Reconvened on October 22, 1998 at 9:20 a.m.

Bolkcom: We start with item a, and we go back to the County Attorney, reports and inquiries from the County Attorney.

County Attorney Pat White: No report today.

MARIANNE MILKMAN: INQUIRY ON THE STATUS OF REZONING Application Z9836 IN THE FRINGE AREA

Bolkcom: Thanks, Pat. Item b is inquiries and reports from members of the public.

Marianne Milkman: I just have a question on the status of the Eyman rezoning in the fringe area.

Bolkcom: That's an excellent question.

Jordahl: I have a...

Bolkcom: Could we get a status report on that?

Jordahl: I have some information on that. In terms of our relationship with Iowa City and their position on the Fringe Area Agreement. Immediately after our vote on that I contacted the mayor, and members of the Council, and Planning staff of Iowa City to set up a joint meeting- with the consent of the Board- to set up a joint meeting where we could talk this through, and see whether we needed to change the Fringe Area Agreement or agree to disagree or whatever, but basically to make sure we communicated, to make sure they didn't damage our relationship in the long-term, and didn't damage the joint planning process. The Council discussed that, night before last, and I spoke to the mayor again yesterday. They're going to come back to us with some suggested dates for a joint meeting and possibly look toward putting in place a regular process where perhaps a subcommittee of both bodies could meet and deal with issues that look to be matters where we might differ on what would happen in the fringe area, to make sure that we handled them up front before we get in the position of voting on something in public to have those discussion. So we have not yet got a date set for that and we don't have a final vote yet. When is the vote scheduled for the...

Bolkcom: Did it not pass last week?

Jordahl: Or did it pass on that last one?

Lacina: It passed.

Stutsman: Yes.

Jordahl: Passed on that last vote, OK. Right. So we're having a conversation to make sure we stay on a good square footing.

Bolkcom: All right. Any other members of the public wish to address the Board this morning?

Bolkcom: OK. Item c is reports and inquiries from members of the Board of Supervisors. Charlie?

Duffy: First of all, our Senior Dining Program served 105,000 meals this last fiscal year. We couldn't do that without the wonderful volunteers that we have in the Program. Once a year we have a banquet for these people. It's not taxpayers' dollars, it's funding that was left, sometimes there are trusts that are left for purposes such as that. I just thought it was great. They're a great group of people and thanks for attending. Supervisors usually help serve and it was just a real fine thing to have. Again, I'm sure we all appreciate the volunteers. I went to Lisa Dewey's reception yesterday at the library for a while. Lisa is our new SEATS Director. It was a happy occasion I believe, the people there and had quite a few of the folks that use the system, looked like they were happy. Had a Deer Committee meeting last night. It's the Iowa City/Coralville Management Committee and we voted unanimously to send our recommendations to the City Council and they'll have it on November 2nd. If they agree to what we agreed with, as far as managing deer, they'll have a public hearing. There's a lot of information that I have here, too numerous to mention, probably, on cable TV. But some of the main things are that they're be a limit of 240 deer that are killed or maybe less because we're going to take another look with the helicopter. There hasn't been enough snow really to do it now. A lot of people are... like the USDA is involved and DNR. The sharpshooters' instructions came from some of the same agenda as they use at O'Hare Field in Chicago. It is a problem and there's been 27 accidents that have been reported in Iowa City alone this fiscal year. There was about 144 that were reported in the last fiscal year from the county that actually the deer were claimed, but there were a lot more than that when you figure everything. Deer now, be extremely careful, if you go in the rural area. Farmers are harvesting their crops and there are quite a few acres of cropland inside the city limits. Usually deer travel packs, you might see one deer, you might go down a road or a street, see one deer, oh I missed him, and there might be 4 or 5 in back. It's not a case of hunting these deer, it's a case that something has to be done. But if anybody would like to read this document, I'll just keep it. I've got a hunch that maybe we'll need something like this in the rural area before we're through. That's about it.

Bolkcom: Thanks, Charlie.

Jordahl: Want to thank you for your work on that Committee, Charlie. I think it's been a difficult business for you.

Duffy: I know it's controversial issue and I don't think anybody on the Committee really like to kill deer. We just have to do something with the population.

Bolkcom: Thanks.

Bolkcom: Steve?

Lacina: Yesterday afternoon had 6th Judicial Department of Corrections meeting in Cedar Rapids. The State Correctional Institution is trying to hire one of our computer technicians away from us. The individual really doesn't want to go, so they've come back and offered to move their data processing system, perhaps outsource and have us do it for them. So we're looking at another employee and it would be a way of upgrading their system. We really do a good job of tracking parolees and that. I think it's really a compliment to Gary Hinzman and the 6th District as far as they're even considering their system to us. Also Kit Cupskey is considering setting up office space, we're going to put an addition on up there. So instead of consolidating everything into Des Moines, they're decentralizing a little bit. Again, we're really pleased that they've taken a look at 6th District for that. Had a MECCA Board meeting last night. Tom and I are on the Finance Committee for MECCA. We continue to struggle with managed care. We'll see how that comes out in time. Did have a visit with some individuals on the intersection of Isaac Walton and the CRANDIC down there at...

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Lacina: The CRANDIC would be willing to go 50/50 on reconstruction of that intersection. But the question is the DOT's involved in that as well and then the developer has some concerns of where would it stop and what would the liability be. If it wasn't installed correctly and there was a train wreck or somebody killed in that intersection, would he or others be liable. So people are willing to sit down and try to work it out, but there are some real legal questions that need to be addressed also on that. Also, we've all been working on tax problems and phone calls. But I got one the other day and the individual's payment went up $200 a month. The lending institution told them it was because of the County taxes.

Stutsman: Oh dear.

Lacina: Well, doing a little research, the lending... the original mortgage was sold to a different lending institution. The individual had constructed a building on the site which did increase the taxes, but in the $40 a month range. The remainder was a restructuring by the lending institution that somehow got passed on as being the County's problem. Also looking at the taxes, they paid $1,300 in school taxes and $800 to the County. So obviously they write the entire check to the County, but we only get a small portion of it. Sometimes when the bills go up like that it's good to go back into the tax receipts and take a serious look of what is actually where. She felt much better and now is going to have a meeting with her lending institution on what happened in that transaction. That's all I have for now.

Bolkcom: Thanks, Steve.

Bolkcom: Jonathan?

Jordahl: I attended the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce this morning in Joe's stead, so that Joe could attend a meeting we both wanted to be at, which Joe will talk about later. Represented the Board's position as best I could on the issue of the local option sales tax there. Noted to them that the issue of cooperation between the entities is something the County's been working on with joint meetings, independent of the question of local option sales tax. We've been promoting cooperation between Iowa City, Coralville, and ourselves. That we, as far as Deer Creek Road and 965 Extension goes, we're having a meeting on our 5 Year Construction Plan on Wednesday the 27th. We'll know more...

Stutsman: Tuesday. Wasn't it Tuesday?

Jordahl: Excuse me, Tuesday the 27th of this month at 1 o'clock, here. We'll know more about how this project fits in our estimation after that. Along a similar vein, I'm meeting at 11:30 today with Tom Dunbar, who's been the planner, his agency has been working with the City of Coralville on trails planning. This is through grant money from the Department of Transportation to help entities plan for the use of enhancement dollars that come from the Federal T21 Transportation Enhancement Program. It's possible that we would get some, I think, free help in establishing a trails plan for the whole county, so that our plan would articulate with Coralville's and Iowa City's plans. It would be advantageous to all of us, in pursuing additional grant money and making application in the new State process for enhancement dollars, to have that done. So I think it's an important opportunity and I'll be pursuing that on the Board's behalf this noon. I hope to bring back some more information. Sally and I both attended a meeting that was held by the Secondary Roads Department on the Prairie du Chien Road Construction Project that's proposed for next year. A number of people were here from the public that, I think, raised reasonable concerns. I don't think anyone was particularly irate about it. It was... You may have another perspective on that.

Stutsman: No, I think that's accurate.

Jordahl: There's one issue of particular interest to me that was raised there. That is of an area that was part of the Sensitive Areas Report that was done by Steve Hendrix 4 or 5 years ago. That was actually one that was studied, is in the plan that they presented which is tentative, was going to be buried, this sensitive area, with some fill dirt. So that remains to be discussed, I think, further. I'll skip over a couple of items here, but tonight I'm going to the annual banquet of the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program up in Cedar Rapids at the Czech Museum. It's a fund raiser for them. They do Head Start programs in a 6 county area, and weatherization programs for low income housing, and Transitional Housing Program that has a lot of sites here in Iowa City that help people get back on their feet. So it's a real good cause that I'm happy to be the Board's representative to that body.

Bolkcom: Thank you.

Bolkcom: Sally?

Stutsman: Attended the Board of Health meeting on Monday night where they had a public hearing on the wastewater rules and the revisions with those. There weren't any comments, so I think things are pretty well on track for those to be brought forth to the Board. Graham Dameron, department head of the Board of Health, talked about the changes in the State legislature as far as restaurant inspections and what impact that's having on Johnson County. There may be a proposal to stop the contracts that we currently have with other counties and just do those in Johnson County. It's requiring more time to do those and that it's putting more stress on the staff there, and that maybe we'll just do them for Johnson County and the State will be responsible for those other counties. But he'll be talking with us about that during budget time. Attended the Human Rights breakfast this morning. Very well attended. Some excellent awards. Would like to note Lori Bears received an award, as well as Jim Harris, and both of them have been very active in mental health issues and have been members of the Planning Council. So it was great to see both of them recognized for their hard work. I had an Empowerment Board meeting yesterday afternoon. Talked about reorganizing the Empowerment Transition Board and where we're going with that and submitting the grant again for December 1st. What we'll be doing is taking comments for changes in the current grant application and incorporating those in a new application that will be due shortly. Also had a discussion about how we are going to administratively handle that. There was a proposal made to begin looking into accessing some Medicaid billing, administrative Medicaid billing, that we might be able to do. Other counties have done this, have been able to draw down substantial Federal dollars to this. This is something that we've talked about doing in Johnson County so this will be a good time to look into that and put that in place. Attended a rally last night to add women to the Constitution this was put on by the Business and Professional Women. They did an excellent job of putting a terrific panel together to educate people about the issue of adding women to the Constitution. Minnette Doderer was one of the speakers, as well as Pat Jensen. They gave an excellent historical perspective of women's rights and where they are in the state of Iowa. It's very, very informative. If any of you have a chance to see that on cable cast I think it would be well worth your time to tune into that. There was also another speaker, and I'm sorry, her name escapes me. But she talked about a young person's perspective of adding women to the Constitution. For those of you that don't know there's currently a proposal on the ballot for November 3rd that would just add the 2 words "and women" to the Iowa Constitution. So we're hoping that that gets ratified. Also had a Juvenile Justice Policy Board meeting yesterday and looking at doing some reorganization with the Policy Board. There was a lot of discussion about a proposal for reorganization, so we're going to continue to work on that. The idea is that the Policy Board has had some struggles with their function and what they're doing, especially in light of the fact the current grant may not be continued to be funded. So we continue to look at those issues and how we can make this a more workable Board with some real direction and things. One of the things that we are going to do is incorporate the asset development program that was sponsored chiefly by MECCA and having that as one of the goals or functions of the Policy Board. So I think we're on track to do that and looking at some other things as well. That's it for right now.

Bolkcom: Boy, we're all so busy. I briefly attended the Board of Health meeting this week, the Empowerment Zone meeting, the Human Rights breakfast this morning, and shared on behalf of the Board Jim Harris and Lori Bears recognition this morning. It was very nice and hard work on a lot of issues. Also like to note we did have a reception yesterday for our new SEATS director who started a week ago Monday, Lisa Dewey. I'd like to thank the People for Equitable Para-transit Service, that group, and the Johnson County Coalition for People with Disabilities, who cosponsored with the Board that reception. In particular Marilyn Belman and Nancy Ostrognai, who really put a lot of energy into putting that together. Also noted yesterday and note again today that we really have appreciated all of the hard work of Burnell Chadek, who has acted as our Interim Director of our SEATS service for about the last year and a half and he continues to be a part of that team and we appreciate all of the work he's done keeping the system going. Jonathan and I had an opportunity to continue to meet with Coralville yesterday to discuss the fringe area agreement. We need to put that on our agenda for the Board. It's essentially we met with Coralville, the 2 bodies, a couple of weeks ago and need to review that. I think we need to put it on and have our staff review basically what it says. We're on track to try and have an informational meeting on December, I believe it's December 16th. So we have a good 6 weeks to kind of look at the agreement and then have a joint meeting with our staffs for December 16th at Coralville, that's tentatively been discussed as a time. So we've got some time to review it and then get that out. Finally we have an election coming up on November 3rd. The Auditor is doing a terrific job of encouraging early voting. People interested in voting can vote at the County Administration Building any day Monday through Friday 8 to 6 and all of next week there are going to be early voting sites at the Public Library, the Coralville Library I think 1 day, and at the University Hospitals and Clinics. No excuse not to vote. It's getting easier by making it more convenient. So get out and exercise your civic duty. That's all I had.

Duffy: Yes. Joe I forgot one. I went to the Mental Health Meeting on Tuesday. We did have a quorum, it was a lengthy meeting. But I got all kinds of charts and graphs. Dr. Mosher was talking about his budget for the next fiscal year versus this fiscal year where the dollars came from. I don't know if we all have that information or not. If we don't, I'd like to get to each one of you.

Lacina: It should have been in our packet, right?

Duffy: I think it probably was, but there was some other that they passed out.

Bolkcom: Two other things Steve and I have to report. We've had an ongoing meeting with staff on some efficiencies in our own office and one of the things we've decided to do was do some file cleaning on the 2 Fridays of I believe it was October 30th and November 6th, where our staff is going to be freed up from all of their duties on those 2 mornings to begin cleaning files. So we the Supervisors are going to run the office that day, which will be, what's that mean? Answering the phone, and...

Lacina: I'll make the coffee. It will be chewable.

Bolkcom: Staying out of staff's way. So October, Friday the 30th, and the 6th maybe we can visit, who is available to be around to cover phones so staff can begin cleaning files out that are long...

Stutsman: I'll volunteer to make the coffee so it's drinkable.

Lacina: That's a good idea.

Jordahl: I think this might be an opportunity for donuts to occur, too.

Lacina: I can provide chaos on the phones.

Duffy: So you were going to provide donuts.

Jordahl: I'm going to bring some donuts and then you could bring some donut holes and then we'd have a match.

Bolkcom: OK, that's one item. The other item is that we are tentatively on track and we may need to discuss this more, but too, in visiting with staff in trying to figure out how to do this they've indicated that we can get this done, but basically that the Board's office starting on November 2nd, Monday November 2nd, we would be moving to keeping our office open from 4:00 until 5:00 as a regular new improvement for this office. So that's the tentative time schedule. If members have any questions about that we could certainly put that on next week to kick it around, but that's the recommendation to the Board to look at.

Jordahl: November 2nd?

Bolkcom: November 2nd is the day to do that. So we could actually put that on next Tuesday to get any more feedback...

Stutsman: Yes, I would like to put that on. Next Tuesday? Yes. OK.

Bolkcom: So let's put that on. Very good. I don't know if there's any more to report on that. All right. Anything else?

Jordahl: Actually on the office hours issue- when that's on- some discussion was had of that at the Administrative Bargaining Unit meeting that I attended a couple of nights ago. Rather than getting into discussing the issue right now, we'll keep that, but just to tease your notion that it might be more effective to be open until 6:00 because of the traffic flow, but we'll put that on the table.

Bolkcom: 24 hours anybody?

Lacina: I was going to say that you do need to consider that you've taken one employee and increased their office hours 3 hours but your increasing your exposure by 12% per week. So there will need to be some fill in on your employees, so before we go too wild we need to see how it works.

Bolkcom: We're going to talk abut this Tuesday.

Duffy: Yes, I'd like to have it on for Tuesday because we have some departments that are open at 7:30 in the morning and with this change of time it looks to me like people are going to be going home when it's pitch dark.

Jordahl: Well, that was another...

Bolkcom: It's on for Tuesday.

Jordahl: Earlier was another suggestion.

Bolkcom: It's on for Tuesday. No more teasers.

Stutsman: I was going to remind the Board too that the Space Needs Committee will be in on Tuesday morning, too, to give an update.

Bolkcom: (Inaudible) as clear as we can.

Stutsman: We requested that the agenda stay as light as we could, so we'd have plenty of time to update the Board and get their direction as far as priorities for space needs.

Bolkcom: All right.

Lacina: Pat, you've had some additional work kind of dumped on you with the rescheduling of the magistrates. Any update on that, how it's going or...

White: No.

Lacina: Thank you.

Bolkcom: Follow the correspondence on that.

Stutsman: Yes.

White: I was upset.

Stutsman: Well, we could tell.

Bolkcom: One last announcement. The Sensitive Areas Committee will be meeting in this room on Monday the 26th at 5 p.m., October 26th, to talk about the County's Sensitive Areas Ordinance. Boy there's a lot going on. Carolyn.

Peters: At your last meeting you requested that I reschedule the meeting with the Linn County Board of Supervisors. One little detail was overlooked. I need some suggested dates.

Stutsman: Did you get my e-mail.

Peters: I did get yours. Yours is the only one I got.

Stutsman: OK.

Bolkcom: Would you like them now?

Peters: That would be great.

Bolkcom: What would the Board like to do? Early November, Mid November? Late November?

Lacina: After ISAC.

Bolkcom: December? The second week of December.

Stutsman: I was going to suggest that we're meeting with the legislators on December 3rd. That maybe we could meet before then and maybe compare notes on issues that they're going to discuss with their legislators.

Lacina: That could be an agenda item.

Jordahl: We're in an informal meeting on Tuesday the 1st. They have in the past come to our joint meeting directly from their Board meeting. I'm wondering if we should try to do the same on Tuesday the 1st.

Bolkcom: December 1st, how does that sound? Are we hosting? OK.

Stutsman: I think that worked well in North Liberty last time. Are we going to probably meet there?

Peters: That's where it was scheduled again this time.

Duffy: I do have a question to ask though.

Bolkcom: Noon.

Jordahl: I think we better give ourselves a little room on that morning meeting.

Duffy: I have a question to ask. How about the other surrounding counties? We used to meet with them you know regularly. We haven't had a meeting there in a long time. In fact when you and I went down to look at the runaround Steve...

Jordahl: Maybe we should schedule that for after the 1st of the year when we have a new Board seated.

Bolkcom: That's a good idea.

Duffy: I would say if we meet with one group that we kind of alienate the other. I'm not saying we shouldn't meet with Linn County. We've had quite a few meetings with them and I don't know if we ever met with Iowa Company or not, did we?

Bolkcom: Do you want to put it on for some time soon; we can talk about a meeting schedule with other counties.

Jordahl: On that same general vein I received a positive feedback from the City of Cedar Rapids about meeting. I received an e-mail about trying to schedule that meeting. I had 4 or 5 suggested dates from the City of Cedar Rapids and it seemed like there were some problems with all of them. So I don't know; we'll probably confer about that later. But I'm at least heartened about the response. I think they're very eager. I was told the Mayor was excited about meeting with us.

Bolkcom: Sounds good. Anything else? Move to adjourn.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins and Mark Kistler, Recording Secretaries