Recessed at 12:12 p.m.; Reconvened as a work session for a department head evaluation of Kay Hull at 1:32 p.m.
EXECUTIVE SESSION: EVALUATION OF GENERAL RELIEF DIRECTOR KAY HULL
Motion by Lacina, second by Duffy, to enter into Executive Session at 1:32 p.m. for an annual evaluation of General Relief Director Kay Hull under section 21.5(1.i), Code of Iowa, "to evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual's reputation and that individual requests a closed session." Roll call: aye: Bolkcom, Jordahl, Stutsman, Lacina, Duffy.
Motion by Lacina, second by Duffy, to leave Executive Session at 2:21 p.m. Roll call: aye: Bolkcom, Jordahl, Stutsman, Lacina, Duffy.
Recessed at 2:21 p.m.; reconvened as a work session on the Land Use Plan at 2:30 p.m.
Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak stated that Planning and Zoning Commission member Bob Saunders suggested that the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Board of Supervisors have a joint meeting to go over the proposed Land Use Plan. Dvorak said that the Planning and Zoning Commission feels they did what they were asked to do when they wrote the land use plan, and they are concerned that the Board of Supervisors is telling them to start over. The Board of Supervisors agreed to set up a tentative work session for November 10th at 5:00 p.m. Stutsman suggested that County Attorney Pat White should be at the meeting. Stutsman said she was confused about the roles of the public, the Board of Supervisors, and the Planning and Zoning Commission in developing a new land use plan. Bolkcom said it was essential that White be at the meeting, because there was confusion about the process of developing a new land use plan.
Jordahl suggested that in order to keep the land use process moving they should request clarification from White prior to the November 10th meeting and the Board of Supervisors might have some proposals prepared prior to the meeting. Dvorak agreed with Jordahl. Stutsman disagreed because she said there was a problem of communication and everybody needs to be in the same room at the same time. Jordahl suggested again that they have a meeting with White prior to the November 10th meeting. Lacina and Stutsman felt that they should only have one meeting, the November 10th meeting. Lacina said that at the November 10th meeting White should be present and he can give a quick summary of his legal opinion and then the Board of Supervisors and the Planning and Zoning Commission can get other things done. Duffy said he felt that the Board of Supervisors were leaving the farmers of Johnson County out of the discussion and they should have the meeting in December after all of the crops are harvested. Stutsman felt most harvesting should be complete by November 10th. The consensus was to go ahead with the November 10th meeting.
Stutsman said she will contact White to see if he was available on the 10th and said they should work on an agenda for the November 10th meeting also. Stutsman asked if there was anything to discuss prior to the meeting. Bolkcom stated that the Board of Supervisors would be the ones to decide the process of working on the plan and that they should talk about this process. Dvorak stated that was the reason for having the November 10th meeting. Lacina said the Board of Supervisors needs clarification from White before they can define a process. Stutsman said they can't really do anything until the November 10th meeting with the Planning and Zoning Commission. Bolkcom said they could still make a decision regarding the process. He stated that the Board of Supervisors has the authority to encourage things to happen, such as appointing a citizens' committee to seek public input.
Dvorak said that the Planning and Zoning Commission reviewed the North Corridor Plan and the fringe area agreements and they weren't changed substantially by the Board of Supervisors. He said that this is making the Commission wonder why the Board wants to change the Land Use Plan which the Planning and Zoning Commission already approved. Bolkcom asked why doesn't the Board of Supervisors just vote on the Land Use Plan then. Lacina said the North Corridor Plan and fringe area agreements are not spelled out in the Code of Iowa the way the process is laid out for a comprehensive plan. Stutsman said she agreed with Lacina and they should just wait and talk about the plan when they meet with the Planning and Zoning Commission. Lacina stated that White has had a letter requesting information on the process for over a month and hasn't been able to get to it yet and that the meeting on November 10th should give him time to review it.
Dvorak said that the Planning and Zoning Commission was just saying they needed to talk with the Board of Supervisors. Lacina said the perception of the Planning and Zoning Commission was that the Board of Supervisors was rejecting their whole plan. Lacina stated that was not the intention of the Board of Supervisors; the Board may just want further visioning on specific areas, such as economic development. Bolkcom hoped their intentions were being communicated to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Bolkcom stated that the Board of Supervisors and the Planning and Zoning Commission should have quarterly meetings every year. He also stated that the Board should meet with White prior to the November 10th meeting with the Planning and Zoning Commission. Stutsman said it wasn't necessary.
Lacina asked if there were any agenda items that came to mind for the November 10th meeting. Moore said they may want to discuss the letter from ECICOG requesting additional funding if they continue to help staff this process. Bolkcom said they could have a discussion about hiring a consultant to help them with the Land Use Plan. Jordahl said the discussion should focus on the issue of how they proceed from here. Bolkcom asked if the Planning and Zoning Commission had been receiving minutes of Board of Supervisors meetings when the comp plan was being discussed. Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator RJ Moore said that they had not, but that the Planning and Zoning Department will make sure they do.
Stutsman said for communication they just need everyone in one room. Moore said this should lead to a quicker resolution. Jordahl said they can't enforce a proposed plan and Moore said Boards have deviated from the existing plan for 20 years. Moore said it is difficult to advise someone inquiring about development as to what their risks are. Duffy wanted the Board of Supervisors to keep in mind that not all of the land in the County is being bought by developers. Duffy said they have done a good job protecting prime farm land.
Dvorak asked if the Board of Supervisors meeting with the Planning and Zoning Commission would be a work session, not a public hearing, and it was agreed it would be. Moore said he would prepare press releases and get notices on public access cable. Bolkcom stated that it would be months or years before the land use plan was finally done and reminded the Board that the current comp plan was still the one to follow. Dvorak said the Planning and Zoning Commission was following the current comp plan. Dvorak said they've won more court cases on that alone than anything else.
Stutsman asked for public comments and there were none.
Recessed at 3:00 p.m.; reconvened on October 16, 1997 at 9:00 a.m.
Stutsman: First is discussion about request for proposal for the budgeting process. I had put this on. We have spent some time talking about how we will proceed with the performance-based budgeting and implementing that on a countywide level. I guess I would suggest that we go ahead with the request for proposal and send that out to various groups that have experience with performance-based budgeting, including anybody that would be interested in doing an RFP within the county structure. Then just see what we get back and where we go from there.
Jordahl: Yes, I think... I'm not sure exactly how to configure the discussion of this. The RFP is... We've talked about an in-house option, it's the next item on the agenda and I don't know maybe if we should collapse these 2 items, would that be acceptable?
Stutsman: I almost think we can collapse the next 3 items, it seems like they all tie into together. We start talking about the in-house option and then job description of the director of budget and finance. There just seems to be overlap. The in-house option, Tom Slockett was going to present an option concerning performance-based budgeting, but he's ill this week so he's not able to do that.
Jordahl: I did speak with Tom at some length about this last Friday, actually a set of possibilities, and I think that I don't know if that discussion properly serves as a framework for looking at these things this morning. At least it's the idea of what we're looking at here was contained in that discussion. We have the question of Kim's position which we've discussed to be renamed as Director of Budget and Finance. We have the question of what services is Tom Slockett's office able to perform for us in-house and maybe save some money on this. We have the question of possibly hiring a consultant come in for a period of time to help us get started with this. Lets see that's 3. I'm looking for a 4th one, there was a 4th one here somewhere. Let's see there's Tom, there's Kim, there's outside consultant...
Stutsman: Was it Dawn?
Jordahl: Well Dawn yes, Dawn Gingrich at Linn County, yes, would be willing to be helpful in this process. As we move toward an answer to this a number of questions seem to be wrapped together. Tom's willingness as he stated, his office has the capacity and the willingness to assist with this process and suggests that there are a number of things that we could accomplish in this year, as a part of this year's budget cycle. Because there are data in his office that they could correlate and he would be willing to be helpful to sort of get the first stage of this process going. In part this is looked at, as we've discussed it in the past, has looked like a choice. Are we going to have Tom do it, are we going to have a person in our office do it, are we going to have a consultant do it? Maybe there is some sense in talking about how these might work together. That we might get started with what Tom can do in his office, send out these RFP's to see what we might get in the way of response from consultants and begin the search for a person to replace Kim and see what kind of a help we can have in house to work with the budget and the Supervisors Office. Sort of roll the process forward, and it may be as we go forward and getting responses to the RFP and filling Kim's positions that we see that we're satisfied that we can in fact do this in house with the resources of the Auditor's Office or we may see clearly that we need the resources of a consultant come in and make sure we stay on track and have this done in a clear programmatic way. I think there is room to do sort of all the options to start with and see what becomes clear as we go rather than decide on the basis of kind of an incomplete understanding of what our options are.
Stutsman: Well maybe we should wait until Tom comes up and presents to the entire Board what his options or plans are for implementing this.
Jordahl: Yes, he said he'd be out all this week, and I'm hopeful that he would be able to be here next week if we wanted to have a presentation on Tuesday from him. It does make some sense to do this as he put it with existing staff. In the context of the earlier discussion regarding the director of budget and finance position however I want to emphasize this is not a new position. It is simply a redefinition of the new position that we have that Kim Benge occupied. So that it's... I don't see it again as an either or but something we could move forward with simultaneously. But it might make some differences, I mean the question has been discussed, do we want to have the budget function in the Auditor's Office or is that properly contained in the Supervisors Office with the Assistance of the Auditor and maybe that discussion should wait until we hear from Tom. Maybe I said...
Stutsman: Yes. Any comments from other Board members?
Lacina: Well in regards to what Jonathan just said, I agree.
Stutsman: Maybe wait until we've heard from Tom and agree...
Lacina: Well he said he thought that things could move forward at the same time, so I don't know that... If we go out with an RFP I think we should prepare to do that. I think Tom's presentation would be very helpful in designing it, because he will have some insight into possible things we could do this year. So I think he and Lynnette could come up and give us a very good presentation and give us some insight. But on the other hand, I guess the 2 of you have worked very hard on this, so I would look heavily to you for what's the recommendation for the best way to move forward. My hope is that we do continue to move forward, because lots of times government will look at something and just kind of drifts off...
Jordahl: Yes, just keep looking. Right.
Lacina: ...We need to keep moving one way or the other or say we're not going to and then move onto something else.
Stutsman: I was going to say I think part of the reason it's on the agenda every time is my attempt to keep this moving and keep us focused on it.
Lacina: So what do you suggest we do? Go ahead and have a meeting with Tom...
Stutsman: Well, Yes. Why don't we meet with Tom and then...
Lacina: And we're on with the department heads again for discussion and input from them, right?
Stutsman: Right. For space needs but... Oh, for the November third meeting as far as...
Lacina: Well I'm wondering that we don't go back out to them and ask them in the event that we do pursue performance-based budgeting, what information or ratios or measurements would you like us to build into this. Because different departments will have different measurements in terms of maybe it's units of health service for the Health Department as opposed to number of license plates issued per hour for Treasurers Office. Right now we can start having them assist us in building a base that they can then use.
Jordahl: Yes.
Lacina: So that might be just something that kind of plant a seed.
Jordahl: Well Tom's been talking in those terms of getting some of those things established and I think to make some useful suggestions to that the resources of his office would be available to the departments that might find this perplexing or something that they'd be available to help and create some useful measures if people didn't want to do that or had trouble with it or something.
Stutsman: OK well why don't we put this on for Tuesday then for continued discussion and I hope Tom will be back by then if not we'll just have to wait until he gets back.
Bolkcom: A couple observations. It seems that performance based budgeting things is something that everybody is supportive of. It's something that's going to help us and our department heads better evaluate what they do. The question is how do we get to it and do we need an outside expert to come in. Can we do it with existing staff. Then this question about who will oversee it. We're talking about a new position, a redefined position. Although arguably whether we're gong to be able to get someone of the caliber we want with this new title and new job description for the same money is obviously got to be something we'll have to look at. I think as we approach how to do this there is a question of is the Supervisors Department going to take over the budgeting process from the Auditors office as we've known it or are we going to continue to work with the Auditors Office, because I think if we're going to replicate what they do for us it's going to take more than one person, it's going to take several people. 2 or 3 or 4 people to replicate a budget process which occurs downstairs occurring up here and I think we need to be cautious about that. Our attempt to be more efficient with the budget and save money that we don't spend a couple hundred thousand dollars putting together the apparatus or the administrative structure to do it when we all ready have one and trying to figure out a way to use that structure in addition to providing a little bit more assistance in the Supervisors Office on the budget. I think we're at a crossroads in a way on this decision. We should be clear about what it means to take the budget process and move it upstairs. I think it's more than a one-time, a one person job. I think we can have it all. I think we can have an efficient process, performance based budgeting, much more information about how we're spending money and how to do it better using a lot of in-house resources rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, if you will.
Lacina: I agree with Joe and that's why it's going to be so important for I think a consultant from the outside to come in. We did try to establish an informational system with SEATS that we didn't use a consultant, went out spent $100,000 and some thousand dollars plus for software which isn't delivering what we need and if a consultant could come in and work with us we might have a different result today. So I think that consultant may be able to give us a number of options. One is to continue to do it as we are. One is to make modifications within the Auditors Office. An option would be to have a... Well I guess Linn County actually has a different department, so to speak. But at least they can lay out for us, here's a lot of options, here a plusses and minuses and do the research for us.
Bolkcom: I'm not sure they're comparable examples. Spending a lot of money on software, we should research it. I think that other places, other counties have incrementally approached or are getting involved in performance-based budgeting. Linn County which has pointed to us as a very good model. They didn't have a consultant, they simply organized among their own professional staff and over time incrementally put a very nice process in place that we're pointing to as a model for us. I think we have a lot of expertise in house to draw on. I guess it depends for me on, I guess I'm OK with an RFP on having somebody come in and tell us how to do this even though I think we can probably figure that out. It's going to depend on what the cost of that is. We had somebody in that had like a 6 figured number over a 5 year period. That's a lot of money.
Stutsman: Well we may get an RFP back that says we'll prove to you that we can save this money and this in the long run won't cost you any money like what happened with Scott County. I don't think we know until we get back from the RFP's, how much will it cost, what they can do, what kind of product they'll produce and even if we have an RFP and we get those proposals back, we're not hooked into accepting any of them. We may decide after we review them that we're best to go along and do it ourselves.
Lacina: Well and I agree with Joe, it's going to be incremental. Linn County, Dawn was an outstanding auditor in the finance area for Rockwell-Collins and so they went out and their existing budget manager in the ISAC paper, I think they've just gotten, was it a fifth award for the state for outstanding budgeting and so they went out and really hired some top notch people to come in as opposed to our considering a consultant. And once you hire those people you don't back out. So I think we're doing it correctly, it will be incremental and we'll do it cautiously.
Jordahl: I think Joe raises a good point about the overlap of doing it twice. Having a budget function in the Auditors Office and a budget function in the Supervisors Office. Clearly it's the responsibility of the Supervisors to handle the budget. But the question of duplicating staff. It needs to be addressed with her eyes wide open. When I discussed the notion to Tom I thought it would be sort of ideal to have a person halfway between the Supervisors Office and the Auditor's office that could retrieve all of that information and do the kind of interpretation that we wanted to have done in a fashion that would be subject to our needs and timetable and not subject to maybe the needs and timetable of the Auditors Office which has other functions which it has to handle and with it's own staff, assuming that they're already full-time and doing their jobs there to add this function to them and stretch them yet further and you wonder about adding staff, it's possible that staff might have to be added in the Auditors office as well. So there is a real interesting question of how this interfaces. Again that's the type of thing that it might be well to have a consultant come in and say well it's been done. The wheel has been invented and has run successfully and here is how it works. In Linn County's case it is in the Supervisors Office and the budget director is not in the Auditors Office. So that's one example of it being done and it being done separately.
Stutsman: Right and this is not one of the duties that's outlined in the Code for the Auditor, is to have this kind of function.
Bolkcom: If people want to spend the money, we can do anything we want. We could have 3 or 4 people working on the budget up here for us. We could talk it all over. It that's where we're headed I think we should just be clear about that.
Stutsman: Well and I think that's something we need to decide on and make a decision on.
Jordahl: Well, we have a very...
Stutsman: Because I was going to say I'm not for duplication either and what it would mean would be maybe shifting some staff from the Auditors Office and not really suggesting that we hire additional people, you know same amount of staff, just different positions, or different departments.
Duffy: Joe there was one person who really was against this at the start and that was me. All I'm hearing that to do this we're going to save money and again this County is not in debt and we don't have any bond issues. Does this mean, if we hire these consultants, you can be consultants poor, and I'm hearing about saving all of this money that the budgets will come in less then they did last year, is that what we're saying.
Jordahl: I really don't think that assertion is being made. What happened in Scott County is the consultant said you don't have to pay me unless we can do that. It's our hope certainly that there would be efficiencies that would result from this. But I think the primary claim is not savings, but clarity that the process would be easier to deal with.
Duffy: I don't know why we're compared to Scott County all of the time or several times. Scott County is a very fine County, good Supervisors, good personnel, but they are in debt, $11,900,000. How long have they had performance-based budgeting at Scott County?
Jordahl: About 10 years.
Duffy: 10 years, it proves my point doesn't it?
Jordahl: Well it proves that Scott County is in debt, but it doesn't say why.
Duffy: There's 2 bond issues, plus close to 8 million dollars, other debts, from what I've been hearing, but again I'm not a negative person and I'm not saying anything wrong about Scott County but hiring all of these new people, consultants, again they cost a lot of money and I know they do in Iowa City right now. I might change my mind, but I want to see when those budgets come in. Supervisors always handle the budgets with help from the Auditor. Again I think they've done a good job. Again I said this time in and time out, there's some committees we should be on, but some of them we don't have to be. I think to save the taxpayers money I'd be willing to spend some even night meetings.
Jordahl: Oh, quote this.
Bolkcom: Keep talking.
Duffy: For the budget when we discuss the budget, if we can't do it in the daytime, because extra time I'd be willing to do it. But again I want to see where this is going to save us some money because that's been brought up several times here and I just doubt it.
Lacina: What we're all trying to answer is can we do a better job with what we have? We all have an instinct that yes we can, we all have an instinct that yes we can, we're not exactly sure where to start and this would be a mechanism or process that would help us do that. We are really really fortunate to have an outstanding individual in the Auditors office, a CPA who is able to help us with the process. But you never want to tie within to an individual, because she could be given a promotion or a better job and you lose that individual so then you need to fall back, it's established so that process continues. But right now al to of the questions we're asking are important to ask. We don't know the answers and that's why we need to continue the research. That's what we need to do is set up a little bit better process. It maybe that we don't change anything, but at least if we're challenged by taxpayers, and our budget has been protested in the past, we can say we did fully explore these areas and we feel this is the best route given the time and the information we have and be able to defend it. So I don't know what the outcome is going to be, I'm looking at other counties and what they're doing and it maybe that there is the direction for us to go, but I don't have the information yet for us to be able to decide that.
Bolkcom: We're not going to have it for awhile. Information is basically information that our department heads will collect about the programs and services they provide. Unless we're going to hire someone from the outside to collect that for them, I would say that their staff and they would do for us and put it in some format that we could use it. I think this is simpler than we're making it out to be. We want the department heads to pay more attention to what they're doing and how they evaluate and report that information to us in some sort of clear and concise way so that we can utilize it at budget time.
Lacina: And we're getting some of it. Ambulance, for example, with his report he gives us some reactions and types of things. We're improving.
Stutsman: Let's move onto the discussion about the job description. I think we need to make some decisions about that so we can begin the process of hiring that individual.
Administrative Assistant Carol Peters: Can you take a 2 minute recess. I thought I had all of the job descriptions out there and I don't.
Stutsman: Well do you want to go get that stuff Carol and maybe we can move on to reports and inquiries from members of the Board of Supervisors. Charlie, do you have a report.
Duffy: Janet touched on this a little bit. We did have a good meeting with collective bargaining agreement for Johnson County Secondary Roads Department of public employees. It was about 3 hours and we have another one coming up on the...
Assistant County Attorney Janet Lyness: 18th, November 18th.
Duffy: 18th, November 18th. I thought we got off to pretty good start, isn't that what you thought or...
Lyness: Yes.
Stutsman: Thanks for going to that meeting Charlie, it was another night meeting, but...
Duffy: I suppose you're all getting calls on this, but I'm getting some extra ones at home again about the junk being thrown in our county road ditches. It seems to have some correlation that maybe we should mow more of our county road sides, because it's kind of hard to see this junk in these tall weeds and all of that. There was a call last week and that was kind of strange, because that was a week where we paid for the thousand pounds of trash free at the Iowa City landfill, one person wanted to know if you don't do something, because if you see 2 or 3 items in these weeds and it will just escalate and here's a place to dump this stuff. We talked about this before and we just can't seem to get it stopped. Senior Dining banquet for our senior diners and a couple of you folks have something else to do I think.
Stutsman: I won't be able to go to that.
Lacina: I won't be there.
Duffy: Some of our taxpayers dollars, isn't that right Bob?
Welsh: Yes.
Duffy: Some of the greatest people we have in Johnson County keep the program going. Town meeting coming up on Wednesday the 22nd from 3 to 5. That's the same day our state representative center is going to have a meeting over here...
Stutsman: Oh, on public education.
Duffy: (Inaudible) Thank you Sally.
Stutsman: Steve do you have a report?
REPORTS (LACINA): ATTENDED 6TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT MEETING; ATTENDED JCCOG MEETING
Lacina: Had 6th Judicial Meeting and again Johnson County looks very good in terms of collections on fines and penalties and we're going to talk to Judge Honsell and a couple of other judges. The 6th District is in terms of using Johnson County as a model to enhance our collections. So that was nice to hear. We're still trying to operate under the State guidelines of 110% of capacity which is interesting. The State on the other hand is trying to cut back on the money that they fund on corrections. Had some good press on programs for kids and appreciate the ad that they put on the Cedar Rapids Gazette on that. Had the JCCOG meeting yesterday afternoon.
Stutsman: Good meeting.
Lacina: The City is separating the shingles and getting ready to do a pilot project with the County and experiment with the shingles on road surface. So that will be coming. Discussion took place on the new transfer station out of Linn County. Possible impact it will have on the revenue stream for the land fill down here. So it will be removing the material supposedly at $38 a ton, versus $48 for Iowa City and 56 or 8 or the County. I think there will be a change of the wastestream going to this transfer station, which then takes it to Illinois and dumps it in the $20 ton range. There was also a discussion about the potential liability as that waste is generated and moves to those landfills, but there is also a concern even with our toxic cleanup day. That when we do this and concentrate that material and go to a toxic site are we contributing to our own Love Canal. That in time when they go and clean that up, will we come back upon Johnson County and say well, you contributed this toxic waste you and I will contribute to the cleanup. But I thought it was a good meeting, a lot of information shared. And anytime you get all the different governmental people today, there is a lot of good discussion.
Stutsman: I would agree.
Jordahl: Steve there is some impact there regarding the recycling program or waste reduction requirements that I've heard about. I'm not sure I could give a representation of that myself but do you recall a discussion of that?
Lacina: When a transfer station comes in they remove waste from the stream, but it is not counted in our mandate for waste reduction, so that is being assumed that it is still being buried in our landfill. So what that means if you have a percentage of reduction that your required it just multiplies the amount that you have to apply to the rest. The only good thing out of it is it will probably extend the life of the landfill, but from an operational standpoint if your administration and overhead costs are fixed and you reduce the revenue coming in, it becomes far more expensive to operate. If you raise your rates your then placing yourself at a greater disadvantage to the outsiders that are charging less and you lose even more. So they're going to have to do some real good analysis on this to see how to react. It kind of sounds like a problem at the State level that this is possible to require waste reduction of municipalities and counties, but then allow this to be economically disadvantageous that our own operations are hard to sustain.
Lacina: And some disparity in an application of the rules. Linn County has been allowed to increase the height of their cells, so that the landfill in Linn county is now, according to their discussion last night, the highest elevation point in Linn County is the landfill. They're allowed to go up, we're not. We have to open a new cell, which they will be doing soon at the cost of 1.5 million dollars. So the rules are not being applied evenly from county to county which is a real compounding problem as well.
Bolkcom: Literally.
Duffy: I'm glad you said that Steve.
Stutsman: It's a fascinating issue to weigh all of the facts, talk about transfer stations and what not. It's pretty complicated.
Jordahl: It sounds initially like it would be an advantage, hey great, they're taking the garbage away, taking it out of state, our land fill is going to last longer. Yet I understand there are huge concerns with this. Part of it is the revenue not coming in, some concern with the recycling angle of this too that...
Bolkcom: There is no requirement in State law for transfer stations to do waste reduction, recycling or take care of household toxins. So because they don't have those expenses they can come in and cream the garbage and just take it wherever they want. It's a huge loophole in our State law which requires other permit holders that run the landfills to do all of those things. That's some substantial costs. That's one of the reasons the price differentials is there. N an N is not doing household toxins, they're not doing waste reduction programs and therefore don't have those expenses.
Jordahl: In fact they have an incentive to get more waste.
Bolkcom: We need to change the law. If we're going to allow transfer stations they ought to have to comply by the same set of rules as everybody else.
Stutsman: Because they don't even charge a surcharge do they? Is that right? That's what I understood they said.
Bolkcom: I don't think they do, because it's not a final disposal. They're avoiding the state tax of 4 and a quarter a ton or whatever it is now.
Stutsman: One of the programs that was talked about yesterday was this magic program that they're going to go into hopefully all of the elementary schools in Johnson County and it's this nationally known individual that comes and presents a magic program to children from K to 4th grade talking about recycling in a very child orientated way. The kids just love it, wonderful feedback and that is being paid for through the surcharge and so if you don't have those kinds of dollars we can't offer those kinds of programs. Which will have a lot of impact later on.
Lacina: There may be an industry strategy that if you can come in and undercut and generate the revenue and all of a sudden the landfills start shutting down, then once the competition is gone you have a free hand of cranking the prices for whatever you want. An example of that in industry has been that meat processing in Nebraska, they went into Nebraska, they basically operated at very low margins, they put the competition out of business and then once they controlled the state if you sold cattle you had to go to IBP and they had control. And the millions that it would take to rebuild that packing plant industry you just couldn't get started up. If you apply that to a landfill and thinking about how long it takes to locate a landfill if you go out of the business and then all of a sudden the private sector says now used to 38, it's now 68, what are your options? It's going to take you years to site a landfill, get it started and meet the regulations and that is also a real concern. Once they have control they'll set whatever price they want to.
Jordahl: It's always dangerous to speculate about motivations, but I look at the idea of sending the waste out of state and you can see maybe where the legislature said good, we won't have to worry about so much regulation because this is going to leave, it's not our problem. I think we need to take responsibility for our own waste and I think as Joe suggested apply the same standards.
Duffy: I don't really... Really isn't on the agenda. Maybe some day we'll talk about it. But recycling is not first on the list of this problem, it's second. The first is we're making too much of it. I got some literature I can show you. An amount of that is not made in this county or this state. The throwaway generation if we keep it up...
Stutsman: These are the consequences. Good point.
Duffy: People are going to have to pay for it. That's the way it is.
Stutsman: Good point. Anything else from JCCOG or...
Lacina: No.
Stutsman: OK. Jonathan?
Jordahl: Well I was participating in a discussion yesterday afternoon here about something I think we're going to be hearing more about shortly that Carol brought forward with the present company who have supplying our phone service and we're looking at the possibility of instituting voice mail. Now don't everybody run scared here. We do not mean some system where you do not get away one person if there were Supervisors, you'd still have a person answering the phone you'd have an opportunity to leave a message for someone in more detail than that maybe gets done on a scrap of paper now. So looking at the possibility of that. So I lived with that system at the University of Iowa and people had actually 3 minutes to leave a message, so you can actually get a lot of detail and maybe prepare an answer and come back to them and have more efficient interaction so it can be very good.
Lacina: Digital has a proposal that they've given us. Is that the company we're on?
Stutsman: Anything else?
Jordahl: Let's see here, there is a League of Women Voters forum on legislative briefing tonight, but I'm not sure I have the location of that.
Stutsman: I think that's on campaign finance reform.
Jordahl: Yes that's 6:30 to 9:00 in room A of the Iowa City Public Library. There is also the upcoming, and you'll probably hear about it from Joe and I think I'll defer to you on this, the Water Festival on Saturday. You've been centrally involved with this. We have the know your watershed festival coming up at Northwest Junior High Saturday from 10 to 2 and that's been a real success in the past and I hope people will attend it and then the Hospice Road Races Sunday morning. We have contributed snow fence and in some cases dollars to people participating. I don't know if anyone is running in the race this time. Mr. Bolkcom? Be out there. I'll defer to you on this.
Bolkcom: One more run tonight to get ready. My report, Communications Committee met last Friday. Jonathan and I are heading that up. We brainstormed a mission statement kind of to focus our efforts and are looking forward to the department head meeting with Tim Shields on November 3rd where maybe we can talk about a broader County mission statement. We kind of got into a conversation about what's the County's mission statement and how does it relate to what we're doing. We did that and we also talked about organizing an index of services, index of departments and phone numbers with a map on it that has the location. It's kind of a 2 sided piece of paper that would basically be available downstairs so if somebody comes in here, they'd be at all of our locations and they needed something from the Courthouse and they don't know where the Courthouse is or from Health. They could essentially have a phone number, a contact and a map to do that. We've got a little subcommittee working that up as kind of the first brainstormed idea. There were probably 20 ideas that were thrown out and that's going to be worked on here in the next few weeks. We'll be bringing it back I guess in a month. We visited also on Tuesday talked more about the County's comprehensive land use plan. We're trying to get a meeting together with the Zoning Commission and the Board and the County Attorney to visit about what the next phase of the plan is going to be. Finally as Jonathan alluded to the Johnson County Water Festival is this weekend the 18th of October and I'll just give a plug. Friday night there is going to be a jazz concert kicking off the Water Festival with the Northwest Junior High and the West Junior High Jazz Bands and that will be at Northwest.
Stutsman: What time is that?
Bolkcom: Northwest Junior High at 7 p.m. It's a free concert sponsored by Hawkeye State Bank. Thank you.
Duffy: Who is sponsoring the Water Festival? Iowa City, Coralville, Environmental Advocates...
Bolkcom: Northwest Junior High school, City of Iowa City, City of Coralville, Environmental Advocates, Aquadrill, Hawkeye State Bank, The Bugs Farm and University of Iowa's bunch of (inaudible) Environmental Effects, Environmental Contamination, and 2 other institutes, the CGRER and the EHSRC.
Duffy: But here is no farm groups...
Bolkcom: I think it's the Environmental Health Science Research Center, and another center.
Stutsman: Charlie said there is no farm groups that are sponsoring that or helping with hat?
Bolkcom: Not of the listed sponsors here.
Duffy: Well I'm going to go work 10:00 to 12:00 is my shift. I guess we're not going to teach the classes this year. It's hard telling what will be in that watershed. I haven't gotten any information; have you Joe? But that...
Bolkcom: I haven't... There is a whole bunch of entertainment really focused on a lot of children's activities. Good family thing.
Stutsman: A well drilling demonstration.
Bolkcom: A well drilling demonstration.
Duffy: That's's interesting.
Stutsman: I'd like to see that too.
REPORTS (STUTSMAN): ATTENDED ICAD BOARD MEETING AND JUVENILE CRIME PREVENTION WORK GROUP
Stutsman: I wanted to just report I went to an ICAD Board meeting and I do have a copy of their audit so we probably need to put that on file and if anybody is interested in looking at that. Everything certainly appears in order, just a couple of minor things. Something about cash balances in excess of $100,000 that they probably need to check with a bank in view of the FDIC limits. So that was about it. The other thing they talked about was Nation Jobs and this is an Internet based program where you develop a data base nation wide to advertise jobs locally and so there was some discussion as to whether to go ahead with that for this area. Also attended a juvenile crime prevention work group meeting yesterday and Jim Swaim is planning on submitting the juvenile justice grant program for Johnson County to be considered for the Innovative Government Grant program and this is through the Ford Foundation and if selected as an innovative government program there is a monetary award of I think like $20,000 so I support Jim's interest in applying for this and just see if this program might be considered. The other thing is with JCCOG they did hand out materials about trails count which I thought was interesting, to pass that on to other Board members.
REPORTS (LACINA): ATTENDED ECONOMIC GROWTH COMMITTEE MEETING
Lacina: Oh, I forgot something. This morning the Economic Growth Committee met, we had 2 presentations, one from Jean Mohling from the extension service talking about farm harvest and prices and it was interesting to look at some trends with bean prices going up at a time when our national yields are expected to be record breakers, but that South America last year was able to ship beans into this county for 8 dollars and it looks like they will now be buying them back and some prices around just 6 or 6 and a half, thereby just pocketing a buck and a half the farmers won't be making. So even though there is tremendous transportation costs, they can do a lot of this stuff on paper. The other interesting thing was we had a presentation by Roger Brown who is now in charge of Louis Rich which is now called West Liberty Processor, down at West Liberty, and the impact had that closed would have been about 560,000,000 dollars to this area, which would have had a lot of overflow for people that commute to West Liberty. So they're in the process of turning that around and doing some labeling and working with some outstanding firms that will need buyers, local business support possibly from Hy-Vee and other places that now market their goods, but hopefully will expand. It's very interesting, very intelligent individual, 47 producers that kicked money in to buy that. I encourage everybody to have a turkey sandwich for lunch.
Stutsman: Is it going pretty well.
Lacina: It's really interesting because turkey does tend to be a commodity working against the other white meat and beef promotion and that. You're seeing a lot of generic promotion for beef or pork whereas yet there are some rules and regulations prohibiting turkey from generic promotions. So there are some disadvantages that they have to overcome, but I think overall they have turned the corner and have a very positive approach to things. Generally in processing the point was given to us that on an annual basis you see almost 100% turnover of your people, because there is some repetition in that work and it's not really ideally chopping turkey so to speak. They are down to a 12% per year turnover with 550 some employees and that's phenomenal. He says when he goes out into the plant everybody is pulling together and there is this team aspect. He said you just feel good about working in the facility so there's a really positive attitude, that Iowa work ethic. So I think they have, I think they've made a huge turn coming up with some new products. Sounds very, very good
REPORT (STUTSMAN): UPDATE ON THE AIRPORT PLAN AT ICAD MEETING
Stutsman: One other thing I was going to mention that was presented at the ICAD meeting was an update on the Airport Plan and where they're at on that. Howard Horan, who is on the Commission, said that they're currently in the easement in the acquisition phase and things seem to be right on schedule for their plan for that whole area surrounding the airport.
Lacina: Some discussion they're not going to close the north-south runway?
Stutsman: No the long term plan is to continue to close that and extend that other runway that goes out over the trailer parks and they will be relocating those people and in the very near future but I think plans are definitely to close that runway just they can't say whether it will be in a definite time frame. One interesting thing and I didn't realize this but that hangar out there is called an old united hangar and it's eligible for the historical register because it's the old hangars where they come in at one end and drop off passengers and go off the other end. Well I don't know if the airport commission is real enthused about keeping that hangar on the historical register. So stay tuned, there will probably be a lot of discussion about that hangar out at the airport but next time you go by pay attention to that. That was interesting. As well as the administration building, that was built in the 50's, they said it's a nightmare to heat and maintain but it does have historical significance.
Lacina: It's interesting that we would take something in the 50's and consider it historically significant because we're such a throwaway culture, but you go to Europe or the Soviet Union and they're talking in the 1600's, that's significant, 1700's. Here we're looking back that short of a distance.
Stutsman: It's interesting.
Lacina: Shows how fast this culture just explodes forward with changes.
DISCUSSION: DIRECTOR OF BUDGET AND FINANCE JOB DESCRIPTION
Stutsman: OK, that concludes reports, and we will get to reports and inquiries from the public,but I wanted to go back up to talking about job descriptions. Carol did you have...
Peters: Yes. You had asked for copies of the job descriptions from Linn County last week. Everybody please just pass them down, they're stapled together.
Bolkcom: Do we have a copy of Kim's job description in that file?
Peters: I'll be glad to make another copy.
Stutsman: You, know...
Lacina: I think I have one.
Stutsman: I've got one too. I was going to say I think I might almost have an extra copy.
Bolkcom: if you have extra I'll take it. I couldn't find mine.
Jordahl: I had that the other day.
Bolkcom: Here's an extra copy Joe, now that Carol is out making a copy.
Stutsman: Does anybody else...
Jordahl: You might as well make one. May I have one Carol?
Stutsman: Why don't we ask if there is any reports or inquiries from the public, I don't want to lose our public if we continue on for awhile so maybe now is the time to ask. Any comments from Bob or...
Welsh: While there's a lull, let me just announce that the Board of Social Welfare/Cluster Board will be meeting on October the 27th at 7:00, First Christian Church. One of the interesting items of discussion will be why do persons on Welfare not have jobs. Bob Ballyntine (inaudible) meeting with us to share that information, because I think this is important. We have people on Welfare (inaudible) how do those 2 mesh together. What strategies have been identified, what the reasons are why these people do not have jobs and hopefully we can develop strategies to move them into the workforce I'm sure the public and you all are invited to that.
Stutsman: OK. Thank you.