. Like I said, I’ll make sure how the program is running with the landfill and how they’re doing their charging. Maybe they can give me a good idea of what they see come in too and make some suggestions. Then we’ll go ahead and plan on June 7th through the 14th for the clean up and the half price tires.

Harney: Is the Board satisfied with the half-price tires or do they want to put it towards the 1,000 pounds?

Neuzil: I’m fine with that.

Stutsman: Yes, I am too.

Harney: The half-price I think is consistent.

Neumann: So we’ll apply the half-price to that 1,000 pounds.

Harney: Thank you.

Neumann: Thank you.

Harney: Next item is proposed 28E agreement with Cedar and Johnson County for mutual police protection. Major Keith Slaughter from the Sheriff’s Department is here.

Johnson County Sheriff's Captain Keith Slaughter: Good morning.

Stutsman: Good morning.

Slaughter: I guess the reason I’m here, about a month ago the Sheriff came over and talked to me. All we’re doing here is just making the 28E agreement current. The one that exists now according to him was signed by the past Sheriff, Keith Witlatch. All he’s doing is wanting to update the paperwork. The Sheriff gave the 28E agreement to the County Attorney’s Office to have them view it and it seems that it’s in order.

Stutsman: Keith can you just basically outline what the 28E says.

Slaughter: I don’t have a copy of it.

Stutsman: Basically it’s just saying the Johnson County will assist Cedar County if need be.

Slaughter: Correct.

Stutsman: But it’s not a contract. There’s no money involved. It’s just kind of an agreement that…

Slaughter: Yes, we have the agreements with all the other bordering counties. This one just needed to be updated.

Harney: So anyone that needs assistance across any of the County lines, they can switch back and forth and help each other and not have a problem.

Slaughter: That's correct.

Stutsman: So do we put this on next week for formal action?

Harney: OK. Thank you. Next is business from the County Engineer.

Stutsman: Can we take a break.

Harney: We’re going to take a short break I guess. So what, back at 11:00?

Stutsman: Yes.

Recessed at 10:48 a.m.; reconvened at 11:00 a.m.

County Engineer Mike Gardner: Just coming to you this morning to let you know that we’ve put the numbers together for this year’s contract to go out for bids. We’re going to do the same amount of oiling that we did last year. If you remember that’s down quite a bit from what we had been doing. We used to do 40 miles a year or tried to do 40 miles a year. I believe it was 3 years ago that we went down to about 38. Last year we dropped it down to 30 and we maintained it at that this year. So we’re looking at doing about 30 miles out of the total 125 in the system.

Lehman: You were able to drop it maybe this past year because, one of the factors was not having embargoed roads. We didn’t have a lot of damage, frost, heating, that type of thing.

Gardner: That was the idea, yes.

Lehman: How are we doing in that category this year. You’ve embargoed a few roads I know.

Gardner: I believe we’ve got 3 roads embargoed now. Sutliff Road up northeast of Solon from Highway 1 up to where it intersects with 140th Street, Chambers Avenue over south of Oxford and James Avenue north of Tiffin, it runs up to North Liberty. The road coming west out of North Liberty. Those 3 were showing some signs of problems. Also Iowa City has embargoed Taft Avenue over on the eastside of town. But to date those are the only ones we’ve had to put embargoes on. The rest of them seem to be holding up pretty well. We’ve gotten lucky again this year. Bit the bullet and took a little chance when budgeting and I think we’re going to be all right again this year at this level.

Lehman: You’re going to ask for a bid from enough materials on 30 miles of road.

Gardner: Right, that’s approximately 30 miles of road. We bid it in gallons and ton of chips, but that was enough to do that many square yards of road and it comes down to about 30 miles. I’ve also visited with Harry Graves out at Kent Park. They always piggy back on this contract for work inside the park, so I’ve got the quantities that he would like to have on there. We’re going to plan on doing that again this year for them. Letting it at the same time.

Harney: How is the recycled oil roads held up this winter. I mean it’s a first.

Gardner: The last time I was up there, it looked pretty good. There were a couple places that looked like the blade may have dug into it when they were trying to cut some ice or something. The only other problem I saw with it was at the intersections where you have problem with you can’t get any crown in it and the water tends to sit. Plus that’s where traffic stops, starts, turns. There was some pot holes starting to develop there. I did visit with one of the residents up there and they were aware of it and they were looking to get those fixed right away.

Lehman: I don’t think that unique. I think when we went up to Mount Vernon to look at that sight up there the fella who had put the material on had said intersections were a problem. Sometimes you have to go back and overcoat with some chip seal or some asphalt.

Gardner: Yes, we have the same problem even with our oil roads. Those are the areas that we have the most problems with. What we’ve done on ours is actually, a few at a time, we’ll go in and we’ll actually put fold up asphalt on those areas so that we don’t have to go back and redo them every year. But what we’re shooting for is hopefully, we’ll next week have you put this on the formal agenda to authorize the Auditor to publish a notice to bidders for a May 13th letting. That’s all I have on that unless you have any questions.

Harney: Next one is your Secondary Roads 5-year Construction Program and future projects.

Assistant County Engineer Al Miller: I’ll give you just a quick update on where we came from to get here today. August 30th of 2002 our department asked you folks to fill out a questionnaire and give us some guidance on budget and new projects for this construction program as well as a number of other questions. We put that together. We had our first meeting November 26th of 2002. We had a second meeting on December 19th of 2002 for the construction program. We had an additional meeting on March 4th of 2003, which was a work session on the North Corridor Feasibility Study. We’ve also, Mike and I, have also met with a number of private individuals at different times throughout that same time frame to give out information on the program and answer questions. Last week, March 18th, I emailed everybody a copy of the construction program that was prepared as directed by you folks and asked if you had any questions or needed any changes. I haven’t heard of any, so that’s the same document that you have in front of you with a map attached to it. So I guess if you have any questions in addition to that I can answer those now.

Stutsman: It seems like we’ve talked about this a lot. We have to have this formally approved and sent to the State by April 15th?

Miller: 15th, yes. So we’re looking at hopefully having it on the formal next Thursday.

Neuzil: I think it looks good.

Stutsman: Yes.

Neuzil: I think that obviously future years, particularly year 5, could change. Particularly if the Board chooses to slow down potentially the look of maybe Newport or maybe Prairie Du Chien. That obviously could cost a little bit more and would bump year 5 out. I know we have to give 5 years, but I think this could look a little differently and certainly the cost would be different if the Board chooses to go a different route in regards to upgrading certain roads. I’m fine with this.

Miller: I think you just need to realize that the first 2 years we need to be pretty serious about. Changes can be made outside there without wasting a lot of time or money of our budget doing design work and survey work and that kind of stuff. The first 2 years, we’re especially interested in that, but it is like I said, it’s a 5 year program. We do have the ability to change some things in the out years next year when we revisit it.

Harney: There’s a review after the 2 you want locked down.

Gardner: Then there’s always, every 2 years we have all of our bridges inspected, so there’s always that wildcard that may come in and they may find something that absolutely needs to be done or the bridge closed. So that’s always something that you’d have to consider along the way. Those are things that change and need to be re-evaluated each time we come in. So there are a lot of question marks, but like Al said, the first 2 years are the ones that we need to be pretty committed to and beyond that it’s a little different story.

Neuzil: The major projects for ’04 and ’05, would be the work done south of Lone Tree along with finishing Mehaffey Bridge Road, which actually would be part of this year and then Sand Road.

Miller: The Sand Road grading and paving project, which extends north from where we finished the previous project up to meet Iowa City. Those will be the major projects. We also have a lot of structures and small things in that, but those would be the major projects.

Lehman: Would the Sand Road not start until summer of 2005 probably? You’re going to do some bridges and stuff.

Miller: Next year at this time we hope to have a signed contract and be ready to start here shortly.

Stutsman: Put this on for…

Miller: For next Thursday. The other information that I handed out to you was a copy of the future projects list that we try to keep current every year. I included a map as well on that.

Neuzil: Number 18 mentions Dane Road. I don’t know if that needs to be adjusted a little bit as Iowa City annexes a certain section of that.

Miller: The description of it states that it starts at Highway 1, so if that no longer becomes our road and the construction through that area that everybody’s aware of we would…

Gardner: Just make it the Iowa City Corp Line or something.

Neuzil: Yes, something that just needs to kind of upgrade that. I didn’t look at this enough lately, but do we have the section of road that’s kind of under discussion right now near the Kalona Cheese Factory. Is that in here at all as far as future projects?

Gardner: Yes.

Neuzil: It is. As far as potentially a shoulder widening. OK, it is. Because obviously that seems to be one of the areas that the County is looking at as far as potential future economic development. I think that the County may want to take a step back, at least next year, and look at some of those little pockets of where we’d like to see growth and development occur and maybe allow for the County to put some infrastructure in there and maybe make those more of a priority than even some of the areas in the North Corridor.

Stutsman: Does this go into the State too? This future project?

Miller: No.

Stutsman: No it doesn’t. Is there a road that isn’t on this?

Miller: Basically all our paved roads and seal coat roads are on here as well as some of the bigger structures. If you look at your map, the map also shows some projects that are just in our 5-Year Road Program. That map is tied to some of your other ordinances that require them.

Gardner: Right-of-way dedication.

Miller: Right-of-way dedications, so we need to keep that up to date.

Stutsman: Boy this map is great. Is it GIS?

Lehman: It’s a great planning tool. You don’t know when and if you’ll get to all of them, but it’s a heads up for everyone.

Miller: Yes and they’re sent out to the consultants in town that prepare those plats when a development comes in so they know and can tell their clients what we’ll be asking for as far as right-of-way.

Neuzil: So when this is done then we don’t need a Secondary Roads Department any more?

Miller: I guess that’s your choice.

Neuzil: About 200 years later.

Gardner: It will be time to start over.

Assistant County Attorney Andy Chappell: Maybe only if the Board is going to start plowing roads.

Neuzil: Yes, we can start making new ones.

Gardner: Or Andy.

Lehman: I don’t think any of us had our roads on here.

Stutsman: I’ve got mine on here.

Neuzil: It will be all in the City by then.

Stutsman: I’ll be in here protesting when that comes in.

Harney: Whose got next?

Gardner: Budget. I handed out the budget we have to submit to the IDOT every year, similar to what the program has to go in each year by April 15th. I apologize for the format. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but this is the way it was emailed back to me from the County Engineer’s Service Bureau, which is how we submit these. We do it electronically and then they email us back something. It’s supposed to come out in a letter form and all real nice and it’s not. They’re a little short-handed right now and I haven’t been able to get back to them and get it straightened out, but I will before we submit it. All this is, is it’s just a different look at what has already been approved by the Board. It also has a history of the prior 3 years on it. Bottom line, I guess the one thing I did want to point out and I’ve highlighted it on the last page, is the projected carry-over balance at the end of 04 is showing as $586,000. I just wanted to point that out, but these are the numbers that were on your budget and have been approved.

Harney: That’s carryover for what year?

Gardner: At the end of Fiscal Year 04.

Harney: 04.

Horne: We removed the Revenue Expense adjustment from the Secondary Roads Funds and what’s happening is that now that’s showing lower than it showed on our form before. It probably bumped it up a couple $100,000 in times past. Mike had a difficult time with his reporting because that wasn’t something that he would have included in the DOT reporting, so we removed it showing truer. We’ll have to watch that because we will need about $1 million in that fund around the end of the year for cash flow going into next year. So as it gets to be about a year or before now, about 9 months from now, beginning of the following calendar year, I’ll have to watch that very carefully with Mike to make sure that we’ll have cash flow in it when it comes to the beginning of the following fiscal year.

Harney: So we won’t be short then.

Horne: So we won’t be short. We have to make sure of that.

Gardner: Like in the past. Last year we conscientiously were looking at our budget ahead of time and made some pretty drastic changes so that we had enough carry-over to meet the obligations we knew we were going to have after the first of the fiscal year. So it somewhat becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if I sit here and make adjustments so I can pay for the bills. Then all of a sudden it’s pointed that hey, your carry-over balance, you didn’t spend what you said you were going to spend. So that’s the dilemma I’m facing now. I mean last year we didn’t hire a lot of trucks, we didn’t hire as many summer help. We didn’t haul as much rock. You can get by with that short-term, but you’re going to be facing it eventually. So those are the kinds of things we need to keep in mind.

Harney: Saved some dollars on salt this year.

Gardner: Yes, we did.

Miller: But if it snows a lot next year we might have a problem.

Harney: OK. All this is on the formal for next week then. Do you have anything else, any other business?

Gardner: That’s it. I did want to mention the embargoes, but I’ve already done that.

Harney: Thank you.

Lehman: Do you anticipate where we are here with the frost amount on the ground? The need for more? It could be. It just depends if there’s a project, heavier truck traffic, you may have to go out and spot embargo a road. Just for a heads up. Are you anticipating? If we get some rains here, I don’t see unless we get a real cold snap, frost going back in the ground to cause more…

Gardner: Yes, I’m thinking we’re probably over the hump now. We didn’t have quite as good of luck as we did last year, but it’s still in pretty good shape. You can see the frost coming out there a couple weeks ago. That’s when the ones that started to blow, did their trick. I guess the 18th or 19th I think is when we put the first ones on and then we did some more on the 24th. So that was earlier this week, but we’re continuing to watch them and we’re getting phone calls from the people out watching them too. So as we get those calls, we go out and look at the particular situation they’re talking about, but our people are also out watching them too.

Lehman: I know the farmers a few of them are putting oats in and that’s usually a pretty good sign the frost is completely out of the ground, the soil is drying a little bit. Hopefully that corresponds to the road conditions too.

Gardner: Yes.

Harney: Thank you.

Gardner: Thank you.

Neuzil: Thanks.

Harney: Any business from the County Attorney?

Chappell: No business.

Harney: Business from the Board of Supervisors. Rick Dvorak with the Planning and Zoning Department.

Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak: I'd like Mike and Al to stay in case the Board had any questions.

Harney: OK. This is a 28E Agreement for the Purpose of Developing Fringe Area Policy with the City of Cedar Rapids.

Dvorak: This came to a head a few months ago when the news media picked up on the fact that Cedar Rapids was going to assume responsibility of maintenance of Highway 965 down to 120th Street into Johnson County. I passed out some maps this morning that indicate some of the area that Cedar Rapids would be looking at if we were to enter into a 28E agreement. Because of what happened, I know the Board had received many calls regarding what was in the newspaper, we had a meeting with Cedar Rapids and the DOT, myself, R.J., Andy, Mike, and Al and Pat a couple weeks ago. We discussed what really was going to be going on with that, 965 and what the City was really looking at and why they were even looking at assuming the maintenance of that road. Pat you can jump in any time. But basically our understanding was at that time that the DOT will not relinquish that segment of road in Johnson County unless the Board agrees to or at least does not have any objections to that. Cedar Rapids acknowledged that and the DOT acknowledged that. That’s some of the things we wanted to clear up. I think the main reason Cedar Rapids is even interested in assuming maintenance… Again, I think that’s been part of the misunderstanding is, at this time Cedar Rapids is not entertaining the idea of annexation into Johnson County to 120th Street. They’ve been given the opportunity similar as Johnson County has been given opportunities to assume responsibilities for maintenance only. We’ve taken over Herbert Hoover Highway and places like that. Cedar Rapid is interested in this, my understanding, is to help control the types of businesses and structures that would be onto or off of 965 even into Johnson County. Because according to their Land Use Plan this is an area of where they can service in the future so it may be in the future considered an urban growth area. Again that’s not on the table and I think that map that I’ve given you this morning kind of shows that, where they’re at now and where they may be someday. Again, they are interested in controlling the curb cuts onto 965 without going through the process of annexation, today anyway.

Harney: That’s correct. The City of Cedar Rapids is looking into the long term development plan where they’re looking at 20 years out or more. As Rick said, they’re looking at the possibility of… If that fits their future development on a fringe area agreement what we’re talking about looking into, then they would… Since the State is wanting to turn that control and maintenance of that road over, they thought it would be an opportunity. They’re going to the county line anyway so they thought it would be a good turnaround point at the Shueyville exit. They could maintain and control the access on there which would in turn allow them when businesses come in to develop and build, they could build those roads to their standards, the curb and gutter and things like that.

Dvorak: Again if 3 Board members want to…I’m not sure that’s the correct way of saying it, agree to not share concerns with the DOT about the City of Cedar Rapids assuming maintenance on that. I didn’t say that very well. But if you agree that you don’t have a problem with the City of Cedar Rapids going down to 120th Street; I’d only recommend and I did recommend at that time that the County enter into a 28E agreement with the City to still accomplish some of the similar goals that we would have as far as what types of businesses would be permitted to access onto 965 even into Johnson County. Obviously the City of Swisher would be a big player because we currently do have a 28E agreement with them on that segment of road to the county line. I guess at this time I’m asking if you would like myself and my staff to pursue a 28E agreement with Cedar Rapids, as indicated on the map that I’ve given you, and respond back to you with what their goals are and what we feel is the best for both communities.

Harney: As our discussion went it’s in our best interest to have a 28E agreement no matter what the 965 issue is, that could be part of it, but we need to do our fringe area and 28E agreement with Linn County or Cedar Rapids as well. Whether or not the County objects to them taking over the maintenance of that road, Cedar Rapids won’t object… If we object, Cedar Rapids doesn’t really… They’d like to have it, but they're not going to argue the issue nor would the State. They just wouldn’t transfer that maintenance agreement.

Lehman: The State is looking to… It’s a State road right now, they’re looking for someone else to take over jurisdiction maintenance. Either we do it or Cedar Rapids does it and hopefully with some type of an agreement or if we do it they’d still like to be some type of an oversight on what we might allow in that area. I would be interested in at least continuing discussion on it.

Dvorak: A lot of people would not see an advantage of having the City of Cedar Rapids maintain that. But one advantage is that they will pave that road and I think within the next year or 2, and put the shoulders on and do those things once they start working that agreement with the DOT. Otherwise those improvements would stop at the county line, if we do not object they would go down to 120th Street.

Harney: I don’t think they’re going to pave it per say, I think they’re allotted some dollars from the State to upgrade…

Chappell: We’re kind of getting off target here. All of this discussion is really ancillary to the issue that’s before you. It’s true that the discussion is what prompted the particular agenda item, but the fact is your Land Use Plan says we ought to try to negotiate a Fringe Area Policy Agreement with the City of Cedar Rapids. We’ve discussed that with them in the past, it hasn’t come to materialize. This is just an instance where something came up, we got together and said, you know what, it’s a good time to start talking about a Fringe Area Policy Agreement at this point. Really this road issue is just one thing of many that are going to be discussed.

Dvorak: It brought it to the forefront.

Chappell: Yes, it’s what brought it to the forefront. But it’s also one of many things that would be discussed if the Board says, that just with any of the other communities that we have fringe area policy agreements, yes Rick, and R.J. and Dan go ahead let’s start down this process and let’s try to get an agreement forged with them.

Lehman: Rereading the item here it doesn’t really even mention the road.

Harney: That just becomes part of it.

Dvorak: I think at some point in time, Andy is probably right, I think you will want to have something on your agenda to discuss your input on the road, 965.

Chappell: The way I would envision it happening is there are going to be a lot of things that are discussed that I imagine all 5 of you are going to want to have quite a bit of input on as far as what happens in that area like you do with any of the other Fringe Area Agreements. I’m sure that you’ll trust your Planning and Zoning staff to identify those issues as they come through the negotiation process and to identify those for you and also you always pay attention to the notes, you always get updates as to how the negotiations are going. You’ll be apprised and at some point I’m sure that particular issue will be one of many that you’ll have specific discussion on as part of the agreement.

Dvorak: At some point in time too in the past we’ve always had one Supervisor work with my staff on these agreements so I’ll be coming back to you informally probably and say, who would like to participate in this discussion with your staff. So do you want me to pursue it?

Stutsman: Yes.

Neuzil: Yes, please.

Harney: OK.

Stutsman: Good.

Dvorak: OK.

Harney: Thank you.

Dvorak: Thank you.

Harney: Next item is Lora Shramek, referencing the Uniform Payroll Schedule.

Neuzil: Thanks Lora.

Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: The County operates under 2 payroll schedules currently. Approximately 1/3 of our employees are paid through the date that they actually pick up their checks, which we also refer to as being paid in advance, because the hours that are submitted on payroll Monday are presuming the employee will be there through the week at work. The other 2/3 of employees then are paid current, in other words, the hours that they work through the previous Friday are submitted on payroll Monday for payment. Secondary Roads and Ambulance are one day off from this schedule. It’s the County’s goal that we would have one uniform payroll schedule and that would be the Current Payroll Plan. The Board has asked me to assist in this effort. The topic has been discussed for quite some time, most recently at the January Department Head meeting and the February Elected Officials meeting. My direction from the Board was to implement the plan with non-bargaining employees first and then we would negotiate the change with the unions. Attached are draft communication pieces, the first item is a memo from the Chair of the Board introducing the concept. Next we have a payroll schedule information sheet that provides background, explains that employees that are paid in advance currently receive an additional week of compensation on their first paycheck as opposed to receiving and additional week of compensation upon termination. Why are we looking to change? Several reasons, first there is consistency and fairness of one payroll process for the whole County. Also paying employees in advance has been noted as a poor business practice by State Auditors. Having 2 pay periods can be problematic for administration and payroll purposes. Paying employees for their actual hours worked through the previous Saturday would be the preferred method as no prediction or post adjustment would have to be made whether employees would be at work, home sick, at funeral, etc. The County has been working towards this goal via attrition and at this time we're prepared to have employees who are currently paid in advance changed to a uniform payroll schedule. The switchover would be accomplished by submitting one week of actual hours worked and one week of unpaid leave or if the employee elects, one week of actual hours work and one week of any combination of vacation, compensatory time, or personal and banked time. The accrual balances would be adjusted accordingly and the employee could receive up to 2 full weeks of pay. We recognize that changing a pay schedule after an employee has been receiving compensation for a period of time is very complicated. So we want to be as flexible as possible with employees. We also want to provide substantial advance notice and we're looking a year in advance. April 30th, 2004 would be the completion date for non-bargaining employees. The next item is the Payroll Conversion Selection Form which allows an individual employee to select their choice of how they want to convert to the Current Payroll Plan. Selling back to the County the accumulated time off, deferring hours on a per pay period basis up to a maximum of 26, or delaying the compensation. We selected 3 dates. They're May 30th and October 31st of 2003 and April 30th, 2004 may be selected more often before those months have 3 paychecks as opposed to 2. Then if the employee elects they can also select any other pay period prior to April 30th of 2004. We've also prepared an FAQ, or a Frequently Asked Question sheet, in anticipation of questions that would be on employees minds. I've already done several staff meeting presentations to employees so this will not come as a surprise. The last item was next on the agenda, it's the Payroll Processing Policy, that the Board would need to approve to replace the current payroll and IPERS tax deductions policy in the Johnson County Employee Handbook. I would recommend that it would be effective May 1st, 2003 to give 30 days notice. I would be on the agenda next Thursday, the formal agenda. But it would establish that employees are paid every other Friday for hours worked through the previous Saturday. Also recognizing that variations exist for employees who were hired previous to the effective date.

Stutsman: Lora you did a good job of putting these materials together. It's kind of a complicated issue, but I thought it was very well spelled out. You had asked for feedback from elected officials, did you hear anything after…

Shramek: Not from elected officials and department heads. Well, I take that back, Pat had a couple of comments that we incorporated. Chris Edwards in the Auditor's Office had a couple of great changes that were made so they've been constantly improving to this point. Ideally these would go out on April 4th to employees homes so that we can increase awareness at home as well.

Lehman: You mentioned you had some meetings or some information meetings with employees, was that the 2 individuals you mentioned from the Auditor's department, or other people? I just wondered did they…was it pretty clear to them? We're a little bit more aware of this but you've really laid this out. I didn't know if they had any real questions that weren't answered in here or not.

Shramek: For example I spoke to the Public Health Department at a manager's meeting a couple of months back. Then I'm also going to be available once this communication piece goes out, for any special meetings.

Lehman: Yes. I think you've really laid out why it needs to be done and how to do it and several options for employees to accomplish it. I think it's very well done.

Shramek: Thank you.

Stutsman: So do we need to take formal action on this next week then so you can send letters?

Shramek: Yes.

Stutsman: OK.

Shramek: Then it would also be to approve the Employee Handbook Policy.

Harney: OK. Plan on putting that on the agenda next week.

Shramek: Thank you.

Harney: Thank you.

Harney: Next item is Minutes received from the 6th Judicial District Department of Correctional Services Board of Directors for February 21st, 2003 and the East Central Council of Governments for February 27th, 2003. Do you want to dispense with reports or do you want that?

Stutsman: I just wanted to mention one thing. We had a JCCOG meeting yesterday and the Board voted to go ahead and have Jeff Davidson do that traffic study on 520th Street.

Harney: Oh, good.

Stutsman: So that's going to be taken care of.

Neuzil: You don't want to mention Bill Clinton? He was great wasn't he?

Stutsman: Yes, yes, I did enjoy it. It was a good speech.

Neuzil: Yes it was. We got to sit by each other.

Stutsman: Yes.

Harney: It probably wasn't as good as the Oakridge Boys last week at the Paramount.

Lehman: I had to move because it would have been a quorum so I had to be with different people. I thought it was an excellent opportunity. How often do you get a former president of the United States to be in the area no matter what party they're from.

Stutsman: Right.

Lehman: It was interesting to hear their comments and I thought he kind of read the first part of the speech, but after that it was pretty impromptu. It's interesting to hear perspective on that from national interests and stuff but a lot of grass roots interests too.

Stutsman: There again it points out, just like my husband said, that is really the first lecture of this series that we've gone to and he says we need to make a point to go to all of these because when you think about the caliber of these individuals and their experiences it's just an opportunity not to be missed.

Lehman: I think even as he had stated, he says, I don't expect you to agree with all my comments, but it's a lot of food for thought. Talking to people on the way out and people he went with and stuff and even after the fact. The things that he did say you may not agree with but it gets you talking and I think that was one of the points of his whole thing, is communication between countries, individuals, groups, organizations.

Stutsman: Yes. There again, talking about ideas have consequences. He said that's what he wanted to do, is for people to start thinking. It was just a breath of fresh air not to hear a political campaign speech, I guess quite frankly that it was not bashing another party or whatever. He agreed with a lot of the things that the current administration is doing and then there were some things that he didn't agree with and then he pointed out why.

Lehman: Everybody picked up on his number one rule of politics? If you're in a hole, quit digging.

Stutsman: Yes, we all kind of perked up on that one. Very well attended. It was very well attended.

Harney: Anything else?

Neuzil: Nope.

Harney: Meeting's adjourned.

Adjourned at 11:40 a.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary