MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
MARCH 2 AND 4, 1999
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Jordahl called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:01 a.m. Members present were: Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
Jordahl: Good morning. Welcome to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors informal meeting for Tuesday the 2nd of March. We're going to review the formal minutes of February 25th. Are there any changes necessary? Hearing no discussion we'll move onto item 3. Brad Neumann. Good morning Brad.
Solid Waste Management Planner for Johnson County Council of Governments Brad Neumann: Good morning.
Jordahl: It's a nice rainy day for tires to collect rain.
Neumann: Yes. That's why we're trying to get them out of the ditch I guess. I'm here to do the annual spiel on the tires. As you're aware the Board of Supervisors, through the East Central Iowa Council of Governments, applied for tire collection funding for FY 99. We did receive that. We got $15,725. It's what we have to spend this year. Talking to the landfill, they would like to do another one month amnesty period again and be the collection point. And they did also agree to pay for any overrun on the tires. According to... this is our fourth collection we're going to be doing. We've seen the tires steadily, the numbers, steadily come down from around over 20,000 the first couple of times we had done that to just under 7,000 last year. We're starting to see the program really take effect which is kind of nice, which is what it's designed to do. In doing it through the East Central Iowa Council of Governments we do it as a 6 county region. Of course this year they're taking a little more money off the top to do more education because we're seeing the tires start to, the numbers, start to go down so now it's time to educate on how to keep them out of the ditch rather than just continue to pick them up out of the ditch. So we're pursuing that angle.
Jordahl: For our own participation in public education efforts as we may all talk to other friends and neighbors and so forth, how do we keep tires out of the ditch?
Neumann: What ECICOG is doing is they've put a lot of effort into advertising in The Gazette and things like this for more information. How to properly keep your tires on the car so they don't wear out so fast. They've approached a lot of the drivers ed classes with the high schools to try and start early there. We've given out brochures to all the tire shops so when they sell the tires they can hand the information out, to keep the air in them and to keep them rotated and things like this so you don't wear them out so fast. And that when you do get new tires to make sure the tire shop takes them and recycles them or disposes of them properly. And not to just give them to anybody to throw out in the field somewhere and collect money off of it for years and then all of a sudden they've got a pile of 20,000 tires that we're ending up having to clean up. So those are some of the education efforts. And they include the tire gauges. They hand out a lot of the tire gauges and things like that as a promotional thing. That's kind of the educational aspect of that. And of course, the city landfill likes to promote how they just used about a million old tires in their landfill as a liner. We had, as a County, taken a lot of tires down to a company in Muscatine for years and they ran into some trouble with their market. It just kind of dropped out from underneath them so they had a lot of tires to get rid of. We made a deal with them and the DNR to bring back about a million shredded tires to use in the base of our new landfill cell at the landfill. We're seeing it comeback now as a reuse rather than just getting rid of them and having somebody else steal them so we're doing our part there.
Jordahl: How about the road surfacing? Are they being used there too?
Neumann: Not here. We're using shingles. We're starting to use the shingles now at the landfill for basepads and some roadways. We hope this spring... We've been working with the Secondary Roads crews in trying to find a place to test them in the county. But as far as tires, no, we haven't been using those on the roads. The landfill again would like to do a one month amnesty period during the month of April, starting April 3rd and going through May 1. It's the same time of year we did it last year so we anticipate about the same number of tires or hopefully a little less. We had about 6,700 tires last year. Last year's program cost a little over $20,000. So it will be close to what we have budgeted, the $15,700, that ought to be pretty close. The landfill, like I said, agreed to cover any extra. The rules will be the same as they've always been, mainly residential. We'll send out letter to the communities. They have a lot of clean-up events. They end up bringing the tires in. I know the Secondary Roads folks bring in quite a few. The Corps of Engineers bring in a bunch. So we like to work with the local governments in bringing those tires in. No tire dealers or anybody like that is eligible but business is. And again I gave you a report last year on, I don't think I have the numbers with me... maybe I do. Let's see, last year I believe the Board was concerned in opening it up to business, that too many businesses were using the program. It turns out only 7% of the tires came from business.
Jordahl: That's good to know.
Neumann: All the others, 52% came from the rural county, 31% came from the urban area, the Iowa City-Coralville urban area, and 10% came from the community clean-ups. The community clean-ups, the county parks, Secondary Roads, and the Corps of Engineers, they all made up about 10%. Then the 7% came from business.
Jordahl: OK.
Stutsman: Well our community, countywide clean-up is the first week in June isn't it? It's almost too bad that we can't coordinate this better.
Peters: You can change that.
Stutsman: Can we? Wasn't it a problem though with farmers being busy in the field?
Duffy: Yes, we tried to find a date. We felt that the first of June, might be a hole there.
Peters: And the other thing you tried to do was keep the dates consistent from year to year so people could plan.
Stutsman: Right.
Neumann: The 1st of June... we could set aside. I mean it's your money. I mean you could set aside some money for that if you'd like. That's not a problem.
Stutsman: I wonder if we shouldn't do that because it seems like that's just logical if people are going to do... if we're going to have county clean-up days that we should have...
Neumann: You know we have to have it spent by the end of the fiscal year so June 1 would still give us time.
Stutsman: OK. I guess I would suggest doing that.
Jordahl: You don't want to ratchet the whole month back just to save some money aside for the clean-up week?
Stutsman: Well it seems like... I guess I'm looking at consistency. We've always had it the first week in June and I know part of the reasons for doing it then was because then farmers would be out of the fields. Corn planting would be mostly done. I think if we move it in May that's when they're the busiest of the spring.
Jordahl: So why don't we move the tire month to coincide with the clean-up week and if we get all these people who go out, clean up and find tires, they can still bring them.
Stutsman: Can we do that?
Neumann: I can talk to the landfill if they're willing to move it, sure. For the month of June?
Stutsman: Why don't we try to move it to the month of June. If that doesn't work then maybe set aside some moneys to coincide with the county clean-up days the first week in June.
Jordahl: Or May through the end of the county clean-up week so by the end the clean-up week you can be bringing the tires in.
Stutsman: That would be... well no this is from... I was thinking of just extending this but this ends May 1st doesn't it? So we'd have to move the...
Jordahl: I'm thinking of cranking it back to like maybe the second week in May through the second week of June or all of May or something like that. Only on the first week of June for clean up week.
Neumann: Mid-May or mid-June, something like that?
Jordahl: Something so that it would, like Sally said, coincide.
Duffy: Well I'm not so sure about May. I think...
Jordahl: You like June better?
Duffy: Yes. Plus the fact that you're going to have to sort tires out from the other trash if they... say a pick-up truck (inaudible).
Neumann: Yes, they're usually pretty good about that. It's required when they take it out to the landfill anyway that it be separated out so that shouldn't be a problem.
Jordahl: That would be up to the person who was bringing it and stuff. We'd want to somehow make that clear in publicity. Like Charlie said, we wouldn't get it all mixed in.
Neumann: Yes. Well, they can't dump them in the landfill anyway, regardless. They have to be separated out.
Duffy: They'd be stopped if they don't.
Neumann: It's usually not a problem.
Jordahl: OK. Well it's a good suggestion.
Neumann: I can, yes, I can talk to the landfill and see if we can back it up.
Jordahl: Let's see what our options are. We can either save money aside, as she first suggested, or (inaudible) a month.
Neumann: Yes, I don't believe there's any real good reason to have it during the month, that's just when they've always had it and some of the other landfills have done it at the same time. Since we contract for the collection of the tires, 6 county wide, not just one landfill, the company likes to spread it out a little bit out too because it spreads them out so thin because there's so many tires coming in so quickly. So let me talk to ECICOG and make sure when the others are doing their events. I'll talk to the landfill and see if they're willing to back it up. The time of year, I don't think, is a problem for them.
Lehman: The other 5 counties do not run this April 3rd to May 1st? They're staggered out?
Neumann: A lot of them vary it. Like Blue Stem will do weekends for a number of months. Some of the other smaller counties will do one week or just a few events. They're a lot smaller It shouldn't be a problem to move it.
Jordahl: OK.
Neumann: I will let you know then.
Jordahl: Very good, Brad.
Neumann: OK.
Jordahl: Thank you very much. That was an interesting presentation. You might put it on video tape but then we wouldn't get to ask questions. That's the creative stuff.
Neumann: Well we only have 3 more years of the program. This is through the State. I think it's going to be 3 more years and you should be getting a letter real soon from ECICOG to reapply for next year's finding. We've been getting it the last 3 years. The chances of getting it again are pretty good. It's just the amount that's been going down for the 6 counties. They're starting to spread it out a little bit.
Jordahl: OK.
Neumann: OK.
Jordahl: Thank you.
Duffy: Good job, Brad.
Jordahl: Where is that County Engineer? Well let's jump around.
Duffy: He's a few minutes late.
Jordahl: We're a few minutes ahead of schedule here. Let's see, Bruce Ahrens, I don't see Bruce either. Well that road discussion's going to take a while. Let's see what else we can get out of the way here. Carol, do you want to talk about surplus office equipment and see if Mike shows up?
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT CAROL PETERS: SURPLUS OFFICE EQUIPMENT
Peters: Certainly. You have a memo in your packet there. The Department of Human Services has a few more items of surplus equipment. They have gone through the procedure of letting everybody in the County know that these items were available. Some items have been spoken for. These are just a few left over so they're asking for permission to put them up for auction at Sharpless.
Stutsman: We just need to put this on for Thursday for a motion.
Jordahl: I didn't actually get that in my packet.
Stutsman: Not much.
Jordahl: Any metal shelves or...
Stutsman: I think that VCR will be a hot item.
Jordahl: Say, there you go.
Peters: That VCR, as I understand, has been broken down and fixed so many times that finally they just told them it's really not fixable.
Lehman: It's inoperable.
Jordahl: Inoperative after numerous repair bills. I've been down to those places and they say it's cheaper to buy a new one.
Peters: I think that's the situation.
Jordahl: So the way we handle surplus inventory... this has been offered to other departments. It's kind of being offered to us as we look at it here?
Peters: No, actually it's already been offered to us and we have gotten from the original list, we have gotten a couple of items for our own office. So this is just what is left over from the original list that other departments have deemed not useful.
Jordahl: OK. Thank you. Yes, I think as people look around the room, people may notice that the County is pretty darn frugal with regard to disposing of surplus items. We're not sitting here at fancy matching desks.
Duffy: Plus our chairs, Jonathan.
Jordahl: The chairs don't match either.
Duffy: The chairs have been here for a long time.
Jordahl: We're really proud of our surplus. We'll have some action on that on Thursday to send it to auction. There we go, 9:15 punctual, you can set your watch by him, the County Engineer. I'm running this agenda today. You guys are on.
Duffy: Exactly.
Gardner: Great.
Stutsman: I love working with engineers. They're so exact.
Jordahl: I can't even believe this. Look at that. Has there ever been an engineer on the Board?
Stutsman: I don't know.
Jordahl: That's something to research. Bob Burns could tell us about that.
Stutsman: Carol probably could.
Jordahl: Carol, has there been an engineer on the Board. They probably make better money as engineers.
Thompson: (Inaudible) saving it for them.
Jordahl: Thank you.
Stutsman: Thank you.
County Engineer Mike Gardner: Good morning.
Jordahl: Good morning.
Duffy: Morning.
Gardner: Al just passed out the bid tabs we got for our asphalt projects for this summer. There's only one bidder for all 3 projects. The 3 projects were tied. This is the paving of IWV over the west county line to Blackhawk Avenue, paving 140th Street between Highway 1 and Ely Road, and resurfacing Wapsi Avenue 4 miles north of Lone Tree, that we widened the shoulders on and did the grading work on last summer. So those are the 3 projects we got. The total bid on the project was $1,540,805.22. The only bidder was L.L. Pelling Company Incorporated of North Liberty. I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Jordahl: You said they were tied. I assume that was your proposal in order to perhaps get a better price on doing all 3 at once.
Gardner: Right, a large quantity of material tends to invite a little additional complication.. It didn't do that in this situation but...
Jordahl: Is it possible that I might... I'm not trying to second guess you here, I'm just trying to figure out why we have one bidder on this. I think it might be a question others might be interested in. I'm curious about whether we might have gotten more smaller bidders if we'd separated them into 3 different projects.
Gardner: I don't believe so. We had some inquiries on this from other contractors that showed some interest. I don't think the State had any work going on to speak of. I don't think any of the adjoining counties has any work that was going to be done. I don't think this was enough that someone could come in and put a portable plant to make it economical for themselves to come and do something like that. The contractor that's here has that advantage in that they're local and they don't have the expense of bringing in a portable plant. They're set up permanently here in the county.
Lehman: How close was it to the estimate?
Gardner: It came in overall...
Assistant County Engineer Al Miller: Our estimate on all 3, the whole thing put together, was about $35,000 less than what the bid came in at.
Gardner: It was well within the 10% that the DOT would normally look at to determine whether or not to recommend the award.
Stutsman: Do we need to put this on the Thursday then?
Gardner: Yes, that would be my recommendation, to put that on the agenda Thursday, authorizing the Chairperson to sign the contract.
Jordahl: So the DOT standards would show you do your estimate... we've often heard you talk about your estimates and comparing the bids to it. There's some guideline that says bids should come in within 10% of that estimate?
Gardner: That's the standard they normally go by, the DOT. They do an estimate. We do an estimate that we submit to them. We never get to see their estimate but if the bids come in outside that range, they let us know, especially in the case where there's only one bidder.
Jordahl: Not to make this a whole morning's discussion , but why don't you get to see their estimate?
Gardner: I've never gotten a good answer for that. I've asked.
Jordahl: They're government, we're government. Who are we hiding what from.
Miller: I think they don't want the information getting out to the contractors how exactly they put their bids together or their estimates together.
Jordahl: Uh-huh. But we give the contractors that information do we or don't we?
Gardner: No. No.
Jordahl: I see. So they just... all right. That makes some sense.
Miller: We give it to the DOT. They require us to give them ours.
Jordahl: They trust themselves. They just don't trust us.
Miller: Sometimes you can get them it depends on...
Gardner: That's kind of a check on our estimating too and their estimating. If there's a big difference in 2 estimates then that throws up a red flag that maybe somebody's not interpreting something right off the plans.
Stutsman: Well it's unfortunate there's only one bid but I could understand. They're in business and they're not going to... Another contractor's not going to incur a lot of additional cost just to bid on this project. We've worked with L.L. Pelling before. They certainly do good work and it's within reason.
Lehman: In the past, you've had more than one bid, normally?
Gardner: It varies. It varies. I think the last asphalt contract we had we only had one bidder. But in the past we've had additional bidders.
Lehman: I know it from a bidder's perspective, you never know who you're going to bid against. You're bidding against yourself. You aren't going to think can I beat the other guy. It's what can I do it for and what ca I afford to make on this thing. You have to show you're hand and that's it. You only get one shot.
Gardner: Yes.
Jordahl: With regard to the question of other bidders, what in the past have we had for other bidders? Are these people from within Iowa, in neighboring counties? Whose not bidding is my question.
Gardner: I got a call. I took a call personally from Fred Carlson. I think they're out of Waterloo.
Jordahl: Decorah.
Gardner: Decorah, OK. They bid on it. Chick Fry got the bid last year out on west overlook. They bid against Pelling and actually got the bid on that one. Cedar Valley Asphalt out of Cedar Rapids did some work for us a few years back.
Jordahl: Uh-huh. OK.
Gardner: So those are the other players that we dealt with...
Jordahl: It's not like it's a one company state here.
Gardner: Right.
Jordahl: OK. Any other questions? All right, well, I think we'll put this on for Thursday and we can get some roads built.
Gardner: OK. Great.
Jordahl: Think it's going to keep raining?
Gardner: It sounds like it.
Duffy: I was going to ask you is that going to interfere with anything out in county roads?
Gardner: Not yet. It's not showing up real big yet.
Joe Gjovig: I have a question for them. I'd be interested in knowing what the traffic count is on these roads. (Inaudible).
Duffy: I think that's Farm to Market dollars. That's State dollars. It has to be approved by the State and it's approved by...
Jordahl: That's quite a question, Mr. Gjovig and it was an interesting answer.
Gardner: The most recent counts that we've got are from 1994, the DOT counts. Wapsi Avenue Road is carrying at that point 1,990 vehicles. 140th Street was 310 vehicles.
Miller: That's IWV.
Gardner: Oh, IWV was carrying 310 vehicles. and 140th Street was carrying 110 vehicles per day on average.
Gjovig: What do you require (inaudible).
Gardner: We don't have any.
Gjovig: (Inaudible).
Jordahl: We will however later in the meeting today be hearing of regard to the traffic Road Management Study . This question maybe could resurface at that time.
Stutsman: But I don't think we'll ever get to the point where the only determinant will be traffic counts. I think there's other things that enter into the discussion when we make these decisions. I think with one of these roads it was trying to get some paved roads that go across the county in the southern part as well as the northern part and things. Although that's one criteria we look at, it's not the only thing that triggers whether a roads will get paved.
Gardner: Yes, exactly. That's exactly right.
Jordahl: So as I said, the general question of that policy is up on the agenda pretty much next depending upon... I still don't see Mr. Ahrens so maybe we will get to that.
Stutsman: We got another thing under...
Jordahl: Yes, I know we have another thing under roads. Hammer, it sounds like a big hammer.
Gardner: It is a big hammer. It's a 3,000 pound hammer. This is a piece of equipment that has just been sitting out in the yard since it was acquired. It's never been used. We don't have a drag line to use it. We were approached by the engineer from Van Buren County to see if we'd be interested in selling it to them for their use. So I just wanted to run it past you people and see what you felt, if you'd be interested in selling it to Van Buren County.
Jordahl: Any questions?
Duffy: Would we use it at all like down by Old Man's Creek to drive in some pilings?
Gardner: Charlie, we don't have a drag line that we can even use it for. If we hire a drag line, we may as well... The contractor that's coming in with this drag line, in the biggest majority of cases as far as I know, they have their own leads. All the people that are building bridges have all the equipment that they need.
Duffy: Yes, I just wondered.
Stutsman: My feeling is if this is something we're not using and we have no intentions of using, I see no point in just keeping it on the back lot. I think it will lose value just keeping it around and moving it. Sooner or later, something is going to happen to it or it's just going to lose value. If somebody is interested in buying it, I guess I see no problem in going ahead and selling it.
Lehman: How long have we had it and what's the value on it?
Gardner: We've had it for between 2 and 3 years, I believe. We acquired it... we paid $6,000 when we bought it. The offer I've got is for $4,000. The individual I talked to is wanting to buy it and bought a brand new one a few years back when they were in another county and they paid $5,500 or $5,700 for it brand new.
Lehman: Do they wear out or is it just weight?
Gardner: Overtime they do, it's not...
Lehman: You said they're rusting. Is that going to be a detriment with cables and stuff like that?
Gardner: The cables are probably a pretty minor part of it. Overall the stuff would rust over time.
Lehman: 4 sounds like a fairly...
Stutsman: Mike, maybe you should explain why it was bought to begin with. The previous engineer bought it. We were going to maybe look into doing some of our own bridge work, which we hadn't done before as a Secondary Roads Department.
Gardner: Right, that was why it was acquired. He had hoped to build some wood bridges and was going to use that, hire a drag line in addition to buying this and do it with our own County forces.
Jordahl: Which is a kind of philosophical, economic question that's within the realm of what an engineer decides about. You're a different engineer and this reflects your decision, I guess. The question that I would ask, just in terms of our budget for Roads and our need for road construction and so forth, is you seem to be a proponent of the philosophy of hiring a lot of this work out, to get people who have the equipment come in. They carry the depreciation or whatever on that. I would just like to hear you say a couple sentences about your general philosophy on that kind of thing.
Gardner: OK. I don't think it's entirely that. There are several options in replacing these structures. We found that we can replace these structures using precast culverts or precast conspan units for less money than the estimate was to do it with wood bridges.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Gardner: We're able to use our own crews.
Miller: It takes a fraction of the time.
Jordahl: So we are doing it ourselves. For less money, we're building a better structure that's going to last longer and we don't need this piece of equipment.
Gardner: Right. The estimate that was coming in on these bridges was right at the limit of what we would be able to do legally with our own crews. When you hit $50,000, you're supposed to be letting that to bid, with contractors that are in the business making a living at it. The County shouldn't be in competition with those individuals.
Jordahl: That's a State guideline?
Gardner: Uh-huh. Yes.
Jordahl: OK, that's a good thing to know too. OK, well I don't hear a lot of opposition to changing the policy and getting rid of the equipment.
Gardner: Do I need to have this on Thursday to take formal action?
Jordahl: Uh-huh. I don't suppose you need to come back to represent it though.
Gardner: I hope not because I'm planning to be in Phoenix at that time.
Jordahl: Say hi to Lisa when you're down there. Did you know Lisa Dewey's down there at a conference?
Gardner: No, no.
Stutsman: I think she'll be back by then. I think she was only going to be gone until Wednesday.
Jordahl: Oh, the weekend.
Duffy: Is that where your folks live, Mike?
Gardner: Yes, they winter down there. I'm going to go down and spend some time with them.
Jordahl: Don't get lured away down there. We have real nice weather up here.
Gardner: It's 80 some degree and sun's shining.
Jordahl: You wouldn't want that all the time. It'd get boring. It wrecks your dashboard.
Gardner: Yes.
Jordahl: Anything else?
Duffy: Well you won't know the county when you get back.
Stutsman: Yes.
Jordahl: That's always a danger when you go away. All right. Thanks for coming in guys. You may want to sit in on this conversation about road management plan too. Is Mr. Ahrens here yet? No, maybe we ought to get started with that road management question while we still have Mike.
Dvorak: We lost Carol.
Jordahl: Well she heard you were going to be talking about the Road Management Study and that was it.
Dvorak: Well that was why we wanted to put this on the agenda is for Carol and Mike.
Jordahl: For Carol and Mike's benefit. We'll see if they're coming back.
Stutsman: Everybody's out for coffee warm ups.
Duffy: I'm going to get some water. (Inaudible).