City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. All right. Item number two is evaluation. Can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session to evaluate the professional competency of one or more individuals whose appointments, timeline, performance, or gifts are being considered necessary to prevent new and irreparable injuries to those individuals with patients and that those individuals request a closed session? Can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session? Roll call, please. Thank you.

All right, so we are just coming back from a closed session, executive session, and we're at item number three, which is a motion to adjourn. Could I receive one, please? So moved, Thompson. Second, Moe. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes five to zero. We are now transitioning to our work session. Today is July 14th, 2026. And the first item is going to be our agenda packet. Is there anything? I don't see a work session agenda or do I? No. Perfect. Clarification of agenda items. Hearing none, we're going to move on to item number two, information pack and discussion, June 18th.

June 25th just wanted to flag this one kind of overlaps I think to I P's June 25 and also June 30 June 25 the Iowa City water rate study just as a thing for all of us to be aware of the needs to the city has for new infrastructure and how that could impact rates. I saw an article in the newspaper recently about some places in the state seeing doubling rates. I don't think that's at all what this is suggesting, but just a recognition that we do need some continued improvements and that has to get paid for some way. I know that that's going to be probably a budget item in the future for us. So it's a long-term strategy as opposed to a shock to the system. And then the other one, is it okay if I skip to June 30 just because it's this similar issue or do you want to?

You're at June 25th.

I am, yeah. There's one in the 30 about nitrate levels, so another water-related issue, but I can wait for us to come back. You can go ahead because it's... Yep. No, I just, again, I know the Public Works has fielded a lot of questions from people about nitrate levels in our water. Everyone's obviously, for good reasons, concerned about that. This is just to let people know that we are always within that federal limit, below that federal limit, and what's the EPA... 10 milligrams per liter requirement. And then the memo does go on to say what we do to keep the nitrate levels low, but also like at the bottom there is sort of options for major, major capital improvements if we wanted to invest in new systems, which I don't read this as a recommendation to do that yet, but I appreciate sort of having a sticker price to understand that if We wanted to do one of the two different kinds of nitrate reduction systems in addition to the one we're currently doing. It would be, in today's dollar, $30 million improvements. And not just sticker price, but pros and cons of each.

Yes, yes. It dives deeper than just price.

Yes, yes, thank you. But big budget items for us to consider for one of the most important things our city does, which is provide fresh water. Mm-hmm.

One thing that I was also going to bring up, the nitrate level packet item. And correct me if I'm misremembering, there was a lot to read. But when it comes to updating the federal nitrate recommendation, which is 10 parts per million, that was in like in 1974. And I guess I was just curious about, potentially in the future hearing about what, you know, I know that federal guidelines are generally the thing to go by rather than a trust me bro source, but there's lots of concern that 10 parts per million is really kind of an outdated number and somewhere between three or somewhere around the three parts per million level. That's what I hear a lot from people in agriculture. And so I was wondering if, is that something that staff has heard of or looked into or is there a way that we could maybe look into all of the evidence on the table?

Off the top of my head, I don't know if, you know, how much review has been done by Ron and his team on that federal standard, but we're happy to get back to you on any research that's been done on that standard.

Because I just feel like hearing from our professionals rather than would be able to ease some of the concerns of people in the public. Yeah.

Is that something the full council wants or you just want individual follow-up on that?

I mean, I think it's generally good information, so. Okay.

I was also going to just highlight the nitrate memo and the water rate study as well. So thanks to my colleagues for that. One thing I just wanted to make sure the public understands is that many people are using home nitrate tests that have kind of the pink and purple color ranges as to the milligrams per liter. and that our water department would be glad to provide folks with, help them order a lab-certified test from the Iowa State Hygienic Lab for a more accurate reading, just because there is some, it can be hard to tell what the, which. Which pink? Which pink, yeah, which mauve. So look online, contact our water department if that's something you need.

We'll move on to July 2nd. And July 9th. I don't know if they're already here.

I was just gonna say that I appreciated the overview about what we plan to do with the city allocated $1 million for affordable housing and appreciated the reasons given.

It's very transparent and yeah.

Yeah, and I think I was just gonna make a comment about that, so I just let that be. All right. Anything else? Hearing nothing, we're going to move on to item number three, University of Iowa updates. Come on down. Welcome.

Thank you. How is everyone? Awesome. Mayor Teague, it's good to see you again. Good to see you. Nice to see everybody. Jeff Fruin and I, we work together all the time, but on occasion we look for opportunities for me to come and present a little bit about the University of Iowa. I think it's been a couple of years. Of course, nothing ever happens on the University of Iowa campus, so that's probably fine. But what I wanted to do as Senior Vice President and University Architect, come and give you a chance to see some of the projects you may be familiar with, but others that we've been working on in our master plan on campus. And I think a fairly exciting both message and story with the projects we have. And before I start not to carry pompoms, but congratulations, I suppose we share, but congratulations on the CNN number eight. Oh, yeah. Visits and also on your recent news on the grant for the Burlington Street Bridge. You are excited and we are excited. So Thank you with that. I often have opportunities to visit campuses all over the country. And I will say over and over again, first, I know of no campus that I've ever visited that has the physical connection of its core of the campus to the core of its hosting community downtown and no better town and gown relationship. that I've seen anywhere at a university campus. Our partnerships with you are constant and with your team and very appreciated. So thank you. We win together. And so with this, if you'd like, I'll just briefly go through this presentation for you. And generally what I'm going to be showing you is an update or a a summary of projects associated with a master plan, a campus master plan, a 10-year look ahead that we gave to the Board of Regents in 2022. The map is nothing to show you. It encompasses a lot of our physical campus. I'll start at the core of the campus, the origin of our campus. The Pentacrest, of course, and I've got an arrow pointing to McLean Hall, which was built in 1912. And it's arrow to the renowned Frank Gehry, Iowa Advanced Technology Laboratories building. McLean Hall. hosts our computer science program, mathematics, and others. And as a part of this project, we are actually relocating that program to IADL and making more of McLean available for modernization. It, for all intent and purposes, has not been modernized since it was built in 1912. One of the things that is happening with this project is a unique as a university architect kind of a proud moment for the project. We are actually putting an addition on the building, which you can see in this rendering to the left side of the rendering. And that actually finishes the original design concept Frank Gehry had for this building. In 1992, it was the first building he had ever designed that took shapes of different shapes of metal, put them together into an assembly for a building, went all over the world with that concept afterwards. But we couldn't afford it at the time he did it. Nobody had built a building like that. And there was quite a war in 1991 about whether we would finish his design. Interestingly enough, Frank Gehry passed away this year, and it's not specifically in honor of him, but we are very honored to actually finish that design, which will allow room for computer science to move into the building with the other science programs that exist there. Our next project is also near the core of the campus, our Tippie College of Business. The building you can see in the lower left was built in 1994, the Papa John Business Building. Since that building was built, Tippie College of Business has more than doubled in the number of students and the number of programs associated with the college. And they are the one college we have that is literally out of space and needing to catch up. in the concept of our addressing that for Tippie. And after a lot of study, we started on a plan that allowed us in concert with our master plan of right-sizing this campus, and not just building new to build new everywhere we walk, but in this case, to stem that, because we are trying to right-size a campus. We're moving the folks out of the building you can see in the center at the bottom, which is Gilmore Hall, 1910 original law building, has several inhabitants. The major one of those is our graduate college. And so we are going back to a recovery from the 2008 flood in one of those buildings that, thanks to FEMA, survived the flood but remained, it still remains mothballed for the last 18 years. And that's the building you see at the top of the screen, which is the original 1936 art building. We are thrilled to be able to remodel that building, renew that building, and make it the future home for our graduate college. I think I've got a little rendering that shows some of how the original gallery will be and is rendered for that college and a couple of other graduate programs. And then that will allow us to empty Gilmore Hall and turn Gilmore Hall over to the Tippie College of Business as a renewal project in that building, taking care of deferred maintenance, modernizing the interior for the Tippie College of Business while being careful about the history of the original building. They will garner 45,000 new square feet for the college without us building a new building. What we will do is, as you can see by this rendering, create a connection of Gilmore in the light yellow to a new core for this building. In the lower left, you can see the part of the courtyard of the Tippie College of Business, Papa John Business Building, and the patio above the courtyard is very underutilized. It has been since it was built. In this concept and in this rendering, we are going to build that patio into the building for important both event and student spaces and teaching spaces, but maintain and actually more open up the courtyard to the general public and to the campus. So it modernizes that block for the Tippie College of Business while utilizing existing spaces and historic existing spaces we have. Another building on the east side that is a big and important one force that has a number of dominoes I'll describe. To the left is the Iowa Memorial Union originally built in 1925. It was added on to in the decades in the middle of the century and was another one of those buildings that suffered the impacts of the flood. FEMA did not allow us to take care of a building that was very tired with a lot of deferred maintenance at the time because they had to keep pure the federal dollars coming in to fix the flood and not other things. So we actually had to freeze any improvements we'd make to building systems, layouts, and others until a three year, and Iowa City knows all about this, but a three year audit period after our final flood recovery project. And on September 18th, 2021, we hit that date and started this project on a design perspective. It's a partnership with the students of the University of Iowa, where we will modernize not just the systems, but the layout of the building to work as a home, social home and a gathering space for the students at the University of Iowa. The next stage, now we're in construction on that project, we're within six months of finishing the first phase, which will move, and you'll see this later in the presentation, will move student health from the west side of the campus into the student union, which is really where it should be. And then we'll start a second phase, which will run roughly one year. When we finish this project, it'll be a great modernization of that building. But then we look next to it. And as you can see in this presentation, across the street is Halsey Hall, which currently houses right next to the Pentacrest. currently houses our dance department, has for decades, happens to be the worst conditional building we have on campus, was the only building we closed down during the COVID concerns because it doesn't have an air infiltration system that was, we believe, to be appropriate or safe at that time. We were all trying to figure out what to do. It's additionally on a hillside, Jefferson Street Hill, that... precludes it from being ada compliant you can there are elevators you can get up but then there are certain levels where it's only two or three stairs in different places it's been a difficult building for us at the same time as i as i show you by this arrow right next to the art building across the river was another building impacted by the flood our original museum of art designed by Max Abramovitz was the first building that brought internationally famous architecture to our campus. FEMA recovered it. We've been using it for temporary reasons and temporary functions. We have now and are within only a month of finishing a renovation for that building to turn it into the future and a little rendering as you can see up here using one of the galleries as the future home for our dance department. They have seven galleries or seven dancing studios in Halsey and there are seven galleries in the original museum. So it fits them really nicely, takes them right next to the arts building, the new art finished art building, as well as theater and Hampshire. So it's a really nice fit for for dance. At the same time, taking that very tired Halsey Hall and raising it allows us to fix what we'd call the worst parking ramp in the world, which is the Iowa Memorial Union parking ramp built in 1962. It had no choice at that time. It was hemmed in between buildings that existed and it resulted in a helical entrance that many cars today can't make the radius turn on. And unfortunately, it's the first impression visiting students and families have of the University of Iowa because that's where they park to go to admissions. with the room on that site will be able to and are starting this fall studies on either replacement or expansion and improvement of the ramp. The idea is not to add more parking or traffic there, but to make it flow more effectively for the visitors who would come and use the IMU parking ramp. There's always a slide for athletics. We have a lot of work.

Do you have a question? Yeah, please. So for the park and ramp, you stated that you're going to kind of close it this fall?

No, we're going to start design. Start design. Halsey Hall is scheduled to be raised next summer. So we couldn't do anything before then. And we're actually going to treat them sort of as one program or project together. So it wouldn't be before a year from now and probably a little after that got it okay great thanks but great warning because it's a good point it has important parking purposes at the core of the campus we do fortunately have one further down the street the north campus parking ramp where our chilled water plant is that will serve i think in the interim while this one is is improved when we look at athletics uh you know you see and and they're often covered a lot of the impactful projects carver hawkeye arena which was Built in 1983, was our first national design award-winning building when it was opened. We have put its final addition on that building, which is the Goschke Family Wrestling Facility Training Center for our men's wrestling team. the first major conference women's wrestling team in the country, and our Hawkeye Wrestling Club, which is our Olympic and international training venue. So an important project and making great strides because of buildings like that. Out west on our Hawkeye campus, we've added a building there for our gymnastics program and our spirit squad, the two combined. It's the Nagel-Duda, Duda-Nagel facility, husband and wife team funding that project. Mary Lee Nagel was a cheerleader for the Hawkeyes in the 1950s. And they've come back and given generously to make that project a possibility. And then as I mentioned Carver-Hawkeye Arena. While it was state of the art when it was built, while it's still in many ways a state of the art building, its age was almost immediately felt with the introduction of ADA and access and ultimately having different places for anyone in our community to sit and enjoy those events. It was also before premium or alternative seating options, clubs and suites and other things when most incorporate that now. And so working with athletic director Beth Getz, we're going to be, we are advancing the design of that project as we go, be a fully gift funded project. And when we're all looking forward to honoring its architecture, but modernizing the building from the inside.

And I have air conditioning.

Why, of course. Yeah, it's an interesting question that is also I don't know about the return on investment on air conditioning. The building was built and we all have always touted it as green before green was green. In 1983, it was built into a ravine and literally a bowl hosting 15,560 fans is not air conditioned. You won't find very many of those. It has worked, but we have seen changes in climate that have made for more fringe season hot days. We hosted two NCAA back-to-back games in women's basketball on a day in March where the temperature was 89 degrees. I don't remember very many marches at 89, but it was that day. Graduation is always a challenge, and it also does limit our ability to program concerts and other things in the arena throughout the year. That is going to become part of the scope of the project. Thank you, Mayor Teague. We look at UIHC and the Carver College of Medicine at an area of the map there. First, I'll start with two inset photographs. The North Liberty Hospital has been a great success, both in delivery of that project, but also in how it has performed since it was built. It's an orthopedics hospital and has really served the community well. And then, of course, as all of you are aware, when the matters came up with the bankruptcy of Mercy and that drawn-out process, ultimately the University of Iowa purchasing and taking, occupying that building, that has also been off to a really great start. Denise Jamison, our VP for Medical Affairs, and Brad Hawes, CEO of the hospital, assured the people who worked there and the people who would visit that, that it would remain a different feel than the main hospital, remain a neighborhood feel, a quieter feel. And it has maintained that while we've continued to modernize it. One of the things you should know is we did adopt a building that had not been cared for in those final years. And for instance, we are advancing the project to replace the parking ramp, which is structurally... not as an entire building instable, but spalling of concrete, rusting structural members that after careful evaluation, we need to replace it. And so those are some of the modernizations that have to happen on that site, but it has been a successful rebirth of that building for our community. We will continue to work on and have to continue to work with all of the fiscal constraints associated with it on capacity for the hospital. We are the only tertiary quaternary teaching hospital in this state. We are forced to turn away as many as three to five thousand transfer requests a year, which is tragic. And it's because we are almost completely full all of the time and capacity and the combination of that and some remaining double bed patient rooms are reasons for us to continue working with the team at UIHC and Brad Hawes on the solutions that will allow us over time to grow capacity. Additionally, because we're a teaching hospital, we don't just hire doctors and surgeons, they teach and they do research. I'm showing you two areas on a landlocked health science campus that are really the spaces available for us to think about future research in cancer or other neurology, other areas. Additionally, where you see number two, the one on the right, Those three bar buildings represent potential future buildings on the site that is currently West Lawn, which was the 1919 nurses dormitory. My grandmother graduated from nursing in 1942 and lived there. I don't know what room, but the building is really at the end of its conditional life, and it's also very narrow and a small use of that site. We are aiming at options for cancer research in the future. Additionally, as we all know, the shortage is not only in Iowa, but throughout the United States with nursing. Just south of those, just to the bottom of those three, is our nursing college, one of the top universities public nursing programs in the country. And if there's any way we can produce more nurses for our state, it's going to take more space. So the third, the bottom of those three bars would be something we would aim at as a future expansion for nursing.

Can you talk a little bit more about box one? I know over time that has evolved. The addition, there was going to be, I think, three oval towers and that's changed over time. And my understanding is that healthcare delivery costs have changed quite a bit and the way you get paid has changed and maybe changed that master plan.

And then all at the same time, you guys got mercy. A lot has been complicated by the last, I mean, as I said, the things that were presented in 2022 came before elements like the big, beautiful bill, the healthcare challenges that have been going on nationally. And yes, then our addition of of two hospitals one we built and and that one and statewide needs in Des Moines trying to extend a network that helps some of the health care deserts better served by by our doctors have a good plan is always ready to change. But finances force the hospital to think about the different ways some in this hospital some modernization of this hospital and additional space but also remote. I mean it includes Mercy. in trying to activate more patient beds there and in North Liberty. So it's kind of curious. Should the community expect Mercy to expand potentially in the future? Well, what I would say is the site allows for us to expand when finances allow it. Within the hospital's planning, yes. I think they see Mercy as an expandable site. It would primarily be for patient beds. I mean, one of the nice things that we have that we really like about the downtown campus, as we call it, the former Mercy, is that it is allowing for, for instance, mommy-baby births and those, but when we have specialty challenges or premature births, they're in the main hospital. So there are a lot of family medicine advancements, and that kind of thing is going to grow in a hospital that wants to keep that same atmosphere as a neighborhood hospital. But it has potential on the site to grow. No immediate intentions, but the hospital within their master planning will consider it.

And then just to be clear, the parking garage that you're talking about being replaced is the Mercy Plaza one, not the two-decker thing.

Correct. The one on Van Buren or it faces, it's one of its walls faces, the one that you take the elevated walk across to the hospital. Correct. Correct. Yeah. It's, you know, it was pieced together like a lot of hospitals are, and we're going to make sense of that and the existing buildings and make them work for the generations in the future, starting with that hospital, with the hospital ramp. And in fact, as you look, you talk about ramp, parking's important. And we have just finished lower picture you see here, just finished the Hawkeye ramp, which is by the arrow, a replacement of hospital ramp one, which is still open. But we're working on winding it down. It's another one of those hospital, another one of those ramps that has increasing structural concerns, mainly just based on age. And so we built that ramp. And as if you happen by that area, you also know we're building another one, which is we're referring to as the arena ramp, which sits between that and the dental science building. About eight months, eight to nine months away from that ramp being finished. Hey, there's a water tower. That's what it used to look like. So the water tower obviously has been replaced and brought up to code standards. The original water tower had been grandfathered in it a million gallons. It is required now to have two, and that's why the different configurations and shapes of the two that you see. We are in the process of raising and demolishing that old water tower currently. Half of the bowl is gone today. They're doing the work to control traffic in and around the hospital and the visitors and the patients. They're doing the construction demolition work on the weekends. And so you'll see fits and starts. It'll stay looking like it does right now until this weekend. And then I expect the bowl will be gone by the end of this next weekend. one more building to show you. The health science academic building is one example of a building that is an addition of our space, but related to antiquated spaces, three nationally ranked programs, physical therapy, our speech and hearing program at Wendell Johnson speech and hearing, and our Health and Human Physiology, which is the largest program in the College of Liberal Arts and fastest growing in the College of Liberal Arts, are all now going to be under one single roof for the Health Sciences on that site. And they're all but moved in. Two of the units have already moved in and the third one is moving in ahead of this fall semester. So an exciting addition on that part of the campus. I HAVE ONE SLIDE ON OUR LANDSCAPE. WE'RE VERY PROUD OF WHAT CONNECTS THE MANY BUILDINGS ON OUR CAMPUS. WE ARE A TREE CAMPUS USA UNIVERSITY FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS RUNNING. WE ARE NOW A BE FRIENDLY AS BEE FRIENDLY CAMPUS. AND WE'VE BEEN AN ACCREDITED ARBORETUM FOR THE ENTIRE CAMPUS NOW FOR A DECADE. As you can see, it's an area of pride for us. In our landscaping, we have three primary improvement priority areas. They include the Pentacrest, that first visitor walk on Cleary Walkway, and then the Iowa River. In just a few sample projects, we are going to be this... Next summer, we will be advancing a modernization of the Iowa Memorial Union Bridge, which needs a lot of love and care. We're going to be putting a new sort of gateway wall. It's a safety wall as well because of the difficulty of going down a steep hill to Iowa Avenue, but a way to welcome visitors to the west side of the Pentacrest and the Old Capitol. We'll be doing work following the Iowa Memorial Union project to activate more of Hubbard Park adjacent to it. and increase the connections between Hubbard Park and the IMU. And then little quaint buildings like the Canoe House or the Lagoon Shelter built in 1939, rec services at the university has been diving into paying attention to it, programming the outside, putting some rock climbing walls and different activity spaces surrounding it to activate the river as we go. And the river connects all of us, obviously, Iowa City and Coralville as well.

I was curious about, I love driving in Iowa City on Dubuque Street, and I think City Park is beautiful. I love the nature that's there. And then you see Hancher, which is so impressive and such a great foot forward. If you go back a slide, the love of our river kind of stops at Iowa Avenue a little bit. Make it go back. And I that's OK. You can imagine it. I'm just curious, like what what can the city do? What can the university do to make that oval there connect to Burlington Street as we do this major project on Burlington Street?

Yeah, first and Jeff and his team and we are working together on the Burlington Street project. It will make more visible our connections to the river. There's a lot of volunteer tree growth in the area that we're going to be doing this. And there are moments where you really don't see the campus or downtown from there. And I think a lot of that will open up. But we are also doing a number of years ago, we tied our master plans together by the river to show where walks and bike paths from Coralville and North Liberty would connect at the university and then connect through Iowa City. That work is going to continue to happen when we're doing our river walk work that you can see in the two ovals next to. That is all intended to extend the pleasant walk from City Park. and on both sides of the river and southward. I think wherever we have it as a priority, not because there's always there are some specific projects we're doing, but also as a priority of opportunity for us to work with the city of Iowa City. And when you're going on Riverside Drive, there are elements of it that look very utilitarian. And there are ways for, we can't make things like water tanks disappear, but we can do things to improve the gateway feel of the campus. I think in the vistas, especially upon the completion of that great Burlington Street Bridge project, which is gonna increase and improve an attractive pedestrian and bike way across the river, I think will make everybody happier, but it'll also be more beautiful.

Yeah, I'd love that. I'd love that. I just want to stretch your oval right there. Just keep stretching them.

I can stretch it as far as you'd like. And we work with Iowa City as much as we can to partner on these. That's why, in fact, I would say the nod to the river as a priority is our nod to the community. I would argue from some campuses or places I've been, like Providence, Rhode Island, that a river you could light with a match. And then they... turned it into one of the most beautiful settings you can imagine and they have they have a theme song for their river in the middle of providence and it's scaled like ours and the entertainment and the events they have down there are remarkable and we're not very far from each other we look at our friday night concert series are there opportunities for iowa city university to move that family environment down to the river on a on a saturday and continue our weekends and make it a fuzzier line. And I think Burlington Street Bridge is going to help all of that to make a fuzzier line between that river on the university campus and our great downtown.

Thanks.

Yeah, so that's that. Any other questions? I wanted to ask a little bit about housing.

And, you know, we have a huge housing shortage in Iowa City. We hear about it all the time. And we know that students who are residents of Iowa City are competing for the lower cost apartments with everyone else in Iowa City. One thing I think that makes us unique is that it's really just freshmen living in dorms. What is the university's current attitude on that? And is there hope for more housing options for sophomores, juniors, seniors? It seems like we've built a university in a city around not doing that.

IT IS A DEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCE FROM US AND MANY OF OUR OTHER PEER INSTITUTIONS AND PART OF IT IS OUR DIRECT CONNECTION. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN, WITHOUT A REQUIREMENT, 97% OF THE FRESHMEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIVE IN THE RESIDENCE HALLS. AND THE NUMBER HOVERS, OUR VICE PRESIDENT FOR STUDENT LIFE, SARAH HANSEN COULD GIVE YOU MORE EXACT NUMBERS, BUT AROUND 15% DO LIVE IN THE RESIDENCE return as returning students to live in the residence hall system we are in time encouraging more who are interested to do so because it takes all kinds some people want to jump out to the apartment life the sad truth is to get your second year apartment you you have to know your roommates are by October or November or it's too late. And I've had three freshmen at the University of Iowa. I don't think they know what they're doing in the first three months apart from trying to figure out a completely different world. And then to know your influences and who you should room with, it's a tough task. So having the opportunity for first year, for second year students to return. We do have graduate housing, of course, out on our Hawkeye campus, but we do have We are working on what you're referring to. We have to take care of the first year students from a capacity perspective. We've had some changes in our residence hall populations, quadrangle residence hall used to be on our campus. didn't survive time. That left a real shortcoming for us for the number and at that point we were actually leasing apartments in town for first year students. We've now built back with Catlett Hall being built. We have the capacity We have the capacity for all the first year students in somewhere around 1,000, which is a larger percentage than we have wanting to come back to our campus at this point. We're not at capacity. The question becomes what to do with buildings, residence halls like Mayflower, which is further off campus, a little bit different design in that it's two small rooms around a kitchenette and a bathroom. a little more apartment-esque. There have been some thoughts about turning it into the returning student residence hall space, but there's some work to do to it. It has a lot of deferred maintenance, and to take that jump, you have to do it. We are looking at other options, but we added two new residence halls in the last decade, Mary Louise Peterson Hall on the west side, Elizabeth Catlett on the east side. Those were the first two residence halls we added to our campus in 47 years. So we had some catching up to do, but housing and dining is an auxiliary unit, bears its own weight, and is responsible for stringent bond covenants and bond coverage regulations that don't really allow them to proactively go out and build residence halls and hope that that works. And we do have a balance with Iowa City and Coralville and others on our building residence halls and whether that impacts the market and those in the market. There have been interesting developments of student housing, a lot of them expensive. And, you know, they're obviously they're full or mostly there are students that will pay it or parents that will pay it. But it doesn't attend to most of the students. And so that battle from second year, third year, if you're a second year student want to live on campus, you can live on campus. And you could on the in the third year. It just wouldn't be, you know, you'd be two years senior to those in the halls. And most are on to apartments by that time.

But there's, I guess the more precisely, there's no plans for new dorms or no plans to expand housing for all.

No, we will master plan in the long term to afford future generations of planners and vice presidents for student life to take actions based on student population as you've probably heard we are in what I'd call the first year of this birth dearth or the reduction in 18 year olds in the United States birth rate impacts 18 years ago for the next five or six years how that will impact our university we're doing very well on making ourselves notable enough in-state and out-of-state to draw. But over that span, all the universities are looking at that with concern. So for me to say I know what our student population will be in seven years, we stride carefully because we have to pay for those residence halls once we build them.

Well, we're supposed to be building 365 units a year in Iowa City and we have not been making it. So if you guys could help us out, that'd be great. I hear you.

Hearing no other questions, thank you so much for coming.

Absolutely, thank you for having me. All right, and thanks for your service.

Thank you. All right, we are going on to item number four, which is council updates on assigned boards, commissions, and committees.

Economic Development Committee met last week. Was that Wednesday? We met last week and the discussion was about the arts sort of next steps in the arts endowment fund. And there was, if you look at that packet, you can see projections on how different kinds of investment vehicles would work for us. And we specifically asked them to provide us with a standard investment portfolio versus one that's an ESG. So you guys can kind of look at that. And then, do you remember, Councilor Weinlein, what else? That was the bulk of that conversation.

That was the bulk of that conversation, yeah. We just asked some updates about the progression on the Arts Alliance and learned that they are now hiring for a director of the Arts Alliance right now.

And it'll be under the umbrella of the downtown district. They're the ones managing that right now. But I think, do we know when the next council decision will be? It was more of an information for us than us giving direction to council.

Yeah, I think we anticipate August. I'm not sure which of your August meetings yet.

So I would say it's not the easiest, most accessible thing to dive into, but the different investment stuff like that maybe I would appreciate. I think we would appreciate some input on how people feel once they look through that and continuing conversation with people that would be involved in the Arts Alliance and that would be affected by the funding. Yeah.

I do know Councilor Sala is on. Can you hear us still?

Yes.

Great. All right.

I don't have anything to report.

All right. Great. Just wanted to mention that joint entities meeting is next Monday, the 20th at 4.30 p.m. Are there any agenda items yet?

They had asked for items by last Friday, which is earlier than usual, and we're supposed to send out the agenda today, and I hadn't seen it when I came in here.

It did come out right as this meeting started. Okay. There is a meeting and there is an agenda. There is a meeting and an agenda. It looks like... Some conversation about data centers probably related to the moratorium discussion at the county. And then an item called joint entities meeting housekeeping. So I'll let you interpret that one because I have no clue what that is. Bring them up.

And where is that meeting?

That is in conference room 203 at the Health and Human Services Building for the county.

Thank you.

Since last we met as a council, the Jack Board met and we learned that work has been progressing with our consultant to work on a new CAD, a computer assisted dispatch system to hopefully or soon will replace the very outdated current system and of course our fire and police have been part of that process and report back that so far so good and things look promising for a much more efficient and flexible system so that will probably take about two years before that's all all done but but progress is being made all right is a meeting

The meeting next for the joint entities meeting is at 4.30 p.m. Yeah, I'm not going to be there.

Do I have to assign somebody to represent me?

No, you don't. Okay. Yeah, good question. All right. If nothing more, we are adjourned and we'll be back at 6 p.m. for our formal meeting.

The microphones are on. It feels weird having this much room.

Weird or nice?

Yes.

Okay. All right. It is 6 p.m. on July 14th, 2026. I'm going to call the City of Iowa City meeting to order. Roll call, please.

Alter. Burgess. Here. Harmsen.

Here.

Moe.

Here.

Saleh. Here. Teague.

Here?

Y-line.

Here. All right. Well, welcome to your city hall. And welcome from the air, from way up. We have Councilor Sala joining us virtually today. So welcome, welcome. We're going to move on to item number two, which is Proclamations 2A, Americans with Disabilities Act Awareness Day. And this will be read by Councilor Moe.

Whereas the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed on July 26, 1990 to ensure the civil rights of persons with disabilities, and whereas July 26, 2026 marks the 36th anniversary of signing of the ADA which expanded access and opportunities for people with disabilities, and whereas the ADA has done this by reducing barriers and changing perceptions and increasing full participation in community life, And whereas the full promise of the ADA will only be reached if we remain committed to continue our efforts to fully implement this act. And whereas Iowa City affirms the principles of equality and inclusion for persons with disabilities as set forth and embodied in the ADA. And whereas the Iowa City government and residents are proud to recognize the accomplishments and contributions of our residents with disabilities. And whereas throughout the year and on the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the City of Iowa City continues to support equity and human rights for all members of our community and recommits to our efforts to reach full ADA compliance. Now, therefore, I, Josh Moe, on behalf of Bruce Teague, Mayor of Iowa City, hereby proclaim July 26, 2026, as Americans with Disabilities Act Awareness Day, and call upon all community members to commemorate this day, celebrate the progress that has been made, and renew our commitment to the Americans with Disabilities Act. And here accepting this award is Bree Swope, Associate Professor of Instruction at the University of Iowa, a member of the city's Disability Services Committee, and my previous neighbor,

Hello? Zach, can you hear me? Welcome. Welcome. Hi. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me and for this proclamation. We truly appreciate the awareness and just the importance and the value of accessibility and inclusion and that you are making sure that that is important and that is a renewal and a reminder to our community. So yes, again, my name is Bree Swope and thank you Mayor Teague as well as the City of Iowa City. It is truly an honor to accept this proclamation in honor of our community. And I also, yes, would like to call our community to continue to celebrate the progress that we have made, as well as that the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, has made for our community and towards inclusion and accessibility for people with disabilities. The ADA has been a really important piece of legislation and has made society vastly more inclusive. However, as we know, disparities continue to Unfortunately, we still have some of those disparities to continue to have access and everyday access for people with disabilities. So, with that, I also would like to challenge all of us, right, each and every one of us, to continue to push for that full and meaningful inclusion and accessibility in our in our community. I just want to point out an opportunity that's coming up. There are several opportunities that we have every day, just walking down the streets, talking to members, saying yes, being curious, asking questions. But along with that, we have several opportunities throughout the year to celebrate accessibility, the ADA, people with disabilities, inclusion. And so upcoming, the Iowa City is hosting an ADA birthday barbecue bash on Saturday, July 25th, which is the anniversary to celebrate the 36th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. So this is a free all-ages event that's from 1230 to 3 o'clock at the Ned Ashton House. It's also co-hosted by the Community Inclusion Club. as well as the Iowa City Parks and Rec to promote equal access and celebrate inclusivity. So that's one upcoming event. There are several events throughout the year, including an ADA, another celebration in October, as well as a Disability Film Festival. July is Disability Pride Month as well. So there are several opportunities to learn more. And so thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for the proclamation. And thank you for your dedication to accessibility and inclusion in our community.

Thank you. All right, we are moving on to our consent agenda, which is items three through eight. Could I get a motion to approve, please?

I was going to pull item 7A for separate consideration.

Okay. Did you want to pull it or were you just going to make a comment about it?

Oh, I was going to make a comment about it.

Yep. Yep. So we don't need to pull it.

Okay.

So the motion is, uh, could I get a motion, uh, to approve the consent agenda items three through eight.

So moved. Why line second Hermson?

No.

All right. Well, uh, um, moved by Y line seconded by, uh, Sala. Anyone from the public like to address this topic? Seeing no one in person or online, council discussion.

Yeah, I was just going to, item 7A, which is the local landmark rezoning of 204, 210, and 215 North Gilbert Street and 204 East Market Street. So members of the community would know that is the Fox Head. And then what we call Blue House, Green House, and Brick House, or Hell, Purgatory, and Brick House, depending on what communities you're involved with. I just wanted to highlight how happy this made a lot of people in the community that I think a lot of people in the community might not know about. And particularly Greenhouse at 210 North Gilbert Street and the Blue House. They have official names in here, but I forgot. Not only does it have rich history when it comes to being built by immigrants and having prohibition history and stuff like that. Currently, I think I played my first show at the Greenhouse at 210 15 years ago.

I do have one question because we're just setting the public hearing.

That's true. And so, yeah, I think the mayor's point is that the substantive nature of the whether to approve this would probably be at the next meeting, but yeah. Yeah.

I was just highlighting that I'm happy that we're setting a public hearing for it. And I would just like to say that the community building, and specifically for marginalized folks in the state of Iowa, for underground music, for arts, for mutual aid, for all things like that, it has been an invaluable place that provides not only that space, but decently affordable living for folks involved in those communities, as well as the history. So I just wanted to thank all those involved with putting this to the Historic Preservation Committee, putting this to Planning and Zoning, and then eventually having it come to us. Just wanted to say it means a lot to a lot of people.

Yeah. Thank you. And we'll be having that public hearing on August 4th, the first Tuesday in August. Any other comments by council? Roll call, please. Teague? Yes.

Weiland? Yes. Burgess? Yes. Harmsen?

Yes. Moe?

Yes. Sala?

Yes.

Motion passes six to zero. We're at item number nine, which is community comment. This is an opportunity for folks to speak on things that are not on our agenda and we'll invite you up to the podium and you'll have up to three minutes to speak and council cannot engage. Welcome, please state your name and city you're from.

John Clayton, Iowa City. And I'm not asking the city council at this point for an ask. Simply to be receptive to what I'm saying. And in the future then I will ask. But I haven't come up with a solution yet. And I always remember if you're going to complain, you should also come with a solution for it. But not ready for that. Just to give you a background, and this is not news, because when I moved here a year ago from Brooklyn, Iowa, I asked a city, not a city official, I asked a government official, because I'm lower income, where do you recommend that I should move to? And they said Diamond Senior Apartments. they had given me the sheet of low-income housing and put Xs through some of the apartment buildings saying, you don't want to go there, you don't want to go there, too many behavior problems. So I went to Diamond Senior. Well, as it comes out, a lot of the lower income have behavior problems, and sometimes they ebb and flow, and people there are more vulnerable. Some are trying to flee from one to another to escape the situation they're in. But others don't have the resources or ability to jump out of the frying pan, so to speak, if it gets bad there. What I'm saying is not to serve me because I've decided to move. So that's that. I'll be gone in August from there moving down the street on First Avenue. But the situation needs to be addressed because, for instance, and this is not just one or two instances. There was a lady recently in the parking lot that lives there and so she went to get in her car. She couldn't get in the car because this other man had pulled his car too close to her driver's side. So she asked him, he was in the parking lot smoking, could you move the car? He blew up at her. He called her names. He said if you were laying on the ground, And you were dying. I wouldn't call anybody to help you. She called the police and they said, well, you know, gentlemen, you should move your car. But, you know, it's freedom of speech. There was no physical. So that was that. And they said, you should contact the, report this to the apartment managers. Well, this other guy, there's been a whole series for months and months of abuse towards me and other, and women. I wear rainbows. My car has rainbows. And so it's been just ongoing and terrible.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll have you sign your name there on the sheet, please. Thank you. Anyone else like to address an item that is not on our agenda? Seeing no one. All right. We will move on to items 10, which is planning and zoning matters. 10A, preliminary plot for Castrol Hills Community. Resolution approving preliminary plat of Castrol Hills Community, a subdivision of land located in and around the formal ACT campus, Iowa City, Iowa. Can I get a motion to approve, please? So moved, Moe.

Second, Burgess.

All right, and welcome, Danielle.

Thank you, Mayor. Danielle Sussman, Neighborhood and Development Services. As you introduced, this is the preliminary plat for Kestrel Hills Community, which is the former ACT campus. It's bounded here, the boundary of the preliminary plat is bounded here in the white dashed line. It extends a little bit south of Scott Boulevard, but it's primarily the north and western part of the former campus. This is the existing zoning. Now, owners are, there's a variety of owners now. There's the developer owner, but there's also been some sale of some of land, and so there's also an ownership, which is the Oak Knoll folks, and so they are all party to this application. This application is to create a 14, 14 developer, 14 developable lots on this particular property. This is the preliminary plot itself. It shows those 14 lots. The lots are intended for a mix of residential and commercial land uses. The proposed lots at the center of the preliminary plot contain the existing development from the former campus. The plot also includes some existing streets, which will all become public streets at some point in the future. And then existing streets include North Dubuque Road, ACT Drive, ACT Place, which will become an extension of North First Avenue. ACT Drive will be extended to the west to intersect with North Dodge Street. It will also extend, streets network will also extend to the eastern property line to ensure a more interconnected street network develops as the remainder of the campus someday develops as well. The plant also includes Bentler Drive, which will run parallel to North Dodge Street, north to I-80. The plant does also show sidewalks. If you zoom in at some point and look at that, all these streets will be compliant with city standards for their infrastructure. When we review a preliminary plat, we look at two criteria. The first is comprehensive plan compliance and then our subdivision codes and other applicable standards. The proposed plat is consistent with the policy direction of the comp plan. Part of the history of this land was that a comp plan amendment was actually undertaken at the point at which the ACT campus began to transition away from being a research campus and into other things. So it is compliant with that new comprehensive plan designation. The proposed plat complies with the city's subdivision ordinances and meets the required subdivision standards in its design and eventually through a subdivider's agreement. As I mentioned, there's a mix of lots, there's a street network that will be developed with sidewalks, and then there will be open space required of approximately three acres, but probably addressed through fee in lieu at this time. That's something that will be addressed with the final plat, not the preliminary. There are environmentally sensitive areas, including woodlands, wetlands, slopes, and archeological sites. The proposed plaque complies with the city's sensitive areas ordinance and does not impact those features beyond the limits allowed under an administrative review. So here's the long history of kind of the recent rezonings and comprehensive plan amendment. Highlighted in blue is the preliminary plat step of development, which we're at now. Eventually this will be followed with final plats and then individual site plans will be filed and building permits. Based on a review of the relevant code criteria, staff recommended approval of the preliminary plat, and at their July 1st, 2026 meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission concurred with staff's recommendation and voted to recommend by a vote of five to zero. A good neighbor policy was followed back when those other actions were taken for the comp plan and rezoning, so that was undertaken about a year ago. Happy to answer questions.

Did you say that it was a five to two vote?

Sorry, five to zero.

Okay, I probably misheard you. They just had some absences. I thought that...

Unanimous for everyone that was in attendance. Okay, I was going to ask about that.

Yep. One absence and one refusal. Okay.

Danielle, does the sensitive areas and the stormwater management plan happens at the preliminary plat?

We do a prelim and a final version of a sensitive areas plan. So they have to account for them at this stage, identify where they're at, tell us what impacts they're going to have on them potentially. And then the final accounting of that happens either with a final plat or with a site plan.

And the final plat will include this sort of the math for the sensitive areas with all 14 lots together, not each individual lot.

Right. And it will, if anything needs to be protected, put easements in place around those features that they're protected with covenants or not covenants, but with easements.

Yeah.

Thank you. Or dedications. Yep.

Thank you much. Anyone from the public like to address this topic? If you're online, please raise your virtual hand. If you're present, please come forth and give your name and city you're from. You'll be allowed up to three minutes. I do have one question. Did the development team want to have any comments? All right. Before we actually open it up, we'll have the development team come and make some comments. Welcome. Please state your name.

Steve Long with the part of the ownership group. And also Mike Welch with Shoemaker Holland is here. So if you have any specific questions for engineering, I'm going to defer to him. But we're excited. We've been working on this for a couple of years now. And As you probably noticed, if you drive by, we have some grading going on. We've sold a parcel to Oak Knoll, and they're planning, hope to break ground in the spring for 140 units. Yesterday, we sold lot 10 to the Iris, which is 44 units of 55 plus senior housing, income restricted. So we have a lot of moving parts. We're excited for this next phase. And Josh, you mentioned the sensitive areas. The phase two, which will be coming soon, about 300 acres includes a lot of the woodlands that you currently see north of the buildings, that area. And we do intend to protect most of that. That's where the mountain bike trails are being planned. So if you have any questions specifically, I am here as well as Mike Welch.

Great.

Thanks.

All right. Thank you. All right. Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from. We're doing public comments.

Thank you, my name's Katie Gerlach and I'm from Iowa City. I'm here representing Greater Iowa City, Inc. And we'd like to register our support for the approval of the preliminary plat for Kestrel Hills Community at the former ACT campus. This project represents a significant opportunity for Iowa City and our region. The redevelopment of this site will transform a former single user corporate campus into a vibrant mixed use district that expands housing availability and supply creates new opportunities for business, preserves our natural amenities, and strengthens Iowa City's economic competitiveness. Today's an important step in moving this long-term vision forward towards implementation. Establishing the framework for future streets, utilities, and development parcels is a critical step in bringing new investment and community amenities to this property. Greater Iowa City supports this project because it aligns with our regional goals of attracting investment, expanding housing, supporting business growth, and creating places where people both want to live and work. We appreciate the collaboration between the city, the development team, and community stakeholders, and we respectfully encourage the council to approve and we recommend approval of the preliminary plan. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. I'll invite you to sign in right there unless you dropped it. Okay, great. I didn't see it. All right. Anyone else who would like to address this topic, please come forth at this time. If you're online, please raise your virtual hand. Seeing no one, council discussion. Great opportunities, yes, for our community and for housing as well as just economic development. So I'll be supporting this. Same.

Yes.

All right. Roll call, please.

Weiland? Yes. Burgess? Yes. Harmsen? Yes. Moe? Yes. Sala?

Yes. Yes Teague yes motion passes 6 to 0 We're at item number 11, which is our regular formal agenda 11 a is going to be the sell of 1102 Hollywood Boulevard to Iowa City affordable housing Inc This is a resolution approving a purchase agreement for 1102 Hollywood Boulevard And I'm gonna open up the public hearing and invite Tracy high shoe up. Welcome. I

Thank you, Mayor. Just some background. I know you guys are familiar with the project, but the county conveyed this property to us back in March of 2026 for basically a dollar with the caveat that we entered an agreement with them, which we did, that we would provide affordable housing for 15 units to veterans experiencing homelessness and utilizing our VASH vouchers for 20 years. Previous to this, HUD and our housing consultant advised us to create a non-profit. We created one called the Iowa City Affordable Housing Inc. It serves as non-profit, but also it qualifies as a PHA, public housing authority instrumentality, to give the property to said non-profit because this resolves an issue for us regarding the city being both the property owner and the voucher administrator. So when we go to enter a HAP contract, that housing assistance payment contract, We're no longer, the agreement will be between the City Housing Authority and the Iowa City Affordable Housing, Inc. We will enter a grant agreement that the purchase agreement mentions. For $2 million, the city will provide that out of the general fund, and then when we close, the nonprofit will pay that back. We'll enter that grant agreement. It'll also have a mortgage requirement. compliance that the nonprofit has to follow. It will assign all the responsibility and requirements of the county agreement to the nonprofit so that we comply with that. The housing authority will manage the property. And just a little bit about what has happened since March. Since March we have completed the HUD required environmental review. We've tested it for radon. We've mitigated it. Unfortunately, all three buildings had to be mitigated. We've installed security systems and cameras. We've rekeyed all the locks. We repaved driveway approach, various entry steps, some sidewalk because our insurance carrier said that was a requirement. We repaired the retaining wall. We installed new fencing. We installed a sign and just some various siding and plumbing repairs. We have more work to go before we can actually accept our first clients. We're doing landscaping this week. Landscapers said the heat's not a problem. I'd wilt, but they said the landscaping would be fine. And a big shout out to Houses into Homes. They have furnished each of the 15 units with your linens, your beds, your couch, bath towels, kitchen towels, anything that you need that you can go from homelessness and you just go into the unit and live. So they will finish doing all the final furnishing by July 24th. So thank you to Houses into Homes. We still need to get HUD approval on our third party agreement. We're a PH instrumentality so it's not a far enough we're not independent as we need to be like if it was a separate owner. So we will have to get a third party to do the required HUD inspections and to approve rent reasonableness. So we'll enter agreement for that but the HUD needs to approve it. We'll complete those inspections and then we'll sign the HAP contracts. So we've notified the VA that we will be able to anticipate first move in around September and HUD has asked us to do a ribbon cutting, so we will plan on doing that probably in August sometime because we put people there in September. So as we get those details, we will let you know.

Great. Are the inspections and requirements for HUD VASH vouchers the same as the non-HUD VASH vouchers?

And then HUD is moving their inspection protocol to NSPIRE effective in February, so it'll change somewhat.

Okay.

But we'll still have to get a rental permit. and meet the NSPIRE requirements.

The selection of the client will be through the coordinator entry or direct with the VA?

It'll be direct to the VA. And then the VA will provide the supportive services to the tenants who live there. And have you said they already furnished it with housing at home or it will be furnished? Houses Into Homes is working on that right now. And if you've seen some pictures of the building, some of the units already have most of the items, but they'll finish that by in a couple weeks.

I just wanted to add one thing for the record. The agreement we had between the county and the city when the city purchased the property included a 60-day right of first refusal for the county should we the city ever decide to sell. They were kind enough to hustle and sign a waiver of that because they're interested in seeing this project close and move forward as well. So thanks to the county for taking some expedient action. Nice.

All right, no more questions for you, right? Anyone from the public like to address this topic, please come forth now. Say no one in person or a line. I'm going to close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to approve, please? So moved. Why line second Mo Council discussion.

I just can't thank staff enough at all levels. Not only from at the very beginning, seeing the property up for sale, coming up with a way to fund and because they know that for the, because you all know that for the community and for the council, permanent supportive housing is extremely important. And just, I know specifically with the, not only the purchase and the funding stream, but then also figuring out, I've tried to understand it. I can't, the nonprofit and all of the maneuvering around that and the legal work that went into that. So much work, but it's gonna be so life-changing for getting people off the street. So just can't thank you all enough, yeah.

Yeah. Agreed. I agree with that. And I feel like in the beginning when I heard the county about this, I was like, why they want to buy affordable housing to make it affordable? But, you know, like, the housing authority come up with this, like, apply for it and get it, and now we're going to even make it affordable, like, we're going to house the people who are homeless, especially the veterans. Yeah, thank you to both the county and the staff at the housing authority and also... Tracy and her team. Thank you.

Ditto. Great job. Ditto, ditto. Roll call, please. Bergus?

Yes.

Harmsen?

Yes. Moe? Yes.

Sama? Yes. Teague?

Yes.

Weiland? Yes.

Motion passes 6-0, 11B, 2026 Summer Sidewalk Repair Project. Resolution approving project manual and estimate of cost for the construction of the 2026 Summer Sidewalk Repair Project. Establish an amount of bid security to accompany each bid. Directing city clerk to pose notice to bidders and fixing time and place for receipt of bids. I'm going to open up the public hearing and welcome Tyler.

Thank you. I'm Tyler Olson. I'm one of the senior engineers with staff on the engineering department. So today we're going to talk about the 2026 summer sidewalk repair project.

This will be for the public hearing.

I'll start off with the introduction about the sidewalk repair program. The point of the program that the city has is to create safe pedestrian friendly neighborhoods. That's one of our priorities we have for the community. Kind of a little bit of history back when the start is back in the late 1990s there to help mitigate complaints and issues with sidewalks throughout our city. State and city codes provide the ability to require the maintenance and repair to be the responsibility of the adjoining property owners. And how our program works is that the city is broken up into 10 geographical areas, and we do inspections focused on one geographical area each year. So throughout a decade period, we've gone through each region throughout the city. And how that works is that typically in the fall we'll do an inspection of sidewalks. If we find deficiencies with the sidewalks such as a tripping hazard, we would then notify the adjoining property owner for repair work to begin. We give them options to do the work either themselves or they can hire a contractor to do the work. And then in the following spring we do a follow-up inspections there where we take a look at the sidewalk to see if the repairs are satisfactory or We also take in calls or notices from the property owners that may volunteer their sidewalk or voluntarily ask to have us do the repair work. When in the spring there, when we get a full list there, we then put together a list that we would then use to create a project that we would have a project sent out for a public bid that a contractor will then repair those sidewalks. And as the sidewalks are repaired, we then invoice back to the property owners for the work that was done. As I mentioned before, the area that we're looking at is for Region 10, which is in the northeast part of the city. As you can see by the dots there, most of them are focused in that area, but we also do take in complaints or other notifications that there may be a deficient sidewalk somewhere else in the city. So you might see a few kind of scattered about, but primarily most of them are in the northeast corner. How this project relates to our strategic plan, primarily focused on the impact area mobility. The strategies with this is that this is to maintain complete streets that are comfortable and safe for all users. And this also helps with the growing prioritizing of bike and pedestrian accommodations in our city. For the estimated construction cost for this year, it would be $430,000. And this would be coming from the annual sidewalk repair program fund. For the schedule, we're looking at if the resolution is approved this evening. We're looking at issuing bid documents starting tomorrow. We'll have the bid letting on July 28th. It'll be two weeks from today. The contract period... be put onto the next city council agenda on August 4th for a recommendation of approval if we have bids that are available and we pick one that meets our expectations. We're looking at a construction start time later this summer and we're having it end late this fall.

I have a question. So every 10 years we, you know, go to one of the areas. Yes. We just talked about ADA. What are the questions that comes to my mind is it can someone complain about a sidewalk and you all respond to that complaint as moving it up if it's not a part of that zone within that year?

Yeah, sometimes depending on the severity of the situation there, we have asked residents to like we sent out a specific letter with a deadline attached to it. Sometimes if it's a more routine issue, it can be added to either the next general time period or be added to the project as they are available. But if it's more severe, we do have specific deadlines that are put in there for the property owner to address by.

Okay, because it just, I mean, if someone didn't get it on their 10th year, they can be 20 years out. Correct, yeah.

We take in any complaints that come in, so if somebody brings it up earlier, it doesn't have to be within that once every 10-year period. It can be at any point there. They can call in. We just do the repair work every 10 years. We rotate through each region, just routinely inspecting all the sidewalks in that area.

Thank you. Do you inspect the city-owned sidewalks at the same time, or is that a separate program through Parks and Rec?

We do inspect the sidewalks that are in the right-of-way along those. So if it is a city-owned sidewalk, we'll inspect that as well. But specifically in some areas, maybe not as much there. But to my understanding there, we do inspect all the right-of-way sidewalks that are city-owned as well.

Yep.

All right. Thank you. Anyone from the public like to address this topic? Seeing no one in person or online, I'm going to close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to approve, please?

So moved, Mo.

Second, Harmsen. Council discussion.

Download ICGov Express, and if you see any really, really bad sidewalks, you can let us know.

Yeah.

Roll call, please. Harmsen? Yes. Moe? Yes. Sala?

Yes.

Teague? Yes. Weiline? Yes. Burgess?

Yes.

Motion passes 6-0. 11C, mobile payment only parking facilities to be treated in the same manner as parking meters and pay stations. Ordinance amending Title IX entitled Motor Vehicles and Traffic. Chapter 5 entitled Parking Meter Zones and Parking Lots. Section 3 entitled Parking and Meter Zones to Update Language and Include Mobile Payment. Can I get a motion to waive second consideration? I'll move. Staff is requesting expedited action.

I would move that the rule requiring that ordinances must be considered and voted on for passage to council meetings prior to the meeting, which is to be finally passed, be suspended, that the second consideration and vote be waived, and that the ordinance be voted on for final passage at this time. Second. Moved by Mo. Second.

Seconded by Hermson. Anyone from the public like to address this topic? Seeing no one in person or online, roll council discussion. Roll call, please. Mo? Yes. Sala?

Yes.

Teague? Yes. Weiline? Yes. Bergus?

Yes.

Harmsen? Yes. Motion passes six to zero. Can I get a motion to pass and adopt?

So moved, Bergus. Second, Weiline.

Roll call, please. Sala?

Yes.

Teague? Yes. Weiline?

Yes.

Bergus? Yes. Harmsen? Yes. Mo? Yes. Motion passes six to zero. We are at 11D, which is Donnelly's Pub, Sidewalk Cafe, uphill. resolution denying the issuance of a Sidewalk Cafe permit to Emerfall Investments LLC, DBA, Donnelly's Pub. And I am going to go ahead and open up the hearing and turn it over to our city attorney, Eric Gores.

Thank you, Mayor. Just briefly, this is a case of Donnelly's wishing to have a sidewalk cafe. Our sidewalk cafe policy requires sign-off by the owner. To read the language, it says the agreement is the easement agreement that's required for use of the city right-of-way. The agreement shall be between the city and the cafe owner with the approval of the owner of the retail space where the restaurant is located if different than the cafe owner. Donnelly's staff was not able to secure the retail owner's permission and sign off and so staff rejected the application. Donnelly's filed their appeal as called for in city code, so they are here tonight to make their pitch for why they should be granted.

Okay, all right. We'll call up the applicant at this point. Please come forth. Welcome.

Good evening, how are you? Awesome and amazing. Great. How are you? I'm wonderful. Good. I promise to come here someday to talk about something great. All right. Good evening. As many of you are aware, my name is Josh Emmerfall. I am the owner of Donnelly's Pub, 110 East College Street in the Ped Mall. My goal tonight is twofold. One is to ask for your approval of our Sidewalk Cafe application, or two, at minimum, let Donnelly's keep operating at Sidewalk Cafe while you consider updating the existing policy. I want to be clear up front, I have no quarrel with the city. Staff and city council have put real time into this and I certainly do appreciate that. I know the current policy requires yearly sign off from the building owner and I completely understand that there are situations where that makes complete sense. But here's what's happened to me and here's what's happened to my employees. Donnelly's has run its Sidewalk Cafe since 2018 with the blessing of the city and the prior owner of the building. We invested in that space. It's part of who we are on the Ped Mall. The building sold last September. My new landlord, Tracy Barclow, simply refuses to sign the Sidewalk Cafe agreement. There is no safety concern. There's no business concern for him There's no complaints from anyone. There's really no reason at all. I've asked Mr. Barclow directly what the problem was. My attorney has asked his attorney. He simply just has not given us an answer. And under the current policy, he doesn't have to. His signature, or lack thereof, is the entire ballgame. The planter box isn't his. It's a public right-of-way. It belongs to this community. And right now, one property owner can decide that nobody gets to benefit from it without a single given reason. It's not a balance of interest. It's a simple veto. Staff report lays out the reasons a building owner might legitimately care about a cafe out front. These are legitimate reasons. These are fair enough, but none of these apply here. These items are outlined as follows. The presence of other tenants. In this case, 110 East College Street, I am the only tenant, I am the sole tenant. Two, attaching to the building. Of course, there are sidewalk cafes that exist in our downtown specifically that attach to the building. It makes complete and obvious sense that in that case, a landlord would need to approve. Blocking access. This cafe sits exactly where the city has approved it, meets the pedestrian access rules, and has never impeded anyone. Lastly, the city needing some sort of recourse. I fall off the face of the earth, all of a sudden my sidewalk cafe is just hanging out. The city can already pull an easement if an operator doesn't follow the rules and have a deposit on file to cover removal. There's a pattern of this in the staff report. Every concern is about the owner being notified. I agree owners should be notified, but the current policy doesn't give owners notice. It gives them absolute control. No explanation required. I'm licensed to use that patio. I'm insured to use that patio. Upkeep and maintenance are my responsibility. I put real money into that cafe over eight years. No operator can keep investing in a space, specifically downtown, that a landlord can just take away on a whim. So here's what I propose. Where these conditions are met, a tenant should not need a landlord signature year after year just to keep doing what has already been approved. The tenant's lease doesn't prohibit a sidewalk cafe. And if a landlord truly cares, they can put it in a lease. Two, nothing is attached nor anchored to the building. Three, a particular cafe doesn't need to come down each winter for snow removal. So in this case, mine does not, it stays there all winter. Obviously we take our furniture and things like that off of it, but it sits there all winter. A deposit is on file with the city covering the removal costs. And lastly, if needed, limit this to the downtown zone, where foot traffic and density make cafes a clear public good. Ultimately, sidewalk cafes make downtown better. They bring people out, they bring energy to the Ped Mall, and they're one of the reasons downtown Iowa City feels alive. What's happened to Donnelly shows the current policy lets one landlord stand in the way of that. So again, I repeat my ask, asking you of two things. simply approve my application or two, allow us to keep operating while we fix the policy. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Any questions by council? No. None at this time. Okay. So, council, I guess there are no questions for the applicant or city attorney at this time? No? All right. Can I get a motion to approve, please?

So moved, Mo. Just so we're clear, the motion that's on the resolution just for the benefit of the public and so forth is to deny the application. We do need to get a motion to get the conversation started, but I just want to make sure that all council members understand what a yes vote and a no vote is. A yes vote denies the permit. A no vote would allow for something else.

Correct. Because the resolution is denying the issuance of a sidewalk cafe permit to Emmerfall Investment LLC DBA down in Lee's Pub. All right. So motion, please.

Yes, I would move.

Second. Motion by Moe. Seconded by Hermson. Council discussion.

Yeah, I had a chance to meet with Mr. Mofall. I fully acknowledged currently the requirement is that he has to have a signature of the land owner. And in this situation, it doesn't seem like it's the city's getting what we need. I don't see a great reason why we would keep the current permitting as it is. So I would be interested in hearing what staff has to say about changing the permit. So I think that we should follow through with the current scheme of saying no to the permit, to denial of permit, but then immediately ask staff to change our current ordinance to allow Mr. Emmerfall to have his patio and other business owners who have good reason to have patios, to have them installed and contribute to downtown. Also, as I understand, there's an enforcement deadline too that it seems that we could perhaps ask staff to waive so that he doesn't have to tear a patio out because if you guys are in agreement with me that we should change the ordinance, It'd be wasteful for everybody to have somebody tear it out and reinstall it immediately.

So wait for delay delay probably until we do.

I think that delay for staff to come back with a recommendation. Perhaps staff won't come up with a recommendation for how to rewrite this. I think they can, but. I don't think we should be writing it up here. I think that we should instruct them to come back in the next meeting with something that allows a building owner to, or excuse me, a business owner to use a patio.

In the resolution, I don't see a timeline of removal of the patio.

That's found in the letter that staff sent out to Mr. Emmerfall, giving him until July 20th to remove the sidewalk paraphernalia. So that's what's being referred to.

Yeah. I don't think we can change ordinance in the next six days.

Right. And I should make clear that the source of that requirement is in a sidewalk cafe policy. It's not in the ordinance. Previously, everything was in the ordinance, and with the frequency of changes, it was decided that, well, we should just contain that to the policy, which is adopted by council via resolution. So I don't think that any of the things that Mr. Immerfall requested would require an ordinance amendment. probably just a change of the sidewalk cafe policy approved by you via resolution.

So when we imagine staff coming to us with a recommendation, what are we imagining? Do we or you or anybody else on council have any specifics in mind about what we would be looking for? Because I have thoughts, but I would love to hear everybody else's thoughts.

sure i think we would still want to have some connection to the business owner adjacent to the property as far as how you deal with multiple businesses in the same building i'm not sure but it'd be interesting to see what staff comes back as is to be fair i know that one of the things that mr emmerfeld said was requested is non-removal for snow i don't think that works anywhere where it's on a sidewalk i don't really know about the patios because there's only really two that are divided into three.

Right. I'd have to go back and look at the policy again to be certain, but I think that that rule applies to cafes that are set up in planters. They're allowed to stay there all the time.

Yeah. And I don't have any problem with that. I think the deposit should be adequate so that if our staff has to remove it, that their costs are covered. That's the thing I'm primarily interested in. And then, of course, regulatory regimes so that we can inspect and if somebody is unsafe or inaccessible that we would have the opportunity to require repairs but we currently do that anyway so just continue that.

I'll note that the current deposit which was collected years and years and years ago was $200. I think that's probably insufficient to handle or removal and remediation should that ever be required.

Sure. Sorry.

Do we have any similar situation happen before where we deny an application because the landlord did not approve it?

I can't recall a situation in which this has come up. Oh, well, yes, I'm sorry. One notable example is Shorts, Burger, and Shine. In that case, the property owner initially agreed but then withdrew permission.

I guess where my head is and why I appreciate this being brought up, not only for one specific example, is just a lot of the concern about downtown Iowa City is the monopolization of property or just the consolidation of property by a handful of people who then have the ability to make unilateral decisions about the downtown because they own property there for a city of 75, 80,000 people. So I appreciate this being brought up. So I know that this is, I think perhaps a way that we as a city can in the slightest way democratize downtown a little bit more and make sure that if a couple folks, a couple businesses, people buy up a lot of downtown that they can't make unilateral decisions like that and which is why I would be interested in hearing staff's take Not right now. I know it would take research about what it looks like if we do not require permission from an owner for this in any circumstance along with, you know, various other options, what it would look like when it comes to something like what you were talking about to where if they meet certain criteria, yeah, that's where my head is.

And to circle back on the, I do think there's some importance of having it connected with the business, because so many of these are food-based businesses, and people who are using those food-based businesses should have access to a bathroom and a sink. So, in my mind, there's a connection to who gives you access to that bathroom and that sink.

Yeah. I think for me, too, I think I agree with a lot of what's been said with the caveat that for me, one of the factors and it was mentioned during Mr. Emerfall's thing is the physical connection of the structure of the sidewalk cafe to the building. You know, understanding that there's a legal connection with an easement, but that's not the same as a physical connection. And to me, it just kind of like as staff comes back to us for the next meeting, with a policy change that we'll then approve. To me, that's one of the factors I think that makes sense, that if it involves a impact to the actual structure of the building that the owner owns, that they have more, I guess, skin in the game in that point, as opposed to a planter, which is, that's our skin in the game. That's the city's planter. It's not the building owner. So to me, that is a distinction which actually has some real difference in my mind.

Just to follow up on that point, all the sidewalk cafes, though, are on public property if they get a permit, right?

Yeah, that's the whole nature of having the, or why we needed this permit is because they're getting our, using our property.

So I think there's still the adjacency issue, but it's not like it's the building owner's sidewalk area in front. I just have a question about kind of options for today. I know one of the issues, so first just a question for staff, is it correct that this particular sidewalk cafe remains in year round and has for a number of years?

That's correct.

And so I do think we should distinguish between the operation and the removal of the infrastructure if we're going to be, you know, potentially changing the policy. It seems that Yeah, having the actual structure removed at this point in time doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I also think that there's, you know, a lot of different ways we could approach this. And when I spoke with Mr. Immerfall, you know, one of my concerns is where the city is inserting ourselves between two private entities, you know, the landlord and the tenant, and saying that, you know, we kind of, I don't know a better way to say it other than that. And I hope that we consider providing some, potentially providing some hook for the tenant in this type of situation. Like if it's the tenant you know, approval of the landlord not to be unreasonably withheld or something like that. But then it's on the tenant to address the reasonableness of the landlord. And that's not our adjudication. It's, um, would be kind of like a civil matter between them. So I think there are a lot of different ways we could approach this. Um, and I, I also appreciate it being raised and it is, uh, It's just hard to know what the most equitable solution, you know, moving forward is. But I just wanted to weigh in on hopefully not having to remove the structure itself.

Sports Column, was that cafe ever attached to the building? Because I kind of remember there is, Sports Column is on the, it's the alley. It's right next to the alley. Am I on the right bar? On Dubuque Street? On Dubuque Street. Next to Deadwood, yeah. Yeah, so I know at one point there was a lot of discussion about Sports Column, and then one and one, and the design was going to be coming off of their existing structure, and it had ADA components and all that other stuff associated with it.

Yeah, I don't recall what it was pre-Dubuque Street reconstruction. Ron Konecki, our public works director is here and may recall.

Ron Canuckie, Public Works Director. I think that what they had looked at was something attached to the building, but I think because of spacing, it wasn't going to work out spacing-wise for them. And that's when, with the Dubuque Street reconstruction and the sidewalks widening out, it gave them the room to be able to do a detached cafe along the back of Curb.

Great. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't an example of something attached to the existing building. Sure. So thank you. Yep.

Council Burgess, I want to flesh out your concern a little bit more because I'm curious where you're maybe give an example of what you're concerned about like in my mind I was imagining like a building owner doesn't want a business owner to do one because they have other plans or want to do like a construction project or something and what is that is that kind of where you were going is there might be actually a legitimate reason for a building owner to say no one season because they're going to do the facade of their building or they're going to replace windows or something and

Or there's another tenant who they negotiated to get more rent to use that area. Right. Is the example that was in my head.

Yeah.

Yeah. Is that something that the city's ordinance can address? I'm sorry, looking at our city attorney.

Or policy. Well, I'm not sure. Councilor Berger has raised the language that lawyers often use, you know. you know, a permission which shall not unreasonably be withheld and so forth, but I wasn't clear as to who would be making that determination. Were you envisioning that that would be something that they would litigate and once they got a result and they would bring it to us and say, hey, the court said, as opposed to this council deciding what's... Yeah, I don't think we should decide reasonableness, no. I would agree with you. I would encourage you not to jump into that. I mean, you could if you chose, but boy, that could be painful. The only thing I can think about with that is that could be a prolonged process The process for sidewalk cafe application moves along pretty quickly. It's done on an annual basis. One of the things that we had thought about in our office was considering the difference between what would constitute, you know, a new sidewalk cafe as opposed to one that had been longstanding for, you know, some period of time such that there wouldn't be kind unfair surprise to the landlord either. Now that wouldn't address the kind of concern that you folks have just raised about, you know, construction, rehabilitation of the facade, that kind of thing. Obviously we would, we, the city would love for landlords and tenants to have this all clearly laid out in their leases, but I'm aware that a lot of, well, I've been told by Mr. Emerald Falls attorney that that is not addressed in this lease. And a lot of these leases are, of course, of great length. And so, you know, it's not like landlords and tenants would turn around tomorrow and address this probably. So, I mean, you've raised a lot of the concerns. I mean, the thought of the other tenants. You know, there's a residential tenant above this business, or at least there's an apartment. I have no idea whether it's filled or not. you know and and otherwise there's neighboring businesses and so forth and those are all legitimate concerns but again our thought was well everyone kind of knew what they're getting into when they you know moved into a place above uh you know an eating facility that kind of thing So, yeah, I mean, there's any number of different criteria. We had also considered the planter versus adjacent distinction might be something that makes a difference. Again, the planters are allowed to stay up all year, and that does make a difference. But, yeah, those are a lot of the same things that you folks have already discussed or were raised by Mr. Emmerfall were things that we were thinking about in our office if council was to decide to offer some accommodation.

I don't know, listening to those concerns, you know, my thought is with Councilor Burgess's ideas, if we can't come up with something that just makes it as part of the policy with some standard criteria, some of which already exist, and I mentioned the one that jumps out to me as the most obvious is the physical connection slash planter sort of distinction. You know, if there's a way to make this process not more cumbersome, I think that would be, you know, my first choice to kind of go down that path. You know, there can be some criteria. There can be, you know, those kinds of things which, you know, maybe there's some details that staff could flesh out better than I could. But to not make it like, you know, hey, maybe after a two-year prolonged court battle, you'll finally get, I mean, that's, businesses can go out of business in that amount of time, you know. And, you know, imagine, especially in nice weather, that there's probably a sizable percentage of a business's income in those patios. Otherwise, why would any of them do it? So I definitely have an eye towards, you know, we do want to keep our businesses downtown, you know, viable, vibrant, operating, you know, without any sort of, really compelling reason to the opposite, such as, you know, they're blocking the right of way, the easement issues, you know, safety, something like that, barring anything like that. I think, you know, we have an interest as a community to make sure that we're not overburdening, you know, a business that's operating in good faith in our community. So that's kind of my two cents on what comes back to us, something that's, you know, achievable and doable. And that's what I'm looking at.

So I'll go right ahead. Yeah, just listening to the conversation here a little bit, a quick thought. I don't know that this is a complicated fix. I think there's a few factors that we need to consider and probably be helpful for staff to have the folks that work on these on a regular basis, right? We've got dozens and dozens of cafes and we've had a number of conversations with different restaurants over the years, owners over the years. So I think we get the right people in the room between Ron's team and Eric's team. we can come back with a simple solution. I agree, Councillor Harmsen. It doesn't need to be complicated. The disputes are few and far between that we've experienced. So what I'm kind of picking up here, and I'm I don't want to overstep, if I don't get this right, we'll just, we would stay the enforcement of the removal. So the, Mr. Riemenfeld wouldn't have to remove the cafe by the 20th. We would come back to you at your August 4th meeting with an update to the policy that hopefully would meet your expectations with the understanding that it would allow him to reapply immediately after council adoption and get up and running pretty quick. We would probably update that deposit amount at the same time, but other than that, I think it's pretty simple.

That sounds good to me. Me too.

Just for clarification, the non-enforcement of the removal, does that mean he can still operate?

No. No.

No, we can't.

Yeah, he hasn't been issued the permit and we really probably should not have him operate until he is issued the permit, which requires this change in the resolution or change in the policy, sorry. I just wanted to clarify. Yeah.

So from just a rough timeline, if we were able to provide something that meets your expectations on August 4th, Mr. Imre fall could reapply the applications pretty much put together at this point and Get approval and be up and operating that same within, you know within days if you know not a week or so Cool after that council meeting after that council meeting, right?

Is this means we're going to like kind of response is or I I don't know what we're going to do about this then if we're going to give him chance to not remove the current structure by the deadline.

I think, um... Approving this denial is appropriate because that's what's before us, at least from I'm going to support this. That's what's before us. And then on the fourth, our next council meeting, should the council approve with a majority of a new policy that meets, then there'll be opportunity for him to reapply.

No, I understand that we have to use the current process no matter what, you know, and so we can approve this. But can you tell me how did we decide the deadline about the denial, like removal of the current...

The current structure on the 20th? Yes. Because it's in a policy, staff can, and the council has directed for that removal not to be done, and then the policy will be, there will be a policy coming before the council on the 8th for consideration for passing.

On the 4th. We have a room according to the policy. We can do that.

Council just directed staff to hold off on the July 20th removal.

We've received that guidance. We can do that. That's fine.

Okay.

I was also curious. Let's see. Would this take three considerations?

No, because it's adopted by resolution, just one meeting.

Okay. Just wanted to make sure.

And for the public in particular, the actual issuance of the permit doesn't come back to council.

It would not. It would be approved at the staff level. So in an ideal world, you would approve a revised policy on the 4th. Mr. Emmerfall would rush right in the morning of the 5th and staff could approve it and he can move out his furniture. Everything else is ready to go.

Thank you. It may not be that quick, but we get it.

I said in an ideal world. It doesn't take more than one council meeting was my point. Yes. Yes. Right.

One council meeting. All right. Any other comments by council? Roll call, please. Teague? Yes.

Weiland?

Yes.

Burgess? Yes. Harmsen? Yes. Moe? Yes. Sala?

Yes.

Motion passes six to zero. Could I get a motion to accept correspondence?

I move, Bergus. Second.

Mo. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes six to zero. We're at item number 12, which is council appointments, 12A, Human Rights Commission. One vacancy to fill an unexpired term upon appointment through December 31st, 2028. Council discussion. Yeah. Oh, go ahead, Maz.

Thank you. I really, I review most of them. We have amazing applications. And I wish if we have, we can choose more than one. You know, I just would like to support the appointing of Eleanor Fuller. to the Human Rights Commission, she has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to equity and human rights through advocacy, community services, and her academic work. What really impressed me most in the application is that she took the time to understand the commission by reviewing two years of meeting minutes and identify area where she could contribute. She also bring, like, valuable experience through her volunteer work with the neighborhood center and other, you know... And also, she's, like, a kind of young perspective. So I believe she would be a thoughtful and engaging and also hardworking commissioner, if you guys agree.

Eleanor Fuller was the top of my list as well. I think it helps that she gave me a phone call and had the opportunity to hear a little bit, but I agree like kind of the path that she set forth, including even like attending classes as a non degree student and. Yeah, being a younger person who's. Bartending in the community I think is a good perspective when you're also educating yourself about human rights issues.

I'd like to also throw out Estella Rohrer-Johnson, hopefully I pronounced the last name correctly, another younger member of our community, a student. I've had the opportunity to work with Estella on other things, and I've been extremely impressed by their maturity, their hard work, and their willingness to both be a voice but also to listen, and is somebody I think would be a wonderful addition to the HRC.

I would also like to, say, you know, there's a lot of applicants. And I had a really good time reading all the applications. Some people I know, some people I don't know. It's very difficult. It feels like an extreme case of splitting hairs. And I wish there was a better way, but alas. But I would also like to say that we will, next month, have a chance to appoint an additional person to the Human Rights Commission, is that correct?

Correct. So yes, well, it'd be... Upcoming. Upcoming. August 25th is when it's...

Deadline, so it'd be the first meeting of September.

Okay, so when I, you know, even having going from one to two people in this list, I was like, oh, thank God. But the folks I had were also Eleanor Fuller and Zaria Rochester. Their application was great. And Nicole Yeager, through experience with organizing and union working class background and perspective. So, those are the three that I painstakingly came to.

I can just tell you that I, top of my list was Estella and Eleanor. Eleanor called. Estella is somebody I've seen in action. Either both are, would be great in addition to a really large list of people, but we got to win them it down. So, those are my top two. We have four for Eleanor Fuller.

So could I get a motion to appoint Eleanor Fuller to the Human Rights Commission?

So moved, Wyland.

Moved by Wyland, seconded by Saleh. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Six to zero. We're on to item number 13 announcements of vacancies new 13 a announcement. We have Human Rights Commission. One of the exit to fill an unexpired term upon appointment through December 31st, 2027. Applications must be received by 5 PM Tuesday, August 25th, 2026. Can I get a motion to accept correspondence?

So move Bergus.

Second Mo.

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Item 14, announcements of vacancies previous. 14A, we have airport zoning board of adjustment, one vacancy to fill a five-year term. Airport zoning board of adjustment, one vacancy to fill a five-year term. Board of appeals, one vacancy for a licensed electrician to fill a five-year term. Board of appeals, one vacancy for our HVAC professional to fill an unexpired term. Historic Preservation Commission one vacancy for Brown Street representative to fill a three-year term. Historic Preservation Commission one vacancy for Jefferson Street representative to fill a three-year term. Historic Preservation Commission one vacancy for Woodlawn Avenue representative to fill a three-year term. Vacancies will remain filled until, will remain open until filled. Item number 15 is City Council Information.

Council arms and I will be at a party in the park. Next week Thursday evening for a listening session that's at which part will low willow wind will will Creek Creek sorry will Creek West side.

What time.

I think the party goes from 6.30 to 8 p.m. Yeah, that's what I have on my calendar.

Afternoon.

6.30 to 8. All right.

I would just like to say that the City of Iowa Cities has their donation drive-thru on July 19th at Chauncey Swan parking ramp. Thank you, Iowa City Repair Cafe, for letting us know about that.

All right. We're going to move on to item number 16, which is report on items from our city staff, city manager's office. Nothing tonight. Thanks. To the attorney. Nothing for me. City clerk.

Nope.

All right. Item number 17. Can I get a motion to adjourn, please?

So moved.

Moved by, yep. Moved by Burgess, seconded by Sala. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes, seven to zero, six to zero. Have a good night. Thank you, you too. Thank you.

That's the first time I said seven. Well done, Mary.