Recessed at 3:23 p.m.; reconvened as an informal meeting on December 4, 1997 at 9:11 a.m. with Duffy present.
Stutsman: To the Heritage Area Agency on Aging for transportation to and from Senior Dining. Good morning Burnell.
Interim SEATS Director Burnell Chadek: Good morning.
Bolkcom: Good morning.
Chadek: Heritage has asked for proposals from current vendors and perhaps potential new vendors or providers of service and we are responding again as we did the previous several years to that proposal. I have prepared copies that you should all have of our application. For Fiscal Year 1999 we'll be asking for $14,270 total, shown on page one in the summary. That breaks out as it has in the past two Fiscal Years into trips and meal deliveries. For Fiscal year 1999 I'm proposing that we be reimbursed $1 for 12,520 trips to congregate meal sites and .50 cents apiece for 3,500 meal deliveries. Those figures are consistent with what we've seen during Fiscal Year '98 and those are the most accurate projections I have for Fiscal Year 1999. The level of funding that we would be asking for is higher than the current level of funding. But every year is a new set of requests and we may get that.
Bolkcom: Great.
Lacina: Burnell we were at what this year? 10?
Chadek: We were at a grand total of 8,634 I believe for funding. That would be shown, yes, 8,643 that's shown on page 2, form 2a there, present contract.
Lacina: You're comfortable being able to go to Heritage and defend the request for this increased number.
Chadek: Yes the increased numbers reflect what we've submitted to them during the first 4 months of this Fiscal Year, that we projected out.
Stutsman: We need to have this to Heritage by...
Chadek: The deadline is tomorrow.
Stutsman: That's the reason we had to move it to the informal on Thursday instead of waiting until Tuesday to discuss this.
Chadek: Correct. All I need you to do is authorize your signature on the application and I'll deliver it.
Bolkcom: Great.
Jordahl: I have a question about the projection, Burnell. Is this a projection across a relatively flat utilization this Fiscal Year or are we looking at an increase in training projecting that, there might be some combination of those 2?
Chadek: It's really hard to do a projection month to month. I think the first 4 months were a pretty good indication. It sometimes only takes a few people who just aren't deciding to dine in a particular month in Lone Tree or Solon to affect the figures so over the first 4 months that we've submitted the reports so far, that's solely based on that projection.
Jordahl: My question is is it climbing or is it kind of a...
Chadek: It jumps back and forth month to month. It's pretty steady from Fiscal Year to Fiscal Year. The total figures are very, very close to what we actually did last year. We didn't receive the funding on a per trip basis at the level that we actually provided those trips in Lone Tree Solon and Iowa City to the congregate meal sites. But year to year it has been pretty consistent, or right at around those levels.
Bolkcom: That would include the home delivered meals?
Chadek: The home delivered meals in Solon and Lone Tree.
Stutsman: Are there any questions? If not we'll recess back to the formal meeting for a motion.
Recess at 9:15 a.m. to Formal Meeting of December 4th 1997; reconvened at 9:38 a.m.
DISCUSSION: DELINQUENT PROPERTY TAXES
Stutsman: We've already taken care of business from Burnell. Discussion regarding delinquent property tax.
Administrative Assistant Carol Peters: You asked that this be put on to visit with the County Attorney's office.
Stutsman: I think this was in response to a number of newspaper articles.
Bolkcom: Collect the taxes.
Stutsman: Not a number, but one big newspaper article concerning delinquent taxes in Johnson County. I think the board just wanted to have some kind of discussion about what we should or could be doing with this or if this is something we need to take a more aggressive attitude in collecting.
Assistant County Attorney Janet Lyness: I talked to Pat a little bit about this yesterday and I think Pat would maybe like to have this put on the agenda when he's going to be here for a meeting if that's possible. It is something we've certainly been looking at. We can tell you that actually I noticed early this week that one of the people that was listed as one of the 10 most delinquent paid up their taxes in the last week. So I think that there's some action just by publicity probably. It's something we do tend to get to, we plan to get to, but I think Pat would like to address it more. So if it could be put on another agenda when he's going to be here.
Stutsman: Good. Carol maybe you could check and see when he's going to be here and then maybe we could put it on for further discussion.
Lacina: I do have a suggestion before he comes in if he would consider taking the top 10 and I think the top one was shown as owing 40,000 dollars and addressing those. If someone does not have the ability to pay the taxes the code provides for us to either suspend or abate the taxes so we can get it off the books. But the top 10 if we started there. There will be a lot of properties for example I can remember one about 3 feet wide up along the highlander when the interstate went through. There are a lot of little pieces of property or a crick bottom that are of no value but will, because of the Assessor's books and everything, will continue to show delinquent taxes, those we can get off the books. But the time and energy spent on identifying that almost doesn't justify going after it. But if we take the top 10 there are some big numbers and at least we can start working on them, send them a letter bring it to their attention and maybe the publicity will encourage them to pay, or some cases like a mobile home if it's been burned and it's gone it's still on the tax bill and the bill is 2 or 3 years old we can address that and wipe that off the books. But that would be a proposal to take a top 10 list.
Duffy: Would you have some data, John Bulkley used to have a list. This really isn't new. We started this several years ago but would the information still be available. There probably should be some.
Lyness: As what information.
Duffy: As far as collecting the back taxes. Some of them go back so far.
Lyness: Right.
Duffy: He used to give us reports and I think he did get some of the dollars. It's not all of the County tax dollars.
Lyness: Right. I'll check and try to find out what we have.
Duffy: See if he has any records left that might help.
Lyness: Sure. The other thing that Steve you had mentioned this at a previous meeting when it had been brought up too is that when the State legislature changed the percent of interest it really did take care of a lot of the delinquent taxes. So I want you to know that the County Attorney, we recognize that this is something that needs to be dealt with but I think in my taking over this position I'm not quite up to speed on everything and that's part of what's going on. We recognize your concern. We'll be working on it. I think Pat would like to address it more too.
Stutsman: Good. Sounds good.
Lyness: I'll try to find out what kind of reports you've had in the past so we can keep you up to date on what's going on too.
Stutsman: Like so many of the issues that we deal with it's just not sending a notice to these people and saying your taxes are overdue. It gets very, very complicated and very involved due to the collection. So I think even education from Pat...
Lyness: OK.
Lacina: Usually if the property is of value it will sell at the tax sale. When there's something out there that all of the people bidding at the tax sales walk away from there's something there that there is seriously wrong. We're looking at a ravine or something. But we can start addressing.
Stutsman: OK good. Thanks Janet.
Discussion: Agenda Items for Upcoming Meeting with Area Legislators
Stutsman: Discussion regarding legislative issues. I put this on. Tuesday at 4:30 the Board will be meeting... The whole County government structure will be meeting with the legislature to talk about upcoming legislative issues that we're interested in having the legislators look at. At the Department Head meeting we suggested that all of the elected officials and department heads limit their discussion to 5 issues that they're interested in and 5 minutes of discussion. So I was kind of going through what ISAC had put together and wanted to get some feeling from the Board of Supervisors about some issues that we might want to bring up to the legislators. I don't know if anybody else spent any time going through the priority list that was put out by Iowa State Association of Counties but I wanted to kind of get some feeling about if you felt that these were some of the issues that we should be talking to the legislators about. One of the things was the Utility Tax Replacement Issue and that was one of the top priorities identified by the ISAC group and wondered if that was something we wanted to spend some time talking to the legislators about. The other thing that I was particularly interested in was Juvenile Services and funding for Juvenile Services. This was outlined as one of the Health and Human Services priorities. Talking about cost for juveniles, the cap that the legislators have placed on placing juveniles in residential care and to maybe spell out to the legislators how this is affecting counties and the cost that we're having to spend for juveniles in detention in shelter care and that is getting to be a bigger and bigger burden for counties. I think we can pull out our claims from last month's for Juvenile Detention Services and it's really having an impact.
Duffy: The last question, is the runaway question going to come up again?
Stutsman: I don't know.
Duffy: If that does, that is really having an impact.
Lacina: It sounds like Senator Lundby will be proposing mandatory arrest for runaways, the idea of getting tough on parents and kids; and I'm sure it will be heavily debated. It's one of those touchy-feely types of bills. You think get control and in some cases a runaway is running away from an abusive situation or in some cases perhaps life threatening, when we arrest them and put them back in that situation without studying it we could be making the matter extremely worse. Or the University community where you have a lot of kids coming in, our detention costs could just explode. Because under the original proposed bill you would have to arrest a runaway and those harboring that runaway. So it has some long reaching implications. It looks like it will come through. Senator Lundby has said she would not support the bill if the legislature doesn't back it financially. But again we've seen those things where they'll throw $100 towards it and the bill is $1,000, it's something we're going to have to watch.
Stutsman: Well I'd be willing to work on developing a problem and solution statement for Juvenile Services and maybe have some documentation to go along with that to present to the legislators. I think we found last year when we met with them they kept asking for facts that they could take back to their colleagues to argue for or against a particular bill. So I think we need to do that and I would be willing to do that with the Juvenile Detention.
Lacina: If you could also build in that runaway issue. On that one I think we ask a lot of questions. What is the situation with the University communities. How will we deal with non county runaways and can we bill back or have they thought about these issues.
Lacina: The other issue on the property tax placement, during the ISAC convention, Ben Stead from the Attorney Generals office who was in the Consumer Advocate division spoke to the assembly about concerns on this property tax rewrite for utility companies and we're trying to get him to put his comments into an article for the ISAC magazine because he had some real good points and concerns. So Bob McQueen and I have been playing phone tag with him but we're going to see if he could put that down. That's one we're going to have to watch. There's a meeting coming up.
Stutsman: This afternoon?
Lacina: Yes. Soon with the utility companies to discuss this again so...
Jordahl: It's a very familiar issue to us on the Board I think but I'm not sure the general public, maybe stating a sentence or 2 about what the changing problem is with the utility taxes.
Lacina: The existing law and formula, I think, is flawed. The utility companies for their property tax bill are billed... 90% of their bill comes from the amount of revenue that they generate in a year. It's this formula that's generated by the Department of Revenue in Des Moines. 10% comes from the value of their property. So if they increase sales their property tax bill goes up. If they have a tough year it goes down. In response to that the utility companies have come in and proposed that a somewhat modified tax freeze be placed on this. There would be a range that the tax could not increase over 2% per year or drop 2% per year but that they would change the method upon which they were taxed. The tax instead of being on revenue would be upon the unit of energy that is produced. There would be a shifting then of this tax bill to any utility company out of state trying to power-wheel electricity in here. So that the code is that our exporters of energy or, apparently the one they are afraid of is Colorado, if they try to power-wheel electricity into the State they'll be paying on a per unit of energy as it comes in and of course it will be of benefit to local providers. This wouldn't apply to them shipping energy out of the State. Since their capacity is about 60% of generation ability we think they'll be doing power wheeling out of Iowa to Chicago. We won't have to pay this but yet anybody coming in would. There are some real questions about how it's going to affect us in the long term. If they increase their generation capacity, increase their revenues, but they have this upper freeze, then every thing above that 2% is free as far as tax is concerned. So it is almost like a tax freeze on a class of property. While I agree with them that the existing formula is flawed, I'm not sure that what they're proposing is going to be a benefit. The other side of this is if this passes I don't know why every other industry that produces oil, the pipeline companies can't say, well we're bringing in a form of energy or everybody else starts saying, well we're bringing corn across the borders so we want to keep the tax up for choleric value. I just don't think they thought about it very carefully, but it's been put together very well by the utility company. They've pushed for it for 2 years and I think this year they're going to hammer it again hard and it will surprise me if it doesn't pass.
Stutsman: Steve can you take the lead on doing the utility thing?
Lacina: I will try.
Stutsman: Do we all agree that this is an issue that we want to bring up to the legislators?
Jordahl: Well I think the question really as to why it's an issue for us is... Steve's done a marvelous job of explaining this situation, just in terms of the impact on the County and our dollars basically. The idea of replacement here I assume we're looking at how do we keep pace financially if this occurs. What basically is going to be the impact on Johnson County?
Bolkcom: We need to generate that number.
Lacina: It would be a tax freeze. We did generate... Sally has got the number for the...
Stutsman: ...for the utilities, what they pay in property taxes.
Lacina: Which was significant.
Stutsman: Well it seems like I remember the largest one it's over 2 million is what they pay. There's a number of them in Johnson County. It's surprising how many utilities there are in Johnson County. The rest were smaller.
Bolkcom: It's that much money, 2 million dollars?
Lacina: Now the impact to our budget is that there will be a shifting of tax burden from that class of property on to residential agricultural and all other classes of property because if our budget increases and they're locked in on the limit that they can be assessed, everybody else picks up the difference on that bill. The school systems are also concerned that by doing this it will affect their bonding ability. They can go out and do a bond issue, look at the value of the property taxes out there but again utilities would be exempt from paying more than this amount so again bond issues would be shifted to residential commercial and other properties for them.
Bolkcom: I think we're opposed to it.
Lacina: I have not seen anything positive about it as far as we're concerned.
Bolkcom: Majorly.
Lacina: But again I think it's going to be skids. They're going to go to legislature and this will be a fast moving piece of (inaudible).
Bolkcom: So if we're going to do a handout on it we ought to generate a number of what the potential cost is to taxpayers, what the loss is and what the shift is going to be so they have some specifics on here's what the affect is on our county.
Lacina: At a minimum in concept. I don't know if we could put a hard number.
Bolkcom: For last year's taxes, utility companies paid this.
Jordahl: Correlate it with the idea of the property tax freeze that we've been under. I mean there's a squeeze here, there's a squeeze there. It seems like in a way it's more of the same.
Lacina: I would love to have my taxes capped, if it goes over 2%.
Jordahl: Anybody opposed to that one?
Bolkcom: The other concurrent issue here and I don't think we're necessarily going to see this as a big issue this year is the whole utility deregulation effort is another big piece of state legislation that it seems like they're trying to get this in place and then we're going to get hit with the next piece of it.
Stutsman: Exactly. That's what their argument is. The utilities want to be prepared when deregulation comes. Are there any other issues that the Board wants to bring forth to the legislature?
Bolkcom: One of the issues that we've heard about recently is the idea of in terms of our Managed Care plan, adjacent counties to us and counties across the state, we have a number of providers that provide services to people that live in a bunch of different Counties. But they reside here. In some cases those counties have decided to quit paying for those services at agencies in Johnson County and we're kind of seeing a shedding of costs and maybe it's just a point of information to our legislators to inform them that this is going on and they should be aware of it.
Stutsman: With the Mental Health Centers and...
Bolkcom: Exactly, and Systems...
Stutsman: Would you like to...
Bolkcom: ...I would talk about that.
Stutsman: Yes. Bring that forth OK. Well maybe we can talk about this again on Tuesday if there are any other issues that people think about. I just wanted to have more of an organized effort from the Supervisors at what we were going to talk about so our time is well spent.
Jordahl: Well let me toss out 2 more ideas. The one is related to the land use discussion that's going on at the State level and that's the question of the role of counties in annexation by cities. Cities are doing kind of a preemptory annexations of land. We had Tiffin where I live in the vicinity of Tiffin and it came and went up to 380 because Coralville had come up to 380 on the other side. It's kind of like OK we'll make sure even though they're not immediate plans to build out to that line. We stand to lose farmland in this way. We had to see maybe unnecessary sprawl as a result of this activity and yet Counties have very little voice in this process. So I'd like to see the question of a role, a formal role, for counties and for joint planning effort to be a formal part of the process of annexation where farmland concerns, farmland preservation, stopping sprawl would be... I hope it is addressed at the state level.
Bolkcom: I think it's a good idea.
Stutsman: Is there agreement that we discuss that? I know there was some proposals brought forth from ISAC concerning TIF's and having more of a say in TIF's and TIF districts.
Jordahl: Yes I don't have the ISAC document in front of me but my recollection from attending the meeting a week or 2 ago is that while there was a point addressed specifically to this question of sprawl that it was not addressed in terms of a County role in annexation.
Stutsman: Are we OK to have Jonathan work on that one? You bring it up you've got to do the home work.
Jordahl: Got to tend to it.
Lacina: The League of Municipalities is very powerful when it comes to the legislature but I think we can at least plant the seed that we have some real concerns about it.
Concerns with Hog Manufacturers
Jordahl: Of course the other thing is hog lots. I think that's going to get addressed by the legislature whether we say anything about it or not. But I think it would be appropriate for us to bring an issue up in to the legislators and talk about our feeling on local control.
Duffy: One thing about that is I think you ought to wait until after the lawsuits are done with and we'll know.
Jordahl: Which lawsuits are those?
Duffy: Oh there are all kinds of them.
Jordahl: Well you mean Humboldt and...
Lacina: (inaudible), Humboldt and yes I think Charlie is right. There are counties that are severely impacted. An example was given during our resolutions process. One county was dealing with, it was either Murphy or DeCoster that had 22 four wheel drive tractors with like 10,000 gallon pumper units behind them that they were pulling from these lagoons and dumping it on the farm fields. Well the impact on the roads from the axles on those tankers was really doing damage up there. So when we start talking about those sizes of operations I'm sure legislation will be addressed as opposed to our talking about the small farmers around here. We don't begin to have the impact.
Bolkcom: No. But if those counties had had local say so we wouldn't have Murphy and DeCoster in those counties probably. I know people are concerned about having Supervisors decide land use in their own counties. It's kind of a novel concern but we wouldn't have these problems probably. Those counties wouldn't have to have those ordinances. They wouldn't be at the Supreme Court in court. They would have just said this doesn't make any sense.
Lacina: Actually I don't think we can exclude, especially the one is a privately owned. We do have rules and regulations on some corporate ownership of ag land but when we have a private individual come in, they would have been here. They're looking for cheap corn. In that one elevator operation, we snuck in the exit of that one out by Algona, Iowa and they bought the elevator for 3 million, put 7 million more into it. When they light the thing up it looks like an airport with these floodlights. Have a viaduct under the rail line going over to this auxiliary plant and then they load huge feed trains that they ship to the Carolinas for their other hog operations. The scope and scale of those things...
Bolkcom: One of the other issues was we changed the state agricultural laws to allow these folks to come in and own this kind of ground.
Lacina: How did we change it to allow them?
Bolkcom: There were changes at the State level. The State Legislature and the Governor changed the laws about who could own what, that allowed these big folks with out of state interests to come in.
Stutsman: I'm not hearing a majority wanting to address this with the legislators.
Lacina: I think we should stay away from that right now.
Duffy: Sally, we do have a lot of small farmers with hog lots and there is a difference in the hog lot and confinement area or open hog lot that they haul out from say straw for bedding and quite a few of these are south, our Amish friends and there's a few other ones around.
Stutsman: I guess my feeling is that although I think this is a very important issue for the State of Iowa I don't think it's a high priority for Johnson County at this time.
Jordahl: Well in terms of like what is the consensus of the Board is whether we have an immediate issue in Johnson County I may agree that we have... We don't have an airport sized hog confinement operation in Johnson County. However I think in talking to our legislators we're talking about the State. We're not just talking about Johnson County. ISAC motion failed for people to support the Humboldt Supervisors. In part I think as Charlie is saying because the Supreme Court hasn't decided it yet. But I think what I would like to say to our legislators is that we support the idea of local control. If that's what we're at...
Stutsman: I'm not ready to say that yet.
Duffy: I'm not ready to say that.
Jordahl: That's what we're not in agreement about. I'd like for you to make that clear. I would like to stress the point though that if we had, as Joe said if they had had regulation in the places where they now have problems, they may not now have problems. Just because we don't have a massive hog confinement here at the present time doesn't mean that we shouldn't address the question and preempt that problem.
Stutsman: Jonathan what I'm trying to do today is get some issues that we all agree on that we thing are top priorities. I'm not hearing that agreement on that particular issue. You certainly can talk on an individual basis...
Jordahl: I hear that there's not agreement about it.
Stutsman: But for us to come forth as this is top priorities from the Johnson County Board of Supervisors I'm not hearing that. So I think we pretty well hit our limit haven't we of the 5 issues that...
Inmate Contributions to Confinement Expenses
Lacina: The only other thing I can think of is last year, and we need to ask Sheriff Bob Carpenter on this one. There was some legislation where inmates were supposed to pay their own way. Now when you have someone that's broke, that have committed a crime to get money and then they can't... But I guess if he doesn't have that as an issue I wouldn't mind just having him give us an update so we know...
Stutsman: OK, that's a good idea.
Jordahl: Yes I have some information on that too from Cedar Rapids where they are effectively collecting some money through that program.
Lacina: But so far the projections of revenues have not come close. I mean they're collecting a few bucks but they were saying how this was supposed to be such a benefit to the Counties and it's like getting blood out of a turnip.
Stutsman: I didn't deal with that particular issue or a lot of the Mental Health issues because I assumed that Craig would deal with those and I thought Bob would deal with that.
Duffy: I think he got some good ones up front that's going to take some time.
Bolkcom: How about the ICN?
Lacina: Oh, that's a really good one.
Jordahl: Yes.
Bolkcom: We want it to connect to counties.
Lacina: Our tax dollars paid for this fiber-optic system for the State and the Senate last year failed to allow counties to connect. I do not understand how they can block us when we're 35 feet away from the damn thing across the street from the National Guard Armory and yet they will discriminate against one other governmental agency and not let us lock on. When it was proposed, well at least let us lock on for some fee. So not only do we pay the taxes from our citizens but we'll also pay you a fee. They still turned it down because of the strength of the telephone lobby in my opinion that got to that committee.
Bolkcom: Well I know our people worked hard. Our Senators worked hard on this.
Lacina: But I think that is an issue we need to talk just out of fairness. (Inaudible).
Bolkcom: Short one just in passing we'd like to be hooked up.
Lacina: Very good point.
Stutsman: ICN. Who wants to talk about that or take the lead on that?
Bolkcom: I will. I would just mention it. I wouldn't probably write something up on it.
Jordahl: But I think it should be seen in the context of the investment we're making in computer technology. We're stringing our own fiber optic lines.
Stutsman: OK we pretty well have 5 issues identified. So if that's OK we can talk about this again on Tuesday if there are any changes or whatever. After we have our 5 minute limit.
Bolkcom: Everybody gets a minute.
Stutsman: Lots of documentation. Any inquiries or reports from the public?
REVEREND BOB WELSH: PROCEDURES DURING FORMAL AND INFORMAL MEETINGS
Reverend Bob Welsh: Just a procedural question. In kindness it does not make any sense to me for you to adjourn from your formal meeting, and go into your informal meeting to discuss the SEATS application to Heritage and then to shift back. There is nothing wrong in having discussion in your formal meeting.
Stutsman: It wasn't listed that way on the agenda, Bob. It said motion, it didn't say discussion.
Welsh: I'm just saying in the future it seems to me that you might include discussion and authorization.
Peters: I think the other thing to remember also is that when you have something on an informal agenda your minutes are more elaborate.
Stutsman: On the informal.
Peters: There is conversation where that is not on the formal.
Lacina: But both are televised, the formal and the informal today so...
Peters: It's just documentation for down the road.
Stutsman: That would have been discussed on Tuesday but there again we were under that time frame that we needed to get this taken care of today, because the deadline is tomorrow. I understand your concerns and I'm looking for ways to streamline the system but circumstances sometimes warrant things to be a little awkward.
CLIFFORD BELL: LEGALITY OF FRINGE AREA AGREEMENTS
Clifford Bell: I'd like to ask the Board of Supervisors to take up with the legislature this idea that, not to go along with the Zoning or the fringe area, but the counties are losing a lot of tax dollars because the City comes out in the fringe area and what not and says you can't build here, you can't do this. Well when are we going to annex and we'll put in whatever we want and we'll do this. I think the legislature ought to look at this, whether the fringe area is legal or not, It's governmentation without representation. But I think the county ought to be entitled if these cities want to move this area or move that area, you've got 2,200 acres around Coralville we're going to lose all of the taxation for the county. The county ought to be entitled to a portion of this property tax for a period of so many years. This will stop a lot of this problem, the people (inaudible). This property tax, if the city doesn't know they're going to get it, all of the property tax, that's a windfall for them. What about the Industrial Park and all of these other areas. I'd like to have the Board of Supervisors take this up with the legislators. See if we can't get something done with this idea, something fast with this idea that the County considering it's losing, the fire department. What I'm getting is that the fire departments are losing their tax revenue. In some way a portion of this taxation ought to stay with the County and not go to the City or a municipality.
Lacina: For example in the western part of the County there was an annexation that took enough property that cost the volunteer fire department out there the pumper truck. As the cities expand, then the rural areas, the townships, have to kick in to those fire departments then for the equipment, which is becoming more expensive. They're losing their tax base because they're not allowed to tax in that municipality for that fire protection. So suddenly if a farmer gets in trouble in a silo or a building or a house catches on fire, it just makes the mutual aid agreement more important. But again, those local fire departments are really harmed by that and the maintenance of our cemeteries and that whole tax base the way it's set up.
Bell: Well something could be done along this same way with the 911. The Sheriff just updated their equipment by the 911 costs. Well something along that line, but the legislature should be able to work out something, along this agreement here. A portion of that tax dollar still remains in the County instead of going in municipalities.
Lacina: Or at least a phase out period where if they annex it that the townships would lost that revenue over a 2 year period or something. So at least they could make some transition. But once it's annexed it's gone.
Bolkcom: We need to make...
Stutsman: Thank you.
Bolkcom: Go ahead.
Stutsman: I was just going to thank Cliff for bringing that up.
Bolkcom: That's a good one. I think Jonathan hit on it earlier. I think we need to make some more rules about, make it harder for cities in part, I don't mean harder. There's a good reason for cities and counties to work together when cities are growing and counties have the space they want, but right now they pretty much just at will annex it, and they don't have to, we get a letter about it and we don't really have any say so about it. There should be some compatibility of plans between the 2, there's a number of things in terms of fringe area agreements if people want to annex they should have a fringe area agreement with the County. In the case of Coralville we don't have that now. But we need some more hoops so that cities, I think, have to really consider what they're doing as opposed to just grabbing land.
Stutsman: OK.
Duffy: I've been given reports on this for a couple years, being on the State Economic Development Board.
Jordahl: Maybe you and I could work on that together some.
Stutsman: Yes.
Lacina: Could you build that into your annexation proposal?
Jordahl: It could be quite a report I'll be writing this weekend, yes.
Lacina: It could be listed as...
Stutsman: 5....
Jordahl: Yes, 5 minute report.
Stutsman: Anything else? Any other reports or inquiries from the public? OK, reports and inquiries from the Board of Supervisors. Jonathan? We'll start with you today.
Jordahl: Thank you. I don't know if it would be appropriate to introduce a friend of mine who has played a significant role in the community here is visiting us today. Ed Gaines is here. Ed served as the operator of the coffee shop at the International Center at the University following the same model as Wild Bill's Coffee Shop at the School of Social Work. I'm part of the School of Social Work's network of services to the University. Ed was quite a nice presence there, I'm glad to see him here today. Let's see, I attended along with Steve a legislative forum up at the Sixth Judicial District Offices in Cedar Rapids Tuesday night. There was a focus there on restorative justice, which is a marvelous concept. Gary Hinzman is kind of I think spearheading nationally. Where the idea is, as Gary put it very well the old model of justice here, you've got your scales of justice and somebody commits a crime, one goes down. So the idea is that OK person gets hurt, how do we fix that, well we hurt the offender. Now everybody's equal. Gary's saying there's a better way of doing this that the restorative justice concept is that somebody goes down, well let's look at a way of bringing that person back up. Of healing the society through maybe some form of restitution, a payment, of bringing the person's horse back and maybe doing some additional restitution as well. It's a concept with broad applications I think culturally and I'm very excited about this. Steve may want to say some more about that. Then we met with the, I'll just skim over, a lot of stuff has been going on and people may want to go into this in more detail. We met with the department heads and elected officials, what was that Monday?
Stutsman: Tuesday.
Jordahl: Tuesday, and continuing I think a really healthy process of getting all of us together in County Government to talk and in fact we met separately with the elected officials for half and hour before the department heads meeting which I think is again a nice move of getting us all together and talking about what our mutual concerns are. Joe is central in the Heritage Area Agency on Aging, area task force on aging. That body organized a town meeting at the Senior Center, also with the legislators and Joe may say more about that. I went to the United Way hearings last night along with Sally and Joe, although we stayed in separate parts of the room so as to avoid any appearance of an illegal meeting. It's a very wonderful place. United Way, you hear that and you think, oh well that's charity. What United Way is, it's almost like another government where they have all of this funding and they distribute it to agencies. I've got this book here, this is a visual aid here. This is the United Way funding application volume. This is all the local non-profits here. There are 5 hundred and 50 some odd pages of information about the operation of these agencies. They make an appeal to the United Way for funding and there's a very interesting page in the front of this thing that lists the funding provided through the United Way and through the governmental agencies of Coralville, Iowa City, and Johnson County. I think we can hold our heads up high in Johnson County for our commitment to social services. We do a really fair job of balancing the contributions of Iowa City and the United Way and it really makes me proud to be part of this. Sally I think maybe, or Linda. Linda Whittaker is here who is also, she's a member of the Board of United Way and was there last night. It's a wonderful opportunity to hear about. During these hearings people come and make presentations for half an hour about the operation of their agency. So for people interested in social services in the Iowa City/Johnson County area it's a wonderful way to learn about it. It was held at the Lepic-Kroeger Real Estate building there that you can't help but notice over at the intersection of 218 and Highway 1. We appreciate the use of that facility. It's a good way to learn about what's going on. Tonight I'm going to the HACAP, Hawkeye Area Community Action Program Board of Director's meeting in Cedar Rapids so back up to Cedar Rapids at 6:00. Let's see here, coming up we have another Strategic Planning meeting of the Board of Supervisors on Friday. Again a process I'm pleased to be a part of. I think this is very healthy for the County, we're talking together about mutual goals, making commitments and assignments and laying out ways of moving forward. The particular, I can't remember what it is, earlier we mentioned it. It's coming out of that, but one of the things that's coming out of that is the Communications Committee that Joe is really taking the lead on, I'm co-chairing I think. On Friday we'll meet. The Computer Implementation Committee known as the What/When Committee on Friday is meeting as well. Saturday I'm going on a tour of the peninsula between Coralville and Iowa City there, by the Iowa River Power and Company as part of the Regional Trails and Bicycling Committee. We're going to be looking at where bike trails will go. That area's going to be turned into park along with some of the service roads that are being used to deal with Iowa City's new wells being constructed there. Compensation Board as has been mentioned meets Monday at 6:00 here and 7:00 p.m. Monday, there's a film at the library, this is Monday the what....
Stutsman: No, it was last Monday.
Jordahl: Oh, it was last Monday, oops, scratch that one.
Stutsman: Jon, can you wind it up?
Jordahl: Yes, I'm winding it up. The Zoning Commission meets this coming Monday here in this room 6:00 and we'll be interviewing for director of the Human Resources, Administrator for Human Resources next week and SEATS Director I think the week after so we're busy.
Stutsman: Thank you. Joe, anything?
Bolkcom: Great report. I think I'll just maybe fill in a few places. The task force on aging did meet yesterday. We had a great meeting with our State Legislators on some senior issues that we're pushing. The major talk was about nursing home care and trying to make sure that people get good care in nursing homes. Also attended United Way last night. We had terrific presentations by 5 agencies, just very articulate and very well put together and I think they're doing some good work. Just a note about the department head meeting, this is really a thank you to department heads and elected officials. I think we had probably one of our best department head meetings we've had in a long time on Tuesday. We've got a lot of cooperation happening and it's great to see that. Next Tuesday night, December 9, State Representative Roe Foege is having a forum on the Human Services Restructuring Task Force and that will be in room A at the public library. Sally will be facilitating that meeting as she has been very involved in discussions about what's going on with human services restructuring in the State. That will be from 7 to 9 Tuesday, December 9 at the Iowa City Library. So if you're interested in human services, come on out to that meeting. It's been busy, but things I think are going pretty well. Thanks.
Stutsman: Charlie's been busy too.
Duffy: Well I'd like to start back at Thanksgiving.
Stutsman: Oh dear.
Duffy: In our Senior Dining Program, I wish to personally thank. I know the Senior Dining Committee will feel the same way that again we had volunteers with our home delivered meals program and volunteers that do most of the cooking and have our Senior Center Thanksgiving dinner. To mention any names I don't think I'll do that, I don't want to leave anybody out, but the Coralville Optimist Club has been helping us from way back in the 70's. We have people lined up to help with home delivered meals at Christmas already and the folks that fix the Christmas dinner. Actually at Christmas there will be more participants than I think for Thanksgiving, wouldn't you say so? So they're just great to get up there at Christmas and Thanksgiving to help with home delivered meals. The Johnson County Task Force, we don't want to leave out Harold Steger, who is I think still chair of the AARP, or connected with it, when it comes to senior citizens and probably shouldn't say this, it's not a scare tactic, but it looks to me the information that I get from Harold that maybe Social Security will be taxed more for a lot of senior citizens and the services will be cut. So nobody knows exactly how this thing is going to turn out. Last week I went out to Kent Park. It was good weather to build out there, the Environmental Center, all the footings are laid and they have a real nice path for walking around the park. So if you haven't been out there lately, it looks nice and they're off to a great start. Let's see, I went to Des Moines for a day and a half and actually got snowed in yesterday. It was a Farm Bureau convention, I usually go to that and the convention center is a large building, it was packed. With 54 different groups there that exhibitors had and it was everything from soil conservation, Trees Forever, conservation and land stewardship, our wellness group was there, took over for Trees Forever, and had a young member banquet. There were even banks there so a young person could get started and it was just a real good meeting. A lot of our State people that represent us show up there, Tom Miller, Attorney Tom Miller, or Attorney General, I don't think has missed one of these in a long time. Tom, is that...
Stutsman: Nielson...
Duffy: He was there and of course Governor Branstad, Chuck Grassley gave a real nice talk. I wish I just could have stayed another evening but I couldn't do it. Of the 99 counties, Johnson County was one of the 4 counties that they recognized and had a good display up there for the ag days. They got a special recommendation for that. Folks connected with that are really probably the fact that they were one of the group. Economic development, that comes up a lot and there were several different people up there and different exhibitions on economic development so indeed very important. There's a Rural Economic Development Council that I'm on and we're going to have some meetings and one will be at Ottumwa on home based small businesses and things of that sort. So I could talk another 5 minutes but I won't.
Stutsman: OK, Steve.
REPORTS (LACINA): POSSIBLE PHONE SCAM; AND UTILITY TAX ENHANCEMENT
Lacina: There's some type of phone bank system
calling local residents from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, referring
to a lottery club. Right now we don't know if it's
legal or illegal, but anybody that gets these calls if you would
like to pass the information on to me, I would like to track
this. I received several calls last night. Again they were very
vague and when specific questions were asked, they hung up, but
we know they're coming from the Fort Lauderdale area. So
anyway, we're tracking that. I continued work on the
contact, well I guess I would call... We are going to try to
have a representative from the Attorney General's Office to
write an article for the Iowa State Association of Counties
magazine to help educate all 99 counties about some of the
concerns. So locally we have a meeting this afternoon with
utility companies at the bank to get their next pitch. They come
back, get input, go back and make modifications and come back and
do it again. We know that one's going to be on a fast track
legislatively. I am on the Board of Directors for Sixth Judicial
and I have their budget which I will be passing through. From the
standpoint of the Auditor, we need to refer to it in a public
meeting and then have a copy. So we'll be doing that to meet
the requirements of the State. Then we did have our legislative
night the other night that Jonathan was at. Each year we meet
with the legislators. The six counties try to address detention
issues. We have been very successful in setting up programs that
not only deal with the individual, our consumer, the criminal so
to speak, but also working with we have a teacher on staff
that's a master's degree that works with the kids in
the family and the spouses so that the whole family unit is doing
everything that's in their power to help the individual have
a productive life. We have found that by doing that, we have been
much more effective in converting people from a criminal way of
life into a positive force in the community. With Cedar Rapids
and the jobs they've got up there, we have also been more
fortunate in getting them placed. We're real pleased with
the outcome. Of course on some of the real hard cores, Barb
McDonald is working on a matrix system which she presented the
other night. We had seen it earlier. We're helping her,
it's an initial evaluation of the individual to see what the
statistic probability would be of them committing more crimes or
recidivism. By putting them through this analysis and the judges
are interested too, being able to set it up on a laptop when they
do the sentencing, they'll be able to do a quick analysis
and help them determine whether it's best to put them into
an educational component, a job training component or for those
that are really at risk, repeat offenders and that, then they
fall into a different classification and may end up having to do
some hard time or be under closer supervision. So that's
something that's been very positive, the Sixth Judicial has
been developing it and has made it's first cut through a
National Review Board. Every year, there is a national
convention, and this is one project that has been promoted as far
as being promoted nationally and has made its first cut and
we'll see how much farther it gets to see if we're able
to present it at the national convention. That's it.
REPORT (STUTSMAN): ATTENDED MECCA PRESS CONFERENCE
Stutsman: OK, thank you. Good reports this morning. I
wanted to just add that I attended a press conference yesterday
that was put on by MECCA. It was to increase public awareness in
Cedar, Iowa, Johnson, and Washington Counties. About the holidays
coming up and warning people about the dangers of driving drunk.
They do this every year and there was a fairly good
representation by the press at the conference. There was a panel
of different people talking about their perspectives on driving
drunk and how it impacts the County and the City. The people on
the panel were R.J. Winklehake, Mike Brotherton, from the Iowa
City Police Department, J. Patrick White, Dick Schwab from NCS.
It was good that he was on the panel because he presented a
business perspective and how they handle the holidays and parties
and their role that they try to do to minimize people drinking
and getting out of control. Pat White did an excellent job of
representing the County Attorney's Office and the role that
they play in working with people who have been convicted of drunk
driving and things. So it was a good press conference and I think
it's great that MECCA does this every year. I think
it's part of their education program to alert the community
of the dangers of drunk driving and to kind of alert people that
the holidays are coming up and to keep it in mind that you can
enjoy the holidays without getting killed or seriously maimed.
That takes care of it for my report. Is there anything else?
Jordahl: Well I overlooked a matter in terms of reporting on the goings on in Cedar Rapids with the Sixth Judicial District and the Legislators Forum. We had a very interesting report that Gary Hinzman had put together here that's available in this office if you'd like to look it over. It says here Final Report to the Commission on Community Justice. As Steve was saying the real focus there is to help people transition from the correctional system to the community. So to do that in a healthy way so that people are restored to life together with the community as productive citizens rather than punished. It's a very interesting report in terms of addressing some misconceptions that people have. The only one that sticks in my mind right now is that people are thinking that life sentence means you get out halfway through for good behavior. In Iowa a life sentence is just that, a life sentence. As he puts it, it's tantamount to a death sentence, you will die in jail. So that's not a restorative concept but it's one of the things that the report deals with in looking at addressing misperceptions and looking at positive way of changing the community and criminal justice system.
Lacina: On a lighter note.
Jordahl: Yes, let's do that.
Report (Lacina): Johnson County Mitten Tree
Lacina: We have a memo going across our desks which we need to deal with quickly and that's the mitten tree. In the past what we've done was we placed a pine tree downstairs and have decorated it with mittens and hats and with some boxes underneath it for food that then over the holidays is distributed to less fortunate families. I strongly support that, I think it does a lot of good. It is not a religious tree, it is a holiday tree, mitten tree, and we need to move quickly. So as you see that, if you would sign off yes, no. If it's yes, then we'll get that up.
Bolkcom: Can we get a tree from Kent Park? Can Conservation provide a tree? They couldn't last year.
Lacina: Last year they did not have an extra.
Peters: They couldn't.
Duffy: The only time I think.
Bolkcom: Can they this year?
Peters: We can ask.
Bolkcom: OK.
Stutsman: Along the same holiday lines in donations. It was announced last night at the United Way hearings when Project Holiday distribution is, I think it would be good to maybe send a memo out to County employees to maybe alert them when it is so that we can give consideration to people that will be picking up donations at the Armory.
Bolkcom: 17th and 18th.
Peters: OK.
Bolkcom: Of December.
Duffy: Sally it maybe...
Stutsman: Oh, we got done too early with our meeting.
Bolkcom: I've got one more thing too.
Stutsman: OK.
Duffy: The East Central Iowa Council of Governments region 10 ISTEA technical advisors committee, that was last Wednesday up at Kirkwood. Members and alternates, Jonathan you sat in for Joe. But to save a little time, there's a lot of dollars here, this is from gas tax.
Stutsman: I think Jonathan you pretty well went through that.
Jordahl: Yes, I talked about that. I think I did a better job of presenting the report I pushed on bicycle trails. Charlie if you wanted to speak to the roads projects, maybe that's...
Duffy: Well because I'm on the... The roads and the bicycles are all together here, it shows what is what. You're talking big dollars, I'll just read you off and maybe...
Jordahl: Well there was one specific question I had Charlie. There was a question about the Wapsi Avenue south of Lone Tree. Whether that was going to have to be put off or not. I think because those 2 bridge projects were pulled out of there by another County. There was then going to be money to go ahead and do our Wapsi Avenue project in FY99. I wasn't quite clear about that.
Duffy: Really what has happened that this is getting in kind of late. We discussed this but we didn't know we'd get the funding. There were 6 projects and they think they can fund 5 of them. That Lone Tree thing has been hanging on quite well, Jonathan, and north of Lone Tree too. Some of it is matching funds that we'll have to vote really if we're going to do some of these things. Maybe we won't have to decide to, I think the roads are all right, but there's some other things, matching funds, that we maybe won't have the money to do it.
Bolkcom: For what?
Duffy: We probably want to get... But like I say, you're talking here a lot of money, here's one for 3 million, 506, no that's billion. 3 billion 506 million, 506 dollars for all across the United States, I think it's something like 225 billion or something but it would take us quite a while to go through but if you want to look at them.
Lacina: Billion here, billion there.
Stutsman: Joe, did you have...
Bolkcom: Yes, Tuesday I noted that Jude West had made a presentation. I did talk to him, he's looking at his schedule, he's more than interested in doing a leadership management seminar for us and other elected officials and department heads.
Stutsman: In service.
Bolkcom: In service thing. He does a very good job and we're trying to promote a little bit of that. He's up for it and will know... I said some time between now and the end of January, a lunch type of thing, so he'll get back to us with some dates.
Stutsman: Very good.
Lacina: The feedback from some of the department heads has been very positive on that. In fact, the comment made yesterday was that we could consider having once or twice a year having leaders or innovators to come in and do a presentation for the employees. I think it's a good idea.
Bolkcom: Great.
Jordahl: Let me try to correct the impression I left about this report a moment ago, Steve is right, we need to lighten that up. The example I gave about being tough on crime here is sort of a counter example of the main point that Gary has tried to make on changing the pattern of justice. His point is that we're being plenty tough on crime already and that we need to look at ways of changing the system so as to be more effective in actually doing what the community wishes, which is to have people fixed when they come out of jail, instead of perhaps being hardened by the experience.
Lacina: We don't deal with lifers though. The study refers to the penitentiaries. The Sixth Judicial is a residential facility for people who have hope of being rehabilitated. We do have lock downs, we do have people that do not leave the facility, but in general our clients are people who have been identified as being hopefully rehabilitated. So that's the program we go through, we don't deal with the lifers.
Jordahl: Yes, I was just talking about attitudes. It was a study of attitudes State wide and yes, this is a community correctional transitional program, something like that would be a way of saying it.
Stutsman: Report from the County Attorney?
Lyness: Nothing.
Stutsman: Nothing Janet?
Welsh: Uh....
Stutsman: We've already had discussion from the public. OK, go ahead.
Welsh: In relation to the editorial paper this morning, it was my observation that County Supervisors spend more than 3/4's of their time working. I think that people need to realize the amount of time that you all spend.
Bolkcom: What paper?
Lacina: Thank you Bob.
Stutsman: Yes, thank you Bob.
Duffy: Bob, we're down on the payroll as full time employees so somebody didn't do their home work.
Lacina: Well, that was me. I guess I was under the understanding that we were down as 3/4 time.
Stutsman: I was always told that. That was from the County Attorney's Office, that we're listed as 3/4 time.
Lacina: Yes, but I thought 3/4.
Peters: That's correct, that's how you're listed.
Duffy: No, it's down on the payroll, look at the payroll.
Bolkcom: Irregardless, I think we're doing a... The County is pretty well managed right now, the reports kind of indicate what we're working on, the budget's in good shape, our services are terrific wherever you look, and we should feel good about that.
Lacina: Well it's better to hear it from the public than pat ourselves on the back.
Bolkcom: It is.
Stutsman: OK, anything else?
Bolkcom: Thanks, Bob.
Stutsman: We are adjourned.
Meeting adjourned at 10:35 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Melinda McCleary and Casie Parkins, Recording Secretaries