Reconvened at 10:50 a.m.

Bolkcom: We're back in session. We're down to item b, reports and inquiries from members of the public. Does anybody wish to address the Board this morning?

Pat Jensen Yes. I would like to...

Bolkcom: Please identify yourself.

Jensen: Oh, excuse me. Pat Jensen. I would like to say thanks to the Board for putting money into the budget for Capital Improvements. I think it's a very good idea. I have a question, however, to what happens to that money. The $600,000 that you put into Fiscal Year '99, does that money just sit there or is it being invested this year so that at the end of the year you have more than $600,000? Or is the $600,000 just on paper carried over, accrued to next year? Is it being invested? If it's being invested, who makes the decision as to how it has been invested?

Bolkcom: It is being invested. All of the Board's reserves are being invested. We have several million dollars, actually, the Coralville roads money, a couple million dollars there. It's all invested. It's principally and pretty conservatively invested in c.d.'s. The Board of Supervisors, in consultation with the Treasurer's Office, makes the decision on where those investments are made. But at this point the Board has a fairly conservative posture about how to invest it's money. It's principally in c.d.'s and in our...

Stutsman: You might also add that it's spread among local banks. You know, c.d.'s.

Jensen: I just wasn't sure how that...

Bolkcom: Sure.

Jensen: Thank you, that's good to know.

Bolkcom: So it is generating some interest.

Jensen: Good.

Bolkcom: All right. Any other member of the public wish to address the Board this morning on any topic?

Bolkcom: We're down to item c, reports and inquiries from members of the Board. Does any member of the Board have a report this morning? Charlie?

Duffy: I'll just give one. I'm on this Economic Development Board, I think almost everybody knows that. This is sad really, there is a 5 state region; we call it the Northern Great Plains. I'm just reading here for example in North Dakota, in the past 2 years there's been 2,511 farms that have gone out of business and another 1,807 are expected to quit this year. So you have to think of our neighbors around Iowa. It's tough enough in Iowa, but something like this is just too bad. They've had bad weather out there, the prices on... I suppose a lot of these folks have cattle, are way down, and there's other things. But to see again 2,511 farms so far this year with another 1,807 are expected to quit. So what that really means they're getting into incorporated farming and some of this trend has worked its way into Iowa. Someday the corporations will control the food that we eat plus the rural levy in the rural areas. There are some things that we can do and they're going to have a seminar in Crookston, Minnesota on the subject. But if you want to attend it could be as much as $225 for each one that attends. It would be interesting to go, but it's too bad. I think this trend is going to continue unless we do something at the local level, State level, Federal level. There will be a lot of farmers in Iowa this year that are plain going to go broke. End of my report.

Bolkcom: I think you're right it's a depressing outlook, actually. Steve?

Lacina: I serve on the MECCA Finance Board as well as Board of Directors and the State and other agencies are holding up on funds. So we're about 100,000 roughly light on revenues that are owed to us. Compounding the problem is the State continues to place limits as to what we collect. With managed care we're actually running into situations of a client in the county that we're caring for, in a residential setting with liver damage, that when the individual gets out and drinks, immediately ends up in intensive care at the hospital becomes dried out, we get them back. They've used up all of their insurance. We feel the next time the individual goes out will probably be a terminal dose of alcohol and we're struggling trying to find other sources of revenue to keep the individual in there to get some assistance. But with the tightening up of the State and the slowdown, we're waiting 60 to 90 days for some of these claims to come back through managed care and be processed and stuff. It really puts a lot of pressure under staff and they're operating without wage increases. So just speaking on my own behalf if you have a chance to call Art or staff over there, just would really appreciate you telling them what a great job they do because they're just running on fumes, so to speak, in the tank and are doing a great job. They really care, but morale wise it's difficult for a case worker to work with somebody and see some potential but then realize that for the lack of an additional $30 or $40 we can't keep them a little bit longer and maybe have permanent care. We're dumping them out to soon because somebody is saying, that's it State says this is the guideline, that individual is out. We're just falling a little short of that, a few dollars short of maybe curing the individual instead it's probably going to end up in a terminal case. So if you have a chance give them a call, tell them what a great job they do. They do a great job over there.

Bolkcom: Good suggestion, Steve. It's been a real roller coaster for MECCA, in terms of the last few years of managed care, the cash flow, and State changes. Managed care has been a mixed bag, I think. Then we talk for an hour about our jail, and folks that don't get the kind of care they might need at MECCA end up in bigger trouble later on. Sally?

Stutsman: Just wanted to report that the Empowerment Zone... Designation for us to be an Empowerment Zone and the grant asking for some additional funding was submitted. Right, Cheryl? Cheryl Whitney is here and she... There were a number people that worked on the grant and the designation and things, but I think when it got down to actually writing, a lot of that went to Cheryl, and Jan Peterson from the DECAT Project, and Linda Severson. I know they spent a long night, Friday getting it all together, but it has been turned in so we'll just wait to see how that comes out on the State level. We had an Innovation Zone meeting the other day and because of the Empowerment legislation, you know there was some discussion about what we do with Innovation Zone on the local level and it was the consensus of the group that we continue to meet. Probably spend our time focusing more on Workforce Development and how we can impact people trying to transition off of welfare and working along those lines. I also wanted to mention to the Board that the Soil and Water Conservation District is holding a meeting on September 23rd from 7 to 9 at the 4-H Fairgrounds at Montgomery Hall. The name of the program will be "Living in Rural Johnson County: Sights, Sounds and Smells". The meeting is an outgrowth of the Non Farmers Guide to Agriculture, they have grant funding from the Leopold Center to do some programming on a local level. So their focus this year is going to be talking about living in rural Johnson County. They will have some displays and some exhibits available for people and then they will divide up into discussion groups. They will be talking about such things as: what will living in rural Johnson County mean, what we have learned in the last 20 years that can help guide growth in the next 20 years, where will our food be produced, who will produce it and what will they produce, and should farmland in this county be protected, is so how and if not why. It sounds like an interesting evening. I think there should be good discussion so I think we... I encourage the Board to attend as well as members from the community. I think it would be a good opportunity to hear what people are thinking about rural Johnson County as we talk about our land use planning and what's going on. It would be a good opportunity for more feedback. That's it.

Bolkcom: That's good. Jonathan?

Jordahl: I just want to make sure that members of the Board knew that there's a sort of intermediate option that... I was meeting with Mike Gardner and Rick, and a developer, and his consultant, and so forth, yesterday morning about this issue of roads and development, the relationship between the 2. Mike has expressed in conversation with me and again yesterday that what he really wants to see is the geometry of roads fixed. It's not so much that they get all the way to hard surface which is a fantastically expensive thing, but that we should be thinking in our conversations about this and as we go forward with County Transportation Plan, the idea that there's the existing state of the gravel road, then there's fixing the geometry of it, and then there's the question of dust control or of hard surfacing the road. So there's another stage in there which would be a tremendous contribution to the safety of the road, making the corners less sharp, making the hills less steep and blind, maybe obtaining wider right of way. So that then when we can afford to, we could go ahead with the hard surfacing of the road and it has some time to be packed down and stuff too. I don't think that's had enough play in our earlier conversations about this and it's something to be aware of as we go forward.

Lacina: In plattings we do require, if we anticipate any expansion on the road, the developer to give us basically, 17 feet or whatever we feel is necessary. Does he want to go out more aggressively and pursue some of these outside of the development range then?

Jordahl: I'm not sure what detail this is going to have. But when we've looked at the Transportation Management Plan that we have from them, there's some dollar amounts associated with upgrading roads that reflect going all the way to fixing the road. It is possible to improve the safety of the road at an intermediate level by doing the right of way acquisition and regrading that would ultimately be necessary for hard surfacing, at a lower cost. I think it's an interesting new wrinkle in the discussion.

Bolkcom: It's been a subplot of Mike's conversation with us though. It's not just putting a new surface down, it is (inaudible) a lot of the cost is getting the grade the way we want it for safety.

Jordahl: Right.

Lacina: But we are identifying critical areas like the intersection down by the Sharon Church where we had that curve which we took out and reconstructed into the T intersection to conform with the State. But that might be one of the things that he builds into his Road Plan, is 5 or 6 realignment projects where we just simply need to go in and realign some curves. We'll continue to do the 90 parallels instead of the sweeping curves in some of those areas.

Jordahl: Yes.

Bolkcom: Anything else?

Jordahl: I'll stop there.

Bolkcom: Thanks. I had just a couple of brief things. The Board visited with a resident that lives out on North Liberty Road, on Tuesday, Paul Bonnett, regarding rumble strips. I had an opportunity to stop out there last evening just to listen and they are really loud at that intersection. We put those in about 3 years ago and Mike is still continuing to investigate through the Iowa Department of Transportation whether or not we can find something to put in those rumble strips to continue to get the safety that they've provided, but also knock the noise down a little bit. They're pretty rough on your car actually, as well, they're pretty aggressive strips. So I guess we'll continue to follow-up on that with Mike. I also had an opportunity to drive down West Overlook, last evening which our crews are out there doing their thing and that looks like quite a project. Also the Board met again this week to talk about our Comprehensive Land Use Plan. We continue to make progress on that, there's a hope that we'll have a draft document to the Zoning Commission, hopefully in the next couple weeks and then back for a series of a couple of public hearings anyway. This meeting coming up with the Soil and Water Conservation District should be some help to the Board in it's conversation around that. Regarding the discussion about the Senior Center and getting together, we've talked about maybe one or 2 Supervisors. I guess since we're all together, is anybody interested in sitting in on that? I would be interested in being one of those members. Anybody else? Any volunteers?

Duffy: I'd say maybe Sally would be a good one or else Jonathan.

Stutsman: I was going to say Charlie...

Duffy: I'm up there all of the time anyway so somebody else...

Stutsman: OK.

Bolkcom: Don't fight.

Jordahl: I'd be happy to if people are... If Sally and Charlie are deferring to each other maybe I should volunteer.

Bolkcom: All right. I got a volunteer.

Stutsman: I think it's important to have somebody who can be a liaison to the Space Needs Committee and Pat certainly can do that.

Bolkcom: All right. OK. That's all I had. Pat do you have a report? Anything?

White: No. I'm not on the agenda.

Bolkcom: I know you're not, but... Sorry that you're not.

Duffy: Joe (inaudible)

Stutsman: Oh, he isn't.

Bolkcom: He got chopped off. Looks like a permanent change.

Duffy: The report that I just gave about the Northern Great Plains, I didn't want to dominate the meeting. But Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota are this region and it's the region for Economic Development. I can't read this whole thing, it'd take about 5 or 10 minutes. But it's to build a strong economic future for the northern Great Plains, that's us. I can either give you a copy of this or you can read this one.

Lacina: Do you want to just hand it...

Bolkcom: If you'd circulate it, that would be good Charlie. I think people would be interested in seeing it. Great. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. We have item e, now executive session regarding the discussion of litigation strategy in the Oaks versus Johnson County suit.

Recessed at 11:09 a.m.

Motion by Stutsman, second by Jordahl, to enter into Executive Session at 11:09 a.m. to discuss "Oaks vs. Johnson County" under section 21.5(1.c), Code of Iowa, "to discuss strategy with counsel in matters that are presently in litigation or where litigation is imminent where its disclosure would be likely to prejudice or disadvantage the position of the governmental body in that litigation." Roll call: aye: Bolkcom, Jordahl, Stutsman, Lacina, Duffy.

Motion by Stutsman, second by Lacina, to leave Executive Session at 12:07 p.m. Roll call: aye: Bolkcom, Jordahl, Stutsman, Lacina, Duffy.

Adjourned at 12:07 p.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, and Jodi Hisel, Recording Secretaries