Jordahl: Let's go back to business from the Board of Supervisors, item 6A, discussion regarding relocation of the Department of Human Services Income Maintenance Unit to Eastdale Mall location. We have all kinds of people here to talk about that. Who wants to start?

Architect Dwight Dobberstein: Good morning.

Stutsman: Good morning.

Jordahl: Good morning.

Dobberstein: Jump from one space need to another.

Jordahl: Yes, no problem.

Dobberstein: Just to recap briefly the history here. I believe it was last summer we made a report to the Board of Supervisors on the need that we found that the Department of Human Services space there is very cramped, very small offices. They have 2 sometimes 3 people in an office. The building is in need of repair and also there is a need for a room for supervised visits. There was a number of needs and the Space Needs Committee has been looking into some longer term solutions. We've looked at trying to buy some new property and are continuing to look at that. We've also looked at Randall's as an option and possibly Sears and I think we are continuing to look at those long term needs. But some short term solutions have become available here and that and one of them is one we are bringing today and that is the possibility of relocating part of the department into the Eastdale Mall. That is a mall that is turning towards more human services and this would be a good fit to move some of the people out of the Department of Human Services on the present location to kind of free up some space there for their needs where they could actually be adding some people they've talked about adding over the last 2 years. So what we are here today is to propose, and recommend this as a short term solution, short term being maybe 10 years, and that would give us a little breathing room on trying to come up with a long term solution for their needs. So we have looked briefly at the space to see how it might work and I think Cheryl has figured out that you could move maybe 15 people into that space and that would greatly help out the present situation at the existing location. For our part we have tried to look at what that might cost as far as remodeling, even though we haven't done any design work or actually have laid out a floor plan to see how it might fit. We have a good enough feel for how it might work to get a cost estimate there to see if this is even an option the Board wants to consider, and we've also looked at a schedule briefly and I can present those 2 items. If you like Cheryl can talk some more about the particulars of the lease arrangements and the other figures and then we also have some other people that can answer questions and present information if you like it. But first, let me just explain the magnitude of what we're talking about here. We'll have to go into the space which is roughly a little over 3,000 square feet and it is our recommendation that you'll probably need to start from scratch and gut out space and rebuild an office lay-out that would work for her Income Maintenance Unit. To do that the cost will be in the neighborhood... The project cost when you include fees and printing expenses and a contingency of 5% is going to be in the neighborhood of $190,000. That's a quick estimate on our part, again not based on any plan or anything. So if you were to say proceed with this idea then we would need to get in and do a plan and actually get an exact cost estimate. But that looks pretty close at this point. As close as we can say at this point. And so there that's quite an undertaking and I think before we go any further we need to have some direction from the Board as to whether this is something you might want to consider. The timing of this would also take a while. I do have a proposed schedule and this just lays out the fact that if you were to proceed with an idea like this it just doesn't happen within a matter of a month or 2. There's some bidding required because this is a project that would be over $25,000 and construction is going to take some time and to get down to the bottom line you're looking at not moving in until maybe the end of July. So I guess that's it in a real nutshell. We can go into more detail here if you like. But I think what we're looking for is some approval from the Board of Supervisors that we can proceed with this idea and negotiate with the landlord a lease. Now any questions?

Jordahl: Well first of all this comes to us as a recommendation from the Space Needs Committee doesn't it?

Dobberstein: Right.

Stutsman: Right.

Jordahl: We have a group of County officials and the assistance of Mr. Dobberstein here Dobberstein? Which was is it.

Dobberstein: Dobberstein.

Jordahl: Mr. Dobberstein of the firm him and Monson as an architect to assess in a balanced was the County's space needs and to prioritize them for us. So as a starting place for the discussion I guess I want to distinguish between the request that sits before us here and a request that might come from a department that was, that had not been vented by a committee that we've established to balance the needs between departments. Would other members of the Board care to ask questions or comment?

Stutsman: I didn't understand what you meant.

Jordahl: My point is that this is... Although we are talking about a request that is for the expenditure of a substantial amount of money for the benefit of a single department, this is not quite the same thing as that department coming to us out of a clear blue sky and saying, we want this. This is a recommendation from the Space Needs Committee which is a central and balanced County entity that we've established for the purposes of weighing the requests of departments one against the other.

Department of Human Services Area Administrator Cheryl Whitney: Jonathan maybe I can add The Space Needs Committee certainly has looked at our space at 911 North Governor and has recommended that we need an alternative. We have too many people in that building. We really have outgrown that building. So then if you make that conclusion, that we need additional space, the second thing to consider is how can we deal with this on a relatively short term basis and what is the ideal plan for that. The location at Eastdale would co-locate us with Workforce Development and Promise Jobs as well as other human service agencies. There has been for the past several years really, discussion about how we can better serve people who are on, have been on welfare, public assistance, so they can become self-sufficient. We have this coordinating service provider consortium to look at that. John Watson is a member of that, Goodwill is a member of that, and John is a person who attends those meetings and is a member. Steve (inaudible) who is the director for SDA 10 Area Workforce Development was not able to be here. Both he and Mark Edwards, they had their quarterly pickrab meeting which they needed to be at today. But there is a great deal of support with that consortium for co-locating so that we can better serve our public assistance people. So this location at Eastdale would help up fulfill that. In addition to that, Workforce Development has been at that site, it must be about 2 years now, time goes quickly. They have space that they would share with us. For instance they have a conference room that is about 550 square feet. They certainly don't use it all the time. They are very willing to share that with us. The amount of square feet that is available currently at Eastdale in this area is 3,097 square feet. That is just adequate to house the Income Maintenance Unit which would be about 15 people. It does not give us any conference room space which that unit needs. So we would actually, by co-locating the workforce, we would be able to save having to lease additional 500 or so square feet because we would share their conference room. That is one example of savings. Now certainly there are lots of examples of how we would better serve our clients because of the co-location. That is one example of how we would save taxpayer money, by being co-located. And there are other examples. We're going to do some additional looking to see whether we could share a phone system, and so we would save the purchase of that phone system. Workforce Development has offered that to us. We have to get down to the details and make sure that that would actually work. So there are those kinds of considerations. So I think the drawbacks are separating our staff, and that is a serious concern. I think at this point we have to have more space, we cannot continue as we have with people sharing offices in the way that they have. I think that there are plenty of folks who would argue that we would substantially better serve our public assistance people by co-locating in this way. I think the space is, the square footage is adequate, there's some savings because of the location. There's some savings because of the configuration of that space. So I really think that this is an alternative that we should look at very seriously and would like to be able to go forward and do some negotiation. Now Jack and Susan Tank are here from Eastdale, so if you have specific questions about this site, they would be able to answer that. John Sulfur is the Supervisor for the Income Maintenance Unit. John is here. I mentioned John Watson being here. Kathy Lynch is here who can answer questions about local administrative expense reimbursement, what kind of revenue we would get in to off-set some of these costs and timing of that revenue. And Deborah Conger is here as the Interim Department Head for the MH/DD department who is very aware of the space needs for that building at 911 North Governor.

Jordahl: Goodness gracious. It sounds like we've got quite a discussion laid out before us here. Anybody want to take a break before we do all that or do you want to keep going? Got enough air in here?

Stutsman: A couple of things I might add to Cheryl's comments. The Space Committee has reviewed this on several occasions and we all recognize the ideal is to keep everybody together. That is not feasible at this point. We are looking at some long term options where hopefully that and that will be the goal, is to bring everybody together. But this would be a short term situation to alleve the overcrowding that's happening there. Not only in office space but also in the parking lot. That's an issue too that we haven't talked about. People go to an office, clients come in, everybody needs a space to park. Not all the time, but there are times over there, and it's happening more frequently where there just simply aren't enough places to park. And that leads into one of the other positives with this relocation to Eastdale is that there is plenty of parking. The other thing is common space. Because there is common space the way that building is set up, that means we don't have to allocate larger space within our office space for a reception area. We are able to cut back on that a little bit because if people are waiting they can go out to a heated common space rather than having to allocate the space within the office space so that's another savings we did recognize.

Whitney: Also there are public restrooms in Eastdale and so we would be able to help our people, our clients use those public restrooms which would be some savings as well.

Stutsman: And we all recognize that any of these spaces come with cost. We just cannot find that place that isn't going to have some cost involved with it so we very carefully weighed all those things and came up with the recommendation to go ahead with this move. The fact that it's on the bus line, that it is accessible. Not only are there services within that Eastdale location but it's also close to a number of other services that are out in that area. Kirkwood College is out there now, Systems, ARC.

Jordahl: This is part of the growth of the county. We haven't had a huge increase in the population since your unit first was housed in its present location. The idea of having people dealing with such a personally difficult thing as having to apply for income assistance. To do that in an office where you've got somebody else listening in over the shoulder trying to do something else, or on the phone it just... That situation shouldn't exist regardless of what the solution to it is in terms of do we relocate here or to the moon. That situation shouldn't be allowed to continue. To that degree I'm in favor of a resolution to the problem at the very minimum. Are there questions or concerns people would like to raise about this plan?

Lehman: I had a question I wanted to ask Cheryl about. You've got 15 staff members you'd like to relocate now, how much growth have you had in the last couple of years and do you anticipate some more and do we have... Are we going to start doubling people up here in a few years if we don't find a permanent source? How is your feeling on that?

Whitney: About 3,100 square feet is none too big and I do worry about that a little bit. Now we have 11 income maintenance workers, one supervisor and 2 support, so that gives us 14 people. I think that we would ask very quickly to have a 12th income maintenance position filled, that would be a State position. Our workload has really been at that level for quite some time but because of our space issues we've not done that. So that would be the 15 people, that give us one person for growth. Now we, in addition to that, we have a person, a program specialist, policy specialist who is housed actually in another cluster. She spends about half of her time in our area. There would be office space for that person in the new... So that gives us a little bit of extra room thinking if we ever then expanded to another 13th worker that would be available. Right now what that person has to do is she schedules her time so she is in our office when she knows someone will be gone and then she uses their space and that's about all we can do right now. So it does gives us a little bit of room. With those income maintenance programs we've had a great deal of growth with the Medicaid problems over the year, over the past, say, 5 years. Certainly we've had a decline in the number of people on the family investment program, or formerly called AFDC. Food stamps has declined some but it is more stable. So I don't see with State government we've had not had real dramatic increases in staff. Because Johnson County is a growing county we warrant some increase but I don't think it will be dramatic.

Lehman: I realize you have to solve the immediate problem but we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot by I just wanted to know what was your growth prediction but it doesn't sound like it sounds like this would take care of it. We're talking about a 10 year lease with a chance of, if we do permanently solve our space problems, we're able to sublease the last couple of years or something at that point. What about the other option, possibly if we do not solve our problems or we have more space problems, we have a first option to extend that 10 year or something like that renegotiate... We want it both ways Jack. Everybody's going to have to look at their situation, you as well as the County.

Stutsman: I'm sorry go ahead.

Dobberstein: I think we've decided that as the Space Needs Committee that this was one of the top priorities in part due to the existing lease that they have now that will run out and this is the most economical solution we have to solve for problems and then allowing us time to address the long term solution. Whether it's to renegotiate and sign another lease at the existing location or to look at relocating someplace. Those decisions can now be addressed later if we could proceed with this to solve the immediate need. I think the building that they are in now has served purpose and it may, with some work, continue to do that if they could relieve some of the crowding. There are other options that we might want to look at and those things can be discussed if we had the time but right now we're kind of... Our backs are against the wall because of the growing need for space and the lease expiration date.

Jordahl: Is there an expectation that we might expand at Eastdale?

Whitney: Well the way the spaces that we're looking at right adjacent to it, someone owns that space. There's not a lot I don't think there's room ever for... We need about 15,000 square feet for our total operation and there is not that kind of room there.

White: Expansion at Eastdale, given the current situation would be too speculative to do anything. It's not impossible but it's certainly (inaudible).

Welsh: Jonathan wasn't the proposal to repeat around $3,000 available now and then I thought like in July some additional space. Is that not true now?

Stutsman: I don't think that ever was. I think this that's all we were looking at Eastdale anyway. The $190,000 that you're talking about. Could you go through the arrangement with Eastdale as far as reimbursement on those costs.

Dobberstein: Yes, why don't you talk about that.

Whitney: What we have is an offer to lease. Perhaps we can think of it as a starting point for negotiations. What Jack and Susan has proposed is that their would be a stipend of $25 per square foot that they would reimburse the County when we had the permit to occupy. So my understanding would be Johnson County would be responsible for proceeding with this remodeling. Once we get that permit to occupy we can move in, then we would receive that $25 per square foot reimbursement and that would amount to about $77,500. Now anything we spend above and beyond the $25 a square foot would be Johnson County's responsibility. It is my understanding that what we would have to do for our local administrative expense claiming would be to depreciate that over the terms of the lease so the remaining amount if it's a 10 year lease, we would spread it over that period of time. And so then each quarter we would claim reimbursement. So we wouldn't get the reimbursement back immediately on that particular on those improvements.

Stutsman: On the $77,000 beyond the $77,000.

Whitney: The net after that. Right.

Stutsman: OK.

Whitney: And then we would have to, in order to file that with local administrative expense we would have to have 3 rental estimates saying that the rent plus that depreciated amount was equal to fair market value. OK. Because the federal government wouldn't want to pay reimbursement us at a higher rate than what they considered to be fair market value. So currently what's on the table would be about $12.57 per square foot, then the if we use that about $190,000 for remodeling plus the $77,500. I roughly calculated that would add about $3.63 to our square footage that we would claim then on a quarterly basis and we would need to have those rental estimates saying that that was fair market value. See these are just some of the technical details that we'll have to address here if we have your permission to proceed.

Stutsman: And that (inaudible) reimbursement, is that what 75%?

Whitney: It's about 50%.

Stutsman: 50%. OK.

Jordahl: So when we're talking about $190,000 how does this reimbursement relate to that dollar figure.

Dobberstein: Well the reimbursement on it from Jack would bring it down to $113,000 approximately as your out of pocket expense. And then Cheryl is saying the possibility of being reimbursed then also from the state on the remainder.

Whitney: That would be depreciated over those 10 years.

Dobberstein: Depreciate over 10 years.

Stutsman: So it wouldn't be an initial lump sum. We'd have to OK. Each quarter we'd get...

Whitney: So you're going to have some outlay to begin with that you would then realize 50% of over the 10 year period. Now the lease Say the lease payment at what's being proposed is just under $40,000, we would so $10,000 per quarter we would claim. We would then get back about half of that so we would get back in a year's time $20,000. If we claimed for 4 quarters we'd get back. The way that is running at this point and it has been pretty stable really Kathy for?

Kathy: Several years.

Whitney: Yes. It's a federal thing. I can't sit here and guarantee you that it's never going to change but it has been stable for a while.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Lehman: $190,000 is for strictly remodeling? When we're looking office furniture are we going to be able to relocate some or looking at some additional? Is that on top of it?

Whitney: I think we would try to relocate office furniture and then I mean like now we have people we have offices where there's 2 desks. So as we reshuffled our folks within our current building we would take that 2nd desk in an office move-it to an empty office.

Lehman: Which you're probably going to need some.

Whitney: I'm sure that we would end up buying some furniture. It's just hard to imagine that that wouldn't happen. But at the same time it's not we would not intend to just go buy new furniture to furnish this. That's not the way we do business really. It'd be nice.

Jordahl: Pat does good things with spray paint.

Whitney: Pat Langenberg? OK.

Lehman: She'd plywood over a couple of 30 gallon barrels.

Stutsman: Go back to the old bricks and boards. The server. Did you get any response to the server?

Whitney: The answer at this time is that DHS, Department of Human Services and the Iowa Workforce Development Department do not share servers. We do not have people who agree about servicing and maintaining those servers. We'd have to each have our own server. The estimate that I have is that it would be about $17,000 for us to purchase the type of server that we would need. I've been trying to look at some outlay of costs and this is one of the costs that we would have. We would have data wiring which runs about $200 per port, so I figured 20 ports because we'll have printers with ports and different things. That's kind of a rough, hopefully high estimate, we'd have $4,000 related to that. Again the phone system would be $18,000 if we do not share with Workforce. Even if we shared the phones themselves, I look back when we purchased our phone system about 4 or 5 years ago. The phones themselves are relatively expensive, so I figured even if we share we're going to have probably at least $6,000 for phones. We're going to have some expensive for phones regardless.

Stutsman: So the minimum would be $6,000 up to $18,000?

Whitney: And that would be probably the bare minimum Sally, would be $6,000.

Jordahl: Well we have...

Stutsman: Are you done Cheryl? Just a minute.

Whitney: Now those things I think we would be able to claim because they're less than $25,000 right Kathy? And so we would be able to claim, if we purchased those in that first quarter of next fiscal year we would put those on that quarterly expense claim report and so we would probably get that, about 50% of those costs back like by the first or the second half of the fiscal year by around January or so. So we would have some revenue to off-set some of those expenditures next year.

Stutsman: January of 2000?

Whitney: Right.

Stutsman: OK.

Whitney: Within that fiscal year would be the main thing.

Stutsman: OK.

Jordahl: Well.

Lehman: That rent, is that a triple net. We talked one time about we're tax exempt on rent in a State body?

Dobberstein: I don't believe you're tax exempt on, there's the person to ask for share. It's a triple net as it's laid out in the... Do you have that one sheet? Have you seen the offer to buy?

Lehman: Not enough (inaudible).

Stutsman: Oh person, copies of it. Offers to lease on (inaudible). Cheryl did you have some moneys in this years budget to off-set some of these costs?

Whitney: Well, you know we've been planning for our space needs for the last 2 or 3 fiscal years. So we have in that set aside money, we have $24,000 plus the $19,500 or so we have almost $44,000 in that reserve account because we've known that we would need to move at some point which means additional costs. Now another area in our budget where I could identify some money would be I double checked that this morning. Our volunteer coordinator position has been vacant. We did make a payment early this fiscal year but there is about $13,500 in that line item, $13,500. By the time we get that person hired and going we will use the money we get from the State first, so I think that we can count on having that $13,500 from this year's budget. And as we go along we can take a closer look at some of these things within the budget but I would think we can look at $44,000 plus the $13,000 is the $57,000. That, if we use that money we set aside and then use the $13,000 from this year's budget that we could dedicate to the costs that we would incur, say this fiscal year or however. It's difficult for me to know exactly the payment schedule we would have on this remodeling. Whether, I don't suppose contractors would wait until we moved in to get paid.

Dobberstein: Usually not.

Whitney: So we would probably have some expenditure in FY 99 that we could look at that money for.

Lehman: Pat we were wondering if we're exempt from tax on the rental payment?

White: No. We'd be an exempt owner but not an exempt tenant. The private owner leasing to us would be required to pay taxes, similar to what the cases on the existing building, taxes are paid on the existing site.

Jordahl: Well are we.

Stutsman: I was going to ask John Sulfur from IMU, IMU supervisor. Do you have any comments or thoughts on this plan?

Income Maintenance Supervisor John Sulfur: The main thing I think was Cheryl's point that we can probably better serve a lot of our families by being co-located. The emphasis currently on welfare reform is on self-sufficiency and being able to probably do a lot of partnering with our Promise Jobs employees to get people engaged in Promise Jobs activities when they come in to see us rather than it being kind of a long range process is a real plus at that site. I think there's also an opportunity for us to kind of think about how we do process our applications and our on-going work now in terms of how the office is configured, we might be able to think about doing some things differently if we have some different space layouts and that type of thing. I think that would be a real plus for us also and that would serve our families.

Goodwill Representative John Watson: If I could just add onto that a little bit. John Watson from Goodwill. It sounds like you're well versed on the inadequacies the State's spending on government. The current effort in the workforce development system here in Iowa is to try to co-locate the various agencies that have an impact on people that are seeking jobs including those in Promise Jobs that are on income maintenance. This really fits in beautifully with the idea of a one stop center or what we call in our area, a hub of services that can serve people conveniently and efficiently and I urge you to think about that aspect. This is a new workforce investment act, guidelines come down, this is really going to much up really well with the Federal and State plans to have a hub like that.

Stutsman: Deborah I was going to ask you. Yesterday we talked about space needs at the DHS Labor Management Committee Meeting and there were some concerns expressed from individuals that are in the MH/DD unit about how this move of IMU would be. Did you find out any more information about that? They talked about 25 cases that they work closely with IMU on. It would mean lots of phone-calls. Is that practical or is that going to create a hardship?

Interim Director of MH/DD Deborah Conger: I think they do have clients in common but there's communication through e-mail and right now, it's not very often that they actually meet face to face with the IM workers. I mean it's usually done by telephone even within the building or by e-mail. So I don't see that it's really going to impact in a significant way that communication. That will still, that will be ongoing whether they're in Eastdale or whether they're in the North Governor building.

Stutsman: And they will be connected through e-mail? OK. That would be few.

Whitney: Our servers will (inaudible) the 2 servers but they'll still talk to one another. Just as we can do with other County offices in other parts of the state.

Jordahl: Well is there anyone else who'd like to speak to this question?

Jack Tank: I'd just, my name is Jack Tank, this is my wife Sue. We own the spot there. And we have worked, Sally's been there, Cheryl's been there many times, Dwight's been there several times. John actually has been there several times too, know each other via a lease actually too so we have a lease with John and I guess if you want to ask about certain things he would be the person to ask since he has right across the hall, they have 3,600 square feet for Goodwill.

Watson: My understanding is that the plan that Cheryl presented, it's very much like the plan we had 2 or 3 years ago when we moved into a suite of offices a little larger than what they're talking about. At that time we negotiated, Jack wasn't the landlord it was Eastdale, Perry Watts is the person who worked with us. The details are very, very similar so I think that even with the place that you're getting, a good reasonable total I think. We've been very happy. The space is great, the staff like it, the parking is pretty plentiful, which they like.

Duffy: The other place used to leak a lot if I remember right. When it rained.

Watson: The other?

Duffy: The other one before we get that other, before you got your new place.

Watson: Oh yes.

Duffy: That was the original building.

Tank: If you have particular questions and want to, some of the Supervisors wish to visit, I'm more than happy since my office is right there, right above the area that we're talking about. I'd be happy to have anybody wish to come over, they sure can. Just give me a little notice, we can show.

Jordahl: So when it says here approval to proceed, we're not talking necessarily about making a commitment to lease but making a commitment to proceed with the preparation of specific plans or are we talking about making a commitment to lease the space so as to not spend our money with a lot of planning?

White: Probably both. The inter-relationships of lease versus construction is a little tricky as particularly Jack and Sue are about to find out, dealing with the County as opposed to some other prospective tenant is not the easiest thing to do. And the relationship between the lease and a construction project is one of the things both the prospective landlord and the prospective tenant just have to resolve. We would certainly need to do more negotiation with Jack and Sue. Questions like suppose we go through these plans, specifications, form of contract bids and it turns out it's twice as much as has been estimated. What do we do then? Are we already firmly committed to a lease? What does the Board prefer to do in that situation? Do you want to sign a lease that is firm and just assume that we'll be able to get the project under contract at or near what's been estimated? When would the lease begin? Would it begin immediately? Would it begin before we start any construction? We have more negotiation to do to get to a conclusion with Jack and Sue on some of those points. So I think the question before the Board to answer is should we go ahead on both counts without necessarily having a decision yet as to whether we finalize the lease before we let construction contracts. As would be true with any prospective tenant, there are some variables in the marketplace. We don't frankly know whether there are other prospective tenants out there that have looked at this space or how long we have before Jack and Sue look at some other prospect. There are a lot of, there's a lot of sequencing that would need to be still done and negotiated here. Dwight's proposed schedule doesn't include anything about when the lease is signed, and I suspect that's quite by design.

Jordahl: Uh OK.

Dobberstein: Right. The schedule only talks about if we were given approval today to proceed with the plans, it would take us some time to do those plans and then get approval from Cheryl's group and from the Board and then we'll have to go through the whole process of having public hearings and publishing notices to bidders. That all takes some time. And before you can even get a contractor to start.

Jordahl: From the point of view of cost of your time, go ahead, when it says approval here under Board of Supervisors it often times means spend money. I'm curious as to whether this is going to fit under the present relationship that we have with you in terms of the Space Needs Committee or if this is a new project that we're approving.

White: This would be a new project.

Dobberstein: A new project.

White: With a separate schedule of architectural fees and my assumption is Dwight would be back shortly with the standard AIA architectural contract.

Jordahl: Now is that part of this $190,000 that we're talking about here? It is not.

White: No.

Dobberstein: Yes, I have included the fees. Our fee is in that project budget.

Lehman: I guess that's the thing I'm most concerned about, the $190,000. I know you haven't spent a lot of time on it because you don't know where this is going to head. Did you kind of highball that a little bit? Or what are you thinking?

White: They always do.

Lehman: They sometimes they don't. (Inaudible).

White: Like any business person his goal is, for this project, to come in under rather than over-budget. And we've been down enough of these roads to know that yes I don't know that I'd say, he should feel free to comment on this, I don't know if I would use the term highball but, as he makes judgments about projected costs he doesn't want to be here in a couple saying well I'm sorry it's more than I told you. He'd far rather be here saying it's a little less.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Dobberstein: Well and we do have, as I mentioned, a 5% contingency included in that estimate, and part of the estimate has to do with adding windows and things that we really don't know if we really are going to do that or not. There may be some fire protection work that has to be done, and that's in there. There's a lot of variables so as we would go through the process we would revise that estimate as we get towards the end. Give you our best guess with more information. But then the proof of the pudding is when you bid it, then who know what's going to happen. There's not a lot of fat in here but we're trying to cover ourselves in case something comes up.

Stutsman: Maybe this was answered before, I guess I missed it. When we enter into something like this, do we start paying rent on that space? How does that work?

White: That's to be negotiated.

Stutsman: OK. All right.

White: We haven't actually reached a conclusion as to when the lease payments would begin. And I don't want to put Jack and Sue on the spot but obviously we got something we need to talk about. My guess is they'll probably have some flexibility if there is a signed lease. They'll have less flexibility if we don't actually sign a binding agreement. And we haven't actually finalized the idea that he would rebate or participate in the cost of construction as opposed to simply letting us buy the lease rate down. One of the things we need to do is make a judgment about what would maximize the State's reimbursement if we've got some options to do it either way.

Stutsman: Right. OK.

Jordahl: So in terms of the dollars that this would cost us, it looks like the project would not be completed until FY 2000 but we're going to have some costs that are going to be part of 1999 but half approximately if we figure the $77,000 reimbursement, approximately half of the remaining $113,000 would be covered or could be covered by money that Cheryl's designated? Is that accurate or not?

Whitney: Well we've got to be careful not to spend that money twice.

Jordahl: 3 times would be better.

Whitney: It's always easy or tempting.

White: She's going to need what she has budgeted, in my opinion, for phones, computer set-up, moving costs. I think it's unlikely that money she has budgeted will defray the construction cost. It's possible, but in Mike's question, are you going to have to buy new furniture, is just one part of the package that is over and above the $190. Computer hook-up, telephone, physically paying somebody to move us. My assumption is that we would look at the budgeted capital improvements money to cover this construction cost.

Stutsman: Yes, that was going to be my question, is the money there. But we do have that money that we have been putting aside to, for this very need.

Jordahl: Right. Well that was my biggest question is how does this relate to the ending balance and the fact that we've got it in capital projects does allay that immediate fear. Of course we can't ignore the 900 pound jail staring us in the face either, but again this is a recommendation by the Space Needs Committee.

White: And in addition you have the, I think I heard Cheryl use the figure $30,000. That's in the ballpark as an annual rental.

Whitney: Actually it's closer to $40,000.

White: That isn't currently budgeted.

Whitney: For year 2000.

White: For every year of the lease.

Stutsman: Right.

White: That would be need to be added to your operating budget or taken out of the existing budget level for capital improvements on the theory that this is an interim capital cost. 10 years being the interim that has been discussed.

Jordahl: I don't like the idea of taking it out of capital projects.

Stutsman: I guess I don't either. I guess I'd rather take it out of (inaudible).

Jordahl: I mean this is an operating expenditure, capital projects is to save money not spend it. I mean you spend it on a thing that's going to stay is my theory on that.

Whitney: For budgeting purposes we'd get back about 50% on it. So it would be about net of $20,000. But then we would be, the way the current option is written, we'd be responsible for heat and electricity. We'd have some ongoing phone expenses. We've been trying to think of exactly what kind of a budget figure for ongoing first as well as the initial outlay.

Stutsman: Was that included in your budget request for 2000? I can't remember.

Whitney: No.

Stutsman: OK. We probably need to.

Whitney: See when we did that we didn't have any specifics for that Sally so.

Jordahl: OK so you would have to increase your budget request by some unknown figure at this point. $20,000 plus.

Whitney: It would be $20,000 plus, yes.

Jordahl: Plus what? Double? Triple? By a factor of how many do you think? $20,000?

Whitney: Well it would be $20,000 for the rent net plus the electricity the gas and the phones. And actually for the phones the ongoing expense, I think the net would be around $1,500. I don't quite know yet. We can figure the gas and electricity probably. Get a fairly good estimate on that. Another thing, when you think about these ongoing expenses. Right now we have that lease with the United Way building on Market Street. And that, our annual cost related to that is about $6,800. That lease expires April of 2000. And from a cost point of view I would argue that we would not renew that lease. There would be people who would argue that it's really nice to have those people located there and all that kind of stuff but from a fiscal point of view I would say that those 2 people would come back to the 911 North Governor space. I would expect that we would have the room there.

Stutsman: And there would be space to bring them back?

Whitney: Well unless it gets taken. I mean once we have that space with the county needs for space, I don't know what you all are going to identify. We're going to use some of those offices but there will be office space for these 2 people to move back unless you see that someone else from somewhere else in the County needs to move into it.

Stutsman: And that $6,800 is what that rent for that, OK.

Whitney: Right. Well it's the rent plus the phone, some expenses that we have related to it. So in the long term we end up. And we don't get any reimbursements on that money because those are non, what Kathy would call it, non-participating.

Stutsman: And we still, yes, we still don't get any reimbursement if they move back to 911 North Governor.

Whitney: No.

Stutsman: OK.

Whitney: Right.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Stutsman: But that's just a pure cost then. OK.

Whitney: So we can work out some details I think to come up with a fairly decent projected figure for ongoing costs like for next year's budget and all. The big unknown really is the remodeling.

Jordahl: The remodeling cost will fall in which fiscal year? Both?

White: It could be delayed until next fiscal year if need be. It's possible you could have a progress payment in the current year but...

Jordahl: Well actually then it would be capital projects anyway.

White: Right.

Stutsman: OK.

White: Yes, you're OK.

Jordahl: That's covered. I mean we'd rather not spend the money but it's not like we were hitting the ending balance.

White: We're starting to spend our capital projects budget before we've accumulated very much.

Jordahl: Right.

White: Part of the priority setting process.

Jordahl: Exactly and I very much appreciate that we've had a committee doing that and we've taken some time to chew on it this morning. Would anyone like to.

White: It would have some impact on it if you'll recall. You've authorized me to try to negotiate a land acquisition for a more permanent solution and this will have some impact on funds available for those negotiations. I don't think they're inconsistent but I'll probably want to, if you decide to proceed with this, I'll probably want to come back and talk once more about whether you still want to proceed as quickly on the other offer.

Duffy: Did you say there might be space available in the future, more space than this building?

Whitney: In which, in Eastdale?

Duffy: In case we needed more space?

Tank: I can just address that.

Duffy: I thought you said something like 3,100 square feet or something?

Tank: 3,100, just a smidge under 3,100 square feet is what this space is. Eastdale is a condominium association and another space could be coming up. We viewed that with Pat, and I think Sally, we walked around that space. There's always a possibility that more is coming up. I can't guarantee it because spots (inaudible) I own, we can, I can only tell you what I can do on my own spots.

Jordahl: So you talk of neighboring property being owned, it could become available in any case?

White: Yes.

Tank: Yes, sure. But I can't. Unless John wants to give his space up. Maybe you could just move into his space. He probably wouldn't frown on that.

Watson: I'd entertain an offer.

Jordahl: Here we go, scalping.

Stutsman: Well one of the spaces, if I remember correctly, is the Department of Transportation is right next to this space?

Tank: 2 doors down.

Stutsman: OK. And I was thinking that they had put quite a bit into their space.

Tank: They have.

Stutsman: With the idea staying there long term. So although it's possible, I for one am not counting on a lot being made available. There are a lot of things that will have to fall into place at the same time for that to come to reality.

Jordahl: In terms of your pursuit of that other property. The notion of co-location still pertains. That's why you're looking at that space.

White: Yes.

Jordahl: So I'm presuming that the price works. It seems unreasonable to see these as part of the same picture. Well are we done talking about this? Reverend Welsh.

Reverend Bob Welsh: Jonathan, let me just say what Cheryl and John and John have both said about co-location, which is a real plus. And the crowdedness out at North Dodge there, that's a real minus, the present situation, it really is. I guess I might differ with you Mr. Chair is on your last statement. It seems to me that, when you're talking about a 10 year lease, I am not sure if it makes much sense to be at year one even before year one starts of that, that you purchase a property for a building for that purpose. If so, then your lease may be too doggone long. And I realize the reason for a long lease is to advertise that other than 90. But in my view your overall space needs, what you're talking about, I guess I just have a question as to whether or not you want to do both of those things simultaneously at that point.

Jordahl: That's a fair question.

Lehman: We're trying to consider. If we did purchase some land then we'd still have to probably have a bond issue for a building. Just a timetable of getting things done and that's why we investigated, probably looking at a minimum of 5 years before anything else would develop. I guess that's just my opinion. But why we put in the offer to sub-lease. I'm sure the landlords over there at Eastdale would like to have something locked in for as long as they can and this is a situation where they're kind of paying us back by a lower rental per square foot, by doing that. The longer term the lower the...

Welsh: I'm just saying as one citizen.

Lehman: I understand.

Welsh: When you're talking about a 10 year lease and then you're talking about purchasing property before that 10 year lease even starts.

Lehman: I see.

Welsh: I'd have to say jeez is that really the wisest thing? That's another discussion. Pat is asking for you know is and Mr. Dobberstein is do you want them to proceed?

White: Actually I'm probably not really asking you today.

Welsh: Oh, for Thursday.

White: We need to put this on...

Jordahl: Well this is an informal meeting here. It seems like we're talking about spending $100,000 and more. We probably

Stutsman: We could put that on for Thursday for a formal action.

Jordahl: Ought to take some kind of action on that huh?

Stutsman: Do you have any (inaudible)?

White: If you wanted to take the next step. My recommendation would be, it would be a motion to invite your architect to a present a contract for services and to authorize us to negotiate a lease with Jack and Sue Tank for units 9 and 10 at Eastdale.

Jordahl: Did you get all that Carol?

Administrative Assistant Carol Peters: Uh-huh.

Jordahl: Great.

Whitney: I'm supposed to be in Des Moines for a meeting on Thursday. So if it looks as if there would be additional questions or anything I would need to address Thursday.

Stutsman: Well Dwight would you have a contract ready by, a proposal ready by Thursday?

Dobberstein: We could be ready by Thursday.

Stutsman: Oh.

Whitney: I would just need to know about.

White: I doubt that the lease would be ready by Thursday. And one of our questions to you about timing is your new Supervisor.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

White: There are at least 4 votes that would need to take place as you go through this schedule. And you'd want to be sure that once started, even though each decision has to be separately made, if you were 2 to 2 we better wait before we do anything else. Well the question is do you want to have any of this discussion replicated with your new Board member or are you ready to put it on next Thursday or the Thursday after that? Which would be another option is to, instead of this Thursday to wait a week and give Carol a chance to hear some of this so you know.

Duffy: When's Carol going to be on the Board?

White: She should be at your Tuesday meeting as I understand.

Jordahl: Yes the first or second whatever Tuesday is.

Peters: She's going to

Jordahl: The second of February.

Peters:(inaudible) the first so she'll be her on the formal.

Stutsman: In view of that, would it be appropriate to take a straw patrol then as to where we're at on this?

Jordahl: Yes it would.

Stutsman: And then I guess I'm thinking Carol shortly will have all this information. I don't know if we want to go through all of this all over again. If there are at least 3 votes to proceed then I don't know if we just couldn't go ahead with it.

Jordahl: Where are we at? Charlie?

Duffy: Well to implement the Human Services Program I see it's costing us more to really implement it and I would like to see extra dollars go to the people who vow to help the people with. In a case like this, it is a good area, there's no doubt about that. And so I probably would vote for it.

Jordahl: Yes, that's one. Mike?

Lehman: I'd be in favor of proceeding with more details on it.

Jordahl: 2. So far so good. Got any thoughts on this Sally?

Stutsman: Well, yes. Go ahead. I work on the Space Needs Committee and what not.

Jordahl: Being a member of the Space Needs Committee you would feel like maybe this is a recommendation of a committee you'd support huh? All right.

Duffy: And where's the money going to come from again?

Jordahl: The renovation funds are going to come from the capital projects budget.

Stutsman: And Cheryl has some monies in this year's budget that...

Jordahl: For moving.

Stutsman: ...can be put into that.

Duffy: How much a square foot is the rent again?

White: We haven't concluded a lease. The proposal that they've made is $8 a square foot to begin with plus the...

Duffy: Remodeling.

White: ...utilities, condo insurance, common area maintenance and real-estate taxes. So it ends being, I think I heard Carol say $125,000.

Duffy: $125,000?

Whitney: $125,700 I think with the (inaudible) plus the utilities.

White: This is not cheap. But it's in the market. And it kind of is unusual, we're both paying rent and proposing to spend $190,000 capital costs but that's what this proposal is. You looked at some rental figures for a property that was already improved, I didn't miss this figure too far, but has other deficiencies.

Jordahl: The $190,000 as I understand, is this a firm arrangement or will it presumably be that picture actually devolves to $113,000 when we get done adding and subtracting?

White: Well it could it's, it's partly to be negotiated and partly unknown. I mean you never know precisely whether your bids are going to come in at what's estimated.

Jordahl: In terms of the participation of the landlord in the remodeling costs. That's still part of the negotiation process as well?

White: Right. What I'd like to look closer at is whether there's any advantage to applying those funds to the remodeling costs versus reducing the lease cost. I'm not sure that there's any advantage one way or the other but I think we just need to explore that.

Jordahl: Well what we're proposing to authorize on Thursday is that you proceed with preparation of the contract and contract lease and contract for the architect to work out the rest of these details. Right?

White: Yes.

Whitney: And it's really my understanding that we would do that and then we would come back for your approval.

Jordahl: Right.

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Jordahl: So that we will know much more closely what the dollar amounts are going to be. A little more closely when they're going to be spent and we'll be able to answer these questions with a greater degree of precision before we actually make a commitment to spending that money. OK? So we can have that much on the agenda for Thursday. I don't think there should be a lot of additional questioning Cheryl. If you do have questions between now and then they should try to contact Cheryl tomorrow.

Whitney: That's a good idea.

Duffy: I really think that we should wait for Carol Thompson. What's the? A week in the life of a Supervisor. I think we should ask her when she's on the Board. Would that be a problem?

White: No there's no problem with that kind of delay except that you're at some risk if, you're probably going to have a news story or a couple of them tomorrow. When John or Jane Doe read the newspaper and say gee I didn't know units 9 and 10 were available and dial Jack and Sue up. I mean there's no way.

Duffy: It might go the other way. We might get some calls.

White: You probably will.

Duffy: Say (inaudible).

Stutsman: Yes, and we have had...

White: I think you will.

Stutsman: ...one inquiry from, it wasn't a space for what they had right now but.

White: Yes, I'd be very surprised if didn't get calls from other landlords saying, gee as long as you're in the market, why don't you come and look at my space. And the committee has looked, at some level, everything that's become known to us so far. We haven't walked through all of them but we've certainly looked at all of them we've become aware of.

Jordahl: Well we have a consensus of the 4 members of the Board present. A super-majority to proceed, to at least put this on the agenda for Thursday and vote on it then. I certainly welcome Carol to the Board but I don't know if I guess I'd like to take advantage of the co-location opportunity here by moving ahead with this and if Carol disagrees with the consensus the 4 of us have at this point, there would still be time to say if she persuaded us otherwise to say no this isn't a good idea.

Duffy: Well she has experience.

White: We'd be back to you in fairly short order with a proposed lease if we successfully conclude negotiations and that won't be... It certainly won't be this Thursday so at the earliest it would be next week.

Jordahl: Right so before we make a commitment to the lease we'd have Carol on board to pass her view on this and I think that's probably timely enough.

White: Right.

Jordahl: I think we ought to get moving on this and put it on for Thursday.

Duffy: Was the space needs your primary concern in where you're at now on North Governor?

Whitney: Well that's the most immediate concern Charlie is we simply don't have enough space. That's the first concern. We can talk about the other concerns. I'm not sure you want to start that this morning.

Duffy: No. But I think the Lion Board would, up there Bill Bellam if we decide to go that way.

Jordahl: That is a, I think a separate area of conversation that would take quite a while to deal with. Cheryl has shown me some figures that pertain to that and you may be interested in discussing that with her individually. The condition that North Governor, currently their number, has a whole history of things, some of which I'm sure you already know. But really, at a quarter to twelve I don't want to open that whole topic up if we can avoid it. This will be on the agenda again on Thursday if we need to discuss it in the context of the current situation on North Governor. Maybe between now and then you and Charlie will have a chance to talk about that.

Stutsman: But Cheryl won't be here on Thursday. So I don't know if we want to have a discussion.

Whitney: (inaudible) regarding.

Stutsman: Yes.

Jordahl: Can you summarize the situation Cheryl?

Whitney: Well internally, and I could set something up for tomorrow too. I'm flexible too.

Duffy: How are we doing on the budgets?

Stutsman: Well we're meeting tomorrow.

Jordahl: We're going to be working on it.

Lehman: We're meeting tomorrow.

Duffy: So we could meet tomorrow night.

Jordahl: 9 to 5.

Whitney: I'm pretty flexible tomorrow Charlie.

Duffy: Well we're going to be 9 to 5 on the budgets.

Jordahl: Could you meet first thing in the morning tomorrow?

Whitney: Sure.

Stutsman: Or over lunch?

Duffy: Well, I guess I could push it. Tomorrow morning I'd like to talk to.

Whitney: Do you want to just stop by or do you want me to come down here? I can be here at 8:00?

Duffy: I'll meet you down here at 8:00.

Whitney: Here at 8:00?

Duffy: Yes.

Whitney: OK.

Jordahl: OK. Well then thank-you everyone for coming down here to fill in the details about this. There are only I think 2 items remaining uncovered on the agenda and that's reports from members of the Board of Supervisors. Anything else and discussion from the public. I guess we should, before the public all leaves us we should give them a chance to say what they might want to say. The public seems not to be coming forth with anything to say. Reports from members of the Board of Supervisors?

Duffy: No report I guess.

Jordahl: No report from Charlie. Mike?

Lehman: I don't have any.

Stutsman: Yes I think I want to pass this up.

Jordahl: Sally is going to pass. I just want to call it to everybody's attention we've got a work session with the Department Head Meeting this afternoon at 1:00 not 1:30. So an hour and 10 minutes from now in this room, discussion of the County web, GIS, budget, space needs, updates and setting the next meeting.

Duffy: What time does that start?

Jordahl: It starts at 1:00 right here. An hour and 10 minutes. Dwight?

Dobberstein: I do have one item on this jail consultant. I have some (inaudible) whether you want to do a small agenda for Thursday (inaudible).

Duffy: A vote on whether or not I (inaudible).

Jordahl: We've already discussed the idea of hiring but we haven't discussed the specifics of the contract I suppose.

Duffy left at 11:46 p.m.

Dobberstein: I just got that back on Monday after this trip last week here. So he's given us his exact premise. And in terms of his proposal and (inaudible) some time. So (inaudible) time where we can get that through. If it's not this week then next week.

Jordahl: Would a weeks delay be a problem for that? It seems like we ought it for informal first.

Dobberstein: No I don't think it's a problem.

Jordahl: Maybe we should put that on for the second I propose.

Stutsman: I'm OK.

Jordahl: Yes, well it isn't noon yet. We've scared them all away.

Lehman: We accomplished our goals.

Stutsman: Yes, even Charlie.

Jordahl: We've even gotten Charlie and it's not even noon. So I think we ought to quit while we're ahead. Any opposition to recessing until 1:00?

Recessed at 11:48 a.m.; reconvened at 1:10 p.m. as a meeting with County Department Heads.

(Continued in Part 4)