Jordahl: OK. We note here having received minutes for the Board of Health, Commission on Veterans Affairs, County Nutrition Board, 6th Judicial District, Department of Corrections, the Transitional Empowerment Board. Are there any reports from members of the Board.

Stutsman: I was just going to say Carol drafted memo going out to all department heads about the county day. I will pass that out for your information. We're scheduled to go up to the Iowa legislature we're inviting all elected officials and appointed department heads to go with us. It's just a memo asking them to let us know if they can drive so that we can begin organizing car pools or however we want to approach this. Supposedly ISAC will send out some information about that day about a week ahead of time. I will let you know when I get that information. About what our responsibilities are and some issues that we can visit with legislators about and things.

Jordahl: Carol?

Thompson: Should we talk about the Conference Board meetings?

Jordahl: Sure. Go ahead.

Thompson: We attended both Conference Board meetings last night and approved their budgets. With an amendment to both of them that sets the raises for the assessors and deputies at 3%.

Duffy: We were I guess all there, weren't we, the City Conference board. Maybe not both of them that Carol just reported on. Went to Johnson County Task Force meeting yesterday. Pretty good. A lot of interesting things came up. Then last night Mike and I went out to a Farm Bureau meeting. They wanted to have us explain what this 1% sales tax does. Somebody brought a question did you vote on it and I said we didn't vote on it we're just showing you what it is. Then they started someone asked about taxes, Mike did a real good job. About 4 meetings last night. That's about all I guess.

Jordahl: How'd it go for you.

Duffy: It went pretty good. Most of the Board was there. (Inaudible). They asked some pretty logical questions. Isn't that the impression you got Mike?

Lehman: Yes. It wasn't that they were misinformed they were uninformed and I guess that's I wish we were able to give something out to the public like the newsletter. We tried to explain a lot of the scenarios. What if different communities passed didn't pass. We tried to explain that and there were still questions. But I think it's just the general public whether they're rural or urban people I don't they're going to be real informed on what they're voting on. There's been some articles in the paper and stuff. But I think to point it out I don't think they made their mind up and here the ballots are already available for some of the people. It's really too bad that people aren't going to be informed on what they're voting on if they vote.

Jordahl: The issue of that piece that I drafted and you guys all we had some feedback about I thought had in pretty good forum publication in the external newsletter was not accepted by the external newsletter communications committee folks thinking that it was too leaning toward advocating a position on local option sales tax. So I've sent an e-mail again out saying what'd you think about using it for a newspaper piece. I'm still looking for feedback on that. I'd love to get it out there or get something out there.

Lehman: We had copies that were made available to them and discussed. I don't think they had much problem of where the money was going to go. It was just more semantics if the County residents did or did not pass it versus the City and how the money may or may not come to him. And there's also the fact of what one percent would mean to them. Where we had designated the money to go if it was passed I don't think that was quite a problem. I remember accepting we explained how we divided it up and where we thought it was going to go. I think they accepted that very well. Just the idea that the scenario, I think we kind of left it at them if they voted it in we'd have more options if they did not vote it and the communities did it'd be 6 months before we could turn around and find something. We wanted to put a little bit of a positive spin on it. We emphasized that we tried to write a somewhat positive ballot. If we wrote a negative it would really limit their options.

Jordahl: It's not on the agenda to discuss this as a matter for the Board to take action on in terms of communication. But as I say I'd be happy to listen to feedback from each of you individually or get e-mail about that. I agree that we ought to help communicate better. In that light I'll be reporting on something my self. Are you done Charlie?

Duffy: Yeah. That's enough.

Lehman: That's all I had too.

Jordahl: All right. I guess the ball's in my court then. I am going to be in a public forum tomorrow night at 7 o' clock in the Coralville City Council chambers along with the mayors of all the cities and towns in the county at a local option sales tax forum. League of Women Voters is going to be taping this thing and then, it's not live broadcast even though they could do that from Coralville Council chambers. They're going to have a look and listen and weigh the thing just as our Communication's Committee weighed my our piece on local options sales tax and if it seems it's been informational and balanced and even and nobody's gone over the top advocating everybody should vote for or against it, then they'll broadcast it. Yes, Pat.

League of Women Voters Representative Pat Jensen: It's not the League that's going to be doing that.

Jordahl: Chamber?

Jensen: No. It's the public television. The television channel cannot broadcast it if it's advocacy. It's not, we won't be doing that. We're going to be trying to our best to keep it educational because that's what we want but the review has to do with public access broadcasting, and that they can't do the advocacy according apparently with Federal Regulations.

Jordahl: So anyway, so that's how I'll be making an effort to communicate in a balanced way about Local Option Sales Tax in that forum tomorrow and so we've obviously this is a question that is right on the front burner right now and there again you're feedback about the drafted letter will be approve of my need a t the meeting tomorrow. So, anything you can feed to me, say you put together a paragraph or something about an issue that people really need to know about and this is the balanced way to possibly present this idea, I could use those as talking points for the meeting tomorrow, so I would be happy to receive any of that stuff. The public is certainly interested to know that we're starting our interviews for the CPC position. The director of the Mental Health Developmental Disabilities Program tomorrow and we'll be doing that most of the day. Let me see here. What else do we got going on? Friday we have the business PM which is at Carver-Hawkeye, and it has another name. What is business fair or something like that?

Duffy: Yes,

Jordahl: Does somebody know the proper name of this thing.

Duffy: Small business fair maybe. I don't know.

Jordahl: No, I haven't seen a sign up sheet on that thing yet, but I think that we're suppose to be signing up for times.

Stutsman: We're suppose to call the Chamber.

Jordahl: Oh, call the Chamber later for the times. Oh, OK.

Duffy: I forgot about that.

Stutsman: Is it (inaudible)?

Peters: I'm not sure.

Stutsman: Or Kelly?

Thompson: It says on the memo.

Jordahl: OK. Call Chamber to sign up and so, and also I think the League has a legislative forum on Saturday morning, is that correct? Public Library room A, 9:00 for coffee and something, and 9:30 for political thoughts that you may have.

Stutsman: Bowl for Kid's Sake is Saturday too, I'm taking pledges if anybody is interested.

Jordahl: That's right Bowl for Kid's Sake if anybody want to contribute money to Big Brothers, Big Sisters, this is their big annual fund-raiser Saturday, also coming up on Saturday Mike Sullivan's got an Emergency Medical Services Conference at the highlander, that people may be interested at stopping by at. Lunch is $8.50 at the Highlander/Radisson I guess they call it now. Is it the Radisson/Highlander, I don't know.

Peters: Radisson/Highlander.

Welsh: Plaza.

Jordahl: Plaza? Any more names we want to throw in there.

Thompson: Did you go to that utilities meeting last week?

Jordahl: Yes, I went to the public meeting where the Office of the Consumer Advocate of the State gave a presentation on deregulation, and they were very clear in their thoughts on the matter showing that State of Iowa, and I'm going to be off on the numbers and the cost of generating a kilowatt hour of electricity, but it's something like Iowa's figure is like 3 and whatever it is such dollars, and Illinois is at like 8 or 9 and so if we have deregulation in Iowa Utility which has this low cost of generation would be able to sell electricity to Illinois where they have a much higher cost of generation and guess what, they would sell it to them for more than they are selling here and make more money. Obviously the bread of utilities is buttered on the side of being able to sell the electricity to regions where they have a higher cost of generation, and so it doesn't immediately seem like it would be advantageous to the average Iowan to sell our generating capacity to other states it seems, and the Office of the Consumer Advocate concluded, so I don't offer this as my opinion, but rather as a report of just what they said, that it almost certainly cost Iowa consumers money while some individual businesses for example might be able to get good deals like for example the County has been able to lower our cost through contracting with the power company. The individuals would more than probably see higher rates as a result of deregulation. Anything I want to report on Carol?

Thompson: That's the one I was interested in.

Jordahl: And there was a representative of the utility industry there who attempted to answer some of those concerns. I don't recall that he proposed to make the entire argument replayed here, it was video taped and would be available if people want to see the whole talk. John Beckord was also there from the Chamber and asked a number of pointed questions at the end, again, which I am not prepared to rehears, but the basic point of the Consumer Advocate's Office was that probably not a good deal for the Iowa Consumer and you could clearly see the motivation of the industry in wanting to be able to do it. That's enough reporting for me, where is the agenda? I know we're going into strategic planning shortly.

Stutsman: No, I don't think we are. It's 11:30 and I'm wondering if we should put that off for another time.

Thompson: How long is it going to take?

Jordahl: We could at least review it I suppose, the topics in a set amount of time. is there anything else that we need to discuss this morning under Other. Carol, do you have anything.

Thompson: No, thank you.

Jordahl: Discussion from the public, we have had some this morning, and we've worn most of them out.

Jensen: A couple of things. The League is doing a second forum on the Local Option Sales Tax on March 10, and you're involved in that Jonathan, that's in Iowa City (inaudible). So there'll be 2 of them, and are you all having a Budget hearing next week?

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Jensen: March 2? Do you have some information on the budget for the public available?

Jordahl: I talked to the Auditor's Office about that Friday and they were in the process of preparing it and would have it available in advance if they didn't have it yet, and I haven't spoken with anyone about that since, but you might check directly with the Auditor about that. March 10th.

Stutsman: We have the Trustee's Meeting that day.

Jordahl: We have the Trustee's Meeting that night and I thought that I had both of the Local Option Sales Tax Forums on my calendar rather than just the one.

Jensen: I think I've got the date right, but I don't have the calendar.

Jordahl: I don't know, anyway we do have a Trustee's Meeting that night so that's something you'll have to deal with.

Stutsman: Are you suppose to go to that League forum on the 10th. Jonathan, is he part of that.

Jordahl: Yes, I've been invited to attend 2. It might be that when I got initially notified about that, the first date was set and not the 2nd, and the 2nd was going to be clarified later and maybe I haven't gotten the 2nd one down yet.

Stutsman: Our attendance at the Trustee's Meeting isn't.

Duffy: What time is that meeting?

Stutsman: Is that 7, Carol?

Thompson: 7, at Montgomery Hall.

Jordahl: I know I've signed 56 odd letters for the Trustee's Meeting so that would be a hard one to turn around there, I think I'm either not going to be at the League Forum, or not be at the Trustee's Meeting it doesn't sound like it's possible to be in 2 places at once.

Stutsman: In the past at the Trustees, it's just usually a welcome isn't it? Pat White and (inaudible) take over the program of it, so perhaps it would possible to go and just welcome.

Jordahl: Perhaps I could just go welcome people and introduce and just say that I have to explain a little Local Option Sales Tax.

Stutsman: If you want to do both.

Jordahl: They'll probably understand that I was going to have a challenge explaining it.

Stutsman: Or you do have a Vice-Chair that could help out, you know by welcoming Trustees too, you don't have to do it all.

Jordahl: Well we'll figure that out. Further discussion from the public, none. The next item on the agenda...

Welsh: Don't go so fast.

Jordahl: I didn't know if that smile I should interpret as I'm not going to talk or I am.

Welsh: Just 3 things to remind you of. You all talked about putting on the agendas far in advance those thing projected, that would sure be helpful.

Jordahl: Still not happening. Carol you and I need to set a meeting about that.

Welsh: 2nd of all is that you had a meeting with your legislators and your department heads, discussing issues that you thought were important. Seems to me that if you want to follow up on that you should have some kind of communication with them to remind them of those issues that you identifies and take advantage of those (inaudible) the last Saturday of the month, and have them give you an update. For example, I browsed the web this morning and noticed that the list and set up files in relation to the Voter Registration being able to vote on the day of the balloting, it's sort of a complicated procedure I don't understand all of the Bill, and there is also a Bill in relation to expanding the State Funding in relation to mental health and I guess all I'm urging you to do is to follow up on that meeting that you had with your state legislature in terms of you said hey these are issues I hope you will look at, and get feedback form them on that.

Stutsman: You know Bob, I really do think elected officials and department heads do an excellent job of tracking legislation and communicating with elected officials through e-mail and wheat not, you know, I hear back regularly that there are tracking Bills. I don't necessarily think that they need to go the forum on Saturday morning to communicate with the legislatures so I think they do keep track.

Welsh: I was saying more as a responsibility of you as the Board of Supervisors in communicating with the Legislators.

Stutsman: Right.

Welsh: And the 3rd thing in relation to your strategic plan I just glanced at one document this morning. About 18 months ago in July, in ‘97 was your (inaudible) I raised with you the possibility of a goal in relation to the (inaudible) project in relation to Human Services that would now be expanded in terms of relation to the welfare persons in the County. I guess I would still mention that again as an important part on strategic planning that I would hope that you guys would all really address that seriously, I hope. There's a part of the Board now that will do some of that but I think there's a role for the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to be a real driving force in terms of the collaboration and the needs of persons. Housing being one example that I talked about, but there are many others and I think that's an important function of county government.

Jordahl: I agree, I'm so glad we've done that housing thing. I agree with you too Sally that the strategic planning could probably benefit form clearer head.

Stutsman: I guess that's what I'm feeling I guess it's been a long morning and there's a number if issues that I wanted to talk about in relation to that, and I wanted to give it a good discussion and I just feel with the morning being do late that we just won't give it justice, so, that's my personal opinion.

Jordahl: That's one person's thought. Carol?

Thompson: I was hoping to get started.

Stutsman: I want to get started too.

Jordahl: Well let's get started to the extent of reviewing what our strategic goals are in getting ourselves rescheduled

Jordahl opened the work session on strategic planning. Stutsman said in the past the Board of Supervisors had run their strategic planning goals by the department heads and elected officials. Jordahl recollected that they had delegated strategic planning goals to the Supervisors and then as a separate step they involved the department heads and elected officials in a discussion. He said they didn't involve the department heads and elected officials in policy decisions. Stutsman said they should rename the strategic planning goals to Johnson County Board of Supervisors Strategic Planning Goals.

Duffy said a lot of their strategic planning was going to deal with economic development. He said that everybody is talking about economic development now. Stutsman said there was a lot of economic development going on and Duffy agreed.

Stutsman asked if the Board was in agreement on what their strategic goals were. Jordahl said they would need a separate work session for that. Stutsman said at that work session they should appoint the Supervisors to work with separate goals. Jordahl said they should also refocus and fine tune their goals. Lehman asked if they should refocus the goals in small groups or as a full Board. Jordahl said they should do it as a Board because they will end up being on more than one strategic committee. Duffy said it was going to be a big time commitment. Jordahl said they need to have a work session to flesh out their goals and Stutsman agreed. Jordahl said at their work session he wanted to discuss departmental strategic planning, and also staffing and funding of the Board of Supervisors strategic planning. The Board decided to have another work session on Thursday February 25, 1999 at 10:00 a.m.

Recessed at 11:49 a.m.; Reconvened on February 25, 1999 at 9:37 a.m.

(Continued in Part 5)