Jordahl: The next item of business is the question of wolves. This is business from Tim and Angie Madsen regarding the problem of wolves being housed in the County. The fact that the Madsens are not here this morning I think reflects that we have a kind of tentative hopeful solution to the short term problem of the presence of the wolf in the County. I was asked by the Major Lewis of the Sheriff's Department to report that he had had a conversation 2 days ago with the owner of the remaining wolf, to bring members of the public who may not have attended the meeting on Tuesday up to speed, there was a dog killed by a loose female wolf on Rohret Road on Saturday and the owner came home and found the wolf still chewing on the dog and chased it around his house with his car and honking the horn at it and eventually the Sheriff was called and 2 Sheriff's deputies did kill that wolf. The people who had encountered it were concerned about their daughter and the neighboring school and so forth and asked to come in here on Tuesday and asked that something be done. The County does not have a dangerous animals ordinance at this time and rather than formulate one in haste, it's been looked at a number of times in the past. We were looking for what can we do in the short term. It seemed that persuasion was probably the best route. Major Lewis took it upon himself to contact the owner of the remaining wolf and urged him to get the wolf out of the County, for the wolf's sake and for the sake of public safety and for the sake of just everybody calming down. And at least as of the last I spoke with Sheriff Lewis, Major Lewis, yesterday, that agreement was still in place that the owner would agree to have the wolf out of Johnson County by sunset Friday afternoon. I received a phone message from the Madsens' that they were grateful for what we had done in this situation and they haven't come to the meeting this morning though they knew they were on the agenda so I think that at least until nightfall tomorrow we're assuming that the problem is being resolved. I've had additional fax communications from the County Attorney and from the Department of Health concerning...

Stutsman: Jonathan, Carol I think has something.

Peters: I just wanted to share with you that Kot Flora is on her way up and she did want to be here before you got to that.

Jordahl: Before I got to the wolves?

Peters: Before you got to the discussion of the faxes.

Stutsman: And we all did receive copies of the faxes.

Peters: I'm sure Pat did too.

Jordahl: All right.

Peters: I'm sorry I couldn't get that message to you quicker.

Jordahl: We need to sit closer together so you can kick me. Well let me see then. Thus having gotten everyone up to speed on the wolves, we'll go into pause mode and wait for Kot and switch over to the County Attorney for reports and inquiries.

White: Nothing.

Jordahl: Uh-oh. Nothing. Reports and inquires from members of the public. Yes.

Jane Lakin: My name is Jane Lakin. I'm very much interested in the situation regarding the wolves on Tuesday. I encourage you (inaudible) we don't have anything regarding dangerous animals on the books now and I think this might be a good time in lieu of what happened on Tuesday not only to rely on persuasion, that really looks seriously at a dangerous animals ordinance on the books of Johnson County.

Jordahl: There's been some looking into that done in the past. I have a file here from Supervisor Stutsman who had reviewed this in the past and from Rick Dvorak the Zoning Administrator including communication from the County Attorney sample ordinances from other counties. So there's a basis. One does not have to reinvent the wheel. If we choose to have such an ordinance we have a good basis for doing that and we have an occasion here where it's come up. We have here a problem of wolves being housed in the County to be discussed. We don't exactly have it as an agenda item to discuss developing an ordinance. But there certainly can be places on the agenda in the immediate future. I guess I would recommend that. That we at least, whether we adopt an ordinance or not, that we at least have it as a specific agenda item so that we can have that conversation. Yes, Reverend Welsh.

Welsh: Asking questions (inaudible) possibility (inaudible) my guess is. I'm curious about...

Stutsman: Now I'm curios what is it?

Jordahl: I think I know. Having to do with rescheduling a public meeting.

Stutsman: Oh, for the candidates.

Welsh: That and also I hope you would update people on your CPC process.

Jordahl: I think we will. So any other reports and inquiries from the public? All right. Reports and inquiries from members of the Board of Supervisors. Charlie.

Duffy: Last Tuesday I think it was, Mary Christianson celebrated her 100th year birthday party up at the Senior Center in the Senior Dining. Kind of flattered the folks from down at Senior Dining. I think they served about 150 meals that'd be pretty close. We each signed congratulations you know. All 5 Supervisors and Pat White. I said Pat White made it official. Really had a good time up there and had I think you probably know more about this than I do. Who was singing happy birthday to her? Or who was the group?

Welsh: (Inaudible) from the (inaudible) booth there had selected a small group of people that serenaded Mary. There were some solos. (Inaudible). It was a nice festive occasion.

Duffy: It was. It was real nice. I was glad I was part of it. About a week ago...

Jordahl: (Inaudible). OK. Let's pause for a second Charlie.

Duffy: Oh. OK. About 10 days ago we had our annual Johnson County's Cattlemen's banquet. The contributors to this banquet are connected up some way most of them with the cattlemen in Johnson County. And just a rough count here I figure there was about 160 people and organizations that is indeed connected with the cattle that we have in Johnson County. I don't think that people really understand that. Some of these people, the contributors, there's a lot of people employed by these groups. Like feed companies, lockers, and other things, veterinarian. I always thought cattle were soil savers because usually they graze land that you might lose a lot of soil if you had it in row crops. But indeed now there's more than that that goes to the banquet because we usually have around 350 people there. But I just thought I'd bring that up. They contributed to the community. There isn't any doubt about that.

Jordahl: OK. Thank you Charlie. Carol.

Thompson: On Tuesday I attended a noon seminar at the hospital school and heard Polly Nichols from the child psychiatric unit discuss a program called Circle School which they operate for severely behavior disturbed young children. They take referrals from local schools. I was especially interested in it because if their program is successful of course it will save us on future detention costs. Also yesterday the Finance Committee met. We agreed on some ground rules for our committee and on goals for the committee and I'm passing them out. You don't want me to read them do you?

Jordahl: You could perhaps summarize them briefly.

Thompson: OK. The ground rules were that we agreed our committee would have budget neutrality. That is if we needed resources to operate we would find them within our combined existing budgets. We also agreed to operate by consensus. And we agreed that we would emphasis procedures that are user friendly for department heads. And we intend to do that by having someone at each one of our meetings designated to be the department head for the day and think in terms of how this would affect us if we were actually having to implement our policies in a department. The goals, and I hope that the member of the Board will tell me if I haven't guessed correctly, I developed these from listening during the budgeting process. The first one is to develop a rational budget process that enables the Board to make informed and forward looking budget decisions on future budgets. The second is to incorporate financial planning into departmental operations by including fiscal goal setting into performance expectations for department heads and providing training on goal setting and implementation for department heads and their staff. The third one is to devise and implement an ongoing plan for monitoring the current year budget performance so that the Board of Supervisors has accurate information on expenditures and revenues and is able to make informed decisions about amendments. And the 4th goal is to develop and implement a plan to maximize County revenues. We'll be meeting with staff, sometimes just the 4 of us and sometimes with staff for the next several months to design a plan that we can implement for the next budget season.

Jordahl: Thank you Carol.

Stutsman: Good start.

Duffy: Yes it is.

Jordahl: Our newest Board member is an organized Board member.

Duffy: I think so.

Jordahl: Sally.

Stutsman: A couple of things. First of all. I wanted to kind of update the Board on where we're at on detention costs. I received a memo from Senator Joe Bolkcom. And I'm just going to read it to you; it's better to read it rather than try to paraphrase it. This is where the legislature is as far as reimbursement for detention costs. State Fiscal Year 1999 was the first year the State has paid detention reimbursement from driver license reinstatement penalties. The first money collected on those funds was to be made available to juvenile detention reimbursement. Total funds collected were $900,612. That amount was paid out to detention reimbursements. Total expenditures for fiscal year 1998 was 11,009,576. Therefore the State paid 8.18% of actual expenditures which was below the statutory requirement of 10%. The shortfall was $100,345. We talked earlier that the State is required by Code to pay between 10 and not more than 50% of reimbursement for detention cost. That's in the Code. The problem is that they don't reimburse that money. This was an attempt to try and get additional moneys into the system. So even with that attempt it's still falling short of what the Code has required the State to pay. Our reimbursement spent for detention costs is down. Once a year at the close of each fiscal year. Reimbursement is based on an allocation of available funds among agencies. Each agencies allocation is a percent of the expenditures proportionate to the statewide expenditures. For example an agencies whose expenditures account for 8% of all expenditures for detention will receive 8% of available funds. So this is still an issue, still a problem and I guess this would be something I would suggest we visit our legislators Monday when we go to County a Day with them.

Thompson: That is of concern because I believe that 10% of 11,000,000 would be more than 1,000,000 and I think they have capped the amount they take out of that fine at 1,000,000 so they'll never get catch up.

Stutsman: That continues to be an issue. Had a meeting with Juvenile Justice Policy Board yesterday and are beginning to work on submitting the grant for next year for Juvenile Justice grant funding. The grant is due April 28th and the preliminary plan is to ask for $2,000 less than what we asked for last year. Each year we face this dilemma of will we get funded again and according to Jim Swaim who's been working with the legislature, there will not be any new dollars going into this grant funding. Each year there continues to be more interest by other communities to access these fundings. We continue to try to figure out how to fund this if and when we don't get additional fundings or any more moneys for this grant. This grant we've had in the community probably for 4 years. It does tremendous good in addressing needs of children in that delinquency age group. There's a lot of preventive programs in there. It seems like those are always the programs that always come up short. So it would be a real loss if we didn't get funding for this grant. Every year we face the fact that this might not get funded again, so it's a real dilemma. One other thing that was brought up and I thought was a but of good news. If you remember at one of our recent Joint City School Board County meetings, an issue was talked about about dealing with educational needs of children who are expelled from the public school. That is being addressed. There are some programs being put together to kind of address that. This was a real need. One of those holes in the system. Where if a student is expelled from a school there's no alternative educational place for him. So you've got a student who basically is out on the streets all day long. So we're looking at some alternative education for these kids. This is a collaborative effort not just with the Iowa City School District, but with the surrounding school districts, too to come up with some alternatives.

Jordahl: Appreciate you keeping the Board posted on that as it develops Sally. That was a real interesting problem. OK. Mike.

Stutsman: Except for right now.

Lehman: Carol Thompson and myself met with the Chatham Oaks Board of Directors last week and they were very informative. They brought us up to speed on their current situation and some of the challenges they have and some of the goals they've set for the future. Also, Carol and I met with the Board of Supervisors staff Jo Hogarty, Deana Pillard and Carol Peters and kind of discussed their duties. I guess they're training as yet and what we're supposed to do. We discussed some of the projects that they work on individually and together and we also discussed some of the future projects that we may have them working on. So we'll be meeting with them again this coming month. We'll do that on a monthly basis just to kind of school ourselves in them and kind of coordinate communication between the Board of Supervisors and our staff.

Jordahl: Great. Oh, I guess that leaves me.

Jordahl: Sally and I both attended a meeting on Monday evening of people with disabilities and other SEATS riders concerned about policy changes that have been proposed in the SEATS system. The Director was unavoidably out of town at a conference but Burnell Chadek was there along with a couple representatives of the legal clinic at the law school specializing in the ADA. Acronyms are pretty easy to slip up on. Americans with Disabilities Act requirements... I think it was a really good range of comments and concerns that were heard. I think Burnell gave an excellent presentation of the state of things. Marilyn Bellman was also very articulate in talking about the work that the various subcommittees of the SEATS Advisory Committee are doing to take the policies that Lisa proposed, Lisa Dewey is our new SEATS Director, and modify them in response to the input that was taken from the many users of the system. I had some family matters come up and had to leave a little early at one point. I think, Sally, you may have more to say about that conversation.

Stutsman: Well, I guess I thought it was a really good meeting. I thought a lot of issues were aired and I think it was really good to hear people's concerns and I think we're on the right track to look at those policies. Basically all the policies are on hold for right now, looking for additional input and seeing where we want to go with it. Burnell did a great job. Lisa is attending a national conference on paratransit. I had a phone conversation with her and she was saying the conference has been outstanding. She has certainly gotten a lot of good ideas. I think that was well worth her time. It was just unfortunate that both... there was just some confusion times and days and what not. It was unfortunate she couldn't be there but in her absence Burnell handled things very well.

Jordahl: Uh-huh. I think it was a piece of the ongoing effort to involve the community in changes and in supporting the SEATS system. It was just another input, this one organized by members of the disability community. But here again, you had the Assistant Director of SEATS listening and you had the Advisory Committee, which is a structured forum for that kind of input, so that although policy changes have been proposed that have created quite a stir in the community, the community is involved in addressing whether and how those policies may be shaped and modified and adopted. I think the Johnson County community is as involved as ever and that's a good thing. We had out public hearing on the budget. I believe that was Tuesday night. My week pouring into one piece here. For some reason we didn't have that one televised. I can't believe that. We need to put that on our yearly calendar.

Peters: That won't happen again.

Jordahl: Yearly, must be televised. So we did it again this morning for the benefit of the television audience. We are making progress in interviewing for the Mental Health /Developmental Disabilities Director. We had interviews yesterday. The second interviews... actually one interview beginning the second round of interviews involving, not only the Board of Supervisors, but also 2 representatives of the staff of the Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Department and 3 representatives of the Mental Health /Developmental Disabilities Planning Council. So these are provider consumer advocates and direct consumer services representatives all with prepared questions. We had a good talk and we're going to have another one this afternoon at one o'clock. I think we'll be making a decision on a person to offer this position to at the end of the day today. I may speak prematurely there but that's the idea of the process anyway. Our goal is to have someone in place by the first of April. We'll just see how that goes.

Duffy: Jonathan...

Jordahl: Yes?

Duffy: Maybe you better mention that will probably be another executive session. That means just our group. I think she'd probably ask for that but I don't know. But then after we select, we'll go out of executive session for the public.

Jordahl: Yes, we do offer candidates the opportunity to have their interview conducted in executive session. By conference with the County Attorney, it is appropriate that these other members of the public, who are not sworn elected officials, but are delegated by their respective bodies to...

Duffy: But she could change her mind for this one too at the last minute.

Jordahl: ...to sit in. But yes, the interview could be conducted in open session.

Duffy: (Inaudible).

Jordahl: We have a meeting coming up on Friday for anyone who's interested in the Geographical Informational Systems at one o'clock. We're putting together the RFP, request for proposals, for the needs assessment. On Monday at 5:30 in this room the Zoning Commission of the County will hold a public hearing on the proposed Coralville Fringe Area Agreement. And on Tuesday at 5:30 the Building Code Committee will meet in preparation for a public hearing on their report proposing that the County adopt a building code for the unincorporated area at 7 o'clock here in this room. Wednesday of next week at 7 o'clock the League of Women Voters will be holding a Local Option Sales Tax forum at the Public Library in Room A and Johnson County Board of Supervisors will be meeting jointly with the Township Trustees and clerks at Montgomery Hall, I think. Then on Thursday, it's our evening Zoning meeting. I tell you what... evenings next week are just plain full and then C. Everett Koop speaks at Hancher at 8 o'clock on Friday the 12th. I think it's in conjunction with the smoke free environment weekend. Let's see. That ought to about do it for me. Let's get back to wolves. Kot Flora is here.

Jordahl: Hi, Kot. We suspended the wolf discussion at the point of going into discussing what we'd received in faxes. Perhaps this is the point where you'd like to join the conversation.

Disease Prevention Manager Kot Flora: I'm just reading them now, the faxes, yes.

Jordahl: I see. Well to briefly brush up, we had a wolf loose in the county on Saturday. It killed a dog. A gentleman came home and saw this in process. The Sheriff was called and that wolf was killed. There's another wolf, they had been a pair, still in confinement. Sheriff Major Lewis has spoken with the person who owns the wolf and had gotten an assurance that the wolf will be out of the county by dark on Friday. That's tomorrow. The County does not have a dangerous animals ordinance at this time and it's been forwarded to the agenda of a future date. I don't know when Carol may have put that on but we'll get it there. We're at the point of wondering what our current options are. These faxes, as I read them, concern what our current Health Ordinance or State law might offer us in the way of recourse in situations like this. Do you have anything to say about that, Kot?

Flora: Well not really, other than just to say my main concern was whether or not our Public Health Nuisance Ordinance applied to this situation. Pat White's fax to me and (inaudible) says that he doesn't believe it does apply. That was my only question on Tuesday. I wanted to make sure we weren't failing to (inaudible).

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Flora: Other than that the Health Department's interest is primarily rabies prevention, which falls, in this particular situation, falls outside of that.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Stutsman: Because nobody was bitten.

Flora: Correct.

Stutsman: Except the poor dog.

Flora: Correct. No humans, correct.

Jordahl: Yes, he said it would require an extremely broad interpretation for this to be adequate, which I think is a way of saying that if we want to be able to adequately address situations like this, then we need to do something else. He didn't exactly say that but to me that's what the implication is. We wouldn't be on real good ground if we tried to act on the basis of what we have now.

Thompson: I think the Sheriff is to be commended for taking action and mediating an agreement that seems to be acceptable to everyone. I hope that the wolf owner will live up to his share of the agreement.

Jordahl: Yes.

Lehman: One of the problems we have in situations like this, even if we had a law or ordinance on the books, it doesn't come to light until there is a problem. It's not like we're going to be out there monitoring because you don't know about it until something happens. That's the problem we have here. If we had an ordinance in place to address this, we wouldn't know it until after the problem. We can't go back and correct what's happened. But maybe it would head off a problem down the road. I know what we're saying is open up a can of worms trying to address everything and you slip up on one thing, you're going to get criticized how come you didn't consider this. Now that is a problem. We've got a little bit a dilemma. I know we said we've tried to address it in the past. You've got a lot of information on it.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Lehman: I think it probably needs to be revisited but in this case, I think the for immediate problem, hopefully that will work out.

Jordahl: Yes.

Stutsman: It seems to be taken care of for the current time.

Jordahl: Yes, Duane Lewis couldn't be here today but he wanted me to speak on his behalf to give assurances that at least, from what he heard from the gentleman who owns the wolf, that it should be out of the county by dark Friday. Short term, we've got the problem resolved, long term, we want to make sure we look at the problem carefully and cover things as thoroughly as we want to and not do things that are going to create unnecessary expense or difficulty. Carol, do we have a date for putting this on the agenda?

Peters: Not at this time. I'd like to have an opportunity to go back and visit with he County Attorney, Zoning Administrator, Sheriff's Department and Health Department to see when...

Jordahl: Yes, get everybody around the table.

Peters: ...if I can get (inaudible).

Jordahl: Yes. OK.

Peters: So it maybe a little while.

Jordahl: All right, very good. But I trust that we'll continue to move forward on that.

Stutsman: Carol, do we want to spend just a little time talking about that County-A-Day on Monday, what time we would be leaving.

Stutsman: This is through Iowa State Association of Counties. They have a new program this year where they have asked Counties to sign up to go the Legislature one day and visit with them. Johnson County is scheduled to go on March 8th, on Monday. It isn't the best day to go to the Legislature because the session itself doesn't start until noon but we were kind of late for getting our request in for when we wanted to go and most of the other days were already taken. We were planning to take one van and the Health Department vehicle. I don't think we set a time to go. We are scheduled to have lunch with our Legislators at noon.

Peters: One of the things... in a very brief memo that I did get from ISAC, they're encouraging those people that do attend the County-A-Day before they leave to have a short debriefing session with ISAC staff. You have to look at when is it that you want to leave in order to get there and then you do have your luncheon scheduled. I don't know if you're planning on attending some of the sessions after the luncheon or if you feel like you've had an opportunity to address your representatives and Senators. I just need to get a time line set so I can inform those that are planning on attending.

Stutsman: We do have several people from Johnson County going. I think 3 of the Supervisors are planning to go.

Peters: Right, and Deb Conger, Graham Dameron, Kot, and Jean Schultz from Information Services. She works with the tax billings so she's interested in that area. I believe Tom Slockett, Rick Dvorak, and Burnell Chadek, on behalf of SEATS. Mike Gardner will not...

Stutsman: Pat White will not be able to...

Peters: ...and Pat White will not be able to attend. Mike is on vacation. Jo is going to call the rest of the department heads that we haven't heard from yet to see what their schedule is and if they're planning. I'd like to get this information as soon as possible because I know one of your goals was to carpool in order to save energy costs. I need to get the transportation lined up.

Stutsman: I would suggest we leave here at 8 and then get to Des Moines about 10. We have that public hearing at 5:30 so maybe leave Des Moines at 3. Anybody else have any thoughts?

Lehman: Yes, that will work.

Jordahl: Yes, I think 3 o'clock is a good goal. I very much want to be back for the hearing on the Coralville Fringe Area.

Peters: Do you want to go to ISAC first before you go to the capital or do you want to just have ISAC staff meet you at the capital or do you not want to meet with ISAC staff until you're getting ready to come home.

Stutsman: Why don't we just go to the capital? I think that would be easiest.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Peters: So that will give you about an hour and one half there before you go to lunch. The plan for lunch is so that you can break up and visit with individual representatives and senators regarding (inaudible) concerns. Of course, you do have the packet of information to take with you that was presented. This would be the second time around during your previous meeting with your area Legislators.

Jordahl: 2 vehicles. 5 Supervisors.

Stutsman: No 3 Supervisors.

Peters: 3 Supervisors and maybe a 4th.

Jordahl: OK, so we can divide us up into separate cars and not have to worry about agendas.

Peters: Right.

Stutsman: No. Carol is going to post an agenda.

Peters: No. I am going to post an agenda for your luncheon meeting because you all will be in the same area at one time discussing legislation. Just to make sure.

Jordahl: OK. Good. All right then.

Duffy: One other thing Jonathan. Senator Harkin is going to meet with a group of farmers mostly, or anybody connected with farms at Solon tomorrow. He is supposed to be there at about 12:30 to 1:30. He's been doing this in his district around the state, in fact outside of his district too. So we really appreciate it. I hope farmers, a lot of them have jobs now to supplement their income. It's not only the hog thing, low prices on the hogs. That will be one of the issues. But there's other issues. Grain for example. What's going to happen this fiscal year. Some of the farmers been around a long time. Some people talk about $3.00 corn and the one that's been in business say well we'll see one dollar corn before we see $3.00 corn. So we really appreciate that he came to listen. I know he's busy. That will be tomorrow.

Jordahl: OK. We are ready to adjourn I believe.

Lehman: Reverend Welsh.

Welsh: Are you going to set a date for that meeting to be held today.

Jordahl: Where are we at with that. We had some letters returned. A few due to our new postage machine which has then caused us the need to postpone the meeting with the Supervisor candidates that was planned originally for today.

Peters: The last time the Board spoke about this you suggested March 25th. We did send an e-mail to the other Supervisors regarding that date. One Supervisor does have a meeting in Cedar Rapids that they must be there for at 11 o'clock.

Jordahl: That's not probably a good day for it then.

Peters: We did contact, it was really strange postage. I'll never understand it as long as I live. 3 of the letters did reach 3 of the people that were candidates for this. Jo did get a hold of them by telephone. Basically the response was one was going to be out of town anyway. He said to just let him know. They have all been contacted. They all know that it will be rescheduled.

Stutsman: Well weren't we also going to be employee recognition on the 25 too?

Jordahl: Yes.

Stutsman: How about April first then? April fools day? Pardon me.

Jordahl: April first might be a better choice. We could encourage them to come. I won't say that. I'll control myself. I was going to say something comical.

Stutsman: Should we set it for April first then?

Peters: Sure. I'm assuming you want to keep the time 11 to 12.

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Jordahl: OK. 11 to 12. Very good.

Peters: We'll get those letters out immediately so they'll have plenty advance notice to mark their calendars.

Jordahl: Maybe we could team up and volunteer to lick stamps so we make sure they don't go through the machine.

Peters: It's a wonderful new machine we have but it's, electronic.

Jordahl: A couple of bugs in the system. We will adjourn this meeting.

Adjourned at 11:44 a.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary