White: Let's speak more specifically to number 4, Space Needs Committee. And I'll just give those of you who aren't on the Board an update because there's some fairly significant decisions that are just a couple of days or weeks away here. Next Tuesday I believe the Board is going to hear a report from Cheryl Whitney and Dwight Dobberstein about the availability of 2 components in Eastdale Plaza totaling just a little under 3,100 square feet. Cheryl has a very strong interest in leasing that space as a temporary, and by temporary we'd be talking about 5 to 10 year interim space solution. Her plan would be, if the Board agreed to do that, to relocate her income maintenance unit into that space in Eastdale. She remains very strongly attracted to that general site. Last Thursday morning Cheryl and Dwight and Sally and I walked through that space, looked at Eastdale. I was actually surprised, I mean I knew there were Human Service functions in there but I didn't realize workforce development had as much space as it does. I'd forgotten that Goodwill had put a vocational unit in there. ARC of Johnson County is there, DOT of course is there and frankly it is a pretty attractive space to locate income maintenance. Dividing income maintenance from other DHS functions is not very attractive and that's why it would be viewed as a temporary or intermediate solution. Dwight will probably have some numbers. This would be a combination of lease-space and County capital expenditure and the least would probably be in the range of $8 to $8 and-a-half a square foot and the County capital outlay to remodel would probably be somewhere between $100-$200,000. So that will be on the Board's agenda for a pretty serious discussion as early as next week. We're also, the Board has authorized me to proceed with an offer on property on Mall Drive it's the bare ground that lies between the 2 daycare centers on the east side of the street. The offer has not been presented yet. In terms of priorities the short-term lease sort of took me off of moving ahead with that offer. Its been... The total land cost of that location would end up being somewhere between $1 million and $1,200,000. The real challenge for me has been trying to negotiate that purchase with the money we have available for it, so I've been talking to the owner and their representative about a contract purchase perhaps lasting over 10 years. The way we're going to proceed is we'll try to negotiate that offer to a binding agreement contingent upon Board of Supervisor approval. So the approach would be for me to reach negotiations that are firm as to the owner, and then we'd bring it to the Board of Supervisors at a public meeting and they would have 30 days for example to make a decision as to whether they wanted to buy at that price.

Slockett: Did you say where this location...

White: It's on Mall Drive, on the east side of Mall Drive between... There's a daycare site that's right north of Lenoch and Cilek's and there's another daycare site that's right south-westerly of the car wash. Between those 2 daycare buildings there's about a 160,000 square feet of bare, unimproved land.

Slockett: Where is that in relation to the bowling alley?

Kriz: Right behind it.

White: Behind it.

Slockett: Behind it.

Lehman: About 3 and-a-half acres plus.

Kriz: Right.

White: Pretty close to... About 3 and 3/4 acres I think ...

Slockett: And what would ...

White: Cheryl has a ...

Slockett: This is for human services?

White: It would be more than enough for Human Services. Conceptually, there'd be enough land there to put Human Services, Department of Health and probably other human service-like facilities. Whether the County would... We're nowhere near specific plans as to when that would happen. There'd be enough room that we could either lease or incorporate other Human Service Agencies who were interested. The concept at this point would be a basement and 2 above ground floors of some sort of a building, one or more buildings out there.

Slockett: Are these going to be decision making meetings?

White: Yes.

Slockett: I was just thinking there's a new addition to the Board of Supervisors that happens to be someone who has a considerable amount of expertise in the area and I was just sort of regretting that that person's perspective...

White: That will be if the Board can decide how quickly it wants to move on either of those. Whether it wants to wait for Carol... You never know what the market will do, I think we've probably have got some time if we need it. At this point the decision making with regard to leasing will come first.

Slockett: Why has the current site been abandoned? Is there...

Bob Carpenter left at 2:50 p.m. and returned at 2:52 p.m.

White: It hasn't been abandoned.

Slockett: It hasn't? So is there a way that could be negotiated with a landlord for...

White: I suppose there's always a way. Cheryl, in making recommendation both to the Space Needs Committee and to the Board, has strongly advocated southeast Iowa City where there's a location in proximity to so many other Human Service agencies and she's expressed a pretty strong preference to get away from the disadvantages of that particular location. 2 one-way streets, the less than ideal bus stop and visibility for the main entrance and exit. The building is...

Duffy: Pat, I really don't agree with that.

White: You'll have a chance to tell her not to least this space, that will be the Board's decision.

Duffy: But I visited up there last week. I went up to see the workers up there and... So that's the main reason why I went up there. Because I'd been there before but it looks to me like that is a pretty good building. I was going to ask the owner, like Tom, thinking add on to that. Now as far as the streets are concerned I'm not so sure it's too great down around First Avenue and Muscatine Avenue that's... You just have to watch when you pull out of there because there are stop signs, sooner or later, they'll stop traffic coming up Governor's Street. But you have to watch in Iowa City, but I'm really not sold on... I think we're getting a good deal up there for $6 a square...

White: We're getting what we're paying for.

Tom Slockett left at 2:52 p.m. and returned at 2:54 p.m.

Duffy: Yes. So what's going to happen if the state says hey we have to... Tells our Sheriff you got problems, that this jail is overcrowded. Then we're getting into priories...

White: Absolutely.

Duffy: ...the State says something that's what we're going to have to do first.

White: That's one of the Board's main responsibilities is to set priorities.

Duffy: As far as not looking ahead Jonathan, I'll start with this building. I won't go through this whole list, the staggering list of what was done here. This building evidently was built on the 4th of October 1986 at a cost of $2,278,829.65. So that would be about, what 13 years ago. So if you own property instead of renting it, what have we been doing up here? We spent probably a month or so, we're going to knock out this wall. We need more space, we got into the City Assessor. We got into over here at Recorder's, we want that space. There's a space downstairs that we could use and we're going to use the break room and then this room would cross in the breakroom. What I'm trying to say is if we would have purchased property instead of renting it we would have went on to the same thing, the way it looks to me with this building. Everybody will say... That personally I think the Recorder's Office, that was taken care of. Auditor's Office wanted a look at the way they're added. They need space needs so it don't matter. Here's another one that we have. These are just 2 of the things. Chatham Oaks and that was a big battle for Supervisors. Chatham Oaks, when that went private. Air conditioning $132,827.55 that was May 24, 1990. And then we come back with replacements September 3, 1991 $112,100 just in a short period of time there that will add up to about $255,000. So if you own property you still have to keep it up. It's about like the roads. The County owns County roads and you have to keep it up. It really wasn't a case of not doing ...There's a lot of them here including that Health Department. We bought that place down there and I remember what we did was... We were proud of that but we put a lot of money in that place. The one that I have reservations about for right now is the Human Service building because I think it is a lot better building than people give it credit for.

Jordahl: Like that Health Department building is a good example Charlie.

White: In any event the Board will be hearing this report probably next week on what I would characterize as a possible interim Human Services Space solution.

Slockett: See Pat, could you just review. You were starting to list the reasons why this site isn't good. 2 one-way streets, poor, inadequate ....

White: You need to let Cheryl do that, I don't want to carry the ball for that or give...

Slockett: No, I wasn't trying...

White: This isn't, I'm not trying to make her case today.

Slockett: I'm not trying to attack it I was just trying to understand why that site wouldn't work.

Lehman: I think she says she's got 65 employees up there now and they're going to move 15 of them to the Eastdale location.

Slockett: But I know...

Lehman: They're doubled up an awful...

Slockett: I know in the past that building has been expanded just by re-negotiating the contract with the landlord and he would remodel it and do whatever, then you wouldn't... To me it seems to be a major disadvantage to split.

White: It is. There's no question it is and that's why she's very clear in saying that's a temporary solution.

Tom Kriz left at 2:56 p.m. and returned at 2:57 p.m.

Slockett: So if you could expand it on-site for less money and keep everyone together, it might be worth looking at.

Jordahl: She's like at co-location of services though as a big plus. If you've got people that go from Income Maintenance and then go over to Job Service then they go to Workforce Development then they go to Kirkwood Community College for skills development. There's sort of a regional group of activities going on there. There are agencies that say they would work with...

Slockett: So you're contending it's an advantage whereas Pat thinks it's a disadvantage. Is that right?

Jordahl: I don't think that Pat's going to take it as a disadvantage to have a co-location of services where those people can be together. What the disadvantage is that you would be separating various components of DHS. The larger plan though with this new land north of Lenoch of Cilek is to re-group the DHS folks all under one roof that would still be in that same region of town and have that advantage or a similar advantage of co-location.

White: Yes, that's why she remains strongly interested in the Mall Drive site. She would like a permanent location out there.

Slockett: That overrides and interest in the Board having her be part of a County campus?

White: No, but she sees less value to her being part of a County campus than you do. You're the only whose ever suggested there's any inherent value in her being near the Board of Supervisors or the Auditor. She has a much stronger preference to be near other Human Service agencies.

Slockett: I guess what I'm thinking in the long term is if there was a County campus what would be the possibility of Human Service agencies migrating towards that County campus.

White: Anything's possible. The space needs committee is assuming that this building is a given and the courthouse is a given and the jail, for some County function, preferably a jail is a given. So a campus which has all of those together won't happen unless we buy everything between here and the courthouse which I think it's fair to say won't happen ...

Slockett: That's not going to happen.

White: We remain at a bit of a disadvantage. The direction the Space Needs Committee has recommended and the Board not having to make any formal decisions but has said, yes we like those ideas, are to acquire the Armory site when we can and we'll continue to work on that. That's a 5 to 10 year project, and to acquire property north of here to buy, clear and create something of a campus on this location. We need to have money in the bank to be able to execute when those properties become available. There's a property available right now... I don't think we would probably be interested anyway at the price it's being offered at. But it's beside the storage facility over on Capital Street. It's just not practical for us because we don't have the money. It would be 8th or 10th on our priority list but clearly a nice to have if we had a long-term capital budget that we could deal with.

Slockett: Well I would like to just quickly and respectively say that I strongly disagree with...

White: I know you do.

Slockett: ...the assumptions of the Space Needs Committee.

White: I know you do. The Space Needs Committee has respectively listened but...

Carpenter: But I think, in fairness to them, I don't think anybody hasn't paid attention to what you said. I think everybody would really like to see that happen but it's not going to happen because of the funding. There's absolutely no way I can see that ever happening the way the money situation is now. If we had all kinds of money sitting out there, we could buy this property. But number one, we can't sit and wait until we collect the moneys to do this. For some of these things it's got to happen. I mean, it just isn't going to happen.

White: Look at them a lot closer than you might think if we ultimately acquire the Armory and some or all of the block north of here.

Slockett: I'd rather focus on firstly seeing those 2 properties west of the parking lot and trying to work on that site and begin building on one site. That's the only way that I can see starting to develop a campus. Then I can see in the future possibly...

White: West of the federal parking lot?

Slockett: Yes. And in the future negotiating with the federal government on the vacant post office building and possibly with the School Administration on its building.

White: Even at that site, Cheryl, as the spokesperson and department head would say that's not nearly as attractive as being near Systems and Goodwill and Workforce Development. Workforce Development particularly.

Slockett: All I'm saying is that could be a short sighted view in that it might be that Systems and Workforce Development might end up in that area at some point in time as well, especially if the County...

White: It won't happen.

Slockett: ...provided the campus and facilities for them to be in.

Lehman: I was kind of curious how... I think Charlie brought it up that we're not advertising or making in contact with real estate agents. They know that were looking for space. I had one of the individuals involved with Kennedy Plaza over here, called me and I passed the word on to Sally. I read the paper. I was kind of surprised that he wasn't more aware of it. I guess I like your idea of a campus. I'm thinking of City Carton over here. But their trucks and stuff and I think they would be looking to relocate at some time. And with the stop light over there you could almost close the street right here, route traffic around and bring a new road to the south. It would give you a pretty good sized area. You wouldn't be buying a lot of building that have a lot of value to, possibly even them or to anyone else. Maybe you're aware of that, maybe that's been approached but you have to have the money in hand if you go and talk to somebody...

White: Somebody looked at the Kennedy Plaza and concluded that it isn't enough space. In fact Sally and Graham Dameron and Cheryl have also looked at it. There's a building on Kirkwood they looked at. Lensing's just acquired that office building that's right west of the funeral home. Well in any event the Board will be talking about that next week. As early as Tuesday, that would be the time to be at the Board meeting to pitch in.

Jordahl: Talking about... I wanted to say a last thing about this in terms of the flexibility of the options that we're looking at. I mean leasing space in Eastdale, we're talking about a lease that would then allow us to sub-lease and we're talking about making improvements to the space that would be attractive and useable by a variety of different occupants. So we've got our eye on possibly being able to move back out of Eastdale before the lease would expire in order to take advantage of the development of the Human Services building and possibly could also include the Health Department and so sort of a mini-County campus of related County services that might exhaust in that spot next to Lenoch and Cilek. There again, possible having enough room at that site to sub-lease or grant space to other agencies that we support. Thereby allowing us to perhaps diminish our support for rent to them but... is to just put them in our space. Beyond that, to possible sell or sub-lease that space if we are able to develop a County campus so we were talking about building spaces that are flexible enough as rental property or for resale that we aren't necessarily tying ourselves down. I think that's part of what's being discussed. How valid that is, but it's a nice idea.

Slockett: I would encourage that mind thought. I like that.

White: City Carton, by the way, is a contact we need to make. The Committee is in agreement that we ought to touch base with them, let them know of our long-term interest and see what their level of interest is. It may be, I think north where we're going to bump into our biggest problem is the lumber yard. It's hard to tell where we'll end up at this point. But the one thing that's clear is we're going to need an ongoing budget level to be able to carry out any of these plans, whatever they are.

Jordahl: There ongoing budget level, that's a nice way of saying tax increase.

White: It may well be.

Carpenter: It's kind of like sitting on a committee where all you can do is dream.

White: It may well be.

Carpenter: Because you don't see any of it probably being a reality.

White: And that's part of what I think is just crucial about this particular meeting and discussion is if taxes need to be increased, all 10 elected officials need to be able to explain why they are and the absolute ideal would be nice if we all agreed it was necessary, that may never happen. We all at least need to be able to explain the County budget as best we can.

Jordahl: I think you could ignore the whole of the County budget and focus on simply the need for the jail and explain a tax increase. If it's a good idea to save, and if we need a jail, and we need a jail, and it's a good idea to save in my principle. I believe both those things. Then we need to do it. We need to just simply sock as much money as we can possibly stand to put away, away. I don't see an argument against that.

Carpenter: One of the things that I hear all the time is the fact that most people do not understand that whether we raise the taxes to add on the jail, or what we do, or whether we have to raise the taxes to transport prisoners, that expense is going to come whether we like it or not. There's nothing we can do about it. It's going to be a burden, it hits us and we're going to pay one way or the other whether we use that money to give somebody else's County the money for taking care of our prisoners or whatever. It's going to be there one way or the other. A lot of people don't understand that we don't have a choice whether we're going to take those or not, we're going to take them. We've got to do something literally. It's not like... If it was my downstairs, and it is as full as the upstairs, but if it was my downstairs where I have to work out of as an office, we could say well hell let's put another desk in there and that's, you're going to get all the filing. But that isn't what's happening here because we can put so many people in there and then they're going to shut doors and say no more, we have to go somewhere else. Most people don't understand that and I don't think they understand... The city understands on their part in the County jail, they figure well that's a County function that's the County's problem let them worry about it. I don't think they understand their partnership in this deal.

Jordahl: All the city taxpayers are going to be paying the bill...

Carpenter: They said well we're going to be paying for a County jail now why should we have to do that? I mean ...

Slockett: Because it's full of Iowa City residents that's why.

Jordahl: That's a pretty good answer.

Kriz: It comes down to educating everything. It's education all the way. And I hope what Bob said doesn't get lost in this. If we intend to be everything to everyone, if we intend to be the best at what we do often. You may not agree Tom, but it has to be funded.

Slockett: I don't that we intend to be everything to everyone. I just don't accept that premise.

Jordahl: We tend to fulfill our responsibilities...

Kriz: ...to our community.

Jordahl: ...in an exemplary way and in an efficient way. But I don't think that it's like... The idea of pointing a figure at the Board of Supervisors and saying gee you Board are spendthrifts. All we're trying to do is balance competing needs which we cannot meet in their full extent, any of them, except some things we're obligated to do, we legally must do certain things. We all participate in this. Everybody makes up a budget, says this is what we need and I've tried to hold back. This is what we can do with existing staff we have to have staff. I don't believe that departments come to us with frivolous requests for more staff.

Slockett: Jonathan do you realize what a chilling effect it has on discussion when you characterize positions in such a way as... That we're saying the Board of Supervisors are spendthrifts. When you summarize arguments that way it's very difficult to continue discussing the ideas and it really makes people clam up.

Jordahl: I'm trying to pick up on what I've heard said here where we're talking about...

White: I'm not chilled.

Jordahl: ...a group ...I don't expect.

Slockett: Everyone except Pat might be chilled.

Jordahl: ...at this point a lot more.

Kriz: No, I went to school with Jonathan and I guarantee you I'm not chilled by that.

White: Jonathan is not a chill type person.

Duffy: What is this a conspiracy (inaudible)?

Jordahl: It's a group they were working on. There was a Regina thing going on, we had a UI thing going on.

Kriz: That's right. Remember they closed it too.

Duffy: City High is a recurring (inaudible).

Carpenter: Both you guys understand I've heard the same story because my wife went to school with you guys, the same old stories about both you guys.

County Recorder Kim Painter: Now there's a chill.

Kriz: Yes now the air got real cold.

Carpenter: No that's the reason why I support these moves because I think it is important that the Board understands and the other fine elected officials understand what the Board is up against. Up until we started doing this there really wasn't a mechanism for the other elected officials to express their feelings directly to the Board members sitting here. I think it's important that the Board has our feelings along the line and we can understand yours. I think it's a lot better to go to the public as a group, as a whole rather than just the 5 Supervisors but all 10 elected officials if that's possible. I mean it mean's more I think to the public.

Jordahl: Yes, it would be nice to have a big old meeting.

Carpenter: But I think that's what this is all about. I'm sure there's going to be things I say in these meetings that you don't like and I'm sure there's things you say that I don't like. But that's where we get it out in the open...

Slockett: Let me try it again in another way. I don't like it if I say that there may be some things we can do to free up money, or lower costs, and I don't like to have that characterized, if you were referring to me as part of your statement... As therefore I have taken the position that the Board of Supervisors is a bunch of spendthrifts because that wasn't my point and that's what I was referring to. I think it makes it difficult to talk about those issues if, when you bring it up it gets characterized in that way. I think you and I were both included because you said that...

White: ...Yes I did, I did. I don't think that's accusing the Board of being spendthrift it's just a difference of opinion on priorities.

Slockett: Right.

Jordahl: I was trying to, and I probably am too... I can't think of any word besides glib, too ready to say a concept that comes into my mind that seems to comprise the things that have been spoken. I'm looking for generalities. I was trying to pull together 3 or 4 different things that have been said that reflect the recognition of, be it the Space Needs Committee or the Sheriff's Department or any department requesting additional personnel that there are needs which require additional dollars. That's a recognition that has been made in multiple places by multiple people and it is not the Board of Supervisors who is saying let's go spend a bunch of money. That's what I was trying to say with that, I wasn't intending to point a finger at you, but to say generally what I'm hearing here is that there is some degree of consensus that we need to spend more money. I haven't heard a bunch of people say hey, here's where we can cut. That's why when Charlie was saying I have a list I said great, let's see the list because I don't know where we're going to cut...

Duffy: ...I'll take care of that.

Slockett: Watch what you ask for you might get it.

Painter: Charlie wants a line item veto. I can tell.

Duffy: Yes, that's it. Line item veto.

White: One last note on space needs. Obviously Human Services and the jail have been identified by the committee as priorities and our short term goal for the jail is to make a decision as soon as we can as to what footprint we would need at the existing site so then we can go to the University and try to acquire whatever additional land and that's why the committee recommended, and the Board agreed to retain a consultant. The term consultant always brings some snickers and people saying why are they spending money on a consultant. In this case, everybody's view was we just needed some guidance before we made the decision as to what the footprint would be. We needed to find somebody with some expertise around the country as to levels of security, types of construction alternatives that would be out there so that when Bob and the architect and the Board said OK here's what we need we had something more than just a hunch behind it. He'll be here, is at the end of this week?

Carpenter: Thursday.

White: Thursday and Friday.

Carpenter: We meet him on Friday. Also, for those of you who listen to the radio station south of town, after last Tuesday's Board meeting it was brought up that some guy called in and said that he did some duct work and therefore he knew that it could go up 3 stories because he'd seen the plans. Well, naturally that stirred... Got things stirred real good down there with that group. I guarantee you... I had a conversation with Dwight right away and the plans are not such as that they can go up. We can go out and then go up. But we can't go up, or go up with the existing facilities.

Slockett: That makes sense. They build the footings outside.

Charlie Duffy left at 3:17 p.m.

Carpenter: What we've heard so far, and Dwight explained to us earlier on, that even to try to build up some kind of a footing situation on the existing building to go up further would be expensive... that would be so great that it wouldn't be worth the list but we can go... If we can get the space to go out and maybe go back to the west or something, go either north or south then go back west then we can go up.

Slockett: North to Court Street. That's what you need.

White: We won't get that far.

Carpenter: Not that far. But in other words. The other thing too is that we are not, this person that the Board's okayed to come in is going to give some ideas on outlets. Hopefully with programs and stuff that maybe we can help with the problems ourselves with. So it's not just the architectural, as a matter of fact this person is not an architect. He's basically a personal consultant who comes in and tells us, sees all our programs and makes a forecast of what the future is going to be with the type of individuals we're housing based on what we already have now and give us our best ideas of what we could do to keep our cost down so hopefully in the long run it will save us some money. I'm always looking for new ideas. We do have some things that we're going to try to get involved in too. In-house detention this type of thing. I know I was gone the other day but we met with Pat and 2 of the judges and this will help us to some extent, not as much as what we hoped, but I think there's some other programs that the County is going to benefit with. Getting this in-house detention go. This could help us along down the road a year or so maybe. Because we know if we have to go through a bond issue or anything like that though that we're looking for people in-house.

Slockett: Who knows when...

Carpenter: We may all be gone from office before...

Slockett: ...before it passes.

Jordahl: That's why we've got to talk about how much money we're going to set aside. Pat was talking about an interesting thing about this land out there by the mall that we could do something on a contract purchase for example, set aside, pay for it over like 4 years or something without having to do a bond issue. We would just be obligating the capital projects money that we've already budgeted over a period of 4 years. A similar idea appeals to me with the jail. I don't how you build a jail on a contract purchase. I'm not sure if there's any other way to do that other than a bond issue but... Some kind of finagling in this world that could say let's say we had a $4 million capital projects fund per annum. Maybe there's some way on this planet that I do not presently know, I'll count on financial geniuses to resolve that for me, we might be able to do it out of current tax dollars. I dream of that.

Carpenter: I don't think there's any question that the largest cost of I believe our space needs is going to be the jail no matter what we do.

White: Yes.

Carpenter: Acquiring the land is probably just a minute... We need the land, that's certainly true but that's going to be a little portion of what the costs will be. We won't know what to even ... We've heard a couple of different figures thrown out but that's just a ballpark guess. Nobody knows.

Jordahl: It just occurred to me right now, this is kind of a dream. There's a problem of having the jail expand where it is because as soon as we touch it it's double overbooked.

White: Don't say that.

Kim Painter left at 3:20 p.m. and returned at 3:22 p.m.

Jordahl: OK. Not true?

White: We don't know that yet.

Jordahl: We don't know that, OK.

White: As your lawyer I want to discourage you from saying that.

Jordahl: Yes sir, I didn't really say that. I must have burped. The real idea I wanted to get to was kind of what Linn County is doing with the juvenile detention center, this modular development. That we might be able to use cheaper land somewhere and use a larger capital projects amount to incrementally provide additional space to a jail which is primarily located where it is currently. That way we could afford to do it piecemeal.

Carpenter: I think there's no question there's several ways this thing could go. One thing about it is if we don't touch our original facility we have right now in reconstructing it then we'll say I don't think anything about adding on. But if we do major construction in there that's the biggest problem we have after we work back to what earlier times were. There's options, probably we've got cheaper ground out at the County home if we had to build a facility for minimum, for medium security, we could build a facility out there. The only thing is it's going to take more manpower to operate 2 facilities. There's trade-offs there. That's something that this fellow who is coming in to do this survey and study will have to tell us what's going to be our best bet.

White: One of our goals is to hang onto the number of beds we've got. We're going to attempt to design a proposal that will keep that capacity.

Jordahl: I applaud that, I think that's probably wise.

White: Anything else anybody wants to say about Space Needs Committee.

Slockett: What was the last thing you just said about maintaining the number of...

White: Yes, we're operating, we have 94?

Carpenter: 94 actually with 2 holding so it would be 96 know that we've got that are legal occupancies.

White: But there's double-bunking involved in that. The jail got permission to do that under a grandfather clause so we're trying to keep that for the obvious reason that if we lose that authority, not only do we need more beds but we start out 42 in the whole?

Slockett: You want to keep that in addition to the new capacity.

Carpenter: Right.

White: Right.

Slockett: You're not saying with the new capacity all you will do is maintain it.

White: Right. We don't want to have to build 40 some beds just to maintain the status quo.

Slockett: I though you were saying that when you ended up with the new facility you would only have the same capacity.

White: We can't afford that.

Jordahl: That's what I was trying to say earlier with my ill advised phrasing which seems to have occurred at least twice in this.

White: ...Yes. OK. Item 5, Local Option Sales Tax.

Slockett: Don't be so sensitive Jon.

Jordahl: What's that?

White: It's still on schedule to be voted on on March 30 the Board has now set its allocation which hopefully Jonathan or Mike can be remember.

Jordahl: Well, it was such a...

White: Oh, here we are. Wonderful.

Jordahl: There you go.

White: 25% property tax relief for the unincorporated area, 15% for rural library services, 35% for roads and bridges in the unincorporated area, 5% for human service programs such as juvenile crime prevention and juvenile detention. 15% for capital projects such as renovation and construction of the County jail. 5% for capital projects such as Human Services and other Space Needs. Quite a range of items. That will appear on the ballot to be voted on by the residents of the unincorporated area. A couple of interesting things have developed. Iowa City, who actually called the election, mistakenly thought Tiffin was contiguous and it's not. I also found out today that Iowa City didn't know West Branch had part of its corporate limits within Johnson County. They've apparently published some sort of estimated distribution of funds that left West Branch out.

Mike Lehman left at 3:26 p.m. and returned at 3:27 p.m.

Jordahl: I want to mention ...

Slockett: Not very much, but a little.

White: No, it's not, it wouldn't be much.

Jordahl: I had a conversation yesterday with Glen Potter in Tiffin. We have this morning on our agenda, we received, actually earlier if you have a copy of the Board's agenda. Items 3 and 4 of the Boards business is voluntary annexation of the City of Tiffin and Coralville. That includes making Tiffin contiguous to Coralville and Glen hopes that that is processed by the City Development Board in time for them to receive... participate as part of the urbanized area and receive an allocation accordingly. So he...

White: Is the allocation different to them if they're...

Jordahl: I do not know.

White: ....one of the contiguous cities?

Jordahl: I do not know how that works. But he seemed to have some reason for wanting it to be done before.

White: Well in conversation with their City Attorney last week, I said it looks to me like you've got a choice here to try to speed this up or slow it down depending on whether you think it's advantageous to be a contiguous city. Even though they're not contiguous now, I read the code to, in effect say, if they're contiguous before the polls open they would be tallied as a contiguous city.

Slockett: Interesting.

Jordahl: The funny thing is the only thing that's separating Tiffin from Coralville has been kind of an oversight.

White: Was it an oversight?

Jordahl: Yes. Tiffin had intended to annex to the boundary to touch Coralville but they wound up annexing... The language is something like to 380 and somehow that got interpreted to mean to the right-of-way of 380 which, Coralville had on the other hand had annexed to the section line which runs down the middle of 380. So there was this 38 foot thing from the middle of 380 to this wandering right of way line that was still...

Slockett: It's about 150 to 230 feet.

Jordahl: OK. Lots of feet. It was an irregular thing...

Slockett: Coralville was there first before 380 and their boundary is along the section line. I think 380 was built along it and that's how that happened.

Jordahl: But Tiffin's intent at the time of their annexation of that territory which was done, as you may recall, well I don't remember when that particular piece was annexed. But the southerly portion south of Highway 6 that was annexed in that sort of Saturday night annexation that they did to sort of block Coralville.

Slockett: It only has to be contiguous in one spot. So if they just would have gone to the center line for example...

Jordahl: Which they are now doing. This is part of the new annexation request.

White: There's I think at least one part of that annexation request that may be a little bit in debate.

Jordahl: Again I talked to Glen about that ...

Slockett: The north part.

Jordahl: ....and I talked to the property owners involved. The basic deal is that there's an expectation that there will be an interchange come in at Forevergreen Road. The (inaudible) foresee probable commercial development of their property at that southwest corner of Forevergreen Road and 380. So they're anticipating better, or sooner development of water and sewer from Coralville than they would get from Tiffin even though Tiffin is letting bids on it's...

White: ...waste disposal.

Slockett: My understanding ...

Jordahl: Sewage treatment facility next month.

Slockett: My understanding is that's the point of contention is, does Coralville annex the land up to Tiffin or does Tiffin annex up to Coralville? If Tiffin annexes it up to Coralville then Tiffin will request an interchange on 380 or 218 right there. But if Coralville annexes, that isn't it's priority for an interchange so there probably wouldn't be...

Jordahl: Interesting.

Slockett: ...an interchange. It would be somewhere else.

Jordahl: ...On highway 6 I think is more (inaudible)

White: : Coralville's plan they showed the Board when you...

Jordahl: The northwest Coralville plan.

White: : ...has an interchange at Forevergreen.

Jordahl: And highway 6 I think. I think they sort of look at it both.

Slockett: Which plan was it? Was it Coralville's or Tiffin's?

White: ...Tiffin's.

Slockett: Coralville did have one there.

White: Yes. That's been 2 or 3 months.

Slockett: That's what my people on my staff told me was in there on the occasion of the dispute.

Jordahl: It is not clear to me what is going to happen with either one of those proposed interchanges. The question of the point of contention seems to be that there isn't one. That Glen said that ...Tiffin filed for the annexation request earlier with (inaudible) and Van Gundy's as non-consenting. Talking to Glen, he said they would be just as fine, just as happy if they went with Coralville. And Coralville filed for this voluntary annexation for those same 2 properties very shortly after Tiffin had requested them as involuntary. Glen is apparently content to let that go and not make a fight out of it. So I don't think there' s going to be any contention at the Development Board Meeting.

Slockett: Apparently the only impact is on whether Tiffin votes as part of the contiguous block or not and the danger would be...

White: Unless there's an allocation impact. I don't know the answer to that.

Slockett: I don't believe there is. Because the allocation is based 75% on property and 25% on taxes collected, so that won't change based on whether it's contiguous or not, so I don't see how that could make any impact at all.

Jordahl: The annexation Tiffin is requesting that make it contiguous to Coralville is much larger than just this point. There's only a quarter section that's in any degree of debate. There's another three-quarters along 380 that they're annexing that will make them contiguous to Coralville and that stands to, there's no opposition from Coralville as far as I know about that.

Slockett: The disadvantage is wholly to Tiffin as I see it for the fact that it's not contiguous. The danger is that they could be out of sync with the contiguous blocks so if the contiguous cities including the Coral Ridge Mall pay the sales tax, and Tiffin votes it down, votes against it, they won't get the taxes. On the other hand, if Tiffin votes for the tax and the contiguous block votes against it they may be a little island taxation. Now that isn't a problem because.

White: If Tiffin voted it down and the contiguous cities approved it, Tiffin would still get it. If they were contiguous.

Slockett: Let's see, no. Well, let's see.

Jordahl: They have to sever themselves don't they?

Slockett: No if they don't have the tax they would, if they voted in down.

White: No, if they're contiguous and...

Slockett: Oh, if they're contiguous they would. Yes, Yes. If they're contiguous.

White: Their residents say no but everybody else says yes.

Slockett: On the other hand they could vote for it while the contiguous blocks voted it down, then Tiffin's businesses would have a tax and theoretically people would stop shopping in Tiffin and would drive to Coralville and avoid the tax. But there's an easy remedy in that instance, because the City Council can eliminate the tax, and vote to eliminate it even though it passed. So really the only disadvantage would be if it passed in the contiguous block and the City of Tiffin voted it down, then not only could they not get it but the contiguous cities would be in control. Actually the city of Iowa City would be in control of whether Tiffin were allowed to vote on it again. Because only the City of Iowa City has the population to request an election. So theoretically they could be permanently frozen out of the sales taxes although I think the city of Iowa City wouldn't be that bad of a neighbor.

White: As a sometime observer of the Board, it was interesting to me, I didn't hear all of their debate, I heard some of it. These allocations certainly would be fairly described as a compromise. They were struggling some to find an allocation that would get 3 votes, and this one ended up getting all 4 votes.

Jordahl: We were struggling to get one that would get 4.

White: And I think you were surprised at that.

Jordahl: No, I wanted 4 and I'm sorry that Charlie is absent because, between him and you, I wound up being persuaded that it was legitimate to give all this stuff directly to rural property taxpayers. So Charlie changed my mind along with Pat. That's one thing I want you to know and recognize about the Board of Supervisors, is that this is not some static body, people who all think one thing and fight for it until they die. There's a lot of shifting and changing going on.

Slockett: I think a lot of people don't realize that the counties, this is a problem with the formula for distribution. Counties get no credit for their city residents where most of their services go and from where most of their property taxes come.

White: It's a real dilemma.

Slockett: It's very biased against counties.

White: On the other hand, in our case I think there's at least an argument that the formula favors the rural residents and that it's appropriate to put some spending in that impacts city residents as well, which the Board has done here.

Slockett: As I said the taxes are distributed 75% based on population but 25% based on taxes levied. So in that sense the city people are represented in the County formula. In the 25% tax proportion.

White: I mean in terms of where the revenues come from.

Slockett: No, I'm talking about, it's according to property taxes.

White: I understand that. I'm talking about the money that's actually being distributed and where it comes from.

Lehman: We got in all that discussion where rural people shop, in Iowa City, Coralville. They are contributing. There are a lot of business owners that live outside of city limits but own and operate businesses in. We tried to reach a compromise here when we filled our last 3 at a 25% that would really be giving something back to the urban residents.

Slockett: Money from the sales tax comes primarily from the city residents, is that what you're saying? And from out of...

White: The estimate is 20% from out of County which would help address the issue that Bob spoke to earlier about our having a level of service need that has some non-tax base contribution or at least short-term tax base.

Jordahl: Our need for those services itself comes in significant part from people who come into the town to come in to visit too.

White: One of my arguments in favor of this tax is here's the chance for the farmer from Lone Tree to recoup. He's underwriting the mall, here's a chance for him to recoup some of that because we will collect some moneys generated by the mall that we'll be able to apply to rural needs.

Jordahl: How does he underwrite the mall Pat? I missed that argument.

White: The mall isn't paying any taxes to anybody other than Coralville. Coralville has this tax increment financing so every service need outside, actually outside of the specific infrastructure that they built which is pretty considerable, water, sewer , roads, sheriffs, ambulance, prosecutors. Assessors spent so far probably 40 some thousand dollars to evaluate the mall but its not contributing a cent of tax revenue to support that. All of the County tax payers are having to subsidize that because Coralville used the tax increment financing.

Slockett: For 8 to 10 years is the projection. Then we'll get it.

Jordahl: Get back into Coralville for the Tiff, a new battle crew for the local option sales tax.

Slockett: The counter argument to yours is that the farmer from Lone Tree is going to have to pay this additional tax on his utilities, his phone bill and so what he's trying to recoup is also going to hit himself and his family as well.

White: That's a general anti-sales tax pitch. Not specific to Local Option Sales Tax.

Slockett: Yes, that's true. But local option is the one we're dealing with here. It's increasing to the extent he gets money back from the local option, he's also having to pay it himself. And it's not just on what he purchases. People don't realize that one of the biggest parts of it, it comes from the taxes on utilities which is what makes it so expensive for people.

White: Any other comments about the Local Option Sales Tax?

White: Item 6, GIS status structure. This is on just as a little bit of a repeat. I don't know what the current status is. I know there's a meeting this week or next...

Slockett: Tomorrow I think.

Painter: Tomorrow.

White: ...of the Computer Committee, that's right I'm in Ames tomorrow, the Computer Committee to talk about this again. That was my main purpose in putting it on was to be sure that anybody here who wanted to be heard on that should get to the Computer Committee meeting tomorrow.

Slockett: I can address that a little bit. I'm sorry Jonathan.

Jordahl: Yes, I'm sorry I have to go it's family business here I've got to...

Slockett: Are we losing you? Yes. Okay.

Jordahl left at 3:39 p.m.

Slockett: At the last meeting there was an unfortunate mix up of schedules in that the ESRI representative that has a grant we were considering applying for, for software, was in the neighborhood, called our office and talked to Mark. I didn't talk to him but he talked to Mark and asked if he could stop by and talk. Mark said yes, so he stopped by and he stopped by during this GIS meeting. No it wasn't during the GIS... He stopped by... It was during the GIS meeting so the people from my office didn't go to the GIS meeting, they stopped and talked to the ESRI guy. So we weren't at it. At the meeting, the Chair, Fred Brown, announced that this was a reoccurring annual grant and took the position, even though the GIS Committee had recommended going through this grant, this was before the Technology Committee I guess where it was on the agenda. So he reversed himself and said he was against going for the grant until a needs study was conducted. And it was voted down, applying for this grant which is worth, I don't know $25,000, $30,000. I think we had a really good chance to get it. Since Mark, in my office, was making application with the unanimous recommendation of the GIS committee, so this was all news to us, we didn't know there was any problem with it. So Mark informed Fred that it isn't an annual reoccurring grant, it's a one time grant. Because of the misinformation involved, Fred agreed to call another meeting to discuss it again with the correct information about the nature of the grant. But there's still a lot of reluctance as I understand, in talking to members of the Board and others for going ahead with this grant because there's a concern that if the Auditor's Office gets the grant and begins the project that will somehow interfere with the County's ability to hire a central GIS coordinator and possibly start a GIS department. I guess I just totally disagree with that. Our department has multiple copies of Word, Excel, FoxPro, many programs and this in no way interferes with the ability of Information Services to coordinate our technology. No matter who is the GIS Coordinator our office will have a GIS function I assume because we have the need for it and we have some very pressing immediate needs. One of the planned uses for the GIS is to be able to attach the names of property owner to the maps and the graphics, add text listing the property owners. That's a requirement of law. In the meantime we've been maintaining these old hand drawn maps that are literally falling apart, and if something isn't done immediately, we're going to have to start drafting copies of the maps and hiring people to hand-write the names in. We can do that but it seems like a total waste and the wrong way to go. Why not start investing in this technology and gaining the skills and so forth. The reason that I'm mentioning this, after speaking to people, I'm very pessimistic about the vote reversing. This is really ironic, because most of the people at the meeting had signed letters of support for the Auditor's office in its grant application and they're on file in my office. So we had... We were totally blind-sided by this and had no idea that there was any problem coming up. But as I've talked to people I really have no confidence that the vote will be any different, and I'm concerned about it. So that's my understanding of the situation and I hope that... I would encourage any of you to go and listen to the discussion and hopefully you'll give us consideration of support.

White: One of the reasons I put this on the agenda last time we met, and this time too, as I read the minutes there was this discussion about creating a new department in terms of budgets and long term costs it just seemed to be an awfully significant decision that I hadn't heard much discussion about. I think I probably start out with a bias against creating a new department unless there's some strong reason for it, and maybe there is that I don't yet understand.

Slockett: Well I think that...

White: But I'm just kind of apprehensive about yet another department.

Slockett: I think you put your finger right on it because that was the main reluctance about letting the Auditor's Office have the technology was the fear that the department wouldn't be able to be created and that the coordinator wouldn't be able to be hired under the Board of Supervisors instead of having a function going on in the office. I really see them as totally unrelated. I tend to share your view of it but I don't really see how allowing us to move ahead would preclude a possibility of having this coordinator if it was determined to be necessary.

White: Even if they needed to create a function separate from yours, why couldn't it go in Information Services or Planning and Zoning rather than...

Slockett: I agree completely. This is still frustrating to me because we had a huge controversy about the mapping project. The biggest argument was that you can't do it. The Auditor's Office can't do it and we did it and we did it on time and under budget. We feel very proud of it, but that was about 5 years ago. We've literally been denied relatively inexpensive software to move forward for 5 years now, we've been standing still. We were a leader in the state in this area. Now we're way behind. Many smaller counties have since caught up and have their own GIS systems. We're still stuck and to me it's still on the same old Johnny-one-note that we can't let the Auditor move ahead because they'll choose software that won't be perfect. It's where the perfect is the enemy of progress, of moving ahead, and I'd certainly argue with anyone that there's no question this is the right software. In fact Cedar Rapids and Linn County have both switched from the main competitor, Intergraph, to this software and that's been going on all over the state. I believe Ames, Story County did the same thing. We've liked this software all along. There was an alternative that was being utilized around the state, but pretty much everyone whose made that decision has had to change their minds. I don't think there's any danger of us heading down the wrong street. Also this happens to be the software that Coralville presently had and is using with our maps for the City of Coralville. I think it's highly desirable that we have it as well.

Painter: Just to throw in some forming opinion, my own namely, I've talked to a few people it's been indicated to me also that ESRI is definitely the software that we would want to go with. I liked your analogy Tom to having multiple copies of an individual software program on hand in your use in the Auditor's Office of that software not precluding anybody else from doing the things that they think they need to do with the software or even an independent department of Microsoft Word being established if such were called for. I have forming opinion about the need or non-need for a separate department for GIS, and I too share Pat, your reluctance for establishing a new department that seems to possibly require a rather meaty budget of its own and going into that. But it looks as if this would be money that would be coming into you, sort of, in a sense free money or money that would be very welcome to...

Slockett: It would require matches on our part for the software because it would take high-level hardware to run this software so it's not without cost but it's still an investment, an investment in the software part of it.

Painter: It would not seem to me either to preclude doing other things. I will be there tomorrow to listen and participate and...

Slockett: I really appreciate it.

White: I think one of the things that I've felt for quite a while, Tom mentioned earlier in the meeting which is if nothing else the last Board created a lot of new committees and it's pretty impossible for any of us to be at all of them.

Slockett: It really is.

White: They've covered a lot of ground with less input than I think would be preferable. I don't know whether it's worked or not because I'm not able to go to many of them. Well tomorrow is the day for anybody who wants to speak up.

White: Item 7, we're way past where I thought we would be. Why don't we just skip that unless somebody has something they really want to talk about and you can drop me a note or call me with things you'd like to have on the next agenda. Why don't we just go around the room and see if people have things to report on. Bob?

Carpenter: I don't either.

White: Mike?

Lehman: We've pretty well touched on what we're, budget

White: Kim?

Painter: Nothing in particular. Glad to be here.

Slockett: Nothing additional. Glad to have you here.

Kriz: I'm sure Kim's glad to be here. It's been a learning experience here today to say the least.

White: You guys got a real baptism here too...

Slockett: Baptism by fire.

White: : ...really a strange way to start your term.

Kriz: We're well into it. We've learned quickly and hopefully learned in a positive way so...

White: When do you want to meet next? Tuesday March 16th?

Administrative Assistant Carol Peters: Isn't that spring break?

Slockett: 8 before Saint Pat's day.

White: I don't honestly know when spring break starts.

Peters: (Inaudible) by any chance tell me that she thought that was spring break week.

Slockett: That looks good to me.

Painter: Do we typically avoid spring break? Do we avoid breaks?

White: We'll be here.

Painter: ...don't miss many. That looks good to me too.

Lehman: I'll probably go.

Slockett: I think it was just a point of information.

Peters: Their spring break starts March 19th.

Kriz: So Tuesday March 16th then?

White: Actually I think maybe it starts the week before that Carol.

Peters: Well that's this little schedule they put out from the Credit Union...

Lehman: University?

Peters: (Inaudible")

Chamber of Commerce Representative Cole Chase: They actually recess, the school's recess at like 4:00 p.m. on that Friday which I believe is the same thing. Then the full week of the 19th is the break. So they come back on the 25th.

Peters: The 19th is a Friday.

Chase: The 19th is... Then it's the 19th.

Lehman: The 16th is ...

Slockett: ...The 22nd is the following Monday.

Chase: Then it's that week because I know I've just had the schedule meeting for the 25th to avoid spring break.

Kriz: I'm thinking it's the week of Monday the 15th.

Peters: It says the 19th. I think it's because they adjourn a little early on Friday, so they say it starts on Friday.

Chase: Yes, I think that's correct. I think you were saying the same thing I was saying, is they actually... So Friday the 15th is the last day.

Slockett: Friday the 19th.

Peters: Resumption of the classes...

Slockett: 19th is the Friday and the 12th...

White: Cole, your calendar is off somehow. You've got the...

Slockett: Yes, your calendar is off.

Chase: I must be using that ‘96 calendar again.

Kriz: You can't recycle all those.

Peters: (Inaudible) of classes is March the 29th including a spring break, 19th.

Painter: So that's the week of the 22nd.

Slockett: So that's a different week ...

White: Is that why they moved the election to the 30th, to be after spring break?

Kriz: Could be.

Painter: I think it is actually.

Chase: There was a discussion about that too. Iowa City discussed that.

Painter: That's right.

Lehman: So the 16th would be alright.

Painter: Uh-huh.

White: OK. March 16th, 1:30. Anybody have anything else?

Recessed at 3:54 p.m.

(Continued)