MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:

NOVEMBER 10, 1998

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chairperson Bolkcom called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:16 a.m. Members present were: Joseph Bolkcom, Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Stephen Lacina, and Sally Stutsman.

 

Review Of Minutes

Bolkcom: (Inaudible) November 5th, we'll have those on for Thursday evening.

 

MARY KATHRYN WALLACE: SENIOR CENTER UPDATE

Bolkcom: Item number 3 is business from Mary Kathryn Wallace, regarding a Senior Center update and discussion. Good morning. Come on up.

Senior Center Commission Member Mary Kathryn Wallace: Good morning.

Bolkcom: Thank you.

Wallace: Good morning. How are you this morning?

Bolkcom: Real good, thanks.

Wallace: On the windy day, I got blown in here. An update of what's going on at the Senior Center. Right now we are in the process of compiling statistics on the parking, the use and non-use of the spaces that we have so that we will be able to submit a very realistic request for parking spaces in a new parking facility. So we've been monitoring our peak times and low times. Installations of new doors at our Washington Street entrance are being delayed. The door frames are rusted out and we need new doors there, but we are awaiting parts for that. Depending on the time of the arrival of the parts this whole project might be postponed until spring. I want to tell everyone what a very wonderful and patriotic program we had at the Senior Center this past Friday as our tribute to America's veterans. I think we had maybe 150 to 200 people there. It was a very meaningful program. So Veteran's Day is coming tomorrow, but we had our celebration last Friday and very well attended. What is most on our minds right now is something that we do for the community and this is our Annual Holiday Bazaar and Cookie Walk. This is something very inter-generational and we use over 300 volunteers for this project. Some have been involved, since last December when we had this, in the making of homemade crafts for children in Iowa City, Johnson County to purchase for the holiday. We do have a request for volunteers for that day so we are interested if people would like to be involved in this. It's just a wonderfully chaotic, happy experience. We serve about 250 children that come through on that day. So the Holiday Bazaar is co-sponsored by Hills Bank, it is on Saturday December the 5th. Children 3 to 12 years old are invited to participate. All items that they purchase are hand-crafted by local citizens and they're priced between 25 cents and $5. We have escort guides that take the children to the various stations to make their own selections. Then these are wrapped so when they come back to the family everything is ready to go under the tree if that's where the presents are put for the holiday. So this is something that I've been involved in since I've been in Iowa City. I find it a very wonderful and meaningful start to the holiday season. Lastly, 2 things about appointments, thank you for the appointment of Larry Pugh to fulfill the Wilma Connor's position on the Senior Center Commission. I was participating in Larry's orientation last week and he attended a meeting. I know he's going to be a very strong member of the Board. So thank you for the selection. As you know, we have a turnover, although Joanne Hora has resubmitted, reapplied for the position we'll have openings. She's been a wonderful addition to our Board as well. Finally, I'm thanking you for the opportunity you have given me to represent you on the Senior Center Commission. And to extend my invitation if at any time you have questions that you want to ask of me, feel free to call me. I am here as your representative and I'm very happy to work with you outside the regular reporting back. So those are the things that I have to report and would answer a question if you have any.

Bolkcom: Questions?

Duffy: I'll say we really appreciate, again, coming here and telling us... Every month this is done.

Wallace: Uh-huh.

Duffy: I think it's just great that you do very thoroughly (inaudible) the things that would be important to us, report about. The arts and crafts are some talented people.

Wallace: Yes.

Duffy: It's really amazing. It's a good place to pick up some cheap Christmas gifts.

Wallace: Uh-huh. Inexpensive.

Duffy: I should have said that.

Lacina: Reasonably priced.

Bolkcom: We know what you meant.

Duffy: Reasonably priced.

Wallace: High quality, reasonably priced, that's right.

Bolkcom: We appreciate you being here.

Wallace: Thank you.

Bolkcom: We appreciate you're willingness to visit about our issues as well. Thanks.

Wallace: Uh-huh. Yes. Thank you.

JOHNSON COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR JIM MCGINLEY: RESOLUTION FOR FEDERAL STATE GRANTS FOR THE REMOVAL OF HOMES IN THE FLOOD PLAiN

Bolkcom: Item number 4 on the agenda this morning is business from Jim McGinley, Director of the Johnson County Emergency Management, regarding a resolution for Federal State grants for the removal of homes in the flood plain, and discussion. Good morning. Maybe you could... Pull up another chair to the table. Good morning.

Disaster Services Director Jim McGinley: Good morning.

Bolkcom: Good morning.

McGinley: Some time back I was approached by some of the citizens in the Isaac Walton area to see if there would be Federal or State funds available to relocate out of that area which is in a flood plain and in some instances the flood way. We called upon the State of Iowa and had several members of their Mitigation Committee come out and visit with myself and 2 of the members of the Board. Based on the information we received that day we felt that it was a strong possibility that there would be grant money available to assist these folks in moving out. We've done some additional investigation and today I have with me Dennis Harper, from the State of Iowa Emergency Management Division Mitigation team, and with him is Brady Robbins...

State of Iowa Emergency Management Division Mitigation Team Employee Brady Robbins: That's correct.

McGinley: ...from the same team. I guess what I'm going to do... I've been under the weather a little bit so I'm going to turn it over to Dennis to fill you in as to where we stand on this and just what it'll mean to the County and to its residents.

Bolkcom: Thank you.

Hazard Mitigation Grant Coordinating Officer Dennis Harper: Thank you, Jim. My name again, is Dennis Harper and this is Brady Robbins. We're with the Iowa Emergency Management Division. We put together some notes concerning, not only the program we're going to talk to you about today, but we took a pretty close look at the area that you're looking at right now for potentially acquiring some properties just south of the Iowa City area here. So what I'm talking to you about is the Hazard Mitigation Program. We've had some discussions individually with people here. It's made up of planning and then long term permanent actions. The long term permanent action you're looking at right now is to acquire... maybe acquire properties in the flood plain. Of course our goal as a program is to reduce or eliminate risks associated with natural and man made disasters. That's what our funding is all about, that's what our program is all about. Today I'm here at the request of Jim, concerning the potential acquisition project. So far the concerns expressed by Mr. McGinley and some of you on the Board have been these things... I'm willing to repeat these so that I'm sure that I understand what you're concerns are. One, it must be fair to the homeowners and the landowners, whatever you do; 2, it must be voluntary; and 3, you've got to have some financial support in order to do it. Those are the 3 primary concerns that I've heard thus far. Also from the discussion it appears that the intent is, one, to help those homeowners who want to get out of a high flood hazard area, and it is a high risk area. We took a little closer look at it today, ran some benefit cost analysis and that kind of thing yesterday. The second thing was to eliminate the County's difficulty in providing emergency services and public services to an area that's in a high hazard area. So those are the 2, I guess, primary intents that I've heard so far. The funding program that's available right now is called the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. We call it the... for short, the HMGP. It's a Federal program. Funds are filtered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and our office administers the funding. In that program I'm the Hazard Mitigation Grant Coordinating Officer, is my other title I guess. It's a 75% Federal, 25% non-Federal program of which, on the non-Federal side, I think probably where you're interested most, 10% the State has a practice of providing the 10% to local government to cover some of the match. Additionally, we've got a request in to HUD to try to get a special HUD appropriation to cover the additional 15% match, but we're not sure that's going to happen. We should know that in the next, they say, 3 to 4 months, right in there. So in the meantime, you're caught in a situation where if you're doing an application you might have to do it without knowing whether or not those HUD (inaudible). The priorities under our program are to remove housing and commercial structures from the flood plain and then to protect critical public facilities. So it would appear that this, if it were to go forward, would be an eligible application. The next thing we do is we look at he benefit cost analysis to determine whether or not a project would be the highest priority for funding. Based on what we saw yesterday, every $1,000 invested in a property in that area would probably return about $1,500 for about 30 years. That's pretty good, you're looking at a return in... mostly in damages related to the individual structures themselves, but there's also some infrastructure down there that the County has responsibility for. The grant application is open until December 21st of this year, of 1998. Yesterday we put together an estimated budget only for the 4 properties that we know or were told that may be interested in the program. What might the program look like to the County? It's going to look like...

Jordahl: Excuse me, you said 15 structures, is that right?

Harper: Four, 4 structures.

Jordahl: 4 structures.

Harper: So far yes. Yes.

Jordahl: I don't mean to interrupt and make you elaborate on this point extensively, but there are more than 4 structures in the flood plain in Johnson County. How expandable is this?

Harper: It's very expandable.

Jordahl: OK. Please go on.

Harper: Yes, yes. You bet.

Stutsman: The 4...

Bolkcom: 4.

Stutsman: ...these 4 that approached you... Are there other possibilities?

McGinley: (Inaudible) very definitely other possibilities.

Stutsman: OK. All right. We're just talking about 4 initially.

McGinley: We've got to look at the 4 that have requested already with the opportunity of allowing others, for anybody in that particular flood plain area.

Bolkcom: OK.

Jordahl: That particular flood plain area or the flood plain in Johnson County?

Harper: You can do whatever you...

Lacina: In Johnson County.

Harper: Any flood plain property is eligible. So if you wanted to expand you're target areas to other flood plain areas, that'd be great for us.

Bolkcom: But right now we have 4 property owners that said we'd like to check this out.

Stutsman: Yes.

Bolkcom: How expansive have we advertise... Do a lot of other people in the flood plain know that this is possible right now or how are...

McGinley: They're beginning to find out.

Bolkcom: OK. All right.

McGinley: (Inaudible) in that particular area is getting the information that out there now.

Bolkcom: Sure, sure. Steve?

Lacina: If HUD doesn't fund it...

Bolkcom: Right.

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Lacina: ...and you're exposed 15% on an $80,000 house, you're looking at 12,000...

Stutsman: Yes.

Lacina:...which I still think is a minimal amount considering the health and welfare of the individuals, the septic systems that could be removed out of the flood plain, and there are... may be from the last assessments we should get high values on the homes which will help us. The homeowner, I think, would be eligible for some moving expense and other factors.

Harper: Yes.

Lacina: So there's a lot to this program, but before we go out and advertise and have...

Bolkcom: We need the grant money.

Lacina:...a lot of houses come in we do need to proceed, but cautiously.

Bolkcom: Uh-huh.

Stutsman: When you talk about flood plain, you're talking about flood plain in the whole County or just a specific...

Lacina: The whole county.

Stutsman: I see, OK. So it could involve ...

Lacina: Off of Stewart Road and...

Stutsman: ...(inaudible). A number of homes OK.

Lacina: Yes.

Jordahl: There is construction ongoing in the flood plain in Johnson County.

McGinley: Only if that construction is in accordance with Federal and State and County rules and regulations laws.

Jordahl: Right, but that can include getting waivers and various things from the DNR to do things.

McGinley: I don't think they can get a waiver unless they're one foot above the 100 year flood plain.

Jordahl: Which they can do by filling in the flood plain.

McGinley: I don't believe that's legal.

Lacina: No.

Bolkcom: That's right. Go ahead.

Harper: In answer to that, yes, you do have ordinances that cover construction in the flood plain. You can't do anything in the flood way, but you can haul in fill and elevate in the flood plain. One of the things that we all talked about, I guess, as an end result of this is a long term plan to address, hopefully, not developing in the flood plain. That's just our point of view on it.

Duffy: Could I ask a question? Is there any other sources of funding other than HUD for the 15%?

Harper: You could get funding through the normal CDBG programs, one of them was called HOME, and that jumps in on the relocation benefit side of the house. But you're best shot is with the HUD and Special Appropriations. The only reason I bring that up is because that appropriation just went forward within the last week. They're going to be considering that in Senate subcommittee here in the coming weeks. You're request is on there, specifically.

Bolkcom: Really? OK.

Harper: To the County and the homeowner what you're looking at is you're looking at cost associated with the pre-flood or prior to the '98 declaration. You didn't really have a flood as I understand it, the fair market value of the land and the structure, plus closing cost, settlement fees, title search, the various legal cost associated with property closing, plus demolition costs for each of the properties. Then for either the homeowner or the renter, depending on the situation, there's going to be a replacement housing allowance or URA benefits, Uniform Relocation Act benefits. Just briefly to give you an idea what that's about, replacement housing is meant to subsidize the difference in cost between a house that's located in the flood plain and that same house outside of the flood plain. Typically it's somewhere between $7,500 and $12,000 for a primary homeowner. If it's a rental property the renter is entitled to benefits under the Uniform Relocation Act. Typically, that runs anywhere from $3,000 to $7,000. That's for moving expenses and rental assistance and it's because they're involuntarily displaced. What are some of the requirements? I'm trying to answer the questions ahead of time if I could. What are some of the requirements? First of all you've got to do an application. In that application there's submittment to the match, the non-Federal match in form of resolution. It has to accompany the application and that's in accordance with the December 21st deadline. Eventually, the second thing is the County will have to develop and adopt a Hazard Mitigation Plan, just the County not the incorporated communities. There's grant funding available to do that as well. Thirdly, for the properties that are acquired, the land, you must place deed restrictions or development restrictions on the acquired land. If you're not able to acquire the land, you do have some homes on leased property down there, then you have to ensure that at least there are development restrictions placed on the land. What we're going to do with that, I think, is there's a lot of different situations down there related to whether it's a flood way or on leased land and who owns it. So as the application is developed we can work through each one of those issues individually. Then for those acquired lands, they must be maintained in public ownership.

Stutsman: Maintained in public... You mean, then we're responsible for mowing it or...

Harper: Whatever maintenance there would be...

Lacina: Or leasing it if somebody wants it for pasture, but you have control.

Duffy: Now are we talking all about homes or other structures? Right now we're talking about homes, but there are other structures too.

Harper: Yes. You could target an area and all the structures in that area if you so desired. We do have difficulties with... because of environmental restrictions, with things like dumps and sometimes we just can't get through it in order to get it acquired. But for the most part commercial and residential properties are eligible.

Jordahl: I have heard that there is a very strong and urgent reason to do this kind of thing, to relocate structures out of the flood plain, having to do with FEMA money to compensate people for future flood damages after January 1st. Can somebody elaborate on that for me?

Harper: I'll put it this way, if the County or the owners decide not to participate in the program there's no negative consequence that I'm aware of. In other words that homeowner still is eligible for disaster assistance even if the County participates and they turn down the offer.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Harper: So the only issue, potentially there would be is with the planning and the adopted plan.

Jordahl: I think we need to check into that because it was another County Supervisor at a Regional Planning meeting that brought this point forward. Stating, that basically that there would be no FEMA compensation after January first for a property that either didn't move or didn't participate in a plan or some angle on this.

Harper: Right, right. The issue on the planning side of the house, the Hazard Mitigation Plan, if a jurisdiction doesn't develop and adopt a long term Hazard Mitigation plan in conjunction with their normal planning activities, normally. You could have difficulty getting Federal funds for disaster assistance. Right now it looks as though the State is going to require that Plan as the third part of the Counties' overall plan, in order to get the State's share for disaster assistance. Then I think you're going to see the Feds are going to require some type of long term look at their Hazard and addressing that Hazard in order to keep spending disaster dollars.

Jordahl: It's my understanding that the deadline on that is January 1st.

Harper: A lot of the Regional Planning agencies and the Council of Governments are putting deadlines on applications to try to get them in because it is competitive money. It actually has to do with how quick they get it in. They need to lock in their amount. We budget... we thought and we budgeted for about 600 plans in Iowa and we set aside about a million and a half. We're about at that million and a half right now and we've got about 600 communities and counties in. We're kind of trying to push the issue and get them to get the applications completed.

Bolkcom: So are we going to... What's the status of our Hazard Mitigation Plan, right now? We need to develop one?

McGinley: We need to develop one, yes.

Bolkcom: Do we need to submit a proposal to try and get some money to help us do that, is that the thought?

McGinley: Yes, we...

Lacina: There's money available (inaudible).

Harper: I believe ECICOG is doing something right now on your behalf.

Bolkcom: Really?

Harper: Yes. What they're going to try to do, I don't know if they've already done this Jim, they're going to sit down with Jim and the County and say this is what we propose to do for the County and communities.

Bolkcom: That they would actually do the planning on it? ECICOG would?

Harper: That would be their proposal, yes.

Jordahl: I was at an ECICOG meeting last week and this is in fact where this was discussed. It was not my impression coming out of that meeting that ECICOG was going to do anything. I may be wrong about this. You may have spoken with them recently and they're planning something independently of the administrative level or something. But I was under the impression that we had to generate this at our level to apply for the grant money to do the planning.

Harper: You can. If ECICOG is not going to do anything on behalf the Counties, they make that decision, then you can as a County and as a... or a community either one, make application. All you have to do is notice of interest to us which is a letter that says we're interested in these funds.

Jordahl: You did that last summer, didn't you Jim?

McGinley: We did and we were set up to receive possibly $5,500.

Harper: All right. OK. If... I can't remember that, we've got quite a few of them, because you probably did.

McGinley: Yes, we did.

Harper: If you did then that money's been set aside already. Then all you have to do now is do an application similar to this one you're doing right now.

Bolkcom: So the... I see. All right.

Jordahl: But when you say similar to this one, here we're talking about Hazard Mitigation funds to move 4 homes...

Harper: Right, right.

Jordahl: ...and on that instance we're talking about an application to do the planning for the document that's necessary to bring down the Federal and State funds for disaster relief.

Harper: Uh-huh.

Jordahl: I'm hearing that we haven't got that process underway. I would suggest that we need to do that right away.

Harper: OK.

Bolkcom: Yes, we need to nail that down. We need to know if ECI is doing it, we need to know what Jim has submitted has been awarded and when we need to be... Because we need to be getting the...

McGinley: We do have a commitment for $5,500.

Bolkcom: Get some people on Board to do the planning part of it.

Stutsman: What's the $5,500 for?

McGinley: To be able to write the plan.

Stutsman: OK, for these...

McGinley: We at one time, both of you and I and several other people, were involved in a meeting in which you were writing a plan for land use, I believe.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

McGinley: It was agreed that we could probably get $5,500 if we included in it a Mitigation Plan.

Bolkcom: Who would write that?

McGinley: Which I think you would be doing for the...

Bolkcom: Yes.

McGinley:...Land Use Plan anyway.

Bolkcom: Who would with the that plan?

McGinley: I think... Hadn't you contracted with somebody to come in and write the plan?

Jordahl: But we have in fact... that's been executed and is presently being reviewed in what could be it's final form by the Zoning Commission.

Bolkcom: I'm sure we could amend... if we had a Hazard Mitigation Plan done in the next 3 months, we could amend it to the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Right?

Harper: Yes.

Bolkcom: But we haven't really talked about who would actually do the Hazard Mitigation Plan for us.

Lacina: I think most of the rules/regulations as far as construction and flood plain/flood ways and that is probably within our ordinances. The active part would be the proactive reduction of exposure in the flood ways. Which it would make sense to have Jim and Rick work on that. Jim as director and because Rick's got control of FEMA flood maps (inaudible). So if we support this resolution we probably need to designate one contact person which I would suggest be Jim. Then ask Rick if he'd...

Bolkcom: OK.

Lacina:...and R.J. if they would assist.

Bolkcom: OK. I would agree with that.

Jordahl: We're talking about a deadline here of December 21st for us.

McGinley: That's strictly for the NOI, Notice of Interest.

Jordahl: I see.

Bolkcom: Yes. We need to...

Lacina: So that's the first question...

Bolkcom: We need to real soon figure out what the status of this grant money is. Jim and R.J. and Rick need to meet and figure out what we need to do to put together a Hazard Mitigation Plan.

Jordahl: And I'd like to know exactly what the case is with FEMA money...

Bolkcom: You should... Yes.

Jordahl: Do we have to have that Plan in place by January 1st in order to be covered?

McGinley: I don't think so.

Harper: No, you don't, you don't.

Bolkcom: OK.

Harper: We've got a 3 year deadline right now to have all of the Plans completed. So we're looking at a 3 year time frame.

Bolkcom: This is not going to move that fast. We need to...

Jordahl: Well...

Bolkcom: We need to check... Jonathan maybe you could check with ECICOG and find out what the status of that application is and if we're included in it or not, just so we know that. So the other piece of this is an application.

Harper: Yes.

Bolkcom: Could we talk a little bit about that?

Harper: Yes. In fact, we brought in an application packet with us today. In that application it is going to ask for some signature documents, eventually. They're going to have to go through the Board. Commit it to the match and then you've probably done a lot of the rest of them with the other FEMA programs. They'll look very similar, they're assurances documents, construction documents, construction insurance.

Bolkcom: Right, right.

Harper: There's one Federal funding request form. Along with that there's some narrative comments that probably I would imagine, I don't know who's going to do the application, I hate to look at anybody, but...

Bolkcom: It'd be Jim. You can look at Jim. We're looking at Jim.

Harper: Yes. (Inaudible) shouldn't take that long.

Bolkcom: OK. So the local match commitment with this application, if we submit an application and we get on the 25% non-Federal match, you said 10% is likely State. Then this HUD grant's out there for the 15%. If we apply as an applicant for this and the HUD grant doesn't come through, what's the County's liability at that point?

Harper: The 15%...

Bolkcom: It would be 15%.

Harper: ...in that case. Yes.

Bolkcom: OK.

Harper: Yes.

McGinley: Except for...

Bolkcom: Go ahead.

McGinley: Are we at liberty to talk about the other possibilities?

Harper: You bet, yes.

McGinley: We're looking at the possibility of utilizing Secondary Roads for some of the destruction of the properties and removal of the materials. Their cost would be applied against the 15% and it's possible that those moneys...

Bolkcom: Be a part of the match.

McGinley: ...could be reimbursable under another grant system.

Bolkcom: Yes.

Lacina: We've been very careful in the past about utilization of the Road department for purposes other than roads.

Stutsman: Yes.

Lacina: When we go on private property it might be for the removal of the foundation if we can use if for rip rap, but if it in any way conflicts with the private sector... We would have to work that out...

McGinley: OK.

Lacina:...but I think there are some in kind types of contributions or if we go to the homeowner and negotiate where they might have half, we have part. We can sit down and work through this plan together with...

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Lacina: I think there's interest in the one homeowner, to in fact, physically move the home. So at that point we have reduced a lot of cost because basically we're just buying the rights of the land and they're taking the structure and just transplanting it somewhere else. That'd be very reasonable.

Bolkcom: OK.

Lacina: So we could be creative on those things.

Stutsman: When will we know about the HUD grant?

Harper: I wish I could be real straight on that, but the last HUD grant was supposed to have been announced 6 months ago and it was announced last week. I don't know a good time frame to tell you. I met with HUD and DED just last week to make sure that the request promptly went in. So I'm expecting an answer within the next 3 to 4 months on the HUD money. Unfortunately, that grant time frame doesn't fall well with the one you're working with right now.

Lacina: But fortunately...

Stutsman: If somebody...

Lacina: It's good because we only have these 4.

Stutsman: Right.

Lacina: This is going to be a real good pilot project to walk through and see if there's any pitfalls. Our exposure is limited in terms of big bucks, but at the same time it'll be a learning experience. We're going to gain because we're going to have this Mitigation Plan in place. We're moving forward in a lot of areas with limited exposure.

Stutsman: The only other thing I caution is that if we take over these properties that means somebody's going to have to either maintain them or coordinate...

Lacina: (Inaudible) them out.

Stutsman:...leases or whatever. We are going to incur a cost with ongoing maintenance of these properties, 4 probably no big deal but you add to that. But even 4, I don't know who's responsibility it will be to go down and control the weeds, mow it or whatever.

Lacina: The one site very possibly would be of interest as far as maintaining it for the quarry. Just to make sure that nothing interferes with the operation. We may be able to negotiate something where they take care of the site.

Bolkcom: OK.

Duffy: Have you talked with our County Engineer yet, about maybe the road department could be involved?

McGinley: Not yet.

Duffy: I think I would Jim, because there's an energetic schedule, to say the least, coming up.

Jordahl: Now...

Stutsman: Once we sign this and if we don't get the 15%... I'm trying to think through the County's liability on this as far as financial. If somebody wants to do this and we don't have any moneys, are we required to go ahead and work with the homeowner?

Harper: No. Not often I bring it up, but if you resolve and then you're budget doesn't cover the resolution, you can still go back and... You can't spend money you don't have. I hate to tell you that you can get out of a resolution, but in cases with budget, you truly could. If you set forward that long term commitment and then for some reason or another something else comes up, that's an issue. You're not required to acquire those properties at any point until the offer is made individually with the private homeowners.

Bolkcom: All right.

Stutsman: OK.

Jordahl: You say budget, but we may have an ending balance of a million dollars or something to handle various expenses that are going to come up in the next few months. We would say in order to be responsible and handle our cash flow and so forth we have to keep that money there...

Harper: Yes.

Jordahl: Does that constitute sort of an artificial...

Harper: Yes.

Jordahl: ...zero, then?

Harper: Yes, yes. Basically, it's still you're decision up until the point you actually make the offer, the legal offer.

Jordahl: OK.

Lacina: You did the cost benefit analysis, what types of evaluations did you have totally on the 4 properties? And we can figure our total worst case scenario.

Stutsman: Yes.

Harper: Actually the budget we had yesterday was roughly... for the 4 properties, was roughly 193,000, total.

Robbins: 196,000.

Harper: Right.

Lacina: 196? OK. So at 15% of 200,000, we're talking 30,000 exposure, worst case.

Bolkcom: All right. When should... Jim are we ready to... Board are you ready to proceed with giving some direction on proceeding with an application at this point?

Lacina: Yes. One, I think we need to have Jonathan proceed with ECICOG. Whatever happens we need the Mitigation Plan.

Jordahl: Yes.

Bolkcom: OK.

Lacina: Then number 2, I think we need to start preparing the resolution and designate a contact person. From that point then they need to go back to the homeowners and firm this up and get things...

Bolkcom: OK.

Lacina: ...get the application in by December 21st.

McGinley: 21st.

Robbins: If I may I'd like to leave a copy of the planning guidance we have and the project guidance. That way you have an opportunity to look at that.

Lacina: Uh-huh.

Bolkcom: Great.

Robbins:(Inaudible) with that.

Bolkcom: That'd be great.

Lacina: Then Rick and R.J. you'll be involved in this as well from the FEMA maps and that?

Dvorak: Yes, we started working (inaudible) yesterday a little bit, it's (inaudible).

Lacina: OK.

Jordahl: How does this expand to the next 4 properties, the next 400 properties?

Harper: The one issue I see that you have would be not knowing whether or not the HUD money's there right now.

Bolkcom: Right.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Harper: Because if this program were not... Didn't have to be resourced by a lot of County funds, you could open up and target entire areas of the flood plain and look at the estimated value of those properties and do a big budget that way. That would be one alternative that you could pursue at this point beyond those 4 if you wanted to target a large area. We've got a total of about $6 million in funds available and we'd like to spend it all on acquiring residential and commercial property in the flood plain if we could.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Bolkcom: How much HUD money?

Jordahl: Yes, that's the thing. If the HUD grant, if it's for 15% of 4 properties, does it sort of like open up their purse so that if we wanted to relocate 400 houses then we could have 15% of that?

Harper: The HUD request that was done, on it has your Mitigation needs of about $33 million, but we had to have them identified when we made the request.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Harper: So if you had additional properties above and beyond, we'll say, the 4, they weren't part of that request that went forward.

Jordahl: Yes.

Harper: But we did... we requested to buy the match on the $6 million is what we requested.

Bolkcom: OK.

Harper: Requested the 25% match on the $6 million that we're going to have available to us.

Bolkcom: So is it possible that if we were to get HUD grant for these 4 and we identified 3 or 4 more houses, there'd be HUD money for 3 or 4 more?

Harper: As long as we would have...

Bolkcom: As long as you have the money.

Harper: Yes.

Bolkcom: OK.

Harper: Yes, as long as we have the money, they would, yes.

Bolkcom: So we would go ahead with more promotion of this based on advice from you on whether resources were there.

Jordahl: But you said 25%, now there's a 25% Federal portion of this that you detailed earlier.

Bolkcom: 10% the State pays...

Lacina: 10% State.

Bolkcom:...15% this HUD or we pay.

Jordahl: But this HUD, I'm still unclear as to whether this HUD goes for additional 15% beyond the 4 we're talking about.

Bolkcom: It potentially could.

Harper: I can tell you how I made the request and that's better. We identified that we were going to have about 6 million dollars in total project dollars and of that we requested on the HUD request 25%. That would be HUD appropriation. Then above and beyond that we had 33 million dollars in projects all over the State of Iowa. Hazard mitigation projects that also went on that request.

Bolkcom: So of the 25 HUD, is the State using their 10% with HUD money?

Harper: I'm not sure how that's going to work out.

Bolkcom: OK. That would eat up a share of that.

Lacina: So I'm back to the question how do we expand this if we want to...

Bolkcom: We do 4 and then we see if they've got extra match money when we're in the midst of those 4, and if we do, then we promote more, unless the Board wants to spend more money.

Lacina: A suggestion would be that you do the 4 as a pilot project.

Stutsman: I think that's a good idea.

Lacina: Your mitigation plan should look at the entire County and identify the most potentially damaged areas in terms of another flood of 93. If you have another cluster of homes, versus a farm house, you go for the cluster of homes or of your roads are wiped out and you can't get it. Your mitigation plan will tell you your targeted areas that you really need to perceive the most damaging.

Harper: If you identify 4 properties in this application and you come back later and you want to amend them to include 2 more. If we have the funding and they're cost benefit positive we'll amend the application. It's a very common...

Jordahl: But if we come back with 100 then are we kind of grabbing for too much and you're not balanced with the rest of the State?

Bolkcom: We're not going to come back with 100. OK, we have to take a walk before we... We'll just see how it goes, see what money is available.

Jordahl: The question I would still like to have answered out of that is, is there a deadline that we're looking at here where our ability to apply for more funds for additional houses would not any longer exist.

Harper: No, what you'll do is when you submit your December 21st application, at that point, we're going to have committed, hopefully, all the money. We hope. We hope we have enough applications to commit all the funds. If you decide you want to add 2 or 3 or 4 properties and you come back and you want to amend your application, and we have funding available because somebody under run on their project, somebody drops out, then we can make that amendment. That happens a lot. With housing projects, communities will target an area of 20 structures and then only 10 people really participate so you get half the funds back.

Bolkcom: OK. What's our next step. Jim? We need a resolution in support of going forward with an application?

McGinley: Yes, to be submitted by the 21st of December.

Bolkcom: Is that the actual... So it's just a letter of intent at that point or is it actually the full blown application by December 21st.

Harper: It's the full blown application by December 21st.

Bolkcom: OK, all right, do we need a resolution to direct you to prepare that or we can just give you the OK today? Jim, we want you to go ahead and work with these folks and prepare an application on behalf of Johnson County.

McGinley: Yes, we need the OK today but we would require a...

Lacina: A formal resolution...

Bolkcom: When we actually send the application on, we would need a resolution saying we're serious, here's the application.

Lacina: So if we authorize the Emergency Management Director...

Stutsman: We can't move today.

Bolkcom: We're not in the position here to do...

Lacina: Oh because we're not on for action?

Bolkcom: I think we can just give them direction that we... I would say, Jim, the consensus of the Board, as I determine it right now, is that people would like to have you prepare an application on behalf of the County for this program.

Jordahl: I have a question still and that is that there are more than 4 houses down there (inaudible) you may have been approached by 4 that want to participate in this but there are many more than 4 that exist there. So we're applying for 4, we may be able to expand by a couple, but even with just this area looked at we've got 15 or something like that.

McGinley: There are probably closer to 30 residences down there on either side of the road. It seems to me that there are 18 on one side and like 15 on the other. There are some that I know of already will not participate.

Jordahl: But this is an area, if we've determined that this is area, as we were saying, where (inaudible) was suggesting and everybody has an impact...

Stutsman: Yes, and I think Steve has a good point. Let's start out with a pilot project and see how this goes and then we can expand from there. I don't think at this point we need to open it up to everybody that might be eligible for this.

Bolkcom: Yes, it's also voluntary. Not everybody that lives down there wants to move.

Jordahl: There's a difference between opening it up to the people who live in this same area and opening it up to everybody.

Stutsman: Are we ready to make a commitment to open it up to everybody at this point?

Duffy: I think we should have a pilot project with the 4 that applied. Could I ask a question about the... Who determines the market value of a house? Like we have a County Assessor, do you go by his assessment how much it's worth or do you have a special person do that?

Harper: As part of your application, what you'll probably see before you at the Board, will be an admin. plan that's going to have the County's criteria for determining fair market value in this case and we'll give Jim, or whoever does the application, some sample admin. plans. Across the State of Iowa, they have done appraisals for fair market value or they have taken assessments times a multiplier based on the average difference between assessment and fair market value in the County, that kind of thing. We'll give you a choice, some different things to look at to determine that.

Bolkcom: All right. We're going to need to move on here.

Duffy: Thank you.

Jordahl: One last question... Have we approached all of those homes in this area about...

McGinley: No we have not.

Jordahl: If I were living next door to somebody who had approached you guys and they were going to get bought out and relocated to a nice new place on dry land and you hadn't talked to me about it, we the County hadn't talked to you about it next door, I'd be kind of upset. I think we should talk to the neighbors.

Lacina: Let me ask this... We get down there and you get 12 people that want to participate, where are you going to find the money for our grant if we don't get the HUD funding?

Stutsman: I was thinking like the well grant program, it was basically a first come first serve. As time went on, we were able to address more people and I think that's the way it is in a lot of situations. Unfortunately, it's not always the fairest way to do it but that's the way it goes. Maybe we need to do a straw poll with the Board and see how many want to just try it with 4 first or whether we want to open it up to everybody, not only in Isaac Walton, but the whole County. Then we have to recognize the financial commitment, as well as the time commitment to do appraisals on all these properties and things. I don't know under the short time frame if we really have the time to open it up to that many. Ideally, that would be the best way to go but...

Bolkcom: All right.

Stutsman: Do we want to do a straw poll and see if we want to...

Bolkcom: That's fine.. How many members would proceed with the proposal on the table at this point, looking at those 4 at this point in time? All right, we've got 3 to do that. I'm fine with that. I think we should keep our ears... I think the word is going to get out if it isn't already out in the neighborhood that this discussion is going on and if we pick up a couple more in the process of talking about this, look at that again. If in the next few weeks... we're going to know a lot more in the next 6 weeks about this application, about potential other interest down there as well.

McGinley: I've only had one other homeowner make their thoughts known. Their answer was no they would not.

Bolkcom: Yes, I'm sure there's a number of people who don't want to go anywhere. All right, we'll go ahead an proceed with that and let's keep our ears open for others that might want to come in because the word will get out there because this will probably be reported on today. We appreciate you both being here (inaudible). Thanks, Jim.

(Continued in Part 2)