MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
NOVEMBER 17, 1998
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Bolkcom called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:06 a.m. Members present were: Joseph Bolkcom, Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Stephen Lacina, and Sally Stutsman.
Bolkcom: I'd like to bring the Board of Supervisors to order for Tuesday, November 17th. Good morning everybody.
Lacina: Good morning.
Stutsman: Good morning.
Bolkcom: Item 2 is review the formal meeting minutes of November 12th and the formal minutes for the canvass of the vote for the general election of November 10th.
Lacina: Move approval.
Stutsman: I second the motion.
Bolkcom: We're in informal folks.
Lacina: Oh yes, we are.
Bolkcom: Carolyn, we're not doing the canvass of the votes for both the Regional Library Board and the... Both of them are bring deferred. The only minutes we are going to approve today are the November 12th formal meeting minutes. All right, thank you.
UPDATE: PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF JOHNSON COUNTY
Bolkcom: Item number 3 on the agenda this morning is business from the public libraries of Johnson County regarding update of county library activities. Good morning everybody. Feel free to come up to the front table or the front row of chairs if you like.
North Liberty Community Library Association Chairperson Dee Connor: I'm Dee Connor from the North Liberty Community Library and I'm chair of the Association this year. We just thought it was time to have an update. We missed last year. This is Grace. Shelly Grace is the Assistant Director from the Coralville Public Library (inaudible).
Coralville Public Library Assistant Director Shelly Grace: Hi, I just wanted to let you know what has been going on at the Coralville Public Library, part of which is we're going to have a new director December 1st. (Inaudible) is now working for the Iowa City Public Library. You'll miss her but I think you will find everything has been going forward very well with the Coralville Library. Over the last year or so some of the activities... The program we have added is that we have one more story time. It's on Saturday mornings. I think it gives the rural population a little better time to get into town by 10 o'clock for a story time for their children, instead of coming for one of our other story times, which are Tuesday mornings at 10:30, during the work day, or Monday evening at 7:00, after people are done working and they are looking more towards putting their children to bed. We do feel that these times are convenient for many rural people by adding more times during different times of the week. We can serve more rural and city people. We also have Internet access now for the card holding public and many people have taken advantage of it. Some people are just getting their feet wet when they come to our library and get on the Internet for the first time. Some people have used it before and they are now finding it convenient to use our Internet access on an ongoing basis. We're very happy that the rural population takes advantage of our regular programs that have been going on for years and our circulation to rural patrons has always been good. The children participate in our summer reading programs and come to our holiday or vacation time programs for children. We do have adult programs too, reading groups that rural people do take advantage of from time to time. We've always had very positive feedback from our rural patrons and we hope that you and they are continually happy with the (inaudible) at the Coralville Library.
Bolkcom: Thanks.
Connor: As I said, I'm Dee Connor from the North Liberty Library. I have a little fact sheet about some kind of interesting information from the library. We've been in our new library probably 2 years this February. Our circulation has tripled in that time and the rural usage has gone up by about 4%. We have plans of expanding. We always have plans of expanding. We're hoping to expand within 5 years to be up to 15,000 square foot library. We have a voluntary corps of about 75 volunteers who donate about 6,600 hours a year, otherwise I don't think we could probably serve the community and grow Johnson County as well as we do. We're very active with children's programs. We do have a once a month Thursday night children's program besides our regular program during the week. We have upwards of 70 kids attending each week, from all over Johnson County and Linn County actually. Last year we circulated over 93,000, almost 94,000 items of material. The previous year we circulated 73, that's when we were partly in the new building and partly in the old building. We also have Internet access and writing and multimedia stations. We have automated... We have bought a new software package for our automated circulation system which has vastly improved the usage of the public on the public access stations. We have classes on the Internet and computer usage for adults. We do a lot of adult programming. We're just way busy there. We can't keep up with it.
Bolkcom: That's good.
Stutsman: Can I ask where are you going to expand? The 15,000 square feet?
Connor: To the west.
Stutsman: A new building or is it...
Connor: No, it will be an addition to the west of the building. We have 6,500 square feet now so it will be up to 15,000 of library space. We're planning hopefully to add up to 2,000 square feet of work space. I thought when we added to the building, we had a workspace that was the size of the old library. I thought we're going to have more space than we'll ever use but we're out of space for the staff already. At that same point, I believe the community center's going to add a swimming pool and racquetball court.
Stutsman: Oh OK. You've just been in that new building not very long.
Connor: No, and it was in the master plan to expand within 5 years after we moved into this building. It may take us a little longer but it will be right around that month and time. We like it because we don't have to deal with meeting rooms or anything like that, they're all on the rec. center side of it.
Duffy: I congratulate the planners that were looking ahead in the future. What is there about 7 acres in that...
Connor: The City gave us 6 and 3/4 acres of land.
Duffy: That's all right then.
Iowa City Public Library Director Susan Craig: Susan Craig, Director of the Iowa City Public Library. Our building planners didn't do such a good job. It's hard to be so forward thinking and think in 20 years, what you're going to need and balance that with what you're spending money on 20 years ago. We are still working vigorously on a building campaign. As I'm sure you are aware, our building project right now is proposed to be funded through a sales tax, which is scheduled for a City Council vote tonight. If approved, I believe the vote date would be March 30, 1999. But just to update on some of the other things going on at the library. You should have been mailed a copy of our annual report that has our smart ALEC figure on the front, which we've had a lot of fun with this year. ALEC stands for A Library Electronic Connection and we have a lot of those going on this year. We are upgrading our computer system. It will probably be towards the end of April when that's first available to the public. It will be an entirely graphical based library catalog and there will be a lot of training in classes involved, teaching people how to do that. Part of that will be an ability to expand our access to the Internet. Currently we have 6 public stations where people can come in and have access to the World Wide Web. We are, this month, putting 2 computers for the first time for public access into the children's room. It will have some multimedia workstation products on. Those computers were funded from a branch from the Gates Foundation. We're getting a new phone system next month. Contractors from the State are here this month bringing the wiring into the building and installing the equipment for an Iowa Communications Network classroom. I hope that that is a facility that a lot of government agencies will be able to make use of as it will be one that is not dedicated solely to scheduled classes of educational institutions. The ICN classrooms in libraries were intended to provide a little different function for the State than the ones in the school systems. I just completed looking at a statistical spreadsheet that I do every year for the Iowa Urban Public Library Association, which is composed of the 10 largest public libraries in Iowa. I thought you'd be pleased to know that Iowa City came out of those 10 largest Urban Public Libraries in Iowa as having the highest percent of population with library cards, the highest circulation per capita, the highest circulation per full-time equivalent employee, the highest building traffic per capita and the highest number of loans to their rural home county. I think those are good things for you to know. One reminder is that we do have a representative from the county on our Library Board of Trustees and that appointment expires July 1 of this year. We'll be looking at recommending an appointment for that. So let's start beating the bushes for somebody good. Anne Spencer is the current County Representative and she's done a wonderful job.
Bolkcom: Great, thanks, Susan.
Oxford Public Library Volunteer Ada Crowe: I'm, Ada Crowe from the Oxford Public Library, which is the smallest public library in Johnson County, I guess. About 60% of our users are rural and the rest of course is in town. We operate on all volunteer help. I think there are only 2 libraries in the East Central District that still do that. We do need some help but we haven't found anybody or we haven't quite gotten to that yet. But some of our volunteers are retiring and so forth. We save money that way too so we can use our money for equipment and books. We have a summer reading program that goes over real well. However, this time of the year most of our users are adults. Right now, we have to house the town officers because their building blew away last summer. We're kind of cramped and we're trying to rearrange the building but we'll survive. Thank you.
Bolkcom: Thank you.
Solon Public Library Director Chris Brown: Hi, I'm Chris Brown from the Solon Public Library. I brought a case book for you, and I'm not sure that I brought enough for everybody to have their own copy so I apologize there. Since we last met, our Library Board has hired the fund-raiser who also worked with the North Liberty Library to help them build their library. His name is Dave Huxema. He's from the Twin Cities area. We put together this case book and presented it to our community. Of those people surveyed, 94% of our community was supporting this project. We started our fund-raising with 300,000 dollars in the bank. Our total project cost is 1.3 million. At this time... And it will build a building that is slightly larger than 10,000 square feet. At this point, we've raised 700,000 so we're at the million mark. We only have 300,000 left to raise. We're doing this fund-raising in private donations only. We're trying not to go the bonding route because the community has some building needs that they have to use that direction for. No one along the line has mentioned anything about the contract at this time. We hope to see some contracts. Our library hopes that there's some attention to that contract process this year with you. Partly because so much of our budget, at least 50% of our budget, relies on your decisions. We'd appreciate that attention. Thank you.
Connor: That was going to be one of the things we brought up, was the fact that we've been trying for the contract for almost 4 years, I believe. We've kind of understood we were supposed to have it in April.
Bolkcom: Which year?
Connor: Last year.
Bolkcom: Yes, the contract that we've been working on has been at the County Attorney's Office for some time and Pat's at a conference this week. I tried to reach him yesterday to see what the status of that was because we're waiting on language from him. I couldn't get a response because I wasn't able to get a hold of him. But we're aware that that hasn't happened and I think we're just waiting for the legal language from the County Attorney. We need to visit with him directly about getting that accomplished. We apologize for how long it's taken.
Stutsman: I might add too, Joe, it's a reflection of the County Attorney's workload. He has to prioritize things and I know he's got more than enough to do with the current cases that are in the news and things like that. It's not because he doesn't support what we're doing here, it's just a reflection of his work load. I agree we need to...
Bolkcom: That's a good point.
Lacina: In fact, instead of waiting years, perhaps what we need to do is to just find a private counsel because this isn't rocket science. This is just a real simple contract. We have the template with Iowa City that we just need to compare so I would predict in the terms of a couple hundred dollars, we could have this wrapped up in a month.
Bolkcom: Yes, I'm sure Pat can complete it, given the right incentives by the Board. He knows it needs to be done and it's just one of those things that's not been a front burner issue, given the work load in that office but we appreciate that being brought to our attention again.
Stutsman: And the patience...
Bolkcom: ...and apologize for not having this completed but we are, in principle, we're in agreement that we should have these contracts and get them in place.
Lacina: We're very fortunate... You brought up the idea of volunteers and I see in the Solon Library you had some very substantial contributions from individuals in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range. We're very fortunate in Johnson County to have the support of volunteers and all the workers and dollars and the work you do. You wouldn't have that support if they didn't believe in the institutions that you all support.
Bolkcom: Any questions? Yes...
Deborah Zeronka: I don't have a question but I'd like to make a statement in support of the libraries. I'm Deborah Zeronka. I'm here today for a different issue but as soon as I walked in, I saw our local librarian, Chris Brown of Solon. We are obviously a rural user. We moved here in ‘93 when my son was a year and a half. We have faithfully gone to the library every 2 weeks because that's how often our books are due so when they are due, we bring them back and get more. Jonathan has obviously been progressing through the reading stage. I was really... He almost made me cry when he was almost 5. In the fall they have a day called Best Friends Day where you pick up a rose and bring it to somebody, a good neighbor, a best friend, someone that you think typifies people who are truly good neighbors and reach out and do extra kind things. I let Jonathan help me decide who we were going to take our roses to. The first person on his list was Chris. He said Chris is my best big friend, because he was not quite 5. He looks forward to seeing Chris. As much as, obviously you know the amount of books that go through the Solon Library, she really has done a wonderful job of taking into account, not just what my son likes to read, but when she orders books, saying I know Jonathan likes to read these kinds of books and I have a lot of other requests from other little kids. We've got new books coming in under those topics. Jonathan is so excited. He'll be like oh. If he gets to be one of the first couple ones to bring those books home, he is just so tickled because his best big friend knows that he and all the other little kids like castles or dragons or cowboys. Now that he's in first grade, Chris always says, Jonathan, here's some new easy readers. So they learn their phonetics. She has helped him and my oldest daughter, who's a senior at Savior, pick out books through the inter-library loan system because obviously Solon hasn't been big enough to have the amount of books my kids go through. We're there every 2 weeks. I have just been really impressed with Solon's library and my son's best big friend.
Lacina: That's a nice story.
Brown: Gee, Deb, I...
Connor: That is something we also, I neglected to mention is our open access with the State Library and also the access plus with the inter-library loan. I know that North Liberty has had to actually hire a part-time person just to deal with our inter-library loan requests and what we send out and what our patrons ask for. I think we have a wonderful State Library. They work very well with us and our regional libraries are the same. I don't know what we'd do without them.
Bolkcom: You bet. We're really lucky in Johnson County to have the depth of library services available. We on the Board get to visit with you all. We're in kind of a unique position to see all the different assets of that including what's going on in Oxford and keeping that going with all volunteers. It's really nice. We're appreciative of your work and are happy to support it. I suppose you are preparing your budgets now and want some direction perhaps. I don't know if the Board is prepared to do that. I assume we're talking about the general notion of the 3 year average, which is kind of the basis of the contracts that would be presented this year for our consideration. Does that make sense?
Stutsman: I guess I'm not ready to make a commitment one way or the other. I guess, just proceed as we've done in the past and review them during the regular budget process.
Bolkcom: I think the last couple of years, we've gotten numbers that were in line with the idea of the contract proposal.
Connor: We're not unhappy with the money we've been getting, we'd just like a contract.
Bolkcom: Sure.
Stutsman: Yes.
Connor: Do you guys have any other questions for us?
Bolkcom: Any other questions?
Lacina: Just thank you very much.
Connor: Thank you.
Bolkcom: Thanks a lot.
Bolkcom: Item number 4 is business from the County Auditor. Discussion regarding 2 resolutions in the packet, the General Basic Fund, the Capital Expenditure Fund, transfer of $34,417.18 out of our computer technology fund and then item b is discussion regarding another changing departmental appropriations is with the Juvenile Crime Prevention Grant. Those will be on in a few minutes for formal approval. Mike Gardner is here. Discussion from the public. Do you want to talk about item number 5. I suppose we could take that in formal as well. We're going to be making those appointments this morning, I assume to the Building Code Committee.
Peters: I'll call Rick.
Bolkcom: Why don't we take a short recess and come back in the formal meeting and we can tackle it from there. We are recessed.
Recessed at 9:27 a.m.; reconvened at 11:13 a.m.
Bolkcom: Back to informal.
Reverend Robert Welsh: I'd like to express appreciation to you for tying that process in relation to a building code for Johnson County. Also in relation to your 140th discussion. Jonathan mentioned that you're all working on a policy in relation to right-of-way and types of standards for road surfacing. I think that's a very positive step. (Inaudible) I wanted to express my appreciation to you for those 2 things. Then to ask you one question, when are you all going to finalize your recommendations in relation to the sales tax, which I gather now is fairly (inaudible)... End of March, we'll be voting on the sales tax.
Bolkcom: I think sometime in December the Board needs to have it on. We've had a couple discussions about it in public session. We'll need to have it on in early mid December to try to finalize where we're at. I think we need to have language about January 1.
Lacina: There is a date.
Stutsman: Yes.
Lacina: We'll check.
Bolkcom: We need to put it on. At this point it's not scheduled.
Duffy: I don't agree we should have a policy for 140th Street because we've been talking about this forever. That ties up the north end of county and there's no hard surface road across that part of the county.
Bolkcom: Charlie...
Welsh: Those comments were not directed to the 140th Street discussion (inaudible).
Bolkcom: I think Jonathan points were right on target this morning about that. We are taking a closer look at things. But I'll also say we've decided to go on ahead with that road. That's a done deal. We don't need to...
Jordahl: Credit should go to Mike Gardner for the policy of looking at the geometry of the road first and trying to spread our limited resources out across the county. Then only with the traffic volume, hard surfacing it. That's Mike's idea. He's really been looking hard at this. He's been doing the planning process with Johnson County Council of Governments and the Zoning Administrator looking at a County road policy. I think it's really a good fruit of that. I want to make sure he's acknowledged for that.
Bolkcom: Good point. Any other members of the public wish to address the Board? Any other business, Board?
REPORT (LACINA): UPCOMING CHAMBERS TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE MEETING
Lacina: Just a real quick note. I received a call from Mark Hartwig who is chair of the Chambers Transportation Committee and I will be late at ISAC. Tomorrow morning, and we're all invited at the Holiday Inn at 7:00, they are going to have a transportation meeting. They're going to have some speakers in to discuss air, rail and road transportation. I know it's late notice but I just got the call last evening and from 7-9 will be the meeting. I just wanted to pass that on. I will be attending.
Bolkcom: I'm going to bike over so I might be a little late.
Lacina: Are you? OK.
Bolkcom: Anything else, Board? Let's adjourn the informal.
Adjourned at 11:15 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins Recording Secretary