Jordahl: Next item on the agenda is business from the Space Needs Committee.

Stutsman: Dwight Dobberstein is here to bring us up to date on where we're at as far as hiring a jail consultant. Morning Dwight.

AIA Project Director Dwight Dobberstein: Morning.

Stutsman: We had a Space Needs Committee Meeting Friday morning and the Committee made a recommendation about a response to the 2 jail consultants who have presented proposals for us to move to the next phase of working on the plans for a new jail, so Dwight do you kind of want to bring us up to date as far as you know our recommendations and things.

Dobberstein: OK. I noticed that in the proposal here they like to called Criminal Justice Consultants rather than jail consultants.

Stutsman: We stand Criminal Justice Consultants.

Dobberstein: But it was our recommendation that we have a Criminal Justice Consultant on the team to help us primarily answer the big questions on how big the jail should be, and what they would come in and do. Like interview the jail staff and that Sheriff's Department and look at the operations and look at how they do inmate classification and look at ideas on alternates to incarceration and maybe we don't need to keep all of these people in the jail. We need someone who will not necessarily be an architect but who has more experience with jails to do that and then come up with a program of spaces that we can then and make a schematic design, come up with a schematic design for this program of Space Needs and at that time we can determine how much it might cost and whether or not this will fit on the present jail sit and we had like Sally said 2 consultants that we interviewed and the whole Committee felt comfortable with CSG Consultants. The person we would be working with is Bill Garnos, in Overland Park, Kansas, and he has experience in this field. His credentials are that he was an executive assistant of the secretary of the South Dakota Department of Corrections. He served on the Governor's staff, in other words, in South Dakota and was a state project to rectify corrections, he's actually had experience in jails. He would be able to come in here and look at how our jail operates. I think the Sheriff is aware of that and is open to that kind of discussions to see how it operates and how it might operate and what the needs are and give us kind of that 3rd perspective. We understand that this first phase of this project that he's suggesting is going to cost between $12,000 and $16,000 but he can't really pinpoint that until he makes an initial trip here to get a better feel for what the need is for his services. So, what we're proposing is that we have him come here for an initial trip, pay his way, and then negotiate a contract for the study.

Stutsman: And that contract would come back before the Board before we signed off on that.

Dobberstein: Right, just taking one step at a time, just trying to get him here so we can discuss what his services would be, and how we might utilize it, so that would be our plan and recommendation at this point.

Stutsman: And we would have to pay for his travel expenses to come here for this first trip so we need the go ahead from the Board to go ahead and at least retain him and take care of those expenses.

Dobberstein: And we're talking probably just an overnight, or 2 days at most to come here and to possibly meet with the people from the Sheriff Department and take a tour through. The Space Needs Committee has decided that they would like to interview and talk with him also and negotiate what further this contract would be.

Jordahl: Do you fly or drive from Overland Park, Kansas.

Dobberstein: Well I think he's on the fence on that and that he can't quite decide himself, probably a 5 hour drive and if he can't make the right connections he would do that. It's a little bit difficult to get everybody together on the Space Needs Committee, but we try to find a time when everyone will get together and he hasn't determined yet whether he will fly or drive.

Jordahl: Well I think in view of the likely cost of the Criminal Justice Facility that we are proposing here it makes sense to get a good sense of where we're going.

Stutsman: Yes, this step is just crucial before we can proceed any further for our plans for...

Dobberstein: We have to be able to go to the public and substantiate why, and how big the jail needs to be, and he is the person the help us do that.

Duffy: Really, it's too bad that that jail is not an old jail, I think 1979, 1980 so it's 20 years old, which isn't old. You think we should look, and we've been trying to do it, adding on the jail there's the problem if we could get some land to west there it wouldn't take much and it would save the tax players a lot of money.

Stutsman: And that would all be a part of what he would be looking at.

Duffy: That's was I was going to ask Sally.

Stutsman: Right.

Lehman: If we could lose a lot of the parking, it would be nice if we could do underground parking, overhead parking, you're going to have to give up parking if you want to add onto the jail, and that's.

Duffy: I think we should meet with the University and put them on the agenda.

Stutsman: Well we can't meet with the University until we have schematic to go with them, because they said call us again when you've got something that we can respond to, something that's drawn out.

Duffy: Well in the past we've been discussing this a quite a bit, with some of the, and I think they would know that we're kind of in a bind here. I would not sell that possibility out.

Dobberstein: And neither are we, and we do need to find out how big the expansion needs to be in order to make that .

Duffy: Great.

Dobberstein: The jail is not old and it is designed to be expanded on both ends, but there's not much land there, and that's the problem.

Stutsman: And I was part of the group that interviewed Mr. Garnos through a telephone interview and I think what really appealed about him to me was that the fact that he's willing to sit down and talk with Sheriff Carpenter and Major Lewis and talk about programming ideas that maybe we can look at that might reduce the population instead of just right off of the bat build bigger.

Dobberstein: Right.

Stutsman: He's just got such a broad prospective of looking at these issues of jail space. Approaching it not just from that you need to build a bigger building to what are some other way to look at, and Bob was very receptive to that and I think it'll be a good dialogue between the 2 of the.

Jordahl: That's sounds very great and healthy.

Duffy: How many square feet is in the jail, do you know?

Dobberstein: Right now?

Duffy: Yes.

Dobberstein: I don't recall right off.

Stutsman: I've got it someplace, I've got it in a folder in the back.

Physical Plant Director Pat Langenberg: 28,000 approximately

Duffy: 28,000?

Jordahl: The thing not to lose sight of here in talking about this is that we may have some reduction in the need for a new facility but as I understand it, the day we do anything to this facility we have to double it to stay where we are. Pat's nodding his head.

Dobberstein: That's what we need to look at, and if we remodel the existing jail which is now double bunked we would have to go back and single bunk it as an initial indication from the State, but how much we might have to back in and remodel that is the question that maybe don't have to, I guess that's part of the whole study that we need to look at, whether we can continue that and can grandfather in that existing part of the jail and just not have to eliminate those double bunks I guess that is.

Jordahl: I've been operating with the assumption that I mean everything that I have heard up to this point has been that the grandfather situation would evaporate as soon as we did anything to update or expand the jail facility. We sure do need to pin that down.

Stutsman: And that's correct, isn't it Pat even if we change the Boiler.

Langenberg: Right.

Stutsman: I always want to say broiler.

Jordahl: And we may have one of those, but didn't we already, I mean there was something in the control room for example I mean we had remodeling with electronic stuff.

Langenberg: That was 911.

Jordahl: It wasn't specifically with jail staff.

Stutsman: Well there was consensus for the Board to go ahead, do we put this on Thursday then Carol, for an action.

Peters: You would for the contract.

Stutsman: Then we really don't need to Dwight can go ahead and contact this person.

Jordahl: Do we have a dollar amount that we're talking here for expenses for travel and I don't want to micro-manage here but can I get a ball park, are we talking about $1,000.

Dobberstein: I don't know, I think he charges about $85 and hour so if it's going o be an hourly rate, then what ever travel costs will be and an over night.

Jordahl: Should be a couple of thousand dollars than.

Duffy: That would be cheaper than some of them.

Stutsman: Yes

Duffy: I would like to make a statement that it's just too bad that we'll have to double our County Jail. I think that somebody's slipping up maybe even some Supervisors, and that heading some of this stuff off at the pass, and it's very costly and when not talking about Juvenile Detention in this building or are we, I don't think so. It's up to like $216 a day or something like that right now.

Dobberstein: I don't necessarily mistakes made in past I don't think that anybody saw this kind of growth and need, and its happening all over, not just here.

Stutsman: And it's not just growth but it's a response to what the legislature does as far as getting tougher on crime. If we all had that crystal ball that we could look into the future and see what was going to happen.

Lehman: I think it's like what Pat White said the Crime Prevention Bill provided more officers so we are apprehending more people, and like what Sheriff Carpenter said just because we're full we can't turn people away like a motel. We are required to house them and if we're going to send them to a different County that's still an expense to our taxpayer's so, I know you want to get the other direction where you have vacancies and you can bring people in from other counties and that's an option but that's way down the road.

Jordahl: That down the road piece of it is very fondly hope will be the result of this, that another Board of Supervisors doesn't sit here in another 20 years and say gee if only they would have looked ahead and realized we were going to have growth. I think we've established pretty well by now that with the magnet of the University here that this is going to continue to be a growing community and we can anticipate, but in 20 years we're going to have a continuing growth perhaps an exponential growth, and I would like to see any result of this plan be expandable, not just in terms of the architecture, like could this building be built onto in some kind of efficient way. But we need to be looking at where are the parking lots, and where the building actually go in 20 years, in 40 years. I hope that we do more than look at our present needs.

Stutsman: And I think that this is what this consultant would do is that he talked a lot about the criminal profile and just getting a feel for what the community is all about and being able to make some projections about what will happen down the road and that's why we're hiring him, as an expert to answer all of those questions that we may not just have a good handle on.

Dobberstein: And one of the biggest questions that we'll have to answer is that if this site will work or should we start considering other sites. That's all part of what is coming up yet.

Jordahl: And the cost of land at this site, maybe a very significant feature. One whether it is available at all, and secondly is it affordable at this site.

Stutsman: Carol did you have a comment that you were going to make.

Peters: I was just going say you may want to put it on the agenda just so incase anybody has a question just down the road, did the Board authorize the right to contact this person and invite him to come to your Space Needs Committee you know, you could certainly do it that way, it would make everybody...

Stutsman: I think that's a good idea.

Jordahl: Uh-huh. So we'll have this for some kind of formal action on Thursday that.

Peters: Yes, and it would just be to invite for the consultant to come and that the County would pay his expense.

Jordahl: Expenses and fee.

Duffy: When that new building was built there was plenty of room in it. It's just the last few years, like Sally said, tough on crime and things like that. If my memory don't fail me wasn't there a larger jail purposed and it go voted down. Somebody suggested a larger jail at that time.

Peters: At that time though, it was purposed to be on the southwest corner of the Courthouse block.

Dobberstein: That's right. I don't know exactly how big it was.

Peters: The dollar amount was more.

Dobberstein: Yes that's right.

Jordahl: Another piece that a constituent who called yesterday to raise to point of the cooperative needs of the Courthouse and the jail facility. I hope what part of what the jail consultant would look at is efficiencies that might be gained in a facility that was look at in the past of some kind of linking of the Courthouse and the jail facility utilizing the west side of the Courthouse hill, underground stuff or whatever, there are probably some plans in existence. Another question that occurred tome just now is with regard to this double bunking question if we establish that in fact we would have to double the size of our facility just to stay in the same place, in terms of our capacity, once we do anything, that really inflates the cost of doing any changing it may be that 2 locations, and this is a really radical idea, will allow us to continue without having to double the size of the present facility and then just do our expansion in another location. That's a radical probably stupid thought, but it occurred to me now and I thought I would just throw it out there.

Dobberstein: Well I think that came up from Bob himself, and of course that drastically affects the staffing, and I think staffing is art of what Mr. Garnos will look at, as far as the operations. But there are lots of different ideas and options and I hope that we would want to narrow that down so that his scope doesn't get so big that we can't get anything done. For this range of $12,000 to $16,000 I think there's not a unlimited number of options there and we have to look at 2 or 3, and those are the obvious ones, and that's next to the Courthouse, next to the jail, or some other 3rd site.

Stutsman: Well I guess lets go ahead and let him do his work and see where we're at with that.

Jordahl: So does Dwight need to come back on Thursday it sounded like he presented most of case today. Should we just simply take action on this on Thursday.

Dobberstein: OK.

Jordahl: Any members of the public have any question that you'd like to raise on the jail or space needs. OK. Well, thank you very much Dwight, a lot of work going in here, and you too Sally, and Charlie. Item B discussion regarding potential relocation of Human Services Income Maintenance Unit to Eastdale Mall location. Cheryl Whitney, Director of Human Services is here. Good morning.

Stutsman: Feeling better.

Whitney: Thanks. Dwight and I went out to Eastdale this morning to take a look at that site so we could begin to get a better idea about budget for the kind of remodeling and construction kind of costs that would go into this. I don't know that I need to go back historically, we've talked about the space issues for our staff. Our space at 911 North Governor really is not large enough and we've looked at and are certainly very interested in a space we're all of our staff would be together and I think that is a very appropriate long term plan for us. However we have an immediate need for additional space and so I have been looking at this Eastdale space because of it's proximity with Promise Jobs Work Force Development. Our Income Maintenance Unit is the unit that determines eligibility for Food Stamps, Family Investment Program, Medicaid, those public assistance programs, and the clients we serve in that area also do a lot of business with Promised Jobs, and Work Force Development. It would be really a great convenience for our clients if we could be co-located there by Work Force Development. There is space there's 3,097 square feet and part of that is available now and part of that will available February one. The cost for a 10 year lease would amount to about $12.56 per square foot, which would close to $40,000. Now that includes basic rent, charge and then because of the way that business there is structured there's a condo property insurance, there the common area maintenance, and then the real estate taxes and other assessments. When you add those thing together you get the $12.56 and that I should clarify is for the first 5 years, the 2nd 5 years would increased by 50 cents. There would probably be other increases in these charges as costs go up in those areas as well. We would get back, you know that right now we file that local administrative expense report, and we get back about 50% from the Federal Government on our costs for doing business. It's an interesting set up in that we are a State Agency but the law has always stated that the County is responsible for our space and administrative processes, like equipment, supplies, those kinds of things. But the way that‘s been structured then is that we can file out for some this reimbursement from the federal government. So, today I would just want to make to Board as whole aware that this space is available, that the Space Committee or some group of that would like to be able to talk more precisely with Jack Tank is the person there at Eastdale. So, if we could talk more precisely, and do some more firm budget figures so we could really have an idea of what we're investing in this, and where to proceed then.

Jordahl: My understanding is that there is some construction costs.

Stutsman: That's what I was going to ask Dwight, what the feel was, after you saw it this morning. At one time we talked about $25 to $35 a square foot for remodeling up to $50.

Dobberstein: Yes, we would have to probably gut the interiors and start from scratch, we did look at a similar facility, I think Goodwill is in there and their costs were about $20 a square foot.

Whitney: It was just under that, he didn't include everything.

Stutsman: Was that separate offices for that, because that was part of what was needed for this space is that we can't use partitions we have to use separate offices with walls and doors and things.

Whitney: The Goodwill space does have separate offices, and their small really, their not tiny but they're small and the one nice thing that they have is a window right by each door for safety security kinds of things. I think their space looks nice.

Stutsman: And they talked about that as being $23 a square foot.

Dobberstein: Well I haven't had a chance to look at this when it was done, it seems like it was last year or so, and they break down they gave us was just under $20 a square foot which would lead us to believe that maybe $25 would go a long way to solve the problem. But it just depends on the quality of construction and whether or not the mechanical system is good and apparently it is, they have been using it not too long ago and I think I'll give call to Brant heating to get a better feel for what's there. Of course, we'll have to re-do the electrical because it all new offices, and we'll have a lot of computer needs and things like that, but it would look like $25 a square foot would do the majority of it and it might cost a little more than that. It just depends on what we do.

Jordahl: Now are we talking about Goodwill there, or are we talking about Eastdale.

Dobberstein: Well these were numbers that they have gave us on Goodwill.

Stutsman: Goodwill has office space there as well as Work Force Development.

Dobberstein: At Eastdale, and office in Eastdale.

Jordahl: I see.

Dobberstein: So, it's a good guideline basically as to what this might cost.

Jordahl: OK.

Duffy: Can I ask some questions? How many workers are there about in Human Services, about 60 up at North Governor.

Whitney: Well with DHS and with the Johnson County Staff we have about 65 employees in that building.

Duffy: One of the problems here in County Government, do you see in the future more staff being hired? I mean I'm going to start scrutinize some of that. What I'm thinking of is that nay department, not to single yours out, but some department, it takes about 2/3 of their budget to implement to program instead of really helping people, I mean it's only about 1/3, when you figure everything, and I don't know if I am ready to act on this because I think that if we have to build a new jail, then there would a good place.

Whitney: Well, I certainly realize that we have lots of competing needs.

Duffy: I understand that, but so do others Cheryl, and of course I'm for Human Services, you know that. I have a history to back me up, but when you start talking about $25 a square foot and this and that, boy.

Whitney: They would pay for that, when I started talking with them they went ahead and did this offer to lease, I did not ask for that but they wanted to get some facts down. One of the things that is proposed is it says that the Landlord shall pay the tenant upon completion of the improvements $25 a square foot, and then they could recover that money over our lease period so they would pay, well we would have to front the money. The way imagine this that the bills would come in and the County would have to pay them. Then the way Jack explained this to me is that when we had the occupancy permit that they would then right us a check for up to $25 a square foot for whatever those costs have been. So, if it cost $35 a square foot, we're taking about another $30,000 that the County would spend. If we can keep it under the $25 then we're going to keep our costs more to what this lease would be which the net the County would about $20,000. What is going to happen without services in the future. We have certainly had a decline in the number of persons, and households eligible for the Family Investment Program, or the old AFDC program. But we have had quite a great increase in the number of people eligible for Medicaid. With the changes that we've had with the Child Medical Assistance Program and with some of the Waiver programs I think that the increase in Medicaid will continue. What you see within our County, some of the changes are social services. We have seen a really dramatic increase in the number of family's and children that we're serving. In the fiscal year of 96 we had about 50 kids in family foster care, and that figure had really been pretty stable for quite a few years, with some ups and downs. But since about may of '98 our numbers have just gone up dramatically. This fiscal year we've had about 100 kids in family foster care, so that impacts our work load. Our service workload is one of the highest in the State and so it would not be unrealistic to expect that we might have additional staff. The same with Income Maintenance, our Income Maintenance workload has been very high and we would, if we had more space frankly we would have another worker right now, so we could better serve the people.

Duffy: And you might have more people, there's people that move to Johnson County for the services that we provide. That's been going on for quite a long time and we know it, and we have always taken care of people but I see more and more of this so. Food stamps is that still under the Department of Agriculture.

Whitney: We are the ones who determine the eligibility for Food Stamps. The Department of Agriculture that's where the budget is in the federal budget.

Duffy: That always kind of surprised me that it was in there.

Stutsman: Part of the reason for that was to sell food, to promote ag products, so it sounded like a legitimate...

Duffy: Well that's true Sally, but when people need to eat, they need to eat.

Stutsman: Well they do and Food Stamps is helping people to eat, and when people buy food that helps that farmer, and so it was a Department of Agriculture program.

Duffy: Well I could argue a little bit about that but it's not worth arguing about.

Jordahl: Argue with Congress about that.

Whitney: When there are proposed changes in that program that program does have a lobby group and it's the grocers who are involved. They are a much more effective lobbyists than our clients are, so it's kind of interesting.

Jordahl: There's an alliance.

Stutsman: Well and Food Stamps is a Federal Program and that's where that LAE comes in where we do get reimbursements for those programs that we administer on a local level, but they are federal or state programs. So we do get reimbursements for having those programs here. To talk to the space needs I too hear the argument that we have a lot of human services that a lot of people come here and they do. But I don't think that we can say that by not addressing these space needs that people are going to stop coming here, these conditions that we're asking these people to work in at 911 North Governor are just not good. People are sharing offices and dealing with clients where they should not have to share and office. It is not a good work environment, and I see that this would go along way to alleviating some of those situations. I think that we as Board have a commitment to provide good working environments for our employees, and I think this is one way of addressing that. People sharing offices, it's just not good, I have shared on office and it is not a good work environment to share an office, and we share offices back here and I can think any of us can talk about how it's not efficient to share offices and it doesn't do anything for confidentiality and to making a productive work force.

Duffy: Would that mean then 65 workers would have 65 offices?

Whitney: Well it would mean that we would move about 15 people to the Eastdale side then that would free up 13 offices in our building and so what we would look at is that right now we've got 3 support people sharing one office.

Duffy: How big of an office, some of those offices are pretty big. I mean that I know some of them are small I'm not giving you hard time but.

Whitney: That office is about 150 square feet. We have Social Work Staff sharing offices in about 110 square feet you know, 2 people in 110 square feet, so we would be looking at getting those people moved into so everybody would have an individual office.

Jordahl: And confidentiality is such an import part of the work that you do, that to me the case is fairly clear that you ought to have a private space to speak with the client in. That it's very difficult if not impossible to properly conduct your business in a space where people are having to share offices, what does the other person pretend not to hear what's going on.

Stutsman: Well even having a phone conversation is just practically impossible to do when you share an office, in that close of an office. It's one thing if you had an office this size and at different ends of the room, but when it's that small of an office and sharing and trying to have 2 phone conversations is practically impossible.

Jordahl: The question about the Space needs Committee in it's existence and the priority of this and versus other space needs in the county, I think the reason that we have the Space Needs Committee in place is to try to advise the Board about the relative priority of these items what should be done first, which things can we do in a reasonable way and so forth. What I'm hearing is a recommendation from the Space Needs Committee that we proceed not to rent or buy this space at this point but to negotiate in seriousness about what the firm detail of buying it would be and then we would decide based on what those detail are found to ultimately to be. Would that include remodeling cost?

Dobberstein: Yes, we were going to put together a rough budget for remodeling costs, obviously you would never know the final number until we bid it, but I think we can, with the information we have at least, get a budget for those that we can present and then decide if that's the amount of money we want to spend on this space. We're looking at it as a somewhat temporary, even though 10 years sounds like a long time, this does not solve their overall problem, it does in short term until we get (inaudible).

Jordahl: It alleviates, I mean it just does not benefit those workers who would move, it benefits people who would remain at 911 North Governor and you'd have space freed up there and I do like the idea of co-location very much.

Whitney: It will help us money wise as well for instance there's a conference room at Work Force Development that they have said that we can use. It's quite a large conference room and the states paying rent on that, not us. You have small office like that there's going to be one copy machine of there and when that copy machine breaks down they can go across the hall and use Work Force Development. There are some real advantages just security kinds of things just a lot of advantages. Besides being able to serve our clients better it think it's a much more it's a much more economical set up for us when you look at the big picture than if we were to just go somewhere and look at that kind of space.

Stutsman: Would this mean hiring another receptionist to over there or...

Whitney: We would try very hard not to do that Sally, we have right now 2 support people pretty dedicated to Income Maintenance.

Stutsman: OK.

Whitney: Certainly the receptionist, many of the people that they are dealing with are Income Maintenance clients. So, what we would look at in terms of what are the busy times and then maybe having the 3rd person being over there during parts of the day or something, but I would hate to think that we would have to hire another support person to make this work. That would increase the cost substantially.

Jordahl: Well that's an important other piece that I think Charlie was raising the question in terms of more staff you said that if we had room for it then we would hire another Income Maintenance Worker right now. well this happens and you have more room, then we see another Income Maintenance Worker, do we also see a receptionist.

Stutsman: But that's a state position.

Jordahl: Oh, I see, pardon me, thank you for that. Well so, what we need to do about this to move ahead is to get sense of the Board that we want to go ahead with this in terms of negotiating. We don't need to take any kind of formal action to negotiate. Is the main consensus of the Board is to go ahead. Charlie?

Duffy: Well we can look into it, but have we ever advertised about our space needs. I thought one time we did. I think the word is getting out to the people in the real estate business, that's what I heard yesterday.

Whitney: Well I came before the Board and talked about our space needs situation. I think way back in August, but I'd have to look to be certain.

Duffy: I don't know if we just (inaudible).

Stutsman: And we've looked into a number of alternatives.

Duffy: Yes we have.

Stutsman: To try and address this problem.

Whitney: Well, the Board has had calls from people and so I do think that many people are pretty aware.

Stutsman: But the reality of it is too is that there's not space that is going to be free. Every space that we look into has a cost and you try to weigh those costs with the location and just try to decide which is the space that will best fit our needs.

Jordahl: I want to take your question seriously here Charlie, what are you suggesting that we do here.

Duffy: Well yesterday I was talking to some people in the real estate business and they said that they will start spreading this around that we need some space, and then it just kind of dawned on me I didn't know whether we've really advertised for it, or not.

Stutsman: We've had a number of articles in the paper talking about our space needs, I mean I think we've tried to inform the public as much as we can.

Duffy: I guess you wouldn't have to do it, but again, I would hate to see a center, is that 10 years, see a 10 year contract and we don't know yet what we're going to do about the jail.

Lehman: But to check into an option for subleasing the last couple of years in case something did materialize for us on our own building.

Stutsman: And that was the recommendation of the Space Needs Committee. At first we talked about a 5 year but then we would be putting substantial investment in to this office space so then we thought that it would probably be better to have a 10 year with the option that we could sub-lease, if there was different location that came into being.

Jordahl: So that would be part of the negotiation and option to sublease.

Whitney: Yes, I think that it should be part of that.

Jordahl: All right, well that's another important part of it. Well, members of the public we've got the space needs question on the table, anybody have anything to toss in here.

Welsh: Should this replace the proposal on purchasing some land for a new building.

Jordahl: No, I don't believe it does. No, this would be in addition. These things are operating in parallel right now.

Stutsman: Right, right, we are still looking at that option. But, even with that option if everything fell into place it would still be a number of years before that would be realized and so for lack of a better term this is a Band-Aid approach to try and alleviate some immediate concerns that are happening over there. No, we just don't know Bob, any kind of purchase of land and building a building would require a substantial fund of money, so it depends on how we would approach putting that all together, and it excludes very well take 10 years, I don't know.

Jordahl: But that is part of the discussion in the issue whether to proceed with the negotiations about that land has been a question of how would we afford to make that purchase and what about constructing a building there. We have set aside $600,000 in current budget for space needs, and Capital Projects, and that could begin to realistically over a period of a few years pay for the cost of the land, the question is what's the building go on top of that. That's still a question that is out there. I don't know, do you Sally, you are more familiar with the space needs, do we have a time projection on putting a building on that site.

Stutsman: No, no a lot depends on whether we are successful getting the land let alone...

Dobberstein: There's the cost of the building besides that we don't know how that is funded, and this is an immediate need that we thought that we could address.

Stutsman: And the fact the Cheryl here and the Space Need Committee is supportive of her being here I think talks to do much of a concern your immediate needs are. And I guess one thing that I don want to caution, and I think that this comes form the Space needs Committee too, is that we don't want to pit one of the projects against another these are all needs that need to be addressed and so it think with our discussion with the jail and with DHS, a and some of the other needs. You know, we're just trying to address these all together and realize them. One isn't more important that the other these are all dramatic needs that the County needs to face and to work toward addressing.

Jordahl: In terms of balancing the jail project against this one, not to pit them again one another, but to ask how does this fit into one picture, my sense is that while we have some money in the budget currently that could deal with some of these needs that are relatively smaller scale to deal with a jail is a whole different order of magnitude and it's going to require some kind of different funding approach that simply what we have in place right now. That's kind of how this can go forward and that still be a live question because we're talking about building jail out of our current budget you're going to be waiting along time of that jail. So thank you for coming in.

Whitney: Thank you we'll keep you posted.

Jordahl: Any other matters of the Space Needs Committee.

Stutsman: I think that's all for right now.

Jordahl: Would there be any objection to taking a short break.

Duffy: I should leave here at 11:30 that gives us as hour.

Jordahl: 7 and a half minutes how about that.

Recessed at 10:30 a.m.; reconvened at 10:43 a.m.

Assistant County Attorney Janet Lyness: I put... It's behind your computer actually. I think I gave you a copy of the contract.

Jordahl: That's a good place to hide it.

Lyness: Pat can talk more about the specifics. I just wanted to let you know a couple things about the contract. As I reviewed it, it does have in here some questions that you might have, under the price section, there's different things that they could add onto the price that they're charging us, like transition costs, public purpose program costs, environmental compliance costs. Those are things that if the Legislature says that we have to pay those, they have to pay them then we're going to pay them, which is no different than how it would be if we had this contract. If the Legislature says there are going to be these additional costs, you have to pay what you have to pay. These are not (inaudible)...

Stutsman: Hidden costs...

Lyness: Basically says... Just letting us know that these are not covered. They aren't going to pick up these tabs if the Legislature says that they have to pay them, they're going to pass it on to us. But that's how it would be regardless of whether we keep the contract. But I looked it over. It looks OK. On the next to the last page, on page 9, exhibit A, just to fill you in on what's going to happen there. There was this list of all the different buildings that would be covered that we are currently have contracts with Mid American for energy. 4 of them that I have written next to it, that say out, those will not be covered in the contract.

Jordahl: Now when it says Admin Building... I can't read what it says there.

Lyness: That's actually the Courthouse.

Jordahl: Oh, the Courthouse.

Lyness: That's the Courthouse. My scribbling next to it you probably can't read, it says Courthouse, just to clarify that. Basically what this would do is currently we're paying rate 22 or rate 42 for all of these different facilities. It would change it to one standard rate, which would be lower than what we're currently paying. When you average out all of the different costs for the different buildings over the 6 year period of time, we'd save about $20,000.

Langenberg: Now we've talked about this last week and we had 3 different options to go with. The 3.3% rebate, the 2.75%, or just go with the money up front, what we were talking about and that's the plan we were talking about.

Jordahl: Money up front is always attractive.

Langenberg: Yes. That's what we agreed on last time. (Inaudible) changing that or not.

Stutsman: I'm still supportive of that. I don't know how the rest of the Board feels.

Jordahl: Mike?

Lehman: Yes, was this going to be retroactive as of January 1 or...

Langenberg: Yes. What they do is they pay it at the end of the year.

Stutsman: OK, the discount or whatever.

Langenberg: Yes. The check does. I'm sure it does.

Stutsman: How much does that amount to? What is it?

Langenberg: Total?

Stutsman: Yes, a year though, I was thinking about.

Langenberg: First year would be 6,075.

Stutsman: 75. OK, I was just...

Langenberg: Then the next year, it's the third column from the right. I don't know if you have that in front of you.

Stutsman: I was looking for a big windfall to balance our budget. It's not there.

Lyness: Wishful thinking.

Jordahl: OK. Well I hear everybody not having questions. Do members of the public, press want to (inaudible) the discussion. I hear a lot of just kind of nodding and waiting so I guess we're going to be ready to go ahead with this. Will we have a contract then on Thursday?

Lyness: What I talked to Mid American about doing is, on exhibit a, just blocking out those buildings that we aren't going to be including in this contract.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Lyness: They were going to just have you initial it and I'll initial it and that would be fine. That's what the recommendation was. They said that was fine.

Jordahl: OK.

Lyness: We can just be clear on which buildings are covered.

Jordahl: All right, well, you're happy. Janet, you're happy?

Langenberg: I really think it's good. I think that, personally, prices are going to increase.

Jordahl: Uh-huh. Our prices are decreasing so far so good, right?

Langenberg: But again, don't hold me to that, either.

Jordahl: No. We're all making a judgement together.

Langenberg: Sure.

Lyness: The other thing is whether there's going to be another energy provider that's going to come in, that's going to offer cheaper rates. The chances of them coming in within the next 5 or 6 years are probably not great, either, so we aren't really losing out on any big opportunities.

Jordahl: Is there any presumption of any kind of a renewability of this contract or are we...

Lyness: I don't think that's been discussed at all.

Jordahl: Maybe we should go for more years, just throwing out a random thought.

Lyness: I don't know they have any interest in doing that.

Stutsman: I bet not.

Lyness: It would surprise me because they really want to see what's going to happen in the next 6 years.

Lehman: It could work both ways too.

Lyness: Right.

Jordahl: Yes.

Lyness: I think that if they think there are going to be other carriers in here and it might be cheaper, it's provided in the future... They don't have much incentive to go beyond 5 or 6 years either.

Jordahl: OK, well...

Lyness: I think we might not want to either because in 5 years (inaudible)...

Jordahl: Who knows about that far in the future? All right, so I guess we'll see this contract back...

Lyness: On Thursday night.

Jordahl: ...on Thursday night and be able to take formal action at that time to authorize the Chair to sign.

Lyness: We put it back in this morning so Pat and I didn't have to come back Thursday night. If you have any questions you could ask (inaudible).

Stutsman: You don't want to join us on Thursday evening?

Jordahl: You don't think you're maybe going to be around on Thursday to advise us on legal matters?

Lyness: Pat's going to be here.

Jordahl: OK.

Lyness: I'm sure he'll have (inaudible).

Stutsman: So there's a method in your madness. We knew it.

Jordahl: All right, well thank you for coming in.

Langenberg: Thanks.

Jordahl: Yes, that was probably a lot shorter than the Local Option Sales Tax discussion promises to be.

Stutsman: Should we just do those next ones? Well I guess the next one is just appointing Mike Gardner to the East Central Iowa Council of Governments.

Jordahl: Yes, and Mike's not here so I don't suppose...

Stutsman: Just put that on for Thursday?

Duffy: He's been on there for quite a while.

Peters: It's a reappointment. That's what it is.

Jordahl: Uh-huh. It's non-controversial. Board Members are going to take some time. Minutes received, we can note.

(Continued in Part 3)